Uhhh, no thanks; I'll walk. I'm already burnt out and it's only mid-August. The pace hasn't slowed any, as with previous years; if anything, it's gotten more hectic and the crescendo is building toward a record year. However, I'm a little older than I was 8 years ago; I'm starting to mind the aches and pains more each year. Time for another week off. This time, just sleep; no activity. Hear that, Lynetta? I just want to be comatose for a few days. Maybe someday soon. Hopefully.
Booked Up.
Since April, it's been the busiest I've seen it in the eight short years since I built this place. Both the landscaping and walk-in business has been non-stop. Usually in late July and through August, the pace will slow a bit and we can catch our collective breath, but this year it's been unending. Hey, I'm not complaining; merely making a simple declarative sentence. Periodic notations, year over year, are essential in this business. I keep a daily diary of weather conditions, retail sales and landscape revenues. In MS Excel v7, it's a trip to review them on a monthly basis: charts and graphs are easily built to compare months-over-month, year-over-year. Very colorful.
Since July, the schedule has been completely filled and we're booked up until Spring 1999. Just the jobs on the books will get finished now; no more are being accepted. This is the second year in which all available slots have been filled early. This year — and I'm guessing that it has primarily to do with the economic surge we've been in for the past 23 months — the landscape jobs have been very large and lucrative. In fact, this year's fewer but larger projects will put us over the magic $1mm mark, a month earlier than ever before, if the season ends normally in December, when the ground freezes.
I'm impressed at the quality of we we do on each job; the level never varies from excellent. The real credit goes to my Landscape Foreman, Alan Miller, his #1 Crew Chief, Marc Sprenkle and the 6-8 other crew members. They make me look good.
If we have another mild winter, such as last year's, we'll work right through until Spring. If it's a bad one, we'll take a break. Everyone needs a resy.
New & Improved Ad Pages.
I was tired of the way the old versions of my ads looked — from the January '96 1st Generation Site — so I spent 2 days revising them graphically and correcting typos et al. They're still at Ads List.
I also managed to purchase ($1.95) a copy of The Baltimore Sun article on the evil Bradford Pears, which reinforced everything I've said for 8 years. It's always nice to be right. Read it before you even think of buying a Bradford pear: it's an eye opener.
If you find any typos, please notify The Typo Department, and the crack staff will jump right on the project.
If you actually saw the unusual graphics of the ad in print, you'd remember it. In order to better display what I wrote, I'm producing *.gifs of what the ad looked like, for those who haven't had the pleasure. The *.gifs will be inserted as a sidebar visual to better frame the ad in context of its original appearance. Hopefully, they'll be ready soon.
Linguistics.
Some grist for thought:
Lets face it -- English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant
nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins
weren't invented in England or french fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies
while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet nor any type of bread, are meat.
We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find
that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is
neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don' t
groce and hammers don't ham?. If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the
plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2
indices?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that
you can comb through the annals of history but not a single annal? If you
have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do
you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preacher praught? If a vegetarian eats
vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps
you bote your tongue?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an
asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play
and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses
that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and
a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while
quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one
day and cold as hell on another?
Have you ever noticed that we talk about certain things only when they
are absent? Have you ever seen a horsful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a
sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who
was combobulated, gruntled, ruly, or pecable? And where are all those people
who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house
can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out
and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the
creativity of the human race (which, of course, is a species, and not a
race at all).
That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights
are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it,
but when I wind up this essay, I end it.
A customer sent the above to me; author unknown. I've also crossed almost every grammatical point in that narrative independently, as many people have when they really think about it. It sounds like a George Carlin stand-up routine, after reflecting upon it.
Presidential Miss-Behavior.
Well, old Bubba really put his foot into it this time: the Monica Bimbo called him a liar et al in front of a US Federal Grand Jury and disputed most, if not all, of his previously sworn testimony in another matter. We all knew Their frequent sexual escapades are now a matter of public record. She contradicted him, with plenty of hard evidence, on several points he previously testified to under oath. He's now in even deeper shit when August 17th, his day of closed circuit testimony, comes to the fore.
Will he 'fess up, admit he lied and finally — for once in his pathetic, stinking, lie-riddled life — admit the truth? Probably not; it's too dangerous for him, a known liar and miscreant.
And of course, the Hitlery Bitch is coaching the brainless, dick-driven Bubba on what and how to say whatever lies he needs to get off from the Grand Jury indictment, along the with the lying criminal lawyer, Kendall. She doesn't want to lose her position in The White House and all the requisite perks which accompany it. She actually doesn't give a flying shit about Billy-Boy; he was her ticket to get there. Look for them to separate and divorce after his final term is over, if he makes it that far.
Hitlery is perhaps the most pathetic, ignorant and arrogant bitch, even eclipsing Immelda Marcos, in modern political times. She blames her moron husband's behavior on everyone else except where it actually belongs: Slick Willie The Bubba hisownself. She's not dumb, but she is ignorant. The American public is much too slowly beginning to wise up to her charades and lies, as they finally have to Bubba's scams. But somehow, he's still getting a pass on it all.
All eyes are clearly focused on Bubba's so-called testimony next week, and the resultant report from Judge Starr on impeachable offenses. The legal issues are almost overwhelming.
In the final analysis, all that really counts is did he perjure himself? If he did and it's provable, impeach his sorry lying, redneck ass.
Execute The Filth.
I am getting so sick of saying that, we don't need more prisons, we need less prisoners. Specifically, we need more executions of murderers, rapists, armed robbers and child molesters.
I have no problem with the US Gov't getting out of the prison business using our taxpayer dollars; let private corporations do the housing and use their own funds to keep the subhuman filth in containment, at a profit. The US Gov't has done a piss poor job of it all so far.
I also have no problem whatsoever in using my fully automatic M16 (with an underneath M70 grenade launcher) and executing every stinking, piece of shit Death Row prisoner in the USA. Bang zoom gone. End of problem, until the next batch of shit comes through the court system. I could spend a lifetime executing filth.
Why is this society and government such chickenshits in giving scum what they truly deserve, after they've been convicted? For Killing, raping, molesting or armed robbery: death. Very simple and apropos.
If you're a whining liberal and somehow weaseled through the Journal's entrance gate, you'll say, He's playing God. he can't do that! The f*ck I can't. Just wait until your son gets murdered or your daughter gets raped and whacked. You'll wish you'd subscribed to Justice all along, instead of the stinking lib-dem philosophy of wimpism.
Children Who whack.
When they're truly children and not just teenagers, it's doubly sad when they whack other children. But Killing is Killing, and they need to be removed permanently from society.
The first and foremost goal of the US Legal System is to protect society from murderers, rapists, robbers, child molesters et al. Incarceration and execution are the two methods available. Since these children are only 7-8 years old, they should be kept incarcerated until they are determined to be adults — either 18 or 21 — and then executed. Same for the other children who've whacked other children and adults.
There are 1,700+ scum awaiting execution on so-called Death Row right now. What the f*ck are we waiting for? Drop the cyanide pellets. Push the hypodermic needle in. Throw the switch. Why are we wasting $40,000 - 60,000 per year per lowlife to keep them alive? Their victims are still dead. What's the problem with this f*cked up US Legal System? Chickenshits? Yep, afraid to do what's right and needed to protect society from both adult and children who whack.
Cruel Site of The Day.
Nope, not a typo. If you're interested in some really bizarre Websites, check out www.cruel.com; especially the Our Cruel Heritage past history section.
