Mephistos

A short blog to apologize to the few regular readers for the site having been down that last week. It was my fault. I forgot to pay an invoice to the ISP. Well, more like, I forgot to transfer the ISP(*) automatic billing over to the newly issued debit card. Now I am sure some of you are saying that shouldn’t take a week to process.

You are correct. Once I transferred the account, with the automatic debit occuring and due to to some additional expenses with horse supplies (additional moveable electric fence, some regular shots, medicine and supplies for an injured horse) I just didn’t have the funds to cover the $30.00 bucks.

Why didn’t I just put it on a credit card? Well, bottom line is I don’t have one of those. I have a debit card and try to avoid credit as much as possible. The exceptions I have made to that in the last few years was purchase the farm - which I of course no longer own, the car that I had to get last fall when my truck quit and I really needed something a LOT easier on gas, and a vet bill from over a year back for a colic surgery on a miniature horse.

So - bottom line here is I got to be more organized about making sure all my ducks are in a row in the future. Again though, my sincere apologies to anyone who missed things when they got some page about the account being suspended or something.

I will also note that in about 2 weeks there may be a slight outage again - though hopefully not. I went with the current ISP in a moment of weakness to save a little money for some grandiose plans that an associate and myself had. Those things have mostly fallen through and I don’t have the need for such the grandiose plans, though I do still have a few of those. Anyway, this ISP is located in the former eastern block of Europe, truly showing we are a global ecomony. However, I would prefer to support an American company and turns out with out the grandiose plans I can actually do so a bit cheaper - which is an even better deal. Also there is the bonus of not having to send a message 3 times to tech support to get someone who understands enough English to do things correctly.

This means that at some point I will move this blog (along with other sites) to the new host. Hopefully it will all go smooth and silk and there will not even be a blink, but a warning just in case.

* - Thought it a good idea to note that ISP stands for Internet Service Provrider. This typically refers to the companies bring internet service to your home or business for you to have access. However, in this case I am refering to a company that offers hosting services for me to place websites onto. The fees are usually very reasonable and include some structure for the actual storage space and hardware as well as the bandwidth (traffic to and from the website) that is being used. Probably the more correct terminology would be Web Hosting Provider or Web Hosting Services, but WHP just doesn’t have the recognition that ISP has. Further, it is still an Internet Service Provider in the fullest meaning of the words.

So I am still drinking stiff bourbon and cokes (recall the last post - just enough to color them) and I am thinking of some good old memories. One that comes to mind is of me, my brother, bikes, and a couple of tobacco sticks.

No, for those not aware, a tobacco stick is what burley tobacco here in Kentucky is speared onto (the stalk and leaves) and hung in the barn for curing. The sticks are made of oak most typically, more modern ones being sawed and old ones were split (like a rail for a fence). They are usually getting close to one inch, roughly square, though the split ones were often a little thicker in one direction. Oh, and between three and four foot long.

Another thing for those not aware, I do jousting and sword fighting on horses today, waxing nostalgic for time period well over 600 years ago. It is no wonder considering the how often me and my younger brother did sword fighting. Often with a tobacco stalk, which is not so bad, as they give. However, often time with a tobacco stick. In case you are wondering that is one heck of a smarting blow on the fingers.

When doing this kind of thing as a eight to ten year old, there were a few rules. Don’t hit the hands, as that hurts like heck.

Take this one step forward. We didn’t have horses at the time, but we did have bikes and a long down hill slope so you didn’t have to work to hard. We were knights on a iron steads sword fighting over our heads over and over again. Imagine a fall day, with the smell of wood smoke in the eye, damp ground, leaves already on the ground, you can also smell the horses and hear the ping of metal on metal.

What ends up happening is at some point my brother hit my fingers, hard. In anger I retaliated, by yelling, “I will get you - I will slay your horse.” And with that I stabbed the front, em, er, legs(?) of his mount.

Immediately I learned a lot of physics regarding what happens when you stop a wheel in motion by jabbing something into and how a bicycle seat suddenly resembles a catapult as my brother flew through the air like a boulder to land with a horrible sounding thud flat on his back a number of feet in front of the mount I had caught up on the end of my sword.

Thankfully my brother was only winded. The funny thing was my freaking immediately after him landing. I was at his side saying, “You gotta get up and be okay - Mom will kill us both if you are hurt - come on, get up.”

I find myself sitting here at the computer, a few good bourbons with just enough coke to give it a darker shade, and I am cleaning out some old files, moving some to an archive, and generally looking at things I have not seen in three to five years minimum. Anyway, it was with a tinge of sadness that I came across the picture that follows. That ugly dog, and yes, I fully agree he was ugly, as that what you get when a Australian Shepard is crossed with a Terrier. Anyway, his name was Walker. Walker Dog to be specific. He had a funny step that reminded me of my Tennessee Walker Horse at the time (another blog deserved to be posted about Special Dark, aka SD).

Anyway to make a long story short, Walker came from a horse sale back when I lived in Virginia. I paid a heck of a fee of $5.00 for him. He was very hungry and probably destined to a worse fate if I hadn’t picked him up at the last moment as a little pup. It just happened that I had a cheeseburger from McDonald’s that had not been eaten yet with me. So that is why Bitzer (the current dog was taught that those are good), as he got that as a treat when I had him sitting there during the rest of the horse sale.

Longer story - Walker was my buddy and just as well behaved as Bitzer. He would stay inside at night during the cold of the winter and never even thought about peeing inside, much less anything else. He always wanted to be very pleasing and though not as much of a truck dog as Bitzer, he did like to go with me to places.

He did have a hard lesson with the horses though - as he got a good kicking when just a pup and went end over end looking much like a brown soccer ball. That taught him the lesson though as he generally didn’t ever bother the horses after that.

After a few years, and one move that he adjust okay with in Virginia, we moved to Kentucky. He was happy with that once he settled. The farm that we bought when we moved had two barns, one a tobacco barn and one built specifically for pigs. Rather then trying to convert the low roof to anything, after a few months I saw some weanling piglets for sale for pretty cheap. I bought about four or five of them for between $15-$30 a piece, one of which was particularly runt.

Now hindsight says that all those smoked pig ears in the past was just too much for Walker. But anyone in one night he got a hold of one pig and just ripped it apart, the runt if I remember right. I put him up and locked up the pig barn (with the knobs mind you - not a physical lock). Early the next morning I told Walker to leave the pigs alone, as I had paid good money for them. Well it took him all of about an hour to get in the barn and run them out through a crack. By the time I saw him, he had killed one more and had another injured beyond help.

I was extremely mad at this point. I thought about it for a few minutes. Weighed both Walker having to be tied or chained up versus running free like had always had and the cost of him $5.00 versus the over $60 something the pigs had cost that would have long term be $900 or so.

I will not say more on that other then to say when I came across the picture of him I sure had a pang of regret about my actions that day. Anyway, I raise my glass one last time to salute his memory!

News flash (maybe not so much)… Monsoto is increasing capacity in order to produce more Roundup.

Read that in a week old RSS feed relating to agriculture current events this morning. Kind of scary when you think about it. Gentically manipulated and modified crops that withstand the application of the herbicide (weed killer for those that think like me) to the crop without harming the crop itself. It has been going on for awhile now which is scary in its own right. Now add to that the increased usage of such practices and it is even more scary. What is there to be scared about?

I for one wonder about the genetic manipulation and what that does to the future seed crops, especially if some disease should effect the crops. Think of it in these terms for a second. Quarter horses had a really popular stallion that later was determined to have had a genetically passible major problem. Lots of mares were bred to that stallion and lots more were bred from that get. Now, if you get a horse from line you also want/need to get genetic testing information in regards to the horse being positive or negative for the trait. Now just suppose that had been the only stallion anyone had access to for a number of years.

Another thought for concern in this regard. Isn’t the roundup just a plant poison for all intent? Has there been any long term study ever taken that considered runoff and/or over spray? Probably not as it shouldn’t be sprayed during rain or wind I am sure based on label directions. But what about the effects of soil that is repeatedly sprayed with this stuff for years and years? Does it lead to poor quality of the soil overall? Does anyone know?

Take that one step further, what about the one kind of weed that also turns out to able to genetically withstand the application of the stuff. Without competition of other weeds will it just take completely over? Will it become some sort of mutant weed? Think about the things that are now resistant to basic anti-biotics due to the overusage of the same.

I don’t have enough science background in this field to say yea or nay on any of these situations. It does however give me at least a pause for thought in regards to them. And of course the folks that do have the agriculture science background are either working for the Monsoto family of companies, working for industrial agriculture (itself a user of such methods), or working for a research based university that is funding by one or both of the afore mentioned situations.

Food for thought to be sure, but questionable for consumption.

So I am currently re-reading parts of the book entitled The Complete Agrarian Reader, a collection of essays by Agrarians and their opinions on things. Probably the book that first introduced me to the idea. Actually, I should say, that made me realize it was not necessarily a some romantic notion that I alone had, that there were other people with similar thoughts on things.

Anyway, there is an introduction to the book by Barbara Kingsolver. In it she talks about her days in college and in the world at large where she in as many words hesitant or even almost ashamed of her background of having grown up on a Kentucky tobacco farm. Both the tobacco and the farm were considered less then desirable things to bring up in her circles of associations in a positive light so instead she stayed quiet. I have been there with her. I knew exactly what she was talking about. I would never deny, but there were times when I tried to distance myself from my own personal history.

Just as Kingsolver notes, the views and smells, and even the accents take me back every time. My favorites are the deep loamy smells of the freshly deeply turned field, completely with seeing the earthworms that do there own little work to big effect, the sight of a young calf loping and being frisky in the green spring, and the just like Barbara, the smell of a tobacco at harvest and again in a barn during the curing process - just heavenly. It really takes me back.

I admit that I am an information technology guru by trade, but my heart is down on the farm. I spent a few summers not to long ago doing historical interpretation on the farm at Shaker Village. I will admit the pay was less then desirable, but working on the farm with 19th century technology and more importantly teaching a youngster (and even, sadly, adults) where their food comes from was just a wonderful experience.

Guess that a friend of mine, that resides in Tennessee now, kind of sums up how I feel about it. He grew up in a similar way, though not on a tobacco farm, but a family ran farm. His thought goes something like this: Once you have the dirt under your nails of a family farm, at least for people like us, it is hard to get it out of your blood.

So - I have about 100 notes of some sort of another from current events, inward reflective thoughts, or just how much I missing being on the road with friends heading out a joust. However, I have had an extremely unproductive blogging month and half. It would be easy to blame it all on my hectic work schedule, which has had me at the office way to many times past 11:00p.m. (even 1:00 & 2:00a.m. a couple of times), not to mention several days over the weekends of late. I could also combine trying to get in what time I can with and doing things for the horses and just generally trying to have a life (which I have not had the last month plus excepting one weekend). To clarify - time spent with the horses is LIVING!

However, the bottom line is that I have had time over the past 1.5 months to have at least “scribbled” out a rough draft of some blog here and there. After all, I type fast and have a wonderful brain that gets me going with a thought process very quickly. Matter of fact, the clock has only ticked off about five minutes since I started this blog. And here is the thing, I can either publish or wait and come back in another spare moment and fix the roughness before I publish. So - I really have no excuses.

However, I am want to make an excuse anyway. I think the biggest excuse to be honest is I have been in a mood of a LOT of self reflection. I don’t know, I thought I had my path figured out for while. Have actually thought I had that figured out a couple of times in my life. Should know better by now with the 30+ years of experience that if I am thinking I have things figured out - I probably don’t. So, a lot of this self reflection has not lead to writers block, but rather what do I want to say in the time I have to write. It has also lead to the realization that life is not perfect and <GASP> neither am I.

To say there are things I would change in the last month or two is an understandment, take that back another six and the same is true. Keep on going, 10, maybe eleven years and a Canadian - yes more changes and a do over. Fourteen to sixteen years - probably, though what would I have done different? Twenty years, yeah I was screwing up things then too. Do I have a regrets? Well, yeah there is one in there to be sure - but mostly it is life. One thing I have learned is we all mess up. We all make mistakes. Unfortunately in this thing called life we don’t get the do-over card or the re-roll of the dice - we are playing for high stakes and it is for keeps, right or wrong.

So, as I sit here still at the freaking office doing high tech work at this late hour of the eve and think about how much money I have turned down and even threw back to stay low key and even get out of the rat race - I realize I am still in it. And everytime I get close to being where I think I want to be I do something dumb like say - yeah, I will take that on and end up deeper and deeper in the mire that I really want to escape.

So - if you are one of the people that I have pissed off, dissapointed, or otherwise offended, my humble apologies. Beyond that, I have a more single minded focus toward my goals now then I have had in a long time and there will be more to come soon in that regard. And since I am always seeming to call Chuck out - may he come kick my butt like I stole his mountain dew if I don’t get a few more posts in this week.