The Lemming's Back: Or, Flight Characteristics of Wet Dust

As it turned out, the Lemming got back in "none of the above:"

• "A Change in Schedule, or, the Lemming Takes a Break"
  (September 10, 2012)

A medical emergency and family ties kept the Lemming, cleverly disguised as some 60-something human, tied up. Metaphorically speaking:

• "Another Month, Another Unexpected Drive"
  Through One Dad's eye (September 16, 2012)

The Lemming thought of getting back on schedule with a post about an XKCD.com comic strip, but decided to go with something that happened this week instead.

The Lemming's household had gotten a call from Rainbow^® (rainbowsystem.com), with the usual offer to demonstrate their product and get a free gizmo. Generally, the Lemming isn't interested: but this outfit was selling air purifiers. That's important for quite a few folks in this house, so the Lemming said 'okay.'

We didn't buy the full-size air cleaner: the price is probably reasonable, but much more than this household can afford right now. What we got was a scaled-down Rainbow^® unit, with a noisier motor and fewer of the bells and whistles. It'll be interesting to see how well it works over the next few weeks.

The freebie is about the size of two or three stacked pumpernickel loaves. It's mechanically simple: a motor drives a fan and centrifugal water pump. The pump pulls water from a smallish reservoir, flings droplets through air drawn in by the fan, with the vast bulk of the water falling back into the reservoir.

Most of the water evaporates: but mostly it just picks up dust that's in the air. The slogan on their website is "Wet Dust Can’t Fly^®." It's the same sort of thing that happens when it rains: only this rain shower is horizontal, and contained inside the gadget.

The Lemming would have enjoyed the demo, even if the gadget hadn't been worth thinking about. For one thing, the Lemming had never seen a vacuum cleaner play a harmonica before. That was fun. Watching stuff from the couch turn water into a very thin mud foam: not so much.

Folks in this household had a good time, watching the demo and chatting with the salesman and trainee who came. Your experience may vary.

That's all for now. The Lemming expects to be back next Friday, opining about whatever blows in from the Internet.

Not-completely-unrelated posts:

• "Roomba Review, and Dancing Robots"
  (August 17, 2012)
• "Alarm Clocks, the Early Days: 'At the Sound of the Clunk...' "
  (July 20, 2012)
• "Dyson "Groom Tool" - A Little More Than a Brush and Vacuum"
  (November 6, 2010)
• "3D TV Health Concern: Sort of"
  (April 15, 2010)
• "Titanium Dioxide in Concrete: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?"
  (August 8, 2010)