Showing posts with label cleaning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cleaning. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Mission Briefing Notes for Operation Shoo-Fly

Target:The common housefly

Known Aliases:  
Musca domestica (M.D.), 
irritating insect, 
Diptera,and 
Argh @#!$%#@4% Die!!!!!


Location: Seemingly everywhere! Targets have definitely been spotted in your area. Last seen outside, inside, in windowsills, around dirty dishes, around clean dishes, on my head, on the table, and most annoyingly buzzing around my face while I was trying to sleep.

Background Information:
 The order Diptera is thought to have originated in the Palearctic region, particularly the Middle East. The crafty suborder Cyclorrhapha has utilized the warm wet summer to amass a strong army. Now as the cold rainy fall season approaches they begin their annual assault. These obnoxious pests invade our homes undetected and may at first seem benign. 

The first sign of invasion may be the occasional window buzzer who quickly tires and dies. Previously it was thought that these window buzzers were just trying to get outside again but anyone who has tried to shoo one of these flies away understands that these flies are not just seeking escape. Recent research has revealed that these flies are just initial scouts and those seemingly senseless and endless taps against the window are actually a complicated signal language to troops on the outside. 

Further signs of invasion involve troops sneaking in through open windows and doors. The best defense at this point is vigilance and window screening. However these are only temporary stop-gap measures, these sinister invaders have an uncanny ability to find any tiny gap, crack or opening into a house. 


Full on invasion finds you brushing and shooing flies wherever you are in your house. While eating, brushing your teeth, reading, watching t.v., cleaning and yes, even sleeping you are never safe from their constant attack. The flies won't leave you alone even after being brushed aside multiple times they return to land on you/bite you over and over. As the days grow shorter and the weather gets colder the remaining flies in your house will grow large and complacent. Instead of immediately fleeing a casual shoo they require more direct flicking to leave. These "dopey" flies are fat and lazy and prefer to crawl all over your face in the wee hours of the morning. 


It is important to point out that these persistent invaders present a larger threat than simple annoyance and interruption of sleep. Our sources (wikipedia) indicate that they are capable of carrying over 100 pathogens, such as typhoid, cholera, salmonella, bacillary dysentery, tuberculosis, anthrax, ophthalmia, and parasitic worms.

Mission: 
Your mission is to be on your guard for these invaders and eliminate them if necessary. Take all necessary precautions including ensuring doors are closed behind you and windows remain sealed. Learn to identify the signs of invasion and take action immediately at the first sign of intruders. 
 

Rules of Engagement:
Use of lethal force is approved and encouraged. All targets are to be eliminated on sight. A particularly vigilant agent might even go on the offense and seek out invaders that may be in hiding. 
The threat is real and it is advised that all agents arm themselves with flyswatters, magazines, newspapers and even their bare hands if necessary. 
The public may be aware of this mission however due to the risk of infection, and the suspected body count, we ask all agents to use discretion and dispose of any enemy carcasses immediately. Approved methods of disposal are: flushing, Kleenex/toilet paper, vacuuming, and magic. 


Good Luck!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

I'm going Nuts!

So moving day has come and gone, and I am now once again living with my parents. This in itself poses its own unique challenges and changes. However the biggest challenge right now is trying to fit my house into my room. Everything fit so nicely into my apartment, however it is really hard to put all that back into my childhood room that was never completely emptied in the first place. I am in the process of cleaning out my room and throwing out a lot of stuff I didn't realize I still had. However this process is made difficult by the large amount of things I have in my room- I need my clothes and some things in my room and easy to access but this is hard since there is no space or empty drawers for them. Basically I have resorted to an old college trick of moving stacks of stuff from my floor to my bed and from my bed to my floor depending on which space I need the most. It's not the most efficient system however so the cleaning needs to happen sooner rather than later.


Today was my second day working on this monumental task. To date I have emptied:
4 milk crates/ milk crate sized bins
4 1/2 large cardboard boxes
3 1/2 dresser drawers
as well as gone through my closet and drawers and identified a large stack of clothes for the second hand store.

Today I was mainly working on some boxes in my closet which mainly contain old compositions, knick-knacks, crafts, etc. from kindergarten to highschool. Some of these items are treasured momentos, others are humorous stories (perhaps I'll post some sometime.) and there is always a hefty dose of junk and detritus. Perhaps one of the strangest things I found was this:  (pic from google)
What would you do if you found something like this lying on your closet floor? Perhaps you already know what this is, I however did not. So I did the only sensible thing a person could do. - I took it outside, smashed it with a rock, and examined/ smelled the remnants. Turns out it was a Brazil nut. I have never seen or eaten a Brazil nut, and as far as I can tell neither has any of my family members. Yet somehow a Brazil nut ended up in my bedroom closet.

In honour of this strange occurrence here are some interesting facts about Brazil nuts:
  • They are an excellent source of selenium, copper, magnesium and phosphorous
  • Perhaps they are too good of a source of selenium- you can easily eat way more than the recommended daily intake of selenium with just a handful of nuts
  • They also contain high quantities of Barium and Radium (not enough to take an X-ray but still 1000x higher than many other foods)
  • They are a very fatty nut and can apparently be lit like a candle
  • The Brazil nut tree relies on a special bee to pollinate it so it produces fruit, this bee relies on a certain orchid to reproduce, this orchid is sensitive to rainforest deforestation, so without a healthy rainforest there are no brazil nuts 
  • Botanically speaking the Brazil nut isn't really a nut but a seed
  • Most wild Brazil nuts are planted by a guinea pig- sized rodent called the Agouti. The Agouti chews through the hard outer casing to get to the "nuts" it eats a few and then buries the rest- forgetting about them like North American squirrels and chipmunks.
  • Brazil nut oil can also be used for a lubricant for clocks, artist paints and cosmetics