Market day

There are several farmer's markets in the area and we're thinking about having a booth. We're brainstorming ideas of things to sell. So far the only thing I have is to sell Popsicles. My mom used to make Popsicles for us when we were young. I think she did it really cheap, juice concentrate in deep ice cube trays. It costs $50 for the booth so we'd need to make enough money to cover the cost of the booth, the gas and the juice.

Another idea I had, because I don't konw the availability of power to the booths, was to get a bunch of potatoes and link them all together to provide enough power to run a computer that could be demoed for sale. If we sell the computer for $400 we'd be in good shape and the pop sickle sales would be pure profit.

The last idea I had is selling revenge disease. I'm sick right now. I could sneeze into a jar and sell it for $5, "Pour this into someone's drink and they'll be useless for 3 or 4 days"

Other things I know how to do:
Sushi, out of the question because everyone else on the island can make it better than me
Burritos, probably not want people want at the market
Fix computers, farmer's market might not be the best place

If you had to sell something at a booth, what would it be?

Deputy Puppy

I've been watching a lot of tricks videos recently, like Le Parkour. Things that take years, one's youth, to learn. I love 'em.

When I was growing up I had several bikes, my family were avid bikers and I was never without one. Unless it was one of those special days I came home to find that my mom had sold my bike, why? Because someone needed it more than me. This happened twice.
My bikes have sold, stolen, rusted out and outgrown. Now I barely ride. Still love the videos though:


My dad tried to learn juggling at one point, I remember he always had the bean sacks in his office at work but I never saw him juggling. The only memory I have of my mom juggling is when she was an extra in Oliver twist, she was juggling handkerchiefs.
This is Tim Kelly, the champion of three ball juggling:


This is perhaps a more famous video set to a Beatles tune that everyone seems to love. I read somewhere that this guy has been doing the same routine for 20 years, but damn it's still pretty good.



I don't dance very often but when I get to it nothing can stop me, I'm usually in my own corner of the floor doing my thing for as long as I can stand it or until I make little girls cry.
Here's a shitty quality, but awesome DDR video. I love how he glides across the floor.



I'm not sure who said that Rhythmics is easy, but you're wrong:

do yourself a flavor

Yesterday my boss gave me avocados, 3 of them, from her garden. Immediately after, her son gave me sugar cane. Raw sugarcane can be chewed on: peel the bark off and bite down and suck the juice out, it's like sugar water. Unfortunately the sweetness doesn't last long so after about 30 seconds you realize you're chewing on tree branch

The house we're in right now has tons of fruit and vegetables in the back yard. One week it was cherry tomatoes, another pumpkins, then pineapples, I think last week was oranges and now we're back to cherry tomatoes again.

Anyone that has ever lived in a this kind of lifestyle knows the windfall of each fruit when they come in to season. Many people struggle to meet the demands of having to eat 4 pineapples in a week. I love it. I will happily eat 5 or 6 oranges in a day if they're available. This is the best food on earth as far as I'm concerned: organic, local and free.

I've been sick the last few days, today being probably the worst. There's so much stuff inside of me trying to get out. It's coming through more orifices than usual. My nose and throat being the more than usual. I'm pretty sure it's my body continuing to adjust to not smoking anymore so I'm not too upset, it's a just a shitty process.

Hobbes is making ginger tea for me, and I just added grated sugarcane to it. I'm looking forward to it.

Come semi-circle

My internet friend WM's post about writing letters came to fruition. I received it today with much excitement, I walked out to the mailbox eating a slice of salted and garlicked pumpkin. It had a rad envelope with a goat and a monkey.
Reading someone else's handwriting is a treat for me. I work and play on a computer, spending about 75% of my waking hours in front of one. I have atrocious penmanship and I don't write many letters. My mom made me write my grandparents once a month when I was growing up, I hated it because I never had anything to say: I'm going to school, I have friends, I wish I was older so I could have a car. Of course my grandparents loved it or pretended to because about a week afterwards I would always receive a check for $20.

I don't write letters, I send care packages with local only goods. My offer, in an effort to pay it forward, is to send you a package. If only a few people respond then you get nicer things, if I get 10 people asking, well then that gets expensive and you all get sampler size of Hawai'i

Bring it on

heh. we just had an earthquake.

hurricanes
volcanoes
earthquakes
tsunamis

Actually, now that I think about it:
friends in Blackburg has the killings at Tech
friend in ST Paul had bridge collapsing
family in Washington had a terrific storm and lost power for days and weeks
Richmond got hit by a hurricane a couple of years ago too. I guess Hawai'i just has a higher percentage of disaster exposure?

Come on Flussie!

Reinstall Checklist

I had a difficult time finding a good checklist of thigns to backup before formatting your computer in the 15 seconds spent searching so I decided to make my own. Please add to the list if I forget anything. I'm also assuming in this case that a computer with XP will need to be backed up.

Use the FAST wizard to backup every account you use on your computer. This is the easiest and most complete backup you can do to save your account. If it doesn't work, you don't have an external drive, aren't connected to a network or have a serial cable here's a list of things to get:

• Bookmarks/favorites from IE & Firefox
• My Documents
• My Desktop
• Drivers for modem/ethernet card (with these you can get the others)

Paradigm Shift

I have a new email address. I'm guessing everyone that sends me email reads my blog as well so this can be my big coming out party. We'll see.

My new address is: myfirstname [at] mylastname dot com got it? Mind you this is not mylegalfirstname@mylastname. If this is too complicated for you or you don't know my last name leave a comment and I'll get back to you. This is also a great opportunity and excuse to send me an email and say hi if it's been a long time since we've talked. I would love to hear from you. YES YOU

Here are some statistics from my current email:

• I am currently using 1977 MB (68%) of your 2887 MB. ::flex::
• I have 2671 emails archived
• I signed up for gmail on 08/24/04

Here's why I'm switching addresses:

This thanksgiving when I'm in NC with my paternal family, I along with my brother will be pushing the entire family to switch to a family based online presence managed by me and him. This isn't exciting to anyone else and that's fine.

We're using Google Apps, which gives you free hosting among other things like gmail, docs and calendar to share with everyone in the domain. This is just about perfect for a small business or family to keep in contact. Of course with free hosting it's perfect for anyone that wants a small domain of their own.

If anyone is interested in running their own site, Google Apps is what I recommend, it's a great place to start. If you read all the instructions and would still like some help, give me a shout and I'll be happy to lend a hand.

Old man look at my life, I'm a lot like you were

I hate getting old. I am only 26, I know I'm not old. But I think that 25 is the last little bit of indestructible youth. I still expect to be young for another 10 years or so, but my body's prime has passed.
I wake up and my legs are stiff and my joints crack. I think about taxes, credit, buying a house and of becoming a father.

Wait. WHAT? What happened to drinking until 4am? I don't know anybody that sells or smokes weed anymore. Shit I don't know anybody that drinks anymore. I only have one tattoo!

For any of you youngster reading this, live it up. Burn the candle at both ends, travel to Europe; Japan. Experiment with drugs, boys and girls. Adventure. You're never as young as you are right now.

If you don't like where you, leave and go somewhere else. It's ok to move to a new city with nothing and no one. It's easy to find a shitty job and make friends. Please please know that the older you get the harder it is to do things like that. It's not impossible, it never is, but it's more and more difficult. You'll thank yourself in 5 years that you did that one awesome adventurous spontaneous thing when you were 22. Create good memories.

Cleaning up part 2

I originally wrote this post on July 4th and apparently never got around to publishing it. Can't imagine why.

Do Not Want:

• The sound of door knocking. I hate it when I'm sleeping, I hate it when I'm awake
• Missing a birthday/wedding /anniversary. All of which I've done in the last month
• Not cat calls, those are sweet. But being whistled at. As though my attention can be whistled for. I'm not brooding with you
  

Want:
Optimus Prime VS Megatron

Cleaning up part 1

I wrote this on July 1st, never published. Until NOW!

One of my favorite things to do is read random blogs. Click the Next Blog button at the top of any blogger sites and you get a random one.
Another neat thing to do is read your friend's friend's blog. Read a post and comment on it. Most will run right back to your own blog and read everything you have just to figure out who the hell you are.
I don't know about you but I love getting comments on my blog. It helps me feel that this is a valid project. For a long time I didn't have any readers, then I didn't have any comments. Now I feel I have a few of both and I'm running 4 blogs. My empire is underway.

Word to your mother

Some people don't realize that the word irregardless is over redundant. I used to really enjoy word play and grammar, often correcting people on their grammar (what an asshole thing to do). These days I try really hard not to correct anyone, mainly because mine has turned to poop.
We decided to provide other options for the over redundant uses of regardless:

• abregardless
• aregardless
• nonregardless
• deregardless
• reregardless
• unregardless
• antiregardless
• disregardless
• preregardless
  

You're welcome world / Webster.

What is the best food?

If you answered anything wrapped in a piece of bacon, you are correct.
I would've also accepted:

• Anything wrapped in two pieces of bacon

Today I tried my hand a making musubi, a fine write up can be read in this wikipus. The actual wikipus on musubi is about a more traditional food than what I'm talking about and what is served locally.
Traditionally musubi was just a ball of salted rice. Today it's evolved into a ball of rice with a topping. My favorites have been Korean chicken and salmon. The ones I made today used Unagi (eel) and bacon as the toppings. I even made my own kabayaki (eel sauce), which is impossible to find, from shoyu (soy sauce), mirin and sugar. The ratio being 1/1/.5

Making musubi goes like this:

1. Rice compacted to a sphere or oval shape
2. topping of meat, fish or vegetable
3. wrap it in nori

Seran wrap is ideal for storage until you're ready to eat.

Underwater Love

Missing Shirts

About 6 months ago I realized I'd lost all of my good shirts. This was around the time when I moved from Seattle back to Richmond, drove to Florida, drove back and then moved to Hawai'i. I'm not terribly surprised they got lost but I'm still very sad. The fact that I'm missing so many of them leads me to believe they're together somewhere.
If I stayed at your house and left them with you, you would make me incredibly happy to return them to me and I'll be happy to ship something to you in return. Here is a list of the shirts that I no longer have but wish I did:



I realize that looking at this list without context might leave you in the dark. If any of my gentle readers need illustrations of these shirts, I can probably dig up a picture.

I ordered two two x one gigabytes of ram. Two packages of two ram sticks, each one gigabyte. I've been frothing ever since I submitted the order. I've never had a computer with maxed RAM, I've been looking forward to this moment since around 2001. Tonight I installed it to find that only 3 of the 4 gigs is available. Also it hasn't made that much of a different from the 1 gig previous. What a let down. My Vista Experience Index won't refresh either.

In more upbeat news, this is the bathroom sign I'm going to print up and use at work on Thursday:



Update: Vista apparently just can't see any memory above 3 GB. I removed one stick of RAM and while the BIOS noticed it had changed, Vista didn't even bat an eye 'cept the BSODs stopped. I'm now in possession of a single 1 GB ddr2 800 mhz stick of RAM and also four 256 MB of varying speeds. If you need, let me know,
They're priced to move.

2nd Update:
This is the article where MS explains that their 32-bit OSes only support 3.1 GB of RAM