Harvesting Compost Material

My Aunt agreed to give me her grass clippings for my compostin gneeds, however, my Aunt has a large piece of property.  She has tackled mowing and clearing it every years by herself, however, she really does need help with it. Since I was benefitting from getting free compost material and I rather be outdoors than in, I decided that I would help her cut and maintain the "Back Fourty".  Besides, I look damn sexy with a farmer tan.  I mean, who doesn't!

Tacoma's New Fireboat Saying What We All Know Too Well

As a country, our product quality sucks!  You read that correctly.   Once upon a time, we use to make some quality stuff. Stuff that you can still find kicking around, doing a job as well as the newer equipment can do.  The only difference is that the newer, faster, quicker, better, more expensive equipment is fail-tastic.  In Seattle PI's, "Tacoma welcomes new $675,000 fireboat from Canada" article, Port of Tacoma quite clearly and cleaverly points out how they came to choose a Canadian company to build the new fireboat. 

If this country wants to see the next hundred or so years, we need to refocus our industries into making high-quality, durable goods. And with that, Americans need to take pride in their work.  Every building I have worked on, no matter how big or how small the task was, I tried to take as much pride and apply as much skill as I could to it.  I know that when a certain marina in Kirkland is bulldozed sometime in the future, there is a a wall or two that will no go so quietly. Why? I built the shit out of it, stronger than the prints said to and without expending any extra money to do it.  With that said, that entire building is quality built not just from my efforts, because the entire crew's efforts were focused on quality, durability, and pride.  Our focus should not be on how much money we can save, what the turn-over rate will be, and how fast we can get another person into the product to keep us afloat. That never works, except in scams. (Enron, anyone?)

There is nothing wrong with doing crap jobs as long as you know that the job might be crap, but the work is quality.  I have worked with too many people with bad attitudes and even worse work ethics, only in it for the money.  Nothing in life comes easy and especially not free. Everything requires sweat, ink, blood, or breath in payment.  Hell, even Death requires you pay for it with your Life.

Camera Megapixels: Myths & Facts

CNet did a great job of talking about why the number of megapixels on a smartphone and consequently a tablet are not an indicator of quality.  I have a lovely Olympus EPL-1 camera with 12.-something pixels, it can and has knocked the effing socks off of my mom's point-and-shoot camera which has more megapixels.

Anyways, read the article because it is truly informative.

LINK:
Camera megapixels: Why more isn't always better (Smartphones Unlocked)

Foreigners, Go Home!

I dislike Foreigners with near fervor unseen today.  Not the ones that come from other countries, but the ones that come from within my own.  They come up here and  bitch, moan, and whine about how the weather, the culture, traffic, you name it.  How they like another state so much better, so on and so forth for reason X, Y, and Z.  I am of the school of thought that you “love the one you are with”, “enjoy the journey, not the destination”,”when in Rome do as the Romans do”, and most importantly in my book: “better to look a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt.”  If you are living some place that you dislike, you move. Key word here: move.

The other day, I was at Portland Ave Nursery looking for a particular Comfrey plant for my garden. While heading back to the car, a passing hail storm caught several people wanting to get to their cars.  A woman bitched about the hail. Bitch, she did. it’s spring! Weather is unpredictable in early spring.  Everyone knows this, and if you do not then there is always the option of OSLI. (Observe, Study, Look Intelligent.)  In short, she “liked Arizona better”.  Fine. Like all you want.  In fact, move back there... quickly.  This woman is not an isolated incident and not by far.  These same people are changing my state! We are not the socially class-constricted East Coast or the loser confederate South.  Could not care less what happens back east or down south, honestly.  However, those same peoples somehow end up here for whatever reasons and attempt to recreate their culture here.  Fuck your culture and leave my alone.  PNW is PNW! If I do not say “Hi” walking down the street, I’m not being rude. I do not know you and I have nothing to say to you.  If I wear a hoodie everywhere, I am not going to rob, stab, rape, and dissect you for some twisted. fun.  Here in Washington State, we have layers of personalization that works for us.  Some people get farther into our circles than others.  We are fairly private people here.   I have co-workers that know very little about me and I them, however, we are great work friends.  Just how shit goes up here.

So I say again, I hate Foreigners and not the ones from other countries. Their sins can be forgiven and they often learn quickly, changing their ways.  It is the Foreigners inside the USA that are the problem.  I do not like you, I will not share my salmon with you, and most importantly I will not be very nice to you.  And never will Atlantic Farmed Salmon crap ever be anywhere near as good as real Salmon!