Bringing Home the Bacon

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Showing posts from April, 2009

Dayton Media on Twitter

Couldn't They Have Called it the Mexican Flu

This blog is all about my worlds colliding. So, here we are at swine meets PR meets health care.

Let me start by wearing my agri-PR hat and saying:
There is no evidence at this time that the virus is in U.S. swine. (USDA)Swine influenza viruses are not transmitted by food so you cannot get swine influenza from eating pork or pork products. (USDA)This virus is different, very different from that found in pigs. (NPPC)And now for my health care PR spiel, courtesy of the CDC.Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it. Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hands cleaners are also effective. Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread that way. Try to avoid close contact with sick people. Influenza is thought to spread mainly person-to-person through coughing or sneezing of infected people. Lastly, a note about branding. Anyone who thinks that naming and bra…

Pork and PR

We get a lot of publications at our house that feature many, many pictures of pig balls. Get your mind out of the gutter! These are serious publications that include ads from boar studs (a boar stud is exactly what you think it is) that are showing the males they have for sale.

We also get a number of earnest publications put together by the Pork Producers Council and the Farm Bureau featuring swine manure management strategies or perhaps stories about farmers and how they plant the exact grasses in their pasture to maximize the digestive process of their goats (an actual story that I read).

The point I'm getting to is that in looking over the farm literature that comes into the house daily I'm starting to see a trend. Farmers, at least when talking to each other, are tired of lying back and letting others shape their image.

I participated in my first #agchat on Twitter tonight. For two hours, I watched over 130 tweets roll in from people all over the world who are concerned abou…

Cool Mothers' Day Card

Scrapblog has a great deal. $1 printing AND shipping for a cool Mothers' Day card that can be fully customized.

Case Closed

A Geek Squad double agent was dispatched to our farm today. And I love him. Although, now that I think about it, a double agent works at cross purposes to the agency he appears to support--so as a true double agent, he should have been trying to put MORE viruses on my PC.

He arrived ON TIME in his cute little Geek-mobile. According to the Mission Details that he left behind in his Field Agent Communique, he removed 12 infections and had to run a few extra programs to get rid of a pesky trojan. Those trojans CAN be difficult, and unreliable.

While he couldn't pinpoint the exact source of all the bugs on my computer, he did have some tips on system performance and online safety. Chiefly, he told me to ditch McAfee as soon as possible and get Norton 360 or Webroot Spysweeper with Anti-virus. It ticks me off to learn that McAfee can only cure the computer equivalent of an ice cream headache, especially since Dell suckered me into a multi-year deal with them.
His other great piece of adv…

Danger, Danger Will Robinson!

UPDATE 4/16:
I made a last-ditch effort to resolve this myself and contacted Ree at Pioneer Woman directly. To her credit, she was very kind and apologetic. I didn't really see this from visiting her site (hence my frustrated comments there), but she really has done her homework to help people get through this with free tools and instructions.

Now I have a dilemma. Should I slog through two pages of technical instructions to save myself paying $300 to Geek Squad? Or should I save myself the endless frustration of probably not being able to get it anyway, and just let a professional do this? I have created the first-ever Bringing Home the Bacon poll at right. Vote early, vote often.

UPDATE 4/13: According to the very nice lady from Geek Squad I have a cocktail of horrible viruses floating around on my PC--no doubt obtained at the PW blog and elsewhere. They are dispatching a "double agent" to my house on Saturday. I probably should have Husband take our first-born farming wi…