A Mid-Month Bookish Update

While this isn't the Books of March update (it'll come at the end of March), I decided to post a couple of bookish notes. There are certain authors whose books I buy as they come out, usually in hardback, but these don't keep me in enough reading material to satisfy my reading jones (don't let anyone say I'm not a cool dude - I used "jones" with the addiction definition). Between these "must read" authors, I fill in with a variety of books that look interesting. Often these books I come up with add another author to my "must read" list, but invariably I still need the "filler" books - the books I read in-between the "must read" books. Most of that filler material of late has come by default, with me reading whatever I borrowed from Number One Brother -- and I've already gone through the ones I think might be good and have been working through the ones that don't really excite me. So I was happy to get to go pick up some new stuff at BAM. I got Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani, a double book by Eric Garcia containing Anonymous Rex and Casual Rex, and Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen.

Big Stone Gap looks to be a Jan Karon, Mitford-type book while the double book by Eric Garcia will either be a nice humorous read or too stupid to enjoy. What I read of it in BAM appeared to fall on the nice humorous read side of the fence; hopefully it'll stay there. Tourist Season looked to be your basic detective story, so I should enjoy that one as well. I'll let you know as I read them.

Bookish note number two has to do with the Paperback Swap club, which I joined over the weekend. It allows you to trade books with thousands of other folks, the only expense being your cost in shipping the books. It's not only a great idea for the book-swappers, it's a great business idea for the site developers. The customers do all the work, Paperback Swap just provides the system. At present there is no fee associated with the basic membership, though there are some things on the site that do cost. The system also lets you know there may be a ten-to-twenty buck per-year fee in the future.

I initially loaded the system with around 150 books and have had six requests already. I intend to load it with a lot more books over the coming weeks (I've got some 1,200 paperbacks that have collected over the years) and should be able to get my "filler" reading material there for some time to come. Check it out at Paper Back Swap and if you decide to join use me as the reference if you would - I get a free credit when you start using the system, and you know you want to give me free credits.

God's Little Chuckle

As noticed if you read my blog, I've been working on getting some seeds started early for my square foot garden. This has been a bit of a task, requiring the purchase of numerous "grow lights" (2' relabeled under-counter fluorescent lights), much fussing around, restarting some, and so forth. But the results have been dozens of plants poking up in coffee cups getting ready to be transplanted. The picture above is one such plant, a Grand Rapids lettuce plant, that is doing quite well - the quarter is for size reference. It will soon be moving out from the house to the square foot garden; I'll probably start this weekend moving the lettuces out to the patio to harden them, then the following weekend transplant into the square foot garden. The idea, of course, is I can have really nice plants growing that much quicker, therefore reaching harvest much faster than just planting the seeds in the garden.

Speaking of the square foot garden (and getting around to the title of the post), in doing some work there this past weekend I noticed something. Given all of my effort, time, money, attention, and restarts I achieved the picture shown above. The picture below shows what I found growing from seeds scattered last fall that didn't sprout, also with a quarter for reference. They have had no attention, no effort, no money other than the original seed; they just grew. When I was working in the garden this past weekend and thinking about my efforts and those lettuces in the cup, and how little effort I had put into these . . . just for a second . . I think I heard a heavenly chuckle.

Brother Preacher-man's Birth Day

I remember standing in the parking lot of the Tupelo, MS, hospital and looking at a window on -- I believe -- the third floor. Mom had just had Brother Preacher-man, the brother that came after me. At that time, you had to be at least twelve to go up and see patients, so me, being six, and Brother Number One, being nine, weren't old enough for an official visit. Brother Running-man, being the youngest of we four brothers, was yet to arrive on the scene. Dad (who was in the parking lot with us) helped us find the window and Mom came to the window with Brother Preacher-man (no, it wasn't a Michael Jackson moment - the window was closed). So my first view of my new little brother was through the third floor window of the Tupelo hospital, and while Mom waved he just bawled (at least that's how I remember it). I'm guessing he thought she was tossing him out the window; he was probably fairly insecure at the time, given what all he had just been through.

Fast forward to the birth of my second child, Number One Son, many years later; Number One Daughter was only four but was able to come and check her new little brother out only minutes after birth. Yet back when Brother Preacher-man arrived, not only were we siblings not allowed up, Dad wasn't allowed back in the delivery room. While I wasn't in the waiting room, I picture Dad pacing the floor, smoking cigarette after cigarette; I'm not sure he smoked at that time, as he gave them up somewhere around then, but that's the mental picture I have -- probably from watching old movies.

Of course, by the time SWMBO and I got around to having children, I was back in the room holding her hand and suggesting she breath - why she would forget to do so, I've no clue. Perhaps in the excitement of childbirth it can slip the almost-mother's mind, so husbands hang around and remind them. I assume prior to the time when the fellows started going back with their spouse, a nurse took care of the reminder. Given all these nurses had to do, maybe they occasionally forgot, and the new mom would pass out in the middle of giving birth. So along with slapping the new baby's backside, Mom had to be smacked a time or two just to bring her around. This was probably seen as a bit much to the new Moms, so I'm guessing husbands started going back to handle the chore. It has to be something along those lines; otherwise, what use are we back there? One thing I can tell you for sure, from the experience of Number One Daughter's birth: pointing out the newly arrived baby's ears are on crooked isn't appreciated. I knew better than to make such comments when Number One Son came along. Oh, and don't worry, Number One Daughter's ears straightened out within a few minutes.

Anyway, to get back to the point of the post: Brother Preacher-man, just remembering your birth day here on your birthday, and passing warmest wishes your way. I hope today is the first day of a fantastic new year of life.

Square Foot Garden Update - 03/11/06

Above is a look at the Meth Lab*, where the plants are percolating along pretty nicely. I still have to get the tomato seeds into cups this weekend, but SWMBO and I spent the day getting a strawberry bed ready for the arrival of our strawberry plants. I'm not real sure when the plants will arrive from Burpee, but they said sometime in March so we wanted the bed ready. We tilled up the area, raked out the grass, put double-stacked landscaping timbers around it (4 feet by 16 feet), then filled with a mixture of top soil and mulch, the mulch to help the soil to drain better. The plants will go into a mixture of potting soil and vermiculite (2/1) when planted. I'll add a picture of the bed when the plants are installed.

Along with the tomato seeds being planted, I am going to get some onions and radishes into the actual square foot garden this weekend. But in looking at the bed in which they were going, I saw what you see to the right - only there were a few thousand; you can click the picture for a larger version, by the way. So now I've got to get rid of an ant infestation. My onions and radishes will go into a different bed, but I still hope to get them in this weekend. The onions are for green onions and the plan is they will be harvested in time to use the squares for something else later; same for the radishes. But I still have to figure out how to get rid of the ants without having them just infest another bed. I'll be posting the question on a couple of gardening boards and see what suggestions I get.

*When the kids dubbed my seedling area, with it's glowing lights and plastic-wrapped exterior, the "Meth Lab," I thought it was pretty funny and a pretty good name -- but SWMBO has suggested I should stop using that phrase. I think she's afraid of a raid some night, with doors kicked in and cops, along with cameras from the Cops television show, storming through. So while the seedling area will continue, this is the last time I'll refer to it as the Meth Lab. Sort'a makes me want to shed a tear.

Retirement Fund

I always figured I'd retire at fifty-five years old and find something or other to putter around with: a used bookstore, maybe some teaching, grow Brussels sprouts for fun and profit, male escort (though I'll have to run that one past SWMBO) -- I don't know for sure, but something. I wouldn't want to completely retire, but I would want to do something that's more fun than how I currently earn a living, and not have money be the deciding factor in the deciding. However, while I do have both a pension with my company along with money I'm putting into a 410K (and getting a bit of a match), it probably won't allow me to retire at fifty-five in the style to which I hope to become accustomed. It also doesn't appear that my investments in the Powerball Lottery are going to pay off anytime soon either. But I'm not worried, because I have a fail-safe backup plan that will give me a massive chunk of cash come time to retire. I'll put this cash into safe investments and live decently off the interest for my remaining years on this old rock. SWMBO is a bit skeptical of my idea, but I can't see how it could miss. I call it the Scissors/Pens/Umbrella retirement fund.

There's no doubt that over the years I've had at least a couple million bucks worth of pens and scissors taken from my desk, and spent another million or so on umbrellas that go missing from my car, all never to return. Checking with Number One Daughter, Number One Son, and SWMBO assures me that they didn't throw them away, though they'll admit to the remote possibility of maybe having at some time in the distant past borrowed them. They also won't confess to the items being lost, since I've been assured on more than one occasion that "it's here somewhere, I just don't know where." This logic of having no idea where an item might be located, yet not being lost, has escaped me for years . . . but that's another post. For now, I just sit secure in the knowledge that though I don't know exactly where "here" might be, the items are "here somewhere." So when I get tired of the 'ole rat race, I'll just hunt "here" down, throw the entire pile up on eBay, and retire with a couple million in the bank. Anyone wanna join me in a fishin' trip eight years from now?

Crash at the Oscars

Interestingly enough, in a previous review I described the movie Crash as "one very much worth watching" and on a five-star maximum rating, I said Crash "wasn't quite worth five, but very, very close." Now, seeing as how it won the Oscar for best picture last night, I may have to rethink it. Generally speaking, I'm never on the same page as the Academy Awards. I'm not sure I want to think highly of a picture the folks who vote for the awards also think highly of. I must have overrated it.

Square Foot Garden Update (03-05-06)

Here are a few of the plants growing in the Meth Lab (re: Meth Lab, see the post Brussels Sprouts in the Meth Lab) that will be going into my square foot garden later on, come transplanting time. Most everything planted so far is up, the exception being most of the pepper plants and one or two of the Swiss chard. In the picture (on which you can click for a larger image, should you want to do so) the two cups in the foreground (#53 & #54) are Swiss chard, behind that are (left to right) a bell pepper and a banana pepper. All the cups behind that are various lettuces; immediately behind the peppers could be anything as they came from a package of Mesclun salad mix, on the back row are grand rapids lettuce plants, and just in front of the back row are salad bowl lettuce plants.

This is my first year to try and start seeds indoors, and as has been documented previously here on Mississippi Ramblings, I've had some setbacks. I have to say I sincerely hope this works out. I've had a ton of trouble with the cheap grow lights I bought from Wal-mart. Every time I go by, one or two or even three have stopped burning. Either squeezing the ends toward each other, shifting the bulbs a bit, or banging on one particular one always gets them going again but I never know really how much of the time they are supposed to be on they are actually lighting the plants.

Books of February

During February I only read four books (listed, in order, below). I got hung up on Winning, and just couldn't seem to go anywhere. I wasn't really in the mood for that particular type of book so would only read three or four pages prior to putting it down. I probably spent over two weeks on it, reading small doses at a time. The four books I read in February were:

• Disappearing Nightly by Laura Resnick
  
• Cell by Stephen King
  
• Winning by Jack Welch
  
• Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder
  

Disappearing Nightly by Laura Resnick was a barely-okay book -- which is pretty sad, as it started out to be a better-than-okay book. Shortly into it, though, Resnick took a turn toward the ridiculous and kept going in that direction. The story lost a lot of what it could have been, and given the possibilities exhibited in the first chapter or two that was really disappointing.

Cell by Stephen King wasn't bad, but nothing great - in my mind, easily in the lower half of King's work. A neat premises, a decent idea, but somewhat disjointed and meandering without much purpose. As always, though, King's characters keep me interested.

Winning by Jack Welch was a decent book, but nowhere as interesting as Straight from the Gut and, as mentioned, I got bogged pretty badly on this one. Aimed far above my meager level of the corporate ladder, his ideas may have been in place for the upper echelons of GE but didn't trickle down to the lower rungs very well. Some good points could be dug out, though, so might be worth adding to your list.

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder was by far the best of the February books and a nice opening to a new series of novels. A complete and interesting story in and of itself, I'm now looking forward to the publication of Magic Study due out in October. Based on what I see on her website, this is Snyder's first book - I know because I went hunting for anything else she might have written. I hate waiting for the next, then the next, etc. I usually wait until the series is finished, then buy them all. I didn't realize this one would be a series until I was nearing the end of this novel. I could tell the subplot would probably wrap up, but there was much more to the story than could be finished in the remaining pages. I was right, and it mentioned the next one. Ah, well.

Currently reading Thud by Terry Pratchett, one of the Discworld books.