Geakebg

Here s something to celebrate: A little planning can make your next party more fun and less work-there s even a way to make it profitable. here are a few hints on how: 8226; Have a creative dress code or make the party black-tie formal. Try drinks on the patio or dessert in the garden. The unexpectedness of an unlikely location can add flavor to the meal. 8226; Make interesting place cards by writing each guest s name on a leaf, a cookie or a lottery ticket. Use potted plants or a goldfish bowl. Cluster candles around it. 8226; Background music and ambient lighting help create an inviting setting. 8226; Keep party favors in the same theme as the rest of the party-such as seed packets for a garden party. 8226; Take advantage of conve-nience items such as pre-chopped vegetables or rotisserie chickens. 8226; To inspire conversation, give guests...

What s no bigger than a flip phone comes in fashion colors and can weigh up to 50 grams with .01g accuracy. Don t look now, but the traditional jeweler s traveling scale is all fashioned out and style conscious. Pocket scales, used by jewelers, hunters and field investigators for dozens of uses, have taken the same route that turned cell phones into fashion accessories. You can now buy pocket scales that weigh less than a pound and are the size of a small flip phone yet still promise to weigh substances with accuracy up to .01g one hundredth of a gram. They come tricked out in camouflage, flames, translucent blue ice and hot baby doll pink. These are not your Uncle Jake s pocket scales, son. There are more modern uses for pocket scales as well. Chemists and chefs find them handy for measuring minute, precise amounts of chemicals and...

If you have ever looked at bivy sacks in catalogs or online, you know they can be claustrophobic and expensive. I can t help you much with the first, except to say that you ll get used to it. The expensive part, though, I have a solution for. I didn t want to spend 200 for a nice bivy, so I bought an emergency bivy for 20. It was basically a large plastic bag. I tested it on a rainy night, with a small umbrella over my head. I tried not to breath in the bag, but I still thought I d be soaked by the condensation, like all the books warn. In the morning I was surprizingly dry. Later, when I lost my bivy, it occurred to me that if it was basically a large plastic bag, why pay 20 or 200 to replace it. I got out two extra large garbage bags and duct-taped them together. After cutting open one end, I had a three-foot by seven-foot bivy sack. It...