About Town: Cool, clear water

Boy oh boy!  Am I ever glad we no longer have to count the number of glasses of water we drink every day.

It was pounded into our heads when we were kids that we needed 8 glasses of water every day.  Then a year or so ago they said that it didn’t matter if it were water or some other liquid, so I switched to decaf coffee for about half of my liquid consumption.

Now the big news is that we don’t even have to drink 8 glasses of liquid.  I plan to quit counting and let the chips fall where they may.  I wonder if a vodka tonic counts as liquid.  I drink those at least once a day because the tonic water contains quinine which relieves leg cramps at night.  And, yes, it really does work.

Of course you can also use that pickle juice I think I told you about a few months ago, but the tonic water tastes better.

Did you ever hear of a “clean” room. No it doesn’t mean your bedroom that you recently cleaned. It is a special room or building where computer chips are made.  The facility has to be spotless.

People that work in that room have to wear special equipment and coverings.  The only thing on the body that can be exposed to the air is a person’s eyes.  No clothing per se is permitted.

Even cloth will exude teeny pieces of dust or threads that will contaminate the chips. My friend Steve used to work for a large corporation that built these rooms. Steve tells me that even perfume will contaminate the room through its odors or should I say sweet smells.

I guess once the chips are made and leave the “clean” room you can put your dirty hands on them, but not while they are in the process of construction.

There are several large companies that make chips for all kinds of technical equipment.  Too bad I’m so old that I don’t understand all of the modern concepts.

I do remember that the Bank of America and the P.G.and E. had the first Fax machines in Orland.  We couldn’t believe that you could send typewritten pages and even pictures through the telephone wires. I learned last week what a Wii was, but I’ve still never seen one.

At the Orland City Council meeting last Monday night several items were discussed, but, since I wasn’t able to attend, I didn’t hear the discussions.  On the other hand I heard a lot from other persons about the discussions.

Seems the Economic Development Commission has turned the Directional Sign Project, meaning the tombstone project, back to the Council.  Seems there has been a lot of local discussion about this project so now the Council has to figure out what to do.

Apparently these signs which were supposed to represent the Arch, look more like tombstones than arches.  There has already been enough talk about Orland dying on the vine, so we probably shouldn’t have tombstones verifying it.  I guess the Arch itself is up for getting a cleaning and some new paint.  Hip, hip, hooray!

Wasn’t that a humungous crowd of criminals that the City of Orland and County of Glenn rounded up last week?  I don’t know whether or not I should say criminals. Some of the persons had outstanding warrants while others were on probation.  Anyway the officers wound up with about 64 persons to whom they issued citations.  Seems we’ve had a lot more crimes in Glenn County than we had just a few years ago.  Guess if you commit a crime you might expect to be arrested sooner or later.  Good going, Officers!

I heard on the radio the other morning that when the telephone was first invented, it took seventy odd years before even half of our populations had a phone.  When the radio was invented, it took approximately 58 years before half other populations had a radio.  But, when the Ipod was put on the market, it only took 4 years for half the populations to own one.  I feel so sad because I’m in the other half—no Ipod at my house. 

If, by the way, you have an old VCR connected to your T.V. you will find that it is all screwed up because the time change was different this year.  I couldn’t figure out for awhile why my T.V. was recording my soap opera an hour early when the soap opera wasn’t even on.  My friend Linda told me that a persons computer clock will correct itself if you keep up with your updates.  So just check your equipment that contain daylight savings time automatic clocks.   Sometimes I think these automatic things are getting the best of us.