Unconventional Uses for your Dishwasher

Okay, I admit it; maybe I'm going a little crazy here doing all this unlikely blogging with no warning.

. 6 Unconventional Uses for your Dishwasher - DishwasherInfo.com: It takes the right mix of ingenuity and desperation to discover new uses for old tools, but whoever first tried steaming a salmon fillet in their dishwasher must’ve been drunk. For folks who are curious about what else their kitchen contraptions can do, here’s a rundown of the most unconventional uses for your home dishwasher.

Go to the link (see above) to list all of THEIR 'unconventional uses for your dishwasher. And maybe they're going a little crazy here, too!

The thing is ... I HAVE cooked Fish Filets in a dishwasher.  The first time was for a girlfriend in the 80's, and maybe it was a desperation thingie; she already had convinced herself that I was a kook (EDITOR'S NOTE:  that's a very Politically Correct expression meaning "Asshole", in the Real World).  But when I slathered a Salmon Fillet in mayonnaise, wrapped it tightly in three layers of tinfoil, put it in her own otherwise-empty dishwasher (without  detergent) and ran it through the whole cycle ...She decided that ... oh.  Okay, Full Disclosure: she still thought I was an asshole, but maybe I was not COMPLETELY full of bovine effluvia

I don't have SIX Unconventional Things, but I have also blogged here on my use of the dishwasher to clean firearms ... this time, both with and without the CASCADE soap.  (As I have just today made my custom, I'm not gong to search for the original article; if you're that interested, you can search for it as well as I can.)

Rules of Thumb for cleaning guns in your Dishwasher:

1. Rifles are not a good candidate, especially if they're (a) long, or (b) stocked with a wooden stock.  If you don't understand why, maybe you should consider just laying all of your rifles under the rear tandem-wheels of your F350 and running over them two or three times.  Same effect, but it's faster and easier.
2. If you're just putting your barrel in, go ahead and use the Cascade if it makes you feel good.  Include the slide?  Still okay, as long as you detail-strip it.  It's optional, but it WILL remove most of the grease and oil; not so good for lead or copper-jacket deposits in the barrel, of course.
3. Want to put the frame of your pistol in the dishwasher?  hmmm probably a good idea not to add the Cascade; regardless of the television adds; you may discover that some unfortunate deposits (lime,  soap-scum, etc.) may be building on the small parts and the channels through which they operate.  And always, ALWAYS TAKE THE STOCKS OFF THE FRAME!  They won't get clean, but they may be damaged by heat & humidity.  Also, they will interfere with the flow of the hot water through the frame interior.
4. Want to detail strip the frame, and then put it through your dishwasher WITH the detergent?  Hell, I don't care.  It's probably not the best idea, but you might get just as good a clean doing it by hand using the regular methods, and you'll probably be a lot more sure.
5. Stainless Steel .. isn't.  but I've run my S&W 659 through the dishwasher lots of times, and if I miss a target on a stage, I've always got a ready alibi.
6. Small parts; yes, you CAN springs, pins, safeties, extractors, etc. through your washer, and even include the CASCADE ... but make sure that your small parts are (a) enclosed in some kind of container, like a cloth bag, and (b) large enough that they're not going to squeeze out of the bag and wash down the drain.
7. Always, ALWAYS run the parts through the dry cycle as well as the Wash and Rinse cycle.  That little bit of moisture left in the extractor channel in the slide, for example?  It needs to be dry.  (Running a Q-tip through the extractor channel is never a total waste of time.)

Okay ... other things that I've cleaned in the dishwasher include motorcycle parts, car parts .. well, you get the idea.  If it's greasy and it fits, throw it in.

And washing caps in the dishwasher? Absolutely!  In fact, it may still be possible to purchase 'cap forms' online, which can be inserted in your cap to insure that it keeps its proper form through both the wash and the dryer cycles.  I've washed a lot of caps this way.  Especially after the end of the Summer Competition Season, when half of my caps are showing significant rings of salt due to perspiration.   Really, it WILL make them look a lot better; you cannot DO this in a Laundry Washer and Dryer with the same positive results.

FINAL CAUTIONARY WARNING:  .... and this is serious, Folks, so disregard this at your own peril:

Do all of this when your wife is NOT at home.  Well, except maybe for the Salmon Filet .. hey, no dishes; what's not to like?

But greasy guns, car/motorcycle/boat parts?  Funky caps?  You can't put that stuff in the laundry washer, and she'll agree with you there ... but  she doesn't want the dishes to taste and smell like your Hoppes #7; you know, that stuff that you not only use to clean firearms 'by hand', and even as a cologne by some misguided competitors.

FINAL FINAL!

• It never hurts to run an extra rinse cycle at the  end
• It may HELP if you run the last cycle without soap;  or even run a cycle before you start.   It might keep keep the machinery clean, but it's also a way to prevent irritation of the member of your household who cooks.  Nobody likes it when dishes come out of the washer dirtier than they went in.
• When you're done with the 'laundry list of suggestions for unconventional dishwasher tasks,maybe you can think of a couple which are unique and original within your own mind.  There's room for imaginative thinking here, and your creativity might earn you a little free time, while you relax and let the Dishwasher do all the "heavy lifting"

Oh, NOW I remember why I haven't been posting!

Yeah,  our charming host BLOGGER (aka GOOGLE) has been updated so that ... well, the old templates can no longer be maintained by the user.  Which means, we are forced to go to the new-and-improved BLOGGER templates, and "some of the features may not be retained" in the transition.

This is a Bad News/Good News situation.

Want to hear the Bad News?  I'm not gong to have all the features on my sidebar that I use to have.

The Good News?  My template was already fairly hozed by the updates to BLOGGER, and most of the really keen features I'm incorporated (read: "stole from other bloggers) since I started this blog in 2004 are either no longer functional, or they have been randomly distributed to other frames of the blog ... where they did not fit.

I'm thinking I have very little to lose, and honestly I saw this coming.  It's not that I'm so wise, it's just that they have been TELLING us for the past two years that we're going to have to change our template.  Me?  I've been too grumpy to embrace the change.  Hey, it may be so bad that they go back to the old version, and why should I go to all that trouble when I may have to undo the undoings I've already undone, if I change?

Remember the old John Lennon song (are there any NEW John Lennon songs?) IMAGINE, where he sings so mordantly:

"You may say I'm a Dreamer, but I'm not the only one ...."

(I'm of the sincere opinion that Mark David Chapman shot Lennon because of this song, but imagine I'm not the only one)



Anyway, Imagine that I was right and the New Blogger is a total piece of hooey, when it comes to translating eight-year-old templates to the new format.  But I've given it as long as possible to get from release 2.0 to release 2.1.11.01. ( I actually worked with a piece of vended software with that that release number, and what a piece of work THAT was), so I'm ready to concede that there are no alternatives to biting the bullet.


Uh ... sorry, John.  That was an ill-chosen phrase, in this context, wasn't it?

I'll do the conversion, okay?  So get off my back?

Maybe not tonight, though.  I don't think I've had quite enough to drink yet.  I'm not finished with the bottle of wine, and I've got three more stashed in the pots-and-pans cupboard, where the landlord won't find them in a million years!

And then, there's the half-gallon of Jameson, if I find I'm in need of still more "Dutch Courage".  (I always thought that phrase should be "Irish Courage", haven't you?).  Not to mention the Glenfiddich, the Stoly, the Ron Rico, the Malibou Stork, and that funny coffee flavored stuff you put in your coffee when you want to pretend you're not really drinking liquor when you really are.

Yeah, I can put this off for a LONG while yet, if I don't intend to actually do much blogging.

Or maybe the next time you sign on, this will look completely different (as those Monty Python guys use to say), and maybe it will look really trim and slim and totally RAD, Dude!

Yeah, right.  As if anyone still reads this blog.

Cheer up!  I've only had two glasses of wine today.  And it's not even four pm yet.

Whatever happens, you can't say I didn't warn you.

I'm just saying ........  OUCH!

YIKES!

I've been singularly inactive here for the past (mumble mumble mumble) days ... okay, it's like about two months ... mostly because my life has been so placid and boring that I didn't really have anything much to say. I know, that never seemed to stop me before.  Well, now I'm old. And I'm retired.

So you may be excused for being surprised that I actually found something to talk about today.  Something even more interesting than complaining about my inability to keep my loading presses functioning smoothly, my competition pistols functioning smoothly, and the odd directions in which targets dodge to avoid those very expensive bullets I pour downrange at them in vain hopes of not embarrassing myself TOO badly during IPSC-style shooting matches.

What's so exciting today?

I've been robbed.

Smooth but shady characters have sneaked into my private domain and slipped smoothly away with $1,327.00 of my money, and they almost got away with it.  But I caught them, shot them down, and got my money back.  Yes, I shot them ... not with my Beloved Kimber or the Marvelous Mossberg, but with my lowly Casio cell phone.

Here's the story:
I didn't get to go to the Dundee match this weekend because I'm now having trouble with my Lee loading press, so I spent some time on my computer, checking on my financial situation.  I signed onto my VISA credit card account and I discovered that I owed them over $1,600 dollars!

Hence the "YIKES!" title of this post.

Two transactions, the description of both beginning with "SQ*" showed up, dated on the 19th of this month.  Posted on the 20th ... it took me three days (this being the 22nd, if I can remember to actually PUBLISH this post before I wander off to the kitchen for another glass of wine) for me to discover them and report them via phone to my credit card carrier.  I talked to a representative in their "Fraud Department".  That very helpful Customer Service Representative assured me that I would NOT be required to pay for those transactions.  However, I have been sternly enjoined to destroy my credit card immediately and insure that any statements or other documents which may have my account information NOT be casually tossed in the trash, etc.

The funny thing is, I'm almost entirely paperless in my financial transactions. Any document which includes my name, or any account information (such as account number and/or transaction details) is shredded.  I don't even put the shredded paper in the trash until Trash Day.  Well ... okay, sometimes I forget to do it on Trash Day, but I always dump the shredder stuff on SOME Trash Day!

The accounts which include legitimate transactions are those -- such as Amazon.com -- with which I have done business for years.

It's a total mystery to me how my credit card number got out, and I suppose I will never discover the labyrinthine manner in which those shady shoddy sneaks winnowed out my account information.  But it will do them no good in the future, because my account has been cancelled, and a new card will be FedEx-ed to me (signature required!) during the coming business week.

[My GOD!  Can you just hear the stentorian tones?  I swear I can hear John Huston or John Amos or some stentorianly voiced John doing a voice-over.  No wonder Darth Vadar lost the fight. Oh, wait a minute ... that WAS the Stentorian-Toned one, wasn't it?  Okay, never mind.]

Thankfully,  I don't depend on credit cards to make most of my purchases, so being without one for a few days is not an imposition.  I'm grateful for my carrier that they took me at my word and acted immediately ... which is to say, while I was still on the line ... to cancel the card and arrange for its replacement.

It's probably a very good thing that I discovered the fraud so early.

It's only a fluke that I chose to check my account almost a month before the next payment is due.

But you know, I've noticed a LOT of 'flukes' in my life recently.  For example, I lost my cell phone last week.  Not in the usual places (desk, coffee table, nightstand, charger, trouser pocket, etc.) but before I began a THOROUGH search of the usual second-tier places (car, garage, under the sofa cushions, in the refrigerator ... I swear I'm not making that up) I somehow thought to look behind the curio cabinet which abuts the stairs to the second floor.  Yup, there it was, on the floor very close to the book case.  I NEVER put anything on top of the curio cabinet, except for pictures of my kids, and I have no idea what prompted me to look there.  Must be some kind of sub-conscious "save this idiot from losing his stuff" survival-oriented instinct of which I have not previously been away.  Anyway, I found the phone and I walk around the house with it in my hand, when I'm wearing pajamas which have no pockets.  (I suppose you would call those pajamas "A T-Shirt And Boxer Shorts", but I'm much classier than that.)

Well.  I had another "Credit Card Crisis" incident slightly similar to this a few years ago, involving sums of  a considerably less significant denomination. [I would include the link here for your edification and reference, but I'm old and retired and therefore too lazy to look it up.  Maybe later.]  At that time, I made some profoundly helpful suggestions about how everyone should monitor their financial accounts closely and frequently, including at random dates for no discernible reason.  I'm pretty sure I've been taking my own advice, and I want to congratulate myself for sharing my wisdom.

Now, everybody get off this loser blog and go check your accounts.  Do it now.

PS:  Gee, this writing business is kind of fun.  Maybe I should start a blog?
Oh .. wait a minute, I already have one, don't I?  I forgot.  Well, I'm old.

And I'm, retired.  Have I already mentioned that? (smug moment here)

If I'm too proud to inflict my peripatetic mundanities on myself, why should I inflict them on you?  Other than, of course, that I CAN!  (There's enough smugness here to fill a wine glass, which is a good thing because I've emptied mine and it's a  damn long way down to the kitchen to get a refill.)

PPS: Damn!  This means I can't write another blog entry until I've been robbed of an equal or greater sum. I KNEW this was a bad idea!

 PPPS.  Never mind.  By this evening, I would have forgotten all about this post, so I have a good excuse for writing about anything I wish, whenever it strikes my fancy.  Who says that Getting Old Is No Fun?

Oh, by the way .... if any of you should happen to stop by Chez Geek, would you mind looking around for a pair of bifocals?  I don't remember where I placed them, and it's unbelievably difficult to find glasses when you don't have .... er .. the glasses you need to be able to SEE to find your glasses.