Categories
HOWTO

News from Myanmar (Burma): How to Follow the Events Online

Monks Protest in Burma [AP IMAGE]

Bangkok, 3 p.m. — Things are heating up next door in Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma. AP/CNN says that police have now begun cracking down on protesters.

Here are a few online news resources for those of you who’d like to follow the events:

— A Google news search for Burma or Myanmar is a good way to find up-to-date news. You can choose to filter results by date in order to find the most recent stories. (For all of the following, you can search for either “Myanmar” or “Burma.” For the sake of speed, I’ll simply use Myanmar here.)

The Irrawaddy magazine is posting continuous updates on their Web site.

Mizzima News (“Specialising in Burma-Related News and Multimedia”) and BurmaNet News are providing news round-ups.

A YouTube search for Myanmar — with results sorted by date — yields some footage from inside the country.

— You can search Flickr for images labeled Myanmar — again, sorted by date — although there doesn’t seem to be much there at this point.

— A Wikipedia page called “2007 Burmese anti-government protests” is tracking the situation.

— You can search Google for blogs mentioning Myanmar.

— A search on NPR.org for Myanmar returns print news, blog posts, and radio stories.

— You can search Technorati — a blog search engine — for posts tagged “Myanmar.”

— I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but this Myanmar blog directory lists a large number of Web sites.

Categories
HOWTO

How to Take Travel Pictures

How to Take Travel Photos

Here’s a nice feature from Fodor’s. It’s called How to Take Travel Pictures Like a Pro:

With the assistance of author and photographer Jeff Wignall, Fodor’s has put together an invaluable guide to shooting great travel pictures: Nearly 100 easy-to-follow tips, with accompanying photos, covering every aspect of travel photography.

Categories
HOWTO

How to Concentrate on Writing

Procrastination

10 useful tips from Matthew Stibbe, who writes, “When I am up against a deadline and I absolutely, definitely have to get on with my work, I use a few tactics to force myself to concentrate…”

I would accomplishing nothing without #7.

Categories
HOWTO Misc.

Jalapeno pepper hands: how to cure the burn

🌶️ Update, August 19, 2018: It’s been fourteen years since I first published this post, and the comments just keep coming.

It seems this affliction is still plaguing folks. Read through and please weigh in with your suggestions below!


July 3, 2004: The story of my friend’s accident involving jalapeno peppers. Read his tale and the hundreds of comments below on potential cures for this strange affliction!

jalapeno

I received the following email from a good friend who I’ll call CD. He lives in the Washington, DC area. He sends along this cautionary tale about a cooking experience gone horribly wrong. His story is by turns frightening and hilarious. Enjoy.

Dude, I got a great story for you that I’ll try to relay in this message. Friday night S and I went over to J and C’s. I was going to help C prepare for a catering gig he had on Saturday. So we get there and start boozing and hanging out. We eat dinner and then begin the process of prepping for the catering gig.

Well, one step in the catering cooking process was to roast a 5-pound bag of jalapeno peppers on the grill and then remove the skins and de-seed them. Like what you’d do with a roasted red pepper. Well, at about 10:30pm I belly up to the table outside with all the peppers and start going to town. An hour later, I had peeled all 5 pounds worth….the catch is that I did it with no gloves.

At about mid-night S and I leave and I start complaining that my hands are burning. Not terribly, but a bit of fire. An hour later, we are back at S’s and it really sets in. Pain like I have never felt. Unbelievable, extreme, terrible, super harsh burning pain in both hands and even a little ways up both arms. It was like I had burnt both hands in a fire.

Now, I have to set the time frame so you can get the full affect of how long this pain lasted….it was at about 1am Saturday morning when I really began to realize i was in some trouble. At about 2:30am I woke S up and said I needed help (she had been asleep for about an hour). She got on the Internet and looked up how to stop jalapeno burn. She called two emergency rooms and even a number of “ask the nurse” hotlines. Nothing. At about 3:30am I was in so much pain i was rolling around on the floor almost yelling. By that time I had dipped both hands in milk, olive oil, vegetable oil, yogurt, oatmeal, water with baking soda, a bleach water mix, aloe and even mineral oil. Nothing helped.

At one point, I had both hands covered in aloe, a wet wash cloth on each and my hands in two huge bags that were filled with ice and water. That did not even help. at about 5am S calls my doctor at his emergency number. He says to get in the car and go to the emergency rooms at GW. So, we get in the car and I ride with my hands out the window to let the wind somewhat cool them down.

I check in with the front desk and am taken back to some ER room at about 6am. Now, realize that I am SO embarrassed at this point. Everyone in there is looking at me like I am a freak. They even wrote on the ER board where they identify what is ailing a patient “CD, jalapeno hands.” It was funny as hell.

Once I am in my little holding room they give me a shot a morphine, which by the way does nothing to ease the pain. Damn good high, but nothing for the pain. After the morphine they give me a shot of something stronger which also does nothing for the pain. I even got a shot of straight benedryl because they thought I might be having an allergic reaction. Needless to say, nothing works for the pain. They debated admitting me at one point. They also talked about putting me on some IV of pain killers.

Finally, after being there for about 3 hours, they tell me to go home and basically just wait out the pain. They did give me a prescription for some really strong pain killers.

Well, to get to the end….the pain finally lessoned to where I could take it on Saturday night at about 6pm. I was basically in a living hell for like 18 hours. Even today (Monday morning) I still feel a burning in both hands. If I scratch any part of my body, it immediately starts to burn. I can just bump into something and even that little bit of contact sets off a slight burn. And get this, my feet have this low grade burn from walking on them. That’s how much of the jalapeno oil got into my body.

Have a cure for this dreaded condition? Leave a comment below!