Watering the Garden
Posted by bronson Thu, 01 Jun 2006 03:07:00 GMT
The temptation to water pedestrians is awful.
Victory Garden
Posted by bronson Thu, 01 Jun 2006 03:03:00 GMT
5 May:
There’s a nasty dirt patch in front of our place and I’ve been complaining about the lack of quality produce on the east coast. Whatever can be done?
Amazingly, the landlord gave us permission to do a little planting. Cassie and I went out and bought gardening stuff: seeds, shovels, and 40 lbs of cow manure. At 5¢/lb, manure must be one of the cheapest and most complex substances on the planet.
Because it’s icy cold in March, the garden started inside. We took an old Trader Joe’s egg carton, drove a hole in the bottom of each egg cup with a screwdriver, and suspended it with twine. Then we added a bit of potting soil, dropped a seed or two into each cup, and left it in front of a sunny window.
We kept the soil moist and look what we got! It’s really satisfying.
When my dad visited we stuffed these little guys into the ground. It’s a good thing he was here. Cassie and I would have taken all day immaculately laying out our wide rows. Plants don’t care – just chuck them down.
The biggest problem we needed to solve was how to water our plants. The building no longer has a water faucet on the outside (apparently landlord books say that water usage is the best way to figure out how many people are living there). It’s too much water to move with buckets.
Now water flows from the T-junction under the sink, into the hose, through the living room, and out the 2nd floor window. living across from a hardware store has its benefits. I had to get the nonstandard adapter that connects the small sink/toilet flare to the big garden hose nozzle from Republic but everything else came from crappy Economy.
I did have one difficulty. It turns out the most common valves don’t work in reverse. Unfortunately, there’s no avoiding this with the adapter I got. 1/4 turn valves work but even they seem to leak a little. It’s easy enough to just relieve the pressure in the hose every few days.
Water, dirt, seeds. That should be everything. Come on, little plants, grow!
Farmer Cassie. You can barely see the little tomatoes in the back row.
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Aruba
Posted by bronson Fri, 26 May 2006 13:10:00 GMT
Aruba is OK. It’s just another desert island with nice water and poor hotel service. It’s worth going for a few days if you can’t go to Hawaii or Greece instead. Go snorkeling if it’s not too windy.
I loved hanging out with the NetScaler crew. They’re the right combination of nerdy and kick ass. Whoever brought the Balashis… That was brilliant. Just brilliant.
So, free snacks are just about the best way to get increased productivity out of an engineer… Company-sponsored booze parties in Aruba and Monaco are the best way to get increased productivity out of salespeople. Engineers, listen up. We’re settling for too little!
Paul Revere and Sam Adams
Posted by bronson Thu, 25 May 2006 21:48:00 GMT
My dad visited during the brief respite between Mammoth and Aruba. We took the Freedom Trail tour from the Common to Fanueil Hall, then continued on our own up to Bunker Hill. Our tour guide was entertaining and undid some of the damage caused by taking US history class in the 80s. For instance, Longfellow’s poem (“Listen my children and you shall hear; Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere…”) makes better Yankee propaganda than any sort of historical account.
I think that Longfellow’s poem actually does Revere a disservice. Revere created the communication system that organized the colonial militia and was instrumental in defeating the British. He forged the bolts and plating used to construct The U.S.S. Constitution. He was influential in starting the United States’s industrial economy. He was an an amazing American. It’s a shame that everybody knows him for something that he didn’t really do.
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| J.S. Copley’s portrait of Paul Revere wearing American linen and holding a silver teapot that he made. | His hairline has changed and he’s holding a beer stein but why is Paul Revere’s picture on the Samuel Adams label? | Because this is Samuel Adams. In fact, this picture probably rather optimistic. Adams was said to be fatter and uglier. |
Samuel Adams inherited the family brewery in 1748 and, mostly though incompetence and neglect, finally drove it out of business in 1764. He was a great patriot and revolutionary but a poor brewer.
So the picture is a little less than legit. And the name. So what? What about the beer?
Microbrewers tend to regard Jim Koch (creator of Sam Adams) as a wife regards a mistress: while they built breweries from scratch, he contract-brewed his beer in idle capacity at large industrial plants, then labeled it “microbrewed.” Not having to invest money in a brewery allowed him to spend more on advertising. “Samuel Adams is a marketing shell,” says Kurt Widmer. – Portland Weekly
A few weeks ago, Cassie and I toured the local Sam Adams “brewery”. It’s small and cheesy because they don’t actually brew any significant amount of beer here. Most of the Sam Adams drunk on the East Coast is brewed at Anheuser-Busch’s St. Louis plant. Even the gift shop was devoid anything tasteful to buy. The best thing about the tour? 21 oz of beer at the end.
Ah well. I always did like Sierra better.
Mammoth Spring
Posted by bronson Thu, 04 May 2006 16:15:00 GMT
It snowed the night of my birthday. How amazing is that? Here’s mark getting a powder shot and some fresh tracks at the top of Dave’s Run. On April 24th!
| Here is scariest jump I’ve ever seen in person. That’s a snowcat building the kicker. The speck in the foreground is a snowmobile. Far right is Mark dropping in on Dragon’s Back. |
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The Vertigo Shot
To everyone who called on my birthday, you all rule! That meant a lot to me. Not many of you believed me when I said I had powder fields to destroy. See? See? I wasn’t kidding!
Brinly and the Oakland Zoo
Posted by bronson Thu, 04 May 2006 15:34:00 GMT
19 Apr 2006:
L-R: Scott, a real alligator, James, Brinly
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| The rightmost shots are an action sequence. Brinly’s left leg has already buckled and she’s on her way down. Keeping firm hold on the treasure, she slams into the ground. Quick systems check, consider crying, decide against, back motoring within seconds. Babies are bouncy. Wish I was. |
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