Finally Something I Can Grow

I have been to Homestead and Redland, which is where most of Dade County’s nurseries are located. I went to Going Bananas and got me two plantain trees and a dessert banana tree.

Let me continue to amaze you with tales of my life. Before I went, I decided to call my sister and see if she wanted anything from that area. She said she wanted to go along, to get some vines. So off we went.

The guy at the banana place was very knowledgeable and helpful; he told me what I’m doing wrong with my current trees. I gave him one of my bananas (which I brought along for research purposes), and his best guess was that the variety was Orinoco. He said there are three kinds of banana-like fruit. Eating bananas, cooking bananas, and plantains. The Orinoco is a cooking banana. It tastes great raw, but apparently there is something about it that makes it suitable for cooking. My guess is that the firmness of the flesh is the secret. Ordinary bananas dissolve when you heat them.

What a spread this guy has. Beautiful fruit trees as far as the eye could see. Which was not far, because the trees obscured the outside world. Mameys, papayas, mangoes, bananas (obviously)…he even had what appeared to be a prig ki nu bush. And he had a classic Florida ranch-style house in the middle of it, with a big screened-in porch. If you’re going to live in South Florida, this is the correct way. Peace, quiet, low crime, acreage, and beautiful plants. I was inspired. I wish I knew enough about plants to make a living that way, because I’d do it in a heartbeat.

He was a former Miamian. There are very few native Miamians in existence. Many of them left when life in Miami became hectic and disagreeable.

There may be one more reason he left. My sister was wearing a T-shirt with a verse from Colossians on it. Apparently, it was one of a line of T-shirts. He noticed it and said he had one, and that he found it very comfortable.

Back when I belonged to a church, I knew a guy who ran a nursery in that area. Wonderful guy. Owned half a plane, with a non-Christian buddy. Had every kind of tool imaginable. Or at least it seemed that way to me. I remember the church needed angle iron cut and welded up for some reason, and a bunch of us drove out to his business, and he had some kind of a shear permanently mounted on a bench. I was impressed beyond words. You just put the steel on it and pulled a handle, and it cut whatever lengths you wanted.

He and his wife made a great living, selling plants. He said it was basically a matter of “finding the right Mexican.” He didn’t mean it in a racist way. He meant that they hired a guy who answered the phones and ran the place, and he took a lot of the work off of their shoulders.

He was a machinist in Vietnam, I believe. Kept fighters flying.

I just planted my trees. I got a Nam Wa banana, a PHIA 21 plantain, and a French Horn plantain. And I bought 50 lbs of special banana fertilizer.

All I have to do now is sit out there in a lawn chair, stare at the trees, and wait for bananas.

Weather Oppressive

I am dying to leave the house. This weather is driving me nuts. For the last three weeks, it’s been as if the entire world had been sat on by a fat guy in damp grey pants.

Where is my October relief? Wasn’t it supposed to quit clouding up and raining two weeks ago? Who do I file my complaint with?

I’m still messing with the site design. Eventually Phin will send me the new theme, and then I’ll have to start over. I put a flag on the header, as well as an ichthus or “Jesus fish.” It’s my understanding that no one can be saved unless he has the fish. It’s in the New Testament somewhere. Trust me. I’m busy.

…What Month is it in Afula?

Yesterday, I happened to learn that the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has a 16-month 2009 calendar for sale. It features some very nice photos of Israel. You might enjoy one.

I keep finding out stuff about Israel. One of the Perry Stone videos I watched was about the Dead Sea. I got pretty familiar with it in ’84, when I spent the night on Masada. Evidently, it’s disappearing. I guess they’re diverting a lot of the water from the Jordan watershed these days. Stone says it now consists of two bodies of water.

He said there was a kibbutz nearby, where they were trying to grow shrimp on a government grant. He said the kibbutz had an “owner.” I’m not sure he’s totally familiar with the kibbutz concept. Wouldn’t a single owner make it a moshav? Anyway, they are trying to do aquaculture over there now. When I was there, my kibbutz (still think of it that way) grew odd-looking barbeled fish in ponds, and they fed them chicken manure. But that was freshwater.

I want to go back so badly. I just don’t know what I’d do. I wonder if Marv and Maynard would forgive me if I applied to do a month on the kibbutz. They used to accept older volunteers. Maybe they still do. A month in the grapefruit (or blood oranges, which was their new thing in ’84) would be great.

I used to giggle at the tours. Buses would unload, and tourists would pile out, all wearing identical hats, and they would mill around like geese. But maybe a tour isn’t so bad, when you really want to learn. Maybe I could put in a month on a kibbutz and join up with a tour later.

I suppose it’s different now, with all the land cessions and terrorism. Back then–we were told–terrorism inside the country wasn’t that bad. I wonder if there are places I can no longer visit. I think Jericho is in the West Bank, and I understand most of the Christians have abandoned Bethlehem. Which wasn’t much of a destination anyway.

More

Let me try something wild. I’m going to post the Google Earth coordinates for the building I lived in when I was on the kibbutz, and you can go see it for yourself.

32°34’6.37″N
35°22’17.82″E

I am easily the coolest person in the universe. Cooler than even Zaphod Beeblebrox. I sort of finished my wiring project.

I put a new cover on an outdoor socket. I rewired a floodlight and sensor. I moved the circuit they were on, off of a 60-amp fuse for a 220 circuit. I ran the circuit into the garage, where I created an outlet. I ran it on into the air handler closet, where I created a 4-plug outlet. I ran conduit to a hardwired wall fixture, and now I have lights in the garage. I converted a dangerous 220 circuit which was just hanging in the closet (bare-ended) to a 110 circuit, and I used it to power the whole mess, and I put a new breaker in at the panel.

I probably should have turned the juice off at the panel before changing the breaker, but I was drunk with power. The kind in your head, not the kind that comes from the power company.

Here’s my impressive Christian story for the day. I had to screw a couple of wires into the back of a pair of receptacles today, and the receptacles were already cluttered. A reader got me all excited by pointing out that there are “stab through” connections in the backs of these things; you just strip a wire, shove it in there, and tighten the screw. Come to find out, these receptacles didn’t have the…blasted…things. And I was counting on them.

I had to put eyes on the wires and stack them on screws that already had eye connectors on them. If you’ve ever done this, you know how hard it is to get the…darn…screws to catch. It’s nearly impossible. And I had to do this with both hands over my head, in a dim closet. I have been trying to remember to pray before doing ANYTHING, especially challenging things, and for some reason, I remembered this time. And all three of the screws I had to deal with went right in! I could not believe it. Be an atheist and attribute it to chance if you want. I was extremely happy, and I say my prayers were answered. I suffered like you wouldn’t believe, trying to do the same thing yesterday. On the same receptacles.

Maybe this will impress you more. When I got home from my daily trip to Home Depot, I found my sister here with an orchid, a pot full of small dragonfruit plants, a Perry Stone book, and some sort of home communion kit. I am completely serious. I don’t know what to think. The Bible says God will give you the desires of your heart, and that is apparently true. Of course, you have to get your desires right. That’s the catch. But it’s a catch I don’t mind.

I think I’ll go stare at the closet some more. I still can’t get over it.

I Know How You Enjoy It

It has been hours since last I blogged about how great I am, so I feel I am way overdue.

Today I have been distracted by web issues, but I am about to get back to work on my electrical project. At last mention, I had fixed the outdoor portion of the job and installed one square box (with outlets) in the garage. Last night I made myself go in and install the other box. Now the job gets easier. Instead of working in a tiny steaming space with poor visibility, I get to work in a tiny cool space with poor visibility. I have to yank the wires from the second box into the garage, attach the second box, install two banks of lights, run stuff to the lights, and attach the whole mess to the outlet box I put in the closet a few days back.

The closet will still be an eyesore. Years of rot from a leaky bath area on the other side of the closet wall have taken their toll. But at least I’ll be able to see when I’m in there.

I have a truly nutty idea. there is a water pipe in there. I plumbed the condensate line on the AC air handler so I could hook it up to a hose and flush the crud out with water. What if I cut into the water pipe and installed a faucet to which a hose could be attached? Man, I’d have the air handler closet from hell. When the crud backs up, you turn two valves, wait thirty seconds, and turn them the other way. No more snaking a hose through the house to a utility sink.

I realize you are all in awe of me. That’s perfectly understandable.

I Can Only Guess at Your Joy

Welcome to the new Hog on Ice. I know it’s pretty spare, but I like it. It’s a new start. MT is great if you’re a code genius with no life, and it handles photos much better than WordPress, but other than that, WordPress is king, in my questionable opinion.

I hate to toss all the great free work Phin and Sadie did for me, but there was no way to move it to WP. Phin says he may have a nice three-column theme lying around, so I can make my site look a little better. As you can tell, I created this site using the same theme I used for my other WP blogs. I made a new theme, but the php was straight from Mars, and I couldn’t figure out how to insert images in it.

I imported six months of old entries. It’s incredibly hard to import big blogs to WP, and Hog on Ice is extremely big, because I cannot shut up. I don’t know if I’ll import the old stuff wholesale or not. I’m thinking I should go through it item by item and only republish stuff people are likely to care to see again. I’ll bet my traffic plummets now; the links to the old crap won’t work any more.

I managed to save my blogroll, so at least I don’t have to sweat about that.

Haloscan comments are history, for the time being. I’ll see how well WP and Akismet work. If I have no problems, I’ll continue using WP’s commenting system.

To get back to the kind of BS I usually write about, let me inform you that I tried a McGriddle today. I had no idea what to expect. I can’t be bothered to read the little descriptions on the drive-thru thing.

It turns out a McGriddle is an Egg McMuffin with Sausage, made with small thick pancakes instead of muffins. And they have somehow injected maple syrup flavor in there.

I don’t think they’re for me. It’s just a little too weird. And the syrup conflicts with ketchup. Still, it beats the daylights out of the scary breakfast deals they serve at Wendy’s.

Usual Suspects

I think this blog will be here until Monday, so: say a prayer for Mish Weiss, who is supposed to have a bone marrow transplant on Sunday. She is really grateful for your prayers.

And don’t forget Leah Friedman, who is recovering from some sort of horrendous chest surgery.

I’m Still Here

My website changes are not taking effect yet, so I’m still here. May as well blog.

Here is interesting news. My sister called, and she was asking my advice on religious charities that benefit Jews. In fact, she was all excited about helping Jews get out of Sudan. I told her what I knew about the IFCJ, and I told her my readers had mentioned some other group that flies Jews to Israel, without the ban on proselytizing.

How did this happen? This is not the person I used to know. Do I see a complete change? No, but I see what appears to be a valid beginning, which is more than I hoped for. Even though I prayed for it every day.

She seems more willing to trust televangelists than I am. She recommends a guy named Perry Stone. I watched one of his shows on Youtube tonight. Not bad. He acknowledges our debt to Judaism. Doesn’t seem obsessed with collecting money.

A while back, I said I was going to start memorizing the psalms. I thought I should follow up. It’s working very well. I’m up to 6. I’ve memorized 1, 2, 4, 23, 63, and 101. The power of the psalms is impressive. I have to repeat them to memorize them, and as I do, the hidden meanings of the words become clear, and I realize how much I have in common with the psalmists. Their experiences and concerns are so much like mine.

Here’s something wild. I often wake up in the night, because I have rude neighbors. I hate to waste time. Ordinarily I use times like this for prayer. Recently I started using them to work on memorization, repeating the psalms to myself over and over. And the results are nothing short of amazing. I fall asleep every time, within a couple of minutes. Without fail. And it’s not because I’m bored. There is nothing boring about it.

Some Christians claim praying in tongues will cure insomnia. That has not been my experience. But the psalms work consistently and quickly. Which, to me, indicates that the real source of my sleep problems is supernatural. Regardless of how my neighbors behave.

It’s funny, the psalms seem cryptic and even meaningless, if you don’t have God to illuminate them for you. So much of Christianity is like that. It’s no wonder people who know nothing about the Holy Spirit think we’re idiots.

One Shot

Here’s a little tool-time tip. Never install two new square boxes, a run of conduit, and a new socket in a corner of your garage in which you have already parked a giant compressor.

And if you do, never squeeze in behind the compressor before you have made a complete list of the items you’ll need and put them within reach.

Man, what a time I’ve had, standing in a tiny, bent space in which I couldn’t stand up, sit down, or straighten my knees. I think this is how the Vietnamese used to break people.

I managed to get one box and the socket installed, but I still have to do the other one. When I came in here to have a drink and take a break, I threw my shirt on the floor, and it made that familiar “WHOP” sound. It’s amazing how much you can sweat while standing still.

Thank God I bought a tubing bender. That will save me twenty minutes of grief, trying to cut tubes to fit and slop it all together and screw it to the wall. Instead, I’ll bend one tube, make two quick cuts, pop it into place, and screw in the support things.

I can’t wait to get the garage part of this done. It’s about 84 degrees in there, with 70% humidity. As soon as I’m done, I’ll be able to work in the air handler closet. Which is small and uncomfortable, but cool.

When this is all over with, I plan to stand in the closet and flip the lights on over and over, for about an hour. Just so I can say I won.

Prepare for Separation Anxiety

I’m making some changes to the site. For one thing, I’m moving to WordPress. I know it’s easier to hack, but no one cares enough about me to hack my site any more, and WordPress is very easy to work with.

The site may vanish for a day. Friday is the perfect time to do it. Don’t be upset. Your old buddy Steve has not quit blogging; life will go on. My older posts may go all funny. It will probably take a long time to fix that.

Not sure how long my email will be down.

I’ll continue to update the <a href=’http://walkenlog.com’target=’_blank’>Walken blog,</a> and none of my other sites will be affected.

Drive-by Media Drove Right By

If you have been paying any attention to the news at all, you must have noticed that Haiti has been hit by one storm after another. The death toll is high. Over 200 people have died. No matter what kind of disaster hits, it seems like Haitians are especially vulnerable. Right now, the disaster-prone town of Gonaives is under 12 feet of water, and they can’t get food to the area.

Here’s an AP quote:

Hungry children at three orphanages were waiting for the canvas-topped trucks, loaded with warm pots of rice and beans and towing giant tanks of drinking water.

But the food never arrived Thursday.

The odd thing is, you see little about this story on the news. Even charities seem to be paying little attention.

Luckily, World Relief has a fund you can donate to. Here is a link.

The Nonexistent Secret to China’s Imaginary Boxing Wins

Earlier I wrote about fraud and BS, and I mentioned the ridiculous board-breaking demonstrations martial artists put on. You’ve seen it. Some doofus who runs a dojo has his assistant hold a thin board up, and the doofus kicks or hits it, and it breaks…right along the grain. Oooh. Impressive!

Here’s some amusing text from James Randi’s site:

I went to my nearby lumber-yard and asked for some 1″ X 8″ X 14″ pine boards, and the clerk immediately asked if I wanted them for karate demonstrations. Yes, I said, and I wanted the grain going across the boards, not along the length. Well, he told me, we have those already cut, for karate schools — but be careful not to let them bounce around in the car, because they split very easily….

He also told me they carried paving-bricks specially made for the schools, too. These were very high in sand-content, he said, so they crumbled easily.

I love it. Whatever you may think of Randi, there is no evidence that he lies.

Here is what would convince me that martial artists have a special ability to break things. Let me provide a single two-by-six section, two feet long. I’ll put it between two sturdy objects one foot apart. I promise you, no man alive could break it, regardless of what part of his body he used. Let me use oak or hickory instead of softwood, and I’ll gladly use a two-by-four instead of a two-by-six. For even the best Chi Boy, it would be a ticket to the emergency room.

In fact, I should do a Youtube. I should take my 13-pound sledge and try to break a two-by-six. Or maybe I could park a car tire on it, resting over 900 pounds on it.

It’s funny; chi never seems to make it into the ring. You can watch UFC all day, and the fighters are highly motivated and very knowledgeable, yet you never see a magical chi strike that kills the opponent instantly. A boxer can make tens of millions of dollars in a single fight. How come none of them learn how to use chi? Uh…because it does not exist. You better believe, with that kind of money on the line, someone would have brung the chi by now, if it were possible.

You don’t even see magical chi in Asian fights, filmed in the birthplace of chi. If chi existed, the Chinese boxers would be slaughtering the opposition at the Olympics. It’s not happening. Wake up and smell the green tea.

Confusing

I thought Ann Althouse was annoyed when I said I didn’t want a law professor running the country, because she commented: “Law professor says ahem.” Now she says she was not annoyed. But I think she may be annoyed that I said she was annoyed. Which gives me a headache.

I still say I don’t want a law professor in the White House. Not even Ben Stein, who seems sane until he starts spouting about how we need $11-per-gallon gas. Hello, Ben? Real people have to drive to work and get their kids to school. Unlike you, they can’t rely on a limo from Fox News.

Is it appropriate to apologize to someone for saying you thought she was annoyed, when she wasn’t? Is that legitimately considered a gaffe? It’s a question I don’t have to address often, because generally, when I think I’ve annoyed people, I’m right.

No Primers

I am now firmly convinced that the reloading press came with a complimentary curse.

Today I stuck the new pistol rotor on it, adjusted it a few times, and got it to work to within +/- 0.1 grains. I nearly wet myself.

I put the decapping and sizing die back in (it was out because it would have removed the primer from the case I used to weigh charges), and I ran a case through. And the ram got stuck halfway down. What the hell? After adjusting the pawls over and over?

Turns out the pawls may have been okay. The decapping die may have caused my problem. If you fail to knock a primer all the way out, it will obstruct the motion of the shell plate. So it’s just like having a hinky pawl. I’m not sure what the story is. I’m fairly certain the shell plate stuck when I had no cases in it, which wouldn’t happen if the decapping die was the problem.

Anyway, I somehow managed to ram a casing into the sizing die in a way that the press didn’t pull it back down. And guess what? Removing a case from a sizing die without a press to help you is surprisingly hard. I bought some Imperial sizing wax, but I’m not using it yet. It tastes very nice, however.

I got everything going again, adjusted the die, and started making bullets. I thought. When I checked the first two, they had no primers. Everything is working except the priming thing. And I can’t find anything in the manual about “Why your new bullets have no primers.” That wonderful manual, that the smug reloading mystics said was so complete. I don’t see anything in there about primers obstructing the shell plate, either. I guess I’m the first person it ever happened to, in the history of progressive presses.

I used the right punch. I put 25 primers in the tube, facing the right way. The shell plate appears to be indexing correctly over the punch.

Guess I’ll figure it out later. I assume it’s okay to prime the primerless rounds once I figure it out.

Hope to be shooting on Monday.

I Rest

This week I was very affected by some DVD lectures on the Jewish sabbath. Before watching them, and even with my considerable acquaintance with Jews and Judaism, I didn’t grasp the importance of the Sabbath. That the Jews believe it somehow preserves them. You might think of it as tillage and fertilizer and pesticide for the soul.

A long time ago, I was taught that Christians are not subject to the Jewish law, including the Sabbath commandment. I believe that’s true. I eat all the pork I want, and I don’t keep the Jewish holidays, and so on. The New Testament makes it very clear that I’m not a Jew, and that I don’t have to do all the things Jews do. Nonetheless, I think that one of the weaknesses of the more faith-filled and vibrant churches–the ones with which I have the most in common–is a tendency to mindlessly discard rules and ritual, simply because it’s permitted. The fact that you are not commanded to do something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. There is no commandment to brush your teeth. I still do it every few weeks.

Joke.

Anyway, I’m making an effort to clean up my Sundays. No work. Just rest and study and prayer and so on. I still have a Nowlive show scheduled for Sundays, but even though I like the free exposure, when you boil it down, it’s just a hobby. Not worth messing up the day. I’m going to ask about moving it, and if I can’t move it and stay on list of shows that are fed listeners, I’ll move anyway and talk to three people. Or quit altogether.

I don’t plan to be a fanatic who won’t take out the trash or run an errand or two. I’m no Walter Sobchak. But I think I can cut back a lot without noticeable strain.

Today I’m reading up on a few things that interest me. For one thing, I’m trying to get a handle on the Book of Enoch. It’s an apocryphal book, bits of which were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Jews don’t consider it part of the Bible. One of their problems with it is that it contains references to angels reproducing with human women. They believe angels can’t reproduce. I think most Christians believe that, too, but I’m not totally sure. The Bible says angels can appear as human beings, and if that’s true…

I read the Book of Enoch the other day, online, and while some parts were impossible to swallow, other parts were remarkably consistent with New Testament thought. Some people believe the New Testament book Jude quotes the Book of Enoch, which lends it legitimacy. You never know. It may be that something real has been contaminated by attachment to a work of forgery, and that they are worth separating.

In case you don’t know who Enoch was, he was a figure in Genesis. So righteous that God removed him from the earth at the tender age of 365. Aaron says the Jews believe Enoch never sinned, and that God took him because there was a possibility of sin in his future.

Enoch tells a story of rebellious angels who came down from Mt. Hermon and mated with women and taught men things like metallurgy and witchcraft. I came across it while reading about Mt. Hermon, a place which I find interesting for reasons I may go into some day.

I’ll be reading about other stuff, too.

I don’t plan to do any blogging until right before the Nowlive show. I am hoping that in the future, I’ll have enough character to keep Sunday blogging to a bare minimum. So whether or not you believe in what I’m doing, at least I have spared you that.

If you are a Christian or Jew and feel like leaving a comment regarding your beliefs on observation of the Sabbath, please do.

Say another prayer for Leah Friedman. She is out of the ICU and managed to say the word “home.”