Shocking bed story

I was playing with my biggest dog the other day. We were on the bed together, and his head was dangling over the side. Suddenly, he yelped and scrambled to escape. The bed had given him a shock! I figured the culprit was his Invisible Fence® Brand collar. He has it on all the time, because if he doesn't, I forget to put it on him before he leaves the house, and then he runs away. I took off his collar and held it close to the bed until it gave off the warning beep. It beeped whenever it was close to the wire running around the edges of the mattress. I guess that wire conducts the Invisible Fence® signal. Now I take care to keep him away from the bed.

I highly recommend the Invisible Fence® for dogs who run away, or yards without a traditional fence. You might need it even if you already have a fence. I have a four-foot chain-link fence, but my dogs are able to climb right over it, so I got estimates on installing a taller fence. I decided on the Invisible Fence®, because it was much cheaper, and could be installed inside the perimeter of the chain-link fence.

The way it works is the dogs wear a collar which signals them with a warning beep to retreat from the boundary. Training is the key. If they cross the boundary, they get a shock. If you don't train them to retreat when they hear the beep, they will go through and get shocked and keep going. I've heard folks complain that the Invisible Fence® didn't work for their dog, but then they admit they failed to train the dog properly. It's 90% training. Don't buy one unless you are prepared to spend about 15 minutes, three times a day, for a month, on training.

I don't make any money from this product endorsement. There are other brands of electronic fences for animals that work just as well, as long as you train your dog. The only difference between providers, in my opinion, is warranty or customer service. The bulk of the expense is the labor involved in installing the fence. You can buy your own and install it yourself, for 10% of the cost, but the labor would be about 50 hours, if you do it with a spade, unless you rent a machine that lays the wire for you. That method takes only an hour.

Is Picky Eating a Medical Condition That Should Be Covered by Insurance? - ABC News

Duke University is doing an online study of picky eaters to see if Picky Eating a Medical Condition That Should Be Covered by Insurance. I wonder if any of my family will sign up for it?

Mom prides herself on not raising (m)any picky eaters.

Baseball blips

I go to about one baseball game a year, usually when a friend has free tickets. I used to go more when the nephews were younger. I went last Saturday, and I was greatly amused by the sound effects played. You know the stuff: breaking glass when the ball goes over the wall, the Drifters' "Up On The Roof" for foul balls that go, well, you know where, etc. So I went looking online for a compilation, just for kicks.

Instead, I found a great page of links to sources. Some of the links contain links to stuff that's NSFW.

Zombie bite survival quiz

Created by Oatmeal

Greensboro Men fourth ugliest

I reckon that means the women are probably not too hot, either. According to TotalBeauty.com, using various stats, calculates that Greensboro is fourth on the list of cities having the ugliest men. El Paso is first.

No assisted living for this lady

This 92-year-old woman in Pennsylvania is not only living alone, she is living without electricity or running water. I doubt I would have her energy or strength when I get to be her age, but sure hope I have her attitude. She threatens the power company with a crowbar if they come around trying to hook up electricity!

She says "I say what I think...I don't pull any punches."

Mountains under the ice

Experts have mapped the mountains under the Antarctic ice cap and determined that they are as large as the Alps.

"The surprising thing was that not only is this mountain range the size of the Alps, but it looks quite similar to the (European) Alps, with high peaks and valleys," said Fausto Ferraccioli, a geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey who took part in the research.
He told Reuters that the mountains would probably have been ground down almost flat if the ice sheet had formed slowly. But the presence of jagged peaks might mean the ice formed quickly, burying a landscape under up to 4 km (2.5 miles) of ice."[emphasis mine]

How much ice is that?

"Antarctica, bigger than the United States...contains enough of it to raise world sea levels by about 57 metres (187 feet) if it ever all melted."

Does this mean that there could have been a world-wide flood at some point? That the earth could have been much warmer, and rapidly cooled? That there was some kind of event which caused all this to happen suddenly?

What if "the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights."? Genesis 7:11-12

Morse code translator

If you ever wanted to learn Morse code, which can be useful in an emergency (ie: SOS is ...---...), Stephen Phillips has hosted a Java Morse Code translator on his personal Web site, along with a Morse code alphabet, and FAQ. His CGI translator will play the sounds of the Morse code, too.

10 of the World's Smallest Animals

10 of the World's Smallest Animals

#4 is a horse which is smaller than my dog.
#5 is a cat which, full grown, fits in a drinking glass.
#9 is a cow. What would be the point of that?

via Oddee.com