life & death

April 25th, 2008

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ately, I've been thinking a lot about dying and death, but as it relates to the overall process of life. With more years behind me than ahead of me, it's only natural, at this point. The recent loss of family, friends, friends' family, business and social acquaintances, strangers, pets, stray animals, feral animals; death is all around us, everyday. Another friend just emailed me that his throat cancer has returned, and that he's terminal. The whole thing impacted me the other morning at 6am, when I was driving into work, and saw numerous squirrels, possums, raccoons and a cat dead, along the roadside. We're so inured to it, that we just don't notice its overwhelming presence. And we are also seemingly immune to brand-new life, everyday. Years ago, I used to carry a shovel in my Jeep, and would regularly stop to bury the animals along the road, but there are just too many of them, these days. Driving past several local towns' church cemeteries, I saw gravediggers on backhoes, preparing fresh burial plots. I saw hearses lined-up at local funeral homes and parking lots filled with the mourners' vehicles. Yet, I also see new life: young mothers pushing strollers, moms and dads wearing "baby backpacks" in the supermarkets, birth announcements in the papers, many "It's a Boy!"/"It's a Girl!" balloons tethered to numerous mailboxes, moms and dads bringing their babies into the GC&N Complex, with their older siblings. And again this year, the two pairs of Canadian Geese, nesting on my run-off pond have 6 new goslings, each. Life goes on, and so does death. They're inextricably linked, as they have been from the beginning of time. And life is so very short, in the overall passage of time. I'm more apt to notice these things in Spring — when new life begins — and in the Fall — when existing life begins to end — than at any other time of the year.

 

 

Around The Garden Center™.

Too much heat, too early in the season: 81°F on Friday and 85°F on Saturday; then temps back down into the low-70s/upper-60s, where they should be at this time of year. Those two days "pushed" normally semi-dormant (in their time sequence) plants wide awake and confused a bunch more. It also prematurely hatched-out zillions of bugs. Since we had an unusually mild Winter, which didn't do its usual kill on pests and disease, the bug and disease populations will be huge and destructive this Summer. Convertible tops were down, flipflops, t-shirts and cutoffs were everywhere, and it's only mid-April. Truly a harbinger of hot and dry things to come our way. Personally, I like a slow, cool Spring and the avoidance of all the unnaturally early pest and disease cycles. But hey, I'm not in charge. "Mother Nature's in charge; we're just along for the ride". — John D.M. Shelley II, 2002.

A progress update on the burglary at my GC&N Office, last Sunday morning. Two other businesses in the immediate area were also hit numerous times, and one of them got the bastard on their security cameras. The State Police are closing-in on the scumbag. I'd like 5 minutes alone with him in a locked room; the cops could have what's left.

Here's the smashed Office window, minus the AC unit, which was jimmied-loose and pushed inside. Note the plastic bucket they used to stand on and climb into the window. Here's the inside of the Office, with the AC unit pushed in and on to a filing cabinet. Note the burglar's crowbar, left behind, and the security monitor and fan, placed atop the AC unit. Another shot of the damage to the Office. Here's a shot of the rifled desk, loose coin, bank bag etc, which only had a couple hundred dollars in it — $1s, $5s and $10s — for refreshing the two counter registers' drawers. Luckily, the scumbags didn't damage the rest of the Office's computers and hardware. Now, all monies are kept in my unbreachable safe. Nice, huh?

Friday and Saturday were very busy retail sales days, and people were buying lots of plant material. We're booked-up for simple tree installations until June 13th, already. I was so busy that I didn't have a chance to logon until after 5:30pm, and catch-up on both news and weather. A "Fire Weather Advisory" was posted on all local stations, noting that because the relative humidity was so low, the chance of fire was increasing exponentially. Rains came through on Sunday and Monday, so it all became a moot point in the York (PA) area. I worked on both HTML and CSS-xHTML pages, trying to get this new gallery installed on www.gdnctr.com's newly-revised, in-progress Tour Pages. Still working on it.

I slept-in 'til 10am on Sunday — first time since late-February, or so — made Kona coffee and breakfast, and noticed a "Flood Watch" posted on the local weather stations. Jeeez, last night it was a "Fire Watch" and now this, as a huge rain band moved through (nor'easter-style) the area, from south to north (hence, the unusually hot weather). 1-4" possible, the weather folks predicted. I like the rain, so I went food shopping. While I was inside the market, we got 2" and their entire store-networked computers went down (this was a first for me), so I had to put the checkout on-hold, run to the car through 4-5" of parking lot water, drive to a ATM, and get cash. Then, back to the store, park in front of the market, run back inside, check-through with cash, and load groceries in the downpour. I drove back to the condo, backed the Jeep into the drive, up to the garage door, unload in the downpour/thunder/lightening. Soaked. Then the neighborhood's power went south. My Net connection was off-and-on. And we got the other 2" of rain they'd promised. At 6:40pm, a "Tornado Warning" was issued for West York/Thomasville/Spring Grove (PA), moving at 27mph in a northwesterly path. I tuned-in all of the Web's local weather channels, and kept track of the sporadic funnel cloud. No damage reports have been available, so far. Nice day, huh?

My CSS-xHTML webwork continues at a snail's pace. With so many other things going on — both in the business and in my personal life — it's hard to find some "quiet time" to complete the many ongoing projects, which I've begun. One step at a time; all I have is time.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were a busy blur, but I did manage to keep up with the mounds of paperwork. Truck and trailer inspection forms and inspections, lscp estimates for numerous small jobs I've visited, ditto for the larger jobs my designer works on, new employee paperwork and forms, various billing, lscp & lscp maintenance schedule revisions, replacements paperwork, payroll compensation/tax questions, trees to be dug for pick-up, mulch deliveries, final nursery stock shipment paperwork, a rush order for 55 6ft B&B Picea abies and Pseudotsuga menziesii for ongoing jobs, my LSCP Foreman out (2-3 days+) for serious eye surgery, several personnel changes to consider, new state and local taxes, many bills to pay, many emails to answer, GC&N Building security measures to finish-up... the business' list goes on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Nevermind what I need to get done at my condo. After 18 years, this is what a "small business" is all about: wearing way too many "hats", juggling hundreds of projects at once and not giving each enough attention for completion.

The normal Spring temps didn't last long. More mid-80s hit us Sunday through Thursday, and reminded me that we really haven't had a "typical Spring" for the past 3-4 years. Too hot, too quickly; right into Summer. Instead of a 3-4 week, standard "blooming sequence" for the many flowering trees in this area, it's all now condensed into about 6-10 days. Redbuds blooming with flowering (not fruiting) cherries and flowering (not fruiting) pears? Not normal. Crabapples blooming with dogwoods and maples? Not normal. Serviceberries blooming with magnolias? Not normal. Lilacs blooming with forsythia? Not normal. Daffodils just going by, and tulips coming into bloom. Normal. I used to be able to recite the "bloom sequence" for 30+ Spring-blooming plants; yet just 5-6 years later, they're all mixed-up and out-of-sequence, around here. Such is . I wonder if their flowers have lost their scent, too?

On my way home Thursday evening, I noticed that gas prices at the pump, just went up another 20¢, since that morning. Unleaded Regular (87oct) is now at $3.69/gal, Unleaded Premium (89oct) is at $3.79/gal, and Unleaded Super Premium (92oct) is $3.99/gal. And $4.00/gal is here next week. Ready for it?

It's almost the weekend, and I'm looking forward to sleeping-in on Sunday. By Friday, I'm out of energy and getting through Saturday, is sometimes a struggle. The reward is 8-10hrs of sleep.

 

 

Fonts For You™.

Many Journal entries are best viewed in the Charrington Roughened and the Orlando typefaces. You may already have Century Gothic on your Windows-XP machine, and that's occasionally used for the body copy or subheads, but grab it anyway! They're free from my website. Grab 'em! Save them to your HD, and install to C:/Windows/Fonts folder, thru your WIN XP Control Panel > Fonts > File > Install New Font. Simple stuff; just takes a few minutes.

Here are a few others, which my Journal will be written in during the coming weeks: Papyrus and Acoustic Bass, and Caesar Regular and Carleton and Charrington Strewn and Catherine. Get and install them, and see how much nicer these pages are to view and read. Plus, they add to your repertoire of available fonts in MS-Word, as WIN-XP System Fonts, so you can use them for your daily documents etc.

 

 

Things Which Make Your Head Explode™.

Awwwwww, the dumbass chi-commie, shit-for-brains chinks/gooks/slopes are upset with the Froggies over the disruption of the Olympic torch relay when it went through Paris nearly two weeks ago. The recent unrest slaughter/murder of protestors in Tibet and protests during the worldwide Olympic torch relay have created a backlash of anger inside China against those viewed as supporting independence for Tibet. Awwwww, the chinks/gooks/slopes are PO'd at Jack-off Cafferty, the resident CNN idiot, alcoholic scumbag liberal, too. Give him hell, chi-commie "goons and thugs"! Fuck china!

March the filthy, left-wing, verminous, fat, drug-addicted, bloated, lardass bitch, Colorado state Rep Kathleen "Pigfucker" Curry (SKANK-CO) to the nearest wall, and execute the subhuman commie, lesbo-bulldyke, child-abusing, alcoholic bitch, scum-filth.

No, I didn't bother going to vote, even for RINOs & GOPers, during Tuesday's Primary. I could give a shit, anymore. I'm so sick of the Three Stooges — McInsane, Klintoon and Hussein Obama-Osama-Lama-Ding-Dong — that I've lost 100% interest in the process. Whether I'll vote in November, remains to be seen.

The treasonous dirtbag weasel Homeland Security Secretary, Mikey "Shit-For-Brains" Chertoff, who can't find his own ass with both hands in a well-lit room, has wasted $28-fucking-million dollars of our hard-earned Taxpayer dollars on a 20-mile, worthless "virtual fence", which doesn't fucking work! Shoot Chertoff! He's a fucking traitor, as is Bush! Shoot every fucking one of the Boeing bastards who was involved with it, dammit! Give ME the money and I'll build a fucking fence to keep the spics out and kill them if they try to get in!

Well, Rep Bruce, if you can't "say it", I will: The US doesn't need 5,000 more illiterate, illegal, criminal alien SPICS! Dumb asshole RINO idiot!

 

 

Global Warming™.

Have you seen this video: "BBC: The Great Global Warming Swindle"? It was outright-banned from leftist, hate-filled, dirtbag lowlife scumbags, Google.com's and YouTube.com's websites, by the mentally-ill, left-wing, global warming idiot wackos, but I've preserved it, for posterity, aka you, me and *ours*. Watch, be informed and download it for others to see. It's on my corporate server, and will stay there, BTW.

Here's everything you need to know about Global Warming, and why it's a good thing.

The "Greenhouse Effect" is a natural and valuable phenomenon, without which, the planet would be uninhabitable. Global Warming, at least in recent times, is real. CO2 is not a significant greenhouse gas; 95% of the contribution is due to Water Vapor. Man's contribution to Greenhouse Gasses is relatively insignificant. We didn't cause the recent Global Warming and we cannot stop it. Solar Activity appears to be the principal driver for Climate Change. CO2 is a useful trace gas in the atmosphere, and the planet would actually benefit by having more, not less of it, because it is not a driver for Global Warming and would enrich our vegetation, yielding better crops to feed the expanding population. CO2 is not causing global warming, in fact, CO2 is lagging temperature change in all reliable datasets. The cart is not pulling the donkey. Wake-up, folks.

Here's a listing of The Best Global Warming Videos on the Internet.

Hey, fat, shit-for-brains, bloated, liar, huckster, fraud, criminal, charlatan, scumbag, loser, disgraced ex-VP AlGoreBore (LIAR-TN), is back using $300 million of OPM (Other Peoples' Money) to promote his Global Warming Bullshit, after the worst Winter in over 100 years. Welcome back, fatso asswipe!

CO2 bad? No; CO2 is good, and we need more of it, or we're in for a very cold period, very soon.

 

 

islam Is A Criminal Organization™.

The islamic Society of North America (iSNA) are terrorists and terrorist supporters, camel-fucking scum, and should, IMO be charged, rounded-up, tried, convicted, sentenced and summarily executed; no appeals. As should the subhuman pigfucking, terrorist-supporting filth at CAiR. Cowards, punks, vermin, all of them. Fuck islam. Fuck muslims.

 

 

Some People Just Need Killing™.

Two more subhuman filth, criminal, murderous illegal alien spics — Kennedy Escoto, 17 and Timoteo Rios, 23, — needing killing, for murdering a mother in a carjacking, her baby in the backseat.

84 years old or not, Ben-Ami Kadish, a US citizen an Israeli spy and engineer employed at a military arsenal in Dover, New Jersey, needs killing for treason and espionage.

I repeat: kill the terrorists, drug-addict Bernardine Dohrn and her alcoholic husband, William Ayers! They're punks, scum, murderous lowlife, white trash subhuman filth and garbage from the 60s and 70s, who truly need summary execution, for treason, sabotage and murder against the United States.

 

 

Covering the Mouse.

Some songwriters know the secret to creating a catchy American standard. Irving Berlin was in on the gig. So was Cole Porter. And Rodgers & Hammerstein. Wander through this magical site, and you might slip an entertainment empire onto the list, too: the Walt Disney Company. In one visit to this blog devoted to covers of Disney songs, I listened to Usher's rendition of a "Tarzan" tune, Jimmy Cliff's take on "The Lion King," The Supremes revisiting "Pinocchio," and Bobby McFerrin's version of that magical "Cinderella" melody, "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo." Put it together and what have you got? Bibbidi-bobbidi-wonderful. The mouse's oeuvre has inspired artists of every musical stripe, from Louis Armstrong to Tom Waits. The site's only been around since July, but it's already drawn guest contributions from fantastic audio bloggers. As another source of classic American tunes would say, "'S marvelous."

 

 

 

 

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