Kevlar, and Stalin?

Got new bike tires this weekend. The roads do not get swept in Socorro as often as other places, and my canvassing duties are taking me into all kinds of barrios, where the roads are really treacherous for Old Blue. My new tires:

"feature a subtread barrier of DuPont Kevlar fabric impregnated with a Kevlar-engineered elastomer that seals all gaps in the fabric weave, along with a synthetic cap ply material that prevents sidewall cuts. This technological troika is designed to take whatever the road—or the trail—dishes out."

Isn't that fun? Don't you want a 'technological troika? ; ) The guy at the bike shop felt my pain, and let me talk him into ALSO filling the tube with gel, but was not enthusiastic about adding liners to my supposedly indestructable tires.

In other news, I am now officially the Stalin of the cockroach world. Off they go to the Gulag, with a potato and a spoon made of wire, to slowly starve to death. Oh yeah, or die of poisoned food. If I had planned this out in advance, it would have been so appallingly calculated that the entire planet would shake in fear of me ever even being on City Council. So here's what I did (in case I ever have this problem again, it will be helpful to have documentation): First, for about three weeks, I was irritatingly immaculate about food and water in the house, down to wiping down the water drops from inside the sink when I brushed my teeth, and drying out the tub when I was done taking a shower. The roaches were getting very hungry and thirsty. This cut them down by about 75%---especially the large german browns. I was down to seeing a couple at night in the bathroom---mostly infants. So I started leaving the lights on all night, making it even more uncomfortable for them to come out to forage. HA. I saw even fewer, but anyone who's dealt with roaches knows that they were still there. I just wasn't seeing them. So yesterday, when all the little creatures were more or less starving to death, and all the grownups have gone elsewhere or died, I put down baited traps, and turned out the lights. Dude. In a few minutes, I could HEAR them in there. Ew. So I went to bed. In the middle of the night, and this morning, before dawn, I headed into the bathroom to see how it was going. One dead roach on the floor. Otherwise, nothing. No noises, no roaches, nothing. In the epic, millenia-long battle of humans v. roaches, score one for humans. Give it a couple more days, and I might actually feel comfortable eating in my own house!