Monday, February 12, 2018

rising background levels of carbon dioxide, ventilation, and train crashes

People are so worried about carbon dioxide causing global warming -- but I seldom see anyone worrying about other consequences of rising levels of background carbon dioxide.

I personally have found that I'm very sensitive to carbon dioxide levels in crowded rooms like classrooms, theaters, hotel ball rooms, and commuter trains.  I get restless limbs, nausea, and drowsiness -- and even narcolepsy -- in these environments.

Carbon dioxide is heavier than air.  With the advent of air conditioning, it has become fashionable to have only ceiling ventilation in rooms.  Ceiling ventilation is not very good at removing carbon dioxide from the air.

In older rooms that have floor vents, I feel that the air is much clearer and I am much more alert.

I am particularly concerned about ventilation in trains.  I have often found that I get narcolepsy in trains.  I once complained of this and MetroNorth turned up the ventilation in the trains and I found that I stopped getting drowsy.

I noticed in college that I used to fall asleep a lot in a basement classroom.  It was only later that I realized that a basement classroom, being below ground level, would be very hard to clear of carbon dioxide.

There has been a recent spate of engineers falling asleep and causing train wrecks.  This has been blamed on undiagnosed sleep apnea.  But why would there suddenly be undiagnosed sleep apnea when there wasn't before?

I strongly suspect that sleep apnea is being wrongly blamed for these incidents. I strongly suspect that there is an unsafe level of carbon dioxide on these trains that is contributing to these incidents.

I am frustrated that I can't get anyone to pay attention to my concern about this

Friday, January 26, 2018

buykud scam

Here is what the dress looked like on their ad


They said the model was small, but they didn't say she was a dwarf.  They said the dress would fit small, medium, and large. This was a FB ad targeted to me in the USA.  I usually wear medium or large. I'm 5'7"  That's taller than the US average of 5'4", but not inordinately tall.  I wouldn't qualify to be a model in the US, where you have to be at least 5'8"

They also said that the dress would fit sizes 8-14 US.  I normally wear a 12.

This is what the dress looks like on me


The short part is too short for decency -- more like a tunic.  The sleeves are too short -- don't reach my wrists even with the arms extended. Moreover, that long, drapy look from the ad is completely absent.  It fits like a regular shirt on top.

The fabric is very warm, but there are no care instructions, so I have no idea whether it should be washed or dry cleaned.

They demand that I pay postage to return it.  The postage was $35, which was half the cost of the dress originally.

The USPS has eliminated sea mail, which would have been a cheap, but slow alternative for shipping.  Now that Chinese companies are putting so many clothing ads on FB, I think the USPS should re-institute sea mail so that US consumers can return merchandise to these Chinese fraudsters.

Their address:

Chenfuxin
Room 401, No.1 Building, JuHe Creative Park, Metallurgical Reseach Institute, Hebian  National Road 106, Baiyun  District,
Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
Telephone :0086-020-86213862

ZIP : 510420 

Photos from Spooky Doings 1/6/18


Photos from Spooky Doings 1/6/18














Sunday, January 7, 2018

Obsessive doodling

I've found myself doodling a lot recently -- obsessively, really.  I've been posting photos on Instagram and FB, but I was thinking I should here as well.  Here's an embedded version of my FB album of doodles. I'm still expanding this album

The post that I've embedded says to ignore this, but don't ignore it.  That was just for FB friends. 

I'm frustrated at how this embedding works.  You don't seem to be able to see this album in its entirety unless you go to FB.  Please note that these photos all appear on my Instagram account under @barschall


Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Updates: fourth quarter 2017

  • filming Fine Fixtures Commercial d. Rochelle Scharf 12/7/17
  • filming music Video for Franke: Bad Tattoo
  • Creative Block/ Bloc et Blocage, a film I appear in, has won 4 awards: a) silver award in Best Drama category at  Mindfield Awards, Los Angeles; b)  Spotlight Silver Award; c) Prindie featured filmmaker; semi-finalist at Los Angeles CineFest; 
  • National Monolog Slam, Edison NJ 12/2/17 instagram post
  • Continued to appear at improv mixers at The Magnet, Armory, PIT, and Triple Crown
  • competed in the Cabaret Showdown -- 6th Anniversary link to FB event 11/12/17 
  • friends have told me that they spotted me in my background roles on "Wizard of Lies" and last winter's Hallmark Christmas movie.

completed courses

law related courses


Sunday, December 24, 2017

Updates: Fall 2017

I'm just copying this from my ongoing updates blog at this point.  It would bear some editing

  • Creative Block/ Bloc et Blocage, a film I appear in, has won two awards: a) silver award in Best Drama category at the Mindfield Film Festival, Los Angeles http://la.mindfieldfilmfest.com/winners.html; and b) spotlight silver award spotlight silver award
  • Magnet Musical Mixer 12/12/17
  • filming Fine Fixtures Commercial d. Rochelle Scharf 12/7/17
  • National Monolog Slam, Edison NJ 12/2/17 instagram post
  • Magnet Musical Mixer 11/14/17  
  • Cabaret Showdown -- 6th Anniversary link to FB event 11/12/17 
  • Armory Comedy Jam at The Tank 10/24/17 armory jam on instagram
  • Magnet Musical Mixer 10/17/17
  • Musical Improv Jam, Pit Striker Theater, 10/11/17, hosted by Vern
  • Musical Improv Jam with Steve Ling 10/9/17 Triple Crown
  • friends have told me that they spotted me in my background roles on "Wizard of Lies" and last winter's Hallmark Christmas movie.
  • 9/19/17 Magnet Musical Mixer, Magnet Theater, NYC

completed courses

law related courses

Friday, November 17, 2017

Oma and Opa's deaths

When I was a kid, my dad intervened in his parents' marriage. They lived in a small one bedroom apartment. My grandfather got a bed in the bedroom. My grandmother was sleeping on the couch, not a foldout couch, just an ordinary couch.

My grandmother was being treated for cancer. My father felt she deserved a proper bed, so he rented a second apartment for her two stories up in the same building.

My grandfather was furious, because he felt his wife had left him. He stopped eating and died. He was 86 when he died.

My grandmother died six months later. My father had her body autopsied. She was clear of cancer when she died, one of the first successful radiation treatments for breast cancer. She was 79 when she died.

She died from the stress of losing my grandfather. I remember her giving me-- just before she died --some of her gold items that she had managed to carry with her out of Germany when she fled the holocaust. She told me she wanted me to have them because she didn't have anything to live for any more now that my grandfather was gone.

I still have those things in my safe deposit box. One of them is a gold locket with a picture of her and my father when my father was a baby

They lived in N.Y. We lived in Wisconsin. We shouldn't have left her alone like that, but we did.

Still I was surprised. She never got along with my grandfather. They often bickered. She often complained of him. He seemed crotchety to me.

Yet she couldn't live without him.

My father thought he was helping, but he hastened their deaths.

I concluded at the time that there was something about relationships that had to include fighting and at least low level abuse, that somehow people couldn't survive without those things, even if they complained about them

****

I'm bringing this up, in part, because of the recent "me too" scandals.  The way male mistreatment of women seems so pervasive.