Fire

In lieu of wearing long pants and hiking boots, I stuck with shorts, but donned my favorite pair of Luccheses, and dove into the woods with my backpack, in search of firewood. Yes, it's summer, but it never really got much over 70 F today, even with some sun, so it was a perfect evening for a fire on the patio.


My clothes still smell like smoke from the wood fire. It's a lovely smell!

This evening's treat isn't really a garden item, as it's an indoor plant. My clivia is just starting to bloom. Though there is a yellow variety, mine's just the common orange type. It's a little annoying that the stem doesn't always clear the leaves before the buds start to open, but hey, it's not a fussy plant at all. Click on it to see the 800 x 600 version. Enjoy.

Political Spam

This really annoys me. It's obvious that the guy ran through the NJ residents among the member list and spammed them with the following that can be found here in comments on a totally irrelevant parody piece:

Steve writes:	Friday, June, 15, 2007 1:22 PM
Who is Sarah Palin?
Dear NJ Resident and Blogger: There's a national effort going on to get the eventual Republican nominee for President to be Alaska's extremely popular governor, Sarah Palin, as his vice-presidential nominee. We believe Sarah's presence on the ticket would enhance the GOP's chances of winning a tough race against the Democrats. Won't you please support this effort, one led by bloggers and not associated in any way with the Governor or her staff? We'd like to have you talk up Sarah's candidacy and associate your blog with the many others now backing her. On my own site, there are several articles about why we're supporting Sarah. If you want to join with us, please either send me an e-mail (TalkTop65@aol.com) or use the comments section my blog: http://camp2008victory.townhall.com You have a chance to put Alaska right at the fore-front of national politics, and we urge you to do so. Thanks in advance for your assistance. Steve Maloney Ambridge, PA National Coordinator, Palin for VP Campaign2008Victory

You know--I don't really care who your candidate is, nor how well she is liked in her home state. I find your spam really offensive, so I'm not going to blog about how worthy she'd be for free, because of your request.

Instead, I'll blog about how offensive your spam request was.

Backfire!

Garden Pics - New Camera

These pictures are actually one picture, just resized and/or cropped differently. Taken on fully automatic, with a slight zoom, on 10 Mpx resolution. Click on any picture to see it full-size.

This is the original picture, simply resampled down to 800 x 600 using Lanczos.

The second picture is simply a cropped section of the catnip in the background in the upper left corner.

The third picture is a cropped section of the daylily with a couple of flowers open and lots of buds.

I finally settled upon and ordered a new digicam to upgrade from my old Nikon. It's a point-and-shoot model, as opposed to a DSLR, which would cost me thousands in peripherals that could never be recommissioned for a future different brand. Sorry, but I don't really want to go there. I'm not a professional photographer. So, I got the P5000.

Nikon came out with a line of digicams that are about the size of a deck of cards or a cigarette pack, but most reviews of them say their picture quality really isn't what you expect from a Nikon. People complained about the purple haze on the D1 way back when, too, but the D2 is supposedly fantastic.

My old one was an excellent camera, as far as image quality went. I have a couple of complaints about it, but neither deals with image quality. This one supposedly has excellent image quality as well, with 10.1 Mpx instead of what was top of the line 3.34 at the time. It's just time to upgrade, because I can get three times the Mpx for less than half the cost of my old one, in a much smaller and lighter camera, and the image quality will not be crappy.

What a Difference a Day Makes

Yesterday, it got into the 90s; today, we'll be lucky if it gets over 70. Just as well, though, because we have to make a mulch run to Home Depot this afternoon for my dad. If I'm going to be lugging around 30 bags of mulch, and helping spread it out around their yard, I'd rather just get filthy than sweaty gross and filthy.

We're going to have to unload the back of the pickup before we swing by to pick up dad, or we'll never have room for the mulch. It's mostly hunting and golf gear, so I suppose it should all just go in the basement.

And ... it's tax day. I'll write out the checks for my estimated quarterly tax after we're done with the mulch run. Every three months, or in this case two since writing out my last set of checks to two states and Uncle Sam, I feel extremely poor. Now, I know this is bullshit, because if I really was poor, I wouldn't have to pay quarterly estimated tax at all. But still. April = two states and Uncle Sam. May = property tax and golf club dues. June = one state and Uncle Sam. I get a break in July, but August = property tax and golf dues again. It just doesn't stop.

Silly Cat Picture

My cat, being an ice cream bowl licker. I thought it was a cute picture, so I snapped it a few minutes ago.

I think that glass bowl was a gas station giveaway from the early 1970s. Mom gave me a set of four of them, along with four matching juice glasses when I moved out on my own after college graduation.

Garden Goodies

We have a maroon & white columbine, and what I think is an Easter cactus. Enjoy.