Cox Crow

A design flaw in this child safety latch increases the likelihood that your child will open the cabinet, retrieve the Windex®, and drink it. Or, in our case, wash the floor.

The flaw? The installation of the latch requires precision. If the hook does not catch exactly on the loop, the door will open. The more reliable design is this latch, where the hook catches on a stop instead of a loop. There is more tolerance of error in the installation, and, because of that, the latch is less likely to become worthless over time.

We have a new maid. His name is Jerry. He’s an iRobot Roomba 4105. Right now he’s cleaning the family room.

We’ve noted several idiosyncrasies. He prefers rooms without much furniture, or other floor-level decoration. He has trouble over metallic vent covers. He trapped himself on our dining room rug: it is mostly dark, except for a 2″ band of a light color; I think he thought he was about to fall over the stairs. He gets stuck under rocking chairs. And he doesn’t leave a nice, even pattern on the carpet. (That drives me nuts.) But he cleans well.

I’m not sure yet whether the preparation necessary for his cleaning takes more work than doing it myself, but I am sure that I would use a different pattern, and I wouldn’t take an hour a room.

We took some pictures this evening for this year’s Christmas card. I like this one. What do you think?

Food doesn’t get any more local than this. My younger sister’s family found they had a hive between the floor joists.