not a mosquito magnet

In a full and careful study of anecdotal evidence on the internet and in discussion with a bunch of mountain bikers, I learned that garlic or B vitamins would make you into less of a mosquito magnet. Since at the time of the study, I was the mosquito magnet who attracted mosquitoes away from everybody else, including the other mosquito magnets, I tried both at the same time. The garlic pills made my stomach hurt or had an interesting aftertaste, depending on when I took them. I dropped them and stuck with a B-complex.

I am pleased to announce that roughly ten days later, either all the mosquitoes in my neighborhood dropped dead unexpectedly, or the B-complex is working like nothing I've ever experienced. I hung around outside at dusk, and I didn't even see any bugs. I was pretty twitchy about it, and I didn't stay out for more than about five minutes, but I only itch in one place, and it appears to be purely psychosomatic.

The results of this study are applicable to chemically injured people who are related to me; I believe that includes pretty much no one. B vitamins are cheap, though, so I will volunteer to be part of interested parties' personal careful studies of anecdotal evidence.

stuff and things and endangered plants

Today I went to the doctor and learned that 65% of pesticide used in the US goes on cotton. Pima cotton, which accounts for one-sixth of US cotton production, comes from just north of us, even though we're in Pima county and that's Pinal county, but I digress. Anyway, that means that approximately 10% of the pesticide used in the US is sprayed all over the valley north of us, which happens to have the worst dust particulate problem in the country. So the pesticide-encrusted dust that gets kicked up wafts over here, and EIs in the Tucson basin are feeling it this time of year. That made me feel better to know because now I have some idea of why I've been sleeping all day the day before a storm, which is when the wind blows down from up there.

In other news, carnivorous plants are mostly endangered. In yet more news, I broke my ribs mountain biking on July 3rd, but it didn't hurt enough for me to worry about them being broken. I resumed riding about a week later, and about five weeks later, I went on an epic ride in the Santa Cruz Mountains sorta near my parents' house, and made my ribs really sore again simply by breathing pretty hard. (Trails in the Santa Cruz Mountains are pretty steep.) Then there were some x-rays. Now I'm about six weeks out from that, and I've been swimming, and my ribs are starting to feel pretty reasonable. When I can do the backstroke with impunity I'll know I'm all better. For reference, it's much harder to fall on rocks from a lane in a swimming pool, so I may stick with that for a while.

the sun's roast settings, depending on latitude and ozone absorption

Today I learned that the UV highs in the summer in Darwin, Australia top out around 14 on the UV Index (Sydney was more like 13). In Phoenix, they top out around 12. The local weather station we used to look at here in Tucson usually read 14 in the summer, but I don't know how accurate it was because the prediction in the newspaper was usually 12. The upshot is that the sun will peel your hide off pretty nicely (and very quickly) at 12 or 14, and various health organizations indicate either will cause instantaneous death.

I had to look that up because all the way back in April, a friend of mine demonstrated proper Australian application of sunscreen, and we attempted a subjective comparison of how burny the sun feels in summer. Now we have data -- lame data in that I don't even know if the UVI is linear, and I'm not going to extract that information from the internet tonight. I don't have any data from when the ozone hole was worse, either, but burny is no fun, anyway, and Australia wins(?) on the burny scale.