Scales For You

Numbers are very precise.  If you don’t believe me, reverse two numbers in a phone number and see if it works.  Or let the bank run a check through the bank as $425.32 when it was supposed to be $25.32.  Just one number can make a big difference!

Scales need to be precise, also.  Whether you’re measuring in grams, ounces, pounds, or pennyweights, you want the same item to weigh the same amount each time it is placed on the scales.  If it doesn’t, you can’t depend on the results, whether you’re cooking, measuring medicines, or weighing yourself.  Escali scales are accurate and precise.  Check them out.

I’m hosting the June meeting of our Retired Teachers Association next Friday at my house.  As a result of this, I have about a million things I need to get done in a hurry.  However, I am babysitting a 3 1/2 month old baby girl.  It sounds like I’m going to have to do some multi-tasking.  Since I retired, it seems I had forgotten all about the multi-tasking concept. 

There are many products on the market that can help us multi-task.  In fact, there are now multifunctional scales available.  These scales can perform numerous measuring tasks, so I guess we could safely say, they can multi-task.  It’s funny how we invent new words to describe our latest endeavors.  I doubt that my parents ever heard the word “multi-tasking,” though I’m sure they did some of it.  Life is funny!

Educators have a big and important job.  Think of the load that they carry.  Children come in different sizes, personalities, backgrounds and abilities, yet the schools are supposed to help them all become useful, productive citizens.  It’s not like manufacturing a product where all the parts are exactly alike, and when put together correctly, the products are exact replicas of each other.  Children are not alike, do not learn the same way, and do not become exact replicas of anybody, yet society wants to judge the schools based on the output, regardless of the beginning product.  We need to thank our teachers every day for helping us and our children and grandchildren improve our lives.

Any profession needs the best equipment available to do its job well.  Schools need the latest technology whether it be computers or scales in the chemistry lab.  Technology changes so rapidly, it is hard, with limited funding, to keep abreast of all the changes.  It’s difficult to imagine the improvements that have taken place in manufacturing scales.  Digital and electronic scales are so much more accurate and precise than what we used to have.  Help your school update their equipment.  It’s important to our future.

We took our pickup truck and a trailer to a lime pit and got a load of rocks to use in our landscaping.  We had to drive onto a large scale before we loaded and again, after we loaded, for them to determine how much we owed for the rocks.  We had about 2.6 tons of rocks on the trailer.  That may not seem like a lot, but when you’re unloading them by hand and placing them on the side of a bank, it takes a lot of time and effort.

Many items we need to weigh cannot be weighed in tons.  I’m happy to say that my bathroom scale does not have to be capable of weighing a ton.  Actually, most non-liquid ingredients in cooking and grocery shoopping are weighed in grams.  If you read the labels in the grocery store, you find how many grams of fat, protein, fiber, etc. are in the product.  Most standards and legal requirements for nutrition labels on food products require relative contents to be stated per 100 grams of the product, thus it can also be read as a percentage.  One ounce (avoirdupois) is equal to 28.349523125 grams.  These small increments cannot be determined unless you have a gram scale.  www.holladaypartners.com offers a variety of scales, many of which can be used to weigh grams.  Choose the scale that meets your needs.

On the cover of the May 2009 NEA Today publication “This Active Life”, it said “When it comes to a happy retirement, FUN is FUNdamental.”  This caught my eye, probably because I am retired, and I like to have fun (nice, clean fun, that is).  I think enjoying life probably lengthens life.  A happy attitude is a healthy attitude.  I know for sure, other people enjoy being around a person with a happy attitude.

It’s hard to have fun at the swimming pool or beach if I’m overweight and don’t feel attractive in a swimsuit.  I can keep on my cover-up, fix the picnic for everyone else, and stay out of the water, but how much fun is that!  With a little will power and some planning, I can get rid of the excess weight and join in the fun without feeling stressed.  A bathroom scale that tracks the weight of ten users will help me and other overweight family members to check our progress, and motivate me to go forward toward my goal.  I refuse to buy a larger swimsuit, when I know, with some effort, I can fit into the one I have.

We took our cat and chihuahua to the vet this morning for their annual check-up.  That’s always a lot of fun.  The cat is an indoor/outdoor cat that weighs almost 11 pounds and still has his claws.  We have to put him in a pet carrier and the vet has to be extremely quick to avoid those claws.  The chihuahua wants to see everyone, especially all the cats and dogs that come in while we wait, and he always manages to use the vet’s floor for a bathroom before I can stop him.  I guess he’s marking his territory.  Life is fun, isn’t it?

I’m always amazed at how proficient the vet and her staff are with these animals, and the love they show toward them.  Love goes a long way sometimes, toward getting cooperation.  They sat each of these animals on the scale and managed to weigh them without any fuss.  They gave both of them shots, and neither of them even whined.  The cat started getting a little antsy after that, but they had him back in the pet carrier before he could do any damage.  The chihuahua was still in a good mood when it was all over.  It’s nice to work with true professionals.

I’ve been trying to research the advantages of drinking water with a higher PH level to avoid providing a good environment for cancer cells in my body.  There’s a lot of information on the internet, but I would like to do some testing of water at home.  Now, I have no background in chemistry, so I’m starting from scratch.  That’s not good!  Maybe I need to let other people do the testing, and I’ll just read the results  (after all, I can read). 

People who make their living working in labs know how much easier it makes their work if they have an up-to-date lab.  A set of professional lab scales is a necessity, along with a lot of other equipment, depending on the type of experiments they are conducting.  The scales need to be digital and electronic with a high degree of accuracy and precision, if the results are going to mean anything.  I’m still looking for answers about the water PH level, but I’m not conducting tests–just studying results of professionals conducting research.

Electronics have totally changed our world!  It’s amazing to look back fifty years and see the differences between the appliances, telephones, television sets, computers, games, etc.  The first television I remember seeing had about a 10 inch round screen, and of course, it was in black and white.  Now we see 50 and 60 inch flatscreen television set in many homes, and of course, in true-life color.  The first computer I remember was at a university and filled a large room.  I had to input my data by typing, and holes were punched in a series of cards.  The cards ran through the computer to produce the results.  It took a long time to run any kind of program, and I needed to understand computer language (which I never mastered).  Now I’m sitting here typing on a laptop and can surf the internet to research anything that happens to be on my mind, without any knowledge of computer language.  Remember the old dial telephones.  It took a long time just to dial a number, then you were tied to the phone by a lengthy cord.  Now we all have a cell phone in our pocket or attached to our waist and we aren’t tied to anything.  Amazing!

Bathroom, kitchen, and shipping scales have been vastly improved, also.  Besides being electronic, they are also digital.  This gives a much more accurate and precise reading.  Electronic scales are everywhere–in the home, in the grocery store, in the labs, etc.  Toss out the old, put in the new!  Our world has changed!

Does anyone in today’s world only have one task to complete?  No, we all are “multitasking” everyday!  At work, most of us have many issues with which we are trying to deal, added to home and family responsibilities.  Technology helps in many instances, but if the computer,  cellphone, etc. is acting up, we’re really in trouble.

Sometimes a person may need scales that work for several applications.  They may need them in the kitchen, in a lab situation, or for a hobby purpose.  Multifunctional scales are available to eliminate the need to purchase several different kinds of scales.  Look at them and determine which ones can fulfill the needs you have in your home or workplace.

Does anyone just sit on the front porch any more?  We’re all too busy.  Our children and grandchildren hardly know what home is.  They’re involved in sports and other activities to the point that they are busy almost 12 months a year, and that’s not counting school and studying.  We live in our vehicles, running through drive-through windows and hurrying to our next appointment or activity. 

Escali makes portable scales for almost any need we have–in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the lab, etc.  They even make a handheld scale to stick in your pocket or purse to measure food portions in restaurants.  It has a stainless steel platform for easy cleaning.  Our whole world has gone portable.