I recently joined a new website project, Growstuff.org.
The site owners can describe it better than I can.
“Growstuff is a community of food gardeners. We’re building an open source platform to track, share, and discuss edible gardens and sustainable lifestyles. We offer growing information tailored to your location, and help you connect with your local food-growing community.”
This isn’t a flower gardening or non-edible landscaping site. It’s about growing food and sharing knowledge and making connections. And it’s free to join.
DO IT.
From the Christian Science Monitor:
So why should we care about Merian all these centuries later? Well, as the website of the J. Paul Getty Museum puts it, Merian and her daughters (more on them later) were not just extremely talented artists. They were also pioneers who “raised the artistic standards of natural history illustration and helped transform the field of entomology.”
And Wikipedia:
Merian received her artistic training from her stepfather,
Jacob Marrel, a student of the
still life painter
Georg Flegel. She remained in Frankfurt until 1670, relocating subsequently to
Nuremberg,
Amsterdam and
West Friesland. In 1699, she spent two years in
Surinam on the encouragement of
Cornelis van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck, the then-governor of the South American Dutch colony. Upon her return to Europe, she published her major work,
Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, for which she became famous. Because of her careful observations and documentation of the
metamorphosis of the
butterfly, she is considered one of the most significant contributors to the field of
entomology.
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Beautiful day for a short walk in Longwood Gardens. Strangely warm. I think it is somewhere in the mid 60′s. Windy but lovely!
If you are, perchance, thinking about a trip to see the “Spring Blooms” you may want to wait a bit longer. The only blooming is in the conservatory. The Flower Garden Walk has tons of green shoots but no blooms. Same for the trees.
Design package for the Pennsylvania State Navy. A 501(c)3 nonprofit reenacting group of the American Revolution. Website is a set of static XHTML and CSS coded pages with a WordPress blog at www.panavy.org
Pennsylvania State Navy Design Package
From IMDB:
When a madman begins committing horrific murders inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s works, a young Baltimore detective joins forces with Poe to stop him from making his stories a reality.
The hackneyed joke for the review of this film would be “Nevermore”. When I saw the trailer last year I thought I would like this. A period piece, murder mystery, historically based. It didn’t deliver. I am well read and I had trouble following the plot. I can just imagine how this film tracked for folks who are not versed in literature. Even the basics like Edgar Allen Poe. I will warrant if you did a “Jaywalking” and asked the casual person on the street what was “The Cask of Amontillado” you would get all manner of guesses related to your local beer distributor. So epic fail on that point alone.
John Cusak was decent but not compelling as Poe. I actually found the Baltimore detective, Fields, played by Luke Evans the most interesting character of the lot.
The whole film was a wasted opportunity, to use that cliche. Great premise, great production values, but a story that just didn’t deliver.
The Verdict
3.0Bad
The Good: Production values. Historic context. Luke Evans.
The Bad: Muddled storytelling. Reliance on literary knowledge of the moviegoer.
American Revolutionary War reenactor from the Pennsylvania State Navy. Done on toned paper with white and black charcoal.
American Revolutionary War reenactor in charcoal
The most people I have seen at Brandywine Battlefield since the PHMC cut the knees out from under ALL the Revolutionary War sites in the State of PA. Of course if you want to visit the Log Museum or the Oil Derrick you are just fine. I’m sure that cutting out the funding for all the Rev War and F&I sites and keeping the lame-ass industrial sites in the middle of nowhere had absolutely nothing to do with the makeup of the committee and where the sites were located. JUST SAYIN’.
Also great to see that the items that were looted from the battlefield’s museum collection by PHMC have been returned.
I replaced my basic Sprint phone with an LG840G Tracfone. I never used much in the way of minutes on my Sprint phone so I thought this would be a good idea especially since the LG840 comes with Triple Minutes for Life.
The phone itself works just fine. It comes with WiFi which I guess is a bonus, but I’m not happy about one big tradeoff. I assumed (silly me) that any phone with bluetooth capability would work with the Ford SYNC system in my car. The Sprint phone worked flawlessly and I really liked the ability to use voice commands to dial the phone and make a call while driving. Totally hands-free. I can no longer do that because the LG840 does not work with SYNC. No one wants to own the problem — SYNC or Tracfone. The syncmyride.com forums are full of complaints. Pages and pages. So now I have a phone that doesn’t work with SYNC. Great. Just great.
The other pain in the butt is that it is almost impossible to find a case or a skin that actually fits the phone. The phone is smaller than an iPhone or Galaxy so all the standard cases at 5 Below and places like that swamp the LG840. I also haven’t been able to find anything on Amazon. There are skins and cases for the predecessor LG800 but not much for the LG840.
On an operational level, yes there is a Qwerty keyboard and no, it is not usable for all functions where you have to input text. So that sucks too.
So I’m sorta bummed. Yes, it does make phone calls and it is easy to operate and maybe to some people no having SYNC or a decent case doesn’t matter but it does to me. And that’s what counts. I feel sorta ripped off.
The Verdict
5.5Mediocre
The Good: Easy to operate. Cheap to own. Built in WIFI.
The Bad: Not all keyboards are Qwerty. Does not work with the Ford SYNC system. Crummy choice of skins and covers.
My friend Diane was a great fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. She loved the monkey in all its forms. I did this ink piece for her of the monkey at his scariest. I am using the past tense because she passed away this past February from a brain tumor. But at least she had some joy from the wee bit of artwork that I did for her. I miss her.
Monkey!!
