The Berkeley Life

Better Living through Research

No More Diaper Leaks with Overnight Diapers

I used to wonder what the big deal was about “overnight” diapers. That is, until my son reached toddlerhood. Then all of a sudden the idea of an overnight diaper no longer seemed like just another marketing gimmick. When morning after morning, my son woke up with his sleeper wet, I began the search. First we tried Safeway brand overnight diapers, but no luck. He still woke up wet in the morning. The we decided to try Huggies Overnites , but after going to our neighborhood Longs, Safeway and Andronico’s, we couldn’t find the diapers in his size. If you’ve ever tried to buy overnight diapers, you already know that for some odd reason, the stock on the shelves is sparse and typically in only the larger sizes. A very frustrating reality for those of us with a younger toddler and/or one on the smaller size. That’s when I became a dedicated shopper on Diapers.com. Not only are their prices lower than any “brick & mortar” store, but they’ve always had any size diaper I needed in stock, and as long as you place your order before 6pm, your purchase arrives on your doorstep the very next day! As if that weren’t enough, they also provide free shipping on all orders over $50. So I simply order 3 packs of diapers at a time, have them delivered, save money and no longer have to go hunting from store to store. It doesn’t get easier than that. The best part though is that my son, who drinks 6 ounces of milk before bed every night, hasn’t woken up wet since we discovered Huggies Overnites through Diapers.com.

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Fun for Free: Toddler Videos

As the parent of a two year old boy, one of the things I don’t want is for him to be glued to the television for hours on end. That’s a pretty normal thing for a parent, right?

However, there is a lot of great content on video and television, and I don’t really want to deprive the little guy of all that is good out there. One trick I have found is simply to use YouTube.  There is a certain brilliant randomness to this, because you can find videos on just about any topic, and most of them are just a few moments long.   For example, if the little man yells something like “DUMP TRUCK!,”  then all I have to do is to type dump truck into the seach function of youtube, and I will find footage of dump trucks doing their thing.    Using this technique, the little people can be entertained for anywhere from 2 minutes to as long as you like.  It’s better than TV, because it requires SOME interaction (choosing a video and clicking on it), and you can also do it together with your kid, and talk about the videos with them.

Here are some of our favorites:

Choo Choo Soul Blue Zoo Train

Dump Truck

The Remote Control Flying School Bus

Chinook Helicopter

World’s Largest Truck

Doodlebops “Get on the Bus” Song

The Wiggles Big Red Car

Using YouTube is free fun for toddlers.  You do have to watch out for all of the “other” content on there, but as long as you do that, you can have a great time, for less than a dime.

With that,   I leave you with my son’s very favorite video.  I have no idea why he loves this one so much, but hey…like I said, it’s fun, it’s free, and it’s for toddlers:



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The Healthiest Coffee Maker

My Zojirushi

I think the last time I missed a day of drinking coffee was when I was 15 years old.  That means that I have  about 20 years of experience in coffee drinking, and that I’ve drank coffee from the last 7300 consecutive days.   Does that qualify me as an expert?  Add the fact that I’m a bay area resident and have been consuming the likes of Peets before there was ever a Starbucks, and I think it’s fair to say that I know my Java.

My daily ritual has typically been enjoyed through the use of a Bodum Columbia 8-Cup Stainless-Steel Thermal Press Pot. Press pots like this make amazing coffee.  You get all of the oils, and all of the taste of true coffee.  For quite a while, I believed that this was the way forward  – simple great tasting coffee, and an elegant machine that does not even need electricity to work.  Also, it looks pretty cool in the kitchen.   A full pot of this is enough to keep your soul warm and sipping for about 2 hours on any given morning.

Recently however I learned that press pot coffee is associated to higher cholesterol levels since the oils do not get filtered out.  You can learn more about this here.  Anyone at risk for higher cholesterol should heed this, but really everyone should heed this anyhow — there is no reason to raise your cholesterol levels.

As a rabid coffee drinker and health fanatic, I had to set out to solve this problem for myself.  The solution is very simple — you just have to use a paper filter.   So, the question becomes, which coffee maker to get?  Which of the many out there make the water hot enough, and also don’t have one of those glass carafes on a warming plate, which simply cooks the goodness out of the brew?

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In search of the best Costco wines: A review of La Crema Pinot Noir Sonoma 2007

La Crema Pinot Noir Sonoma 2007

La Crema Pinot Noir Sonoma 2007

I am both a drinker of fine wine, and an obsessive bargain hunter.

When it comes to wine, I love to taste it, and I love to go wine tasting.  However, wine tasting and wine buying are really two different activities.  If I want to go wine tasting, I can spend the day with my wife up in Sonoma, visit a few wineries, and inevitably buy a bottle or two at each winery.  In fact, once I’ve spent 20-30 minutes with the person pouring wine, i feel some kind of obligation to buy a bottle, which typically runs me $20-30 bucks a bottle.  That is OK, and if I want to spend the day that way, i’ll just know I’m going to be out a few hundred bucks.   Two of my favorite wineries up in Sonoma are Wellington Vineyards and Loxton Vineyards.

But most of the time, there is NO need to spend that amount on a bottle of wine.  So, I troll the depths of Trader Joes and Costco for good deals.   My take so far, is that Trader Joes is the best for the under $10 and under $5 category,  whereas Costco is tops for the under $25 category.    I dont’ know about you, but I just about never spend more than $25 on wine.  There are WAY too many good wines for under that price…

Anyhow, let’s get started with this review.   I purchased a bottle of La Crema Pinot Noir 2007 last week for $18 at the local Costco.

To start with, we fired up the Weber grill and threw on some wild sockeye salmon and some asparagus.  These were both prepared simply — drizzled with olive oil, lemon, and dill for the salmon.

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