i must be crazy. I actually enjoyed myself while taking 3 days off last week. I forgot about work and all of its attendant concerns. I got a lot done and caught up on some quality sleep time. And it rained. Glorious, wonderful, much-needed rain — though most ran off and didn't contribute to ending the drought — it was most welcomed by us mere mortals, anyway. It's amazing what substantial, passing thunderstorms can do for the psyche. This week is another story: 8pm and it's still 97F, too damned hot for a late July day. This is truly August "Dog Days" weather. Well, JFK Jr & Co were planted back into the sea; mercifully for us, it wasn't as long and as drawn out event as the Di-Death Ceremony was. Simple pilot error. And Woodstock is 30 years ago next month. Was there, did all that. Groovy and far out, man. But, we never did this stupid shit. Not cool, man.
Around The Garden Center.
With landscape projects slowing to a crawl and being moved into the Fall, I had to lay off "The B team" of Summer-help landscapers. There's plenty for the remaining "A Team" to do, even in the unending drought and oppressive heat. When my 25% off all nursery stock sale breaks in September, all hell will break loose again, as it always does, and we'll be backed up like crazy.
All 12 of the 60" cooling fans have now had their 9-10 year old fan belts replaced, so there should be no problem with any of them breaking down. The 1-ton dump truck has been repaired — a new $3,600 engine et al was installed — and it's back on the road again. The John Deere 675B SkidLoader broke and had to go in for some major service work; fortunately, I have a John Deere 955-40A Tractor with which we can load mulch and soil until the SkidLoader's repaired and back in service. It's always something, dammit.
Just keeping 20,000+ pieces of plant material alive in this brutal heat and drought is a job in itself. 26 straight days of 90F+ temperatures and no rain. At times, it even taxes a 30GPH well to maintain level and flow. Within an hour after being watered, most pots are again dried out and need refreshing, so it's a constant battle against the elements.
The Drought.
It continues unabated in The Mid Atlantic Region. Everyone's feeling the effects; it's not just a localized problem. Damn, Iowa's getting all of our rain. Hey you cornshuckers, we want it back!
With a full-blown Drought Emergency in effect, people are either drastically cutting or altogether stopping any watering routines for their plant material. Watering is allowed, but within certain guidelines. All reasonable, I believe. Watering any grass is a huge waste of water.
Although I constantly visit the www.weather.com site, there isn't much encouraging new, except some rogue thunderstorms occasionally moving by. Very disappointing.
I laid-off the Summer landscape help last week; they're college kids and would be leaving mid-August anyway. Too many landscape jobs have been postponed or moved back into September through November. Fortunately, there are several large jobs for August for my remaining regular crew, with drip irrigation systems accompanying the installs.
I have hundreds of landscape plans and concurrent estimates in customers hands; most are a little unnerved by the unending drought and heat and have elected to put things on hold for now. Soaker hoses or drip irrigation can easily solve any watering problems; both are permitted for use between 6pm and 9am, off-peak use hours.
What's unsettling is the increasing number of wells drying up as groundwater levels drop; the lack of rain/ snow for over three years is taking its toll. I've heard one welldriller talk of drilling 8" (usually 6") holes as deep as 1600ft (usually 200-300ft) and finding Artisian Wells; huge volumes of H2O. We're over 32" down in rainfall for the '97-'98-'99 seasons combined. That's zillions of gallons in moisture. Much more than would be near impossible to make up anytime soon.
If only the hurricane season would start early, a large tropical depression move up the east coast and just sit on us for 3-4 days, that would help immensely. Sure. Yeah. Dream on. Okay, I'll quit whining.
You Go, Girls!
I love this story. It should happen to all burglars.
In The Final Analysis.
A favorite Jack and Bobby Kennedy phrase, I have a problem with what JFK Jr did to whack himself and the two women passengers.
Some people have tried to defend Kennedy's decision to go up by saying he had no way of knowing about how
bad conditions would become an hour later in Martha's Vineyard. This is a total cop-out, because there were plenty of reasons, just by driving from Manhattan to the New Jersey coast, to have been concerned. And therefore there is absolutely no excuse whatever for him not being in radio contact with the various air-control towers as he flew — in view of the relatively few hours of experience he had in this highly powered new airplane.
Furthermore, he was flying without his normal instructor, and, to top it off, he had just had a cast removed from his lower leg the prior day.
I believe that people have a right to destroy themselves if they want to — I defend anyone's right to drive race cars or to bungee-jump or to try to leap canyons with motorcycles or to fly death-defying airplanes. But not when you are a custodian of the lives of two others, as John Kennedy was that night. There was a serious ethical lapse here, a major irresponsibility on his part to have endangered the lives of those two women.
Therefore, I was all the more enraged as the days went on and publicity — thanks to that buffoonish biographer, C. David Heymann — began to turn against the women. Oh, right — blame the women! — the passengers, not the pilot. First, JFK's wife, Carolyn Bessette, was declared to be the nag who insisted John fly her sister to Martha's Vineyard. Then we heard that Lauren Bessette delayed the trip when she was held up at the office.
Yes. These Kennedys are egomaniacs. The Kennedy legacy is one of megalomania and moral blindness as much as it is of public service. I was chilled to the heart by the weird fact that this accident occurred on the eve of the 30th anniversary of Chappaquiddick — when another woman was dragged to the bottom of the sea by a Kennedy, who fled and lied about it and got off scot-free. The Kennedy travails have often been compared to Greek tragedy, and
the comparison is a just one. It's the dark theme from Greek mythology of curses visited upon generation after generation after generation.
'Nuff said on that subject.
Wasting Time.
Here's the man who should be in charge of all US Prisons. No one else even comes close to treating subhuman prisoner filth as they deserve to be treated. Kick some ass, sheriff!
The so-called Railway whacker should never have been taken alive; the cops should have wasted him trying to escape. Now, there'll be endless appeals from the shithole Mexico, and whining, bed wetting liberal scum all around the World, trying to save the piece of shit's life. It's clearly not worth the trouble. The nine people he murdered are still dead. Execute him; what the f*ck are we waiting for?
The lowlife piece of shit who whacked the 2 capitol cops is still alive. The US Taxpayers are now spending almost $70 f*cking thousand to keep that scumbag alive and treat him medically. His family should absorb that cost, not society. f*ck it: he should be executed immediately; forget the treatment. Society doesn't need another murdering, mentally-ill piece of garbage to care for. The prisons are overflowing with them now. Time to really clean house.
Let's not wait too long before this piece of subhuman filth is tried, convicted and executed for beheading a park employee, and murdering those other three women sightseers a few months back.
Wrong, wrong, wrong! That Einhorn piece of garbage is a f*cking murderer. Pennsylvania should not have agreed to "no death penalty"; a special team should have been sent to France and he should have been brought back anyway possible, dead or alive to stand trial for first degree murder. The French are morons for requiring no death penalty for extradition; Penna's an even bigger bunch of morons for allowing it and not taking "corrective steps" to secure his return for trial, conviction and execution. Where's the justice for the murdered girl? Once again, no justice for the victim; everyone's too f*cking concerned with the so-called rights of the criminal.
See what happens to online traders: they go postal. When they catch this scumbag, don't take him alive. The liberal lowlifes will have a field day: gun control, internet control, mental health, capitalist extremist conservative GOPer. Please coppers, shoot to whack. We can't handle a trial, as a Nation. After Clinton, this guy isn't all that bad. Nah, waste him.
Smothering an infant for a $150k insurance policy; no question about it, this scum-f*ck needs to be executed. Painfully.
Liberal Filth.
It used to be "Commander In Chief", but since Clinton has soiled the office as well as a certain blue dress, the title's been changed. And not only is he a
flagrant, public liar, he's also a rapist. Now, it's "Liar & Rapist In Chief".
I don't agree that we need a tax cut — of course, if there's a surplus it means that we're being taxed too heavily — but the bucks are available now; fix social security and medicare and begin to pay down the debt and no more f*cking social programs (fascist, commie shitola). We'll talk tax cuts down the road after the marriage penalty tax and inheritance tax have been removed.
More Exciting Than A Clock-Radio!
Yes, Virginia, the Blenderphone is still available, and it's still exactly what it sounds like: a combination telephone-and-blender. Incoming telephone calls activate the blender motor in lieu of a standard ringer. You answer the phone by picking up the blender pitcher — which has the telephone receiver securely attached to its side — and holding it to your ear. The site FAQ's answer to the obvious question (won't you spill your margarita when you answer the phone?): "That has always been a problem and always will be." I give the Blenderphone my nod as an ideal wedding present. The $300 price tag is certainly a bit of an ouch factor, but if you want to spend an afternoon acquiring and connecting together your own blender and telephone, well, it's still a free country.
