My tomato

Here is my upside down tomato, showing four ripening tomatoes on it.

Steven

H today

Hi:

Not much happening here today. Just got back from the library where I picked up four different books.

Tonight is the preview of the used book sale at our community center. I am heading down there at 5:00 pm to get in to get a better dictionary, a Shakespeare book and to see if I can find a copy of The Cure for All Diseases. I will see if there any other books I want to read.

I watched the Top of the 10th Inning, which I recorded two nights ago. I am going to watch the Bottom of the 10th Inning later today. I enjoy Ken Burns take on baseball. It is baseball that I watch on TV. I don't watch football or basketball or any other TV sports on my television.

I hope we made the last edit of Creation last night. We will check it again tonight to see if it I need to make another corrections. We listen to the poem on my Kindle 3, with the text-to-speech feature. Seems like every time we listen we find more mistakes.

Two days ago I told Nolan to read the poem for context not just to find misspelled words. I wonder if he knows how to read for context. Seems like I make the context corrections. Anyway, we are close to the end of the editing.

The picture I will add after I finish is my upside down tomato showing four ripening tomatoes on it. I do believe the vines grow big enough to hold up the tomatoes.

What are your plans for the coming weekend?

Steve

Pictures for this Wednesday

Spring flowers and the Covered Bridge in Pioneer Park in Stayton.

Steven

Mid-week today....

Hello:

My tomatoes are still coming but not as fast as the past few weeks. I am letting the remainder fully ripen on the vine. In the past I picked them partially ripe and let them ripen in the house. I have four ripening on my upside down tomato. I will take a picture of it later today to post to here in a day or so.

I am not reading as much as I want to do these days. Other things seem to getting in my way of just sitting down for a few hours to read my book.

I am setting up an aquarium now. I was thinking of doing a salt-water aquarium this time, but getting the instructions off the Internet, it seems to be too complex for what I want now.

So my aquarium will be a regular one. Guppies, angel fish and other common fish will go into this one.

One more edit of Creation, an epic poem by the late Raymond Geraths. I may wait until Nolan takes to Portland this weekend to have others read it again. We have edited 35 times now. What we learn on editing this poem teaches us how to edit the next two poems. I am placing all three poems in books on the Kindle page. Two of the poems are 7,700 words long with last one over 15,000 words.

I am pricing Creation at $2.99. Redemption will be at $4.99 and Sanctification priced at $6.99.

I have some more ideas on marketing ebooks now. I am learning from various sources.

I trust your week is going well.

Steve

Picture of the day

The tea section of Safeway. In China, Lipton is all you see in grocery stores.

Steven

Monday eve now...

Hi again:

It has been a busy day for me.

I am now reading The Murder Room. It is an interesting book. Meeting in on the east coast on the 3rd Thursday of every month, these detectives, scientists and others, totally 38, meet to go over a murder case that is at least two years old. Applying old techniques and new science to each case. I have not gotten to a case yet, just how they approach it.

They meet in an old building where George Washington meet his people as he was sworn in as President. Remember where the Nation's Capital was then, not in Washington D. C. but in ........

Tomorrow I will research the basic rule in Oregon. My speeding ticket early in September cites me with violating the basic rule, going 20 mph over the speed limit. But as I understand the basic rule is that it applies to the condition of the road at that time, taking into account the speed and other conditions existing at the time I got the speeding ticket.

I have my trial in Hillsboro on Tuesday October 12.

Steve

Separate pictures

Pictures from Summerfest in Stayton at the end of July.

Steven

Sunday morning

Hello:

The house here smells of tomatoes as I am drying two trays of tomatoes. It takes about 8 hours to dry these 20 tomatoes. So, around 6:30 pm today I will check them to see how dry they are. This is the fourth batch of dried tomatoes.

I estimate I have gotten over 80 tomatoes off my two plants. I still see some more ripening on the two in-ground plants, called Willamette.

I have made four batches of salsa, eight trays of dried tomatoes. I gave my dad a dozen when he stopped by here about a week ago. I am not going to can any of them. I still have my canned tomatoes from last year.

Ape House is a short book so I will finish it. I am more than half way through and it certainly is no page-turner. I am sure glad I got this from my library rather than buying for my Kindle 3.

I recorded Wall Street today. I have never seen it before. I don't know if I will see the new Wall Street movie.

I see Catholic women in Portland are boycotting Mass today to protest how the Church treats women in the world. I no longer attend Mass as I don't believe much of what the church teaches. But I do agree with those women. The Catholic Church treated women so very poorly. I remember when women had to wear something on their head to attend Mass. Hard telling why the Church required this. It is just one minor example of how the church treats women.

It is raining out this morning, but I had my clothes hanging outside. I hope the rain stops this afternoon so my clothes can dry out there.

Steven

Two shot of my tomato plant

Nice Saturday...

Hi again:

It so nice here today, I went to a garage sale where I got a spring form pan for 25 cents. I have been looking for one for some time. I am going to make a cheesecake soon. A spring form pan is what I needed.

I am reading Ape House, but it is not very good. I am 1/3 through it and nothing is happening much. I liked Lucy better than this book.

My Ducks don't plan until 7:30 tonight. The Beavs better lose to Boise State today.

One more edit of Creation then we will be done. I will place it on the Kindle page early next week after 33 edits.

We have Redemption ready to go also, but we will have to hear it before we make that final decision.

I am thinking now of pricing Creation at $2.99. Redemption will be at $3.99 and Sanctification will be at $6.99 (it is the same size as Creation and Redemption---combined.)

I am going to post two pictures after this. One shows my tomato upside down, one when it was growing (from yesterday) and the other showing a lot of fruit on it.

I am not posting pictures with my text posts.

Steven

Another solution

I just came up with another idea.

My text I will put in picture-less posts.

But I will post a picture by itself every day I make a text post.

Steve

Trouble with these posts

My next few posts will be without a picture. The last few posts there is no breaks between paragraphs. I don't like that.

So the next week, no pictures. I want to see what is wrong with the formatting here.

So we shall see how this works with no pictures.

Steve

Friday at 4:00 pm

Hello again:

This picture shows my upside down tomato in its early stages, once it started to grow quite a bit. Compare this to the recent picture I posted here with all of the tomatoes on it. It pulls down the vines but the the vines do not break.

It has been a nice day today, with a lot of sunshine. I did a load of dark clothes and they are hanging outside now.

I am now reading Ape House, but only a few pages into it. I will read more of it after dinner tonight. This book is only 306 pages, compare to The Invisible Bridge, which is 604 pages. It took me a week to finish The Invisible Bridge. I think I will get through Ape House in a few days.

My next book is The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases. I head this author on NPR a week or so ago.

One last edit tonight, I hope, of Creation, the long poem by the late Raymond Geraths. I wish he was still around to help us with his handwriting. This will be the 32nd edit we have done of this poem. Every poem we printed out, so we had to use 3 new ink cartridges. But I discovered how to print in Fast Draft, which prints the poem in about five minutes and uses much less ink than the normal print function.

We don't know yet what we will price this poem on the Amazon Kindle page. I am leaning to offering it for free, as we have his second poem ready to go now too. That second poem is called Redemption. It is around the same length as Creation. We could offer Creation for free and then ask $4.99 for Redemption.

Do any of you have a Kindle as you read this? If not, the new Kindle 3 with WiFi only, is $139.00. You can see it at Target and Staples.

Have a great weekend.

Steven

Weekend is nearer...

Hello:

The weekend is near...what are your plans? Mine, I don't know yet, but a long bike ride is in my near future.

The picture here shows the volcano in Iceland from the space station. I don't know if it is still blowing.

I finished The Invisible Bridge. The two main characters did not die in the book, but almost every one in their families died. I really liked this novel, as it was so unpredictable. I did not know until the end who survived and who died.

I started reading Marathon earlier today, but it is too much like making sausage. You like what comes out at the end but reading or making it is too much to stomach as you watch it.

I will go the library tomorrow to pick up six more books, including Ape House, another novel about bonobo apes. As you may recall, I just finished, a few weeks ago, the novel Lucy. In Lucy there was a young girl who was half human and half ape. Not made through the normal channels, with through artificial methods.

I discovered we have edited 31 different versions of Creation, a long poem by the late Raymond Geraths, Nolan's dad. The last six we have listen to on my Kindle 3. Listening to it makes us find more editing mistakes. The typed version of Creation is 42 pages long. Over 7,700 words. We don't know how we plan to price it when we place it on the Kindle page.

I made some chicken with cream of chicken soup in my slow cooker. I also made some rice to go with it. It is all ready now but I am not hungry yet. I will wait an hour until I eat.

Steve

Mid-week now...

Hi again:

It is not raining today so my clothes are hanging outside.

This picture is a carpet show in St. Louis. Quite colorful.

Not much happening here today.

I will not talk about religion today.

I am almost finished with The Invisible Bridge. I will finish this book today. I have four books waiting for me at the library. I need to find some time to read on my Kindle 3.

The New Yorker website is only allowing one or two articles a week for free subscribers. I am getting upset at this magazine.

My next book will be Marathon: How One Battle Changed Western Civilization. Sounds like a good history lesson for me.

The next book is The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of Minor League Veteran.

I also have to start reading Henry the IV, Part 1 again as the online class has caught up with me I am in the last scene of Act III, and the class in Act IV, Scene I.

How is your week going?

Steve

Autumn starts today...

Hi again:

This picture shows my upside down tomato. You can see one red tomato on it. I will pick it today as I took this picture two days ago. The fruit causes the vines to drop down, but with much larger vines than on my in-ground plants. I must water this plant every day. Even with the great amount of rain we had in the past few days, it does not reach this plant as it is under the eves of the garage here.

I hope I did not upset you yesterday with the two pictures of slaughter of dolphins in Denmark. My friend in China forwarded this to me with more graphic pictures than I posted here.

Nearing the end of The Invisible Bridge. Bad things are happening now and I wonder if the two main characters will survive to the end.

I certainly do not understand anti-Semitism. Some fake Christians think the Jews killed Christ, but no one knows what happened back then. You certainly cannot believe anything written in any of the gospels. Those writers were not there and were two generations past the time he lived. What kind of story can you tell in detail about your grandparents who may have died before you were born? Not even your grandparents but a friend of a friend of a friend who died before 70 to 110 years earlier. This is why no one can believe anything written in the four gospels. Those are not fact-finding writings. Allegorical at best, fiction too.

This is why I cannot go to Church on Sunday. I cannot stand to listen to the priest tells us what is written in the gospel readings actually happened. None of it happened as the writers did not know what happened.

Something comparable is what happened here 70 years ago. Take, for example, the end of Prohibition. Assume we have no Internet nor any libraries. No research material at all. This is what faced the four people who wrote the four gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke and John were NOT the writers).

How much credibility would you give someone with those limitations to tell you and me about Prohibition? Not much at all. The same things applies to the facts in the gospels.

Growing up attending Catholic schools, I believed God directed the hand of the gospel writers. This was the impact of nuns teaching us each year. Now, I realize how stupid this idea was. God plays no role in our lives from the time we were apes to now. Evolution and nature took us from there to here.

God never talks to us, she never impacts us. She is there, I assume. But she plays no role in our lives, never answers our prayers, she never talks to us.

If you tell me otherwise, that God talks with you, I certainly will never believe it.

End of this rant.

Steven

Little rain today...

Hello:

This shows the reason why the bay is red as you saw from yesterday's post. From the blood of these dolphins, who cry like babies as they are slaughtered in the bay. I amazes me that humans still do this. I thought this ended after the uproar of clubbing white baby seals in the past years.

It failed to rain much today. No rain for tomorrow, the first day of Autumn.

I am nearing the end of The Invisible Bridge. I still cannot predict the ending. It is such a great novel.

I am into Act III of Henry the 4th, Part I. I am still ahead of the online class.

We have a huge used book sale at the end of this month. I will be looking for a good dictionary and another anthology of Shakespeare. The preview sale is Thursday September 30. I will there that night to look for the two books I seek.

I do hope your week goes well.

Steve

Rained hard last night

Hi again:

This picture is of a bay in Denmark. My next post will show how the bay got red.

It rained very hard around 9:00 pm last night. Rained that hard for about two hours. I still had to water my hanging plants that are under eves.

I took a picture of my upside down tomato with a red tomato on top of it. I will post that picture in a few days showing my tomato.

I think I took over 5 dozen tomatoes off my two in-ground plants. I picked nine of them this morning. Which means I now have 11 tomatoes in the house.

I believe I have enough salsa made now, with five pints here (six if I count the one I gave to Nolan).

Reading The Invisible Bridge where the main characters are getting into worse condition bit by bit. I fear what will happen to them by book's end. I don't think things will work for the two main characters.

Steven

Saturday evening now..

Hi again:

This picture shows St. Louis from the top of the Arch.

It has been raining here all day, without a break. We have four days of summer left and all we see here is rain.

I am more than half way through The Invisible Bridge. It is an excellent novel.

I am watching Fail Safe on TV right now. In high school I read this book every summer as well as Seven Days in May. I also read The Once and Future King every summer.

Working graveyard shift in the cannery, it gave me plenty of time to read every day.

One summer, at the end of summer, I counted the number of pages I read that summer. With not much of a social life working graveyard shift. more than 10,000 pages in many different books.

Now I am reading one to two books a week, mostly from the library again. I was reading on my Kindle 3 quite a bit but too many good books came in to my local library.

I sure hope it drys out over the next few days.

I see the Ducks won big again today. I wrote on a web page I hope the Beavs lose every weekend from here on out. I hate the Beavs. I will never support any team from that stupid school.

Steven

Raining all day here...

Hello:

This picture shows the Atlantic Ocean in Maine. Except for big storms it is a calm ocean, compared to the much bigger waves in the Pacific Ocean.

A few years ago I was in Palm Beach. Walking on the beach that morning, I took off my shoes, rolled up my pants and walked in the Atlantic Ocean. I flew home later that morning. After getting back to Oregon I went to our coast house in Walport and walked in the Pacific Ocean in the late afternoon on the same day I walked in the Atlantic Ocean.

I made my 3rd batch of salsa this morning. I saw I had over 8 tomatoes in a bowl. So, instead of letting them ripen and rot, I made my third batch of salsa. I now have six pints of canned salsa. I gave one jar to Nolan, as it had too much lemon pepper in it. I canned the salsa as well as my prune jam.

It is so nice to hear the "pop" of jars sealing. I have heard five pops this morning, meaning all of my pints sealed correctly.

I started canning last summer, canning prunes, applesauce, and peaches. This year I canned prunes, salsa and jam. Come to think of it, every one of my jars sealed correctly.

I got my canning jars from a lady who sold her farm. All of these jars were old and made of heavy glass. First, I bought two dozen wide-mouth jars, but after I got home I see she put every one of her wide-mouth jars into my box, ending up with 32 instead of 24. I went back a few days later to get some small-mouth jars. I bought four dozen of those. She advertised these jars at $10.00 per dozen, but I ended up getting these jars for $20.00.

I hope it gets warmer during these last days of summer. I want to get more tomatoes off my three plants.

Steven

Now with a small picture

Hi again:

Now with a small picture.

My upside down tomato now has a tomato getting red. As soon as it gets red I will post a picture of it here.

I have been waiting for these Early Girl tomatoes to get red.

I will picture it about 3 days when the tomato is red.

We shall see how this works with the picture small.

Steven

It worked...

Hi again:

This time the picture is medium.

We will see what happens.

This picture is my raspberry with no raspberry at all.

I do not know what happen to my raspberry this year.

I planted one last year and berries where there.

No raspberries are all this year.

Steven

It works with no picture

Hello once again:

This time the picture is large.

I want to see what happens when I post it again.

I want to see paragraphs with double lines.

We shall see how this works now.

Steven

Np picture

Hi:

My four postings did not good.

So I am testing this one again to see if posts correctly, with double lines between the paragraphs.

I am getting upset for my posting.

I am setting the pictures in small and in medium.

It was working better in small and medium than in large.

I hope this works.

Steve

A full day of cooking

Hi again:

Today was a full day of cooking. Baked apples are good. I made two batches of salsa, the second batch not as spicy as the first one. Now I have 4 pints of salsa. I also made two more pints of prune jams.

The second of salsa was better. No spicy. I also pulse it in so now it have big things. It is so good this way.

The picture speaks itself.

I am about 1/3 of The Invisible Bridge. At this point in the book the war has not started yet, but is on the horizon. I like this book because I cannot predict what will happen to the main characters.

Have a good days of Saturday and Sunday.

Steven

A cooking morning

Hello:

Today has been a cooking morning. First, I made some baked apples in my new crock pot. Raisins, sugar and a little butter. Now I must wait 4 to 6 hours as they cook in the slow cooker.

Second, I made some non-spicy salsa. It does have a bite to it, probably from too much lemon pepper. The recipe called for a dash but I dumped more than a dash.

Making the salsa was my first use of my food processor. I needed to pulse the ingredients instead of letting it puree. But is good nevertheless.

It is raining again today, during the last days of summer here. Fall arrives next week. We are past the dog days of summer, but I don't think we had dog days here. It never got that hot here during August.

I read for two hours last night, turning off my computer and TV to read The Invisible Bridge. I wonder how many will survive World War II in Europe? The main character and few others are Jewish, so I do wonder what will happen to each of them. I will try to finish this book this weekend.

Have a great last weekend of summer.

Steve

Rain coming?????

Hi again:

This picture, which I got from Len Edgerly's blog of pictures, shows sunrise in Maine.

According to the weather report we are in for some rain for the next week or so. Today, instead of tomorrow, I did my laundry in order to hang the clothes outside one last time. They are out now for the past two hours.

I broke our coffee glass pot this morning, so I went to BiMart to get a new pot, but the coffee pot was listed for $15.99, but when I went to check out it was listed at $9.99. Not too bad for a new coffee pot. This was the complete coffee pot not just the glass pot.

A friend has 52,000 miles saved on Delta Miles, but most expired in March of this year. Have you known anyone who was successful getting miles back on card?

I went to Starbucks yesterday to get some Anniversary Blend beans. I made some this morning. It is an excellent coffee.

With the rain coming, I will spend this weekend weekend reading my book and reading on my Kindle 3.

What do you think of our summer that is ending next week? I don't think we got over 100 degrees on any day this summer. Sure it was hot for a few days. But not that hot.

Now I found out I cut two of other fingers yesterday. I told you about deep cut on my left index finger, but now I find out I have a cut on my left thumb and on my right ring finger.

I have a big bowl of prunes yet to process. I could dry them but I have a big bowl of dried in the garage frig. I will try out my prune jam I made yesterday. If that is good then I will make some more.

Steven

Prunes, prunes and more prunes

Hello again:

I got 20 pounds of prunes today, to go with the 10 pounds I got earlier. Today I made up 8 quarts of canned prunes. Plus I made up 2 pints of prune jam. It set up quite good, so tomorrow I will make some more prune jam with the big bowl of prunes I still have in my refrigerator.

That took most of the day today so I did not get much else done today. No reading nor any other work. A good time of year with prunes and peaches coming on strong.

I am about 100 pages into The Invisible Bridge, a novel of Europe as World War II approaches. I cannot predict what will happen to the main three characters, as it depends on what the main one does. He is thinking of becoming Catholic, giving up his Jewish religion. We shall see if he goes through this...I rather doubt it.

I picked a dozen tomatoes off my two in-ground plants today. It is giving quite a few tomatoes now. I found a non-spicy recipe for salsa so tomorrow I will make some of that. I bet I took off three dozen tomatoes so far. The brand I have in the ground is Willamette. I will plant any tomatoes with an Oregon name. Oregon Spring; Siletz, Willamette. Next summer I will plant Oregon Spring in the ground and Siletz in my upside down one.

Some of the tomatoes I picked today were not quite ripe so I added a banana to the group in a big pan as a banana gives off gases that ripens tomatoes. Early last week, I put two bananas next to perfectly green tomatoes and within a week they were turning color. Now I have 3 green tomatoes next to a group of bananas. I want to see how long it takes these very green tomatoes to turn color.

The picture here is one of the St. Louis Arch at night. My next few pictures will show the Atlantic Ocean, a much more mild ocean than what we see on our coast here.

I trust your week is going well.

I cut my index finger on my left hand very deep today when I was cutting the lemon rind into my prune jam. It bled and bled. But now I have stopped the flow of blood and have a big band aid on it.

Steve

Monday eve...

Hello:

This picture shows two of the three buildings at Regis High School, from where I graduated from there. To the left in the picture is the classroom building. To the right is the chapel/library. I loved the campus aspect of this high school when I was there. What is missing from this picture is the gym.

I am now reading The Invisible Bridge, a novel of Europe just before World War II. It starts in Budapest in 1937 and goes from there.

I am drying some of my tomatoes again. I am getting so many every day. Tomorrow's tomatoes will be made into a non-spicy salsa. My mother used to make this but I don't have her recipe. So to the internet I will go.

I do believe my in ground tomatoes are determinant, giving tomatoes all at once. Next summer I will find some indeterminate tomatoes, those plants that give tomatoes over time.

My upside down tomato now has over 17 tomatoes on it. A few are changing dark green to a light green, meaning red is not far away. I will take a picture of it with some red tomatoes on it and post one here when that happens.

There are three new Harry Potter novels out, actually focusing on his father James. All are free so I downloaded them to my Kindle 3. The three books are in PDF format, which my Kindle 3 reads it as native. I did try to covert them to a better format using Calibre but the format that came out had gaps between lines like paragraphs. I deleted all three from my Kindle and put the PDF ones on it.

J. R. Rowling is not the author of these three books but apparently has given her permission for these new stories.

A warm week as summer ends in two weeks.

Steve

Nice summer weather

Hi:

OK, is this a hoax or real? It is called a zonkey. A baby of a zebra and donkey. Somehow I think it is hoax.

Summer weather for the last few weeks of summer here. So very nice.

Packing for Mars is such a funny book and informative one too. Long-term gravity effects, the food, the waste from humans, personal relations of the most kind. All so funny as interesting.

My next book is The Storm on Katrina. I saw him on HBO on the most recent documentary on the storm.

I have five books waiting for me at the library. I will pick them all up tomorrow.

I used Calibre to translate some PDF files to read on the Kindle today. My Kindle 3 reads PDF in native form. But the type is so small. I can increase it from 100% to 150% and above. But that means I must turn it sideways and it still does not read correctly. Using a free computer program to translate it to be read on the Kindle. It looks so much better this way.

Have a good week.

Steve

Dried prunes look great

Hello:

I should have been more detailed. These white moose show up in the UP of Michigan. UP stands for Upper Peninsula.

My dried prunes look great. It took over 18 hours at 135 degrees on my dryer to get these big Brooks prunes dried. Ten pounds of prunes fill a big bowl once dried.

I am now drying some tomatoes. I never did this before. I know tomatoes are 80% water so I wonder what these will be like when dried.

I am not doing much reading as summer ends. Too much to do other than reading.

I went to 2 garage sales this morning.

One I walked to as it in our neighborhood. I got a glass frying pan. The homeowner said she never used it and it looks that way. We shall see how it works.

The second garage sale was a long bike ride away. I got a shopping bag, an exacto knife and some Pectin. The prices at this garage sale were somewhat high, so I will ride there tomorrow to see if prices came down much.

My nomination for the second stupidest man in the world (no one can ever beat Glenn Beck): it is the Florida minister of 50 people who wants to burn the Koran. He says now he will never burn it but I don't believe him. He is the stupidest man this week, second only to Beck.

I do hope your weekend is going well.

Steve

Weekend is here...

Hi again:

I got up at 5:00 this morning. I was wide awake again. I may have to watch my coffee. No coffee after noon.

The picture shows two of them. One in brown and one is white. The picture comes from the UP.

I spent most of the morning listening to ATC from yesterday afternoon and Morning Edition from this morning. Both are two hour programs but I download them on my computer. That way I listen to just what I want.

I found some interesting recipes on Mr. Food. Here is what I found and copied:

Potato Chip Cookies
Double Chocolate Chewies
Chocolate Chip Cheesecake
Overnight Coffee Cake
Blueberry Pancakes

The other two books from library. One is The Storm and other is Kiss My Math.

My last math class was from my high school, my second year of high school. No more math classes in high school, no math class since that high school class. Now that I am 60 years old now, I may want to study math once again.

The Storm is about hurricane Katrina.

No rain expected today but only going to get to 62 degrees today (17 degrees Celsius).

Have a good weekend everyone.

Steven

Post Labor Day

Hi again:

I woke up this morning at 2:00 am and again at 5:00 am, finally getting up at 8:30 am. I am not feeling well. I have no appetite and I have a sinus headache. I don't know what bug I got. Too early for the flu yet.

I see Safeway is offering flu shots this year. I will get one again this year. Every year I get a flu shot I do not get the flu. Those years in the past I do not get a flu shot I end up getting the flu.

I sure hope what I have is not the flu.

The cartoon speaks for itself. The 14th Amendment gives babies born in the United States automatic citizenship. My father was born in the U.S. of parents who came here from Russia through Argentina. Would you send my father back to Russia? How about me, a second generation American?

I am slowly reading Packing for Mars. It is a funny book. I recommend it highly.

I hear Amazon is planning a software fix to periodic freezing of my Kindle 3. It has frozen four times so far.

A short work week here.

Steven

Sunday now...

Hi again:

The tomatoes are pulling down the limbs on my upside down tomato. None are nearly ripe. I may cut them to make pickled green tomatoes.

I am giving up coffee for a few days. I am waking up very early. I assume it is drinking my coffee in the afternoon and into the evening. So on to tea for a few days. I love Earl Grey tea. I wish I had some oolong tea from China with me here. It comes in a black round cake. You break it off and then wash it it fives to times before using the small piece to make your tea. It is the best tea I ever drank.

I am getting five to six tomatoes a day off my two Willamette plants. I may have to start canning some to save some in that way.

I am reading Packing for Mars very slowly. I wanted to read it faster but other things are interfering with my reading enjoyment.

Summer's final weekend, so we like to think.

Steven

The long weekend is here...

Hi again:

This bottom picture shows my Kindle 3. The screen is so much nicer than my Kindle 1.

The top picture shows my Kindle 1 and Kindle 3 sitting next to each other. The screens are the same size, but the Kindle 3 is so much thinner and brighter than my Kindle 1.

I went to 2 garage sales this morning, but found nothing of interest to me. Yesterday I bought two more spatulas. One can never have too many spatulas. I also bought Pictionary for $1.00.

I am now reading Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. I read everything Mary Roach writes. I think I will spend the rest of today reading that book.

I found 12 free books online last night for my Kindle 3. Six were science fiction and the other six were nonfiction, mainly history.

Hope you are enjoying this long weekend.

I see I have six tomatoes ready to pick again. I have 12 of them now. I don't know what to do with all of them.

Steve

My tomatoes are so good..

Hi again:

It has been some time since I posted here. I have been busy but now the three day weekend is here.

This picture shows an old Japanese Lace Leaf Maple tree.

My tomatoes are so very good. I am getting four to five a day off of my two in ground plants. My upside down one has at least 15 tomatoes are on it now. None are changing color yet but yesterday I heard a recipe for pickled green tomatoes so I may try doing that if the freeze comes too early with a lot of green tomatoes left on my plants.

I have been making Kindle covers out of some old books I picked up the sale at our local used bookstore. All hardcover and bigger softcover books are now $1.00 through Saturday.

I went to a big garage sale this morning where I picked up a smaller 3-ring notebook I will try to make into a Kindle cover for my Kindle 3.

My Kindle 3 fits into my Oberon Cover I used with my Kindle 1. But I want to see what it looks like an actual book.

What are your plans this long weekend? I don't know what I am doing yet.

Steve