All of the big chain stores like Home Despot and the ‘big blue blood sucker’ carry really cheap tools that have a huge mark-up and the mom and pops and smaller chains like tractor supply and true value have to follow suit. The mom and pops might carry some better stuff but not in the pruning department. Meanwhile back on the internet you can’t find a decent objective product review because advertisers turn out to be the real ghost in the shell.

A pruning saw is like a chef’s knife and I’m stuck using a corona with a plastic handle I know is gonna break soon cause I almost broke it yesterday. Argh! I want carbon steel and a good handle.

While we’re on the subject. Anybody have any suggestions about santouku kitchen knife. I read reviews that suggested global but I feel like there must be a cheaper hand made Japanese option out there.

Please let me know what kitchen knife you use, xmas is rolling up and I don’t have kids so…

Oh here are photo’s from thanksgiving. Eat your heart out.

I’ve been meaning to make this post but I just havn’t had time. I don’t really have time now so I’ll have to keep it brief.

I decided back in April to start a landscaping business. It’s taken me until now to get it rolling and I still haven’t seen any return. But I do have enough maintenance contracts to live off of for the year. Problem is, checks don’t come in til the end of the month, argh! Anyway thanks to the fact that I live rent free at present and had a few hundred dollars of savings I was able to hold out while I got set up. I got a loan for $2500 and got my dad to cosign so I could buy some equipment and a trailer. Let me back up; the idea is to do maintenance for bread and butter while I get my contractors certificate and to support myself and pay for advertising. I figure that way I can build up a reputation in the mean time.

So I bought a trimmer, edger, blower, and trailer and I’m using my dad’s zero turn lawnmower. I made contact with a couple of real estate agents and quickly got enough work to keep myself busy. It seems everybody around here knows how to do books (even though no-one seems to have any money) so I have plenty of help figuring that out.

So I’m mowing the parking lots of a couple of mega chain stores, a few office plazas and a few houses. I got a good environmental design job, securing the banks of a drainage pond (to be rain garden,)  another residential design install job, and I’m having fun  learning to juggle things and fill my time with something besides idly spouting rhetoric outside the co-op or coffee shop, what have you.

So at present and working about 50hrs a week and not getting paid. But I’ll feel better in a couple of weeks I hope. I can barely squeeze in workout time but I’m doing it and recently passed the second level of Hop Gar.

Life isn’t perfect by any means I’m lonely as hell and I miss my cats so much I want to commit seppuku. Still haven’t quit smoking either. I can say though, that zyban has no effect on me.

I just haven’t felt like I’ve had anything to write about. So I’ll just ramble to mark the time.

I’m into finches and sparrows this week. I’ve drawn a couple of bird cartoon characters and died fabric with a mon of birds. Been looking at flikr photos of birds. Apparently people have a hard time distinguishing between house finches and purple finches. We’ve got house finches, chipping sparrows, goldfinches, a tufted titmouse pair, and of course wrens, robins, mocking birds, cat birds, black birds, blue birds, red winged blackbirds, doves, and I think that’s pretty much it so far this spring. I made one gourd birdhouse. I’m working on samurai flags for bird species. They’ll be about 3″ by 8′ on 3″+ bamboo poles, to go in the garden. They’ll be prettier than samurai flags and with spring colors with cool dye work.

I had blood work done this week along with a general physical. I learned what a lipid panel is. Pretty interesting. All of my levels were very healthy. One thing I did learn from crazy anarchists was how to eat right. Fiber, whole grains, antioxidants, fruit and nuts, less meat, no trans fats, medium sized portions etc.

I’m sick of current events and barely watch the news. I’d much rather watch home and garden. I can’t think of anything I could do to make the world better right now. I desperately need to find a way to get money right now. Can’t do much world saving being broke other than trying to be good to people but it has been my experience that that just gets on peoples nerves. So, there’s really nothing to do but try to make money and try not to waste energy etc. I barely use any energy so, yep, pretty boring, not much world saving to do.

Politics is so f’d with that abortion legislation, war czar, etc. The world is just too nuts and you have to be a high powered lobbyist to do anything about that issue specific stuff. I’d like to think that peoples resistance to specific infractions of global empire on their lives would lead them to struggle together against the root of the worlds problems, but I can’t. I agree that empire is a good name for the complex of social pressures habits values etc that leads to globalization and global social ecological degradation. I just don’t think that giving it a name makes it a clear target. I mean how do you get rid of empire? It’s like getting olive oil out of fish oil. What would replace it? Food co-ops? As far as I can tell people there have always been tyrants and bureaucrats and superstitions etc. I’ll just try not to get squashed by empire and count that as a success.

So I guess my personal philosophy doesn’t really lend itself to allot of  blogging these days.  My opinion on the Virginia Tech tragedy; glad it didn’t really effect me, it will happen again and again because society is super alienating and built on violence. My opinion on the abortion legislation; I wish the right would all have a stroke, that’s all I can do is wish because I have absolutely no power to do anything about it. My opinion on the war; wish it hadn’t happened, told you so, again no power to do anything about it. My opinion on the radio guy’s statement; what was his name, who cares, those basketball players seemed awfully dramatic on TV, I’m glad I don’t know them.

 I don’t know who started making the pineapple and cheese casserole deserts and I don’t really care. The point is, I think it’s fine if you want to mix pinapples and cheese. You can gorge yourself on these two wonderful foods all you like. And if you want to mix them that’s fine. But by God, do it in your own home where no-one else has to watch you, and for Pete’s sake don’t feed that stuff to anyone else.

Cheese is great, some might not like it for whatever reason. Maybe vegan or squeamish or whatever, but I’m not that person. I love cheese. Pizza, cheesecake, lasagna, cheese logs, cheese wiz, whatever, all great foods. Pineapples; I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like pineapple. It’s healthy stuff, wonderful sweet sour fruit. Pineapple even helps you lose weight by breaking down fats. Great stuff. Fruit and cheese together, what would life be without it. Plenty of cheeses are at their best with fruit, pineapple is a perfect fruit to have with cheese. Pineapple on pizza is great. I’m no pizza purist. California style pizza is fine by me. I can think of no better way to consume sun dried tomatoes than on a crazy pizza from Lucy’s with pineapples, mushrooms, chipotelies, whatever. Heck, I’ll eat the heck out of anchovies. I’ve even been known in crimethinc circles to make fish stew from dumpstered fish if it’s freezing out. But do not mix cheap grated American cheese with pineapple in a big vat on a buffet and ask me to consume it. Just because it’s made of two good things and totally decadent doesn’t make it edible. All i can say is it tastes like pinapple mucus, and if that brings you comfort, God forbid I say anything. You have a right to be as comfortable as you can. Life is short, be comfortable. But when you eat that vomitous substance around me, well… that makes me uncomfortable, particularly around my gal bladder. That’s all I can say, that stuff makes me want to hurl, and I’ve eaten out of dumpsters plenty, I’ve worked in hog houses, I’ve gutted large mammals. No to pineapple and cheese dessert, NO!

Casserole NO! Pie NO! Torte NO!

Basta Ya Pineapple and Cheese!

No Passeran!

Lately I have been daydreaming allot it seams. I guess that’s what happens when you do 40 plus hours of hard manual labor a week. I daydream about all kinds of stuff, how to save the world, how to make money, building a natural building, painting, where I went wrong, embarrassing things that happened, etc. The thoughts usually start with feeling tired or being irritated by something, then realizing it, then cursing my job, then thinking of a way out or just thinking, to keep my mind occupied and my attitude positive.

I also daydream in the car listening to NPR. Recently the presidential race has been on the news. With McCain and Giuliani running I’m really afraid the Republicans are going to win. How would that be. I feel pretty paranoid about the republicans going further down the 1984 totalitarianism track if the genes are passed down a generation. I really think the Dems better throw all of their weight behind Obama and Edwards and politely ask Hillary to get stuffed. She is definitely not going to win against McCain or Giuliani and that’s that. People just have no idea what scumbags those two are. People think Giuliani is a great guy, grrrrr. If you spineless Liberal collaborators out there in lala land think anti war sentiment is gonna count for anything with Hillary against Giuliani you’re hopped up on goof balls. So I’ve been daydreaming about saving the world by spending all of my free time supporting Obama somehow, or at least defaming Giuliani and Clinton. Like with a website or something.

I’ve also been daydreaming about another story on NPR. The plans for an OLF in Beaufort County. I can’t figure out exactly how, but it seems the Navy is under the assumption that they can take a fat dump on the popular sentiment of eastern North Carolinians and plop a water fowl slaughtering death field right next to one of our wildlife reserves. So I’ve been daydreaming about chaining myself to a bald cypress out in the poquosin swamp.

It just happened that my work took me all over eastern NC from Oriental to Maysville, Pitch Kettle, Fort Barnwell, and Snow Hill. There is allot of history around here from the Tuscarora War, to the Civil War, Prohibition, Lynchings, Civil Rights, to the present.

The weatherhas been great lately. Great daydreaming weather except last night and this morning with the storms and all. I had the flu. I got my order from Dallas Bonsai of a couple pots, Akadama soil, and a couple supplies. I potted my first Bonsai from found plants. They are a Japanese Maple and a Trifoliate Orange Flying Dragon both were growing as weeds on job sites in Chapel Hill. Hopefully they’ll live. The flu is a great excuse for a three day weekend as far as I’m concerned. After a couple Tylenol I feel fine. I’m not sure if anybody is reading this so I’m having a hard time figuring what I should write about. I’m pretty sure nobody cares what I think.

I guess I havn’t posted often enough for a real blog. It’ll take me a while to post more regularly, but I’m sure I will. I’ve been working for a Landscaper and concentrating on Tai Chi and Kung Fu and Art.

The Landscaping gig has been very interesting. The guy I work for went to culinary school then moved back to his home town to marry and start a restaurant. He tried restauranteurship for a brief period which required to many hours managing and cooking by himself. No one in his small coastal city in NC needed a chef as there are no decent restaurants there. However the city has been developing rapidly so there is a need for landscaping. So he’s been doing that for the past five years. He does allot more hardscaping than what I’m used to, so I’ve been learning a bit. We’ve been installing paver walkways, sod, and retaining walls, as well as plantings. The planting style is more mainstream, less aesthetically and horticulturally developed than I’m used to. The plants are different to some extent because it’s a different bioregion.

About Kung Fu; I must look like a total psycho to my neighbors. Nothing new there I guess. I practice four to six days a week, usually at dusk. I wait til dusk because that’s when I’m off work, but also because I have to practice in the back yard. Pick up trucks are driving by one after the other, and I know what there thinking. “Look at that psycho, who does he think he is, the Karate kid, p@#*y.” So my philosophy on it is this; screw em’ I can kick their asses. Hopefully as the light get’s low I’m less visible.

I’ve been working on flexibility allot lately, which is funny. I feal like gumby. I got a few instructions from, http://www.martinvidic.com/martinvidic_en_2006/flash_mavi/index.htm. I can do good cartwheels,  and a pretty good front split, working on handstands, all with deer hunters and farmers riding by, gawking, on their way to Christian Men’s Fellowship, or Clive’s BBQ or whatever.

I recently obtained a pair of Tiger Claw Wushu Shoes. I love these shoes. Get some, they’re like 20 bucks. Weird thing is they came with an ad for the Tempe Arizona police department. Oh well, they’re great, cheap, cool looking shoes, they get sweaty after a few hours though so they’re stryctly exercise shoes, not for general wear.

Today I went to the Carolina Garden Expo at Greenville Convention Center and the Antiques Show at the New Bern Convention Center. Le’me tell ya, a whirlwind tour of small city convention centers. I have to say CGB was a let down. They allways over promote these things. There were a good number of nurseries represented, but nowhere near as many as there are in the region. Only one really had a catalogue. I only found a couple of growers very interesting, one of which is Southview Greenhouse where thay had full grown Burgmansia Dr Seuss, much bigger than I could find in the triangle last year.

There were plenty of Antiques in New Bern I recommend it. Greenville seems to try really hard to get use out of it’s convention center. New Bern’s has some City offices in it which I think is a good way to get use out of the building. I think the Chaimber of commerce meets there which is also a good idea. Both convention centers are eyesores though. New Bern’s presents some particular aesthetic problems because it’s right on the waterfront so it ruins the small colonial city’s skyline which is seen from the giant bridge intersection monstrosity that connects it to the rest of the world. New Bern truly has some gorgeous buildings in it. It has potential to be a beautyful place, as does the general area between New Bern and Oriental. New Bern has a large recreational harbor filled with sailboats and yachts on it’s waterfront, but a couple of the new big buildings just don’t quite fit. Greenspace would have been much better, with the monster buildings pushed back a few blocks into the city. I can’t wait for modernism and funstionalism to finaly give up the ghost.

Spring is on the horizon so I’m sorting my cache of seeds (if i can find it) and getting ready to plant a garden in my parents yard. It’s strawberry time! I’m gonna try out plants for market gardening next year. Next year I will have a couple acres of my dad’s farmland to use if I want, to do a CSA or if I want to rent a stall at the farmer’s market.

I’ve had allot more time to draw and paint lately. I’ve been filling a sketchbook with drawings of may hands and a tobacco barn behind my house. I also cut and painted a corsican gourd to look like a purple coneflower.

I‘ve been real into tea lately. I got a gaiwan and a couple varieties of oolong tea, most notably some anxi oolong tea that’s pretty good. Ive been drinking a cheap green tea as my regular tea at work. Green tea may help with weght loss so it compliments my weightloss diet I’m working. Not that I’m over weight, just too damn single, so I’m trying to get ripped. I figure as weird as I am I need every advantage.

The diet goes like this; I’ve been eating Pineapple for snacks because it contains bromelian which is supposed to help break down proteins and fats. I have bran cerial for breakfast and snacks, because it’s supposed to release serratonin which makes you feal full, it’s also good for the colon. I try to squeeze in chili pepper because capsaicin raises the matabolism as does the hot mustard on my sandwich at lunch. The capsaicin in chili also helps with my sore back as does birch bark tea. Ginger to aid my liver, matabolism, and for energy. Lemon juice to get my liver going in the morning. Chickweed goes in my salads for weightloss. I’m eating more roughage and protein and less fats and carbs at supper. I’m also adding garlic to everything the help prvent colds since I’m out in the cold windy weather.

So all of this brings me to my Kinston Chai ™ weight loss anti cold tea recipe.

in one tea ball

1/2tsp minced ginger

pinch cinnamon,

1/2 tsp lemon zest

a little minced garlic (you’ll get used to it, don’t be a spoil sport)

pinch lemon grass,

2 cloves,

4 black peppercorns,

pinch (or as much as you want) ceyene powder or crushed red pepper ,

1/2 bay leaf,

a bag of your favorite green tea

pour one half cup boiling water over the tea ball let sit for two minutes then add the tea bag wait a minute add the rest of the mug full of water which has cooled for three minutes now. let stand for one or two minutes. It’s great when it’s cold out, make you grow hair on your eyes, good for what ails ya, etc.

The Liberal Pinko Fascist media won’t show the pic where you can see it, but it’s obviously a an image of a pixel alien. Since when is hanging a picture from a bridge a bomb. If you’ve ever been on that bridge, you drive under one level and look up to second level where igningnok was hanging (see the speed limit sign on the left). Boston is retarded. So is the news media. Boston can eat a dick!

The links in the following paragraphs are to blog articles on the iphone that have left me feeling allot less enthusiastic. I mean I’m a little embarrassed for being a dork about wanting the phone, but hell I’ve been living in a dilapidated shack in the woods without power and water for the past two years and I’m finally back embedded in comforts of the 21st century again. So I think I’m allowed to yearn for material possessions all I want to. Anyway I think we have desire for a reason and we should embrace and understand it rather than push it down to fester.

I’m kinda getting over the phone anyway. If you take a look at the links you’ll understand why. I wish there was a clear easy choice but I guess that’s just not how it works. I guess what I really want is a tiny laptop that will fit in my pocket, play all media, be a remote to all devices out of arms reach, and give me tools to tinker with the system and modify it to my current wants. And that’s just not going to happen. So I guess I’ll just have to buy more and more devices for all kinds of applications, send them off all the time to be repaired or replaced, all just to keep from ever having to be bothered by reality and ensure that I’m constantly accompanied by a soundtrack and a digitized version of myself to voyeurize from the window of my unfulfilled longing for love and acceptance. Oh well.

The iphone has a touchscreen interface, but it’s not the first touchscreen phone to be announced.

It’s not a smartphone because it has “crippleware” and so isn’t open to third party applications, or is it? I mean if it runs osx then it’s based on FreeBSD right, so it can be figured out and authored for, unlike ipod right? Well… it’s not necessarly running OSX. But then again maybe it is.
It’s not 3g so no flaming highspeed like they have implemented in Japan, (only available in rdu and chlt/mclnbg in NC. Not very revolutionary. On the other hand;

“EDGE can carry data speeds up to 236.8 kbit/s for 4 timeslots (theoretical maximum is 473.6 kbit/s for 8 timeslots) in packet mode and will therefore meet the International Telecommunications Union’s requirement for a 3G network, and has been accepted by the ITU as part of the IMT-2000 family of 3G standards. It also enhances the circuit data mode called HSCSD, increasing the data rate of this service.”

Oh yeah and then there’ Apple.com’s disappointing habbit of acting like it’s for open source, developing, Bono, worls Aids, etc. Meanwhile no recycling. Dumping trash on rural Chinese as if they don’t have enough problems.

Ugh, what a letdown. I guess I’ll switch back to drooling over Subarus for a while.

A couple of days before I moved my Sifu (Kung Fu teacher) Chris made one of those David Caradine-esqe statements that kind of resonates so much that you catch a bit of an echo effect. Later the statement continues to come-up in your mind because of it’s usefulness and so it continues to echo in your consciousness in a way. We were practicing Taan Sau (wooden dummy) forms on the pine trees we always practice on in the park. He was describing the usefulness of repeating 10 to 20 movement forms. It’s not to repeat the exact form in a fight, rather it is to practice transitioning between movements. Eventually you change the sequence of movements but certain movements fit together better then others kind of like dominoes.

Anyway he said ‘fighting is all about transitioning smoothly’, and of course in Kung Fu fashion opened the metaphor up to extension, saying ‘life is all about transitioning smoothly.’ I think he was right. Things are always changing. Often sweeping changes seem to come out of the blue. Like what if you suddenly find yourself in a relationship. One day your minding your own business, a couple of days later your all hot and bothered with some random chick. Next thing you know a couple weeks have gone by, you’ve just opened yourself up and she turns all psycho on you. So you have to take it all in stride. Keep your priorities in your head and just shift a couple of things in your life, but keep your balance. It’s philosophically related to Tai Chi.

Tai Chi is a simbol the yin and yang, oposing forces that create change. So Tai Chi is all about keeping your ballance while things change. It really is, that’s why it’s slow, all of those exercises are about ballance and perceiving what your body is up to.

So sometimes you see thing’s are going to change dramatically, you see it way off on the horizon. Nevertheless you don’t pay any attention to it. You don’t worry about it. You decide how you’re gonna handle it when it comes. You hope it’s not gonna happen soon, but when it does you have a plan, then you just have to follow through. Keep you balance, or your point of view, or your center.

Fighting is a metaphor for life. Survival is a struggle. Keeping healthy is a struggle. Nothing new there i guess. It’s just that that’s what I’ve been doing lately, just keeping my balance.

I havn’t fealt like blogging. My politics have changed allot and I’m not sure how I want to express my fealings about things. I guess I will later but that won’t be a blog post it will be allot bigger than that. Then again I might not at all, nobody really needs or wants to hear about my dissallusionment with Anarchism or politics in general. So anyway, whatever. Fuck it, when I feal like saying something I will.

In other news

I really want an iPhone. They really look sweet. I’ve always wanted an ipod and I’ve been thinking of leaving sprint anyway. The damn thing’s an mp3 player, camera, web browser, email, same os as my laptop, blue-tooth. Not to mention it has the smoothest look of any phone with the touchscreen and animation that looks like it came out of star-trek it’s nicer, sleeker, prettier than anything else out there.

Two big drawbacks though. It’s not 3g and it’s doesn’t allow install of software. Although I imagine it can be hacked. If you want my attention buy me that phone.