After watching “An Inconvenient Truth” tonight, I went to their web site to see what I could personally do to make a difference.

The site recommends using a compact flourescent light bulb to reduce environmental impact. You can read more about that on the wikipedia page link above.

From my experience, the bulbs do not last longer than a regular bulb. I am not discouraging you from trying…but my experience was that the bulbs only lasted a few months, and are more than twice the cost of a regular light bulb - not economically viable at this poin, and since I was using nearly twice as many bulbs, it was hard for me to understand how that was helping, at least in my household.

Your results may vary.

I’ve been trying to figure out the logic of RGB hex codes, and this is starting to make more sense…

R G B
00 00 00

Only every 3rd pair is supported, like 003300, 006600, (shortened as #030 or #360 for css).

But what about letters? Same thing, but there is no equivalent of 0, so we do every third starting at “A”…so

00CC00 is browser safe, but not 00AA00 or 00BB00.

00FF00, or #0f0 in css short-hand.

Thanks to Dave Child over at ILoveJackDaniels for the image.

Sedation dentistry might be an easy answer for those dental chair fears. I wouldn’t say I’m afraid of the dentist, often times I quite enjoy a visit to the dental office. However, the other day after cracking my upper-rear molar, I went to the dentist to have it looked at.

For one reason or another, I started to feel anxious and a bit of a panic once the dental assistants started to reach back into my mouth. I figured I could tough it out, but my fear of swallowing some small piece of metal and gagging overcame me.

My dentist, Dr. Richard Bianco in Watsonville, recommended I try sedation dentistry. I was a little apprehensive at first, but after watching the video of the local news reporter having Dr. Bianco treat him, I was willing to try it. I did a few searches on the web when I got home for the drug that is used in sedating the patient - called Triazolam. The wikipedia entry is somewhat brief, but I didn’t find any major side effects.

The cost was around $250 for one visit. A bit pricey for two pills, especially if you have multiple visits in which you need to be sedated. However, avoiding the agony and anxiety of a root canal or molar crown, I think it was worth the extra expense.

My personal experience was rather pleasant, except for one glitch later that night. One hour before my appointment, I took the two Triazalom pills after fasting from caffeine for 24 hours, and food for 12 hours. Within 30 minutes I was getting pretty tired, and slightly dizzy.

Once I arrived at Dr. Bianco’s office, I remember checking in at 9:30am and sitting in the chair as they kept trying to get me to fall asleep. Another two doses of Valium did the trick. I do remember waking up in the middle of it, briefly - but I felt no pain, and was indifferent to what and where I was.

The next thing I knew it was waking up in my bed at about 6pm. I didn’t remember much, and felt no pain. Later on that night at about 12:30am I suddenly felt a rush of nausea and threw up for about 5 minutes. The feeling passed quickly, and that was the end of it.

The only drawbacks that I experienced were:

1. I was out of commission for the entire day
2. I felt nausea briefly later that night, and consequently threw up
3. The extra expense can add up quickly if you have multiple visits requiring sedation

In the end, I believe I will recommend dental sedation to friends and family (and all of you who read my blog) for major dental work. A quick cleaning I can handle, but a crown or root canal on a rear molar - might as well knock me out doc!