LOVE THY TRICEPS

Yesterday, feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the constant noise with impunity from Universdiad Sagrado Corazon, I took a 3 mile round trip to the police precint in Barrio Obrero, to present a formal complaint.

Couple of officers in charge, taking care of some customer. I waited and waited.  When my chance came up, requesting to see Carlos Diaz, in charge of Community Relations, even though it was ten thirty am, he was not at his office.  But hold your horses, it gets better...There is no telephone in his office, believe it or not, this is Puerto Rico, after all. If he has no phone, he has no computer either..

To resolve the conumdrum.  Miss Santiago called the office next door to find out.  That was that regarding my mission, but I, not too friendly in general, can display unusual charming small talk skills, at least with ladies ugly or not.

Since a policeman without his life vest was recently executed, and I always looking for the news, had some questions...This is the beef. Her vest, just like the one from the mentioned victim, was expired.  To keep the vest on is more or less optional, the individual decides.


When I investigated further there is nothing in police regulations demanding the use of the vest at all times.


But the case in question is interesting. Depending on the angle, the bullet trajectory, the deceased would have passed away anyhow since the vest does not cover all upper body parts.

Moving along the post...in the middle of the real events, (and sort of a punch line in the middle of the post), I visited a relative.  I had some unfair differences, apologized, got down his phone number and left.

What seems unreal, much more a day after, is me cousin reaction when told that I was walking.  He, five years younger, has the attractive figure of Larry the Cable Guy, in brief a blimp anatomy.. He wonders if I knew how to use public transportation.

Moving along towards the end...this the only possible explanation as to why LIVfitness Club, Condado, Puerto Rico keep the shitty music at a 150/200 decibels.


They most have a secret merging with hearing aid manufacturing companies, stocks wise a perfect deal!


Hearing loss is a progressive disease.  LIVfitness make their mostly young  and older customers without ear plugs protection to become deaf  slowly but surely, while they train to be fit, healthy and handsome.  Including their staff, those with office duties and trainers alike.


By the way, I have never seen people worst dressed in my life with those cheap ill fitted jackets, including one Morticia Adams with thick black glasses. The black jacket is about four inches too short in the back...No i do not wear Dolce/Gabana suits at all, it is the critic in me...


What the hell?  And the tittle?   Well my fellow americans from the continent and the other five...If you want to look handsome, even if you are somewhat round in the waist, get this...

Two thirds of your biceps, are essentially triceps.  No Harvard degree necessary. If you want to have, to show off
nice arms, do more repetitions and sets for triceps than the opposite.


Which reminds me...All the trainers, the dwarf, the naomi campbell look alike, the one swaggering while he walks Bronx or Spanish Harlem like and ALL, the rest, are into cables, a red ball, mostly tension exercises.  

When I watch their victims instead of my natural tendency to mock,  I feel some pity, noticing their grimaces at the difficulty.  I do not see the point. No muscle tone, no stamina, no weight loss  can be achieved with those silly exercise routines, devoid of aerobics, from my view. 


The bonus?  Going deaf, unaware of it and paying monthly.

THAT FIRST GARDEN....THE BIBLICAL ONE

I have an intense dislike for religions, particularly those tree originating in the same geographical spot, not to get into my opinion on bible freaks and people with fear of god.

However, there is something many people practicing gardening or the uninitiated do not give much thought. The worn out Eden.

Here some thoughts about it.  

Knotgrass

Weeds as parable

WEEDS

RICHARD MABEY

pages 39-40-41

There are two extreme views  of the authors of Genesis - that they were amanuenses for God or politically motivated propagandists. What is inescapable is that, whatever their inspiration, they were preoccupied by plants and their metaphors.   They see the world through vegetable allegory and myth.  They place 'Grass and herb yielding seed after his kind' in their proper evolutionary position in the Creation story before the fish and birds and mammals.  They stage the great drama of the Fall in a garden.  The plot is elaborated largely through botanical symbols - fruit and herbs, contrasting styles of cultivation, a magical and forbidden tree.  And the denouement is exile from the carefree life of foraging to the toil of farming and the eternal course of 'thorns and thistles'. Genesis helped form a moral context for weeds, to stigmatise them as more than a physical nuisance. The text itself may even have been partially prompted by the proliferation of weeds in the Middle-Eastern 'cradle of civilization'.

The first written versions of the Genesis Creation myth (the stories in it are much older) date from about 600 to 500 BCE, and appeared in the region known  as Canaan, (modern Mesopotamia), part of the 'Fertile
Crescent' where agriculture was first developed.  There are two versions of the 
myth.  In the first, God creates humans immediately after the animals, and establishes them in their role as agriculturalists, rulers of the rest of the Creation.  'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness' says God rather, telling slipping into the royal 'we'; 'and let them have dominion over the fish of the seas, and over the fowl of the air,  and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every thing that  creepeth upon the earth'.  Despite this abundance of subservient and lightly edible creatures, God seems to insist on a strictly vegetarian lifestyle: "I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat'.

The second version(Genesis 2 and 3) which introduces the Garden of  Eden, is more complex.  It takes off at the point when the creation of heaven and earth are complete, and has God creating man in advance of other creatures.  He forms him from 'the dust of the ground' and places him in  'a garden eastward in Eden'.  It contains 'every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life... and the tree of knowledge of good and evil'.  Adam's responsibilities are to 'dress it and keep it', to eat what he likes but to stay away from the tree of knowledge.  Only then are the animals created and brought before Adam to be named -  though his mate, fashioned from one of his ribs, is at this stage called simply 'Woman'.

Then they eat the fruit of a tree of knowledge, and hell breaks loose.  God's punishment is severe and unambigous. Life will become a vale of tears, ending in death.
Women will bear children in pain and sorrow, and become their husband's serfs.
And the unbidden harvests of the Garden will now have to be won by hard toil, agricultural toil: 'cursed is the ground for thy sake' God rages, in  sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to there; and thou shall eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground'.  Then he expels Adam (no mention of Eve) 'from the  Garden of Eden, no till the ground from whence he was taken'. It was a stark change from those gardener's duties of 'dressing and keeping'.

    If  you ask my opinion on the crime and punishment, being first offenders it was exaggerated, cruel and in terms of jurisprudence with plenty of flaws, like no due process,  to appeal in Boston or the Supreme Court.

to be continued
that is that

PUERTO RICO'S HO-HUM LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS HEADQUARTERS

 
WORDS  are unnecessary.  Some readers may find some of this, just another case of beating the dead horse you know where, or throwing pearls to the hogs.

However, I have the feeling that some people appreciate in 100/35, but mostly out there in the five continents, the opportunity to share these critical views, to be all one can be, what I am committed to do. 

Those who went to college getting a degree in this or that should demonstrate skills, creativity, originality beyond the vulgar, ugly, predictable,  common places they have imposed upon  the masses and perform accordingly. These last two posts  leave no doubts.

I reiterate, every  garden installation in Puerto Rico stinks. 

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS MECCA.

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CLASSICAL PENDEJISMO PAISAJISTA INSTALLATIONS

 FIRST IN A SERIES

 During the last five years, I have taken the time to observe every imaginable landscape installation in the north east and south of  Puerto Rico with a critical focus.

These installations in residential, commercial, huge, big and small spaces have essentially the same monumental ills.  It does not matter if a cemetery, hotel, motel, hospital, funeral home, office building, school or mall is always the same crap.

Narrow plant selection, total absence of composition, lack of meaningful contrast in  height, shape, texture, color and else.  One terrible characteristic of this pendejismo paisajista school,  is the dwarfing of many structures by disproportion of trees and palms chosen in many situations, once they reach their adult size.

Everything is crowded, creating a negative visual impact since one wonders what the hell is the intention. The crowded mass creates tension, eliminating the possibility to feel relaxed, unable to enjoy and wonder around the garden with curiosity. 


The consequences are expensive, frequent noisy and polluting maintenance requirements, since the architect/gardener for hire, nor client take a little time 
to ponder about the long run about the whole or its parts.

On this post, the victim in question is Fundacion Comunitaria de Puerto Rico on Ponce de Leon Ave.
I do not understand who/why planted the unnecessary palms 12'' from the walls in front of the structure, the fronds now hanging on the roof and electric power lines. Why place those planters almost 5' in diameter in both sides of the entrance.
Disproportion is part of the scheme in many instances, the more the merrier.

No one else seems to notice.  But stupidity requires some defense as  one by the obscure classroom architect, Daniel Velez Climent who disagrees. However, there is no web evidence that he has built/designed a sidewalk or gutter for that matter lately, as you could check on land8lounge, a site I used to visit. To honor him, and the classical pendejismo paisajista installation,  architects headquarters, I will post on the next time. 

Let the record show that not all landscape architects are guilty of lacking  knowledge of botany and composition here, gardeners for hire, landscape mercenary corporations are in the same bag. But them architects, should have set an example in the opposite direction. Their landscape installation shows I  am in the right side of the tracks.

The photos will be the evidence.  After all, words are just water and salt, if you have no credentials,  trajectory, evidence to sustain any argument.

The links below deal with the subject.

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http://endemismotrasnochado.blogspot.com/2008/02/evite-el-pendejismo-paisajista.html
http://endemismotrasnochado.blogspot.com/2008/02/definicion-del-pendejismo-paisajista.html   
 
 I think it look better before....the improvements!