Monday, April 26, 2010

Last Post Until New Server




Wee doggie, it's been a ride since 2004 or 2005 when I started on Google Blogger. Google still seem to indicate that I need to migrate to a new server thang, and the instructions are so incomprehensible I just gave up - time for something new.

But it's been fun. I have met a ton of people, some through this very porthole on humanity, and not a single bummer. Not even a troll, wow!

I don't know where I'll be, although I do think that "poofnwhiff" is an unusual name if you want to search for my new stuff after May. I be sure to keep that name if I can.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

This Is Better


Lori approves of this post.

Friday, April 09, 2010

The Garden Box


After begging from local vendors like Veranda's, Bayview, and various dirt haulers like for Brownsville compost, I gave up and went to Wal-Mart. That's a cubic yard of potting soil in a four by eight frame made of two by twelve treated pine. Obviously, the stuff settles so maybe a wee bit more soil and an inch of mulch and by late Sunday, I am "in like Flint." Expensive little booger but it should last years with some TLC.

After seeing how well Sandy Feets' salad garden was doing, I finally got with the program. This one is for tomatoes, a few peppers, and herbs - and whatever darlings that Lori picks out. Summer okra to follow if the plants get sunburn too bad, and love those multiplying onions.

Oh well, got tired of calling and getting dissed so I took the bull by the horns and crossed the Causeway. Twenty minutes after getting home I took this photo ... doesn't look too bad. FYI, the comforter we had on our bed when we got married is now the "weed screen" on the bottom. Now we're talking some major tomato potential here!

Friday, April 02, 2010

EDC Bird-Brain Boondoggle Continues


Well it is the holy week for many Christians, but unholy things have been happening at the World Bird Brain Center next to the SPI Convention Center. There used to be nice, free walkways there on the south side of the Convention Center, but the EDC took that over and put up a gate.

So some prankster - not me - comes along and steals the gate, hinges and roots and all. I think that God made him do it.

In their infinite wisdom, the EDC erected a wood panel blocking the access completely. They could care less about the birders: all they want your money. Five bucks and you can get in the front door. See, the World Bird Brain Center decided to be self-funded by gate revenue and that was a huge mistake. I could care less about their boondoggle as long as I don't have to bail them out, because the Town guaranteed and voted "yay" on the project. But when they take my free access and commercialize it, I get mad. Apparently, so does He.

Let's not go into how in the early days of our town, the Convention Center was funded by hotel taxes for the sake of the common good, and us local land and property owners already bought it once. But from what I can tell, the EDC went to Cameron County and got "easement rights" to those old walking boards that go out over the marsh, two of them, one going to the alligator pond and the other to a nice little pavilion on the bay.

So the World Bird Brain Center effectively annexed all that land. Amazing, isn't it? Nobody else has an easement there except for the electric company at that giant, ugly transformer station ... as well as the water works, and that's no trespassing.

So here we are paying for all that again. Oh, and plus the price of some fancy-schmancy gate that some Yahoo stole.

Thursday, April 01, 2010

The End of The World



Ever since mankind got a conscience, which is unique to us homo sapiens, we have thought about the end of time. I am not going to talk fluff like the Mayan calendars and stuff like that. Judging from this most beautiful picture I ripped from NASA, some galaxy light years away, the world will end with a limp Willy.

Well hey it makes sense, right? The last thing you're going to think about when the world is ending is what your Willy thinks. I hear that and sorry to be tawdry.

I used to be a poet-freak and read some T.S. Eliot; my favorite quote was something like "the world will not end with a bang, but a whimper." It's a different kind if the end-of-world thing. The absolute best thing I ever wrote was as a rookie in 1974, "the world will not end with a bang, but a Whopper." Priceless.

Now here's the wrap-up. Whenever I watch a beach bonfire, for some fool reason I think about the end of the world.