Subversive Potatoes and Clone Wars

Just saw the trailer for the newest Star Wars chapter, Clone Wars. When I first heard about it I thought they said it was going to be a Cartoon Network show. No, it's a movie. At the movie theaters.

When I thought it was going to be on Cartoon Network I thought, wow, that looks great. When I saw the same preview and heard it was a movie I thought, that is going to be one crappy movie.

We just harvested the first batch of potatoes. Friends and family politely chided that it doesn't make sense to grow potatoes. Potato bugs, Japanese beetles, potatoes are so cheap and growing them takes space and is difficult and potato bugs are icky and on and on.

I also recently realized that Kate and I may need separate gardens. Kate wants higher production, but for me, I think I see the garden as a lab. I need to experiment. I need to push the envelope.

One of the reasons I grow potatoes is really related to the peculiar way I do it.

In the late winter-early spring, if you have potatoes around the kitchen and in the light, you are likely to see eyes and buds start to grow on your potatoes which will be quickly followed by their spoilage. This has to do with the ratio of daylight to night. Before they get too bad you can cut them into quarters or smaller and throw the pieces into the ground, they like a lot of compost, just as soon as the soil thaws. These will grow into wonderful potatoes in early or mid summer. When the vines die, use a pitchfork and carefully break up the soil and harvest maybe ten to twenty times the amount of potatoes you put it. You can try it again on the other side of the calendar in the early fall and then harvest mid winter, depending on you zone.

While I agree that potatoes are dirt cheap, the reason I like doing this is it is frugal like my grandmother, and because it's subversive. Technically what I'm doing is against the law because often the potatoes I use are store bought varieties and those usually are patented. By cultivating them I am breaking the law. Unauthorized use of a gene.

But I do it anyway. Mostly because my grandmother would have. It's the same reason I cultivate my own poppy seeds for baking. I recognize the right to intellectual property, my work depends on it. But I think we may have gone too far with genetic patents. Non-commercial cultivation seems like one of those inalienable things. I'm pretty sure Washington would have agreed.

And I don't care how cheap they are at the store, mine make way better french fries. Movie fries, not those cable TV series fries.

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

9
Closer yet I approach you;
What thought you have of me, I had as much of you—I laid in my stores in advance;
I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.

Who was to know what should come home to me?
Who knows but I am enjoying this?
Who knows but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?

It is not you alone, nor I alone;
Not a few races, nor a few generations, nor a few centuries;
It is that each came, or comes, or shall come, from its due emission,
From the general centre of all, and forming a part of all:
Everything indicates—the smallest does, and the largest does;
A necessary film envelopes all, and envelopes the Soul for a proper time.

Walt Whitman

It's been said...

"Never ask of money spent
Where the spender thinks it went" —Robert Frost

"Garrison Keillor: The penguin joke? Two penguins are standing on an ice floe. The first penguin says, you look like you're wearing a tuxedo. The second penguin says, what makes you think I'm not?
Dangerous Woman: Why is that funny?
Garrison Keillor: I guess because people laugh at it.
Dangerous Woman: I'm not laughing.
Garrison Keillor: Well, you're an angel. " —A Prairie Home Companion, The Movie

"Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independant, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to it's liberty and interests by the most lasting bands." —Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, Aug. 23, 1785.

"I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural." —Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, Dec. 20, 1787

Drunk History

When I first saw the name of the link I thought it referred to a history of the alcoholic. Not quite.

An historian + a bottle of scotch = Drunk History

And then their history is re-enacted by Michael Cera and Jack Black. Volume 1 and 2

I peed myself.

Benevolent Monster

The kids love it when I'm a monster. They love to be tossed about while roaring. And snuck up upon and frightened out of their wits. I think part of it is an acquired taste, but I also think I'm an awesome monster. I've never treated my girls as delicate girls. I've treated them as kids.

When we saw Charlie and Sarah in Chattanooga, Ellie loved being thrown on the bed by the Tony monster with Aubrey. Charlie told me later that he was pretty surprised by it. That when ever he tried to play rough with her she got scared. Maybe I'm good at throwing children. I am very careful.

But it's odd, when they beg me to be a monster. Maybe I just want to chill with them and play some little people or watch Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Please be a monster, Daddy. Please!

Maybe later.

Dot H M

So I Stumbled on this dictionary page that I think uses Javascript SQL queries to offer live suggestions as you type. Spelling and then definitions. So I did what I usually do, I typed my name.



Hey, it works.

Tried another...



Tru dat.

How about...


Huh?


Aubrey returned no results. Seemed kind of harsh.

Work Sucks

Well, not entirely. Found out a co-worker is going to be a dad and that's pretty neat. But we're publishing a lot of books and we're really short-handed. So I've been doing everything from redesigning the Web site to boxing books and labeling boxes. Today I finalized a contract for translation of one of our books into Korean, and an agreement to use Amazon on our own site for fulfillment. I'm also working on publishing the book of a very good photographer. I'm going to submit a proposal from Shaun O'Boyle. I can't believe he's not published yet. I think this can be very good. I also boxed and shipped about 500 books. And spent two hours listening to a bunch of publishers debate DRM while adding 6 books to a Print on Demand program.

And I love my job, really I do, so please don't get me wrong. But work has been so consuming recently. Man, I'm beat.