Square Foot Gardening

First, I apologize to all zero of my readers for not posting in quite a while.

Today was our extra Memorial day holiday that we get every year. Because I work for a retail/direct marketing company that does the vast majority of its business around Thanksgiving and Christmas, we don't get extra days off around those holidays. They try to make it up to us by giving us extra days off for the summer holidays.

To make a long story short, I had today off. I spent most of the afternoon building new square foot gardens for our new house. While we were living in Utah, Annette heard the inventor of square foot gardening on the radio one day. It intrigued her, and we looked into it. Ever since, we've used it as the basis of our gardening efforts.

The basic principle is to create raised beds that are then divided into 1x1 foot sections. In each section you plant one crop. If it is a closely spaced crop, you plant 9 or 16 plants in a square. For something large like tomatoes, you plant one per square.

The secret is the soil. Instead of using whatever soil you have and trying to make it better, you use 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 compost and 1/3 vermiculite and plant your plants in that mixture. They grow very well.

Today, I built two beds in addition to the one I built 2 weeks ago. We planted quite a few tomatoes and peppers as well as marigolds, pumpkins, and watermelons. I'm looking forward to the harvest. We will make lots of salsa and spaghetti sauce.

Happy General Conference!

Today is the first day of General Conference. Part of me feels really lame for saying this, but here goes: this is my first General Conference where I haven't been in Utah or Idaho in over 10 years. In fact, it is the first time since my mission. However, a lot has changed.

On my mission, we got to see exactly zero sessions live. We'd get a videotape about a month after the conference so we could watch one session. Internet feeds were nonexistent at the time.

One thing I loved about conference in Utah was that you could just turn on your own tv (or radio if you were in the car) and hear it doing whatever you wanted to be doing--which often involved either garage work, yard work, or outdoor recreation. However, in Oregon, I'm not so lucky. Sure, it's broadcast on BYUTV, but that's part of digital cable, which we've declined to get. So, for the first time, I tried out the internet feed from lds.org

The results were pretty good. I hooked up my laptop to our plasma and we watched on television. The picture quality was so-so--maybe a little less than SDTV. But, it saved us the $15 a month on upgrade to digital cable. Sound quality was fine.

So anyways, whereever you are, happy conference.

It's Here...

Baseball is back...officially...for reals. As I type this, I'm enjoying the sight of Major League Baseball in Hi-Def on my plasma. And even though my Atlanta Braves are trailing 2-1 in the fifth inning, I have the optimism that comes every April. The Braves may not have done much the past couple years, but I'm not the only person who thinks they could be great again this year.

Baseball Time!

Once again, the time has snuck up upon me. It's baseball time! In case you haven't been paying attention (Annette) or if you just don't care (too many to name, including Annette!) at approximately half past early tomorrow morning, the Major League Baseball season gets underway in Japan. For more traditional fans of games played in North America, the season begins Sunday night, with my Atlanta Braves facing the Montreal Expos...I mean Washington Nationals in prime time on ESPN.

Once again, I'm excited to watch the Braves try to get back to the playoffs. I like their team this year. I plan on future blog posts about them, but for now...welcome back, baseball. It's been a long winter.

Government Inaction

Over the past week, I've spent entirely too much time at government agencies. There is no better argument for free markets than visiting government agencies.

First up was a trip to the DMV last week. After being in Oregon for several months, I decided it was finally time to retitle our cars and get an Oregon driver's license. Most of my recent DMV experience has been at Utah DMV offices. I used to not understand why Utah had separate offices for registering your car and getting your driver licenses. Now I do. In Utah, even if I waited for the end of a month to register a car, it was a relatively painless process. Not so in Oregon.

You walk in and immediately have to wait in a line. This line is to tell you whether you are eligible for the express line or have to take a number and wait. I had to wait. My number was 95 and they were on 88. Doesn't seem too bad. However, they only had 3 people manning the desks. An hour later, I was finally called. Everything was pretty smooth. Then they informed me that I had to pay $5 to take the written test for the driver's license. This could not be paid with the same check for car registration and a driver's license. Why? Who knows? Of course, I only had one check. Luckily I was able to scrounge $5 cash from the recesses of my wallet. After taking the test, I had to wait again for a desk clerk to tell me I had passed. Then, I had to wait another 10 minutes for them to call me up to the desk to take my picture. Finally, I was done. Just have to wait another 5 days to get my license.

The thing that killed me was the waiting area. The seating was disgusting. And the clientele was somewhat less than what you might call "high-class" I don't think I saw anyone who had showered or shaved in the past 2 days. Finally, I just decided to stand while I waited.

As bad as my DMV experience was, it pales in comparison to my recent experiences with the Postal Service. We moved to a new apartment recently. Because it is a brand-new apartment, there were no keys to the mailbox yet. We were told we needed to go to the post office and claim the keys. There's the rub. We tried to go on a Saturday and were instructed that the office for claiming keys was only open Monday through Friday from 9:30 to 3:30. Government hours baffle me. By my calculation, that's 30 hours per week.

So I returned on a Monday at 3:15. As I arrived, I went to the office and it was locked. There was a sign on the door saying "we will be closing early today." So, let me get this straight. They can only be bothered to work 30 hours a week, and then can't even work the whole 30? So, I went again the next day on my lunch break. All I can say is I'm glad I'm on salary. We waited almost 45 minutes to see the person who spent 30 seconds to give us the key. See, the brilliant powers that be at the Medford Post Office decided to have the passport office in charge of giving out mail keys. So, we had to wait for 2 people filling out extensive passport applications. It literally took her 30 seconds to get our key. Why can't they have the main counter clerks do it? It involved her looking through a bin for our address and handing us an envelope. Does that require special training?

Also shocking to me was that in the cramped passport office, there were two desks being manned, or in this case womanned, by one cranky woman. On the two desks there were a total of 0 computers. Isn't this the 21st century? How can they not have computers? Wouldn't it be infinitely more productive to have someone type up silly passport documents and express mailing labels?

So anyways, I spent a total of 3 hours or so at the various government agencies. Not my idea of fun. But at least I'm done. Until I get the title of our recently paid-off other car. Then I get to go back for another hour or two.

walking the walk

So, our temporary housing finally ran out. I'm not complaining. I think it was marvelous to get a furnished apartment rent free for 3 months. So we had to find a new place. My wonderful wife found us a brand new apartment. The best part? It's a five minute walk from my front door to my desk at work.

Let me repeat that. It's a five minute walk from my front door to my desk at work. Now, let me put that into perspective. If I were to drive to work, it would take me 2 minutes if you count sitting at the traffic light. Then I would have to park in the nether-reaches of our parking lot. Then I would still have to walk 5 minutes from my crappy parking spot to my desk. So, it's clearly a slam dunk for me to walk to work.

I've driven my car once since Sunday, for a short 2 mile trip to the grocery store. You gotta love it when you are putting more miles on your feet than you are on your car.

Annette is loving it too. She's two miles from her work. More importantly, there's just 4 stoplights between here and her work. Before, there were approximately 73.

Just for fun, because I'm the biggest dork in the world, I decided to illustrate. See below:

Borrowing money from the Chinese

One of my favorite complaints from politicians (Mike Huckabee, in particular) has been about the recently passed (in the House, anyways) Economic Stimulus Package. I keep hearing about how we are going to "BORROW $150 BILLION FROM THE CHINESE!!!!" Seriously, let's all ease up a little bit. Several things bother me here.

First, the implications that because it is THE CHINESE!!!! we have to be particularly worried. Would it generate the same political soundbite if we said "We're borrowing $150 billion from the British?" That's what I thought. Enough with the China bashing

Second, unless I'm mistaken, the "tax rebates" (see below) will be paid by the U.S. Treasury, not the Chinese. They will be paid by the government's favorite tactic, deficit spending. The government will issue $150 billion in new bonds on the open market which will be repaid in 10 or 30 years by our children and grandchildren in the form of taxes. (Note: while I have little problem with running a large trade deficit, I am not a fan of large government deficits.)

Calling these "rebates" is dumb. Most people getting them are getting back as much or more as they paid in taxes. Ugh. Call them "gifts" or "the dole" or "our children's future" or whatever--just not rebates.

Next, these rebates are a joke. Seriously. I remember the last time we got these things. I used it to buy new brakes for my car. $150 billion is a little over 1% of GDP. Nothing to sneeze at, but can the government really not come up with a better use of $150 billion? How about working to eliminate poverty or find a cure for cancer? How about giving Western Oregon its timber money back so I can have a decent library? Scholarships for high-performing University students? Anything but giving Joe Blow $300 so he can have a booze party!

Anyways, if you feel passionately, call or e-mail your Senator and tell them the stimulus package is a joke and to vote against it. We're not in a recession. If we were, this wouldn't get us out. We don't need the checks.

Now, if anyone is still awake, let's talk briefly about the trade deficit. I worry that sometimes we as a nation have the cart and the horse confused. The trade deficit represents foreign capital coming into the U.S. to fund investment opportunities that we as a nation cannot fund. Why? Because our savings rate is negative (as a nation and as consumers). This means the Chinese, and Japanese, and other nations invest their savings to fund US capital investments. In other words, these investors see the US economy as a good place to invest their money.

Allow me to ask a rhetorical question. Would you rather US banks have so much extra capital that they were investing in Chinese and European companies, thus creating jobs abroad, or have foreign banks investing in US companies creating jobs here in the U.S.? I personally prefer the latter.

I know this is a gross oversimplification of trade deficits. I'm sure I've left out some valid concerns. But I'm sick of politicians beating up the Chinese just because we are running a huge trade deficit with them. If it weren't China, it would be some other country. Why? Because the U.S. economy is still a good place to invest.