Start of the Harvest

Last night, I realized what I'm going to have on my hands this year.  At some point, I'm going to have more tomatoes than I know what to do with.  Thankfully, family lives close and I'm sure they'll want to take some off my hands, especially with all the paranoia over the salmonella thing. When I got home last night, I plucked the first of the snap peas and the strawberries.  Looks like I'm going to have to watch the strawberries carefully, since they can rot on the ground.  I've been told to pluck them off a day or two after they turn red and let them fully ripen in the house.

The snap peas are delicious.  I can't wait for more of them to grow.  Thankfully, those plants are creeping all over the bamboo-stake-and-old-fishing-line lattice I set up for them.

We'll have some corn in the next couple days, too.  I see some cornsilk starting to wilt and turn brown, which means a few ears are probably ready.  I'm thinking maybe I should pluck a few of them on Thursday for dinner.

I think there's going to be a lot of zucchini, too.  I picked one over the weekend, sliced it up, splashed it with some soy sauce and grilled it up in a grill basket.  Delicious.

And I sliced up some fresh jalapeños for some nachos I made for the Man Party on Sunday.  People seemed to like them.  They taste different from what you might buy in the store.  Thankfully, the pepper plants are cranking them out left and right and we should have plenty throughout the summer.

One day, I'd like to have an acre of property with a big vegetable garden or maybe a greenhouse.  That would be cool.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Tomatoes are coming in nicely.  This is just one section of tomato plants I grew this year.  Many are flowering and getting ready to bear fruit.  Another couple weeks and we'll probably be swimming in tomatoes.

Behind these tomatoes is a lot of squash.  As you can see, I've planted marigolds all over the place to help keep insects under control.

This morning, I saw silk on some of the cornstalks.  Looks like corn isn't too far away, either.  And I have some little green strawberries, too, that ought to turn red over the next week or so.

Hyperconnected E-mail Networkers Take Heed

You know who you are.  And just in case you don't, you meet the definition of "Hyperconnected E-mail Networker" if any of the following is true: 1) You've had an argument with someone you know about whether an e-mail you sent them is spam or not.

2) Every e-mail you send begins with an non-apology for the mass e-mail.  But, you know, it's the only way to keep your legions of followers updated as to your stalkings activities.

3) Your e-mails refer to simple buy-sell transactions as "partnerships."

Okay, now that you know who you are, I'd like to announce that the following things no longer work in e-mail:

• Tracking pixels from your favorite ad server/CRM solution.  Outlook and many other e-mail clients block these requests, mainly because using beacons/pixels to track whether or not an e-mail was opened is a tactic commonly used by spammers looking for valid e-mail addresses.  Why they're still being jammed into sales e-mails is beyond me.  They don't work anymore.
• Return receipts.  Same thing.  Outlook prompts users by default, so that any receipt requests aren't fulfilled without permission from the recipient.  Still, Hypernetworkers often request them with every e-mail.
• Meeting requests of the form "When can I set up a phone call?"  Whoah, Jumpy.  Nobody owes you a call or an in-person meeting.  You might first check to see whether the person on the other end of the e-mail is even remotely interested/aware of what the hell it is you're offering.
• Javascript.  Let me ask you this...  When was the last time you got successful delivery on an e-mail that contained Javascript in the body or in an attachment?  Any e-mail client worth its salt is going to reject Javascript in a Shaq-like fashion, usually accompanied by a "Get that shit outta my house!" type refusal-to-deliver message.
• Delivery of e-mail from a questionable domain.  So you sent out a 1.2 million electronic mailing to "U.S.-only Small Business Professionals" as defined by the Romanian spam broker who sold you the list.  All of a sudden, e-mails from your regular account aren't being delivered anymore.  If you can't understand why, then no one can help you.  Get off the Internet now.  Eat your laptop.  Sell your clothes and move to Tibet.  No one will miss you.

Thank you.  This has been a public service announcement.

Barack Obama Is a Tai Chi Master

I found myself on my ass on my high school's wrestling mat, which is an odd place to be if you're not on your high school's wrestling team. I had just tried to push a guy who was half my size. The following things were evident to me as I sat there in amazement: 1) I had seen enough cheesy kung-fu movies that I should have probably known better than to volunteer to try to push someone who bills himself as a master of T'ai Chi Ch'uan or any other weird martial art with which I'm not familiar.

2) Just before I found myself on my ass on the mat, I had the sudden realization that my own energy that I used to push the guy was somehow being absorbed and reflected back on me. Kind of like twisting a rubber band and then watching it uncoil. It's tough to describe. You had to be there.

3) The technique used to put me on my ass was very similar to the little slow-motion dances we had been doing for the past hour, just sped up.

4) It was embarrassing as hell, because I had nobody to blame but myself. I applied the force. Instead of pushing this tiny dude over, it landed me on my ass.

This ass-planting was part of what my high school called "Global Day." It was the first time I was actually exposed to Tai Chi. And I didn't really give it too much thought after that. But I was reminded of it last night.

Barack Obama is a Tai Chi master.

I saw the results come in last night. I saw Hillary's speech. Then I saw Obama's. It was no comparison. Hillary got planted on her ass.

And the best thing about it is that Barack Obama's strategy the entire time has been to let Hillary Clinton sow the seeds of her own destruction. He takes her negative energy and just reflects it right back on her, mostly by doing the right thing and taking the moral high road. In this way, not only does Hillary destroy herself, but Obama avoids being dragged down with her.

Hillary Clinton is now officially delusional. With the numbers and the clinched nomination an inch in front of her face, she still refused to admit defeat and concede. Primarily, it's this self-deception that turned me off to Clinton in the first place. I used to say that if she got the nomination, I'd vote for her. But months ago, I reversed myself after her behavior demonstrated that she's nothing more than a entitled, delusional, old school politician who has no capacity for self-reflection.

And she did it to herself. Last night's speeches were a great example. She continued to use her own brand of math to delude herself and others into believing that she's won the popular vote. She refused to concede. She came across as petty and non-statesmanlike.

Meanwhile, Obama praised Clinton for making him a better candidate, praised her supporters and then focused his lens right on John McCain and the fight ahead. My big takeaway was that Clinton taking her campaign all the way to the convention mattered pretty much not at all - Obama is taking his fight to McCain.

That's how Obama uses Tai Chi. He takes the high road. He lets Hillary be her own undoing. He doesn't let bickering distract him, and he realizes that actions define people rather than talking points. I'm looking for precisely that in a president - someone who understands that when a rival takes the low road, they have a tendency to destroy themselves with their own actions, and that this will eventually happen as long as one doesn't sink to the low road oneself. Taking the high road is one of the ways that people can inspire others.

Barack Obama inspires me.