The situation was actually a bit funny because Home Depot had gotten me in this mess to begin with. They’ve coupled with a local RainSoft dealer and hidden their DIY water softeners way in a back corner somewhere. Long story short, I made the horrible mistake of having RainSoft/Home Depot install a whole house water filtration system. It has been a total nightmare with such highlights as soldering flux firing out of my kitchen faucet, several bathfuls of black water, a tub which required lengthy cleaning sessions to partially remove black/brown residue, ongoing cleanup of wherever the incompetent RainSoft installer worked. I have much much more to say on this topic, but will have to write about it another time. Oh RainSoft, you have had not heard the last of me.

But I digress…. So there I was in Home Depot trying to buy five aerators. Their selection was pretty sparse (perhaps because of the upcoming law), but I managed to find a Neoperl product which seemed to fit the bill. And there it was in big capital letters: “LEAD FREE*”. This perplexed me a great deal given that a few millimeters above this claim stood: “Ultra low lead”.

I tried to wrap my head around “LEAD FREE*” vs. “Ultra low lead”. How could something lead free have ultra low lead? On the back they described the asterisk in flowery, blooming English: “*AB 1953 compliant less than 0.2% lead.” Wouldn’t you love if everything was described this way? “Traffic ticket you drive too fast.” “Delicious food ate at fancy restaurant.” And so on…

Now having looked into the Assembly Bill a bit, it appears the powers that be are redefining the meaning of lead free. In other words, they are lowering the value considered lead free. After doing a little research, I found that the legal limit for lead in related products used to be 8%. To me, .2% doesn’t seem that low, and 8% seems incredibly high. Given all the really scary stuff written about lead (and I have a two-year-old, people!), I would kind of prefer lead free to mean 0% lead. Is it that hard to make a metal product that contains no lead?

To further my confusion, another, simpler model of aerator, also made by Neoperl, states “LEAD FREE*”, but not “Ultra low lead”. So, does this mean this one is pushing the 0.2% lead content?

Now, I know what you’re saying: “Dude, why didn’t you just buy an aerator from another company claiming 0% lead?” There were none. Home Depot (or “The Home Depot” as I think they like being called now) only had these in stock.

If anyone has a suggestion for eco-friendly aerators without any lead (no asterisk), feel free to comment. Even though they say “there is no safe level of lead”, I guess AB 1953 is a step in the right direction. If it were me, and I know this would probably cause minor economic mayhem or piss off the lead lobby, I would just take a hatchet to it and make lead free actually lead free. 0%. Done.

P.S. Please also comment if you have more RainSoft horror stories.

Of course, not being independently wealthy, finances would play a role. We’re talking just a small scale operation here, no economies of scale, no mass production, no greed. I figured we’d go for production of less than 1000 bottles per annum. I’m actually in the process of house hunting, so I figured I’d look for a place a bit more remote with some suitable land for a micro-vineyard.

The first dagger to the heart of my plan came when some initial research revealed pretty steep barriers to entry. Some of the equipment involved in modern winemaking is expensive, but being the spontaneous guy I am, what really hurt was that I would need five years before I could get a crop going which would produce decent wine. I don’t really like to plan more than six months in advance, and that was kind of a deal breaker. I also didn’t want to buy someone else’s vineyard. That sounded lame and can also be very pricey.

I did, however, come across some interesting factual tidbits during my research. Apparently, winemaking has a few things in common with apple preservation. As discussed in “Principles and Practices of Winemaking” by Boulton, Singleton, Bisson, and Kunkee, winemaking is quite the CO₂ intensive activity. Around 40 years ago, you’d have one dead guy per vintage in California as a result of said fellow “entering fermentors or confined spaces containing (or recently drained of) active alcoholic yeast fermentations and not adequately ventilated”. Unconsciousness apparently occurs rapidly with brain death following soon thereafter.

That book goes into all kinds of technical detail about how much carbon dioxide is produced with different kinds of wines and also describes how modern vineyards with carbon dioxide detectors make this a pretty moot point these days. Regardless, given that carbon dioxide has no scent, unknowingly walking into a room that will kill you, is kind of a scary idea.

Thoughts to ponder before you uncork that bottle of wine tonight.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

A quick internet search finally led me to my solution. (Don’t know why I didn’t do that earlier.) As it turns out, all I had to do was touch a metallic surface on the outside of the car before getting out. So now I just open the door and reach over my left shoulder and touch the outside of the passenger door behind me. Ok ok, I know this is certainly not the most exciting aspect of car ownership or cars in general, but it was a significant annoyance. I’m just glad to be talking about it in the past tense.

Perhaps one will soon be available on store shelves. The November issue of “Photonics Spectra” introduces what might be a knight in luminescent armor. (Sorry, I tried. They call it, “…a new bulb on the block.”) A company based in Seattle known as Vu1 Corporation has created a new technology they call Electron Stimulated Luminescence (ESL). ESL is a phosphor coating which glows upon being stimulated by accelerated electrons. The bulbs are made of standard glass, look similar to old-fashioned incandescents, and don’t contain mercury. At a price point of around $12 a bulb, they cost less then LED-based lighting. In addition, the bulbs have the same lifetime rating as compact fluorescents and their color can be adjusted.

Vu1 Corp. will be officially launching this bulb on April 22, 2009. More information on this new technology is available on their website. Oh, and if Vu1 wants to hook me up with some free bulbs, they can contact me here.

I turned to give the minivan the nastiest look possible and you wouldn’t believe what I saw. I kid you not, this minivan had a sticker on its rear window stating the German equivalent of “Lilian on board”. I couldn’t believe it. Of all people, I almost got plowed down on a stroll with my baby, by another young parent. Something is definitely wrong with this world, if a young parent can’t even slow down at a crosswalk for a baby stroller. I mean, something is wrong if anyone doesn’t slow down for a stroller, so that makes this so much more wrong.

In this particular case, I was already on my way across the street. I have, however, noticed that most drivers here in Germany, (or Berlin, if it’s any different here), will not slow down or stop to let me cross at a crosswalk; even when I’m walking with the stroller. It is necessary to differentiate between two types of crosswalks in Berlin. I have never fully understood this, but there is an “important” crosswalk and an “ignore me” crosswalk. The former features stripes on the road itself, and cars are required to stop if someone is waiting to cross. The latter is a full-on crosswalk, typically with a middle island, but for whatever reason, cars are not required to stop, and thus, do not stop. On several occassions I have stood there in the middle island with the stroller like a deer in headlights with the stroller, waiting and waiting. People just don’t stop, let alone slow down. Today, I was crossing one of the “ignore me” crosswalks. However, given the fact that I was already in motion, motorists are still required to stop.

Maybe my sensitivity on this issue is the result of growing up in a town where pedestrians always had the right of way. Then again, whatever happened to the Golden Rule? Would little Lilian’s dad want me plowing him down when he was on a walk with his baby? I know that since becoming a parent I have become even more courteous to other young parents (and I was pretty courteous to begin with). It’s a shame that I didn’t catch a glimps of a license plate, because I would really like to ask Lilian’s dad what gives.

The initial idea was to minimize this exposure. So the apples were packed in airtight storage halls. The apples then sucked up the remaining oxygen and converted it into carbon dioxide. A lack of oxygen and a bit of carbon did a pretty decent job of preserving apples.

And yet, in our increasingly competitive world where a price differing in the amount of a few cents can make all the difference, pretty good was not good enough. So, nowadays, instead of letting the apples go to work on their own, the storage halls are filled with nitrogen to initally reduce the amount of oxygen. They call it “Controlled Atmosphere” storage.

Fun fact: Say you were to stumble upon one such storage facility and were like, “Hmmm, what’s in here?” Apparently, you’d be able to take about two steps before collapsing and well, instantly dying. This is no joke, and though this is unlikely to happen since such locations are well-secured, several people do die this unfortunate death. That’s right, suicide. What would you think about showing up at your local supermarket and seeing a little sign next to the apples saying, “A man committed suicide in the facility in which these apples were stored. Enjoy.”