random tip

[cos]

When giving someone a ride, it is a good idea, after dropping them off at the house they're going to, to wait and watch until the go inside, before driving off - as long as it's possible to do without obstructing traffic. I think I first heard this as a safety tip (when dropping off a woman alone at night), but I think it's much more likely to be useful for more mundane reasons like they forgot their key, or they expected someone to be home who isn't there, or it's the wrong house, or oops their cell phone is still in your car, etc. Anyway, it's a really simple thing that makes a lot of sense and yet I didn't think of it until I heard someone suggest it (many years ago), so perhaps I have readers who haven't thought of it yet either and could benefit from seeing it suggested.

Any other random useful tips you'd like to pass along?

Comments

[wotw]

Always crush your soda can (or beer can) as soon as you've emptied
it. That way, when you're surrounded by open cans, you'll know which
ones are empty.

[drwex]

Spoken like a man who doesn't live in a can redemption state. Most of the automated deposit-refund machines won't take back crushed cans.

[kirin]

Presumably. I crush all my cans (and other people's cans) because then they take up less space in the recycling bin so it can go longer between emptyings.

[adaptively.livejournal.com]

If you're taking your cans to a redemption center that weighs them, rather than feeding them one by one into a machine, you can still crush them; it takes up less space and fewer trash bags during transport!

[cos]

I like to leave them out in the recycling bins. I figure the people who pick stuff from the bins need the cash more than I do (true, I spent about two years needing the cash just as much, recently - but I didn't buy canned drinks much, 'cause they cost too much :)

[beaq.livejournal.com]

Duct tape a spare car key in an inconvenient, awkward, and unlikely spot accessible from the outside of the car. It's a pain to get it out, but it's cheaper than a locksmith and thieves aren't likely to find it.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

A related suggestion I've been given is to put the spare key inside a headlight assembly. Requires a screwdriver but that's easier to get than a jimmy. I must admit I haven't tried this.

[japlady.livejournal.com]

This is also true when dropping them off at their car or anywhere else.

[cos]

Depends on the place. If dropping someone off at their car, I usually wait until they've turned their car on, not just until they've gotten inside it. That way if they find it won't start, I'm still there.

[australian-joe.livejournal.com]

Just a few that occur to me:

1) When writing code, if I open one of a paired construct (eg. parentheses, BEGIN..END, HTML tags), I immediately put in a newline, close the pair, and move back up to whatever is going in between them.

2) When packing books in boxes, pack them flat rather than standing up, and pack as closely as possible to the level of the top. The books themselves now take the weight and the box is just there to stop them slipping out the sides. This produces boxes strong enough to jump on. (I did, to test them.)

3) Put keys etc down in the same place, all the time. If there isn't an obvious place, make one, like a hook on the inside of the front door. Get in the habit of placing them there as soon as you're inside.

4) Maintain a float of important non-perishable consumables. I try to keep an unopened package of toilet paper, printer toner, paper, etc, and replace them as soon as I open the spare. I've run out of both too many times and am determined never to have it happen again.

[chayam.livejournal.com]

Great tips!

[australian-joe.livejournal.com]

I didn't come up with any of them myself. I tried to think of tips that I'd received that I'd found extremely useful. I only learned that business with the books a few weeks ago when packing to move house - I wish I'd known that years ago! 8-)

[charolastra00.livejournal.com]

Firstly, I get so ungodly angry when people dropped me off at home and pulled out as soon as I shut the door of the car. Now it's not so much of an issue because my door is unaccessible by a road. SOME people are afraid of the dark and are afraid that people are hiding in the bushes waiting for her. Not that the person is me of course...

>.>

<.<


Always keep a small first aid kit in your purse, briefcase, or whatever moves around with you. Most people just have them at home or in your car and injuries are not limited there.

Also, keep floss in your purse. Spinach happens.

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

Always keep a small first aid kit in your purse, briefcase, or whatever moves around with you. Most people just have them at home or in your car and injuries are not limited there.

First aid kits are good; training is better. Carrying a first aid kit is probably not going to be helpful unless you know how to use it. It's quite common for people to not know the proper use of much of what's in their first aid kits, and if you think you're going to be able to read the little booklet and act appropriately in a (real or perceived) emergency, well...you're not. If you care enough about being prepared to spend some money for a first aid kit, then make sure you also care enough to spend some time learning how to use it (and please, for god's sake, buy the kit after you get the training, not before -- most kits are ripoffs and some of them, particularly the sexy-looking ones you buy in outdoor stores, are full of stuff that shouldn't be used except by someone with more training than you'd get in a couple hour long street first-aid course).

[awfief.livejournal.com]

photocopy your driver's license and keep a copy in the glove compartment of each of your cars. I've never had to use it, and it probably wouldn't be usable, but it just might help.

Keep a photocopy of the picture page of your passport and your driver's license and keep a copy at work and at home -- if you're stuck abroad, someone at work could fax a copy of your passport somewhere, ditto with a friend or housemate.

Keep a photocopy of your credit cards (front and back) at home in a safe place, in case you need to know the #'s. This is mostly useful when you're stuck trying to figure out what # to call to cancel them when they're stolen, so perhaps a list of "phone #'s to call in case my wallet disappears" might be better.

Keep your tax returns forever. I know they say 7 years, but when you're 65 you want to be able to make sure you're getting all the $$ you put in. And I don't think there's a statute of limitations for owing the IRS back taxes, so you're going to want to prove at all times that yes, 15 years ago you DID pay the correct amount of tax $$.

On the other hand, you only need to keep bills for maybe 2 months. So long as your bill reflects the last payment you made, there's no need to keep the bill before that one, because they're cumulative. ie, if the phone bill says "last balance $50, last payment $50, current balance $45) you know that you are current, except for the current bill. If it says "last balance $50, last payment $10, current balance $85" you're not. But so long as the proper payment is applied, you're good.

Keep a copy of the letters you write to businesses forever, and their response(s). If you're angry at a company once, you may be angry again, and it would be useful to have the details, as opposed to saying "something like this happened about 2 or 3 years ago and i wrote you then too!"

For that matter, keep any "Dear John" letters too. It's useful to remember what you said.

[fantasmagoria.livejournal.com]

An alternate to keeping photocopies of important things, espcially credit cards since they can be used with just the number, is to write the information in an email and save it as a draft within your email sever, or as a document on privately hosted web space if you have it. Saving the information as a draft instead of sending it to yourself is more secure, and it's likely that if you're in a place that allows you phone access or fax access in an emergency, you will also have internet access. This isn't a tip for all the time, but it's good when travelling.

[cos]

I keep my numbers (in cryptic form, with enigmatic labels) in private files on my unix servers. But I also have some photocopies of my green card in my backpack.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

I always love it when friends wait until my door is open and I'm stepping inside when they drop me off, and I like doing the same. However, it's important to be prepared to do something about it if you're going to do this; it's no good to wait around while your friend digs for his keys and when he takes too long, leave without seeing what's up.

[cos]

Well, yeah, the point is to be there for them to come back to you when they realize they forgot something or can't get in.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

It seems obvious, doesn't it? But I recently lost my keys and had the curious experience of my ride waiting for a minute while I searched my backpack and pockets and then leave before I found them (which I ultimately didn't.)

[chayam.livejournal.com]

This is especially important when dropping your children off at their dad's. One should never assume he's home just because he's *supposed* to be home...

I try to make sure anyone I drop off anywhere gets inside their destination safely before I drive off, adult or child, just in case. Sometimes it feels kind of silly but I do it anyway.

[drwex]

I've always done that "waiting for the person to go inside" thing.

A random tip for geeks: according to two eye docs I spoke with, the "best wisdom" for monitor placement has changed. Your eyes should be level with the top of the screen, not the middle. Reason being that people naturally blink more when they look slightly down.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

This isn't new wisdom -- that's what it's been for as long as I've seen ergonomic lit. Where did you hear otherwise?

[drwex]

When I first began treatment for RSI, the wisdom was to align the screen center with the line of sight, in order not to have the person tipping his/her head, or holding it at an angle. Somewhere I have the pamphlet I got from the doc's office way back when that explained correct computer posture and that has a diagram showing this.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Well, just saying that your new wisdom isn't actually that new, and I'm sorry you didn't get it sooner, especially if it's helping you. Unless we're thinking the same timeframe but just have different definitions of "new". :) I remember the "new" one at least as far back as college, anyway.

[rawrin.livejournal.com]

Cook your meals for the week on Sunday, and put them into meal-sized boxes for the next week as soon as it's done. (This saves tremendous amounts of time in the morning, if you run around like a lunatic looking for your keys, your shoes, your glasses, your umbrella, a pair of socks, book to read, and workout clothes.) And if you make two different sorts of entrees for the week, you can color code your meal boxes so you don't grab two of the same thing for the day.

Along the same lines, if you're going to include broccoli in your meal boxes, put it into the boxes uncooked. It'll cook when you reheat your meal.

[ellipticcurve.livejournal.com]

I didn't believe this until I tried it myself, but now I'm a total convert.
Eat your green salads with chopsticks. You can pick up whatever you like, and there's no danger of a salad leaf flopping open and spattering you with dressing, as can sometimes happen with forks. It really is the best tool for the job!

One of my dad's tricks: Get an empty film canister and fill it with quarters. Place in glove compartment or other accessible hidey-hole. Voila! Emergency parking fund!

[cos]

I've been filling film canisters with quarters for so long, I probably still have some random ones in boxes I haven't unpacked from the past few moves :)

[diatom.livejournal.com]

Huh. This would require having a camera that uses this strange "film" of which you speak. :)

[cos]

That's still my primary camera :)

[ceo]

Keep a box in the back of the car containing the following (some may not fit in the box):

• windshield washer fluid
  
• roll of paper towels
  
• roll of toilet paper
  
• spare headlight bulb
  
• spare taillight bulb
  
• rear-view-mirror adhesive kit
  
• jumper cables (real ones, not those lighter-socket-to-lighter-socket things)
  
• adjustable wrench
  
• pliers
  
• screwdriver with flat, Phillips and Torx bits
  
• coil of wire
  
• duct or gaff tape
  
• bungee cords
  
• rope
  
• flashlight

In the winter, add:

• snow brush
  
• ice scraper
  
• collapsible snow shovel
  
• emergency blanket

If you have a small child, add:

• spray cleaner
  
• emergency diaper-change kit
  
• change of clothes (that still fits the child)
  
  A good place for the less frequently used stuff, like the jumper cables and spare bulbs, is in the spare tire compartment, if it fits.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

I don't think the bulbs are necessary.

Also, don't forget "spare tire/donut" and "jack kit" and "practice changing a tire".

AAA is worth every penny.

As well, it's useful to keep a snow brush and/or ice scraper in your house as well as your car, for those times when you can't get into your iced-over car to get the stuff inside.

how big a coil of wire, and what gauge?

[cos]

Two snow brush / ice scraper things in the car. That way when you have someone with you, you can both work at the same time and be done much more quickly.

That actually just came in useful for me this weekend, when I went with lakmiseiru to a bluegrass concert in Lexington in the early evening and VAST in Brighton in the late evening. Snow started falling fast during the first concert, when we left it we both brushed off the car quickly, then headed to the second show and got there during VAST's second song. I think that second brush saved us a song (if we'd taken longer to clean off the car, we'd have gotten there for the third song, I think :)

[some-kitten.livejournal.com]

Knowing how much you travel, I originally parsed "bluegrass concert in Lexington" as Lexington, KY (because, well, bluegrass!), and was EXTREMELY impressed and a little terrified at how quickly you got to Brighton.

--from someone planning on driving a 12' truck from Indianapolis to Medford in the next couple weeks. Any tips for that?

[fantasmagoria.livejournal.com]

Know how everyone-and-their-mother uses Gmail? And we all love to check our email from anywhere, including public computers? Tip:

Instead of writing "www.gmail.com" in the address bar to take you to the login page, write "https://mail.google.com." The difference is that when you use the first address your login is secure, but not the actual emails that you send and recieve. Whereas when you use the second address, all of your activity is secure.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

On a personal note, I always notice when people who've given me rides wait for me to get inside, and it always makes me feel warm and fuzzy and cared about. So thanks for doing it. :)

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

Never snort powdered wasabi.

[sauergeek.livejournal.com]

Also black pepper. Ow.

powdered wasabi

[cos]

That's actually one of my less-often-used email .sigs, that I've had for over a decade:

"Never Snort Powdered Wasabi." -- topper, on void, 26Nov1996

[abilouise.livejournal.com]

If you do something really athletic that you know will make you sore or stiff the next day, or if you are not very athletic at all and do something that pushes your endurance, before you go to bed that night, take a warm bath with like a cup of salt in it. This will help prevent delayed onset muscle soreness (i.e feeling like my grandmother)

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

Also, stretch. And learn how to stretch. And don't do clueless things like be sedentary and then go out and charge around like y'ure athletic.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I should post about this myself but:

Add your to your f'list (and your default view, however you do it) on LJ. Every time you post, refresh your f'page and make sure everything looks like you expect it to. Follow the cut, too. This will prevent much annoyance.

Further, if you feel like your posts would annoy you too much to want to add them to your f'page, because they're too inane, or media-heavy, or you think what you have to say is too important to ever be behind a cut, well, consider that your readers might feel the same way about it.

[cos]

By "add your" you meant "add yourself" yes?

*nod* I always do that. I'm on my own friends page, I post by email, and I look at my friends page to verify that my post got through and looks right.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Yes, add yourself -- sorry, typo.

For the record, I didn't mean YOU when I said you. :)