American Civic Literacy Quiz

How well do you know your American Civics? Take this quiz and find out. I got an 85. Apparently the average score is 49%.

Tomorrow at approximately 2:30 Chris Medlock will have Rich Brake, the Executive Director of University Stewardship at the The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), on his show(1170 AM KFAQ). ISI is the organization behind the quiz. They will discuss the quiz, and why so many Americans are getting an F, and what it means.


(via The Chris Medlock Show)

Technorati Tags: civic literacy test
Rich Brake
Chris Medlock
Intercollegiate Studies Institute

Lament of Lint

I received a call from my wife on Friday upset that our dryer no longer worked. I came home to investigate and quickly determined that the exhaust tube was blocked. Somewhere along the 25-30 foot tube there was a complete blockage of lint that I could neither see nor reach. We have a home warranty, but I knew it wouldn't cover this, so I called a local well known repair service and was told it would cost at least 97 bucks to have the clog removed. I said nuts to that, and I went to Lowe's and purchased something called a LintEater. It's a little brush that connects to your power drill and brushes the inside of the exhaust tube. There is also a handy attachment that hooks up to your vacuum or shop-vac. A good brushing coupled with some shop-vac action was the one-two-punch I needed to remove the lint clog. Check out how much I got out of there!

Aside from being disgusting, it is also apparently a fire hazard. If your dryer seems to take longer to dry a load of laundry, or if you have a long dryer exhaust tube, consider cleaning it out or having it professionally cleaned out. It will save you your dryer, some electricity, and might even save your house from burning down.

Technorati Tags: lint
dryer lint

Digital Television Transition

On February 17, 2009 the old analog television broadcasts will stop and be replaced by a digital broadcast on different frequency. So if you have an old TV which does not have a digital or HDTV turner, then that TV will not be able to receive the new signal (if you have it hooked up to cable or satellite then you should not have to worry about this).

The government is handing out $40 coupons toward the purchase of a DTV converter which can receive the new signal and convert it to something your old TV can understand. Before you get upset over the government handing out money so people can watch TV, consider this. The television airways are public airways. People all over the country use those airways for information, entertainment, and education. The government has sold those frequencies, made billions and billions of dollars doing so, and have mandated that TV stations move to the digital signal. So I think it is only fair that they compensate us for selling our airwaves.

I have an old 13” TV which is not hooked up for cable so I signed up for the coupon. Here is what I learned. 40 bucks will not cover the cost of converting your TV. The cheapest converter box I could find was 49 bucks at Wal-Mart. Also, since I did not have one, I needed a “good” antenna. All told it cost be about 24 dollars to convert my television.

When I did get it set up I was very impressed at the picture quality that little converter box was able to get out of our pink 13” Disney Princess television. Frankly it looked amazing. Also, since it is my kid’s TV I was happy that it came with a good parental control. If you have a few old-school TV’s it is worth it to request a coupon. To apply go to www.dtv2009.gov


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DTV Converter
Digital Television Transition

It's The End of the World As We Know it (and I Feel Fine)

Feeling upset this morning? Play this a few times and you'll feel better.


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Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently

It has been four years since my grandfather died. Since then, I've been unable or unwilling to remove his email address from my address book. This afternoon I was preparing an email to friends and family with pictures of my kids in their Halloween costumes when I ran across my grandfather's email address. This is not an abnormal occurrence, I see his email address in my contact list all the time. This time however, it was difficult. I suppose it's because really miss him. It's probably not any sillier than keeping his email address, but I decided to go ahead and send the pictures to him. Obviously he didn't get them, but It made me feel better to send the kid's pictures my grandfather.