My Blog

Moth or butterfly?

Pasha — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:48:55 GMT

Broccoli... nature's broom

Pasha — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:48:03 GMT

This is the largest of the bunch that I planted in November. The florets grow in the center of the leaves, like the artichoke, really. These are robust and happy, though the leaves were damaged by hail in January. I can see them out my window from the office, and they make the garden look active and productive. The rows of spinach and red sail lettuce don't hurt much, either.

Artichoke

Pasha — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:36:47 GMT

Everyone likes artichokes, right? This is the artichoke plant I bought at OSH 3 years ago. I planted it in the ground last July when I came to the new house, and it's doing beautifully. You can see that it's about 3 feet tall and 3.5 feet wide more or less. There's a problem, though. There is supposed to be one central stalk that comes out the center of the plant. This plant is really 3 plants, and no signs of any stalks yet. How do you divide one of these suckers? Also, there's three intense insect cultures supported here. Aphids are eating the plant. And that has attracted ladybugs--there's about 5-6 resident on the plant at any given time, and I assume more will show as time goes on. The ants are intensively milking the aphids so the entire plant is very active.

WHat is this Part V

Pasha — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:17:10 GMT

Nightshade or something else? A juvenile-- about 2" tall, not sure I've ever let one get bigger. Looks vaguely oak leaf like.

What is this Part IV

Pasha — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:14:53 GMT

Nightshade? Which kind?

What is this Part III

Pasha — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:14:11 GMT

I'm told this is chamomile. Yes? I've lots of it growing.

What is this Part II

Pasha — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:12:50 GMT

This grows about 6-8" tall, with waxy leaves (like a succulent).

What is this Part I

Pasha — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:11:07 GMT

California region 10 weed.

Rain brings weeds

Pasha — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 09:18:40 GMT

Yeah, that's what I've concluded. Using a shovel to turn over 75 square feet of weedy soil is a pretty inefficient way to kill it. I've been considering Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening, and I like how he uses the space well. Better than this row system which seems quite space wasteful. I'll plant a few squares and get some more broccoli and spinach growing (already have several rows going now). I've got thousands of that pesky mallow weed out there. It's neverending! I thought I'd weeded some sections pretty well, but I guess I was just good about not watering between the rows, and now it's a green carpet of evil mallow. I musn't let it win.

Who needs toys when you have trash?

Pasha — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 09:13:43 GMT

I love this kid, but sometimes he obsesses on some strange things. For instance, the open dishwasher is absolutely the best thing in the world, even better if it's full of objects he can emulate Louis Braille with. And the recycling trash--that's better than a roomful of toys. Here, Justin is caught in the act of reaching for that really interesting Pepsi bottle, probably for the purpose of smashing it against something else to be a, what else, percussion instrument. Why a drummer? Why!?

The Duel

Pasha — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 09:06:44 GMT

Justin corners the cat near the front door. The cat has 12 years of survival skills and claws. The baby weighs twice as much as the cat and thinks everything is a percussion instrument. But the cat can climb on tables. The cat, for the win.

Garden

Pasha — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:06:28 GMT

I planted 5 rows of spinach and lettuce and stuff. So far, only the above has come up in the last 3 days. Guess I better get some sort of scraper and kill these guys. Definitely NOT spinach and lettuce and stuff.

One time, at Disneyland

Pasha — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:20:53 GMT

The All American band, a small college band, was playing Stevie Wonder's "Isn't she wonderful?" They had to have someone to focus on, so the bandleader picked a lady from the crowd. I took a lot of pictures that day, but this one is my favorite: the bandleader and Ms. Wonderful.

Wells Fargo-yes, I'm impressed when you know my name w/o a computer

Pasha — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:30:32 GMT

Today I went to your branch--well, actually, it's the branch in your central headquarters building, which isn't really a branch, is it? Let's call it a trunk. Today I went to your trunk in downtown Los Angeles to deposit a check. When I entered the lobby, there was at least eight tellers, and a customer service representative, and they were all attentive and interested in that we-can't-leave-our-station-so-we'll-settle-for-anything-to-entertain-us kind of status. There was also a very friendly person standing at the terminus of the line, presumably to help the next customer find a teller. I thus walked into the empty line and up to the very friendly person, who informed me I could be helped by C____. I asked the very friendlyl person, "Why can't I take my pick of the tellers? Perhaps they could bid for my--" Ms. Andrea Holland, a teller near the end, who has helped me about once a month in the last two months, interrupted. "Hello, Mr. Bowes." Astounding! She knew my name. "I think this is the teller I want!" I said, and the rest all laughed. "This is excellent customer service," I declared to the empty-of-customers bank. Yes, I am very impressed when an employee knows my name.

Sat / Sun

Pasha — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:09:54 GMT

Saturday, we did the mountebanks. It was tiring, discouraging, and hard work for an audience that was cranky and mostly uninterested. We did have a few high point gigs during the day that stood out. In one, we asked a man, "name a malady of which you are afflicted?" He replied, "what?" The Blonde shouts, "Deafness!" Later, the same man offered us a $5 bill for entertaining him. The Blonde grabs it, says, "what is this? You give us a piece of paper? This is worthless!" and throws it on the ground, then grinds it into the dirt with her shoe. We then made fun of it for about a minute: "Ooooh Kate, I will buy a goat from you. I will give you a piece of paper in exchange!" "Haha, Scoto, yea, I will take several pieces of paper for it. Would you like some extra sheep?" The customer at least got a dirty 5 spot out of it. Probably a high point of his day, a portion of the show that did NOT demand money from him. Speaking of which, we were in the middle of the street and had three customers with which we were going through our routine. They were in front of a booth, and yanno, it's 3 minutes of gig. We're in the middle of the street, and the customers can stand where they want, so when the booth owner comes out and shuts down our gig, it's embarrassing. The customers looked embarrassed and chagrined, and we were mildly annoyed, especially since the gig was coming to an end. So... And the horse he rode in on. Yar. If you don't like it, perhaps you should complain to the person (from marketplace) who designed the fair with NO PLACES TO GIG. Every single square foot of space is crammed with booths, which means we're always going to be in conflict, huh. Or maybe you'd just like to have your faire with no actors to entertain people. I know we're just weekend warriors and don't support the fair like you do. </sarcasm> We had four doubting customers who offered us two dollars (in bills), which Lorenzo took and explained were worthless. "Oh yeah? If they're worthless, rip them in half." It's your money. Lorenzo half ripped them, feeling bad about destroying the customer's money to make a point. I broke a couple times in that gig, Lorenzo is a funny act to watch when he's on a tear. Some actors were pretty good about remembering that we're in the England of faeries and superstition. Others weren't so good, and were very 21st century in their actions. That's hard to work with. Sunday: After church, we went over to spend $400 on a visit to the dentist. For the horses. My friend was training her horse with a large corrugated box, and Scarlet was scared to death of it, so we did a brief training session in which we trained her to touch the scary monster. Once she figured out that she got a treat each time she touched it, she'd buss it with her nose then come up for her treat, as if to say, "I did it again, more treats." The dentistry is an interesting process, you bring the horse over to this modified horse trailer, which has a stall with padding in the middle back, with hydraulic gates on either side to hold up the drugged horse. There's a rope pulley apparatus to hold the horse's chin, and head gear to hold the head still. They have this metal brace that wedges the mouth open. So, they inject the horse and it's pretty quick acting. Then you have to haul/cajole/coax the now-drugged animal into the back of the trailer. Once in, they close the back doors, and the horse's halter is removed and the various gear to hold the horse's head in place is put on. The dentist (and his assistants) wear headsets with a halogen light, and go in with a Dremmel tool and grind the teeth surfaces so they're flat. A vacuum tube put in the mouth sucks up the dust and smoke given off in this process. Scarlet was high spirited and special. She did not want to go in the trailer, and drugs? What drugs? She had a high tolerance for the drugs, and so there were misgivings about doing her. She's also scared of needles in a big way, so S___ had to go through a brief training session of touch with needle. S___ would touch scarlet's neck with the needle, and click-treat. Then she had the vet touch the horse's neck, click-treat. Vet touch neck with needle, click treat. Then vet inject neck with needle, click treat. Then getting her into the trailer was a five minute process, lots of work, with people she trusted trying to get her to willingly go in. Once they were finished with the grinding, she was led to a hitching rail. "When she holds her head up, you can take her to her stall." For smaller horses, that was about 30 minutes. For Scarlet, 5 minutes. Junior was easier, though his teeth are much worse. He also has a strong bite. "You sure he's not a quarter horse?" the interns asked. We're sure. I snapped a few pics with the cell phone of the dremmeling of the horse's teeth. Fascinating to watch. We visited our friend's house and made tacos, hung out, played some music (must get pickup for bouzouki), and the kids played Star Wars Monopoly. I jumped in mid-game to help out the 2nd youngest as her consigliere. I did manage to teach her to be polite in the game, say please and thank you. "Welcome to the Death Star Landing Bay! We hope you enjoy your stay here. The bill will be $350, please." The kids don't quite understand that the game is a trading game - you have to get monopolies to survive, and you usually have to trade to get monopolies. (photo from a blog somewhere)

Scoto di Mantua & the Mountebanks

Pasha — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:04:36 GMT

This Saturday, I'll be Scoto di Mantua, bringing you fine quality Oglio (or Olio if you prefer) di Scoto, the cure-all for everything, with the not-to-bright Kate Hatherleigh, assistant, and Lorenzo, his cousin. We may also have relics, such as the knucklebone of John the Baptist's cat, and Dirt from Our Savior's Privy (which looks suspiciously like dirt from that patch of ground, over there). You get the idea. If you are angry with us because you purchased our product and you want to have sharp words with us, please wait until our drivel is warming down, and it's clear that that particular set is probably nearly over. When people enter too soon, it kills the gig deader than last week's "Three's company" re-runs. Likewise, if you decide to purchase the oglio, wait for us to get to the "would you like to buy it" stage, because otherwise it breaks up the rhythm and pacing. If the gig looks dead or lifeless, we welcome any immediate pizzazz you might give it, because if other actors think we look dead and lifeless, we probably are sucking and need an assist. We will "sell" the bottles of oglio to participants. We will not sell them the audience. Do not drink them. Do not keep them. (If you want one as a souvenir, at least do us the courtesy of donating to us a buck that it cost us in materials and labor to make them.) Do not give them to customers. (Why you would want to drink greenish fluid of unknown properties, that I do not know.)

Friday, Saturday hot, Sunday not

Pasha — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:58:07 GMT

Went to seder on Friday night, was stressing because my boss wanted me to finish something at work and I was gibbering about it being 5:30 and me needed to go. It started on time, right as the sun was going down. Did you know that if you roast a hardboiled egg, it comes our really rubbery? Yar. I ended up hardboiling my eggs, then tossing them into a stew of black tea, brown onions, and soy sauce. Yar, that made a lovely brown egg. Yep. We also made matzoh brownies. They were too sweet by far, but everyone raved about them. I played the new bouzouki, and while I didn't know enough chords to sight read any of the songs, I was able to just play notes and keep up that way with the guitar and fiddle. It was good music. Yar, Saturday was hot. Some of you were walking around in stupidly heavy costumes. SOme weren't. Must revamp ideas about cotton vs. wool. Yar. I ran into Samantha, who is pregnant, had ultrasound picture, so I admired the little blob she showed me. I'm not very good at interpreting ultrasounds, but I'm happy that she's got a baby on the way. I had a new character, Sir James Melville the Scottish Ambassador, with which I was guesting with the court. I had an accent, which was wretched (they always are at first... who am I fooling? They stay wretched), and kept turning into something vaguely Florentine sounding. So I'd be in the middle of a conversation, and just as easy as you please the accent would slide from Scotland... into Fiorenza. This lasted well into the morning and into even into the afternoon. I had many lovely people support me and encourage me in this, and for them, yes, I would stop in the middle of conversation when my accent had slipped again and scream, "FLORENCE!" It was like accent touretts. Considering I'd never done a Scottish accent, it started going swimmingly by the time the temp topped 37.777777 c. At that point, most people were too hot to care if the accent sucked or not. ;-) It was nice to wear the silk suit again, with all the English accouterments, instead of the slashed silk sleeves I had for year 2 of the Florentine depiction. Interestingly, I was mostly ignored by most people, with the exception of Kevin Brown (playing a witchhunter... where DOES he come up with his ideas? Something new every week), Stacy (who is now Ambrose, not Leicester), Jason (Dudley), Lisa (Lady Howard), and Dom (Earl of Oxford). Jason must have said something to Vicki, because she approached me after dancing. I was fumbling with my accent, so I'm not sure what I said, but it was pretty stupid. So much for the slick ambassador. Did you know that Sir James spoke to Elizabeth almost entirely in French?? I found out that tidbit on Friday night. Right, so SIr James claims in his blog (okay, his memoir) it's because he had been in France so long, he'd forgotten his native tongue, but it sounds like he just wanted to show off in French, and you know Elizabeth like to show how adroit she was in other tongues. Now, I've had a lifelong hate-affair with French, ever since I was tripped up on words I'd read in a book and then try to say out loud using phonetics and I'd get mocked by classmates. Buncha ignorant apes. I've taken some Spanish, and a bit more Italian. And I can sort of read the Russian alphabet, enough to puzzle out the word "supermarket" in Cyrilic in St. Petersberg. No, really, it was called a supermarket. Just in Russian. It wasn't very large, so perhaps their supermarkets are in name only. So I was stumpered by the French aspect of this guy, as he spent from age 14 to age 25 or so as a page in the French court, and tramping around in battlefields in Northern France (against the English!). I could do a bad French accent, but put a French accent on top of a Scottish accent on top of an Elizabethan vocabulary? I was barely getting the long dark Ls and the "E" for the "hill" sound. I did NO French, as you may have surmised, because one does what one can, and I can't. There's a gal who plays the Comtesse d' something, and she speaks real French, and has a great accent. Thankfully, she didn't know that Melville spoke French, else I'd have been truly dead in the water. The irony was that the character I was playing with the English court was more Scottish that the English character I play with the Scottish Clan. Confused? You aren't the only one! The kids at clan said, "you're not in this group." So we had a running argument about it, until I showed them the best evidence, my gatepass which says "St. Andrews." Well, that ended THAT argument. The Blonde came out and wore a surcoaty thing she borrowed from a friend. I thought it looked fetching and cute. She had the baby (Mr. Baboon) with her, and we bought a Wayward Wear nightgown for him, plus a little diaper cover. See, the shift shows the diaper through it, so you make do by using non-period stuff. Like a diaper cover. Baboon looked pretty cute, but he mostly dozed on the Blonde or on a pillow. It was too hot, so they went home about 2 pm. They were smart. The Blonde spent all of Sunday being miserably sick... I walked in progress, but it felt the same as the other 900 times I've walked progress, only without having to run about and pay attention to the crowd or the chair or is-that-a-squirt-gun, be careful, he's got a loaded tomato! Yeesh. The lads under the chair had my sympathy and empathy. I remember some pretty hot days (triple digit) where you get all hyperfocused and you're just encouraging each other and saying, "ten more steps, c'mon, we can do this, it's 105, this ain't nothing." It's dumb, but it was cool being able to get through the most awful physical labor in ridiculous heat because you had a buddy who wasn't going to let you down and you weren't going to fail him, either. The end of the day, I caught up with the queen and entourage at the kid's knighting, and was pulled into the thick of things by Stacy--albeit, there didn't seem to be many noble men around by that time, probably all dead of heatstroke by that time--so got some time in to be more ambassadorial with the queen. I was getting pretty comfy with the Scottish thing by the time we ended the day with the Queen, and then I walked about some more with Kristin, playing Anne Vavasour. No really awesome gigs seemed to gel, but it's a crap shoot on closing, and sometimes you can step into four or five great gigs, one right after another, taking up 30 minutes, and other times, nothing happens. Can someone please explain what it is with St. Ives and the gigs with the kewpie doll? My favorite four courtesan ladies were there, and we conversed at length, and they saw Alyxx off in the distance. "We know who that is!" they said, "We've read her web site. She gave us the information necessary to make our costumes." So, I was able to introduce them to their heroine, which was very nice, so they could talk courtesan dresses and costuming and such. There was some degree of success in the accent, in that I was getting feedback from the customers in the afternoon. Mostly, "what clan are you with?" was the question. I told them I didn't have one, I worked for Queen Marie, and what clan was theirs, a thieving border clan, a troublemaking lowland clan, or a violent troublemaking highland clan? One lady claimed a clan which was a thieving border clan, so I proceeded to tell her that she needed to talk to her people, because the border agreements said 100 miles, not 200 miles within the border to steal cattle, and it was making a lot of complaints and making people unhappy. Silly, but someone earlier in the day had told me something to the effect they had agreements about raiding cattle, and how far they could go into the other country, and so on. So I incorporated it into a gig, why not? Sunday was lazy for most of the day, stayed home, watched the baby, Wifely Blonde was sick. I went to work at 3 pm and finished about 9 pm, so 6 hours of overtime. If I work a lot of overtime this week, I can get some extra chunk of cash to pay for more improvements on my Bouzouki (a McIntyre featherlite pickup I have my eye on, $75).

Water. This makes my teeth itch

Pasha — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 23:52:59 GMT

You can't condition yourself to be more hydrated before an event. It's not scientifically possible. The idea of drinking more water beforehand is simply wrong and ignorant. All you are doing is making yourself go to the bathroom more (and flushing out your system, I suppose, if you want that). Hydrating DURING an event, yes. And not gulping water, but taking water moderately and constantly means much better use of the water, because it won't just shunt to the bladder and do nothing. The reason people have to pee 3 times before lunch is because when they take in large amounts of water, their system analyzes and says, "gee, this is more water than we need right now." And when you have excess water, it shunts to your bladder. Then you have to pee. Whereas, if you drink water moderately, sipping it, your body doesn't overreact and dump the excess, but uses it. I am sick to death of the ignorant badgering about drinking more water during the week. Are people at faire really so stupid as to not drink water? I know the answer is yes, but I'm sick to death of the "drink more water" people. No, I don't need to drink a gallon of water a day to build up my tolerance. (You can acclimate and build up tolerance to heat and cold, however, and that's a different story. But you can't build up a tolerance to water intake. It's either adequate for you needs at the moment, and everything you don't need goes out, or it's not adequate.) What's next? "You should try to poo as much as possible during the week. Everyone take an enema!" Fah

Sir James Melville... for free

Pasha — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:09:39 GMT

http://www.archive.org/details/memoirsofhisownl00melv Nice to see this, not have to buy the thing.

Trains

Pasha — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:19:58 GMT

Yep, it was pretty cold.

Morro bay in September!

Pasha — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:54:12 GMT

And we'll be going horse camping in Morro Bay in September for 4 days. That oughta be grand. I don't know if my horses have seen the ocean before.

Horses + House = ?

Pasha — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:53:15 GMT

We might have a line on a house with a horse barn attached, as a rental. The price is reasonable, though we'd end up feeding some other horses on a daily basis, not just our own. It's very tempting, would love to have horses in backyard, with ability to saddle up and ride in the mornings or evenings. It's another 20 minutes from work, though, unless I use train, which would save a lot of money. It looks really good, actually.

Garden

Pasha — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:49:36 GMT

Two of the 5 spinach seeds have sprouted. They look like grass when they first come out. The paddle shaped leaves come later. I harvested all the peppers, and will take seeds from them. The plastic seedling tray I had is kaput, so I need something similar that will act as a terrareum but not break apart easily. I thought of a ceramic deal, but The Blonde suggested a plastic box, like shoebox sized, which is opaque or clear. This is a very good idea. The moisture is sealed in, the seeds do their thing, and then I can transplant them. I need a clear shoebox, now, as I have plenty of seeds and little starter discs.

Fear my luthier skillz yo

Pasha — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:15:21 GMT

Thanks to the USTC program by Doug Dieter at Kennaquhair.com, I was able to fix the little problem with the zouk being progressively out of tune due to the bridge placement. 26.75"? *sniff* I should say not. I tuned it up today, and then played the 12th fret. 20% flat on all of the notes. According to the program, I move the bridge .3" closer. I put a piece of tape down exactly where the bridge was to move, so when I did the move, it wasn't sliding around into the wrong location. The part I hate most is that you have to loosen all the strings, then tighten them again. After having cheap strings on cheap instruments break rather spectacularly before, I hate tempting fate with respect to tightening a new set of strings too many times. I tested the notes after the bridge move, and it was spot on. I played with a few fingerings, as the tuning is GDAd, and that subtle 2 fret loss on the top string means that a lot of chords I'm used to playing aren't what I'm used to playing. A "C", for instance, has become devilishly difficult. An "A" chord now takes three fingers instead of two. The bouzouki GDAd fingering chart I found, however, has umpteen zillion chords, including many that utilize open strings and tunings up the neck (at 5, 7, and 12). There's some good potential for doing things around the high part of the neck. The sound on the instrument is more robust and rich than the octave mandolin. There's an additional half a foot of strings, and although they play the same notes, they do not sound the same. I tried to attach a strap to the instrument, but it wasn't to be: The peg to hold the strap near the tail-piece -was- glued in, right up to the point where I attached something to it and it came right out. This isn't terrible; I want to replace it with better hardware that will hold a strap on the end decently, so there's no weird jerry-rigged system to keep the end from falling off.

Bouzouki

Pasha — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:57:24 GMT

Last Friday, I got my new bouzouki. I've got to do more adjustments to the bridge. The bridge is that block of wood/plastic that the strings rest on at the strumming end, and the strings cross another small piece of plastic (or other material) called a nut on the far end of the fretboard. So, when you see specs for an instrument which has a "floating bridge," you're seeing the ideal distance from the nut to the bridge. On my bouzouki, it's 26.75 inches. A floating bridge is a bridge that isn't permanently attached to the instrument. It's held in place by the 285 pounds of pressure the strings exert against it. (The strings are anchored in a metal plate at the end of the instrument called the "Tailpiece." It usually has a cover on top of things so you don't see all the guts of the instrument.) So, once you've got your bridge in the right location, and you've tightened all the strings, you test that location by playing notes up the frets, to the magical 12th. See, there's 12 tones in Western music, and that 12th tone is the octave up from the open tuning. So, when you play that note one octave up, is it in tune? On mine, it is not. This means the bridge needs further adjustment. But I have a cool program tool from a Luthier that tells me, based on what percent flat or sharp the 12th fret is, how far to move the bridge. This probably could have all been done by a luthier in a few moments, but I had to do it the hard way.