Blog of David Filiatrault

25 inches of snow in non-drift areas of my yard.  Dealt with power being out for 22.5 hours.  Street has not been plowed even once.  According to WTOP, VDOT won't start start plowing neighborhood's until Monday, and before getting finished will be put on hold by the 5+ inches we're supposed to get on Tuesday.  Makes me fondly remember Rochester NY's snow removal efficiency.  

If you have poor cell phone coverage in parts of your house that you actually want to be in when you want to get or make calls, and have a bluetooth enabled cell phone and have a cell signal somewhere in your house, here is a solution. Buy the Panasonic KX-TH1212B, put it in the area of your house that has cell phone reception, then (after 1 time 1 minute configuration) put your cell phone within bluetooth range of the KX-TH1212B, then you can take the a Panasonic handset anywhere in your home and make and receive calls through your cell phone, and/or a landline or VOIP line plugged into the base unit.   This is also a great solution for when you need to charge your cell phone, and want to be in other places in your house.  The DECT6 cordless technology the KX-TH1212B is based on has great range.  With base unit on my 2nd floor I still get great call clarity in all parts of my basement, and even all parts of my 1 acre yard and into the street.  


The base unit comes with 2 handsets, and you can expand it to up to a total of 6 handsets to leave in the rooms of your home.

In what little spare time I have, I've started helping to improve the website of Five Talents International, which is empowering the poor by promoting innovative savings and microcredit programs, business training, and spiritual development.  Other words for what they do is microfinance and microenterprise development. For example, I'm getting FTI listed in Microfinance Institution directories. If you like what you see, please see how to Get Involved

http://www.healthspace.ca/vdh enables viewing the Food Safety Inspection reports for locations in Virginia

For a quick reference on which plastic icons to avoid, see http://healthychild.org/5steps/5_steps_5/

If you want a full reference on avoiding poison plastics, see http://www.besafenet.com/pvc/documents/PVC-Guide-1.pdf

I've started a simple wiki page listing free online educational games for kids at http://free-educational-online-games.wikispaces.com/ which have both educational value and have held my kids attention for over 5 minutes. I hope any parents of preschool, kindergarten through sixth grade will join me in listing games which meet this criteria.

Ever get curious about the path your t-shirt took before you bought it? Ever wonder what happens to your t-shirt after you donate it? Ever wonder what all the fuss is about with the globalization protests? If so, I recommend reading The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade

GasBuddy at http://www.gasbuddy.com/ is a great site for finding the cheapest gas prices in your local area. And iPhone apps like the free Cheap Gas! make it easy to get the info just when you need it, while driving around.

While the release of Safari 4 is labeled a "Beta", I've been using it for about 24 hours without any crashes or problems. And it is noticeably faster even with just day to day browsing. I highly recommend checking it out. While most people think of it as the Mac browser, there is Windows version. There are tons of new features too, but I've made the switch just for the speed alone.

I've been spending some time tonight assessing if I should do a mortgage refi rate lock or let it float. The most informative site I found on mortgage rate trends was http://www.bankrate.com/brm/static/rti.asp