Tuesday, April 22, 2008 | by nathan

The New Seed Starter’s Handbook by Nancy Bubel

I wanted something to help me get started again, to help me to believe in gardening after Sam ate all my plants. This book was, in a lot of ways, exactly what I needed; full of helpful, practical advice that was really easy to follow.

The problem, however, with buying any kind of hobbyist volume - even one that professes to be for beginners - is that it’s written by expert hobbyists. In this case, Nancy Bubel is an excellent gardener, but she is an excellent gardener in part because she owns a large tract of land and because she makes a living from doing this. Hence, she has almost unlimited funds and free time to care for a garden, and the book almost seems to be written for people who have the same kind of time to invest.

Fact is, I don’t have time to try eighteen different types of compost, and I really don’t have the money or yard space to do some of the more elaborate setups she describes. As with many gardening books, she offers a lot of advice that should perhaps come with a disclaimer, something like, "Plants want to grow. That’s why they exist - to grow, to flower, to produce fruit, and, finally, to produce seeds." Instead, by supplying a lot of really elaborate ways of caring for plants, from very specific, circuitous ways of layering the soil in one’s garden to how to build drip-irrigation systems, she seems to imply that anything you put in the ground will rot and die if you don’t follow her advice.

Still, overall I’d absolutely have to recommend the guide. It definitely helped me as I restarted all my seeds, and while I’m sitting here decrying her occasionally overly-elaborate growing methods, I did take her advice almost word-for-word when I built a growing shelf complete with grow lights. I never would’ve thought to do so in the exact way she described, so for the most part, I have to say I’m incredibly grateful to and for this book, as I think I may have a really good harvest once I start putting everything in the ground.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 | by nathan

The World is Flat 3.0 by Thomas L. Friedman

I’ve been behind on book reviews lately, mostly because this book has really tripped me up. I get really super irritated every time I pick it up and have a hard time reading even a few sentences before I’m alternately bored, offended, and frightened by its entire premise.

Basically Friedman’s whole idea here is that through the magic of technology, the playing field is level for workers all over the world. So - when a company outsources a whole bunch of jobs to India, that’s great! It helps India’s economy! It helps companies!

Also - he sort of skates right over the fact that those workers in India are being paid a fraction of what the same workers would be paid in America. He doesn’t seem bothered at all by the fact that hundreds of hardworking Americans are losing jobs because we have a pesky minimum wage, and one that’s not even a living wage at that! Instead, he spends the entire book praising technology for making this utopia possible; it’s a world in which now, thanks to the internet, thanks to work-flow software, thanks to outsourcing, Americans will be free to enjoy our "creative" society without having to do pesky things like work in call centers.

I find these arguments so patently offensive that I’m not even completely sure how to counter them. I think what gets my goat the most about this is this stupid argument, which has basically been around since the advent of the Internet, that just because we are now able to do certain things - telecommuting, online shopping, controlling the bollocky temperature in our bloody houses when we’re not even there - means that, oh, we absolutely should do them.

It drives me nuts because it devalues the idea that human interaction and connection is important, and it drives a way of thinking that tells us that reading a book online is just every bit as good as actually reading a book. It gets to me because Friedman goes on and on about how wonderful all this outsourcing and telecommuting is for companies, but says very little about how it affects individuals, or communities, who’ve lost their jobs or factories or economies because of outsourcing.

I find it offensive because it implies that because now someone in India or China or Bangladesh can do call-center work, that must mean the playing field is level for everyone, everywhere. It’s an overly simplistic argument that essentially lets exploitive companies off easy while simultaneously repeating the great palace lie that the internet is somehow going to be the great savior of human culture.

I have nothing against the internet - clearly, I have a website. But to hear Thomas L. Friedman talk, you’d think that it was the single greatest thing to happen to humanity in its entire history, and I’m just not sure I buy that argument. I mean - if it wasn’t for the internet, you wouldn’t have to listen to some wannabe-luddite Ivy League dropout yammer on and on about a book he couldn’t stand in large part because of how interminably boring it is.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 | by nathan

Iris

We have a bed of irises on the west side of the backyard that’s going absolutely insane this spring. I’ve noticed that, all over Oklahoma, flower beds are thriving like it’s nobody’s business. Maybe they’re trying to tell us that, despite all our worst fears, George W. Bush won’t actually be president forever.

Monday, April 21, 2008 | by nathan

An Historic Landmark

This is Oklahoma City’s Gold Dome. For all you Nokies out there, you can find out all about the Gold Dome at its Wikipedia page. This was taken during the apocalyptic dust storm of a couple weeks ago.

Friday, April 18, 2008 | by nathan

Sam Fridays: He Works Hard For The Money

When we got Sam I was impressed with how well-trained he was, for a dog who was so poorly taken care of. Here I show you a few of the tricks he knows, and the only one he has trouble with, which is "Speak."

Also, halfway through this video, you can see my manly, virile husband come in and squash a bug WITH HIS BARE FOOT. Oh, don’t worry - he washed that foot before getting into bed.

Sam, Tricking Himself Out For Food from Okay City Nate on Vimeo.

Friday, April 18, 2008 | by nathan

A Bit of Sanity Amid Socio-Economic Craziness

This from Salon’s Heather Havrilesky:

America’s not on top anymore, because we’ve been exporting nothing but lukewarm fajita platters and spray-tanned celebrity jackasses for decades now. The days of closet-reorganizing professionals and Botox parties and hiring a personal trainer for your nanny’s personal chef are over … and thank God for that.

Full text of the article available at Salon. I couldn’t agree more with this sentiment, even though, as a public relations professional, the knowledge that my specific skill set has no intrinsic value to anyone at all scares the bejesus out of me.

Sam Friday coming after lunch.

Thursday, April 17, 2008 | by nathan

Blowin’ In The Wind

Oklahoma has been living up to its reputation lately; the wind is sweeping down the plains like a mother. I stayed home from work yesterday because when I woke up I felt pinned to the bed by centrifugal force, the way you feel after a night of really hard drinking. My head had been throbbing the night before but I’d managed to get to sleep; when I woke up it felt like I’d had brain surgery and they’d left the saw in. I tried to get in the shower and get ready for work - I really did - but I just couldn’t seem to manage it.

Having allergies really is the worst; you’re not contagious, so usually if you’re suffering from an attack there’s still really no excuse not to go to work, but you spend a whole lot of your time feeling sort of vaguely sick and congested. I’ve tried every medicine, prescription and over-the-counter, and found them to be of some help, though not a great boon. Allergy shots didn’t seem to help much, and when it gets really bad the only thing that really helps me to breathe is Afrin, which can be addicting if taken more than 2-3 days in a row. Exercise really helps, as it does for everything.

Have you noticed that? Have you noticed that in every single "scary medical story" they do on the news, it’s always like, "NEW RESEARCH SHOWS THAT PEOPLE WHO EAT ORANGES ARE 6% MORE LIKELY TO GET COLORECTAL CANCER!!!!!    … except unless they got regular exercise, then not so much."

I feel like my body just works better on a fundamental level when I’m getting regular exercise. I’ve been to the gym once this week, as we’ve been trying to get our backyard sorted out and that hasn’t left time for much else after work. Monday night I put down two cherry tomato plants, six bell pepper plants - two in each color: red, yellow, and orange - and jalapenos. I planted two mint plants in pots and put my first strawberries in the ground last night. Brian, meanwhile, has tilled the grass from our flower beds and cut down some very ugly bushes and weeds and pioneer trees we had going back there. Talk to me in two months when I have more vegetables than I know what to do with and see how much I like gardening.

Anyway, my allergies are better today, thanks to a nice little cocktail of pain killers, antihistamines, and nasal sprays, and the sleep-of-the-dead brought on by Advil PM last night. Here’s hoping yesterday was the worst of it.

Thursday, April 17, 2008 | by nathan

For Beds With A Bottle Of Courvoisier On The Nightstand

Gold comforter. Gold. Comforter. In. A. Bag.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008 | by nathan

A Patriotic Explosion

Because, kids, the more red, white & blue crap you buy, the more ‘Murka can fight the terrorists.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008 | by nathan

Vignettes #2: Things That Happened To Me In 1990 and 1991

I get to take the day off of school because mom has to drive to Ft. Worth, to take her car back to the dealership to have some work done, and she doesn’t want to go alone. After waiting for hours in the show room we go to the mall, where I buy a cassette single of Janet Jackson’s song "Escapade" with the $5 she has given me to spend. We listen to that song almost the entire 3-hour drive back to Oklahoma, rewinding the tape over and over again and laughing at ourselves for having so much silly fun. She is my mother, and I am her child; everything is going to be okay.

In the week we’ve been in northern California visiting my uncle Bill, who manages this campground in the mountains, I’ve crossed the creek a hundred times via a fallen tree. I don’t expect this time to be any different; the process has become almost second-nature to me now, and the log is really wide enough for two of me to cross side-by-side, and anyway, I’m always climbing trees and walking along fences at home. My brother stays on the bank of the creek, ready to cross after I’m done. Halfway across, I’m not sure what happens; I feel the air go out of the world and the forest spinning around me before my body hits water. It’s freezing, but before I even have a conscious thought I’m swimming, struggling for the shore, trying to get my breath. I emerge from the water shaking and cold, but safe. When I turn to look behind me at the creek from which I’d just emerged I don’t see the tranquil mountain stream I had only moments before. Now it’s a river, and I see rocks, and currents, and, downstream, a waterfall. Suddenly the world is much more full of danger, but I am stronger than I knew.

I’ve forgotten my lunch ticket again, and, exasperated with me, the teacher on duty in the middle-school cafeteria won’t let me eat. "This is the fourth day in a row you’ve forgotten it," she barks at me, so all the kids can hear. Laughter follows me out the door, where I sit with my sketch pad and colored pencils and try to come up with something to draw. Uninspired, I flip through the drawings I’ve already done; in an instant the pad is wrenched from my hands and three boys stand around me. When I try to stand up to take my pad back, one of them pushes me back down. They start looking at what I’ve drawn, laughing themselves silly and refusing to let me stand up. I can’t help myself; I start crying and, embarassed, wedge myself into a tiny space between the outer wall of the cafeteria and a portable building. There are, as it turns out, advantages to being the smallest kid in school; the other boys can’t follow me in. After a few moments they toss the sketch pad into the gap with me and trot off to more worthwhile pursuits, and I stay there, wedged in the dark, the bricks cold on my back, until the lunch bell rings and I have to go to English class.

 

Once again I invite participation; what happened to you in 1990 & 1991?