Urban legend: water is less healthy than wine

Received this email from a friend today:
It has been scientifically proven that if we drink 1 liter of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1Kg of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria found in feces. In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of Poo. However, we do not run that risk when drinking wine (or rum, whiskey, beer or other liquors) because alcohol has to go through a distillation process of boiling, filtering and fermenting and alcohol kills E.coli
WATER = Poo
WINE = Health

As a microbiologist, I feel compelled to shoot down this blatant attack on drinking water quality.
The math doesn't add up.
1 bacteria = 10^-12 kg (very roughly)
1 kg of bacteria = 10¹² cells
1 liter of water per day = 365 liters
10¹² cells / 365 liters = 2.7 x 10⁹ cells per liter
Waaaaaaaaaaay higher than the bacterial load found in tap water even in the developing world, by many orders of magnitude. If a liter of water had this many bacteria in it, the water would be visibly cloudy. Even if you drank water with such a high bacterial load, you are surely drinking a mixed population and not a pure E. coli solution.

So there.

---
References:
Hypertextbook: Mass of a Bacterium: "A typical mass of a bacterium would be about 10^-12 g or one picogram (pm)."
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: "E-coli concentrations in unsanitary drinking water at various developing world sites are typically found to exceed thousands per 100 milliliters (e.g., 30,000 per 100 ml reported at a site near Pune, India). The WHO standard specifies less than 1 per 100 ml for good drinking water quality, which is also the standard used in the industrial world drinking water supply."
US EPA Drinking Water standards state that heterotrophic bacteria should not exceed 500 CFU per ml.
"Heterotrophic plate counts and drinking-water safety" from World Health Organization: "Exposure to general HPC microbiota is far greater through foodstuffs than through drinking-water."

How do you like the house?

Since we bought a house three months ago, my friends keep asking how I like it, I guess to make conversation, possibly because they're really interested in my answer. I can't imagine they're really interested, though, because I think I talk about my house too much. I've been making a conscious effort not to let it monopolize every conversation I have. Maybe I've been making so much of an effort NOT to talk about it lately, that I might not be talking about it anymore at all.

Anyway, the short answer: I love it. Especially the space.

Our two-bedroom apartment was pretty big by apartment standards: 1100 square feet. I don't know the measurements of the new house, but I can tell you it's huge. Four bedrooms, two bathrooms, two-car garage, full basement, one acre of wooded land, and a one-bedroom in-law suite attached to the house. So half the rooms in the house are empty, and it will be a while before we have the cash to fill those rooms with furniture and window treatments and all.

My parents are moving in this spring, though, so they will be bringing lots of stuff we can use. They're downsizing from a three-bedroom house to a one-bedroom apartment, so I know they're grateful to bring along many of their things to our house. I'm concerned about getting overrun with their stuff, though, because I really value my open space and this is the first time I've had this much of it. I'll just have to stick to my decisions when I choose not to take some of Mom & Dad's things. It's hard to say no, though, especially if Mom pouts.

The house has absolutely no carpets. It's all hard flooring - vinyl tile, ceramic tile, and wood laminate. The previous owners once had a carpet cleaning business, so they know how dirty carpets are. It's very hard to keep them as clean as hard floors. A few months ago I bought a Scooba, one of those robots that mops the floors, and I love it. I haven't mopped once in the three months we've lived here. However, my Swiffer has never seen this much action. I've found that I have to sweep the hallways and bathrooms daily. And I haven't mastered the Pergo floor care yet; the Scooba seems like overkill because there's low traffic in that part of the house and it never seems to get very dirty. And the cleaning solution leaves streaks on the floor unless I fill the tank with dilute vinegar. I've been sweeping or vacuuming every couple of weeks and it's clean enough so far. Maybe I'll just pull out the mop once a month for that part of the house.

We also love having a garage. Today it snowed for the first time this season, and we didn't have to scrape our windshields or anything because the cars were protected inside the garage. Such a treat! I'm glad we didn't buy a snowblower yet because it would have been little more than decoration.

I've always been told that it's a lot of work to take care of a home. A big responsibility, you know. But this is one of those truths that you can never fully appreciate until you experience it yourself. And my parents never clued me in to the reality of all this maintenance. I thought taking care of a house was just a matter of keeping it clean. We've already had to replace the roof ($5700, ouch) and re-line the chimney (estimates still pending). Even something as "little" as changing all the locks ended up costing several hundred dollars, which was way more than I thought it should cost. I moved a big chunk of our savings into CD's in order to prevent me from accidentally draining all of our money on the house. Of course, we did HAVE to buy a plasma TV before the spending freeze, though. We're really glad about that decision, as irresponsible as it may seem.

We have some remodeling in mind.... the bathrooms were done with cheap materials, including the selection of tiny little stall showers. And the master bedroom has woefully inadequate closet space. The first project on my wish list is to open the wall between the master bedroom and one of the secondary bedrooms so that we can have his-and-hers walk-in closets. Then I want to install a doorless / walk-in / walk-behind shower, whatever you call it. The bathroom is big enough to put a separate tub enclosure, and a double sink, but that will have to wait a couple of years till the cash is there. We've finally clawed our way out of our most expensive debts so I'm determined never to borrow from credit cards. I'd rather cancel cable TV and shop at thrift stores than to get into debt again.

So that's the long answer.

Wanted: Good Dentist

Like most responsible people with insurance, over the past year I have had two regular dental checkups and cleanings.  At each visit, I mentioned this recurring pain and sensitivity in one tooth but the doctors were convinced nothing was wrong.  Two different dentists said this, in two different practices.  They poked and pressed and x-rayed and flossed it, concluding that nothing was wrong.  They paid special attention to the old root canal in the neighboring tooth, which was done 8 years ago, but each doctor deemed it as sound and secure as it had been the day it was performed.  The second doctor said my gums indicated I wasn't flossing regularly, but the tooth itself seemed perfectly normal.  I couldn't believe this pain was hidden from everyone but me.  It was so bad that if I encountered an unexpected hard texture in my food, EVERYONE in the room would have to know that I was in pain.  It was happening at least once a day.  When it started throbbing all on its own, I went back to the dentist hoping he would be able to fix it.  He thoroughly examined the tooth AGAIN, and decided it must be a cracked tooth.  This is something that can't really be treated -- either the tooth gets better on its own, or it breaks eventually and then they fix the broken tooth.  I was amazed.  I guess it happens pretty commonly, to hear a doctor say there's nothing he can do, but it's never happened to ME.  Unbelievable.  Sure enough, two and a half weeks after that visit, the tooth broke and the dentist fixed it with a filling.  The novacaine didn't have enough of an effect, though, and I whimpered and squirmed and hated it more than any dentist visit I've ever had.  The doctor was really surprised at how quickly the novacaine seemed to wear off.  He said "Most people take ten minutes to get numb, but you start getting UN-numb in ten minutes.  You must metabolize this stuff really quickly!"  I shrugged.  I just wanted to get outta there.  After I left his office, I wa able to relax and my blood started flowing more normally so *only then* did my jaw and lip get fully numb.  Great.

I've lived in this part of New Jersey for four years, and I've been looking for a great dentist the whole time.  I've only met two people who tell me they really like their dentists: one is an hour away, and the other is not covered by my insurance.  All the other people I've asked have felt the same way about their dentist as I feel about mine: "Eh, he's okay.  Nothing special, though."

My gigabyte

I lost my USB thumb drive. I knew the last place I saw it was at home in the evening, and I noticed it missing the next morning at work. So it had to be somewhere in the middle. Either it's in the house somewhere, or it's in the bag I take to work, or in the car. I never went on a tear looking for it for two reasons: 1) I expected to run across it in my daily dealings and 2) there was no critical data on it.

I checked through my bag, looked under the seats in my car, checked the likely spots at home, and couldn't find it. I made up a song to mourn my loss, sung to the tune of "O Christmas Tree": "O gigabyte, O gigabyte, I wonder where is my gigabyte."

A week ago I gave up and bought a new drive. I didn't have time to play with it though, because work was busy and evenings have been full... so this morning I woke up early to install all my favorite Firefox extensions and to save my passwords into Roboform. I spent two hours goofing off on the Internet getting it all set up just so, and made myself late for work in the process.

I got to work and pulled my laptop out of my bag, and THERE IS WAS. My lost gigabyte was right there in the bottom of the bag. I could have SWORN I looked in that spot! It's fallen into that spot several times before, so I knew to look for it there. How did I miss it? And I JUST got done investing two hours into the customization of the replacement thumb drive. Ugh. I'll give that one back to my husband since he's been envying my U3 applications and his thumb drive didn't come with U3 installed. (Shameless pride: He's remarkably generous -- when we found out that one drive had U3 and the other didn't, he let me have the U3 one. Isn't he great?) So now we can both have U3.

Anyway I'm thrilled to have my old drive back now. I quickly installed all the cool extensions I discovered during my goof-off time this morning. I'm having a private little party in my soul today because I found it!

And to top it off, I'm driving a really cool car today. The dealership gave us a Lexus SUV as a loaner car, and it's so much fun. What a difference from my little Civic with a slipping transmission. And the driver's seat makes me feel so big and high up. I grin every time I hit the gas.

Attorney review

We've bought a house. Well, we're close anyway. Our second counteroffer was accepted, and we've signed the contract.... now we're just waiting for the sellers to sign and then begins the period of attorney review. My mom is scared that in New Jersey, it's entirely possible for another buyer to swoop in with a better offer and "steal" your house during the attorney review period. I'm not worried, though, because the market here just isn't that hot. The house has been on the market for over 2 months and ours was only the second offer. The first offer was contingent on the buyers selling their current home, and our offer had no contingencies so we won.

The new house is in a new congregation, but I won't be spreading the news to my current congregation until it's "official." Anyway it's only about a half-hour away, so we can visit whenever.

It's starting to sink in that a home is a big responsibility. We have no idea what's involved in maintaining a home, so I've been reading consumer-advice websites to figure out which maintenance tasks need to be done at which intervals. There's more to do than I ever dreamed. When I was a kid, my parents never let on that it was so much work to take care of a house!

Speaking of my parents, the new house has a relatively big in-law suite with its own bedroom, living areas, kitchen, and bathroom. So they'll be moving in as soon as we are ready for them. There's no big rush for either of us, though, so it's a little strange to be rushing right now. But we have to rush because our contract allows 3 days for getting this done, 10 days for getting that done... we have to hurry up and get all that stuff done. So I expect to be pretty busy for the next coupla weeks!