Monthly Archives: November 2008

Events

We voted today!

We got back a few minutes ago from voting for Barack Obama. Our polling place was Walter Johnson High School, in North Bethesda, MD. The line wasn’t too long. We waited about 25 minutes in line and it took about 5 minutes to vote.

The voting machines were electronic, and — I’m disappointed to say this — they were Diebold machines. After all of the controversy and research that Diebold has spurred since the last election, I am shocked to see the machines still in use, particularly after Maryland passed a paper ballot initiative a couple of years ago. These machines used a card with an embedded chips, that I inserted in the machine to get the votes written to it. When I got done, I put the card in a collection box and walked out.

Somehow this whole electronic process doesn’t inspire me with confidence. When I read up on it a few years ago, I found out that Diebold tallies the votes on a single computer, in an Access database that is easily hacked. Having designed and built Access database systems, I know how easy it is to bypass any sort of login restrictions and get right at the tables where vote totals can be changed in an instant without any sort of tracking record.

All I can say is that I hope for the best. Let’s hope this transition of power occurs smoothly, correctly, and in a democratic fashion, as George Washington wanted it to be from the get-go.

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Places

Afternoon view

 

A japanese maple from our neighborhood, bathed in afternoon light. Taken in North Bethesda, MD, USA.

A japanese maple from our neighborhood, bathed in afternoon light. Taken in North Bethesda, MD, USA.

I wanted to try something new and to post a photo directly from my photo catalog. I like the way this looks, more so than posting directly from my Flickr account.

The tree is a Japanese maple, and it lives in our community, in North Bethesda, MD, USA. We were walking one afternoon, and I just knew this was a photo opportunity not to be missed. I have a few more photos from our community in my North Bethesda set, and several thousand more to process and post…

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Places

Munich’s Rathaus-Glockenspiel at night

The city hall tower contains the famous Rathaus-Glockenspiel. We see it here lit up at night.

The city hall tower contains the famous Rathaus-Glockenspiel. We see it here lit up at night.

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How To

A cure for cold sores

I can’t take credit for this cure. A life-long nurse told me about it a few years ago, and it’s worked for us ever since. I’m not sure if she’d be comfortable having her name revealed here, so I won’t do it. But I’ll always be grateful to her for the advice.

In a few words, cold sores are cured and even prevented by Lysine. Any brand should do. Just go to your local supermarket or drug store and pick up some Lysine pills. They’re white, round, medium-sized as pills go, and they’ll do a number on your cold sore.

I, for example, have had these things since my childhood. Whenever I got stressed, or ate too much sugared stuff, or happened to be recovering from a cold or some other illness and my immune system was down, I got a cold sore. I used to be terribly embarrassed about them, and I still am, to some degree. Sometimes I’d get them four or five times a year, and each one took about 2-3 weeks to go away completely.

Now, whenever I feel that tingle in my skin and know that one’s on the way, I take a Lysine pill. You can take up to 3-4 pills a day, just don’t take them all at once. It’s not a sure-fire, 100% kind of thing, but I would say the overwhelming majority of the time, the cold sore doesn’t even show up on the skin. It just goes away. And when it does manage to break out, taking Lysine while you have it will make it go away sooner.

I don’t know why other cures don’t work, particularly the useless brand-name cremes that cost upwards of $20 for a tiny little tube (they only make things worse for me) — but inexpensive Lysine does the job just great. For less than $10, you get a huge pill bottle that will likely last you more years than you’ll remember.

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