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LET'S TOUR THE SITES AND FIND THE TREASURES! 
June 1, 2010 Bill and I have been through a hair raising time. Sunday before last he took a vanful of people to a special dinner at one of the elite restaurants in the area, the Inn at Little Washington. He said he might be late getting back, but I was beginning to wonder where he was when he called around 9:30 that night. He was gasping for breath, said he was in Arlington, having just left the people off, and was having violent chills. He wanted me to call the man from whom he’d rented the van to say he couldn’t return it that night. He also wanted me to call the woman he was to take to the airport at six the next morning and tell her he couldn’t do that. He thought he could manage to get the van to our house despite his violent shaking. I told him, “If it gets too bad, pull over to the side of the road and call 911.” A long time went by. I didn’t want to call him on his cell phone, because he obviously needed to give his full attention to trying to make it home, but time kept sliding by. It takes 45 minutes to drive from Arlington to our house. When an hour had gone by, I started looking out the window for him. After an hour and a half, I dialed his cell number ... and got voice mail. I was just lathering up to call highway patrol or 911 when the phone rang. It was Bill. He said he was in the emergency room at Arlington Hospital, and five doctors kept asking him the same questions. At first I was just unutterably thankful that he was in a prone position talking to doctors rather than in a van wrapped around a tree somewhere. And then I thought, emergency room? Bill spent six days in Arlington Hospital, the first three in intensive care. He had viral pneumonia, and, when they brought him in, his blood pressure had fallen so low that doctors said he would have died in another half hour if left untreated. Our kids were wonderful throughout our ordeal – Gerry raced to the emergency room, then did keen detective work in rescuing Bill’s van, which had been abandoned with the lights on in a no-parking zone. The hospital staff was great, but we are both SO GLAD Bill’s back home at last and making a good recovery. Janette ----Table Of Contents---- 1. Musicovery 1. MUSICOVERY Dial the music of your mood. On the MUSICOVERY dial you will see all the different genres of music. So, click on the type of music you’re in the mood for, then dial the mood you’re in a mood for. MUSICOVERY aims to please. And, if by chance you are not fully pleased with MUSICOVERY, don’t forget the MUSIC section in the lefthand column. In it I review PANDORA, which gives you “100 Radio Stations Of Your Own.” That should do it. http://tourthesites.com/Music/100RadioStationsOfYourOwn.html 2. RIGHT FROM THE FARM We are in the happy time of year when farmers’ markets begin to spring up across the U.S. The USDA keeps a list of them, and, if you know of one not on the list, you’d be doing everyone a favor to alert the USDA. http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/farmersmarkets FRESH PRODUCE DIRECTLY TO YOU. Restaurant menus have an irritating habit of referring to “country” food items. (Ever eat city vegetables? Suburban meat?) But at LOCAL HARVEST you can locate farms in your area that allow you to come there and purchase their produce directly. Some also provide “CSA subscriptions.” This allows you to band together with friends and neighbors to use a given amount of fresh produce that the farmer brings directly to a drop point in your neighborhood, usually once a week. And you get to take it home before the dew evaporates! GRASS-FED MEATS, POULTRY. A number of farms in the U.S. now sell grass-fed beef, lamb, or poultry – even grass-fed pork. (My grandparents used to have a “hog pasture” on their farm, and the pigs loved running around in the sunshine eating fresh grass. Hogs enjoy the good life too.) To begin your search, try EAT WILD. Then you may want to Google “grass fed” plus the type of meat you’re looking for. If you’re lucky you’ll find farms right in your area. 3. MANY AN INNOCENT CHICKEN ... has been led to ruin by a grill. Don’t let it happen on your premises. DAVID HAGEDORN tells us how to avoid grilled chicken abuse: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ GRILLING IS ALSO THE “IN” WAY TO COOK VEGETABLES. The taste is great, but some vegetables are difficult to grill properly. First, HELEN POLASKI gives us general vegetable-grilling tips: http://www.life123.com/food/barbecue-grilling/ And then there’s TONY ROSENFELD’s clever method of grilling the hard-to-grill vegetables such as corn and onions: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ 4. THE NOBLE “SPORT” OF BARBECUE Yes, the NATIONAL BARBECUE NEWS calls it a sport, and to thousands of people – mostly guys – it is THE summer sport. To keep up with the sport news, you can have this publication e-mailed to your inbox once a month. Note that the site has a sizable recipe archive. And then here’s a general overview from the ABOUT people: BARBECUE CONTESTS, BARBECUE RECIPES, BARBECUE SITES. Webrings were big in, say, 2000 or 2001, but Google increasingly bit into their territory, and most of them disappeared. But THE SMOKE RING lives on bigtime. The main page tells you all about barbecue contests, in case you’d like to take in some on your summer vacation. And then there are the more than 1000 individual websites in the webring. Unfortunately I don’t see anything you can click on to visit each site in turn if you should feel that ambitious. You apparently have to write, say, “sauces” in the search box at the top to call up all the sites with that information on them. And there are a bunch. 5. DISCOVER NEW VACATION IDEAS TRIPSAY says, “Tell us some places you have been and what you did like about them. We'll return your favor by telling you where to go next!” It’s a clever idea, as each person who describes places they enjoyed adds to the data available to everyone else. GREAT U.S. ROADSIDE FOOD. The FOOD, RECIPES section of my 1000 Best Sites will tell you how to find delicious roadside food. http://tourthesites.com/FoodRecipes/GreatUSRoadsideFood.html ENTERTAINMENT WHEN YOU’RE ROUGHING IT. These printable puzzles are handy if you’re planning to travel or to camp or otherwise rough it without electronics. And they’re not bad for roughing it in the waiting room of a doctor or dentist. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-cool-sources- 6. BEST TIMES TO SAVE ON RESERVATIONS To save money on motel reservations and plane reservations try WOMAN’S DAY recommendations: http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Money/ For lots more on every kind of vacation travel, scroll down to TRAVEL in the column at left: 7. BEST TIMES TO GET GROCERIES, DINNER OUT, MORE The same WOMAN’S DAY article as above tells the best times to get a bargain on a host of items:
http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Money/Saving-Money 8. HONK, Y’ALL! HONK.COM does a lot of things. It can “rank cars based on data from over 500,000 car buyers.” Or it can serve as a social site for people who love cars. Or YOU CAN write your own reviews of cars. Click on “People” to find people who do. Or YOU CAN check out dream cars, any number, any price range. Or YOU CAN decide on what your next car will be. 5 WEBSITES TO HELP YOU BECOME A SAFER DRIVER. If you know someone with really sloppy driving habits (that person would not be you, of course) you might drop this address into their e-mail inbox. The sites would also be good for a teen without a lot of driving experience. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/five-free-websites- 3 FEATURES OF GOOGLE DRIVING DIRECTIONS YOU PROBABLY NEVER KNEW: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/ 9. THE COLORADO FOURTEENERS To mountain climbers a “fourteener” is a mountain over 14,000 feet high and therefore worthy of a climber’s attention. Bill has been reading a book he really likes: Mark Obmascik’s Halfway To Heaven: My White-knuckled – and Knuckleheaded – Quest for the Rocky Mountain High. Obmascik was an out-of-shape, 44-year-old father of three who decided to climb all 54 of Colorado fourteeners in one year. If you think you might like to try a fourteener this summer, below is the website to get you started. When I visited it, I was one of 252 people on the site at that moment, so there’s a lot of interest out there. For thousands of hiking trails in the U.S. and around the world, try my 1000 BEST SITES FOR FAMILIES AND SENIORS: http://tourthesites.com/Outdoors- 10. FINE GARDENING I came by this site in an unusual way. A fluffy lavender-pink flower has been blooming in my garden, but I couldn’t remember the name of it. It came from my old garden in Falls Church, survived years of neglect here, and the deer hate it. How could I not love it? I went through my old records but found no reference to it. Finally, in desperation, I put “leaves like columbine” into Google, as the plant’s leaves are almost identical to those of columbine. And up it came! It’s called Thalictrum or meadow rue, and according to the FINE GARDENING site, it’s “suitable for naturalizing,” which is certainly what the deer and I had going here for ten years. If you are a serious gardener, you will find much helpful information on the FINE GARDENING site. They have numerous forums in which you can learn from expert gardeners – or perhaps pass on information of your own. http://forums.finegardening.com/ FINE GARDENING also has sections on garden design, gardening videos, the plant guide where I found Thalictrum, and much else. 11. TEN GARDENING MISTAKES MADE AT THE NURSERY I’ve made some of these mistakes. For example, if you leave your list at home you can wind up with a lot of stuff that’s just not right. And then there’s item 10: procrastination. We arrive home, the glow of enthusiasm engendered by the nursery fades, problems come up – and the poor little things are left homeless for longer than is good for them. 12. AWARD WINNING COOKING SITE FOR KIDS SPATULATTA specializes in videos that teach kids to fix delicious and healthy dishes. It’s best for school-age kids, and some recipes specify adult help. http://www.spatulatta.com/component/content/article/89-banana-fruit-salad OLDER KIDS WILL ALSO ENJOY FIXING THESE DISHES: http://www.childrensrecipes.com/ THINGS YOU AND YOUR CHILD CAN FIX TOGETHER: http://www.homeandfamilynetwork.com/food/kids.html 13. COOKING WITH TODDLERS There are lots of things toddlers can do in the kitchen. You’ve undoubtedly experienced some of them already – but the ones on this site are things you WANT your toddler to do in your kitchen. 14. FOR BOYS ONLY BUGS FOR BOYS. These are bugs that people can and do eat. Let your boy enjoy. 15. COOKING GAMES FOR KIDS These games will NOT teach a child to cook, but they are pleasant games for, I’m guessing, six to nine year olds. They are geared for girls, though there are some versions a boy interested in cooking might also enjoy. MORE COOKING GAMES: http://www.gamesgames.com/games/Cooking/Cooking.html MORE AND MORE GAMES. Your kids will find lots more kids’ games, many of them educational, by going to KIDS’ FUN in my 1000 BEST SITES FOR FAMILIES AND SENIORS. http://tourthesites.com/KidsFun/index.html © Copyright 2010 Janette G. Blackwell. All rights reserved. You may copy and use portions of this newsletter for noncommercial, personal use only. You may forward a copy to someone else as long as the copyright notice is included. Any other use of the materials in this newsletter without prior written permission is prohibited. |
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