SodaStream!

I've given up on my off and on desire for a complicated and dangerous Victorian gasogene seltzer maker*, and have instead bought a safe, modern SodaStream machine. It's not going to be as exciting as the gasogene, obviously, but it's still pretty entertaining to use.

You have with this device the advantage of being able to carbonate whatever - Ribena, Mio, fruit juice, etc. I quite like the soda syrup provided with the machine. It's not a very close match to Coke Free (which is obviously what they're aiming for), but it pleases me.

I certainly don't propose to pay $30 for a proprietary CO2 canister refill. I'll be looking into getting some sort of adapter so it can take regular CO2 canisters for $5 or so.


*They were known to occasionally explode with moderate violence, so that the number of surviving examples appears to be few.

And... "Caution: Do not insert your finger in the bottle opening." You just know there's an embarassing story behind that.

Ack! A Hawk!

I knew there were Hawks living in the neighborhood. I saw one once in the parking lot eating a Skwirl, and I've seen them here and there terrifying the local songbirds and small mammals. I wasn't all that surprised, therefore, when (back in July, IIRC) I came home and heard a Hawk calling quite emphatically from the trees just beside the parking lot. I thought by the stridency of the calling that perhaps someone's territorial boundary was being disrespected, but I looked around for a bit and saw nothing. I gave up, and started up the open stairs at the side of the building toward my apartment.

There, on the landing between the second and third floors, sat this Redtailed Hawk looking at me. He (I've no idea of the sex, but thought of him as male) was giving me this absolutely defiant look. I'm pretty sure he expected to be eaten, but was determined to go down hard. I prolly looked fairly stupid, staring at him open-mouthed. I stood there staring for a minute or so before I remembered that I had a camera on my tablet. Getting the tablet out broke the spell, and he retreated before my superior technology*. That's the moment captured here.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m6e9ya2w6wgj3od/Hawk.jpg

Now that I had documentation that it had actually happened (driven in part by my regret that I didn't get pictures of the Turkey family) I decided it was more important to get help for him than to take more pictures. He slowly hopped and flapped his way up the stairs before me, which gave me hope that he wasn't hurt too badly. I finally got around him, and went into my apartment to look up a number for Animal Control.

Animal Control was a disappointment, sending me to the Humane Society. The Humane Society doesn't deal with wild birds, but they gave me a number for the County Bird Rehabilitator. This is apparently a volunteer position, as it rang up a private company, and the person in question was out to lunch. I left my message, prolly sounding more than a little upset at that point, because I was afraid for the bird.

I checked back outside, and now the Hawk had managed to get himself up on the railing, and was perching there. I thought about taking the camera and getting more pictures, but decided he was prolly frightened enough already, and kept away, checking up on him every few minutes.

Finally the Bird Rehabilitator called me back. I went outside at his direction to see if I could tell whether the feathers were disarranged or if there was any obvious sign of injury (I hadn't closely checked at that point). I got about ten feet from him, and he flew away! I was all like "ZOMG! He just flew away!" The Bird Rehabilitator opined that perhaps he'd just crashed and stunned himself going after prey (they do that more often than one might think, apparently), but that he'd prolly be okay.

In retrospect, the other Hawk frantically calling was undoubtedly his mate warning him that I was coming.

It has been, on the whole, a good summer for experiencing birds.



*Me holding a big black square up in front of my face prolly wasn't at all what he was prepared for.

Translation Request

Is anyone able to read this?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zchtiqn3znf15k9/20131103_231407.jpg

I'm looking for the 'system reset' choice, ideally. Something to set it to factory conditions.