I appreciate the fact that it still feels like Summer outside for at least another day

Unfortunately, over the past few days I was the victim of sunflower snatching. From all appearances the flowers were not taken far (there is broken sunflower litter near my porch).

Hopefully it was someone so hungry that they needed unroasted (indeed unformed) sunflower seeds for food. So far, the 10 day forecast shows no frost on the horizon, either.

Pictures from Today

Today was a wonder, do nothing Sunday. Woo-hoo for relaxation.

Close to the Autumnal Equinox

I've noticed the days growing shorter, and even enjoyed the seasonably cooler daytime temperatures this week, though I must admit I'd rather not see summer gone just yet.

I don't get to go to the movies that often, mostly just because of the amount of time I spend at work. But, I did get to see The Dark Knight, which I'm happy to report was awesome. And this time I didn't wind up taking a bad taxi trip.

Pomegranate August Outside Shot

Getting to Meet Some International Visitors

Last night was the IVC First Thursday Reception for international visitors. I had, as always, a lot of fun. I got to meet several Fulbright Scholars, Penn LLM Students, and visitors from Ferris University in Yokohama, Japan.

Celebrating 2008 Olympics

Today as I walked to lunch at the food court below the Comcast Center, I was given a flyer and a fortune cookie. Free food grabs my attention.

Both were advertising the Evening of Champions, celebrating the opening of the 2008 Olympics here in Philadelphia's Chinatown.

I don't know if I'll make it or not, but I think it'd be a fun outing.

While I don't watch a lot of sports, I reckon the Olympics are a good bet for pretty good show.

A site I like to read

A lot of questions about property development come to me as I walk around the city. One of my favorite places to learn what's going on is . I appreciate the site's humor, awesome pictures, and the intelligence. It is also refreshingly optimistic about Philadelphia and her people.

I've been busy, so I wasn't able to make it to this year's IVC BBQ. But I do appreciate all of the work that they do, and am happy that I can help support them.

This weekend I've got both days off, so I've had a chance to read a gift from my father-in-law: Phillip Bobbit's Terror and Consent.

Friday Evening Fun

I was over at J.L. Sullivans. Besides it's other charms, it was a friendly recreation of a 1920's style speakeasy, including 1920s flapper style outfits on the folks outside. I stepped in and greatly enjoyed the place. It was a wonderful refuge from the summer sun.

As many folks may know, I happen to love The Great Gatsby, one of the best stories of all time by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I'm altogether happy to support a speakeasy, including ersatz flappers.

As I Live

As I live, I know the day will come—
She will say, “Dost thou still retain thy integrity?”
And when she does, should I take the advice that follows?
I guess that’s the question, right?
Is love worth it? Happiness in gold-illum’d light
When for an infinite moment you love her
and she loves you
and the whole world seems right, and good, and the
Possibility of the future seems both safe and grand—
The sort of life
Promised at the end of fairy tales.
But then, who still says “…and they lived happily ever after.”
Unless they’ve steeled themselves with the vulgar irony of this low age.
Oh yeah, everybody’s a fucking comedian.
Aren’t you?
Aren’t I?
But regarding her—
Well, that’s something different.
Now there, God help me, there is something worth living for.
Let the sniggering cynics laugh and make their cracks,
But I will love her, with all of my heart, forever.
My Lord, who sustains the world, keep me steadfast to my pledge,
And all the world will fall to dust before I fail.

ahd, 2006

Plant Pictures of the Fourth of July Weekend

A three-day weekend, woo-hoo! So, how's the summer gardening going so far?

Here's the first Zowie Zinnia of the season:

Here are two of my big pots. The Sedum Matrona is still trucking right along on the left. It has already been in bloom a while. And the green "lavender" pot is on the right, although you'd be right to notice that the big green things in there are definitely not lavender.

There is lavender in there, though (having come back from last year.) The robust green leaves are from burpee's giveaway packet of sunflower mix. Taking a cue from history, I decided the best way to fix the drainage problem was to task some sunflowers with sucking up the extra water.

Waiting for Spring

Two weeks ago, Sunday March 16th, I began prepping for the coming spring. Inside a southern-facing window I set out Zinnia (Zowie), Echinacia (Magnus), Marigold (Fireball), Salvia Lady in Red, Butterfly Pea (or Clitoria ternatea), Love-in-a-Mist (Nigella damascena), and a seed of Pacific Blue Giant Primrose (Primula x polyantha). The first four are from Burpee, the last three from Whatcom. All are growing in peat pots filled with commercial seed-starting mix.

I believe it was last year I attempted to direct sow zinnias, and they just kept disappearing. It's possible a pest got to them (since I do recall seeing the seedlings), but part of me just suspects that they were too small to hold together in a storm, and got washed away. So this year I'll just start the plants in the peat pots and then set them outside after they've got some extra size on them.

As for the survivors from last year, I was very surprised to see the dwarf snapdragons making a comeback in their window ledge. Several of the larger snapdragon plants simply never died over the winter, and so new growth is popping through swollen stems. And although I never recall purposefully letting a flower get away from me, it appears that at least some snapdragon seeds made it to self-seed. I noticed tiny little seedling starting yesterday.

I fully expect the morning glories to come back as well. I left last year's vine in place to give this year's growth a helpful foothold. But I plan to add the Butterfly Pea to the pot as well as the Zinnias.

The lavender pot looks awful. That's okay: it's supposed to. Last year I'd cropped it fairly close to the soil line, and then dumped left-over soil on top. But I expect it to come back just fine. Now that it's a well-established plant it has plenty of roots just waiting for springtime. Even though we haven't been getting a lot of warm weather here in Philly, we haven't been getting freezing weather, either.

That same Sunday I undertook a frightening task: seperating and repotting the pair of Organ Pipe Cactus that I'd started from seed. It had gotten to the point that they were starting to poke each other, and so I risked replanting. The roots were small and near to the surface of the pots. I put each cactus in its own pot, and now I've just been waiting to see if one or the other will keel-over from failure to set. I should point out that even though this cactus can theoretically become quite large, it grows slowly. Even now the larger one is only about two inches tall and an inch wide, the smaller one is about the same height, but thinner. Hopefully each will get some additional growth this summer hanging out in my window!

I'll try to post pictures later, but figured that updating the text while I had a chance would be nice.

2007

Just got back from my Christmas travels!

Thanks 2007: You were a blast!

BBQ and PhillyCarShare

As noted in passing previously, someone is interested in getting me fit.

When there's plenty of work to do, though, I spend too much time at work to justify the long long strolls that are my preferred way to get more exercise.

So I decided to get an elliptical. And I decided that I'd try to save a little money by not having it shipped and picking it up from Delaware (where there's no sales tax.)

But, not being an especially confident driver, and even less confident navigating into Delaware, I recruited Tom.

So Saturday afternoon we headed into Delaware, and got to Sears at the Prices Corner shopping center, and found, on sale, a perfect elliptical.

Sadly, fitting the box into Tom's car was, despite our great optimism, impossible. I felt like a fat man looking at last year's wardrobe; despite how you wiggle, it just ain't fitting in there.

Fortunately, PhillyCarShare is here to help. I made a reservation on-line for the next day, and a conveniently located stationwagon (less than two blocks from me) was mine to use for four hours.

Tom navigated, but I drove. Alas, my city-dwelling ways have left me a little rusty about highway driving. But by the grace of God and light traffic we arrived safely to the Sears, picked up the package and hightailed it back to Philly.

So I spent the majority of Sunday putting the thing machine together, and tonight I fixed an annoying little "thump" sound I'd started troubleshooting last night.

The workout was good. I definitely got a good run in, all in the comfort of my own home.

In further news I had a great time at the IVC's fundraiser on Thursday. This was my first time at the BBQ proper, but it was a blast, just as I would expect from the wonderful First Wednesday programs.

My Pots

Taken Wednesday, June 6, 2007. Clockwise from top left: English Lavender (var. Lady), Sedum Matrona, Morning Glories, Strawberries.

More Springtime Photos

So, my posting has been slow, but here is a plant photo. Taken 5/5/2007, a beautiful spring day, a little cool and windy, but otherwise gorgeous.

The replacement lavender (top left) has already begun putting up flower stalks. Var. Lady Lavender, it is a dwarf variety. Some of the green is from last year--it never fully died back during the winter.

The Sedum Matrona (top right) has exploded in the past month, turning from cute, bright green florets popping through the dirt, and now beginning to fill out the container. I expect the flowers to start early next month, but there's always a chance it'll start earlier.

The strawberry plant is at lower left. It has started throwing out a few flowers, and will soon, hopefully, start delivering more delicious strawberries.

This is the big pot that used to hold the okra. In the back, against the wall, are the morning glory vines. In the front are zennia ('Zowie') seedlings, and the coneflower is in the middle (although I'm not sure any have sprouted.)

A Long Walk

It is springtime here in Philadelphia. Since the weather was warmer, my next assignment starts tomorrow, and someone suggested I should excercise more I decided to take a long walk.

I walked out the door at 1:20 or so, determined to walk a marathon (i.e. 26.2 miles.) To start, I headed from my front door to Market street. I went on Mapquest and verified the distance to calibrate my pedometer. The sky was overcast, but walking quickly I was soon warm even in my light jacket.

The pedometer was correct to within 6% (close enough for my purposes) and so I started walking around. After zipping into Chinatown I walked across the Delaware and back again. Then I checked out the very cool Northern Liberties neighborhood and had an iced coffee and baklava at Elixir Cafe.

Then I headed back towards home. Unfortunately I got nowhere near a marathon. Instead, I walked only 12 miles. Ah well, maybe next time.

Cleaning

Last week I ran out of work to do, and so I've been hanging out here at home. Taking advantage of the downtime, I've made it my mission to clean a little.

Or perhaps a lot.

You see, in general I have no difficulty ignoring junk. If a pile of paper sits around for month or so it becomes part of the background, and I really don't notice it anymore. But eventually it'll occur to me, hmm, I wonder if I ought to look through that.

But, as part of the new reduced clutter regime, I've decided to get organized. I'm applying a ruthless standard to magazines (read it and pitch it...unless it's lawyer related.) Folders and binders are now the framework for all important paperwork. In fact, for the first time since moving to Pittsburgh in Nov. 1997 all of my critical paperwork is now in one place and sorted in a useful way (back then I was only organized because I had far fewer important docs.)

So far the living room is farthest along, then the kitchen, the spare bedroom, then my bedroom and finally the bathroom (untouched, so far.) I think I need to buy some dusters.

In plant news I just planted Basil seeds I harvested last March in a clay pot. In the other pot I put in the last of last years nasturtium seeds. In a larger plastic pot I put some daffodil bulbs. Outdoors the dirt on top of the Sedum Matrona is starting to crack. I suspect that means a few early leaves are ready to pop through (even though it's still too cold--any shoot that did poke through will die off.)

Ice?

Tonight the meteorologists (and weather people) are concerned we may get freezing rain or sleet, rather than snow.

While I still lived in Huntsville, AL, in middle school, we got for more than a week because of a huge ice storm. We were fortunate in that our power stayed on for all but a part of a day, but many areas particularly in the northwest of the state went days without electricity. And I seem to recall that that time too the meteorologists had difficulty predicting ice.

Fortunately I don't have to worry about driving in this weather. If it is icy tomorrow morning I'll wear duck boots to work, but otherwise I should be fine.

Finally, I have no plans for Valentine's Day. But hopefully I'll manage to avoid wailing and lamentations.

Cold

It's so cold outside that I'm walking crazy fast to and from work every day. I haven't had to break down yet to take the bus but I have been walking very quickly to the closest point I can go underground and out of the wind all the rest of the way to work (You can walk all the way underground from 12th and Locust to Suburban Station.)

At work we've been limited to 40 hours, so I've been having my weekends free. Friday I checked out the galleries in Old City for First Friday. Saturday I got my taxes done, and on Sunday got to hang out with Tom to watch the football game.

And now, since I want to get into work early so I can head off to the IVC's First Wednesday tomorrow, I think I'm going to bed at the outragously early hour of 10 PM.

Finally Snow

Tonight we're getting snow. Not too much, but the meteorologists are predicting maybe an inch, with some ice before it switches over to rain in the morning.

My apartment building gets its snow removed, but I went ahead and threw out some salt I had sitting around. So my sidewalk is clear...no liability here, move along.

I also did some cleaning of my plants and pots. I noticed yesterday that someone had stolen two of the smaller pots, one that I'd put out as an experiment, the other had a small pomegranate tree in it. I have no idea why people steal my pots, but to protect the strawberry plant and my pot of oregano I put them in the alley behind the house.

In addition, I put new dirt on the sedum matrona from a fresh bag and the pot that formerly held my zinnia. The zinnia was wonderful last year, and I'm definitely going to buy some more seeds this year.

I also cut the stem of the main stalk for the okra plant. I haven't decided whether I'll grow it again this year, while it was really cool to have okra, I think I'm going to try for more flowers. One possibility is rudbeckia.