Vacuum Cleaner

Seventeen-year-old James Hill dreamed of becoming a landscape artist and building a house on a lot next to his parents' Pasadena home someday. But a freak accident Sunday night snatched his dreams away.The 1995 graduate of DeMatha High School was electrocuted while vacuuming a floor at the Circuit City store at 78 Mountain Road in Pasadena. James, of the 200 block of Brookfield Road in Pasadena, was pronounced dead at North Arundel Hospital just after 11 p.m. Sunday.Anne Arundel police said yesterday that James, a part-time employee at the electronics store, was vacuuming the floor in a back room shortly after 7:30 p.m. when sales manager Steve Monoiodis and Laurie Hendricks, another employee, heard a scream.

An elderly Glen Burnie man, who locked himself out of a running car, was badly burned Thursday morning when he tried to kill the car's engine by siphoning out gas with a vacuum cleaner, authorities said Friday. The 82-year-old man, whose name was not released, was injured when the vacuum cleaner exploded, said Anne Arundel County firefighters who were called to the man's house in the 200 block of Benmere Drive about 7:30 a.m. Thursday. He was listed in fair condition -- with burns to 20 percent of his body -- at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center yesterday.

Around the house* Use beach bags to store summer clothing like bathing suits, shorts and sandals. Save space by hanging on walls in niches that are out of sight.* Before heat is turned on, vacuum dust from vents. Remove grilles and run through dishwasher.* Spruce up dress shirts. With a fine mist of spray starch on collars and cuffs, a damp, freshly laundered, permanent-press shirt should not require ironing. Hang to dry.* Use a plastic bath mat with suction cups as a place mat for a pet's food bowl.

Master Power Inc., a Westminster company that makes pneumatic tools, wanted a Japanese supplier of a compressed air vacuum cleaner to make improvements in its product because of customer complaints.But when the suppler said no, said Master Power's president, Albert G. Wordsworth, the company decided to develop its own pneumatic vacuum cleaner, with help from a state program. The new device has been on the market for a year and is outselling the old vacuum cleaner by 4 1/2 to 1, Mr. Wordsworth said.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. When prying a den's sofa free from the wall behind, this grim summation of the human experience is fully understood. Here lies family history in all its multi-layered ignominy: kitty hair, petrified human skin cells, a less than sweet-smelling gym sock, and the still vibrant constellation of Froot Loops that little Andy spilled there last April. To err is human; to vacuum, divine. And soon enough, when the Dyson DC07 RootCyclone vacuum cleaner is launched in the United States, the job will be a whole lot holier.

Around the house* Remove stubborn spots from windows. Moisten a cloth or sponge with rubbing alcohol and wipe away stains.* Clean beneath area rugs at least twice a year. Vacuum padding and floor thoroughly.* Keep a child's broom in foyer hall closet or near the front entrance of your home. A daily quick brush over welcome mats or rugs will keep area free from tracked-in debris, and you won't have to haul out vacuum cleaner.* Enjoy your summer vacations year round. Collect a print from each place you have traveled.

Room for moreA new space-saving device can help travelers heading to cold-weather destinations pack sweaters, coats, pillows and comforters in roughly one-fourth of the usual space. The Space Bag from New West Products can reduce a 3-foot high stack of any loosely woven items into a relatively flat bundle using an ordinary vacuum cleaner. You just use the vacuum's hose attachment to suck the air out of the bag by way of a specially designed valve. Just open the bag when you get to your destination and the bag and its contents will reinflate.

The vacuum cleaner is one of my favorite machines. This is an embarrassing disclosure because it could lead to charges that (1) a guy is actually capable of operating a a vacuum cleaner -- something 70 percent of the adult male population denies -- and (2) that a guy could actually enjoy it.Let me immediately go on record as stating that I am only a recreational user of the vacuum cleaner. I like to use it for short, quick, whimsy-driven undertakings, such as getting the sand out of the car's back seat.

TOKYO -- Ring out an old year that gave birth to the automatic can-sorting garbage truck. Ring in a new year bright with the promise of a laundry soap that won't fade colored clothes.Can this be the same Japan that in 1990 computerized the bedroom to measure the night's street noises and play mood music just loud enough to shut them out? The same country that in 1989 gave humankind the self-warming padded toilet seat?Japan it is, and it has taken corporate tacticians two long years of harder times to bring out products prosaic enough to match their customers' new mood.