My Garden Grows

I can just about watch my plants drink water. These hot hot days stress out these green guys that produce juicy balls of edible produce. I walk out and see the leaves sagging, limp and curled. After a good watering, an hour later they are standing up and smiling under the same sun. Here are some pics taken after watering but before the roots drank up the water. Note the sagging leaves:

Cucumbers










Peppers




Squash and tomatoes







More on the story of the Broken
Window

As promised, here is a pictorial of the window disaster yesterday. To the upper right is the initial point of impact. At first it was merely a ding... not unlike when a pebble gets kicked up by a truck and hits the windshield. Below, you can get an idea of the total shatter.

All Those Achy Pains

I'm not sure why I hurt so much. Been feeling the need to take ibuprofen on a daily basis. When you hurt, everything else seems to follow that lead.

I started my day by causing $500 damage to Mary's car. Those moments you wish you could do over! The keg from the party needed to go back to Founders Brewery. I was in a hurry to meet my carpool to "Come On Over". I asked if Mary would take the keg back after they opened at 11:00. She agreed but asked me to put the keg in the car for her. No problem! I popped the hatchback, placed the keg in the back and shut the hatch. Ping!! There was a asterisk-shaped crack in the window right where the edge of the keg met the inside of the window. Damn! Well, at list it was in there. I quickly ran in to tell Mary the bad news. It was just a little crack... something she could probably live with.

She was not happy of course but I had to fly and I jumped in my car and flew off to work.

Mary pulled on her shoes and went out to look at the damage. She heard a cracking noise like ice breaking on a pond... crik...crik...crack...split and watched as the lines spread. If I had opened the hatch and re-positioned the keg, we'd probably be all right. With the window pulled tight across the metal edge, the window was shattered in slow-motion.

Window guys say it is $499 to replace the back hatch window of a Honda Civic.

More on this later! Got to sooth my pain.

Where are the Thunderstorms?

They missed Grand Rapids AGAIN! It is hot and humid here once again with no rain.

Shooting With Lights

This morning I had the opportunity to try out my new light kit. There were 3 setups and I was pretty happy with the results of 2 of them. The third was fine too but I thought of some things later that I could have done to make it "pop" more. The interviews were all interesting... Children's Museum founders. They LOVE Teresa. All of them made a point to say that her performance was there biggest reason to brag. I'm back tomorrow for another. The lights definitely make a big difference.

Had lunch with Oscar today at Tacos El Ganadero (yum). He is newly unemployed and we talked a lot about work life and relationships. Mostly about where work might take us.

When I got home I found the missing basting brush from my new Backyard BBQ tool kit that mom gave me for my birthday. I had left the tools outside overnight and the brush (of all things) came up missing.


There it was in the grass about 20 feet from the grill. The critter that dragged it away from the grill table must have liked my basting sauce because the bristles were chewed down from a fan shape to a pointed stub.

I just got back from a beer and a movie with Stephen. Happy Hour prices: $2 for a Founders IPA. The movie was You Kill Me with Ben Kingsly as a hit man whose career is suffering because he is an alcoholic. We enjoyed it but it is a small screen picture.

Lamplight

My new light kit arrived. This particular one was recommended by a friend. It is more expensive than you would think necessary but I should be able to recoup costs from jobs I get. It clearly is a nice kit. I took some time to figure out how to put it all together. I'm already figuring out the expensive accessories I'll need. I should be able to use it tomorrow for my Children's Museum interviews.

Cult of Costco

We had no coffee this morning. That's a prerequisite for Mary to be really awake. We decided to go out for breakfast. I thought maybe we could just go to Costco and eat the free samples for breakfast. Mary convinced me to go to Sundance instead.

We went to Costco AFTER breakfast because we are planning food for Saturday's party and we wanted to scope out the bulk food options before meeting with Betsy and Ginny who are handling food for the party. We picked up a few groceries and also a list of possible party foods. We now have a menu and some designated grillers.

Mary's working on her super-secret party favors. Those who can't attend will receive them via email after the party.

Our lovely neighborhood had some more action this evening. A pickup truck slipped out of gear and coasted across the street into the side of another car. It was an opportunity for Jim Scott to remind me which neighbors were selling drugs and which no-good kids were currently oppressing the finish on his vehicle with every manner of projectile.

Sweet corn and burgers on the grill tonight. It was the first sweet corn of the year and it was actually pretty good.

Why Do People Hate Michael Moore?

Mary and I just got back from seeing the movie Sicko. With all the publicity the film is getting, I was somewhat shocked that the film was only playing in one theatre in town and that was the one at the Rivertown Crossings mall in Grandville. I generally won't travel to that part of town. The Theatre was quite full despite it being the first Saturday night to see Harry Potter. At the end, something happened that you hardly ever see any more... the audience broke into spontaneous applause.

The film makes the point that the difference between US culture and the culture of those countries who have adopted socialized medicine is that the people in the other countries demand it. Here they are trained that Michael Moore is a big, rude man who hates America. If you aren't rich and you hate Michael Moore then you are just plain gullible or stupid. Of course Michael Moore uses irony to make his films more entertaining and thus pushes the anal retentives to pick apart the examples and throw out the whole argument rather than recognize a creative approach to storytelling about a particular truth.

It's a good film for anyone interested in improving quality of life.

In other news, this morning's newspaper says Grand Valley is raising tuition 9.9%.