A few months ago I decided to try my hand a baking a loaf of bread…hmm…not bad.  Then I tried to go back to store bought bread…Bleah!   Next, I bought The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum.  A couple of recipes didn’t work so I Googled for an errata sheet and found her blog http://www.realbakingwithrose.com (how cool!).

One of the tools that Ms. Beranbaum recommended for baking was a good instant read thermometer–a Thermapen.  It’s $85! That’s a lot of bread.  Luckily on her blog I discovered she had found a thermometer for under $20 that worked almost as well–CDN Pro Accurate„ Quick Tip„ Digital Cooking Thermometer on a Rope Model Q2-450.  Perfect.

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Recently, in Central Texas,  the life of football player Matt Nader was saved with the use of an AED (Automatic External Defibrillator: A device that can be used by anyone with a minimal amount of training to defibrillate someone whose heart has stopped).  Matt collapsed on the sidelines during a football game.  Quick action by his parents and a cardiologist in the stands who used an AED saved Matt’s life.  Matt has now started a campaign to make sure that every Texas sports team has an AED on the sideline.

Each year, about 250,000 Americans die from cardiac arrest, which can result from heart attacks, underlying heart disease or accidents, among other causes. Most such deaths happen in the home, roughly 70 percent, and 95 percent of victims die even before reaching the hospital. Paramedics can shock victims’ hearts back to a normal beat with defibrillators, but they rarely arrive in time. For defibrillation to be effective, the shock must be delivered within the first few minutes of collapse. In fact, for every minute that goes by without defibrillation, a victim’s chance of survival decreases by 7-10%. And after 10 minutes, it is unlikely that the person will survive. Recent studies have shown easily accessible defibrillators will double survival.

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We’ve had a lot of spring storms lumber through Texas recently resulting in downed trees and treee limbs throughout the backyard. Reading through the pages of warnings that come with a chainsaw is enough to intimidate most people with terms like chainsaw kickback, broken chains, etc. Looking for a better solution I found Black & Decker’s Alligator Lopper. The 6″ chain and 4.5 Amp motor is ideal for storm clean up allowing you to prune tree branches and cut up fallen branches into manageable pieces. It makes it easy to cut branches up to 4″ in diameter–far too big for manual pruners and loppers.

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