My Garden, 2006 edition

Check out the pic with detailed notes here.

I am trying a few new items this year in that I have decided that garlic (planted in the fall and soon to be harvested), celery and red leaf lettuce would make good additions to my fresh produce. We'll see how it goes. The usual suspects of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cucs, zuc and several herbs are present. I think I did a much better job with spacing this year. My issue last year was more of just trying to use all the items that I purchased since I had to get most of the small plants as a set of two or four. Well, I could not find anyone who wanted to take the plants that I did not want to plant and did not want to throw them away, therefore, I just planted many more last year; which lead to crowding. The harvest was excellent, but was not as organized as I would have liked and some plants did get choked out last year. This year, I was prepared to just throw them in the compost if no one wanted to take the extras. Anyway, I found a neighbor who would take the extra zucs and celery that I had.

I'll drop another post in here after a month of TLC and you should see significant progress.

Why does "old money" think the world revolves around them?

This was so classic earlier today. I went to get most of my vegetable plants (pics to follow soon) for my garden at a local greenhouse. I was not disappointed with my purchases. I have a good feeling about this year's garden; more details with the pics...at a later time. Anyway, I was at the checkout counter and this hag walks in with a piece of paper with pencil written notes. It looked like a list. She taps the girl's shoulder who was about to help me with my purchases and the girl seems surprised to have this rude hag distract her as she was about to help me out. I stood by waiting for some benign question, but what came out of this woman's mouth was pretty malignant. She says to the young girl, "Here's my list and I will return in 2hours. Please have my items available upon my return." As the girl was handed the list, the women turns around and walks off. I am watching the girl closely to see if she reacts in anyway. The first thing she does is radio her coworker and asks her if she knew anything about this. I hear the coworker say, "The lady did what?! She wants you to shop for her?!" Yes, that is what happened. I suppose you would have had to be there to witness this, but it was something out of a bad Victorian era film that basically reduced the chick at the greenhouse counter to some sort of female lackey or some crap. I think the girl did not want to offend the hag, but she still could have asked if she had spoke to someone that may have OK'd the request. Well, I was still standing there and the chick asks if I could wait a few more minutes. "No problem", I said. I hear the chick radio her boss and the boss even says, "Uh....we don't really shop for people." Ok, so it was an absolutely baseless act on this hag's part other than she felt the greenhouse workers were her assistants doing as she commanded. I know that Oakland County is the fourth wealthiest county in America, but some people really have some nerve to make such silly requests. I can see this hag getting pissed off if the workers would have given her a plant that had a slight imperfection on a leaf or something silly like that. I am just amazed by some people......

Waterless Urinals

I did not think this blog would venture into the arena of potty talk, but it seems to have taken a turn for the worst. :p I can assure you that this will not be just your average urinal post. This post involves something I have yet to experience in my life. Today, I was at a technical conference in Novi for my work and I had to make a stop in the little boys room and when I was approaching the porcelain fixtures on the wall, I knew I was in for an experience that was out of the ordinary...a WATERLESS URINAL staring back at me. It did not change how I "used" (no pun intended) that white streamlined block of porcelain bolted to the wall in front of me, but I started to think that I never really had to "go" in/on one of those contraptions before. I knew that MSU had these things for a few years, but the few times I have been there, I never had the fortunate meeting with those urinals. Most of you should know that I am an environmentally conscious guy. I don't hug trees or throw pies at celebs who wear fur, but I like to do my part with recycling and make a conscious effort on a daily basis to conserve energy. Anyway, the main tagline with waterless urinals is the whole idea of saving money for all the flushing. In high traffic areas, that can lead to really significant savings and it helps the environment. Well, I have to say that I really expected the bathroom to smell like death, but it really was not any different than any other reasonably clean public bathroom. My main complaint with these waterless urinals would be the actually shape. Let's just say I am glad that I have decent Kegel muscles because if that had not been the case, I might have looked like I dropped a glass of water on my pants...In other words, the splash factor was in full effect. It also might have been the height of the urinals, but that is another post that will never make it to this blog.

Sorry to any ladies who might read this post since you do not really have the whole urinal-use situation in your repertoire....

If they create waterless toliet bowls, they may need to be classified as WMDs...

Friday is upon us...

For some reason, a suit of babies seems appropriate...

Animals are wild....?

So, I was checking out the yahoo news and came across an interesting article discussing how a sloth bear ate a macaque monkey. This happened on the grounds of a zoo in Amsterdam, but lets think for a second of the horrible concept of zoos anyway. Should this surprise any of the "horrified" visitors? I would be pissed to be locked up in a cage or some pseduo-habitat. On the flip side, I can appreciate animal sanctuaries because if they are getting proper medical care and being nursed back to health, they will require much less of an open habitat due to the dependence on humans, but perfectly healthy animals are psychologically and physiologically confined within zoos. Don't get me wrong, I still go to zoos and if I had kids, I would take them there also, but it seems to be one of those things that when you truly think of it, is pretty horrible....Zoos are not as bad as circuses, but not that far off.

Anyway, back to this story, the monkey gets stunned when the bear chases it to an electric fence. Man, that sounds like a bad Power Puff Girls episode! Sheesh...If this happened in the US, people would be so bent out of shape that it would dominate front page news and be the headline on network news. I love how the Dutch park handled it by saying "Of course the habitats here in the safari park are arranged in such a way that one animal almost never kills another, but they are and remain wild animals,". That is absolutely true. Lock me up in a small space and I am chasing anything that moves.... :p

To all the mothers out there...

Have a happy day. Everyday should be your holiday.

Well, this looks like a decent Dell....

Even though I am not a gamer in the extreme sense, I really like where Dell is going with their new line of XPS Deskops. Because of the recent E3 going on, many tech companies use this as a perfect platform for the introduction of new or soon to be new product offerings. In terms of design, this new gaming line from Dell is not on the scale of the obvious kings of design from Cupertino, CA, but I do have to give them props for a swift Sonyesque move to embrace and promote good design. I am sure the performance is excellent since their XPS line tends to be high end as it is. And the fact that Dell made a recent acquisition of Alienware gives them some street cred to the gamers out there. Although I appreciate the design, I am just not a heavy gamer and even though I would jump out of my skin if one of these machines fell out of the heavens onto my desk, I will just keep an eye on it and hope to see more improved design from Dell and other PC manufacturers.

Why did this train wreck intrigue me?

Well, I must admit that watching David Blaine is somewhat of a guilty pleasure....I don't know if its his deliberate slow speaking gimmick or the hype through the network or the buzz online, but I seem to always make it a point to check out his over-hyped "stunts" when they give him air time. From the 3 days he spent inside an ice cube to the seven days in a box underground, the guy cracks me up. If you did not catch the latest stunt titled "Drowned Alive" last night, you should consider yourself lucky...LOL! What a classic title..Drowned Alive......Oh brother. He did NOT deliver this time...This crap was on TV for two hours. There was no way I was going to go on mental auto pilot for 120min. F that! I caught the first 10min and the last 20min. They had these two rescue divers who had to jump in to the giant hamster ball he was in and pull him out. He tried to break the record of 8 minutes, 58 seconds. Insane (..I mean Blaine) held his breath for 7:08, after having spent about 177 hours under water in the week leading up to the stunt. The guy is nuts!!! Sheesh...

I thought FREE really meant FREE....

So....the summer is approaching and I am hyped about my garden this year. I plan to drop the vegetable plants in the ground at the end of this month. At this point, I have already added compost, topsoil and cow manure. I put about 2-3" of shredded leaves and grass from the Fall on the top layer that I did dig up (by hand; with a garden claw; the blisters are just about gone from doing that 2-3weeks ago) after adding the topsoil and other items I just mentioned. Anyway, it was Earth Day two weeks ago and I read that Starbucks was allowing you to request bags of spent coffee grounds for your garden. I thought, "Yes, even more organic material for my soil!" Well, I made my way to one near the crib and asked about this whole campaign and the girl says, "Well, the program is so popular at our location that we actually save them in containers for people and they come by and pick them up every few days." I felt like I was the only person who was not aware of this situation. She told me that I could bring a plastic container by and put my name on it and they would save the grounds for me. Ok, fair enough, but still no grounds for my garden soil. I left defjected. Well, that same day we were going somewhere and I knew we'd pass another Starbucks and I went in and asked about it. The chick says to me, "Oh yes, we have several 5lb bags here. How many do you need?" I said, "How many do you have?" She said, "like 5." I said, "I'll take 4." And I did. Man, 20lbs of FREE organic material for my vegetables. Nice! And the barista tells me I can come back anytime to get more.....Excellent...No questions asked.....Perfect situation...Well, as I said earlier, all of this took place around two weeks ago, but I went to a different Starbucks today since I was in a different area of the city and figured I would grab a few bags for my brother in-law's garden and heres's where this post gets it's title..........I walk in at a time that it was NOT busy at all. There were a couple of students in there on laptops, a few older women sipping and chatting. Anyway, I ask the dude about the grounds and he kind of looks at me crazy. I said, "I heard that Starbucks gives spent coffee grounds for gardens." He finally understand me and says, "Yes, we have some, but they are not prepared yet. Would you like to wait." I said, "No problem. I can wait." So, dude prepares the 5lb BAG...JUST one...Sheesh. I was in no mood to ask for another bag since I was not feeling a good vibe from this clown...He calls me over to the counter and hands me the bag and says, "Now what can I get you to drink." I said, "I'm fine. I just came here for the grounds." He says with a serious look, "Are you serious?" I said, "Uh...yeah. I noticed you guys are not busy at this time of day and I don't see anywhere that this bag of SPENT coffee grounds says that I have to purchase an overpriced coffee." Again, he looks at me crazy and I say, "Thanks for the grounds. Have a nice day." What a clown that guy was.... Man, FREE is FREE is FREE is FREE..This is not the first time I have been involved in a FREE situation where the workers acted like I was the crazy one....Anyway, in the future I will head back to the other Starbucks where they gave me no ish when I am in need of more spent grounds....

I need beef like I need a hole in the head...

The scene was set over the past weekend. We attended a wedding reception (2nd weekend in a row for weddings, but that's another story....) at a nice place and the menu for the dinner was exceptional by some standards. Filet Mignon (made to each person's order) was one of the meats for the evening. People tore it up! I looked at that 1-2" thick slab on my plate and it did absolutely nothing for my anticipation. If that Mignon was Pavlov's bell, my salivary response did not even kick in.... I look over to Libera and quietly say, "This looks like crap." Again, I was the person with the issue because at our table of 10, about 9 of the people inhaled that beef. I cut a super thin piece off and force-fed myself and it was exactly as I knew it would be....Needless to say, I yearned for the next meat item on the menu--Chicken. It hit the spot.

The moral of this story is I am just not a fan of red meat. I don't take the angle of an animal rights activist. It's all about how my body feels breaking red meat down. I don't feel energized at all. I feel lethargic. And, I am talking about a tiny piece barely large enough to fit on a fork. Pretty weird how my body has adjusted to years of red meat avoidance. I'd say in the last 10yrs, I have not consumed (in total) more than 1lb (16oz) of red meat. I think animal protein is a major cause of adverse health. I look more at portion control and try to be pretty conscious when I consume chicken, turkey or pork. I purposely avoid ALL meat (chicken, turkey, pork and even fish) 1-2days per week because I do believe that it helps my overall health and forces creativity in cooking. It's true that more frequent eating occurs, but I am fine with that; again, portion control is king and advanced planning of snacks and meals really helps. Vegetables, legumes, fish and soy protein and whole grains can make you forget the red meat if you know how to prepare these items properly.