My First Pineapple Harvest !!!

I was able to get 203 grams of edible fruit (less than a half pound) from my first pineapple fruit grown at my house. It is smaller than what I can get at the groc store, but tasted marvelous, probably the best ever!!!

I have two more fruit that are just getting started. It took this one about 6 months from the first appearance of the fruit until completion, and about two years before that just to grow the plant. The entire amount of dirt used was about 3/4 of the volume of a Folger's Coffee can, 34 oz size. I just planted the top from this picture in a slightly larger can, (it is outside, I will find the size later...) so maybe more dirt volume will give a larger fruit? The plant was only outside for about 1 1/2 months of its 6 month fruit producing time period, so probably more direct sunlight would help, but I don't have a greenhouse, only a sunny double wide glass back door that faces west.

I am pretty sure that the amount of energy that I eXpended in the process of caring for the plants, watering them, transporting them between the inside and outside twice a year, vastly eXceeds the amount of food energy that I gained by eating the pineapple. Plus my wife ate one fourth of the pineapple, and I am saving one fourth for someone else. At least I didn't spend any money on water - they live completely on a diet of rain water. No wait, I think I spent $10 on the large water collection barrel, but that eXpense is spread out across the grape vines and the orchid as weLL. I store water long term in leftover 2 quart jugs from V-8 juice. So I do use some city water to clean those out .... $$$

Sixteen Shades Of Pink

I was having a negative day fiLLed with bad events, thieves, and ignorant people, but then I got some interesting news on Friday. A far distant relative caLLed my mother and told her that he had traced my maternal grandfather back to a Cherokee heritage in Georgia. Surprise! I have lived most of my life not knowing I was a native.

This eXplains the manner in which I have fiLLed out the previous two United States Census questionaires. When it asked for race, I created a new minority "Pink". So my family has been Pink the last twelve years. I figured that everyone is pink, you just have to look deep enough. So we Pink reaLLy aren't a minority, we are the majority, all 100 percent of us.

So figuring out a percentage Cherokee, I think the fraction might be 1/8 or 1/16 Native American Indian. I bought my first of probably many Indian books yesterday and got busy learning the language last night.

Here is a color scale between White Man and Red Man in 16 Shades

As a tribute to my new found heritage, I used a "Georgia" font instead of Trebuchet as the first letter in each sentence, and the word "I" and "Indian".

So what song am I humming right now?  ... Georgia On My Mind by Ray Charles ....

My wife is 1/4 Choctaw. She is constantly bothering me about being more Indian, so I think I wiLL adopt a new name, "He Who Puts Up With Four Times Wife".


Update: Later in the afternoon while my wife was behind me in the laundry room with some noise by her, from the kitchen I told her, "At least now I have a good reason to go to Georgia"

She responded loudly, "What did you say?!?!?"

I repeated, "At least now I have a good reason to go to Georgia"

She repeated louder, "What did you say?!?!?" - this time walking towards me.

For the third time I turned around and said, "At least now I have a good reason to go to Georgia."

Her response was, "Oh, I thought you said 'I finally have a good reason to reward you', and I thought we were fixing to have us a fight!"

"Oh, silly silly woman", I thought, not spoken.

Saving Private Susie

I have been working on three projects. I didn't mean to, it was just a de-painting job at first, but then an "emergency" insulating project interrupted the de-painting before I could even start the painting, and then The Wife begged me to help her with a display case refinishing project. Three large cases. The third project of the display cases involved heavy object moving and straining, but at least I was off the ladder, The Up & Down, of the first two projects.

I teLL you aLL that to let you know that by earlier this afternoon my left leg had joined the right in a pain revolt. A charlie-horse had bothered the right leg through the previous night of little sleep.

I was in the middle of buying lumber and decided to go home for some ibuprofen and maybe coffee, and an ice water refiLL. Cooper needed me by then as weLL.

So I laid down on my bed with the iPad propped on the night stand with Cooper snuggled at my feet, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing and the ibuprofen to do its molecular magic. I had no intention of visiting dreamland, but I did while journeying-journaling through Wall Street on the iPad.

So the dream begins as I am going to see my best friend Susie. I drive to her country "estate" to help her with her bionic leg devices, something akin to the movie "Iron Man", only simpler, just legs. There is actuaLLy nothing wrong with Susie's legs in the real world.

She is eXcited to get her leg-so-skeletons but part way through the fitting & adjusting process a wasp lands on the side of her head in the temple region. It is searching for a place to driLL and for some reason I can not get Susie's attention, she keeps talking, my arms seem powerless to lift, to move, to shoo the inject-insect away. FinaLLy the anger is building up and I start huffing and puffing Three Little Pigs style, and I interrupt and irritate the injecter-insecter, and he stares back scowling at me and it seems I can read his mind, he is not happy. Then it appears he is fixing to launch and I can sense he is headed my way!

FinaLLy I build up aLL my strength and simultaneously say veRy BAD BAD words, and I take a swing to eject the insect from Susie's head.

In the real world my fist collides with the iPad and it lands face down on the bedroom carpet. But it is not a boxing knock-out, because suddenly a woman's voice is talking on the iPad. Yes, in the real world I hear a woman's voice coming from the floored device and I sit up on the side of my bed and crack up laughing. In aLL this commotion Cooper has not moved. He just looks at me wide eyed wondering. What is happening to my Ernie, why the violence, the cursing?!?!?

The Wall Street Journal app just h-app-ened to be open to a story about colleges setting up a "good-bye buffer station" to make the child-parent departing process easy and fast, emphasis on getting the parents to leave. My fist just happened to punch the button to start the video interview of Sanette Tanaka, Wall Street Journal reporter. ActuaLLy it was the louder woman in the interview that I first heard, but I couldn't find her identity.

Once I had my coffee cup fiLLed, I caLLed Susie to teLL her about my dream. I told her I had been busy saving her life. She thought it was interesting, and that I have the wildest dreams. She also asked about what meds I was on, but I told her just ibuprofen, just two tablets.

Oh, The You In Our

I wrote this for one of my relatives. He owns a piece of property far away from where he lives but somewhat close to his ex-father-in-law. His ex-wife was visiting and sent him a text mesage about the far away property, complaining about what the neighbors were doing to some trees on "our" property, but interestingly after the divorce she is no longer a legal owner.

I told him, "You can say: there is the letter U in the word y-o-u and there is the letter U in the word o-u-r, but there is no Y-o-u in this o-u-r'"


Something Different: What are the people of Iran protesting about now? ... The price of chicken


Something Oriental: Torch Festival

There is a Torch Festival in Butuo County in Sichuan Province, China this week. There are sheep and bull fighting, beauty contests, and horse racing. 

I am not eXactly sure who the contestants are in these events, it might be people versus sheep, or sheep versus bulls, or people and sheep versus bulls, etc, just not sure. 

Now, a beauty contest while horse racing simultaneously being pursued by angry sheep would be interesting, especiaLLy if the judges were buLLs. 

"Baaa", "Mooo", and the visiting Russian ice skating contest judge in the audience secretly and silently gives everyone a low score.

Why Head Why

Five A.M.

The Wife says, "I don't know why I can't go to sleep, I have to work tomorrow."

I respond "I know why. You are just so glad to be married to me."

Wife emits roar of laughter, wave upon wave.

Meanwhile I have a veRy valid reason for not sleeping, an eXtreme headache wanna-be, which I am treating, no fighting, with a combo-nation of coffee, ibuprofen, peanut butter sandwich and it seems there was something else.

Coffee is finaLLy ready.

Thw Wife teLLs me another story after she foLLows me into the living room where the cerebral battle continues, Pain V Coffee.

She says, (and I eXplain)
"So I hear the TV
(get loud because it was silent)
and there is a pain in my back and I start looking for the remote
(control),
and then I realize
(her laughter)
that I am laying on the remote
(and she fails to mention or notice that her back had turned up the volume.)"

One of the ways that you can teLL that is her authentic conversation is that it has the word "TV" instead of "teleBision".

We now have our own iPads, it is a truly marvelous situation. The Wifey wanted my old one so I was "forced" to buy a new one. With cameras! Skype seems to work a little better, perhaps it is the faster processors, dunno. I don't think I have ever wrote the word dunno before. When I wanted to take a picture of my grape vine leaf yesterday, to show that it was larger than the palm of my hand, I had to hold the iPad with one hand, put the other hand under the grape leaf (still on the vine) and then push the camera shutter button with my nose.

While proofreading this I noticed the word "the" is speLLed "thw" in the sixth paragraph, but I decided to not fix it, because I had already fixed it once before as the very first word in the first paragraph.

Cool: I just realized that "dunno" is a contraction of three words, with an implied fourth word, "[I] do not know".

¯\(°_o)/¯

Is That Me?

W hile reading an article in the newspaper, I thought I saw myself in a crowd of people in a photograph. I thought for a few minutes and realized that I had not recently been to Atlanta, GA, nor had I ever been there. And if I had been it would probably not be to attend a contest where people use a machete to see how many water bottles they could slice open with one whack.

The 10th annual World Championship Cutting Contest

I finished the article but halfway through I thought of the movie Kill Bill.

Volume One or Volume Two ?

One, of course.

((( I actuaLLy knew that?!?!?!? - you ask )))

No, I had to look it up, I couldn't remember which movie has the super long fight scene, the scene with the slicing and dicing.

Hmmm, interesting, maybe I finaLLy do have a reason to go to Atlanta. Next year. I found a video of the competition at www.bladesports.org

Reference: Bladesports

Oh, A Type 0 from the WSJ

This sentence is from a Wall Street Journal article about the Green Party presidential nominee picking her running mate. It doesn't take much to make me laugh somedays.

The Green Party has never won more than a few percentage points nationally, but played an important role in the 200o election.

Not My Dream [Comma Optional] Wife

My wife just asked me, "Did you ask me for a pen in the middle of the night?"

"No." I answer, puzzled.

"Well, there is one on this table" - in the dining room.

She continues with a chuckle, "I had the strangest dream you kept asking me for a pen, and I kept saying, 'There is one in there in the dining room', what a strange dream".

I am thinking, yes, that is kinda strange.

Then she hauls a basket of socks from the laundry room before asking me, "Is this thing anything?" - yes, those were her eXact words.

I bet you can guess what my answer was. If you guessed "No", then the answer to your answer about my answer is no, you should know better than that.

"Yes", I simply say, before I even see It.

She hands me a dark piece of plastic coated metal that requires I eventuaLLy photograph it so you too can be as puzzled as me. But I wiLL keep you in suspense and publish this first without a picture.

Then I thought, I hope I don't lose it before I photograph it, that would be reaLLy terrible.

The Empire of Rob

My friend Rob Z Tobor of the UK has had difficulties getting a pineapple plant to start, so I have dedicated my youngest plant to him, and named it Rob. I also decided to set aside that portion of dirt (one Folgers Coffee can) as British soil, so we can start an Empire of Rob, or whatever name Rob chooses. So it has an embassy quality to it, as weLL as being a plantation. It is located near my plantation of three pineapple plants. They are aLL currently outside during the months of June through August. The rest of the year they come inside my house near the glass back door. This is similar to how Hong Kong was created I think and there are stiLL several chunks of the British Empire stiLL scattered across the globe.

My wife has a quantity restriction of only three pineapple plants inside the house, so come this September I may have to disguise the smaLLest one, Rob, as something else. Maybe she won't notice for a while. Or perhaps I could get rid of my wife(?). 

(haha...hahahha-h-hah) 

Maybe I wiLL have a real greenhouse by then.

A picture of Rob the Pineapple Plant

It is about 3 inches tall at the highest point

A picture of my pineapple fruit

It is currently 3 1/4 wide by 3 3/4 tall, not including the green blades

Update: 2012.07.28 - The pineapple fruit is now 3 3/4 inches wide by 4 tall, and has picked up some yellow-ish-orange-ish coloring on the north side at the bottom. So that is how much it has grown in about three weeks.

Update: 2012.08.27 - The pineapple plant (on the left rear) that is part of The Empire of Rob has longer leaves, a couple of them are about 8 inches. The pineapple plant on the right-front is from the top of the pineapple I harvested recently.

The Idiot Sign Salesman

A salesman for a sign company named Signtronix shows up at our store today.

He asks if he can demonstrate his sign technology. I am momentarily elated, "ooh, new!", are my thoughts.

My wife and I agree to a demonstration.

He goes out to his vehicle and brings in a strangely shaped black bag and a stand to set it upon. My wife helps him get access to an electrical outlet.

Then the salesman starts talking and asks me some technical question about signs to which I simply answer, yes, I have heard about that. I don't remember what it was, and it didn't reaLLy matter. The sign is still in the bag. I can't see the sign.

He mentions something about some high official, maybe it was the founder of the company being from Borger. And I get suspicious then, thinking, isn't this a Torrance, California based company? What are the odds? I will have to check this out later.

He keeps talking. --- And talking. --- And talking.

I am starting to unlisten.

After a couple minutes I am very irritated at the sound of his voice. He sounds artificial. I don't know why, there is just something bombastically used car salesman nauseating about it, like I'm being forced to listen to a classroom lecture or a funeral sermon for someone I don't like. I kind of raised my hand just a little bit and he stopped talking momentarily enough so I asked this question,

"Can I just see your sign?"

He turned around and quietly walked back to his dark suitcase looking thing-on-a-stand and instead of unzipping the cover, he unplugs the power cord from the wall and begins to roll up his extension cord.

I asked him, "Are we not going to get to see your sign?!?!?"

He turned around and quickly replied, "I asked for ten minutes of your time and it seems you only want to give me three."

There is this quick flash thought that I have interrupted a magician in mid stream and his secret was revealed to the audience, and now he is pouting, taking his toys, and going home.

So I replied, "So, you are just going to get mad and leave?!?!?"

He replied, "I'm not mad ..." and said something else I have now forgot.

I am thinking, this idiot is more concerned with giving his presentation AND hearing himself speak, than he is in making a sale. I messed with his flow, and he became flow-strated.

I asked him to leave.

I think my wife was irritated with me.

Lesson: When you are a salesman the most important thing to do is make a sale, not talk.

I Am The Luckiest Person On The Planet

My ice cream container is almost a cylinder shape, eXcept the top circle is slightly larger than the bottom.

But the most important dimension concerning the design of the container is the lid's height. For some reason they designed the lip of the lid to be about 3/4 of an inch, and this came in handy.

My most recent container of ice cream had an eXtra 1/2 inch of ice cream on one side, so the top wasn't level.

I was completely overjoyed.

I wiLL do the math later to let you know the percentage eXtra. I would say a rough guess of maybe 4.1625 percent for now.

4.1625 PERCENT FREE ICE CREAM !!!

My other ice story is my dog's water bowl. Since I have an ice cube, water and crushed ice dispenser in the door of my recently new refrigerator, my dog regularly gets about 1/4 ice in his water bowl. He seems to like it very much. I use the crushed ice rather than the cubed.

Oh, I almost forgot about the picture I took today of a local convenience store sign, also an ice story:

 

As I drove by the store about two weeks ago I read the sign as "Fresh Tea", with the letter T missing, but my mind figured out what the most logical missing letter should be. But then a few seconds later I told myself, say, Isn't the most important letter in the WORD tea the LETTER "T" ?

The reaLLy sad part about that story is that NO ONE has fixed this sign in about two weeks since I first noticed it. This is the very busiest section of roadway in the entire city of Borger Texas, so it has been read at least one hundred thousand times...

Weekends Are For Those with Weak Ends and Weak Middles

I heard an elderly lady say this today:

"I think its crazy that they have the 4th of July in the middle of the week, they should move it to the weekend."

I just didn't have a response to this.

Update: I just eXperienced a veRy shocking episode in my life thay almost caused me to faint and faLL out of my kitchen chair. I was almost finished eating my home-made chicken gumbo and suddenly a spoon came from above on the opposite side of the bar to take a test bite. It was my wife. Now, you have to understand the ridicule and second class citizenship I have suffered, YES, suffered, from this woman who has complained almost every time about the smeLL of my gumbo. Everytime I have suggested she try gumbo, at home or in a restaurant, she vehemently answered, "NO-NEVER!!!", so folks, I am now living in Never Never Land. She took a second bite. I intensified my fake fainting. She spiLLed a few drops on her blouse, but that didn't even begin to slow her down. She was eating dangerously now, allowing the spoon to travel mid-air over a calculator. So I moved the pan over the bar closer to her. Yes, I was eating directly out of the pan. I took out my camera and shot a picture for blackmail and ridicule purposes. I can not wait to show the children. I came in the living room to write this up and she yeLLed (mildly), "I finished it aLL!!!" After she came in the living room I gave her eXact recipe instructions verbaLLy. Now, I reaLLy wiLL faint if I catch her actuaLLy cooking gumbo.