Saturday, March 31, 2012

GLOBAL CONSPIRACY AGAINST NATURE POST

I have been pondering,(within my urban/concrete/asphalt context always), about people whose origins were rural, hick like. Apparently, when moving to cities, they pretend to erase memories, any vestige of mud and dirt from their life/sight/past, as if there is/was shame attached, particularly if there was any vegetation in the surrounding scenery.

If you reader,  have  always lived in paved environments, cities, you would not understand, except in some academic, intellectual,  level what I am writing/talking about.

Think for a moment of those people who are/were forced to work, picking cotton, cutting sugar cane, coffee, or tea leaves--'Wretched of the Earth', as in that Franz Fanon book on colonialism--. Is there any other miserable way to earn a living than these mentioned, (except mining/fishing)? * Why would these men/women/children feel any empathy towards Nature, if the natural-human sychological* connection with it, is misery and exploitation in countries moving blindly toward progress?

This may explain the lack of negros into gardening and/or blogs in one hand, on the other the absolute disconnection of this people around me with Nature as a whole. 


What inspired yours truly to write these lines?  A documentary about some new mud highway in the jungles of Brazil with known results. . Once you build a highway/road destroying all flora and fauna on the way, a long open scar in the mud is left. 


Trucks, buses, all terrain vehicles with people follow. Logging, mining, soya plantations, cows and pastures. Asphalt/concrete. That is that. That is what is happening over there, the rest of the world not yet covered in both, with too many people working for peanuts, not working at all and propagating as by spores.


Back in the studio, when if I look up, I am trapped in concrete in every cardinal point, plus the collateral,  attached people, children, vehicles and city noise.  My  gardening, me garden, this blog and the others, are also a protest, not just a pleasant activity when there is nothing else to do. Or a hobby, a term I detest like no other. Hobby is one hell of  a stupid term when related to horticulture. Hobby is gluing airplanes and automobiles for example, an useless activity for all except the self, to place on a shelf to collect dust.

Before I continue digressing, I have declared my unwillingness to habitual pruning and its endless results. One of me Bouganvilleas in  the north garden decided not to follow rules, growing a branch  30 feet tall and crooked towards the West Virginia-Appalachian side of our residence.

It was certainly odd looking and/or ugly.  I worried that one day it would appear mutilated, cut in half.  I decided to bend like it Beckham. Now it offers a 15' Roman like arch view on top of the property line fence a seen in the photos.  


I used a quarter of an inch hemp cord,(knowing climbers would do what they are meant to) to tie the tip of the branch tip on the metal fence.  Another string from left to right, to balance the arch towards our property. It looks odd and eventually would remind imaginations without limits, the open mouth of a sperm whale feeding.


It is time to go. 


I feel this post is somejuat more weird than the average,  in terms of top and bottom. That is the way to go. To attach what seems disconnected, with some creativity. Imaginary or real.  Do not prune right away, there is always another possibility.




*Factories, in the third world,
 those in Europe, USA soon after and during
* ban the p in those words,
its useless.
 the Industrial Revolution?



Thursday, March 29, 2012

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE REPORT

 IF you visit this space once in a while, you may remember my battle with LIVfitness Club, the scumbags, unfashionable hicks in Condado, unable to understand the difference between a cheap gay disco and expensive gym, the stupidity of 200 decibels along hearing loss for customers and staff.

After they black balled me,  I went to the retro, old fashioned cheaper, with lots of old gizzards YMCA Gym becoming a member sometime later.  The 99 pound trainer took me blood pressure making a gesture of discomfort or surprise when she saw the numbers.

I, stubborn as usual did not pay much attention to her reluctance to allow me to work out.  I left, returning two days later training as usual, until yesterday.

The doubt was in me mind. What if the trainer was right? The doctor made a similar gesture after measuring, asking the usual questions.  Well what do you know...I have to get some laboratories done,  x ray, echocardiogram and already in medication. 

In brief, a few things worked out in my favor.  The black balling from the bastards and bastardetes with LIVfitness, my post in the link below used to justify my unwelcoming, saving $1,600.00, their stupidity and Dixie backwardness has saved me health.

I write health not life, since it is not a matter of life and death at this time.  Having lost 27 pounds and slowly eliminating the little smoking and alcohol intake will allow me to rebound quickly. 

Another issue, pertinent to all, is the fortune of having medical insurance.  In USA there is a debate that Democrats will certainly lose, against medical insurance for all.  Capitalism does not want it.
It seems that universal health coverage is not profitable, by their standards.

If I did not have insurance, even when my situation is not life/death, it would become one with time, unable to pay for doctors, treatment and medication.  

that is that 

This is the post used
by the bastards, below



http://antigonumcajaneveningpost.blogspot.com/2012/01/love-thy-triceps.html

Monday, March 26, 2012

PLUMERIAS COLLECTION POST

I   imagine every gardener has favorites in his/her collection, in mine there are about 20.  If I had to get rid of the rest those would remain.  . Plumerias, in the top five. 

It is hard to determine specifics. After all, they spend quite a lot of time bare. If you think the scaffolding of every tree has its own beauty, that is one reason.  The bark,  a smooth grey/green.

Plumerias are peculiar.  Unlike elms and oaks the crown is not regular. It seems  that every individual is different from the next.   Sometimes they bloom with the leaves on, or not. It is noticeable when you walk from one side of the town to the other.


The fragrance of the whites is the most intense, yellow is peach like,  pink is subtle. In different sites,  some  Plumerias are in full bloom, with just leaves or bare.  Whites dominate the scenery.  

In the San Juan metro zone,  their availability and popularity has increased  in the last five years.  Yet, I am certain too many people  are not fond of trees looking like it is winter in Vermont, during our cool/wet season.


Resistant to diseases, drought, heat, saline breeze and sandy soils,  the foliage is almost always in  company of rust or  those handsome black/green, glutton caterpillars dropping by twice a year, munching non stop until falling dormant to become huge moths.


My white was collected in Ashford avenue in Condado. There were lots of branches thrown on the sidewalk.  A couple of weeks later, the yellow was kidnapped from El Hamburguer, a fast greasy food joint no longer with us, some blocks down.

The pink was a birthday present in a big pot. This variety is unique.  It is the  only one I have ever seen with seed pods. Two off  springs have survived. One is in a pot, one is not.

The yellow/pink flowered Plumeria has a Catholic background. I confiscated  a couple of stems from the overgrown branches on top of the concrete fence surrounding the San Juan Archbishop's office, a few steps from the Baldorioty de Castro avenue. 

Let the record show there is one variety I consider ugly. Plumeria pudica. Their whites flowers are the most handsome, but this tree grows straight, not of my liking. For that reason there is none in the collection.

If I had much more room I would have planted them differently. There are two in pots in the north, one in  the east, the rest live happily grounded in  the south garden. 

There is an endemic one from Puerto Rico.  I tried to propagate a cut stem from Guanica City, my kind of town, thirty inches of rain a year, without luck.  The difference between this kind and the others is in the narrow leaves and thinner trunk/branches.


That is that. If you live in dry, hot, with very little rain climate, I would recommend it. 


That is that

Friday, March 23, 2012

PART II

NOWADAYS  there is too much information available for the average Joe Sixpack. In my case I rather twist and shout, than tuit. Any jerk can write a sentence  out of the blue context and become a celebrity tuit like.

Following the previous chapter, I will start with the Church, the one I  really like.  ANY one would like them just for their Gregorian chants, liturgy and such.  In my childhood, up to adolescence I  used to visit the picturesque Savarona and the Caguas Country cathedral.  Therefore my connection with them and their prejudices of yesterday and obscurantism of todays.

I have a particular dislike of non Catholics with the same intensity I hate those who destroy Nature, particularly Adventists, thanks to me sister and husband who ripped me off.
I get along with them Hebrews, do not ask me ask me why. Perhaps it is result of having had a few affairs with the females of the clan and  proximity to their ways and culture. Pedro Werberg Carlton an Argentinian Hebrew, was also responsible for my sympathy.

How can anyjuan forget the role of the Catholic, looking the other way, with dictatorships in Guatemala, Honduras, Spain, Italy, Chile and Argentina in  the last hundred years, to name a few.

In the nineteen sixties, Cardinal Spellman incredible ritual, blessing them huge bombs to be dropped in Vietnam.
 ,
The pedophiles within  in Spain, USA, Italy, Ireland and the rest of the world and their protection by the hierarchy.  

I could forgive all the above. Including the collaboration with the kidnapping of negros, considered more productive than native Americans in those years when cotton, sugar cane, ruled the agrobusiness of those days.

Lets remind the younger ones that every church was involved in that cruel  barbarian trade, promoted by them Muslims, hunters and providers.

Church and State, united in profits.  I can not dismiss  any church opposing abortion and birth control. It is a crime no one could justify or forgive.  ANY person against these rights forgetting the excess population in most poor countries, should be flogged or shot. 

People whining about the global economic crisis, unemployment and warming, should open their eyes a little.  It is impossible for any job market, government or corporation to absorb billions of people.  Not to get into the working for peanuts or 12 hours a day, six days a week.

All churches are guilty of screwing up the globe with this dogmatic, narrow, primitive stance on birth control and abortion, just for a little parcel in after life heaven. Every state becoming a church accomplice,  on this regard, is also guilty.

Schools are part of the scheme. Where do people are formed to be law abiding, to respect, follow the herd, be obedient to family, church and state?  If the world is what it is, getting worse day by day, it is a result of all the crap we were taught in school, church, and family within our society. 

There is a need of a new register and reading of the issues. Why should single people, individuals pay more taxes thanthose  married with children?  They are the ones using their brains. No children equals no schools, nurseries, hospitals and else.

Regarding the hordes of illegals searching 'a better future' in every region of the globe, victims of abuse and exploitation, I say they they are ignored in their own third world frontier neighbors. Just heard about Peruvians in Chile for the first time. It is the exactly the same story as Mexicans in USA, Guatemalans in Mexico, Haitians in Dominican Republic and the latter in Puerto Rico.   Unwanted, despised, isolated cheap labor/slaves.


I expected some action from ALL those churches, when the mortgage
feces hit the fan, and many of their followers, fools or not, lost their houses unable to pay the monthly fee. The church could have provided non interest loans to their flocks, using their wealth as collateral. Unfortunately that did not happen.

Some readers may wonder, or not about all these issues. What is the big deal, if nothing presented here affects you directly.  But that is the great thing about unsolicited opinions. It bothers and irritates me.


Take Puerto Rico for example. A 100 X 35 concrete/asphalt isle, with almost 4 million people, 2 million vehicles polluting and jamming every street, highway and sidewalk.  There are between 50/100 universities offering every kind of degree imaginable. About one third are cheaper institutions, good or not, state colleges. But there are no jobs.


The predominant fools complaint about the college graduates emigrating to better prairies. It makes me happy to see them going.  It leaves more room to maneuver. They perceive education as an investment that should provide benefits to the investors in the isle. Puerto Rico is looking more and more like a cemetery that has been abandoned, weeds everywhere.


The economy, banks, industry, judiciary, news media, morals,  have collapsed. There are tens of economists spitting theoretical solutions.
Con la boca ser mamey, el esfinter, florete.

Finally, I feel some pity for young people.  The future, looks not only noisy, crowded and doomed.  It feels like quicksand, no matter what you do, the energy/effort you put to get out, is useless.  There are more people than ever on earth, very few with the riches, too many struggling.


The practice of horticulture, the discipline requires that one looks at things differently.  Considering I plant no edibles, the lack of rain is not a matter of life or death.  But I have been thinking the kind of stress farmers go through, depending on it, not to make money necessarily but just to live, precariously or not.

There are too many monitor environmentalists infatuated with technology. Aeolics, photovoltaics, electric automobiles and such. Automobiles, hybrids, electrics, occupy space. Traffic jams will not be different, because you are not burning gas. Therefore, is total stupidity to continue looking at life through automobile transportation for individuals. It does not matter if your battery last for 50/100/1000 miles, the jam will be there. 


that is that

Wow and guau
looks like an editorial

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

VICIOUS AND RECOVERING CIRCLES POST

OR
Random Unsolicited Opinions
or my beef against 
church, state, family and school 

I doubt if there is a better therapeutic way to vent and rant about those issues, trivial or transcendental, making our life miserable or somewhat annoying here and there than a blog. The reader comes and goes at will, returns or not. Express his/her opinion openly or remains silent.  


Some writers--I know one in a rain forest, good friend of a girl in  Florida that is friendly  with everyjuan and often present them with prizes; plants, seeds and such if you answer the trivia of the moment accordingly--do what you just read, others like yours truly rarely think about what will 
he/she will  have to say/think about this or that.

However, i would lie if not expecting some stats every morning, if the number is below the standard
I wonder. But in  the long run some readers flow for themes that I do not particularly care or do not for those I do. Writing is a trip in that sense. Now lets gets back in the studio.

This is the first post with 3 tittles.  Such is life.
The second and third are the best. The most relevant virtue of any blog is expressing opinions at will is an unsolicited act, one of my favorite expressions in the English language, not so common in my  vernacular.

Patriotism is a good start.  What was the reaction in USA, when the best boxer refused to go to Vietnam, and kill people who "had never called him nigger"? His own words.

During most of my life, all I see when I look around
is a world at war for any imaginable reason, logical, fair or not.  Apparently, the essence is often a desire to keep exploiting the working class. Any excuse is available. In the case of the former Cassius Clay, it was communism.

For the last four decades, one of these wars, is against the cultivation of  Cannabis sativa, Papaver Somniferum, and South America's best export, the family of Erythroxylaceae.


Remember Valium? In USA it became a plague, legal, mind you available with a prescription. Anphetamines were also the stimulant of choice for many housewives, overwhelmed with the Sunday soccer trips. Apparently the truth against the competition, is that capitalism does not tolerate or accept alternatives not under its absolute control.


Worst, the competition is from the third world. That can not be understood/tolerated. Even when the consumers demand and will do anything to obtain it from anyjuan at any price.


All the above involves state, church, family and school. All are accomplices in the dominant stupidity in most countries of the world.  Who would have imagined, ten years ago, working people, poor and middle class, tax payers everywhere,  will have to bail out  bankers, speculators and Wall St....


to be continued....

Monday, March 19, 2012

THE GREEN IS GONE

IN 1969, my first letter to a newspaper was published.  I criticized the Ficus benjamina trees mutilation the Caguas Country plaza, with  custom/use ice cream cone standard pruning style. Them trees are gone, slowly killed with the procedure for decades.

Fast forward to 2002.  I returned from my economic exile in the USA with a certificate in Commercial Horticulture Landscape Management, with the naive idea of having a landscape maintenance business.  Then, not knowing any better, I  followed trends that shortly afterwards, after some thought and practice, found absolutely useless. I sinned, paid my dues. 

The intention of working for myself was not going anywhere. My  poor people skills, non traditional landscaping views and direct use of language did not help. I decided to try other venues that somehow opened my eyes in terms of practice/theory regarding  wide concepts of agriculture,  horticulture, landscape installations and maintenance principles learned/practiced in the New York Botanical versus dominant backwards/primitive views/custom/use, still around, with a total lack of aesthetics, composition in every garden installation all over Puerto Rico in residential, commercial, public or private contexts.

I landed in the Luis Munhoz Marin Foundation, a plantation like run cave of useless thieves and a parasite tumor, Parque Donha Ines. The PDI was ran by a Cuban phd and Mexican who had no bleeping idea of what forestry, propagation, landscape  installation/maintenance is, or necessary criteria/credentials, theory or practice, to be in  charge of such a project.  The phd ordered the tractor operator to destroy all the standing vegetation in 12 acres of land without any inventory of  flora and fauna or  soil analysis since the Mexican wife had no valid credentials to practice agronomy in  Puerto Rico.

Check under those names in  this blog to get the full view. After all, that sour experience among the biggest jerks, foreigners and natives alike, with elephantine egos in egg shells, only interested in advancing their bank accounts and stalling careers,  motivated your humble servant to become the  juan and only in the Caribbean dealing with every other pertinent issue  to flora/fauna/environmental spectrum, at least in my imagination.

This post resumes a decade, a life watching with a critical view the result of stupidity, arrogance, ignorance,  sweeping under the carpet.
The experience left me rather inflexible, only willing to debate if the other shows criteria. I am not in a competition feisbuk like to make friends or disciples.

During this voyage, I have discovered other people with opened minds,  fingers of one hand, with similar views,  here and there, with whom I have shared  horticulture, flora, fauna, and other issues discussed openly, offending more than one without any malice.  

EDITORS NOTE


These pictures, depending on your background will tell a lot, a little or nothing about the reality, the present, past and future of landscape, vegetation and Nature in Puerto  Rico. These 3 residences are not own by some illiterate peasant, except the one on top, with the qualities and virtues expected from that social background, lawyer and architect own the first two.

The total destruction was not noticed by anyjuan, is pretty much an itch, an urge to obliterate standing vegetation with some sadistic pleasure if you ask me. This senseless attitude towards nature, flora and fauna is not different from the one displayed towards animals of companion or pets if you prefer.

Keep one thing in perspective, vegetation reduces heat, noise, blare,  dust, increases humidity, lowering temperatures, particularly in a concrete asphalt context as ours.   It provides food, shelter, to insects, birds and reptiles.  Only imbeciles of the worst kind will do this over and over.  I have witnessed it since my adolescence..

That is that.


Search for further old news
regarding these two:
 Parque Donha Ines
Plantation Luis Munhoz Marin
  http://endemismotrasnochado.blogspot.com/2007/08/el-parque-mas-caro.html


 

Friday, March 16, 2012

FOOD FOR DEBATE OR THOUGHT IF YOU PREFER

Gardening is not some sort of game by which one proves his superiority over others, nor is it a marketplace for the display of elegant things that others cannot afford. It is, on the contrary, a growing work of creation, endless in its changing elements. It is not a monument or an achievement, but a sort of traveling, a kind of pilgrimage you might say, often a bit grubby and sweaty though true pilgrims do not mind that. A garden is not a picture, but a language, which is of course the major art of life." Henry Mitchell "The Essential Earthman" I work as the Floriculture Director for Southern Land Company, a development company with a commitment to distinctive horticulture. My job includes designing and planting semi-annually close to 300 community containers, over 400 annual beds, and hundreds of other containers and garden beds for residents requesting our horticulture services. I love my job and the opportunity to bring beauty to our local communities. Most of all, I love introducing new plant material to the average gardener, and to helping them find success in their own gardens.  bwisegardening.blogspot.com

I found the above during one of my pilgrimages through the web, to check what is going on in other pastures in terms of horticulture and gardening.

This declaration may be true in Barbara's eyes, however your humble servant disagrees in more than one aspects of the whole.  Not that it makes any difference over here, in Puerto Rico.  In  other necks of the woods it might.

Nature is the best example of competition and display, in any context. Water, soil, air.  Flora and fauna leave no doubt that either you swim or drown.  Just one example, think of birds, many display their dance, singing or colors to attract the females. Those with better skills will dominate.  Big fishes eat the smaller ones. Some plants fool insects to induce them to pollinate with sex. 

Competition is a constant in nature, why should it be different among people, gardens, gardeners? 

Elegant things others may not be able to afford should be garden accessories or plants bought in nurseries.  If you collect, propagate, swap plants/seeds, make your own compost/compost tea, create homemade insecticide with necessary skills, no money will be exchanged at all, ever. 

Gardeners, implicitly or not, with or without blogs, are motivated by a feeling of superiority. I am.  But superiority is not necessarily in terms of money, social status, academic degrees and else.  The superiority shows in the field, when the ability to create, develop, question, experiment, accept mistakes, is evident in the garden collection at home or alternative concrete/asphalt contexts I practice.

That superiority real or virtual, is nothing to be ashame. After all, I practice what I preach 24/7.  Down here, the concept of horticulture, garden, botanical garden is absent until the contrary is proved, with relevant evidence, photos or irrefutable arguments.


On top, when practices horticulture for hire, or just a habit, keeping the whole in perspective, flora, fauna, climate, temperature, heat, cold, dry or wet, light or shade, no maintenance/high maintenance, resistance to disease plant, demonstrate superiority in perception. This practice is superior to the other, the one for profit without theoretical frames, just for show, in the long run.  

Money, profits, make any exercise futile.  It  allows oceans of lawns everywhere, fads, new plants year after year, just like new models in the automobile industry. 

For these reasons, I think gardening, horticulture is a matter of keeping our surroundings constantly in mind. Aesthetics are secondary to help insects, birds, reptiles, do what they are meant to do.  Those gardens perfectly manicured are certainly sterile and useless except for bipeds, like you and me. 

Monday, March 12, 2012

LEO APPALACHIA AND SQUEAKY END OF ROMANCE

A COUPLE of weeks ago me wife and I noticed Squeaky, crying and sobbing, not in her bedroom with the door closed, but in the hallway, as if the last day in the final judgement. In the beginning we the people thought it was perhaps result of the stupid burglars who entered thinking there was possibly anything worthy of stealing in such a house.

Some time later, Leo the worst drummer in the world, (featured at least 10 times in youtube) next door, was seen packing his Salvation Army wardrobe and belongings, not in a truck but his four doors, white Japanese vehicle. 

There was not fight, physical or otherwise to mention. However, your humble servant, enemy of noise, intolerant to loud conversations, laughing as if in the middle of nowhere, noticed that Leo was bringing his male friends on a daily basis, staying late at night to snort coke/heroine or whatever.  I know, because concrete residences are just a resonance chambers, anything said, done is heard next door. 

I  do not hate them bastards, riff raff, or wish them any harm, but I declare that I am happy.  Now I do not have to listen to Leo also known as Pillsbury Boy, playing his drums out of  tune, cheap cymbals with the sound of a soda cracker tin can cover, unable to keep a decent beat or some melodic riff once in a while.

Or his retard conversations with his likewise friends, frustrated musicians wannabes without talent, only good making amplified noise with electric instruments, loud as possible in one room without any acoustic isolation.

Squeaky is less repugnant, only her  drill like voice in your eardrums, cut in half melon breasts by the collar bone and turtle body. She does not have the habit of slamming the kitchen cabinet doors as the gone bastard used to at breakfast, lunch and dinner.  That simple act has made a difference in my daily activities at home, believe it or not.

Both are guilty of no consideration to human beings, us.  Or animals. Two pets were killed by lack of attention in  their backyard in the last four years, left out through rain, heat, cold, fed only when they remembered they were there.

You out there living in some neck of the forest may think I exaggerate.
But I rarely do.  Anyjuan can accuse and be a critic, what matters in any court is the evidence.  Yours to check in youtube.  Copy, paste and click if interested.
http://youtu.be/Xv-x2k3Mte0         Leo, retard constituents from porch
http://youtu.be/KMGofgvwMIQ    Animal abuse
http://youtu.be/0mEMMiQej44      Music virtuosos
http://youtu.be/LYiUV7N7vu4       Vampires in day time



Finally, when I started blogging I was only focused in becoming a reference about gardening/agriculture/landscaping in this concrete/asphalt urban context of the Caribbean and beyond. 

After writing these lines, looking in retrospect all the video clips I e  realize I have covered the whole court and nine miles. As a bonus, without much thought, a collateral benefit,  chronicler of the low quality of life dominating the scene, panorama in this hell of noise, still the Paradise the Enchanted Isle for the village idiots.  Puerto Rico, where misery not only loves companion, it is rewarded with recognition when one falls in the isle quicksands of the dominant mediocrity looking the other way.

Friday, March 9, 2012

NOTES AT RANDOM

I KNOW.  Fans and foes may be wondering, what the hell is going on by the concrete/asphalted island?

The truth is that I feel somewhat numb.  It is not that I do not care or have the will to continue the setting trends inclination that moved me from the beginning, with typical humility spanning the globe for the last five years.  Virtual and/or real...in my imagination  or not. 


Just a few minutes ago I discovered that David Cristiani, is bilingual, having read his comment in some blog from the Iberian Peninsula.  Which is good. There is another blog I follow, Las Aventuras, whose author is also bilingual.  The big deal?  The islanders surrounding your humble servant, either do not have the guts to comment when in opposition or there  is not one practicing horticulture with the seriousness it deserves.


Another view on the subject, not bilingualism, instead, what kind of blogs people who do share their views check as  routine or once in  a while, denotes an inclination to stay on  top of what is happening here and there.   


In my case, having a certificate, with on hand training in the in the NY Botanical, with previous amateur experience propagating, collecting and planting since my college days, made me automatically an outcast here and anywhere else, thanks to my grouchy and abrasive, no prisoners taken position.

Back in the studio...There was another raid in the San Carlos abandoned building. Everything was 'destroyed'.  But as it happens, Nature, does not need us to come back. I have been checking out the scene and I declare that my practice of throwing Cosmos sulphureous seeds assuming the wind and rain will transport them to friendly spaces, was correct.  There are tens of young  ones coming along on the asphalt with only the dust/dirt/sand that rain and wind have accumulated due to the  ground inclination.


Another good news, worth mentioning... the concept 
 'garden in the roof ' previously mentioned and illustrated, has moved to another plane. In  the tropics, the  urban context, where I reside it is possible,  to propagate plants over concrete covered with leaves and dirt in the abandoned house next door.  The variation  on the theme is the inclination, plus the roots of vines growing north/south, decreasing the possibilities of erosion.


Finally, if you got this far...The discovery of a plant not a cereal, after listening to a radio program from Radio Nederlands. This plant is able to keep people alive for 3/4 years without anything else to eat.  Its saponins from the skin are also useful in many ways. The plant is  Quinoa, cultivated by the aboriginals, in the deserts of Bolivia and close by regions of South America  for hundred of years. If you want to read about this, go to Wikipedia, all the info required is there.


That is that. Thanks to all for the feedback.  Keep on  gardening with criteria. That is the fun of it.





/
/?

Friday, March 2, 2012

YMCA


MY fans/foes may remember previous posts the abuse, regarding the riff raff owner, administrator, membership director in charge of LIVfitness Club, Condado, Puerto Rico.  These hicks and  native islanders without much traveling, think they are the last coke in the concrete/asphalt isle.

The hygiene, toilets, equipment, the classes are fine. However, the fire department code violations---In USA they would have been fined or closed---are not, fire exit doors locked to avoid illegal entry to the premises, people jamming the 6' wide hall,  consequence of the irrational scheduling of zumba/speening  classes, by  the room doors since every other class starts simultaneously, instead of lapses of 10/15 minutes in between.  The numb crowd gets in the way of people walking and or lifting weights.


The 200 hundred decibels of music is so annoying, excessive that one can feel the bass/thump ringing through your ear drums even with foam ear plugs reducing the damage by 35 decibels.  Or you can feel the thumping through the treadmill or stationary bicycles.  The huge pig headed swaggering trainer from the Bronx, once told me that the music volume makes difficult measuring the blood pressure. 

I spoke with all my congeniality from the very beginning with Chavis, Gross, and every other employee, dressed like funeral parlor staff--very cheap black jackets with worn out jeans--- in addition, sent about six emails requesting to keep the music volume down, being ignored by feeble minded creatures from Dixie land.


The LIV adventure came to an end probably when I hollered to one of the broken wrist staff: Is this a DISCO or a GYM?.  But that is not all. If you want to know how you can get out of your membership, let me know. There are scaling fees.  

The idea developed after me wife commented of the celebrity status the humble one has reached among some attorneys. They never heard of a cancellation from any gym membership. 

What I have accomplished deserves a statue. After all, I think the brutal intentional noise levels is to create room for new victims. To force those IN, OUT or become deaf while fit.

Now if you wonder about seniors at the club...I was the only one
wearing ear plugs...most of the them could not take it...So once
you leave they continue billing for two years!


Hey juat about that stupid YMCA video clip?

Glad you asked!

I agree and wonder  about the mental state in the USA at the time.
What was going in people's minds, the music fans buying this crap? 
The record companies, radio stations and television stations
playing it?

Getting to the point, it is simple. I am now body sculpturing, with Sergio Oliva's biceps/triceps in mind, at a local YMCA.  Not just for vanity, to be all I can be.  Two hundred pounds is the goal, 15 more than in me  20's. 
Some of the treadmills show rust, they move along me self making some racket. One can hear the humming of the equipment.  The dumb bells came probably with the May Flower,  the benches and such, ancient.  But what I need is QUIET. Conversations, the loud ones can be heard, but ear plugs will do the trick.  I will be handsome once again, no matter what. Even if the equipment is the latest
fad or similar to the ones used by them pilgrims.

The trainers are useful, not naughty like the jerks/jerkettes, except for one, at LIV.  Happy, almost like clam. The humble one.

that is that

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