Dry Ice Blasting

On 3 December 2007, there was news about Prima Deli's cakes causing food poisoning for consumers. Back then, Prima Deli's shops had to be closed down for disinfecting. You can read more details about this case of food poisoning and the shop closure at my other blog, Health Motivator: http://www.peacemotivate.com/2007/12/12/prima-deli-food-poisoning/. We know that in the food industry, hygiene and cleanliness is extremely important. So it is so critical for food factories or companies to keep their premises as clean as possible. One revolutionary way of cleaning machinery (see Picture 1) is using a method called dry ice blasting. Unlike the old and more traditional way of cleaning (which involves the use of solvents such as detergents and water), dry ice blasting uses high jet dry ice to clean machinery and equipment -- a dry, sure clean and hygienic way of cleaning equipment of all types. Food factories which have not started using dry ice blasting should really consider using this method of cleaning (see Picture 1).

 
Picture 1: Dry Ice Blasting as used in the Food Industry

 
Picture 2: Dry Ice Blasting as used in cleaning sculptures or memorial stones

 
Picture 3: Dry Ice Blasting as used in cleaning Log Cabins

 In picture 2 and 3 above, you can see that dry ice blasting is used for cleaning memorials and log cabins. There are plenty of other industries that used dry ice blasting as well, and the Pharmaceutical Industry is one of them. There is more to learn about Dry Ice Blasting in detail at Ice Tech. They are the professionals who sell the dry ice blaster and therefore can provide you with all the information about their products -- brochures and videos.

Besides dry ice blasting, there is also the dry ice production -- you can buy slices or blocks of dry ice too. You can definitely see products here on their informative website. I am really amazed by the superb performance of the dry ice blaster (if you watch the video, you can see the motorcycle being washed, and it looks as good as new)! You must really visit the site to see it for yourself.

Jewelry For Money

The picture above shows some of my jewelry as well as Richard's. These jewelry items were ones we selected for pawning.

This is not the first time Richard and I have gone to the pawn shop. The first time we went there, we were not sure how things worked. Richard asked the pawn shop owner some questions in the beginning, and in the end he pawned his only gold bracelet. He obtained an amazing value of $2,350 for his gold bracelet (916 gold) -- scorpion design. In return, he needs to pay a monthly interest amount of $23.50. So in other words, a pawn shop acts like a loan shop. The gold bracelet or jewelry acts as the collateral.

Richard has lots of debts, and credit card loans have very high interest rates, so a pawn shop is just another place to get loans at lower interest rates. Now that we know something about pawn shops, we went back again. This time we brought more jewelry (as shown in the picture above). There are a total of 11 items in the picture (for pawn). Among the jewelry items were Richard's gold necklace and golden cross pendent. The golden cross pendent was a gift from me to him. The golden cross was blessed by the priest and I was reluctant to pawn it. However, we needed money to pay for our housing loan.

The golden cross was purchased more than a decade ago. Now you can see the sideways cross necklace! You can see another example of a sideways cross necklace at Jewelry Megastore. Jewelry Megastore sells a variety of jewelry -- white gold, gold, platinum, sterling silver, palladium, plated brass and gemstone products.

I digress for a moment, but did you know that there is something called pink gold? I have not visited any of the jewelry stores for the past year or so, and the last time I had visited one was perhaps in 2011. I had bought a pair of gold earrings at that time, and I was surprised to see the new jewelry designs -- especially the pink gold sideways cross necklace - wow! If you are like me, and rarely have time to go out shopping, then visit the site and take in some of the new items available that way.

Even though Richard pawned his only gold chain, Jewelry Megastore sells gold chains for men at reasonable prices. With his birthday being three months from now, is buying jewelry for him a good idea? I need to ponder this one for awhile.

One thing that's good about Jewelry Megastore, is that you can shop according to your budget. For example, for me, my budget is less than $50 and I just need to click on that and I was shown 215 products which mainly included bracelets. About 20 years ago when I bought the gold chain and pendant for Richard, I paid less than $300. Now the gold chain and pendant have increased in value. The rest of the items which I pawned were baby shower gifts.

So you can see that it is a very good investment to give gold products as gifts to friends or family. Just like I had told Richard, if my relatives had given me cash several years back, I would have spend all the money with nothing to show for it now. However, they had given me jewelry (gold), and gold is indeed a very good asset to have!