Save money on plumber visits and use one of these drain snakes the next time your sink backs up. Just insert one of the flexible snakes into the clogged drain and pull up: The barbs on the snake will catch any hair or gunk that might be causing the back-up, so your sink drains efficiently again. They’re easy to use — and a lot gentler on your pipes than chemical options.

Good Shabbos, Shabbat Shalom, Chag Sameach! Passover is nearly over and there has been an incredible amount of sharing of recipes through all forms of social media, including my busy Facebook group, Norene’s Kitchen! I thought I would share a few of their most popular picks for Passover desserts that they served to family and friends, along with some tips for success. Happy baking!

The recent tragic fire at the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral which occurred on April 15th, 2019 has reminded people throughout the world of the need to pay close attention to safety features in buildings. The Notre Dame de Paris cathedral is 850 years old and it is part of the Paris Banks Of The Seine UNESCO World Heritage Site. This historic cathedral did not have a fire suppression sprinkler system installed in it.  If the administrators who manage this historic cathedral had opted to install a sprinkler system in this building, the recent fire would likely have automatically been extinguished within approximately 10 to 15 minutes, and the damage to the building would likely have been minimal.  

28 March. Bangladesh’s second liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal is expected to start commissioning in mid-April, a month later than initially expected. Summit Corp, a subsidiary of Singapore-based Summit Power International, and partner Mitsubishi Corp are expected to start commissioning at their floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) off the country’s coast on 20 April. The FSRU will be named “Summit LNG” and will pick up its commissioning cargo from Ras Laffan in Qatar before sailing to Bangladesh. It is currently dry docked in Ras Laffan Nakilat NKOM yard. The cargo will be supplied by Qatargas. Operations at the FSRU were expected to start in mid-March, ahead of schedule. The new timeline still puts the arrival of the FSRU ahead of schedule. The FSRU start-up date had also been partially hampered by construction delays on a pipeline that will carry regasified gas from the coastal city of Chattogram, near where the FSRU will be anchored, to the capital Dhaka. The planned LNG import volume of the project is about 3.75 million tonnes a year, which will double the country’s LNG import capacity to 7.5 million tonnes per year once fully operational. Bangladesh has scrapped plans to build additional floating LNG terminals in favour of land-based stations after the start-up of the country’s first FSRU was delayed by several months due to technical problems and bad weather.

Either every national government throughout the world needs to require that architects who practice in their countries use the most recent edition of the International Building Code, or the agencies which are responsible for building safety standards in each country need to revise their national building codes so that automatic sprinkler systems become mandatory in all buildings which exceed a certain height.  If the agencies which are responsible for building safety standards within national governments do not address this issue, then perhaps the administrators within some of the regional IGO’s throughout the world may opt to require that automatic sprinklers and CO detectors be installed in all buildings within their respective constituencies- as I’ve mentioned, the legislators within the CARICOM organization did opt adopt the International Building Code for construction projects within all of the CARICOM member states.  No matter how expensive this will be, this will end up saving numerous lives throughout the world each year.

Never water woody plants daily. This includes immediately after they’ve been planted. If they need to be watered the first few times after planting, do it with a hose. Always give them at least one day between irrigations so the roots can dry out and breathe.

Let’s be honest — Having colored hair is a commitment. While most salons recommend coming in every four to eight weeks for coloring touch-ups, not all of us have the time and money needed to sustain that upkeep.

A 19th-century farmhouse in the District of Columbia, a modernist home in Barrington Hills and an Italianate brownstone in Troy.

30 March. China expects to make the first trade on the long-awaited national emission trading scheme in 2020, as part of Beijing’s efforts to fulfill its commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emission. China has spent two years on legal and technical infrastructure construction after it announced its plans to launch the nationwide emission trading scheme (ETS) in 2017. It began setting up pilot trading platforms in 2013 in seven regions across the country but they have not been brought under a unified scheme yet. Coal-fired power is the first industry included into the national ETS, covering around 3 billion tonnes (bt) of greenhouse gas emitted in China every year. China will promote carbon trade in power sectors, Jiang Zhaoli, vice director of the climate change department at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said.  The government will also include more high-energy consuming industries such as steel, non-ferrous and construction materials, into the scheme. The nationwide ETS aims to cover 8 bt of carbon dioxide emission per annum from around 100,000 industrial plants when the trading scheme is fully launched. The ETS is designed to encourage power utilities and manufacturers to reduce emissions through a market mechanism. Some scholars in China, however, are questioning the necessity of the ETS due to overlapping of policies. On the whole, China also plans to introduce a carbon tax and a renewable power quota system with a similar aim of boosting clean energy consumption and cutting emission at industrial plants. China said it has cut carbon intensity by 45.8 percent in 2018 from the level in 2005, exceeding the target of lowering it 45 percent by 2020. It also pledged to bring emission to a peak by around 2030 as part of its commitments to the 2015 Paris accord.

This is a basic concept that everyone understands; you need insulation in your attic. If there are voids in the insulation, they need to be fixed. If there isn’t enough insulation, add more. The current minimum requirement for new homes in Minnesota is R-49 in the attic. This equates to about 18" of loose fill fiberglass, depending on the manufacturer. For more information about insulation methods, see my two blog posts from last year, Attic Insulation Types and Attic Insulation Methods.

Decipher Energy said that during the clean-up flow, the development well was confirmed to have a capacity to deliver the expected peak production rates of more than 10,000 bopd.

29 March. The rise in temperature has pushed up the demand for electricity across Gujarat with an increased number of consumers switching on their air conditioners, fans and coolers to get respite from heat. The state’s power demand during peak hours surged to a month’s high level. According to the State Load Dispatch Centre (SLDC), Gujarat, the demand of electricity reached 16,205 MW. This is the highest so far during the month of March. The power demand has crossed 16,000 MW mark only twice this month. In March last year, the peak demand was registered at 15,512 MW on 29 March 2018.