Archive for July, 2008

There are many poison ivy treatments; steroids, creams, antihistamines. But even with the marvels of modern medicne I wound up in the ER a few years ago because I scratched my arm so much it became infected.

Of course, I already blogged about Tecnu Extreme, and it really does work. But what if it’s too late? What if you wake one morning to find your arm swollen and red, little bubbles of fluid already formed, like I did yesterday morning?

Heat is a treatment that you won’t find many places. I’d heard years ago that extreme cold or heat could chase the histamines back from the skin, thus easing the pain and itching. Cold, even ice cube cold, doesn’t do it for me; I need heat. So I stick the offending appendage under the hottest running water I can stand for a minute, and there is no itching for up to 8 hours.

This particular treatment has worked the last few times the ivy’s jumped on me, and saved my sanity.

Disclaimer: If you try it, I am not responsible for the temperature of your water. You are the best judge of how much heat your skin can take before burning occurs.

I’m not this far along yet, but a couple of years ago:

It’s Arthur’s fault that I now have poison ivy all over my arms.

I had someone lined up to do the hedge on Monday, but he decided that we couldn’t afford that and went out to cut it himself Sunday. Well, it’s hot out, being July. And he’s not in the best of shape right now…. so only about half got trimmed.
I went out later on when it cooled off to help him pick up the clippings… and I should have known to use Tecnu Extreme when I got back to the house, because that hedge is rife with PI… but I didn’t. OK, so it comes down to personal responsibility; I should have remembered to use it.

The guys didn’t show up yesterday to do the rest of the hedge, so it’s just sitting there looking stupid. I’m waiting for code enforcement to show up at my door. Whether or not their absence had anything to do with the hedge being half done, I guess we’ll never know.

Poison Ivy can easily freak me out.. the same way that a plane at 37,000 feet, a sub a mile down or a rush hour parking lot with me in the center lane. Loss of control escalates quickly to panic spirals into a mini meltdown.
Unless I remember that I’m not in control of… anything. Ever. OK, now I can breathe again. See how easy that was?

Sorry that I blamed you, honey. ;^)

Before moving to south Florida I never knew that many innocuous plants can quickly become a nuisance in a place where ‘freezing’ is an indoor activity. Take the ferns in my front bed; I planted one two years ago and they took over the entire bed and would have attacked the boat soon, I’m sure of it.

So, I’ve been pulling them; you can see my newest little pile of fern ‘kills’ at the end of the bed. [snerk] Unlike a normal weed, these have an intricate web of underground connections.

A different view. Click to make it larger.

You can see I still have a ways to go… but don’t worry; in a month they’ll be back and a year from now I’ll be out there once again, pulling. It’s a good thing I was out there sweating when I was, though. My regular carrier Sue must be on vacation and the replacement delivered proactiv to me, some form of acne treatment. Only it’s not mine. I walked it two houses down and left it on the doorstep. I wonder how often that happens?

…and it wants to run the Mayor out on a rail.

It’s called Cuil -pronounced ‘cool’- masterminded by ex-Googlite Anna Patterson. She built a little engine that can: the search index spans 120 billion Web pages, at least 3 times the size of Google’s index.

Rather than trying to mimic Google’s method of ranking the quantity and quality of links to Web sites, Patterson says Cuil’s technology drills into the actual content of a page. And Cuil’s results will be presented in a more magazine-like format instead of just a vertical stack of Web links. Cuil’s results are displayed with more photos spread horizontally across the page and include sidebars that can be clicked on to learn more about topics related to the original search request.

Finally, Cuil is hoping to attract traffic by promising not to retain information about its users’ search histories or surfing patterns - something that Google does, much to the consternation of privacy watchdogs.

Loving this bit about husband Tom Costello’s naming of Cuil:

Costello’s Irish heritage inspired Cuil’s odd name. It was derived from a character named Finn McCuill in Celtic folklore.

Google has become synonymous with internet search and has it’s tentacles into advertising and let’s not forget ranking, which can make or break a person’s ability to make money off their site. If Cuil can succeed, more power to them. I’ll start using them today, though Firefox does not have a Cuil addon… yet.