-My room has a bit of an ant issue. There's always a parade of some sort up and down the walls or across the ceiling. No matter how clean I am with the little bit of food I keep and eat in my room, they're always around. I asked Haley to send me some traps, which she did, along with some chili powder. She heard that the ants won't cross a line a chili powder. Testing the theory, I dumped a bunch right in one of their paths. It stopped short of the line, sniffed it, and then plowed right though, probably ate a little as well. I wrote her back saying the chili powder was an unfortunate failure. These ants are tough. They're from Iraq. Compared to the country's recent regime change, a little chili powder wasn't going to stop them.
The poison traps worked a little better. Now, instead of a full sprint during the parade, they just sort of stumble around like they're drunk. They're not stopping, but wherever they're going, it's with a little less purpose. I'll take what I can get. I'm not gong to win this one. I'm too far outnumbered, plus I'm on the road. Besides, they're not really bothering me, just visually unappetizing.
-On my flight tonight, we had some bad weather. The winds have picked up lately and blown some thick dust into the area. We barely had our minimum visibilities when we took off. It was also low illumination since the moon wasn't up, plus it's nearly a new moon. As we flew away from the airfield, the goggles started to scintillate, meaning they weren't getting enough ambient light to brighten our view. Looking around, I basically couldn't see anything in front or below me. Bad feeling. We quickly tucked our tail between our legs, turned around and went back home before it got any worse. Aircraft have crashed out here on low illum nights with dust reducing their visibilities. The pilots loose all references and just sort of fly right into the ground without realizing anything is wrong. A phrase that gets tossed around the aviation world when it comes to weather is this: it's better to be on the ground, wishing you were in the air, than to be in the air, wishing you were on the ground.
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2 comments:
Ants?
Andrew, back while I was living in Spain, I had a similar ant problem. The "workers" who were constantly showing up at my house to fix plumbing problems, advised me to use red papper flakes. I can send them to you if you like but those Iraqi ants may just carry them away.
Fairy Godmother
I have also heard that cornmeal works against ants. They eat the cornmeal, can't digest it and then die (hopefully). I will send this out to you and you can test this theory. We have lots of cornmeal in the south
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