Potpourri

 A couple of years ago, a bill was passed that requires hotel and motels with swimming pools and hot tubs to install chair assists for the disabled.  If there are both swimming pool and hot tub, the mechanical chair lift must be installed next to each one.  The cost of these chairs is approximately $5,000 each.

I stay in hotels about 30 to 40 nights a year, and the nightly cost has steadily increased from around $70/night to over $100.  I know that the prices have risen for other reasons than just the cost of installing the assist chairs for disabled people, but they have to be a part of the increase.

I have yet to see anyone using a mechanical chair to get into or out of the pool or hot tub. I have also talked to other hotel guests and not one of them has seen the chair lift used either.

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Are you tired of trying to read an online article that is surrounded by ads and other unrelated material?  Wouldn't you rather just read the article?  Well here are two ways to get rid of the junk and get to the basics.

On iPads and maybe some other tablets, there is a 4-bar menu icon to the left of the URL in the address field.  If you click on it after the article downloads it will re-display it as a document.  Some tablets will even give you the option to enlarge the print.

On IBM/Microsoft PC's, you might see a printer icon above the first paragraph on the right side of the page. There are other locations for it, too, so look for it if you don't find it there.  It is an option for printer friendly copying.  However, if you click on it and then click the cancel button when the print window pops up, it will remain on your screen in document format.  Voilá!  No ads and no junk distraction.

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We recently bought some bottled water with the label Niagara on it and, since I was born and raised near the famous waterfalls with that name, I was curious as to whether or not the water was from there.

Well, imagine my surprise when I read the label and learned that the water was bottled in Ontario, California.  I may be wrong but isn't Ontario in Southern California, where they are currently in the midst of a huge drought?  And unless the water in those bottles was trucked in from some distant source, aren't the people who bottle it taking it out of the already drained supply there?  Hmm, something is wrong with this procedure, don't you think?