On a sliver of land across Lake Worth, between Florida and the Atlantic Ocean, sits one of America’s most famous historic homes and Florida’s first museum: Whitehall — Henry M. Flagler’s Florida home, and a gift to his wife, Mary Lily Kenan Flagler.
Category Archives: Web Shows
These are our web shows: we produce, film and publish them. Enjoy!
Burning embers in our fireplace
We have a wood-burning stove in the room where I do my work, and on cold or rainy days, I’ll light a fire and turn around to watch it from time to time. It’s calming, and those of us who sit in front of the computer all day long need to take some time every now and then and focus on other things.
I thought it’d be fun to show it to you, so I made a video of burning embers (the glowing, red remains of the burnt wood) as they slowly disintegrate.
Tell me, after watching it, don’t you feel more relaxed?
I thought so.
How to shave with a safety razor – the video
In December of 2005, I wrote an article on wet shaving. Back then, there wasn’t a lot of shaving advice on the internet — at least none I could find. So I wrote the article with the sincere desire to help others like me, who were having a tough time with disposable razors and electric razors, and with constantly irritated faces and necks. For me, it got so bad at times that my whole face and neck would just bleed from every pore, every time I took a razor to my face. It was crazy.
What worked for me then was using a Gillette Mach 3 Razor, because I didn’t know better. I would use a safety razor from time to time, just to troubleshoot where my shaving techniques needed improving. Since then, I graduated to using the safety razor all the time. What helped me improve my shaving technique was watching mantic59‘s videos on YouTube about three years ago. I was really glad to find him again today so I could link to his videos. I haven’t seen them since, and I wasn’t sure if he was still around.
Now that it’s been more than a few years since I wrote the original article, I thought I’d update it with a how-to video on wet shaving with a safety razor, where I show how a typical shave goes for me. I shot the video in 720p HD, with the wonderful Olympus PEN E-P2. My wife acted as my trusty camera-woman.
Shaving is an art, and it has to be learned. It doesn’t come naturally to us. One’s shaving form must by necessity differ, depending on the type of shaving utensil used: straight blade, safety razor, disposable razor, electric razor, etc. For me, a safety razor is the perfect balance between sustainability and shave quality, and that’s what I’m going to talk about here and in the video.
A straight blade is too scary for me. There’s that potential of slitting one’s throat. A safety razor still gives you the benefit of shaving with a sharp blade, but this time it’s contained within an apparatus that won’t let it cut your throat. A disposable razor, whether it has one, two, three, four or five (who cares!) blades, doesn’t offer as good a shave, because it’s less maneuverable, it’s made to be even safer — or in this case, useless — and creates non-recyclable waste, thus polluting the environment.
Just think how many blades and handles you use every year — all of those end up in a landfill. They can’t be recycled, because the plastic can’t be separated from the steel. It’s waste that can be easily avoided. On the other hand, all you throw away from a safety razor is a thin steel blade, which is perfectly recyclable. The razor itself lasts practically forever, which is why the companies that make shaving products would rather you get the disposable stuff. I say consequences have to trump profits sometimes, even in a capitalist society.
And, as Cary Grant says in “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House”, I like a safety razor because “I prefer the clean sweep of tempered steel as it glides across my face.” Yes indeed, Cary, yes indeed.
I hope you enjoy the video and come away from it with a better appreciation for the art of shaving, and with a few tips that will help you get a better shave!
Smelly passengers booted off planes, finally
I’m relieved to see that airlines are finally taking action against smelly passengers — by deplaning them. Jazz Air, a Canada Air subsidiary, did just that on 2/6, after wasting 15-20 minutes searching for the source of a sorely offending odor, then finding it to be a filthy man. I applaud them for having the courage to throw the bum off the plane, and suggest all airlines adopt similar policies.
I wrote about this very thing on 2/15, just over a week ago, after returning from a trip where we had to put up with an explosive trifecta of body odor, gas, and lack of manners. Enough is enough.
I don’t think I need to explain why smells such as body odor or gas shouldn’t be tolerated on airplanes — anyone who’s flown knows how cramped and stuffy things can get without any “additional input” from rude people.
Perhaps some PSAs on manners are in order?
I’m starting to think one of the things that’s missing in the US these days is an emphasis on manners — particularly things to do or not to do in public. In the past, books on manners were widely read, but these days, I think I’m pretty safe in assuming manners are not on people’s radars. That’s a shame.
We’ve got a huge influx of immigrants and visitors from all sorts of countries. We, as a country, should do what we can to let them know what’s expected of them while they stay here. If we don’t, we run the risk of lowering public standards for everyone, and I don’t think that’s what we want.
There are two urgent issues that ought to be addressed right away:
- Personal hygiene: in this day and age, with such easy access to water and soap, there is NO excuse for not staying clean. A shower every day ought to be the recommended standard for everyone.
- Passing gas in public: this should be a big NO-NO. You’d assume people would know not to do this in public, especially in tight spaces, like on airplanes, but they either don’t know or they don’t care.
I’ve written about personal hygiene in the past, and also about passing gas on airplanes, but these things obviously bear repeating…
On two recent flights, we had the misfortune of being seated next to people who smelled horribly — they had this acrid stench of stale sweat that filled your lungs and made you want to cough and run away. On both occasions, they were from under-developed countries.
I’m not saying all folks from those countries have hygiene problems. We’ve known and befriended quite a few good, decent, clean and well-mannered people from third-world countries, people who are living and working in the US and have integrated themselves nicely in US society.
Still, it seems quite a few people from under-developed countries have a hygiene problem. For whatever reason — customs, habits, etc. — they either aren’t aware that they smell, or aren’t taking steps to remedy the situation. They should be educated, because they need to know what our standards for hygiene are. Don’t think we’re offending them — we’re doing them a favor by being honest with them. Or would you rather prefer we laughed at them behind their backs and ostracized them?
Passing gas in public is a nasty habit that isn’t restricted to recent immigrants. I’ve seen this across all segments of US society, and it’s disgusting every time. Doing it in closed spaces, like on airplanes or buses or trains, makes matters worse, because the rude and filthy people who do it turn the unwitting passengers next to them into helpless victims. What can you do when there’s no place to go and the air around you is filled with the putrid stench of someone else’s bowels? You hold your breath, your eyes bulge, you hide your nose and you curse under your breath, but still, you say nothing, because you don’t want to offend, right? You’re wrong. You ought to speak up and ask whoever’s doing it to stop, because it’s offensive. Shame the shameless creep, speak up! You’re doing yourself and everyone else a favor.
Tonight, while on a flight, I did just that with a woman whose children kept passing gas behind us. They were even bragging to each other, saying “I farted!” and “I farted again!” I asked her as nicely as I could,to tell her children to stop doing it. Her reply was, “Do you have a control button?” To which I wanted to reply, “You’re the control button, lady. You’re the moral compass of your children. The education and manners you instill in them now will guide throughout their lives, so if you can’t even teach them when to fart and when not to fart, you’re not a good parent.” But she was clearly argumentative, so I simply told her that it smelled very bad, and she had no manners if she didn’t do something, then turned around and ignored her.
In spite of the unsuccessful exchange, her children stopped passing gas for the remainder of the trip, so I got the result I wanted. That’s why I want to encourage you to speak up the next time someone does that to you. Stay calm, but shame them, publicly, because public shame has always been a good reason for people to change their behavior.
Of course, the better, more mannered course of action would be for the government or for a NGO to put together a few PSAs about things one is expected to do and not to do while in public spaces in the United States. It’s high time that happened.
Raoul Pop 