I finally have pictures of the container garden I started.  There's still dirt everywhere.  I sweep and sweep and there's still more dirt.  Blech.  Well, it makes me at least wish the balcony tiles weren't so lightly colored.

 

 I've clipped a few sprigs of lavender already and I've used some of the basil on some nice tomatoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like this view a bi...

I've been trying to load an avatar for weeks.  First I couldn't get a file small enough (but good way to learn new things), then nothing would load from the dashboard (stupid safari?) and then when I went to my account from the forums, success!  mebbe.

 

I made it super small so it may show up funny.

When this event happened, my puppy was actually a full grown dog.  Sadly, she's long since passed away.

This dog was a femaie Sheltie named Boots.

She was a fairly interesting animal.  She'd originally been picked up by another family but returned when she didn't clear a vet check that discovered she had a heart murmur--probably a hole in her heart.  As the breeder knew we were looking for a dog, she called my family and asked if we'd be willing to take her on and give her a...

We moved into a house last September.  It's been great.  I love my house.

One of the benefits of this place is that it has a fairly large balcony.  Maybe 1.5mx3.5m.  I'm estimating.  It's enough room that we can fit a small table and two chairs and have a comfortable time having breakfast or coffee outdoors.  It's right off our kitchen/living room so it's great.  

Ever since we moved in we toyed with the idea of growing some plants in containers.  My...

There has been a temporary 30 yen (roughly 25 cents)/liter consumption tax on gas in Japan for the last thirty years.  Don't you love the loose application of temporary?  But such a loose interpretation will not lose and election for your.  Having the public find out that the majority of that tax which is supposed to be used for road improvement has mainly been used for massage chairs, tennis courts, unbelievably stupid graft projects like plays or paper projects to promote useles...

April 27 was International Pinhole Day.  Note that I wrote PinHOLE not PinHEAD (I read somewhere that Pinhead Day is the 29th).  How many of you got your pinhole cameras out?  I missed it, but better late than never.  A great example of pinhole can be seen here. It's a flickr group for pinhole that really inspires me to try it.  This person has beautiful work.

 

I've been interested in Pinhole photography for a while.  I've seen some amazing work on ...

As I sat at the table of the bed and breakfast trying toingest the incondite tonic prepared by my host, a pilgaric with a face ofchimeric proportions, a terrible thunder whose verberations threatened to rivethe establishment  asunder diminished into the sound of scree scrabbling down the rooftop.  Curious as to the sound's emanation, Ipicked up my cup and peered out the fulinginous window while sipping theinfernal draught.  The tonicquickly erupted from my nasal cavity and tur...

One of the big news items the last couple of days has been about a butter shortage in Japan.  It seems like a really trivial story.  I mean, really.  Not enough butter to go around?  But the cost of butter is not only on the rise in Japan, there is often a shortage of stock.  Want to buy some butter?  You're lucky if the store still has some and some stores limit what they have to one per customer. But what separates this story from the silly section are three ...