I now live in a place where deer are a constant challenge and planting outside our fenced in area seems like a complete waste of time. Inside the fenced in part of our property its already pretty well landscaped AND I’ve actually found tomatoes and strawberries (all I’m currently working with) to grow great in containers! Both seem like like warm roots and the containers heat up nicely.

Knowing this I went looking for something more than just a pot. I figured all these upside-down tomato growing things I see in SkyMall must have some merit — maybe that was something I should try? Thanks to the power of the internet, I found the EarthBox.

The Earthbox is a self watering, mulching container garden. You set it up, put your plants in and just fill a reservoir of water up periodically. Impossible to over water, if you have 1/2 a clue it’ll be pretty hard to underwater as well. You pre-fertilize the potting mix, so no remembering to feed it or anything — plus it comes with a bunch of Dolomite (HA! HA!) to add calcium to the soil which tomatoes just love.

So I figured I’ll try it. It arrived last week and I plan to get some potting mix and strawberries going with it. I’ve already got 4 containers of tomatoes, but I may order another and put some indeterminate tomatoes in as I made the mistake of going all determinate and heirloom with the ones I’ve already put up.

Anyone have any experience? Earthbox’s forums seem to have a lot of encouraging info.

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from News Wrecker

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In the past 12 months, 25 US Marines have died in motorcycle accidents, all but one of them involving high-speed bikes that can attain speeds in excess of 100mph. Compare this to 20 deaths in Iraq, the US Marines are concerned. It would also appear other branches of the US military are seeing similar problems.

The rise in motorcycle deaths isn’t confined to Marines. The Navy says it’s had 33 deaths on motorcycles over the past 12 months — a 65 percent jump from the previous time period. And authorities say motorcycle deaths have been a problem in the civilian world, too.

Military officials say they’re not sure why the deaths are on the rise. They initially believed the accidents might involve mostly young Marines and sailors around 18 or 19 years old. But Navy statistics show that five of the victims were 25, the most prevalent of any age involved in the crashes. And two 40-year-old sailors were killed in motorcycle crashes.

Marine motorcycle deaths top their Iraq combat fatalities, CNN

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As I mentioned before, this juice tastes like hell. A number of folks suggested mixing it with juice but for the first week I felt like that was somehow wimping out. The Aloe is supposedly packed with so many good pharma-things that it’ll not only act as an anti-inflammatory for my back, provide needed collagen and other spine-healing elements but it’d help digestion, skin tone, make my eyes brighter and allow me to better manage a small country.

I haven’t noticed many of these benefits yet — but I have noticed that my carpal tunnel syndrome/repetitive stress disorder is not bugging me at all! Seriously, my crappy, weak and usually aching hands — so degenerated by decades of working full time on the computer, years of video gaming with hideously bad controllers and likely horrible seating and ergonomics have taken their toll. I don’t play nearly as many games as I used to as my hands just can’t do it — an hour or two of TF2 and I’m shot. Perhaps not so strangely, since starting to drink this nasty smelling and tasting juice every day — my hands hurt less. The anti-inflammatory agents must be working. A sign I might be on the right track…!

Anyways, regardless how this is helping my CTS, it still tastes like crap. I decided drinking something nasty tasting wasn’t “manning up” when I could mix it with juice. My local market had a special on some Belgian “Looza” juices so I tried their Banana Nectar and Pineapple, thinking those flavors would be strong and cover up the liquid-plumber-esque flavor of the Aloe. Banana Nectar works pretty well! I could barely notice a hint of the Aloe and mostly just got a mouthful of slushy banana-y goodness.

I’m going to keep going with the Aloe. So far my back isn’t noticeably better but nothing leads me to believe 1 week will do much. I’ve largely got the pain in my sciatic nerve to go away and now I am just haunted by worry that it’ll return and a very, very tender lower-back. I’m doing everything I can not to re-injure it and start physical therapy next week.

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Well, I tried to be like Canadian Club’s mythical Dad and after 10 months the pain became something new, something overwhealming. I went to see someone more like my dad; I went to see a doctor.

After hours and hours of waiting, several x-rays and not much else that was useful — its official, I have slipped a disc. Having googled my symptoms before I went to see the general practitioner OR the spine “expert”, I already suspected I had either hurt my L5S1 disc or L4L5. L5S1 it is.

The first thing the doctors are suggesting is some “physical therapy,” which I assume, from reading online, means I’ll get taught some exercises and the therapist will work with me to ensure I learn them right. The exercises will help me build core-strength and muscle in places that should help my back support itself better. Additionally, it seems not re-injuring myself is important (duh!) and keeping inflammation down is a big deal. When my dad slipped a disc he didn’t drink Canadian Club, he drank Aloe Vera Juice.

Holy crap is this stuff awful! It tastes like you’d expect paint thinner, white gas or turpentine to taste. I am literally amazed that humans can ingest something so foul tasting and its supposed to not just be helpful but wonderful. I found an article written by an entity known as Alien Sheng that suggests I’d find Aloe juice helpful:

The health benefits of aloe vera taken internally include: improved circulation, regulation of blood pressure, promotes healing of bones and joints, strengthens the immune system, defends the body against bacteria, heals internal tissue damage, heals ulcers, improves and even eliminates constipation, blood sugar regulation, and reduces itchiness in psoriasis helping it to heal.

And again, my Dad swears this is what fixed up his back. He also drinks Tullamore Dew. Regardless, I’ll keep you posted as to how this works. To read the myriad articles on it, I should be feeling like superman in just days.

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I’d chide this man for his imprudence, but I think he already knows his hobbies aren’t exactly the most practical thing you can do with a roll of toilet paper.

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I lugged a ton of scifi stuff I picked up from reading recommendations all over the net, but never have time to read at home. Never takes long before I’ve burnt through it all. This is what I found in a giftshop: 50 Ways to Save the Ocean.

The book manages to put a great, inclusive presentation around recommendations that all too often come off as preachy. When people find the right tone, and I believe the authors have, this kind of informations becomes a lot of fun. Its short lists with a descriptive introductions around categories of ways to fine tune your life towards to eco-friendly. While many of the things aren’t Ocean-specific, they go to great lengths to explain how dependent our ecology is upon the sea.

Certainly a fun under-the-umbrella-on-the-beach read and it shared a few new ideas. Certainly made me more sensitive to the amount of plastic that I’m throwing away on a daily basis. I believe the number they shares was that the averae American throws away 70lbs of plastic a year. If true, that is crazy. I’m sure it’ll get passed around the family.

50 Ways to Save the Ocean (Inner Ocean Action Guide)

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Snazzy!

“Making a quick buck by coloring a handgun to look like a toy is craven and beneath any honest businessman,” Bloomberg said. “By coloring these guns, a real one looks like a toy, and a police officer won’t be able to tell the difference.”

Gun paint kit targets Bloomberg [Breitbart.com]

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This video has been viewed 26 million times on YouTube, so I’m probably the only one of us who hasn’t seen it, but it’s worth throwing another copy up just in case. It’s eight minutes long, but worth watching the whole thing.

Previously • Great Men: Peter Hathaway Capstick, Hunter and Writer [Dethroner]
• Dangerous Jobs: Big Game Hunter; Capstick’s “Death in the Long Grass” [Dethroner]

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Mexican soldiers battling a violent drug gang and corrupt local police confiscated a sport utility vehicle decked out with extras worthy of a James Bond movie.

What kind of cool tricks did the drug runners install? Nothing nearly as cool as we’d like — I need a rocket booster, lasers and the Mach 5’s tree trimmers — plus a Spy Hunter oil slick. I guess Mexican drug runners lack the same cash-reserves of say Columbian drug runners.

Following a shootout with the gang, soldiers said they arrested four municipal police and confiscated an armored Jeep Grand Cherokee equipped with a smoke machine and spike sprayer meant to deter pursuers

Oh well! I remember years ago when there was a South African car equipped with flame throwers…

Mexico army confiscates James Bond truck from gang[Reuters.com]

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Separated from his party, Danish explorer and prolific author Peter Freuchen dug a trench in the snow to escape a blizzard. He lay in the trench and slept. When he woke, he found himself buried beneath the snow and a thick, ice-encrusted surface. He tried to sit up but the ice pinned him down. He clawed at the underside of his ice coffin until his frozen fingers were bloody, but he could not scratch it away. All his equipment lay uselessly above him on the sled. Without a digging tool, he was certain he would die. He carried absolutely nothing he could use as a tool…or did he? He slid his arms down the back of his trousers and defecated into his cupped hands. He quickly formed his own feces into a chisel shape, with a wide, slightly curved sharp end. He pulled it out into the cold air and it instantly froze as solid as steel. He dug his way out with a dung chisel. He ultimately lost one foot, but not his life.

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But as he left the shop, a gust of wind pulled the balloon from his hand and he watched the ring — and quite possibly the affections of his girlfriend — sailing away over the rooftops.

Wow. I’d be pissed at him too — for being a dumb ass — but it seems Lefkos girlfriend has decided to show him harsh: refusing to speak to him until he can replace the ring. Taking a quick look at the prices charged by one London Floor-Fitting company, I think she is being a bit unreasonable.

Honey, will you marry… Oh. Never mind…[Yahoo News]

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Is it true that Donnie (Andrews, the inspiration for Omar) in real life jumped off a balcony the same height that Omar did?

Actually, two floors higher.

Two floors higher?

The Murphy Homes. He also jumped off the rail bridge at Poplar Grove, onto the rail bed. That was probably about three stories. And he hurt his ankle. It’s just true. Those jumps, by an athletic person, can actually be made and are made, routinely. By a non-athletic person? if I made it, I’d be all over the pavement and they’d pick me up with a spoon. If you made it, they’d pick you up with a spoon. When 28-year-old Donnie Andrews makes that jump because he has to, sometimes he makes it. It’s funny: I’m doing this thing now with recon Marines, “Generation Kill.” And some of them had no problem with the jump. They just started telling stories about recon training. I don’t know whether to believe them or not, but I do believe Donnie.

It was a story I actually used, I wrote about the first time back in 1990. That story was all through the ghetto: “They had him cornered, and motherfucker jumped off the railroad bridge and kept running. Did not want to die that day.” But we did want it to feel a little bit mythic, and “What the fuck?” because it fit with the general arc of Greek tragedy.

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Seems the young girl was on the bus when calamity struck and she leapt to action…

Marina High School student Amanda Rouse was on a bus with 40 elementary school students Wednesday morning when the driver fell out of her seat after a turn and hit her head.

Rouse jumped up and applied the brakes, bringing the bus to a halt after striking two parked cars. No one was injured.

Awesome work, right? No one was hurt, stopped the bus — ALL GOOD?

But, no. Seems Mme. Rouse was ’skipping school.’ She didn’t feel well and caught a ride home on the bus. Even though the school appears to be sticking by its rules (and I get why,) parental discretion reigns supreme and her Grandmother seems to have it all in perspective.

“She is in trouble with school because she made the wrong decision,” said Rouse’s grandmother, Sally Correll. “But I can’t help but believe that she was where God wanted her to be.”

Great work!

Discipline Despite Calif. Bus Rescue [Breitbart.com]

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How to do that while she is sleeping in the next room? Easy! The Turtle Beach Earforce X3 Wireless Headset ended my gaming draught.

Look the sound quality is nothing like my cheap Klipsch digital audio kit, esp if you can find the 5.1 version (disco’d I think) — BUT I AM BACK IN THE GAME.

Set up was reasonably easy — you basically shunt the sound via RCA adaptors into the RF unit and turn it on. This was a bit freaky for me as I used the optical out on my X360 to feed the Klipsch 5.1 system. The Xbox 360 HDMI cable had RCA outs for sound, so I tried them and they worked. Nice!

The headset fits well, the mic works nicely — there are independent volume controls for player speech and video game sounds: you can control the levels. They are light (but not cheap feeling) and unobtrusive. Sometimes I forget I’m trying to be quiet and my wife can hear a brief shout of “And thats how you use a chainsaw, Bitch!” over the intercom — but so far Baby has not woken up and Marcus Fenix can keep on keepin’ on.

If the line of sight from the IR looking RF unit gets broken sound can get crackly or disappear. As you’re generally stationary while gaming, while rocking back and forth like a rhesus monkey, I’ve found sound to be consistent and clear.

The only big issue thus far? Networked RockBand seems a non-starter with the guitar. The headset must be plugged into a handset due to plastic molding of the jack. Can’t plug it into the guitar and I haven’t really messed around to figure it out. Thats ok, I belong playing guitar on a stringed instrument.

All in all, this is a good solution that gets baby 100% of what she needs and me about 87% of the sound quality I’d like. Its a B+ on sound and an A+ on function.

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Cameron Bieberle, 18, of Winter Park was thrown to the ground after the Cadillac sport utility vehicle he was holding onto hit a speed bump late Saturday night, investigators said.

“He was riding alongside a Cadillac Escalade, sitting in the cart and hanging onto the side,” said Kim Miller, spokeswoman for the Florida Highway Patrol. “The Escalade hit a speed bump and he was ejected.

Man killed while car-surfing [Breitbart.com]

Naturally I turned to YouTube to help me understand what this might look like. The idiots in the video below are likely not the idiot in the article and perhaps they are still alive.

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In order to laugh with this guy, he’d have to be laughing.

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