OT: CD-R/DVD Backup Disposal

[wdg3rd at comcast.net]

> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 20:56:55 -0400
> From: "John Esak" <john at valar.com>
> Subject: RE: OT: CD-R/DVD Backup Disposal
> To: "Fplist \(E-mail\)" <filepro-list at seaslug.org>
> Message-ID: <FEEGKIBANIDBFHOPNKOLAEFGCAAA.john at valar.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
> 
> No offense, but whatever happened to the WARNINGS that come  (or used to
> come???) with *every* microwave oven?  Do NOT put anything metal in here!!!!
> :-)
> 
> I mean even just a little spark... why take the chance of it being a BIG
> spark?
> 
> I can't believe you would reccomend this... but people take their own
> chances with everything.  Good luck....  And, just by the way, I know it is
> not the same thing... but I actually *know* a lady who put a metal mug
> filled with coffee in her microwave and forgot about it.  She went to take a
> bath and a few minutes later firemen were breaking down the front door to
> her house... the thing blew up and caught the kitchen on fire.... totally
> destroyed her kitchen and living room.... while she blissfully ignorant
> lounged in her bath listening to her iPod!  :-)  True story.
> 
> John

My late father-in-law tended to leave the spoon in the cup when making a cup of tea in the microwave.  Never a fire or even an alarm, unlike his previous habit of putting half a dozen teabags into a saucepan of water, turning on the flame, and taking a nap (or having a petit-mal seizure, it's hard to tell the difference sometimes) waiting for the water to boil.  We'd hear the smoke alarms and come down and make him a cup of tea ourselves.  (And remember to pick up a few more saucepans at the Goodwill store next time we passed).

Not his fault.  The VA had him on a load of drugs that Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Keith Moon couldn't have split up and survived.  He was Navy CB through WWII,  attached to a Marine unit and not quite killed on the beach at Iwo (the Navy retired him with disability, but he got bored after a few weeks back in Jersey), OSS afterwards until it had the brains removed and became the CIA, then USAF, and POW for 18 months in Manchuria during the Korean "war" (plane he was in had an emergency landing) (His epilepsy seems to date from that last).  I'm not half the man he was and don't want to be unless somebody I love is threatened.

But the threat of metal in modern microwave ovens is greatly exagerated (and probably properly so considering the products of public schools -- too many kids would stick a wet [from gasoline] carb in one without that warning).  Even back in the 70s there were things like metal temperature probes that you'd stick into a chunk of meat, that came with the machine and connected to it.  And every microwave cookbook I have (3) says to wrap foil around the naked bony ends of chicken legs or (frenched) lambchops during the last stage of cooking.

Not that I'd actually _cook_ meat (other than a couple of hot dogs when I have no audience -- without someone else to cook for, I don't care what I eat) in a microwave myself.  I love food and cooking too much, and certain chemical reactions need actual heat via radiation or convection that a microwave can't provide.  Though there are some interesting combo devices showing up that I can't afford yet.  Technology marches on. 

Can anybody point me to some filePro based restaurant management and accounting systems?  I've killed too many brain cells to write one from scratch and I'm too busy planning my restaurant.  (I just want computers to be a hobby again, and after decades in tech support and system administration I'd actually like to see a customer smile coming _in_ the door).
-- 
Ward Griffiths    wdg3rd at comcast.net

When you let people do whatever they want, you get Woodstock. When you let governments do whatever they want, you get Auschwitz.       Doug Newman