Some random thoughts from the past week.....
1. I watched the Closing Ceremonies last night, the first Opening/Closing Ceremonies I have watched in about three cycles of Olympics. I was somewhat disappointed, especially when some singer (Avril-something? I'm so out the loop...) was performing, and the cameras only focussed on her. There was all this activity behind her- people wheeling around in rings, skating, etc, and I wanted to see them, not an overly-made-up singer whose voice I could have heard while they were showing the interesting things. And the same interview with the same athletes they always interview. And what was up with all the brides?
HOWEVER. The giant fan that lets people fly? I want one.
2. The urchin shawl is proceeding nicely. I did 14 rounds last night. I'm up to a total of 600 stitches, and have finished 113 of 291 rounds. I didn't knit much on it last week, but worked on the chart instead. I finished all the additional charting over the weekend, including designing the edging pattern. The final round will have 1440 stitches.
3. While watching a home-improvement show on TV, I was horrified to see how they were refinishing a door from an old house. The perky female co-host explained that since the house was old, they had sent a sample of the paint out for a lead test, which came back positive. She explained that this presented a health risk and needed to be "taken care of." Well, good. I'm all for cleaning up toxic and dangerous elements in the environment. She then proceeded to grab her POWER SANDER and a PAPER DUST MASK, and started sanding the door! Dry! Outside! In the wind! With nothing to catch the dust!
What a complete and total idiot. The lead-coated door was admittedly a hazard, but by dry sanding it, she multiplied the danger by a zillion percent. You could see the billows of dust on the breeze. Now that toxic dust is spread across the town, being breathed by everyone. And you need a HEPA filter mask not a paper dust mask, even if you're a professional (or a normal, smart person) and actually know what you're doing.
Removing lead paint yourself can be dangerous unless you know what you're doing, and in my book, showing this on a home-improvement program is criminal. Especially when they show it WRONG. I don't care how many disclaimers are flashed on the screen when they come back from commercials.
1 comment:
Aieeee- Lead!! Very, very bad. It's mind boggling. You should complain to the show producers, really.
I recently wrote about our rather bad experience with a recycled door to our chicken coop- look for the entry called "Lead Story". We recently just removed the entire door and frame and replaced it with a brand new door. I breathed a big sigh of relief.
We even went so far as to have our eggs tested, since if chickens are eating chips they can pass it along in their eggs. The eggs came back OK, so we feel good about eating them again.
But curses to the people who allowed lead paint to be used for so many years in the US when they KNEW it was bad back in the 1920's. Most other countries banned it. Grrr.
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