The Lap Strap is a stretchable shoulder sling used to carry your laptop.

We see how the Lap Strap would benefit Gimpy people who are unsure of their grip and it might keep a valuable laptop from falling off a desk or the folding tables of planes. The Lap Strap also makes a laptop that much more portable because you don’t have to carry the computer in a bag.

However, while the Lap Strap might make it easier to tote a laptop around the office, half the point of putting it in a bag is to buffer it from getting knocked around.

If you’re on the move, it’s likely you’re still carrying a purse, a briefcase or a book bag large enough to store a laptop. So they’re either bumping into each other with the Lap Strap or you store the laptop in the bag sans Lap Strap.

You decide. Click here to see a video of the Lap Strap in action.

This early morning photo shows our raised bed of asparagus grown tall and surrounded by sunflowers, garbage cans planted with tomatoes and the pumpkin bed peeking from the back.

The asparagus bed is only two years old so we harvested sparingly this past Spring to let the fronds grow tall and the roots set deeper. Soon we’ll cut down the stalks, top dress the bed with well-rotted manure and then mulch the bed with the stalks and a thick mat of straw for winter.

Eds. Note: And that little critter in the back with his paw raised is one of two cement lions Cait bought at an estate sale for $5 each and hauled home.

Necessity being the mother of invention, the best Gimpliments often are designed by the people who need them most.

That was the case for Matt Elfein who designed this deceptively simple adjusting pole and tray when he could find nothing to assist him on his wheelchair.

Cait recently had the opportunity to test the tray and found it lightweight and easy to use — even for those with limited dexterity and hand strength.

Matt’s tray solves a key problem for walker- and wheelchair-users who struggle to carry hot food and beverages on trays and push carts. Cait watched Matt use it one day in a restaurant when his knees couldn’t fit under the table and he used his tray to eat dinner.

A primary reason Matt developed the tray, he told Cait, was that he was tired of dropping food on himself. The tray, he said, makes him much more independent - including as a parent. Now, for example, he can bring his children a snack on movie night or make breakfast more easily.

Click here to see a video and numerous uses for this great tray — including in business and class settings.

This Mammoth Grey Stripe is nearly a foot across and almost ripe enough for a cardinal feeding frenzy.

These Grey Stripes are easy to grow and provide color to browned-out parts of the late-summer garden. The only drawback is the heads are so big and heavy that each one must be propped up with a stout stake or they will fall right over and pull the roots from the ground.

A Long Island, N.Y., community says it may fast-track applications for single-family homes that use Universal Design elements to create barrier-free buildings.

“This goes to the very heart of how society can design environments that provide access for all people,” said Lynn Evans, of Suffolk County Accessible.

Forty percent of the population of Suffolk County are seniors, baby boomers, and people living with disabilities. That said, few architects and builders consider the needs of that population in new construction, Evans said.

The plan would encourage wider doorways and step-less entry ways, which would make life easier for everyone, including people with baby strollers. The plan also addresses the fact that all of us are “temporarily abled” — meaning sooner or later we all need barrier-free buildings whether we are young, old, permanently disabled or recovering from surgery.

Advocates of the Suffolk County plan say it follows legislation in New York City, has mandated the use of Universal Design elements in new buildings since 1987.

Great Britain is so far ahead of most other countries when it comes to being Gimpy friendly and it appears they have claimed another first.

The BBNav, with a 4.3-inch touch screen and hands-free Bluetooth calling capabilities, is a navigation device with information on 40,000 Gimpy points of interest in 150 cities and towns in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.

Let’s say you’re headed through Surrey, England, toward a long weekend in London. Touch the screen and the BBNav will show you every Gimpy friendly parking spot, bathroom, boating ramp, shop, hotel and beach.

It will even show you where to rent a scooter or a wheelchair for getting around the town. In other words, you can easily find a good Gimpy friendly restaurant for lunch in Surrey and then find a hotel in London and call ahead to book a room.

What a brillant little device. Here’s hoping the BBNav is such a hit the company will see the benefit of including other countries - soon!

Our sunflowers are coming on strong as the rest of the Gimpy Garden fades. We got the seeds in so late this year — nearly the end of June — that we didn’t think much would come of them. And in our haste, we didn’t keep track of what was where so we can’t tell you the name of this beauty or where to buy it. If any of you know, please let us know.

Eds. Note: After looking at some of our old seed packets, we’re guessing this is a variation of Autumn Beauty.

Everything in this beautiful basket was grown in containers — mostly metal garbage cans and old farm buckets — in our backyard.

We’re still pulling in a few tomatoes but they’ve turned as soggy as the early fall weather. The change in season spurred us to take delivery yesterday of 40 bales of straw, which we’ll use to mulch beds, put around the chicken coop as insulation for the winter and lay down in the new container beds we hope to build before the snow comes.

What a handy item for people with neck issues who want to know what is happening behind them when they’re on the computer.

Attach this to the edge of your computer and you can see what your spouse, your children and your pets are up to behind your back.

The 3-inch convex mirror, which attaches to the computer with Velcro, gives a wide-angle view of the scene around you and the secure feeling of having eyes in the back of your head.

This mirror from the Spoon Sisters - a great Web store for Gimpliments - is more expensive than similar items on the market. But it looked better made - and more attractive - than the others we considered.

This morning we signed on and found a whole page of links to the very worst of porn sites. Some waste-of-skin, low-life hacked in and posted them all on a sweet story about vacation opportunities for autistic children.

We know that stuff is automatically generated — spammers have their computers search the Web for an opening and then insert their links like flies lay eggs. They apparently landed on us after finding a weakness in WordPress security.

It was disgusting and disheartening and we apologize to anyone who saw it.

Cait & Marty