Wednesday, January 26, 2005
The Garden Machinations Begin
It's seed catalog time, and my Dr Jekyll Winter Gardening personality (aka, cover if you must, ignore til warm) has gone on spring hiatus. Every year I love pouring through the catalogs, dog-earing pages, circling varietals, and diagramming out the garden according to height, color, and sunlight. Mostly, this is just fantasy, because I don't generally buy from catalogs, and the ground I have to garden in is full of pine roots and questionable lighting.
I'm a big believer in container gardening, because I've grown almost everything in containers including my 5-year-old oregano in a plastic storage bin. Only a few things have really made it into the ground, out of necessity, like my powder puff tree, and the butterfly bush, which has grown into the ground on its own through the bottom of its pot.
But, each year I try a few new things and see how they work out. Last year's new items to add to the herbs came almost entirely from seeds started early. The crop of lime zinnias and deep purple morning glories weren't too exciting. The snapdragons grew up the fence prettily but didn't bloom. I loved the nasturtiums, though they grow lanky like weeds.
My favorite, in the long run, has turned out to be strawflowers, which I wasn't too impressed with in the beginning. Grown one per pot, the stalk is almost 2 feet of limp leaves, half of which die. The flower, though, is vibrant and closes each night, reopening in the morning even prettier than the day before, for months at a time. My last one has been the final spot of beauty in the garden all through winter.
So, this year when the Seeds of Change catalog arrived, I used a little self-control for a change, really evaluated what I knew I could grow in a pot, and picked out a few winners, some of which I've been wanting for a couple of years. (Yes, I actually placed the order.)
I'm a big believer in container gardening, because I've grown almost everything in containers including my 5-year-old oregano in a plastic storage bin. Only a few things have really made it into the ground, out of necessity, like my powder puff tree, and the butterfly bush, which has grown into the ground on its own through the bottom of its pot.
But, each year I try a few new things and see how they work out. Last year's new items to add to the herbs came almost entirely from seeds started early. The crop of lime zinnias and deep purple morning glories weren't too exciting. The snapdragons grew up the fence prettily but didn't bloom. I loved the nasturtiums, though they grow lanky like weeds.
My favorite, in the long run, has turned out to be strawflowers, which I wasn't too impressed with in the beginning. Grown one per pot, the stalk is almost 2 feet of limp leaves, half of which die. The flower, though, is vibrant and closes each night, reopening in the morning even prettier than the day before, for months at a time. My last one has been the final spot of beauty in the garden all through winter.
So, this year when the Seeds of Change catalog arrived, I used a little self-control for a change, really evaluated what I knew I could grow in a pot, and picked out a few winners, some of which I've been wanting for a couple of years. (Yes, I actually placed the order.)
- Bronze Fennel - I already grow a lot of this for the butterflies, but each year it's been harder to find plugs of this at Home Depot. Unless the herb society in town happens to be growing it, I'm out of luck when more caterpillars than I planned for show up. Seeds are the backup plan.
- Giant Strawflowers - even bigger than I had last year, only this time I'll start more seeds.
- Blackberry Lilies - Irises grow pretty well in the backyard, and these have been on my list for a while, though it looks like I'll be learning how to "cold stratify" seeds beforehand. Whee!
- Scarlet Flax - Too striking to pass up.
Cardinal Flower - For attracting hummingbirds; hoping the heat (and possible lack of watering) won't keep it from growing and/or blooming.
- South African Pearl Daisy - Normally I'm not into daisies, but the purple & chartreuse center will be an interesting addition to the purple section of the garden.
- Bloodflower - AKA ornamental milkweed, home of monarch caterpillars. Yay! More butterflies!
*Gleeful rubbing of hands and slightly creepy laughter*
Monday, January 24, 2005
Happy Worst Day of the Year!
MSNBC - Jan. 24 called worst day of the year
Yes, friends, according to a UK psychologist, today is, in fact, the worst day of the year. How did he come to this conclusion, you ask? Well, it's all in this very simple equation:
"The model is: [W + (D-d)] x TQ
M x NA
The equation is broken down into seven variables: (W) weather, (D) debt, (d) monthly salary, (T) time since Christmas, (Q) time since failed quit attempt, (M) low motivational levels and (NA) the need to take action."
Just to be picky, which I can, because it's the worst day of the year, I have a few questions.
1. How do you figure the weather number? Today it was 30 degrees and dry, which is considerably better than 30 degrees and wet.
2. Ditto for Low Motivational Level
3. Ditto for The Need to Take Action
4. The point of this date, which is to tip off travel agents that their prey is about to wander into the trap, seems a little odd considering one of the major factors is "Debt" which would considerably grow if one booked a cruise for two.
At any rate, I daresay much of the US would agree with this today, given the amount of snow dumped over the weekend. Normally I wouldn't quibble with a study like this. I'm not a fan of winter, since my hands are cold from November until March, and I can't stand Daylight Savings (I still haven't switched one of my clocks).
It's even tempting to (once we can all figure out how to put numbers in those variables) keep a running tab of rated days. Hey, today is only 3x7blmnop.3 points of happiness!
On the other hand, while I may have low motivational levels and/or the need to take action, today has been a great day.
To think it only goes up from here!
Counting the days to Spring Forward...
Yes, friends, according to a UK psychologist, today is, in fact, the worst day of the year. How did he come to this conclusion, you ask? Well, it's all in this very simple equation:
"The model is: [W + (D-d)] x TQ
M x NA
The equation is broken down into seven variables: (W) weather, (D) debt, (d) monthly salary, (T) time since Christmas, (Q) time since failed quit attempt, (M) low motivational levels and (NA) the need to take action."
Just to be picky, which I can, because it's the worst day of the year, I have a few questions.
1. How do you figure the weather number? Today it was 30 degrees and dry, which is considerably better than 30 degrees and wet.
2. Ditto for Low Motivational Level
3. Ditto for The Need to Take Action
4. The point of this date, which is to tip off travel agents that their prey is about to wander into the trap, seems a little odd considering one of the major factors is "Debt" which would considerably grow if one booked a cruise for two.
At any rate, I daresay much of the US would agree with this today, given the amount of snow dumped over the weekend. Normally I wouldn't quibble with a study like this. I'm not a fan of winter, since my hands are cold from November until March, and I can't stand Daylight Savings (I still haven't switched one of my clocks).
It's even tempting to (once we can all figure out how to put numbers in those variables) keep a running tab of rated days. Hey, today is only 3x7blmnop.3 points of happiness!
On the other hand, while I may have low motivational levels and/or the need to take action, today has been a great day.
To think it only goes up from here!
Counting the days to Spring Forward...
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Baby, It's Cold Outside... Put on a Jacket!
It's the middle of January, and I don't have to tell you it's Winter. Or, maybe I do. Let's start out with a little geography lesson. This is where I was born and continue to live:
The State of Denial
The State of Denial
What many don't realize about Florida is that it's much like California in that it's very long. 7 hours driving from top to tip, actually. Length means several different climates. Only the bottom half, starting at Orlando, is actually in the Tropics. Jacksonville, where I happen to be, is North Florida, and last night it was 26 degrees.
Yes! 26! Now to people in more northern states, that would mean putting on a coat and hat and possibly some gloves and generally acting like it was cold. In Florida, heck no! Our populace seems to think that, because We Live In Florida, this entitles us to many things, including Amendment 67a, The Right Not To Read Our Ballots, but I digress. Most residents handle the weather change in the following ways. You might notice a trend:
- Believing that Florida is entirely a Tropical State; therefore, the thermometer is irrelevant. I will now wear a sweatshirt, shorts, and flip-flops.
- Calculating the Actual Floridian Weather by a complex mathematical formula which, once the temperature drops below 50 degrees, if the number in the ones position is under 5, multiplies the temperature by 2, or, if that number is over 5, inverts the numbers to form the new, correct temperature, e.g. 24 degrees is actually 48, and 48 degrees is actually 84. Therefore, it is warm.
- Loudly exclaiming that They Love The Cold Weather Better Than They Like The Heat, starting them on a long tirade railing against any temperature higher than 40 degrees and humidity more than 20%, conditions which resemble their original climate. These people have the sense to wear pants, but wear short sleeves, to show everyone else that it is not as cold as it would be in Nebraska, and, therefore, it is not cold.
In short, 95% of Floridians (yes, this is a manufactured statistic) believe that 26 degrees is not cold, because a) it's Florida and Florida isn't cold, b) it's really 62 degrees, or c) it isn't 6 degrees, so it's not really cold. It's rare to see someone wear a coat in cold weather, much less gloves, and don't even think about wearing a hat here, because then the terrorists win, and that was true before there even were terrorists. Four years ago in December in Boston, I bought 2 hats. I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've worn them since being home, and that doesn't mean I didn't need to, but I prefer to go through my days Dirty Glance Free.
The problem with this crazy behavior is this.... It IS cold. 26 is 26 is 26, and 26 is a hard freeze. Plants die, pets hide, and frost bites. The less you protect yourself from cold, the more you get sick, and the faster it spreads. Half the reason there were more female victims of the 1917 influenza epidemic is that women wore flimsy clothing while men wore wool. It's true.
And, now, using cliches, the word "therefore" and pseudo-science to back me up...
New Winter Guidelines For Fellow Floridians:
- Maybe blood is thicker than water, and your formerly Northern blood is "thick." But water freezes at 32 degrees, and the body is 90% water. Therefore, if it is 32 or below, you may now say, "I'm Freezing."
- 80% of body heat is lost through the top of the head. Therefore, you may now put on a hat.
- Flip-flops (known to other states as "thongs", while here, thongs are thongs) are for walking on hot sand. The ocean is 50 degrees in January. Therefore, you may now put on real shoes.
- Controlling one's core temperature is essential to resisting cold and flu viruses, which live on door handles for over 2 days, put there by other helpful individuals who are not savvy to this idea. Therefore, you may now put on a sweater and pants.
- Calculating temperature is not akin to converting Fahrenheit to Celsius or Kelvin, and the final number does not translate to a higher temperature than actually exists. Therefore, you may now look at the thermometer and realize...
Note: image from Get Fuzzy and edited completely without permission. Don't sue!
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Saga of a Business Card
You wouldn't think that a business card could be so complicated. And yet, I'm telling you right now that it is. 4 years ago when my mom and I started WrapStars, we had a cute clip-art design of a guy reaching for the stars. The site was cobalt, yellow, and white, and the design reflected the... simplicity of the web at the time. We printed business cards, using the Publisher block template, with our inkjet onto perforated card stock, and it worked fine.
No laughing! It was practically the 80s at the time! Ok, not the 80s. But it was 2000.
Then came redesign number 1, like I knew it would, which is why I never really went professional with the cards. I changed the blocks to a field of blues, but still, there comes a time when once good design crosses the margin of hokey and finally to outdated.
The star is one of the ones from the field above.
After another couple of years, it became just that, which spawned redesign number 2, and our current site.
Current Logo
After the rehaul, I changed the design of the cards a little, but just couldn't get the right feel using the colors from our new site. We hurredly put together a look for the holidays, which was just the logo and typed information at the bottom. And then...
The printers started breaking down. My own inkjet had never really printed text properly, though it can scan, copy, fax, and change the oil in your car. Then Mom's inkjet suddenly decided it was unable to print the last 2 cards except in one long inky line across the middle of the next-to-last set. But, it was Christmas and business was brisk. Orders were coming in constantly, and I never had time to stop and finish the card design. So, every few days I stood, not-so-patiently, in front of the faulty inkjet, pulling the cardstock gently with each swipe of the printer to make sure it didn't pile on top of itself. A 20-minute process.
Needless to say, I never want to do that again. And neither does anyone else in my general vicinity want me to do it again.
After many drafts this week and making it this far without actually getting a business card printed for WrapStars, I've finally managed a design that will work...
The logo isn't quite what we use on the site, but the S can be somewhat difficult to see on a dark background. As for the box, thank goodness for stock photography! Although truth be told, this picture had to be completely recreated in PhotoShop because of scaling issues.
If there's something wrong with it, tell me now, because it's off to the printers this week! ASAP. Right now. Immediately. Because we need more cards and the inkjet is calling...
No laughing! It was practically the 80s at the time! Ok, not the 80s. But it was 2000.
Then came redesign number 1, like I knew it would, which is why I never really went professional with the cards. I changed the blocks to a field of blues, but still, there comes a time when once good design crosses the margin of hokey and finally to outdated.
The star is one of the ones from the field above.
After another couple of years, it became just that, which spawned redesign number 2, and our current site.
Current Logo
After the rehaul, I changed the design of the cards a little, but just couldn't get the right feel using the colors from our new site. We hurredly put together a look for the holidays, which was just the logo and typed information at the bottom. And then...
The printers started breaking down. My own inkjet had never really printed text properly, though it can scan, copy, fax, and change the oil in your car. Then Mom's inkjet suddenly decided it was unable to print the last 2 cards except in one long inky line across the middle of the next-to-last set. But, it was Christmas and business was brisk. Orders were coming in constantly, and I never had time to stop and finish the card design. So, every few days I stood, not-so-patiently, in front of the faulty inkjet, pulling the cardstock gently with each swipe of the printer to make sure it didn't pile on top of itself. A 20-minute process.
Needless to say, I never want to do that again. And neither does anyone else in my general vicinity want me to do it again.
After many drafts this week and making it this far without actually getting a business card printed for WrapStars, I've finally managed a design that will work...
The logo isn't quite what we use on the site, but the S can be somewhat difficult to see on a dark background. As for the box, thank goodness for stock photography! Although truth be told, this picture had to be completely recreated in PhotoShop because of scaling issues.
If there's something wrong with it, tell me now, because it's off to the printers this week! ASAP. Right now. Immediately. Because we need more cards and the inkjet is calling...
Thursday, January 06, 2005
New Year's Link Fiesta
A review of links and thoughts collected over the holidays...
Tired women suffer 'phone text stress' - note the survey was done by Bailey's. Yes, that Bailey's.
Giant Tortoise Adopts Baby Hippo - of course, just arguing semantics here, but it doesn't say the tortoise cares, just the hippo loves the tortoise... and what, no picture?!
My favorite show is back (Lost) and every day someone says to me, I'd love to watch that show, but I missed the first set of episodes and I don't want to start mid-stream. Here's a primer.
Square One TV - remember that? To reminisce, or for those of you that never watched, it was the math-based skit show including "Mathnet" and short celebrity sketches, including a classic one by Dweezil Zappa trying to pick up a girl using the word, "combinatorics." This page includes an episode of Mathnet, a game of Mathman (like PacMan), Ryan Stiles singing "The Mathematics of Love," and more. Anyone on this show I can no longer take seriously, even Reg Cathey who keeps appearing in serious movies lately. But it was great!
Doug gave me a great Enterprise model for my desk at work, made by a Japanese company, Romando. I was really impressed with the detail, so I looked them up. This page shows all the models, which came in unmarked boxes (never said which ship you were buying). Some have smaller "chase ships" which are even tinier versions of the big one, and a few are "cloaked" which is the detailed ship in clear plastic. Fantastic!
The Apprentice Rules - a great "Apprentice" site with funny episode short summaries called "The Water Cooler," bios on each candidate, editorial "memos" to certain candidates, latest news on former Apprentices, and a summary of those one-liner "rules" of operation Trump hands out in between commercial breaks.
Clusty.com - a new way to search the web by clusters of site names and topics. WrapStars has more sites linking to it than I thought, happily.
TokyoPlastic.com - amazing, breathtaking Flash work with really rocking music.
WKTokyoLab.com - more Flash, even more music (see the Artists section)
"Tsunami Women Trapped by Hair" - a sad article, with an odd line at the end. "Mr Badenoch added that staff from the charity were helping the survivors of the disaster within 12 hours of the huge wives hitting the country." Huge wives hitting the country, eh?
Tired women suffer 'phone text stress' - note the survey was done by Bailey's. Yes, that Bailey's.
Giant Tortoise Adopts Baby Hippo - of course, just arguing semantics here, but it doesn't say the tortoise cares, just the hippo loves the tortoise... and what, no picture?!
My favorite show is back (Lost) and every day someone says to me, I'd love to watch that show, but I missed the first set of episodes and I don't want to start mid-stream. Here's a primer.
Square One TV - remember that? To reminisce, or for those of you that never watched, it was the math-based skit show including "Mathnet" and short celebrity sketches, including a classic one by Dweezil Zappa trying to pick up a girl using the word, "combinatorics." This page includes an episode of Mathnet, a game of Mathman (like PacMan), Ryan Stiles singing "The Mathematics of Love," and more. Anyone on this show I can no longer take seriously, even Reg Cathey who keeps appearing in serious movies lately. But it was great!
Doug gave me a great Enterprise model for my desk at work, made by a Japanese company, Romando. I was really impressed with the detail, so I looked them up. This page shows all the models, which came in unmarked boxes (never said which ship you were buying). Some have smaller "chase ships" which are even tinier versions of the big one, and a few are "cloaked" which is the detailed ship in clear plastic. Fantastic!
The Apprentice Rules - a great "Apprentice" site with funny episode short summaries called "The Water Cooler," bios on each candidate, editorial "memos" to certain candidates, latest news on former Apprentices, and a summary of those one-liner "rules" of operation Trump hands out in between commercial breaks.
Clusty.com - a new way to search the web by clusters of site names and topics. WrapStars has more sites linking to it than I thought, happily.
TokyoPlastic.com - amazing, breathtaking Flash work with really rocking music.
WKTokyoLab.com - more Flash, even more music (see the Artists section)
"Tsunami Women Trapped by Hair" - a sad article, with an odd line at the end. "Mr Badenoch added that staff from the charity were helping the survivors of the disaster within 12 hours of the huge wives hitting the country." Huge wives hitting the country, eh?
