Welcome To Josh's Blog O' Thoughts: October 2007

I recently discovered that the world's best cleaning product is something that almost all households already have: Baking Soda. It's cheap, it's easy to use, it's readily available, and it really works. What more could you ask for? Oh yeah, it helps battle odors too!

It works really good on surfaces that have dirt or grime "caked" on. On these surfaces it's often difficult to wipe the dirt off with a soft rag or sponge. You need something stronger. Here's what I do to clean my stainless steel kitchen sink which tends to get pretty grimy and dirty.

1. Get the bowls of the sink wet.
2. Sprinkle with baking soda.
3. Scrub with sponge and rinse.

After that, your sink will have a clean polished look to it, and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you cleaned it with an everyday household product.

Works great on other surfaces too.

Some people may have noticed that there have not been many posts here in the past couple of weeks. Well, I just want to let my readers know that this blog is certainly NOT dead.

It just so happens that I have been extremely busy right now and have not had much time to make posts. I had a week long business trip to Orlando a couple weeks ago. Florida was very nice this time of year. If you find yourself in Orlando, I recommend going to Cocoa Beach on the Atlantic coast. Very nice beach and only about and hour drive.

In addition to my business trip, there have been many many decisions for our new house that have all come up at the same time. We've been spending a lot of our time trying to get these all figured out while at the same time prepping our current house to be put on the market.

All in all, it's been a very busy time for me, but I promise, there will be posts coming shortly.

Have you ever had a problem playing a CD or DVD because it was scratched up? Well there are ways to fix these types of imperfections.

The best way to fix them is to grind down the scratched side to a new flat surface. The information on the disk is stored near the label side and the rest is just plastic. Using the correct tool, you should be able to grind/buff down the plastic to a completely smooth finish again. There are tools like the available for $30 or so.

However, if you are on the cheap or in a fix-it-quick type of situation, I have heard that Pledge furniture polish will do the trick. Basically, spray the scratched up side with furniture polish and then gently wipe dry with a dry cloth. Always wipe from the center toward the edge. Don't wipe in a circle. Supposedly, this fills in the scratches enough for the disc to be quite usable again. I have heard from several people that this method really works. I haven't yet tried it myself, but the next time I have a scratched disc, I certainly will.

If you have any other remedies for scratched discs, let me know.

When we were designing the floor plan for our new home, we decided to put a wood burning fireplace in the family room. We love the ambiance that a traditional wood burning fireplace gives, and our goal was not to use this fireplace as a primary heat source. It has recently become time to start looking at the fireplace choices, and I was surprised to see relatively few choices.

If you take a look at the Home Depot or Lowes websites, you will find that they don't offer a single wood burning fireplace. They have several wood burning stoves, but those are definitely more for heat than looks. They have several gas models available, but to us, gas just doesn't compare with a real wood burning fireplace.

So I started wondering, "Why aren't there more choices for wood burning fire places?" A little investigation leads me to believe that there are fewer options available because certain areas have enacted laws and/or bans regarding wood burning and the smoke that it produces. It seems like this process should be relatively carbon neutral because the carbon released through burning would be the same as if the tree just laid on the ground and decayed. So the issue appears to be smoke and smoke particles.

Newer wood burning stoves and even some of the newer wood burning fireplaces are EPA certified to only allow a certain amount of particles into the air. Unfortunately, an EPA certified fireplace has the look of a wood burning stove and not a traditional fireplace. Additionally, these EPA certified fireplaces are primarily used for a heat source. Therefore, they have thick doors to close and little viewing area.

So, should I feel guilty about choosing a standard wood burning fireplace? Our house will mostly be energy efficient (efficient windows, geothermal heating and cooling, etc.), so having a standard fireplace wouldn't be that bad. Besides, I will probably light less than 20 fires a year and they will most likely only last a few hours. If I'm building my fires correctly and using the right woods, it will minimize my smoke output.

You can't be green all the time, just minimize the amount of time that you can't.