To make maximum use of your cleaning time, it’s essential that you clear the room of all bath accessories (towels, rugs, scales, etc). And there’s a a few things you can do daily to keep dirt at bay: ventilate the bathroom (excess moisture promotes the growth of mildew) and spray the shower and tub with disinfectant (to reduce soap scum buildup).

Here’s a simple four-step plan:

Step 1-Spray

Start by spraying an all-purpose cleaner on the fixtures (tub, sink, toilet and faucets). Allow the cleaner to sit and do its work while you move on to step 2.

Step 2-Wipe the Walls

Spray a sponge with an antibacterial cleanser and wipe all the walls and any woodwork with it. Be sure to concentrate on the areas that are covered with fingerprints and spots.

Step 3-Clean Fixtures

Wipe the fixtures and rinse.

Start with the tub, so that the cleanser stays on the toilet longer. Then clean the toilet (use a brush for the inside). Finish with the sink.

Step 4-Mop the Floor

Starting with the area furthest from the door, mop the floor. Use a sponge or a sponge mop dipped in a mild floor detergent, and change the rinse bucket whoever it looks murky.

For a Clean Soap Dish

Just fill a small dish with pebbles and place your soaps on top. The result of this? Soapy water will drip to the bottom of the dish, so the soaps will always look fresh and pretty.

Boston ferns, striped dracaena and palms are easy care plants that will remove indoor pollutants like formaldehyde, a major chemical found in furniture, cabinetry and flooring. They will thrive in your bathroom and also purify the air.

For high-quality bath towels, shower curtains and other bathroom accessories, visit www.nationalbathworks.com.

Helping the Elderly

Residents and staff at the Sunny View Retirement Community in San Jose, California have been trying out a robotic device called Paro (for a five-month test run) that was developed by a Japanese inventor to serve as a mechanical pet for elderly nursing-home residents.

Designed to resemble a cute baby harp seal and equipped with microprocessors and electronic sensors that respond to light, touch, voices and movement), Paro is an early entry in a new wave of interactive robots that university researchers and tech companies are developing for people with special needs (seniors with dementia, children with autism, stroke survivors and those who have been through other conditions).

The researchers believe that Paro and other similar robots can be a calming and socializing influence on people who have cognitive problems; but some critics are wary, fearing that this process will lead to machines replacing human caregivers or companions (MIT social scientist Sherry Turkle has written that while robots like Paro may offer comfort to isolated seniors, “it could make us less likely to look for other solutions for their care“). Maja Mataric, University of Southern California computer science professor who studies human-robot interaction, says it’s important to consider the ethics of using robots. But for some nursing home residents, she added, “the alternatives might be staring at the floor for hours, or at a television set. What’s good about that?”

And according to Sunny View activity director Katie Hofman, isolation is a big concern with aging seniors (the staffers at Sunny View’s memory care center have used a pair of Paro robots to draw the residents out of their rooms-and into conversations. There’s a resident cat, and sometimes visitors bring dogs, but live animals can be messy or present safety issues with some residents, Hofman said).

Front Porch, the non-profit organization that operates Sunny View, is looking into further use of the Paro robots. Some residents act as if the Paro is a live animal, while others clearly recognize it’s not, Hofman said. “They will say, ‘You’re not real, are you?’ But they still think it’s cute,” she said. “The way I look at it is: If they want to respond as if it’s real, we want to honor that. Or if someone else isn’t interested, we’re not going to force it. But whatever will help them live their life in the fullest, we’re going to meet them there” (Source: “Japanese inventor develops robotic device to help elderly”-San Jose Mercury News-The (Sunday) Vindicator, August 10, 2014).

The Homebound

For the past six years, Amy Lamb, an app development consultant at Northwestern Mutual (Waukesha, Wisconsin), has been forced by a severe poinsettia allergy to stay away from her workplace during the holiday season. But this recent holiday season was enhanced by the BeamPro, a 62-inch-tall robot on wheels that Lamb can control from her home computer (once logged on, Lamb’s in front of a Web camera that makes her face visible on the robot’s screen. She’s then able to move-robotically-around the office. With BeamPro (made by Palto Alto-based Suitable Technologies Inc., part of the growing telepresence robot market) she can also attend meetings remotely, turn the robot toward whoever’s speaking, join her friends for lunch in the cafeteria and even participate in a holiday skit. “The cool thing this year is that I got got to actually see the poinsettia tree without having a reaction and got to hear the Christmas band,” she said.

Key markets for the BeamPro robots are health care, education and business (they’re often used to be in multiple places at once, or to tour factories in other parts of the world). When Northwester Mutual purchased 14 in late 2014, the company perception was not positive, said Karl Gouverneur, chief tech officer.

But now, given the company’s seven buildings in the Milwaukee area, the robots have come to be viewed as important tools in helping to build a more interactive and collaborative workplace, he said. There have been minor issues-one fell down a step once; and sometimes impatient employees leave a robot in the meeting room, rather than returning it to the docking station. And the robots can’t operate inside elevators (yet; an upgrade is underway).

Nevertheless, the robots represent an incremental step forward, said Bilge Mutlu, associate professor of computer science-University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Our research shows that embodiment adds to collaboration. It improves trust over more impoverished versions of communication, such as just audio or video” (Source: “Can’t make it to work? Robot keeps woman plugged in”-Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (TNS)-The (Sunday) Vindicator, January 31, 2016).

Until recent years, military cooking was never regarded as having much of a great reputation (it was considered more “slop” than anything; during World War II, K rations included a lemon beverage powder that was used to clean floors!).

Today, some of America’s best cooks can be found among the troops: Senior Chief Petty Officer (USN-United States Navy) Derrick Davenport is a culinary specialist who competed for and won the title of Armed Forces Chef of the Year in the prestigious annual (20-year-old) competition.

Training and testing cooks for top-quality cuisine is something the military now takes very seriously.

“If you had told someone in World War II that we would be having a competition to find the best military chef, they’d have laughed at you”, said Paul Morando, director of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum. “Historically, army rations were not the best-tasting meals you could get.”

And until the early to mid-20th century, cooks weren’t trained at all; they were recruited, or whichever soldier was interested enough or designated to be the cook, became the cook. Officials soon realized that trained cooks were not only needed, but crucial as a result of two factors: “In the early days, food poisoning was common,” said Sgt. Major Mike Warren (1994 Armed Forces Chef of the Year and now a competition judge). And: “The last meal a soldier gets could be his last meal.”

If troops are on the move, they’re often eating portable Meals-Ready-to-Eat, or MREs.
But at a larger base, the dining facilities are very similar to those at a college (there’s salad bars, fast food sections and customized specialty stations).

One of the benefits of the Armed Forces Chef of the Year competition is holding military chefs up to the same private industry standards sanctioned by the American Culinary Federation (which also sanctions the competition), a civilian organization, with the intention that well-trained military chefs can compete for civilian jobs when their service ends.

“The soldiers we get today have grown up with Emeril, Rachael Ray, Iron Chef…..There’s a stigma that military cooking is institutional and generic. But society has a higher expectation for chefs today. And I’d put out chefs up against any in the industry” (the army has a Training With Industry program; it’s very successful).

Current Chef of the Year winner Davenport is also preparing for an eventual return to the civilian world, juggling military duties with graduate school (going for a master’s degree in business administration).
Upon military retirement, he’d like to teach cooking and maybe open his own restaurant, with a combination of “Michigan meets French meets southern” cuisine.

Did You Know That…..

In 2012, the U.S. Armed Forces consumed:

24,884,000 pounds of cooked chicken

42, 773 gallons of soy sauce

8, 800,000 tortillas

109,000 gallons of salsa

6,072,000 pounds of ground beef

214,000 gallons of ketchup

5,250,000 gallons of milk

448,000 pounds of Thanksgiving turkey

3,100,000 pounds of cooked bacon

367,000 pounds of grits

780,000 gallons of orange juice

765,000 pounds of coffee

Sources: “Top Gun Chef” by Sarah DiGregorio-Parade magazine, May 19, 2013
Food statistics-Sgt. Major Mark Warren and the Joint Culinary Center of Excellence

According to ShopSmart (the shopping magazine from the publisher of Consumer Reports), paying a higher price for a mattress doesn’t mean that it’s better. Sometimes it pays to pay less.

It’s possible to spend upwards to $3,000 (or more!).
What you should spend instead: upwards to about $1,000 (ideally, not much more than this.
The reason for this is because Shopmart’s labs simulated eight years of mattress use by conducting a series of endurance tests on dozens of mattresses ( pushing and pulling a 308-pound roller across them at least 30,000 times, then cutting each one open to check for internal damage. Sensors were also put on 36 points of testers’ spines to determine how well that line is maintained when lying on their backs.

And a test was conducted on how level the mattresses kept their spines when lying on their sides. A 38-pound weight-with sensors inside-was also dropped on the mattresses to check on how much “vibration” was picked up amidst a sudden shift of weight).
In a recent study, a $1,075 Serta mattress rated higher in durability than a deluxe $4, 800 Duxiana.

Did You Know That…..

There are three main types of mattresses.
Foam provides surface level comfort (and there are two kinds of foam; one is body-activated, while the other kind is weight-activated).
A Spring mattress is for firm support.
A Hybrid contains both springs and foam.

Sleep mainly on your stomach? Try medium firmness.
Back sleeper? Soft-to-medium firmness is for you.
For side sleepers, go for soft support.

Self Service Mattress Shopping

The owners of a small, Milwaukee, Wisconsin furniture chain are considering the unique idea of a self-service mattress shop in three towns.
These establishments would open and close remotely, be fitted with security cameras and have no staff on the premises.

The brother duo of Arvid and Ben Huth (started P.M. Bedroom Gallery, now Penny Mustard, in 1993; there are also four stores in suburban Chicago) confirmed that they are experimenting with what they have dubbed HASSLEss Mattress: “It’s a work in progress.”

But officials in the three targeted suburbs say that plans submitted to them sound consistent and appear to be well on their way to being put into play. The basics of the business operation would be: An electronically opened shop with test mattresses, an on-site computer for further information and online ordering, a contact phone number and intensive monitoring by video cameras.

HASSLEss also has a website and leased space in a shopping mall for two months as a preview experiment during late spring/early summer of this year.
The Huths’ approach takes the notion that many shoppers (if not most) would rather not have a salesman hovering nearby as they’re checking out and testing the mattresses. “People are not particularly comfortable just flopping down,” said retail consultant Anne Brouwer.

“This is a big-ticket purchase,” she continued. “So how many customers will feel they have enough information and confidence in their choice, in the retailer, in how the process will work, in giving out their credit information?”
“They’ve done a great job of building their distinctive personality in their business,” Brouwer said. “They offer a quality product. I applaud them for being courageous and trying things.”

Sources: “When cheaping out really pays off”-From Consumer Reports-The (Sunday) Vindicator, August 17, 2014, ¨how to buy a new mattress¨ by Christina Yeotsas-Real Simple, September 2014 and “Mattress chain’s policy: Let the buyer be”-by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel-The (Sunday) Vindicator, July 13, 2014

The new concept of augmented reality (interactive holograms that enlighten, entertain and empower humans; for example, in the movie “Iron Man” the main character, Tony Stark, scans information-filled holograms that are beamed in front of his mask) has arrived.

Augmented reality has the potential to reach far more people than the virtual reality concept, because its main purpose is to be a seamless supplement to daily living instead of going into artificial dimensions (which is what virtual reality does)  “Augmented reality is going to have a lot more practical applications simply because there a lot more people out there who interact with things in the real world,” says Greg Kipper, who studied the technology’s potential in his book, Augmented Reality: An Emerging Technologies Guide to AR.

With a virtual screen, you may see an ingredient list appear for a certain recipe before your eyes while food shopping. Or while reading an astronomy book, an image of the solar system may start orbiting around you. With a VR headset, however, your immediate surroundings are blocked off, as you become totally submerged in a different world.

The most visible progress in augmented reality so far, have been through the startups Meta, Atheer and Magic Leap; but it’s only a matter of time before leading tech companies will also be involved.

Working Abroad Through Remote Year

Want to travel the world and get paid for it? It’s now possible, thanks to Greg Caplan, founder of Remote Year. Launched in 2014, this program arranges for 75 people to spend each month living and working in a different location (for about $27,000-consisting of a 5,000 down payment and $2,000 each month for 11 months), you’ll get: Airfare, private accommodations, 24-hour access to a Wi-Fi workspace, group activities, travel insurance and more.

Remote Year contestants come from all over the world; they’re writers, designers and developers, small business owners and even lawyers, says Caplan. And thousands apply for those 75 spots in each group (the third season recently began on June 1, 2016 and includes stays in Lisbon, Prague and Buenos Aires).

Many companies see and place much value not only on Remote Year participants, but also on the applicants; they’re actively sought-and recruited- by Remote Year’s Preferred Partner Program. “We want to enable anyone who can break free from their desks to see the world, advance their professional skills and gain lifetime friends and networks,” says Caplan.

Did You Know That…..

37 percent of U.S. workers have telecommuted.

Sources: “Making augmented technology a reality”-Associated Press-The (Sunday) Vindicator, April 3, 2016, “Work and Wanderlust” sidebar by Ana Connery and http://www.gallup.com-Parade, April 17, 2016

Recipe no. 1:

Nutty Jalapeno-Chicken Stuffed Peppers by Lori M., Southwest region

Ingredients

12 large jalapeno peppers, split open (not all the way through) and seeded
½ cup of peanut butter
1 cup shredded cooked chicken
1 3-ounce package of cooked bacon pieces
½ cup of shredded cheddar cheese
¼ cup of mayonnaise
1 cup crushed cornflakes

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the peppers in a medium bowl and cover with boiling water for 2 minutes. Drain and pat dry.

In a medium bowl, mix together the peanut butter, chicken, bacon and cheese. Fill each jalapeno with the mixture. Smear each pepper with a little mayonnaise and roll in cornflakes in shallow dish to cover.

Place jalapeno on a non-stick baking sheet. Bake in preheated oven until golden, about 15-20 minutes.
Makes 12 servings

Recipe no. 2:

Carolina Dreaming Appetizer Meatballs by Janice E., Southeast region

Ingredients

½ cup peanut butter
¼ cup fig preserves
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon minced or grated fresh ginger
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon ground red pepper
1 ¼ pounds ground turkey
4 green onions, finely chopped (including green tops)
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
1 large egg
1 teaspoon salt
Optional: Diced green onion tops or chopped parsley

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Whisk together the peanut butter, preserves, Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice until well blended. Add ginger, black and red pepper, mixing well. Reserve.

Place approximately half of the peanut butter mixture into mixing bowl (reserve the remainder for later). Add turkey, green onions, parsley, egg and salt to mixing bowl and mix lightly but thoroughly.

Roll mixture into 1-inch balls and place 1 inch apart on lightly greased, rimmed baking sheet.

Place into the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the pan from oven and brush tops of meatballs with the remaining peanut butter mixture.

Return the pan to oven and bake for about 5-8 minutes more, or until nicely browned.

Remove from the oven. Arrange on a serving plate and sprinkle with diced green onion tops or parsley, if desired.

Optional: Use with decorative toothpicks placed in each meatball for easy consumption.

Source: “Hometown recipes”-Family Features-The Vindicator, July 30, 2014