I wish I had seen this during the World Cup

-Doc

Another Restroom Im glad I haven't visited

Click for larger view

-Doc

Banning Bottled Water?

Do you prefer drinking water from the tap or from a bottle? Concord, Massachusetts is the first city to ban the sale of bottled water in May. Many believe that the plastic bottles create waste and the production of plastic is not good for air quality.

I personally prefer to drink bottled water. My drinking water comes from a river, and a few weeks ago reservoirs were releasing water into the river. This usually isn’t a problem, but these reservoirs are filling up with silt and now we are getting blue algae blooms. The taste had a similar drinking water out of the fish aquarium. Not pleasant. One office has that 5 gallon water cooler. The other office I thought had a filter on the ice/water machine. However, my hot tea cup stains after one use, and I’ve never had the problem at home or other offices before; and this was before the algae bloom.

I was also reading that the EPA has stated that our national water infrastructure is going to need $335 billion in maintenance. Unfortunately, this does seem to very true. At least in my community I don’t see where we are planning for the future. In many ways our infrastructure is what made the USA great, and now we are letting it age and figure it will last forever.

Apparently the Beverage Marketing Corporation states that the bottled water sales average to 28 gallons a person. This tells me that many of us do not like the taste of the water that comes out of the tap. Is there a way that it could taste better? Or is this really more a matter of convenience?

I personally don’t think banning water is a good thing. I just read about a boil order advisory issued do to a major water main break. Also bottled water is one of the necessities when it comes to a disaster to keep victims and emergency workers hydrated. How many times does someone drink bottled water rather than a sugar loaded drink because of the convenience? Maybe we should have water bottle refill spots to encourage people to use their Nalgene, stainless steel, or similar reusable bottles and get filtered cold water for a quarter.

-Disaster Chick

Guest Blogger

Motivational Poster of the Week 9/4/10

Have a great weekend!

-Doc

Retro Playground

I had lunch at a park recently with my mom. After looking around she said it isn’t right that they don’t have any swings here. She starts saying there were kids that did break their arms when they jumped back in the day, but it was common sense to know you were too high to safely jump. This led to a discussion of the plastic used to guard fingers from the chains.

We then started talking about the missing jungle gym that was taller than an adult, the monkey bars, the merry-go-rounds, and the tornado slide that was always placed in the sun that I avoided on really hot days, because I ALWAYS wore shorts.

I was in junior high/high school when my grade school got rid of the monkey bars. I realized I didn’t start gaining weight until after I stopped playing on the monkey bars. I still can bring back my monkey bar blisters after a few minutes of play. I would like to play on them again to naturally build up my upper body strength. My favorite machine at the gym is the one that you do the assisted pull-ups because it brings back the feeling of the monkey bars.

The monkey bars were not my favorite, but the swings were often taken, so I would go to the monkey bars or the pipe if I need to talk with someone. The pipe is missing to. It looked like something out of Super Mario Brothers. You could crawl in, position yourself like the letter “c” or "u" if you were not in a dress and take your chances of someone listening in or you could do the running leap on and jump on top. There you could position yourself like a lady then slide down or you could straddle it like a horse and play those hand games.

I know not all of the playground equipment is banned - just at the nicer parks. I came up with the idea of “Retro Park” where we bring back all the “dangerous” and banned playground equipment without the bouncy rubber mats surrounding it too. Either adults could relive childhood or kids could see what mommy and daddy played on. Only thing is you would have to sign a waiver not to sue Retro Playground if you or your child happened to get hurt – just like the good ole days of our youth.

Have you gone back to one of your old playgrounds? How has it changed? What was your favorite piece of equipment? What would you add to Retro Park?

-Disaster Chick, guest blogger

You Have Been Warned...

So don't blame me if you don't get superpowers from playing in toxic waste. #justsayin'

-Doc

Motivational poster of the Week 8/28/10

Have a great weekend!

-Doc

I think you better....

STOP!!!

-Doc