Saturn

full moon rising
Friday, April 17, 1998

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every time I do something, there seems to be an equal and opposite reaction. Maybe it was the full moon on Saturday; the same day as my 8th Annual Open House. Nearly 1,000 people visited on Easter weekend. Our unusual ads ran in all the major regional newspapers, announcing the Open House and that we were ready to provide true, enthusiast gardeners with whatever rare, unusual and hard-to-find plant material they desire.

Spring Thing.
People are coming out of the woodwork and armed-to-the-teeth with lists of plant material they need; nay, they've got to have for their projects. I can easily fill 95% of their requests, but for the more common and mundane material, I send them to the local run-of-the-mill garden centers and mass merchandisers in the area, who specialize in basic shit.
Because we're a specialized garden center & nursery operation, I've discontinued selling annual and herbs; basically, they're junk and take up too much display space and staff time for the return on investment (ROI). Very labor intensive to care for until sold. Our forte is the rare, unusual and hard-to-find nursery stock and perennials.
I revel in the fact that no one else anywhere even comes close to what we offer true enthusiast gardeners for their planted gardens. One of the problems I see on a regular basis are the consumer magazines — Fine Gardening, Garden Design and Horticulture — doing articles and stories on unusual plant material that only rip-off operations like Wayside Gardens etc carry at an outrageous price. This is robbery and people don't recognize it and continue to pay outlandish money for having plants now that will become commonplace in 1-2 years. The gotta have it now! mentality is so pervasive that they bypass common sense and quality and price. Been there, did that too before I got into this business. I do understand the avarice of wanting to have it first.

Oh shit.
When the shoe falls at my front counter computer systems, it's usually an entire shoe store. Last Saturday was no exception.
Not only did the main retail POS (point-of-sale) system take a dump, the usually reliable GardenWare — the sign-label-tags system that I've used and relied upon for the past 8 years — shitped out on a Friday morning for an unknown reason, just as several trucks were delivering tens-of-thousands of plants, right before the 8th Annual Open House on Saturday. Yikes!
Holy shit; what next? Uh no, don't answer that; I don't want to know.
Not only didn't we have a fully-functional retail POS system for the 1,000 or so people who showed up on Saturday, we had no way of making signs, labels or tags to identify the many thousands of new plants which arrived all week long by tractor trailer load. So we winged it and got by for the weekend.
Upon calling GardenWare for assistance, I was met with idiotic phone recordings stating that the GardenWare staff was out sipping wine and chewing brie cheese, and that tech support was a short 4hr deal, whenever they felt like it, not so much as when the customer(s) were having serious problems. My search for a replacement software set has now begun. The folks at GardenWare are very disappointing.

The Real whackers.
Ever wonder who is Killing people in the community in which you live, by polluting the air and water? The common murderers, rapists and child molesters pale in comparison to these evil, deadly, silent whackers. Simple to find out. Go here and type in your zip code. A list comes up.
The list for York County features the very same local company subsidiary who sold poisoned (Dioxin and Furan) mulch to unsuspecting people for many years, giving them cancer and birth defects. York County has one of the highest cancer rates in the Nation, thanks to these filthy scumbag criminals.
Read the ads I wrote in '95 about PH Glatfelter's evil Nutri-Mulch from Mulch Products Co, also Spring Grove, and the accompanying newspaper stories — here and here — about me taking on this evil, criminal Mulch Company. They blinked and the public won by finding out their dirty secrets. Unfortunately, the public has a short memory.
I have two, three-ring binders completely full of documentation from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency, DER (Dept of Environmental Resources) and the State of Maryland Agricultural Dept, damning PH Glatfelter and Mulch Products Co for exposing human and animal life to such toxic substances as Dioxin and Furan. Death.
When the hell is someone going to wake up to all the environmental damage and destruction to life that one lousy company is doing to us all? I'd mandate the place be closed forever, and all past and present corporate officers tried and jailed for murder. If execution was possible, that would also be done. Think of the thousands of people they've whacked over the past 45 years. This is criminal activity, plain and simple.

Fry The Scumbag.
What's all the whining and bullshit about? Some lowlife, subhuman piece-of-shit from south america (Paraguay) whacked an American woman in a rape attempt, and now everyone wants him to get a new trial because a ludicrous procedure was omitted. f*ck that shit. Burn him.
It seems that some so-called US officials are afraid that Americans travelling abroad wouldn't get the chance to talk to a US Embassy rep if they whacked someone. Well, they shouldn't. They should get a fair trial and then be executed, unless it was self-defense. Same as this scumbag from the south american cesspool, Paraguay.
All murderers, rapists and child molesters should get a fair trial, one appeal within one year, and then be executed. Bang zoom dead! End of problem on a worldwide basis.
Hey there, Albright: shut your whining, liberal-f*cking mouth and watch the son-of-a-bitch die, as he should. Too many filthy, stinking liberals involved in government.
At least the US Supreme Court has the balls to allow the execution. Nice going, guys and gal.
Yes!

A Frenetic Week.
Not only has it been quiet, it's been very, very busy. For me to miss B5, one of the few TV shows I even care to watch, it has to be hectic.
Carrying work home to do on my home computer on Zip disk means that there's just not enough hours in the workday to get it all done. Estimates, correspondence, billing et al ad infinitum certainly means it Spring, obviously the busiest season.
My two housecats enjoy playing with the landscape design paperwork, spread out on the kitchen table where the P150 computer lives. Coping with their antics and trying to concentrate on the work at hand is tenuous, at best. Staying late at the office with the P333 unit means it all gets done faster, but the 14 mile ride home late at night is a chore.
There's a happy medium somewhere and i'll soon find it. Maybe.

Cookies.
The furor over cookies is heating up again, after a year hiatus from the headlines. Many sites add them to our machines each time we visit, plus extract data from our computers for their own use. Cookie Central explains how and why. A must read if you're concerned.

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