Chicken Volcano

The other day I boiled a whole chicken in the pressure cooker. When it was done, I turned off the heat, and after several minutes later removed the weighted cap. I was using a fork, and was ready to replace the cap in the event chicken broth started to vent.

Unfortunately, I dropped the cap, and just then liquid chicken started to vent skywards. It took the dog about 0.01 seconds to smell the chicken, and he was right there trying to thwart my efforts at capping the gusher. After about 30 seconds, I got the lid back on, and I think that the dog had cleaned up the floor about a minute after that. He had a look on his face as if he had died and gone to doggie heaven.

"It's raining chicken". He was thinking.

Now every time I use the pressure cooker, he is right there. Waiting.

A Product Review

I am composing this article from a parking lot using a Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop powered by 120V AC from the generator depicted below. And no, it's not because I forgot to pay the power bill, I swear! I removed the Laptop battery to be sure that the generator could provide steady power.

Normally I would shy away from product reviews, but I hoped to add some useful info for consumers. I purchased the PowerPacPlus+ generator from Pep-Boys after I saw that they had dropped the price from $150 to $99.99 after a mail in rebate. The market is currently flooded with this model of inexpensive Chinese made two cycle (40:1 mix) 1200 W (peak) generator. They are sold under many name brands, but appear to be identical. The lowest online price I found for a new unit was $120 with free shipping.




The generator provides up to 850 W continuous power, and can handle surges up to 1200 watts. I followed the manual's suggested 300 W max load burn in procedure by powering two laptops pulling 150 W each, and it kept them up for four hours with the batteries removed. Next I removed a laptop and added an 800 W heater and the motor surged, but powered both heater and laptop without a problem. The laptop never went down. I cycled the heater several times and the generator responded well enough to keep the laptop up. After about 5 hours of run time, with the last hour at 950 W, the motor ran out of fuel. Using a 1.1 US Gal tank, fuel costs are less than $1 per hour, at the current $3.55 a gallon price.

Two minor annoyances:

The motor will run out of fuel before the fuel tank appears to be empty as the internal fuel filter sits a bit high.

YOU ABOSOLUTELY HAVE TO TURN OFF THE FUEL VALVE AND RUN THE CARB DRY OR THE EVAPORATING GASOLINE WILL LEAVE BEHIND 2 STROKE OIL, FOULING THE CARB AND YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO START THE UNIT.

Positives:

Has 12 DC out for charging car batteries.
Is simple to use, starts on second pull.
Weighs less than 50 lb.
Proven to produce 2.2 kWh of electrical energy from 1.1 US gal of gas.
Runs well on 10% Ethanol/Gas mix.

To stop a nosebleed

I used to suffer from frequent nosebleeds. I would roll over in bed and the pressure from my pillow would start my nose bleeding. It would take twenty minutes to stop it. I would blow my nose, and it would bleed. It's hard to manage industrial equipment and stop a nosebleed at the same time. Several years ago, centrist CCW insisted that I get my nose checked out. The ENT doctor looked up my nose with a cold metal scope and said:

"Yup, there it is. You have an artery close to the surface on the inside of your nostril, it's got to be the one that causes it".

"What can you do"? I asked.

"I can chemically cauterize it". He said.

"With what Chemical" I replied.

"Silver Nitrate". Was the answer.

"First we numb your nose, and then we put a tiny bit of Silver Nitrate on the vessel. It will sting a bit, and the Novocaine we give you will keep you from feeling much." The Doctor said reassuringly.

And so, I let a nurse at my nose with a cotton swab dipped in Novocaine. The problem was that when the nurse stuck the swab up my nose, all of the Novocaine squeezed out and ran down my upper lip and into my mouth, which was slightly open so that I could breath with the cotton in my nose.

"What should I do"? I asked myself. "Should I spit out the Novocaine, or swallow it? Should I tell the nurse that it's not in my nose?"

In the time it took to think these thoughts, the Novocaine numbed my lips to the point that when I tried to speak it sounded like a quiet mumble, unintelligible. I figured that enough of the Novocaine made it into my nose that I would be OK.

I was wrong.

When the Dr. stuck the pea sized spot of Silver Nitrate into the wall of my nostril it felt at first as if he was putting out a lit cigarette on the inside of my nose. After several seconds it felt like he was TIG welding a boat hitch into my nose, and he had just flunked out of welding school.

My eyes began to water from the pain, tears streamed down my face.

"Im, sorry, does it sting at all"? Asked the Doc.

"mmmmmbbbl aaaabbbbbllll bubbbbb bub" Was all I could manage with my unresponsive lips.

Mercifully, he was finished in less than a minute, but the pain had just begun. I walked out of the office, wiping tears from my eyes. My face felt as if I had stood in front of Babe Ruth and taken a Louisville Slugger to the bridge of my nose.

I got home and my wife took one look at me and asked:

"Are you OK?

"Ummmmb.... By Tink Sooo". I replied, grateful that I could now communicate verbally.

For two days, my nose somehow stayed distended from my face. I understand the inner feelings of Cyrano De Bergerac now.

I have not had a nosebleed since.

A money saving and highly patentable idea.

Several months ago I was walking across campus and saw a group of folks protesting the use of Depleted Uranium Sabot Rounds in the M1A1 Tank for environmental and health reasons. Who wants to live in a neighborhood awash with depleted Uranium? Most of the alternatives are also toxic, lead for instance. That's when I had the brilliant idea: Use frozen goat meat. I can assure you that no tank could withstand a 15 kg chunk of frozen goat sabot traveling at three times the speed of sound. Cleanup of any goat meat round fragments would be taken care of by local wildlife.

Another advantage is that instead of producing the raw material for the tank rounds in nuclear reactors, tankers would be able to procure their own rounds at local markets all over the world.