zippity doo dah...
Friday, June 4, 1999

it's always a bad omen when I'm all sweated-up, soaking wet, grimy and dirty before the day gets fully started. I'm not supposed to get that way anymore. Right? Yeah, sure. Memorial Day Weekend was just that way. I leave for work now at about 6am, and the temps have been in the 70s; also not a good omen. From partly cloudy with temps in the 60s and 70s the previous week, to full sun and scorching mid-90s temps and very high humidity in just one day. I went through 3 changes of dry clothes one day last week, just trying to re-set overhead sprinkler heads for the vast array of nursery stock in the Display Area. The long range forecast isn't calling for much substantial precipitation for the next 2-3 months; mainly passing thunderstorms which do little good except wash roadwhack residue off the streets. Guess what: we're in for another drought. Oh boy, am I having fun or what?

Memorial Day Weekend.
Despite being in the mid to upper 90s and very hot and humid, it was busy — just short of a madhouse — at the Garden Center complex all weekend.
The walk-in rush began early on Saturday morning: dozens of people wanting mulch, topsoil and plant material to get projects done before the traditional picnic parties and relatives arrivals. And there were the usual walk-ins needing landscape advice, design work and installations done. Many people put me on the spot for a quick design, plant selection and purchase, so they can do it themselves. As much as I'm weary of doing that after 9 years, I always accommodate them.
About midday Friday, just about everything began to look crisp; burned that is, from the nursery pots heating up and drying out. Lush, soft new growth was rudely burnt back by the heat and drying winds. The staff began to notice casualties and we had to scramble to infuse extra water or get many into shaded greenhouses to allay further damage. Some were almost beyond repair and won't be saleable again until Fall, when they've had a chance to re-grow.
Fortunately, all my landscape appointments were at the complex with customers; no off-site meetings. We were operating short-handed again, as some of the staff had other things to do. But we made it through the hecticness (new word; add it to your Thesaurus).
The volume of phone calls has increased dramatically since March. Many, many dozens of calls per day wanting pricing and availability, all kinds of advice, landscape assistance, delivery information, site visitation requests et al. Disposing of — answering the question(s) correctly the first time — is paramount. Sometimes, it seems that all I do is answer the phones.

The Judas Tree.
All good things must come to an end, sooner or later.
My specimen-grade Eastern Redbud, Cercis canadensis "Forest Pansy" — the first tree I'd planted nine years ago when I built the Garden Center & Nursery complex — died this Spring.
Each Spring for the past eight years, I pruned and shaped that tree into a specimen. Despite its Biblical history, I chose the tree for its Spring color and heart-shaped, claret wine-colored leaves. It always evoked ooohs and aaahs from everyone who saw it.
The past two years of drought have been hard on many plants. Many didn't survive the Spring. Even more won't survive the coming drought.

Plant Advice.
Each day, I receive up to 300 emails from people all over the world asking questions about plant problems, seeking my recommendation(s) on various horticulture-related matters etc. Each one gets the proper answer, regardless of the amount of research I have to do to help the inquirer. I don't know where all these people find me, but they do.
Several weeks ago, David Siegel called from San Francisco with some plant pest questions. After a thorough review of the symptoms, I quickly diagnosed the problem, prescribed the correct and quick solution and he took it from there. The bugs are under control now.
First, a bit of background. Long, long ago in 1995, David Siegel's personal site set the standard for all websites. His weekly review site, High Five, found the best designed websites and reviewed them for all to learn from. I emulated his weekly journal. I wrote a piece on live trees for his journal in '97. His company designs high end websites. His first book, "Creating whacker Websites" was Amazon.com's best seller in '97. The follow-up book, "Secrets of Successful Websites", was also a best seller in '98. His new company, SiegelVision, does high end consulting work.
On Memorial Day Weekend, Dave emailed that he was having a serious problem with his Yucca houseplant: limp leaves at the top, foul-smelling soil and water. Well, right off the root system was the main suspect.
I sent a detailed email for dismantling-correcting-recovery to Dave via email and he did the work. Bravo.

Death Deserving Scum.
This piece of subhuman shit needs to die for a 1977 murder, from which he's been a fugitive ever since, hiding in France. The idiot French Courts — run by fascists, communists, socialists and fans of Jerry Lewis — have been trying to make the US Legal System jump through hoops to get this scum extradited. Someone should be at the airport when he arrives to summarily execute him, and save the US Taxpayers the cost of a retrial and imprisonment. He was already tried and convicted of murder years ago. Time now, to die for his crimes.
Some black idiot state senator in Nebraska tried to introduce a moratorium on capitol punishment, but the level-headed governor vetoed that moronic idea. scumbag believes that there are too many blacks executed. Since blacks commit the majority of capitol offenses, they deserve what they get.
This idiotic movement is a bad idea.
Welcome Kentucky, to the world of lethal injection. There are many pieces of subhuman shit which need to be executed for their crimes against the innocents of society.
Here's what the hand wringing, whining, bed wetting, ACLU liberal filth have to say about the death penalty. Typical lying with skewed stats.
f*ck the ACLU scum; let the executions commence!

The Gore Bore.
He so richly deserves the title: Gore-Bore-Snore, as he's put almost everyone to deep sleep when he opens his lying mouth.
There's not much governing going on these days; the AlGore idiot and the two Clinton scum each have their own agenda and the American People aren't included. Aides are running the rudderless country.

DOJ Scumbags.
I'm constantly amazed that one of the world's biggest and ineffectual monopolies — the US Government — is still trying to make its lame case against Microsoft.
After spending hundreds of millions of dollars of US Taxpayers' — that's you and I — money, and so far being unable to prove anything, the Department of (In)Justice (DOJ) is going back to court to waste more money and time.
Microsoft is one of the companies who helped jumpstart the US economy and fueled the InterNet with their software technology. It's odd that the liberal idiots at DOJ want to bite the hand that feeds the growth just on the whining complaints of the Netscape, Oracle, AOL et al crybabies.
I have no sympathy for the complainers. Hey wimps: if you can't run with the big dogs, then stay the f*ck on the porch with the puppies.

Chink Spying.
The fat, stupid, lardass Energy Secretary, Bill "Can I have 10 more donuts, hon?" Richardson, is attempting to reduce the level of severity and spread the blame around for the Chink spy scandal.
Last week's release of the Cox report -- 700 pages cataloging 20 years of alleged Chinese espionage targeting U.S. nuclear technology -- has prompted a whirlwind of action on Capitol Hill. The report, produced by a special House committee chaired by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-California), concluded that U.S. know-how accumulated by China -- legally and illegally over the past 20 years -- has allowed the communist government to leap from a 1950s-style nuclear weapons program to sophisticated designs "on par with our own."
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) offered Wednesday a series of measures aimed at tightening security at U.S. weapons labs and restricting technology exports to China. Another move would require the FBI investigate the alleged incidents of espionage. Other legislative proposals being suggested include tightening restrictions on foreign scientists visiting national weapons labs, giving the Energy Department freer rein to conduct polygraphs and more money for security. In total, nine congressional committees plan to investigate various matters pertaining to the Cox report's findings. We'll see what they turn up.
Reacting to the report, which criticized his administration for being slow to respond to allegations of espionage, President Bill Clinton said that he will "work very hard with the Congress to protect our national security," but plans on continuing the policy of engagement with China because it is "in our national interest." Yeah, sure Bubba, you lying, rapist scumbag.
A liberal scumbag lackey, who is also covering for The Rapist-Liar In Chief, Richardson is now downplaying the spying scandal. He's a lying piece-of-shit, too; a well known fact in political circles. That's why Bubba put him there.
Spend a "little" time here; this is where the Chink dogs claim to have pilfered the information. I don't draw that conclusion. Theory is here, not fact. Not likely this is where the stolen data came from, but a lot of very odd-even-for-the-Internet information is contained therein. I can't imagine it is classified or even dangerous.
Sure, The Cox Report opened a few eyes, but what was missing was more important than what was released. The Clinton crimes are detailed and can make one sick with grief. Clinton's a traitor, coward, liar and rapist. And our president.
Think I'm being too hard on China? Nah. Remember this event?
Apparently, the US Business Sector thinks money matters more than national security. That's a surprise? Not from where I sit and see.

The Moribund GOP.
It's a sorry, sad state of affairs which the GOP has found itself in lately. And it will probably get worse.
I no longer count myself among the faithful. Oh, I'm still Conservative in many views, Moderate in others and Liberal in one, but I can't say anymore with any degree of certainty that I'm strictly GOP.

404 Research Lab.
Conceived with the purpose of "making the Web a friendlier place to surf," this entertaining collection classifies "404 Not Found" error pages into familiar categories like cool, funny, international, strange, and stupid. A 404 page is a web server's way of telling your computer that it can't locate the URL you've requested. A section for webmasters and do-it-yourselfers shows how to create original and user-friendly 404 pages for a variety of browsers and servers.






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