More Poetry!

Yes more… sorry…

Carmen

I do not sip the wine, It cannot be taken,
but only drawn to you, like love itself.

I do not sip the wine, not such elixer,
The glass I tip, and it is the air I sip.

I draw breath, and with that breath,
I draw both those things that are essence
those things of living, that are life.

The air draws upon the wines supple surface,
it is pulled, and it flows gently
it flows across rim, across lip, across tooth.

It flows like the life liquer of the nile,
Grapes find only meaning in the wine.

if the wine is good, the grape is good,
Good wine validates the mother vine.

in that taste is her meaning,
Explosion upon the tongue,
burst, birth, existance, death.

They roll and dance on my tongue,
in the wine is both all flavor and none,
the whole, and still the ceaseless void.

Sweet destruction and rebirth.

Ever Throbbing

It beats,
It thumps,
It cowers in fear.

It longs,
It beggs,
For you to come near.

Your touch,
Your taste,
Your rampant caress.

Your warmth,
Your words,
Your manner of Dress.

It wishes,
It hopes,
It lingers in dreams.

It quivers,
It shivers,
It fearfully sings.

But ever it winnows,
And ever it breaks.

Seedlings + Beer = Sexy fun you can’t tell dates about.

This year I decided to do something a little more than just buying a bunch of tomatoes on a whim at the local hardware store. Last year this resulted in piles of ‘ok’ tomatoes, and some strange peppers that seemed to burn anything they touched, ANYTHING! Lets just say it taught me a thing or two about “cross-contamination”. Always wash your hands BTW…

Anyway, I bought what amounts to a garden in a bag from The Seed Savers Exchange. I’ve wanted to try my hand at heirloom plants for quite a while, since their as close to “open source seed” as I can get without a genetic sequencer. I sometimes have dreams of a Hackers garden centre, with a Growers bill of rights on the door, first amongst which proves its a cheap rip off of the Makers bill of rights, “If you can’t propagate it, you don’t own it!”

The collection came with Dragon Carrots (A purple variety of carrots), Chioggia Beets (the Target brand beet), and a medley of Heirloom lettuces. Along with some chard and basil seed I bought separately. I direct sowed the greens and root vegetables in the bed, but as my building management has shut off the water there, and I’m too lazy to drag a bucket there often enough to keep it wet for germination, I’m also starting them in seed pots along with some Dragon’s Tongue Beans (man they love dragons), German Pink Tomatoes (I just have to keep the older ones away from my Kosher vegetables), and Double Yield Pickles (Double what? Is this like the “savings” they quote at the grocery store? Savings compared to what?).

So this is what they looked like a week or two ago

I’m not sure if these are the Tomatoes or the Cucumbers as I’ve never grown either from seed, and I didn’t tag the container in any way. Cause I’m smart like that. (I think these are the Tomato Seedlings)

These could also be Tomatoes or Cucumbers.. I suppose it doesn’t matter much, since I’ll be planting both at the base of the same Bamboo Tepees, and I’ll find out when they sprout true leaves. (I think these are the Cucumber Seedlings)

This is, very obviously, a bean. Several beans.. Even the retarded curled up ones in the front.

And this is what they look like today, I assure you the beer is a gardening aid, it helps me take blurry pictures, and bitch about how the Cucumbers don’t put the cap back on the freaking toothpaste.

The plant to the left is the only surviving Kiwano seedling I have left. I put them outside.. and we had frost every night after doing so until they were all dead and covered in slugs, this is the only one I could save. I’m hoping that when I plant the others next weekend this one will take, as I happen to really like Kiwano, and you can throw it at people you hate. The beer is an essential part of the gardening process.

Actions and Consequences on Youtube.

I’m not a bad person, despite what my friends generally say I usually do the right things in life, well some of them anyway. I’d say I’m no more than 10% more evil than the average person. Although, like most men in their 20’s, if left alone I find amusement in the oddest of places. The same cultural divide that prevents women from getting the first part of the movie “Billy Madison” is the same reason I had to put the above disclaimer. I happen to like women, and would hope that what follows does not leave me bereft of their company for the rest of time.

So thanks to youtubes twisted sense of humour I was watching this video on breastfeeding, and making porno related comments, and laughing myself close to the edge of breathlessness. Now I did not type in “Breastfeeding” at the search box, no my decent towards whatever hell is reserved for those who find humour in the wildly inappropriate I lay entirely on the conscious of the “Related videos” box on youtube. Youtube has the oddest sense of justice written into the code of this little box of sin.

I was watching This video series on home brewing, I was bored, it was early, I found it entertaining. But youtube, with its twisted prohibition era sense of justice, decided to show me the consequences of my actions by populating the Related Videos section with the logical consequences of beer production and consumption, namely videos relating to pregnancy, babies, and breastfeeding. Well the consequences for more active gents than myself at any rate. Now I’m a, mostly, good man, but, well, boob, it had to be clicked on.

Now the video was actually a reasonable dialogue about the need to freely feed the baby rather than sticking to an irrational feeding schedule as laid out by many modern doctors. About half way through the video it flashes to a picture of actual breast feeding, and I uttered that which will doom me to hell, that which will not be repeated. My only defense, is that its pretty obviouse from the picture that the baby IS in fact tweaking the other nipple…. I hope hell has bagels…

To Mine Valentine

I have come to the conclusion that grapes have souls. The paradoxical pathways that led me to this conclusion are, at this moment, fleeting, but the conclusion itself has burrowed into a little lonely place deep in the deserted halls of what once passed for my romanticism. It lies there, quivering against the cold drafty floor, with a resolute look in its eye.

Considering that I hold no delusions of life after death, gods, or heavens for them to dwell within, it would seem an odd conclusion, but its stuck there. What else explains the transcendent experience that is held prison in fair and faint glass?

Wine, Tea, Coffee, those wondrous products that we grow in the dirt, that as myth holds man himself was sculpted from, holds in it the heart of that earth. The French have named it Terroir, which means “a sense of place”, that essential ephemerality of the wines life experience. Its the endless record, written on the face of the grape, of woody tongues lapping at the earth’s lusty folds, of the leaves basking in the sun, of the rains seductive trickle across its richly curled skin.

In even the mildest glass of the wonder we deem wine you can taste everything from the land it was grown on, to the love of the people who grew it, an entire civilisation distilled, and presented to you as a spoil of fortune.

Though my life is bordering on misery and failure in every measurable metric, I consider it acceptable for the few brief moments of joy and wonder I experience every time I’m driving past the multitudinous vineyards, each a temple of life and civilisation.

The Israelites may have their land of milk and honey, I happily settle for mine of vine and yeast.

Grapes without men are but weeds, men without grapes are nothing.

(What? You didn’t think this would be about a woman…)

Sore back, and a full pot.

I’ve decided to turn my kiwano seedlings into a sort of informal experiment to see if I can grow them in a pot on my patio, or at least once it warms enough for them to survive on my patio. As such, I’ll periodically be posting new pictures and details about the experience. Today I hit my first major milestone, culling. Culling is the process, for those who’ve never raised anything, of thinning out all but the best plants so as not to waste efforts on plants that you’ll never see a return on. I performed a little experiment again on the three seedlings that I removed… I ate them. Surprisingly, despite the appearance and flavor of the fruit, the actual vegetation tastes exactly like cucumber.

As you can see in the picture they still have their Cotyledons, or Fetal leaves, but on each one you can see one prominent true leaf and one developing one. I actually think that these plants may make it, and they were surprisingly easy to get to this stage in my nice warm apartment. What I’m curious to find out is if the parent plant, as with so many agricultural products these days, was the product of crossbreeding. The real test of that will be if these plants bear healthy fruit or not. I’m hoping in the pro as I’ve taken a liking to kiwano and wouldn’t mind a fresh supply.

Of course tending a small pot of plants is not the source of my general sore-ness. I spent the balance of my Saturday with several other Watsonville Wetlands Watch volunteers preparing a Wetlands restoration area for late winter planting. Its surprising how much restoration work resembles gardening, until some of the key species become large enough to viably re-establish a balanced ecosystem. The day was spent clearing a path through the brush to service irrigation systems that were being put out, laying out equipment for the same, and moving and dispersing hay bales over an area to be planted to assure plenty of mulch for the growing plants. There was also some “flaming”, the process of using a flame thrower to burn small weed seedlings. Apparently its quite an effective method of weed control, but was interesting because there is just something in the human psyche that screams “HELL YEAH” when you see a High School Girl using a flame thrower, where were these girls when I was in school?

Being that I am, to the very depths of the little thumper in my chest, a skeptic, a part of me wonders what the point of all this restoration is. What, precisely are we trying to restore? If you look about, there are so many restoration projects in the works, yet so few have a clear goal of what state they intent to restore their target sites to. Moreover, there are always rumors of Savannah restoration projects in the Midwest which hope to eventually restore their chosen sites to ancient Ice-Age configurations, complete with Elephants and other extinct American Mega-fauna.

I suppose the first question any restoration group needs to consider is if their trying to develop a dynamic, changing, and vibrant ecosystem out of whats left after human activities disrupted the original, or if your trying to create a snapshot of some point in history. The problem with the latter is that you’ve essentially created a theme park of sorts, the potential problem with the first is that you have to accept a high degree of compromise, and loss. However I have noticed a disturbing trend towards a third direction of trying to preserve everything conceivable, without any concern for the role of extinction and change in nature.

Breaking up is… suprisingly easy to do!

So I am now in the process of deconfusing my friends. Basically I’ve been getting flack about those posts which are more targeted towards people in the IT industry, such as I peripherally am, and not to those friends who are just poking around my bits about classical literature, gardening, and my fishkeeping.

So I will be moving my Telecom and IT posts to http://redgreen.wordpress.com/ and using this space for posts about my gardening hacks, my fish, and my assorted over-refined interests. The only over-refined interest you won’t see posted here is my lust for Tea, that goes over at http://teaviews.com/ where I am a contributing reviewer.

I will soon be filling this space with some of my experiences with the Watsonville Wetlands watch http://www.watsonvillewetlandswatch.org/. I love the local wetlands, I spend alot of time wandering them, and cleaning them myself, and once a month or so I volunteer for restoration projects, so it seems like a natural thing for me to go into their Docent program, I’m just hoping that my work schedule won’t interfere.

Ok, off to relocate some posts to the new blog…

Kinky Mellons!

No thats not a stripper name… yet!

Horned Melon

Ok so they are not called kinky melons.. their called a horned melon, which is just as nondescriptive, but more wildly accepted, and a little less likely to be shushed in a high school classroom. Thought they look like some sort of bloated orange Cactus, they are in fact insane, mutant, orange, spiky, Cucumbers. Their skins have the consistency of hard leather, and when you cut through them you’re reward? Lime green jelly wrapped seeds, that taste a bit like lime jello, poetically enough.

The Horned Melon, or Melano, or Kiwano, or Jelly Melon, or Cucumis Metuliferus as people with fancy paperwork call it is an amazing, if odd, fruit. These little oddities makes you wonder what that shifty gent at the Starbucks slipped you.. Seriously, when you start to cut this thing it bleeds GREEN! Yellow skin – CHECK! Green Blood – CHECK! Weird Horns – CHECK! yup… its a freaking alien.. no doubt, no question! Excepting for the common claim that its actually from Africa, and a commonly cultivated fruit in its homeland of Zimbabwe, there is NO solid evidence that this thing is of terrestrial origin. Now if only I could find them at the Grocery store with any regularity.

So to ensure a regular supply of these strange wonders I decided to start some seeds from my last one. I didn’t really expect it to germinate, but as you can see I was wrong. It was exceedingly easy to get a few started, I stuffed a little potting soil in one emptied out half of the skin, and stuffed a few dried off seeds in for curiosities sake, as you can see I’ll be potting them in no time, preferably when it warms enough for them. I’ve always enjoyed recycled plants, at least the ones I’ve been able to get going…. (cite miserable Pineapple failure here)

Beer and Carroll

Well not that much beer… Ok so I’ve had four very small bottles. Its all in my never-ending efforts to explore the unyielding variety this world has to offer. I’ve spent alot of time focusing on wine, and much of my life in search of a good cup of tea, but being a bad Dionysian I haven’t really bothered with the wonderful world of beer.

As fate would have it there was a variety pack on sale at the local chain-grocer, so I’ve been, er, sampling a good portion of the afternoon. As fate would also have it, and yes I’ve noticed that there has been quite a bit of having by fate myself, I also found a copy of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking Glass’ at borders for half off. It would have been more than half off if they had let me use my Barnes and Nobles card…. Pesky Borders, how dare they not be a B&N when I mistake them for one…

At any rate after rereading these classic tales I’ve come to a conclusion, kids shouldn’t read this at such a young age. This book has no place in the earlier grades, its trippy enough for teenagers. I honestly think that you need just a tinge of maturity to really get the trippyness that is Lewis Carroll’s crowning work (which is grand for me as I’ve only ever managed the slightest taint of it myself). How can a mere child appreciate all the psychological and philosophical undertones? By teaching this text at such an early age we tend to overlook all the weird and wild contained within, and because we then consider it a silly children’s book we never take it up later in life.

I’d say half of Alice’s experiences in these texts correlate to bizarre psychological conditions. There have been better deconstructions of the work so I won’t attempt such here, but as a sampling I’d point out that there are conditions which maA tke a person have bizarre senses of their own size and dimensions, conditions which make a person feel as if their growing or shrinking, and as if they might be another person altogether and not realise it.

The wonderful thing about our time is that its a veritably heaven for the literate. At what other time, in the entire span of the walking apes dominance over the earth, have we had such easy access to so many great works of literature? Carroll was a big believer in literacy, he did everything in his power to assure that his books were read by as many children as he could, even self publishing when nobody else would back his works. I think he would be happy that today’s children have such universal to sophisticated,  intelligent, but well targeted works of literature, even if they do seem far more interested in tripe like the Twilight series…

Gmail Console Theme

It seems that the fine folks at Google have decided to debut another feature sans the fanfare, Themes for Gmail. If your one of the lucky few (such as I) you can now find a theme tab in your settings menu that will allow you to select from one of several pre-generated themes. Normally something like this would be a complete non-issue for me, but this isn’t normal

THERE IS A CONSOLE THEME!!!

Look at the Sexy Green on Black!

Finally, a taste of the civility of the command line in the gaudy garishness of the GUI. I think I’m in love

Unfortunately their rolling this out in steps. Google does this as a sort of viral marketing. Why pay millions to advertise a new feature when you can just roll it out incrementally and let the few lucky ones blab about it to everyone else…. like here….