When I can come in from the garden, have some ice water, rub some wintergreen alcohol on the fresh bug bites, and review this mini-bounty, well, the new phrase of 2011 is "it's not all I want but I'll take it."

I have a lot to be thankful for, such as my hyper-individual unique character that came from challenges and adversities that others never had to face, as well as all those things that came naturally. I don't take much for granted.

When multiple smart people, acting independantly, all use the same phrase, it's likely a valued observation. Specifically, my family has been observed by many to be "unusually happy." Not lucky, not one way or the other. "Unusually happy."

Getting philosophical is like having a strong sense of humor - it's taking the long view.
For every thing there is a season and a time for every purpose under Heaven.
Been a good day and I'll sleep well tonight. Hope the mosquitoes sleep all night too... Last night this one . . . oh never mind.

“Sorry about the wrinkles,” he said. “They say these are the real ones. Called heirlooms, they’re special, the real ones.”

His field is past Whale Branch between Lobeco and Pocataligo and Tomately. Great place names, eh?

True love, pride - the good kind of pride that is more about pride in work and results, not ego of self.
Healthy hard work, not toil but labor to build, create, make something from nothing.
Cleansing sweat, water, and fresh produce.

These tomatoes don’t grow on trees! You gotta make the ground make em.
The Lord helps those who help themselves
You take one step He’ll take two.

Most blog entries are uploaded regularly, which maintains the readers interest and keeps the website up to date. Blog posts can range in all types of writing styles, including reviews, news, discussions, graphics and videos. Blogs are interactive, allowing readers to add their comments, much like a forum. These are popular amongst hotel review forums, where potential customers read comments from previous holiday makers and are able to post their own comments. Forums are useful ways of getting advice on gaming sites like http://www.partycasino.com/ or reading tips on the best places to visit while you are on vacation. As you can see, blogs are very vast, which means almost anybody can relate to them.

A blog's most distinguishing factor, is the fact that it is constantly adapting and being updated. Unlike most static websites, blogs are always developing. It is estimated that 156 million people own blogs worldwide. It was back in 1997 when the 'weblog' name was created, however, this was soon shortened to just 'blog' which was used as a noun and a verb by Evan Williams. He used it as a describing word for editing or posting on ones weblog.

Before blogs were official, people used to use online diaries. This is where people kept an ongoing account of their life events, writers of these blogs used to refer to themselves as diarists or journalists. In the late nineties, blogging became more popular, which lead to the arrival of the first hosted blogs which included pages such as blogger.com, which was bought by Google.

If you peel off this peeling and you find a new peeling.
What manner of double apple is this?

And so we posted the discovery. Now we await a communiqué from world food dominator Monsanto, expecting their claim to “neither affirm nor deny” having a hand in this bi-peel pomme, anticipating that they’ll attack this post as patent infringement or a wiki-leak of their master plan to dominate food to the core!

We’re not food scientists, we’re not even foodies. We’re just good eaters trying to make a morning smoothie. A Monday morning smoothie, with one Granny Smith and one - whatever this morphed or genetically modified or mutated apple is called. REDX2?

There is an apple inside this apple!
Is this a bonus or another sign of the apocalypse?

* Local baby tomatoes - chosen for their ability to best represent their field. These particular ones are in their 95th percentile.

* Bread - starts doughy but when baked and brushed with butter it becomes brown crispness. A metamorphosis reminiscent of a Japanese tea service.

* Cheese - it's cheese, not Kraft "cheese-food" and since it's melted, it's good. Nuff said.

* Beer – embodiment of the Czech notion of "liquid bread."

* Water – now we're getting into the elite-ness of the moment... this water is from the tap. Why is tap water this season’s mod barometer? Oh, don’t be so last week. If we must explain the obvious, read on.

* The plate is on the floor of a simulated bathroom.
Again, I said, the food is served on what represents a bathroom floor.
Why? Because it's all so well cared for that “you can eat off the floor.” Voila, here's your proof.
The Chef has taken the old phrase and acted on it, brought it to life for us to enact.
Are you sold on it? Don't be left out.
Sit on the tile floor (on a towel) and act bored with this season’s new black, the au courant chic culinary experience, circa Summer 2010.

This interactive map will bring it home to you.
Using Hilton Head Island as a center, the surface oil slick covers a precious amount of irreplaceable beauty:

Nothing funny about this post.
Big oil, big money, Wall Street.
They have p0wned us.
Every which way.

We the pwned people,
of the United States of America,
in order to form a more perfect union,
and so on.

Click and see a map of what it'd look like in, on, and all over your neck of the woods.
Sad. Such a waste.

The pre-release iPad Nano.
Based on the magical and revolutionary Apple iPad - and now it’s smaller!

The image above (dated 04/01/2010) shows the actual iPad Nano workbench.

The beta iPad Nano on the bottom of the image (code named “Three-Alarm”) shows the glow of a lithium-ion hotspot due to battery heat within its ultra-compact housing.
The beta iPad Nano on the top of the image (code named “the Chillaxant”) is cool to the touch, even set in its revolutionary “HD-Backlite” mode.
“The Three-Alarm was just too compact,” lamented one of many Apple designers with the scorched cargo shorts to document how hot a battery can get when in-pocket.

One of the first things you’ll notice about the iPad Nano is how thin and light it is.

“Whether you’re coming or going, our iPad Nano responds to a flick, a press, or in parts of the Southern USA, a mash of a button. The iPad Nano is unlike anything you’ve mashed before, standing or sitting.”
- Apple.com website copy (edited for artistic parody)

What makes the iPad nano even better? Accessories!

Here’s an amazing iPad nano holder that’s built into an everyday article of clothing:

Magically seamless!

God Bless Steve Jobs!
Feb 24, 2010 was the 54th birthday of Steve Jobs.
Hey Steve! I remembered… next year I’ll try to be more prompt in my greetings. Please understand I couldn’t write earlier, had to keep a low profile to protect our bigbonton.org operatives inside One Infinite Loop.
Cool Toys! Cool Tools! Keep ‘em coming.
This post was MADE ON A MAC.
One more time, all together now, “God Bless Steve Jobs!”

Still want to rave on more about Apple and Steve Jobs? Click, you got it.

The daffodils are in bloom rather suddenly - seems like last week they weren't even sprouts. But it's like that each springtime, always a pleasant surprise. Just like last year and the year before that, on back to 1804 and beyond.

Decent photos, but it's just a half-effort attempt because the real deal is this wonderful visual, "beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze."
The inward eye, led by Wordsworth, trumps iPhoto, no contest. We all win:

"Daffodils" (1804)

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

# # # # # # # # # # # # # #

She's an athlete, a trooper, and what a snowboarder.

In 2006, coming into the home stretch of the snowboardcross (which is like a roller derby down the mountain), Lindsey was way out front with her gold medal almost around her neck.
On the last jump before the podium she got more-than-called-for air and she did this method grab (above) just because it felt right.

She wiped out and went from Gold to goat.
Watch the grab but note how fast she got up and back into the race:

She was so far out front that she could wipe out and still came in second, yet the benchwarmers and the Monday morning press had a field day, such as, “Jacobellis settled for a silver medal and was labeled a showboat after her mishap.”

For four years she has been asked about “the grab” and her answer is always the same,
“I was snowboarding and I did a snowboard move and I fell. I fell, it's just a part of boarding."

Can't ya just see her shrugging it off?
I fell, it's all a part of the game.

Now, in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games snowboardcross, Lucky Lindsey Jacobellis took a jump higher than her opponents, didn’t plant it well and skidded out of bounds. It was over for her. This time getting up didn't matter, her race was done - out of bounds meant game over.

Afterwards Lindsey said,
“I just landed a little front-footed. I feel OK, though.
Sometimes, you can't control the things you want to.
That's how it goes in boardcross."

When I learned to snowboard (Burton Snowboards!),
one line from The Pretenders kept playing in my head:
“We fall but we keep getting up.
Over and over and over and over and over and over…”

Full lyrics from “Message of Love” by The Pretenders:

Add the realization that ice cream melts, and suddenly life ain't easy.
Lucky for the label-heads and status-needy among us, we're deep into a trend of green-ness.
Reduce, reuse, re-purpose, repair, recycle is not in recession, it's in vogue.
See the fun beauty found in found art:

Feel free to claim your scrimping belt tightening isn't because you are now poor, it's because you're trendy! Join the green sustainable club, be faddish. Reduce, reuse, re-purpose, repair, recycle.

Hard candy Christmas this year? "Sufficient for the day are the troubles thereof," so let's just see if Mama's Little Baby can make it through Thanksgiving without shredded newspaper in a turkey-shaped meat-loaf. Don't knock it, it's high in fiber and loaded with highbrow Steinbeck literary references. [uh-oh, is Steinbeck highbrow? Um, no. Literary genius does not equal highbrow.]

Halloween will be easier, it comes with built-in excuses for otherwise embarrassing actions. Prepare yourself for the economic nadir with a trip to the thrift store - claim to be looking for a funky Halloween ensemble. Act now because after Oct. 31st the gig is up, you'll just be shopping in a thrift store without an excuse.

Or just go hobo. Grow a beard (razors cost money). Oh! Go beat, 2009 is looking so beatnik. Be a beat hobo beatnik cat. A beret and fingerless gloves? Dig it, but not just on Oct 31st, go-hobo, be-beat and drop outwardness until macro-means catch up with micro-ways.

Alan Greenspan sez: "I found a flaw in the modeling structure in how the world works.
I made a mistake in presuming that organizations, banks specifically, are not as protective to the long term survival of their structures as might be expected."

Tell me about it. The corporation has no mind. Or heart or soul. Just add human greed and the awareness that you're leading something considered "too big to fail" and, "Oops! Sorry 'bout that, bail me out Uncle Sammy."

First read that quote on an 8.5x11 paper
on the wall in English class.
Liked it then. Living it now.

"Been sittin' here thinkin' back over my life
All of the good things, and trouble and strife
Felt my share of heartache, so many I've had
Still think the good things outweigh the bad"
- Flatt and Scruggs, "Good Things (Outweight the Bad)"

Listen to the June Bugs rev up their hypnotic hind legs and wonder about . . .
what, why, if, how about, and the ever-fresh WTF!
We'd have better answers if we had the right questions.
No insights from out here at the Cypress Knee, just getting better and better at sitting still.
Sitting and thinking never was a problem but it has led to some sticky situations, not all of which were unpleasant...

"Sittin, drinkin, superficially thinkin
About the rinsed-out blonde on my left
She was pretty, flirty
Looked about thirty
Would have run away but I was on my own
Said my my my, like a spider to a fly
Jump right ahead in my web!"
- The Rolling Stones, "The Spider and the Fly"