Coffee heat rising

Month: January 2009

DIY Window Cleaner: Pro and con

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The budget’s a little low after Christmas. I need glass cleaner, but tours of Costco, Safeway, and Target in search of Windex and its knockoffs yield the same result: the stuff costs a great deal more than it’s worth. With $64 left to last till next Tuesday and gasoline and several key food items remaining to purchase, I can’t afford it.Vinegar works well for most glass-cleaning purposes, but it doesn’t cut grease very well—for that, you need something stronger.

The classic old-time formula for household window cleaner combines ammonia, alcohol, and water in equal quantities. So, to make a little less than a quart, you’d mix 1 cup of ammonia, one cup of rubbing alcohol, and one cup of water. Use the clear, nonsudsing variety of ammonia.

I suspect you don’t need that much ammonia. And in fact, a newer version shows 1 cup rubbing alcohol, 1 cup water, 1 Tbsp nonsudsing ammonia. An ammonia-free variant contains1 cup water, 1 cup rubbing alcohol, and 1 Tbsp vinegar. Having used the mostly alcohol variant, I’d make the formula with a little less alcohol—maybe a half to three-quarters cup to one cup of water—and add a very small amount of ammonia. And be careful not to get it on the woodwork!

So…are these home-made concoctions greener or more user-friendly than the commercial cleansers? Let’s investigate:

Windex contains butoxyethanol, which the State of California lists as a hazardous substance; it has been shown to cause reduced fertility, birth defects, and embryo death in animals. Windex-type cleaners also contain isopropanol, a type of alcohol that, like any alcohol, is flammable; exposure causes flushing, headache, dizziness, central nervous system depression, nausea, vomiting, anaesthesia, and coma; inhaling it or absorbing it through your skin can cause toxic effects. Always use it in a well-ventilated place. And Windex contains ethylene, a solvent that in small quantities is relatively benign.

But just because you’re making your own doesn’t mean it’s green or safe. Ordinary household chemicals such as ammonia and rubbing alcohol also have dangerous characteristics. By comparison, your home-made glass cleaner isn’t a big improvement, in the green department, over the expensive blue stuff.

In the U.S., rubbing alcohol is usually isopropyl alcohol but it may also be a mix of ethanol and water. It is toxic and can be fatal if ingested. Do not drink or breathe it, and keep it away from any products containing chlorine. Keep it way out of reach of children and alcoholics.

Ammonia functions as a solvent. It is irritating to the eyes, mucous membranes, and skin. Limit your exposure to it, and use rubber gloves when using it as a cleaning compound. Do not mix it with chlorine in any form: this means household products such as scouring powder and toilet cleaners that contain chlorine. The resulting gas is extremely poisonous.

Making your own glass cleaner is cheaper than buying a commercial product, but unless all you’re using is vinegar and water, don’t imagine it’s safer or greener than Windex-y products.

Darn! Not canned, after all

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LOL! Is this the promised threatened layoff?

Memo
To: GDU Faculty and Staff
From: Powers That Be

The PeopleSoft system currently shows most employees as system terminated. This is a system problem, and it terminated them in error. This is obviously a priority today, and all IT folks are working on it. They will hopefully have this fixed this afternoon, and HR will give us an update when they get it. Please let Oliver Boxankle in HR know if you have any other questions about this.

Hee heeeee! When they said “we’re laying off everyone in a specific job classification,” they weren’t kidding. That would be EVERYONE. Wouldn’t want to miss any outliers.

Alas, as of this morning the system is fixed. So, I suppose they think we should be working now.

The wonders of outsourcing.
😆

Another day, another year

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Lordie, it’s 2009.

Who would have expected such a thing? When I was a little kid back in the Cretaceous period, I used to wonder if I would still be alive in the year 2000, when I would (after all) have reached the decrepit old age of 55. I felt a little surprised when I made it that far.

To have doddered on almost ten years beyond that has something of the unreal about it.

Now I enter the age that my mother was when she died, murdered by the tobacco pushers and further victimized by incompetent and uncaring doctors. Ever since her death, I have wondered, just like that little kid back in the ’50s, if I would outlive her or if I would go at the same age. Irrational, no doubt: but apparently so many people think along those weirdly magical lines that some actually do die—or contrive to die—at the same age or under the same circumstances as a deceased loved one.

The days in which we ritually celebrate the passing of another year—especially birthdays and New Year’s Eve—feel vaguely unpleasant to me. More than vaguely: distinctly. I enjoy living and don’t like being reminded of how few years remain. Nor do I like being reminded of how many years of my life and hers my mother missed—an entire lifetime of years: my son’s. These things do not make me feel like celebrating. To the contrary.

catrinas2Hallowe’en—la dia de los muertos—when the dead and death itself are celebrated, seems less sad and far less depressing to me. It springs from a deeper impulse, a more thoughtful and meaningful way of celebrating the passage of time and life than drinking, dancing, and setting off fireworks because another year of our existence has gone down.

Speaking of fireworks, someone in the neighborhood has a great fondness for them. They set them off at the drop of every hat, and an excuse like the Fourth of July or New Year’s Day brings on an hour-long frenzy of whistling, squealing, banging, and flashing. Fireworks are illegal in Arizona. That means the folks are smuggling them across the border. I think Pretty Daughter‘s middle-school-aged children are among the celebrants, and that makes me cringe. As you get older, you get more cautious—or possibly you get old because you are the cautious type. A kid in my junior high school in San Francisco was blinded when he set off a cherry bomb in a tin can. Ever since then I’ve imagined that people who let their children play with fireworks are working hard to improve the gene pool.

Well, in the gene department I have a shot at living to old age. Though my mother and both her parents died young, my father lived to 84 despite lifelong smoking and drinking habits; my great-grandmother and great-aunt, Christian Scientists who neither smoked nor drank, both made it to 94. I’m no teetotaller, and it’s clear now that my openness tovisiting doctors isn’t a lot safer today than it was in the 1800s when Christian Science’s aversion for the crude medical practice of the time made sterling sense. But one can hope.

There are several things we all can do to help ensure we live out the years allotted to us:
Eat well
Exercise daily
Drink minimally
Drive carefully
Never smoke
Keep active mentally and socially

Coincidentally, most of these are frugal habits, too. Think of that: frugality adds years to your life!
Live long and prosper.