Saturday, March 5, 2011

Original US Route 66 Along Lake Overholser, OK





From 1926-1958 US Route 66 was located along the North shore of Lake Overholser, Oklahoma. This section can still be driven and it is considered one of the most scenic sections of Route 66 remaining. What was Route 66 is now named Lake Overholser Drive. The Stonebridge Lake Estates are located immediately between the 1926 and 1956 Route 66 alignments, giving the homes in this development a very special Route 66 distinction. A select few of the houses are located directly on the original 1926 Route 66 alignment and have spectacular views of Lake Overholser and of the large number of classic cars and motorcycles that make the Route 66 pilgrimage.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Zerowater Tasted Horrible and Irritated My Mouth - DO NOT BUY!

Yesterday I had a very bad experience with the Zerowater water filter that people should know about BEFORE they waste their money on one. I wish I had read a review!

My significant other(s.o.) bought a Zerowater pitcher and we've been using it to make our coffee for more than a month. The coffee started tasting bad, so for the first time I drank Zerowater by itself: God, was it awful!!! It even made my mouth feel irritated and this irritation lasted for for several hours.

I had my s.o. try some and she had the same result: horrible taste, irritated her mouth. She was going to pour the Zerowater down the drain, but I stopped her and said we should keep it in case we get sick and need to get it tested for bacteria or whatever.

We both agreed the predominatnt taste (besides VERY bad) was acidic. Now I'm a guy who dumps obscene amounts of vinigar on my fried fish and love its taste - and it never irritates my mouth.

I have a modest background in chemistry and wanted to figure out what made the Zerowater so bad. All I have on hand is my swimming pool testing kit which includes a Ph (acid or base, base = alkaline) test in a very narrow range. The Zerowater tested acidic - beyond what this test can quantify. But how acid was it? I took the Zerowater and added alkaline water to it to try to gauge some measure of how acid it. Four times the original volume of Zerowater did not neutralize the Zerowater's acidity, so I added 10 times the volume and still it was acid. At 24 times the volume it was STILL acid. That was the point where my container ran out of calibrated markings, but I keep adding alkaline water to well more than 40 times the original Zerowater volume before it would finally change to neutral.

We both got on the Internet and read the Zerowater reviews - if we had done this before we bought the Zerowater pitcher, we never would have wasted our money. One review mentioned talking to several water purification experts who said that untreated water can not be made free of total dissolved solids (the TDS that the Zerowater tester measures) without using an acid process. AHA! - thought I!!! Many reviews by people who had been using Zerowater over time said the same things about the same bad taste that we experienced and pegged it to the filter needing to be replaced. We had already replaced it once. The consensus seemed to be that the Zerowater filter had to be replaced way too often and at very high cost. We decided that we were going to throw away the Zerowater pitcher because we never wanted to taste water this bad tasting ever again. However, we still had a spare filter, so we throughly cleaned the pitcher and we replaced the filter yet again.

For the hell of it, I repeated the pool Ph test and found that even though our tap water tests shows an alkaline (opposite of acidic) result, the new Zerowater was also acid and beyond what the test's range could measure. Let me stress that this range is VERY limited and that even vinigar would test acid well beyond its range. But this time when I added the alkaline water it only took 2 or 3 drops (a small fraction of the volume of the Zerowater in the test)to make it neutral. So that was reassuring enough that I braved drinking the new Zerowater: it now had no bad taste, but it tasted no better than the tap water, which itself has no bad taste. (Note: Oklahoma City has very good public drinking water and some years back the city entered its water into a national contest and our water came out 5th best in the nation. Some place in Alaska took 1st place).

We have still decided to throw away the Zerowater pitcher. I don't like what happened, don't want any chance of tasting water that bad ever again, don't want Zerowater in my body. And we certainly are not going to spend so much money to replace the Zerowater filters so often. The only reason we use a filter on the coffee water is so that the expensive pod coffee maker doesn't get damaged by minerals in the tap water. Who knows?, water made that acid by a used filer may have done more damage to the coffee maker than tap water ever would.

I feel totally ripped off that so much money was wasted on the Zerowater pitcher and replacement filters. We will change to a different brand of water filter - but this time we are going to research what we are buying.

BTW: know what else I found when I researched Zerowater on the Internet: they had been sued by the bottled water association in Federal Court and Zerowater settled out of court!!! Here is a bit of the article:

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http://www.foodbev.com/news/zerowater-agrees-to-settle-false-ad-lawsuit-brought-by-ibwa

ZeroWater agrees to settle false ad lawsuit brought by IBWA
Filed by Shaun Weston

The International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) and Zero Technologies (ZeroWater) have settled a lawsuit IBWA brought against ZeroWater.

The lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, alleged that ZeroWater made false and misleading statements in its advertisements regarding the health, safety and taste of bottled water products, as well as the capabilities of ZeroWater's products.

The parties have resolved the lawsuit. As part of a confidential settlement between the parties, ZeroWater agreed to certain restrictions on its advertising. Specifically, ZeroWater has agreed to a consent order, enforceable by the federal court, that requires ZeroWater to not make certain statements relating to its products and to bottled water products that it had previously made in its advertisements. In addition, Zero Water has agreed not to make certain other statements relating to the health, safety or taste of bottled water, either explicitly or by implication...
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Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Serious Threat to Lake Overholser and Stinchcomb Wildlife Refuge Birds and Wildlife!



Last night I attended a meeting alerting us to a proposed zoning change threat to Lake Overholser and the Stinchcomb Wildlife Refuge. A corporation is requesting a zoning change for 9801-10045 West Highway 66, a 55 acre parcel of woods, grass and stream bed that is only about 1000 feet from Lake Overholser (see above photo). They had already got this rezoned away from agricultural use to allow development, but now they are trying to take it even further and get a zoning change that may be even worse for wildlife. It will allow some part of this area to have as many as 20 apartment units per acre - we are talking at least 500 units, but they would like even more. This means lots of lawn chemicals, traffic, noise, etc. We only have the scantiest of information at this point, but believe the hearing will be soon. We wanted to get this out ASAP so we have time to put up a credible challenge to this loss of habitat.

I have ZERO experience with anything like this and we are hoping to find knowledgeable people who are also concerned. I've been stumbling my way around

http://www.okc.gov/planning/zoning/locator_intro.html

I've found the zoning identifier for this area, PUD-813 (see below zoning map), but don't know how to use it.

HAS ANYONE SPOTTED ANY ENDANGERED SPECIES IN THIS AREA??? Can we try to find some - FAST! - and shut this down completely or at least keep the development down to a minimum?

Do any of you have any suggestions or guidance?

WE NEED TO SAVE THIS LAND!!! As Will Rodgers said, they aren't making any of it anymore. Once it's gone, it will be too late. And what if this is just the tip of the iceberg for development in this area?





Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Saturday, November 7, 2009

What Happened to Googlewhack.com???

There have been no new googlewhacks posted for some time now. When I tried to post a valid whack, it generated an error saying Google did not link to definitions of both words. It's just a guess, but the problem seems to be that Google no longer links to definitions when more than one search term is used.

Googlewhack.com rules require that both words be... ahem... "valid". Unlike beauty, validity is in the software of the beholder and in the mind of Gary Stock (see older postings for an explanation).

Is Googlewhack.com out of business? Will Gary Stock never get to open that bottle of champagne that will celebrate the 1,000,000th whack? Will I no longer be able to piss my life away looking for googlewhacks? Oh well, I guess there is always snark hunting.

There is a simple solution: change the googlewhack.com software to:

* Submit a query to the Google API and check that [first word] [second word] produces one result.

* Submit a 2nd query on [first word] and see if it links to a definition.

* Submit a 3rd query on [second word] and see if it links to a definition.

This will triple the server load on Google, but how many whacks are submitted to googlewhack.com in a day, maybe 10,000 tops? I think Google can handle it.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

WTF?: Oklahoma City Laughter Yoga Club


Somebody sent me the below notice. Could be fun to go just to see what kind of people show up.


What is laughter yoga? I'll let John Cleese tell you:


Benefits of Laughter Yoga with John Cleese



Oklahoma City Laughter Club


We've moved the laughter inside 3030 NW Expressway. Thanks to Aveda Image Crafters Salon for sponsoring the OKC Laughter Club so that the meetings can still be free to everyone who attends.What: Free OKC Laughter Club meeting. Be prepared to laugh.When: 6pm-6:30pm on Fridays.Who: You! Meetings led by Laughter Yoga Teacher Christopher SlaterWhere: 3030 NW Expressway (across the hall from Suite LL26.)How to get there: Enter the service road from NW Expressway. Use the second entrance, the one right before the Hampton Inn entrance. Parking will be on your left. After exiting your car, walk south past the car gate and then turn right around the corner. Enter the double doors. The meeting room is down the first hallway on the left.

Restrooms are available.IMPORTANT! Be there on time because security may lock the doors after 6pm

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Sitemeter.com is a Great Service!





You may have noticed the small sitemeter icon that appears in my blog. Sitemeter.com is a great service - even the free account, which is what mine is (why buy the cow when you get the milk for free.)
It will give you amazing statistics about your website and detailed information about how people found it. For instance:
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Referring URL
http://www.google.co...F46tnE8SX9q5kzu1s79g
Search Engine
google.com
Search Words
"brainworms" "kissimmee"
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This snippet from sitemeter shows that this blog visitor found my blog by searching Google for "brainworms" "kissimmee". Then they clicked on that Google result and went to my blog.
Sitemeter is pretty damn good - especially considering it's free!