When I was working in one of the old buildings, the technicians and blue collar workers kept track of the bottled water for the three bottled water stations next to ice machines. One night while working late, I discovered that they "refilled" the water bottles from the tap in the first floor utility room. I never told anyone because I was making ice tea and it didn't matter to me.

To this day I can't taste the difference between Brita water and spigot water. I can smell chlorine but that goes away when I put one teabag in a whole pot of water. It makes weak tea and kills the taste of the water (if water has any taste at all). Water is water. What comes out of the spigot is water.

I have no tastebuds for bottled water unless they use ion exchange and then I can taste the saltiness of the ion exchange process.

Even Reverse Osmosis water has no taste to me and that's nearly pure water.

Sorry to be geeky.

Down wind of restaurant kitchens, there are often characteristic smells. I especially notice and enjoy the odors coming from Indian and Chinese restaurant kitchens.

On the bad side are the odors coming from steak houses. I've always hated the smell of hot grease. Right down the block from one of my favorite theaters, there's an exhaust fan from a steak house kitchen. It's an ordeal for me to walk through that draft of greasy air.

There is a papermill in Evadale, TX that I worked at as a teen. As you may know, paper mills can just be a boquet of aromas. It was a happy time of my life and I still associate the papermill smell to that period of life and now I don't find it as unpleasant of a smell as most people.

New Orleans i nthe French Quarter just plain STINKS though. Bourbon street smells like stale beer and the bottom of a dumpster. Now everytime I walk by a dumpster in the summer heat, I think of the Big Easy.

As for water, remember the old saying Don't drink the water, it is true,most true for dogs and cats. When traveling take your local water with you and mix it with the water when you get to where your going, it is much easer on the stomach.

When I was married we showed dogs and went all over, we always took enough water with us so as to not upset the dogs.

Works with people too.

River

ramses (imported) wrote: Tue Mar 16, 2010 9:17 am There is a papermill in Evadale, TX

I had completely forgotten about a paper mill in the Appalachians between Knoxville, TN and Asheville, NC. You could fart with impunity when driving by.

Arab Nights (imported) wrote: Wed Mar 17, 2010 5:40 pm I had completely forgotten about a paper mill in the Appalachians between Knoxville, TN and Asheville, NC. You could fart with impunity when driving by.

I fart with impunity once or twice a week. Why wait for a paper plant?

Where is Bay City, Michigan on that list? Have you ever smelled the disgusting, overwhelming smell of sugar beet processing plants? lol...

Madonna nailed it: this city can stink *bad* when the beets are being burned or whatever they do to them to make Michigan Sugar.

When the sugar beets are going most of the city is covered in that stench. Now that I live here I suppose I'll get used to it. I hope.