Either one is fine with me, but I hope we can prevent any partisan squabbles among the guests.

We had an interesting visitor last week, a professional genealogist. She said that the lost-relative business has been strong, probably because all the unemployed persons sitting at home have time to research their family roots online. When they reach a “dead”-end, they call her for help.

She mentioned that many clients have some old photographs of great-great-grandma and grandpa. Some of the old photos are faded, some are torn, marked-up or creased. Many color photos have shifted to reddish or yellow. Some photos were behind glass and stuck to it. They ask her if there is a company that can restore those old photographs. She said that she recommends American Photo Retouching for photo restoration.

She herself is often surprised at how much better the damaged old photos can be made to look in the hands (and computers running Photoshop) of photo restoration experts.

I asked her about the idea that scientists have recently found a lemur that may be an ancestor of the human race. She laughed, and said that she doesn’t research back that far.

The idea of a strategic foreclosure is that you quit paying the mortgage, then invite the bank to take over the real estate. They don’t want it, so you are able to negotiate a workout and pay less on the mortgage.

The idea of saving money on the mortgage is certainly interesting, and perhaps a strategic forclosure is the best course of action.

Anyway, the lady is a scientist working on a method to predict when a woman will enter menopause…the time left on her biological clock. She said that the ratios of 3 hormones could give a good idea, within 6 months, of when a woman’s uterus would release its last egg. This would tell the fertility years remaining on her biological clock. She said her research team hopes to commercialize the test, but that getting it through the FDA is time-consuming and expensive. Some biological markers must be monitored every month for a year. Fortunately, this test does not detect disease (menopause is not a disease) so the regulatory requirements are not so strict.

• Did a limb fall out of a tree? Oh, we’ll cut it up for firewood next week.
• Is the toilet in 203 running again? Oh, we’ll fix it when there is time.

These are just examples, and I guess it’s just human nature.

I’ve been checking out a facility management website and I’m seeing the error of our ways. We have an obligation to ourselves and our guests to keep our buildings in tip-top shape. We need to replace bad light bulbs, fix dripping faucets, stop roof leaks and fix those places outside where the paint is peeling. We need to manage the facility, not let it manage us.

The International Facility Management Association has a convention nearby in a few months, and I might need to go and learn the newest ideas about facility management.

One fellow from South Carolina (or maybe it was North Carolina) asked if we had a big lake around here. He recently bought a boat that he found on the internet, and he pulled it behind his car all the way here. Well yes, we do have nice lake and it is well stocked with fish…so off he went with his boat and fishing pole to test it out! We asked him to make certain to clean his outboard engine, because we don’t want any non-native South Carolina (or NC) species introduced.

Today we figured it out:
1. Put papers into scanner tray. Do not press any buttons on Panasonic device, ever.
2. Launch Multi-Function Station application on the computer.
3. In the application, click the little folder icon to the right of Scan. That will open the destination folder.
4. Click Scan in the application.
5. Click email in the application. (weird, huh?)
6. The machine will begin scanning all the pages. Shortly after it finishes, you will see your multi-page pdf in the destination folder.
7. Close / discard the email message that was created.
8. Drag your pdf to wherever it is needed.

You will not find this in the Help file or the manual. We spent so much time figuring this out, I hope that somebody finds it helpful. The same trick probably works on the KX-MB771, which has fax capabilities.

He said he learned about this phenomenon at Reverse Speech International. He said they have lots of samples of reverse speech on their website, everything from an 1877 photograph recording through the Apollo 11 moon landing audio.

Al gave him a pretty hard time, they thought he was crazy. Me, I was just happy that he didn’t sign his name backwards on the credit-card slip.

We know a family down the road that are really good people, but they are down on their luck recently. They missed a couple of payments on credit cards, had some days when the father could not work due to the rains, and pretty soon they were in a deep financial hole of debt.

Then, the mother developed a medical condition (which included a severe persistent headacke and unbearable skin itching) that required some expensive prescription medications. There was no way they could afford those drugs, pills, ointments and medical procedures.

They found a way to get some free medicines that really helped them out. The drug companies actually give away free prescription medicines, and there are some charities and clinics that help out people in need.

The folks down the road are still struggling, but I think they will make it.

Septic systems are used by houses and resorts in the suburbs and rural areas for onsite wastewater disposal. They are usually buried close to the building and have a leach field that disposes of the effluent by letting it seep into the ground. Some septic systems are conventional (anaerobic) and others are aerobic. Some have leach fields (leech fields) and others use mound systems. Septic tanks work fine until they quit working, and then fixing or replacing them can be very expensive. Some people are able to fix their septic systems, a do-it-yourself septic tank repair approach.

Most people are not. A pumper truck is hired to suck out the liquid, and then there are various enzymes and chemicals you can add to get them working again.

In our case, we have our tank pumped out by American Septic Tank company. We found them on the web, and they come out the next day (or sooner if needed).