May 19, 2007 5 min read

Last week, I was remiss in wishing all the Moms out there a happy Mother’s Day, so to all of you — belated best wishes. I probably forgot because we were busy buying a couple of high-tech “weed whackers,” which I’d originally seen and been impressed with, courtesy of Carl Jr. at Micarelli’s, who was using one on the grass outside the store.

When I walked out to talk to him, I noticed that not only was it a really quiet device, but I thought that my eyesight was failing — since although it was obviously electric, there was no sign of the usual long power cord you need to operate one.

As Carl took a quick break, he showed it to me.

Not only was it lightweight and powerful, but it seemed sturdy, as well. Later that night, my wife and I checked it out online at the Black & Decker Web site at a href=”http://www.blackanddecker.com http://www.blackanddecker.com end

. Not only have Black & Decker been around for a long time, but they also come out with some really innovative power-tool stuff. The cordless “GrassHog” is one example. It comes with two 18-volt batteries and a charger.

Carl also informed me that when he bought his, the store where he purchased it was offering an additional radio/battery charger for free, giving one the added bonus of being able to charge both batteries at once.

Black & Decker also has a small line of various power tools that utilize the same batteries and Carl had even picked up a flashlight that they worked with.

We went the next night and loaded up the “Toaster” (my Scion) with a couple of them. According to my wife, my mom-in-law, Mary, absolutely loves hers. These also remove the mildly annoying task of making sure that your oil to gasoline ratio on your two-cycle gas weed-eater is correct, plus it removes the equally (if not more) annoying noise and smoke aspect of my old weed-whacker.

Now, all I have to do is to remember to adequately charge the batteries on it, so as not to have that frustrating thing of having it die on me in mid-cutting session. All in all, it certainly is a very cool device.

This brings up another of my favorite aspects of the Internet: You can see if any of your wildest ideas and schemes exist or are possible. I did a search on Google for “cordless lawnmowers” and got a lot of really good information. To be honest, I’ve really gotten fed up with not only gas-powered trimmers, but also gas lawnmowers.

I looked at a href=”http://landscaping.about.com/cs/lawns/gr/mulching_mowers.htm http://landscaping.about.com/cs/lawns/gr/mulching_mowers.htm end

for some information on price and how feasible they are to use, but I’ve decided not to rush into the cordless lawnmower thing yet.

I also recently found another cool gadget online — this time, it’s car-related, and it’s at a href=”http://www.autosportcatalog.com/index.cfm?fa=p&pid=3411 http://www.autosportcatalog.com/index.cfm?fa=p&pid=3411 end

. It’s an oil-change pump that allows you to remove the old oil from the top. Not only has it become really inconvenient to try to schedule small things like oil changes due to our busy lives, but, as a former mechanic, I also suppose I still get pangs from time to time to dabble with my car. This looks (on paper, at least) like a clean way of doing it.

In theory, all you do is insert the probe from the oil-removal device into the dipstick hole on your car, then pump the handle that’s attached to the device. It sucks the old oil out through the dipstick tube.

I also have to mention that you still have to remove and replace the oil filter, as well, but on my Scion, at least, the filter is also accessible from the top. I’ll let you know how well it (hopefully) works after I use it. It does appear well made and my only doubts are whether it will reach deep enough via the dipstick tube to get all the old oil out.

Due to some other great info I’ve found on the ‘Net, I’ve also decided to try my hand at biasing my guitar amp after replacing the tubes. I found an excellent free video online that showed exactly how to do this form of adjustment. Since our band (Bad Mojo) will be playing some dates shortly, I’m already going over my guitar gear and working out how I can trim it down to the bare minimum. I’ve told a few of my guitar students (and aspiring rock stars) just how daunting it can be after four hours of musical fun to look at your gear and think: (a) Why did I bring so much? and (b) Can I load it up before I collapse?

It’s still a lot of fun, though, even in my advancing years.

Until next week, happy surfing.