Monday, July 31, 2006

A New Audio Feature

this is an audio post - click to play
You can either click on the arrow to hear me, or you can "right click" and save the MP3 recording. This post is just an introduction; but once you learn how to save the posts, you can pop them into your MP3 players to listen while on the go. I'll try to find some interesting content for future audo posts.

Thanks
Colin

New Ways to Keep in Touch

"Life is One Big Learning Curve".......That is my favorite saying. There is always something new and exciting out there to learn. And the old things are constantly changing.

RSS Feeds are evolving and becoming easier ( I hope). Only a few months ago I was totally confused. There were always a bunch of little boxes littered around my favorte websites and blogs "atom" "xml" "yahoo" ....you name it! I didn't want choice, I just wanted to click on something and have it update itself on my computer. And now it seems to have happened.

One Little Orange Square seems to have replaced them all ( look over at my side bar and up at the address bar's right corner) . Finally, once choice and one click and it is done.

Now I'm trying this new audio feature....we'll see if it is a simple as they make out.

Always a new adventure out there, eh?

Colin

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Clean Sticky Wooden Chairs

This is the season to really notice the stickiness on wooden furniture. A typical experience is to settle in to the chair and after a few minutes notice you have adhered to it. The remaining time is spent trying not to touch the back. Here is a tip my mother just tried.

My mom has a great pine table and chairs, and has tried just about everything. Recently she heard about a simple solution......paint thinner. Sure enough, cheap old paint thinner on a rag got rid of all the stickiness.

"Paint thinner" can be called different things depending where you live and what you buy. I think it is also called Varsol ( tm) or "mineral spirits".

If you have old furniture or traditionally made items, or genuine " french polished" furniture you should use caution. Some old items have been coated in shellac. I have had great success in removing the shellac and then applying danish oil. You don't get the shine, but a beautiful luster instead, which brings out the beauty of the wood and tends to fit in with other antique pieces.
To remove the shellac you need to use alcohol ( methyl hydrate) . It is a fun and easy process, but make sure the area is well ventilated and there is NO flame or spark source anywhere near. Alcohol is very flammable and also invisible when ignited. Talk to your hardware or paint dealer to get all the rags, instructions, etc. Another option with shellaced items is to clean and resurface them.....again not a hard process, but it does take a bit of elbow grease.