Proplifting

Six years ago this word did not exist. There were no arguments about it being legal or not. Now it is, not in a dictionary. Yet. I am referring to “proplifting”. Proplifting is when you find a bit of a plant – like when a bit gets knocked off so there it is, a bit of a plant. A person sees the bit of a plant and they pick it up and propagate a new plant. This seems to work best with succulents.

Note that this is not taking a cutting from a plant. The part of a plant you or one picks up is already off of the plant.

Proplifting was coined by Sarina Daniels. She was in Reddit and participating in r/succulents. She created r/ proplifting as a joke. Instead people that do the act, picking up and nurturing plants, did not get the joke intentionally or not they participated in r/proplifting.

There were some people who call them common thieves.

If you are of a mind to grow things and you find a piece of a plant on the ground a bit of plant that could grow if potted and cared for well you just might do that. Other people would sweep up that bit of a plant and put it into the compost bin.

This concept was introduced to me by Austin Kleon where he quotes Mark Twain (I hope to type correctly here) where he said, “It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.” To which Austin Kleon asks “What about proplifting?” You can find the article easily enough by just searching for
proplifting.

I should point out that this only applies to bits of plants that have already fallen off the plant. Cutting a bit of plant is not the same. Nowhere in here do I refer to cutting off a bit of plant. I am only referring to picking up that which has already been separated from the plant.

Proplifting is now being debated by people who do it and people who consider the fallen bits to be their property and to take it is a form of stealing, they want to put it into their compost bin.

It seems people will argue about ownership of anything.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm :: 2022-04-16

Typewriters and Beers

Nah, it is not going to happen. I am not going to buy an Underwood Student typewriter even if it is a rare thing. I did drive up to Ace Typewriter to look at it again. Perhaps he will have an Underwood more to my liking. One with tabs, a right margin, and those things that are not needed but sure are nice.

IPA

IPA stands for India Pale Ale. It was developed for export from England to, I bet you figured this one out, to India. Mostly for the men who were stationed there. What separated IPAs from Pale Ale was, mostly, hop bitterness. This protected the ales from spoiling during the shipping. It did not hurt that it was developed in a region with lots of hop fields. American IPAs tend to be even more hopped than the original ales. That trend was led by “brutal Bitter“ developed by John Maier of Rogue Ales. At first taste, it was way too bitter. Give consumers a chance to adapt to its flavor profile and the growth of bitterness grew. Since that time the tastes for hop teas mellowed and we still drink IPAs in copious amounts. One thing is certain, one will never complain about IPAs being too sweet. Or even sweet at all.

This talk has worked up a thirst. I have a bottle of Dark Mild from Machine House Brewery. We will see how it is.

— MichaelRpdx :: 2022-04-15 :: rkmm

TV and James Clear

PBS when did you first watch it? I have no idea. I did not watch any television from 1975 through 1993 or so. Not that I never watched TV, I caught a sporadic thing. But I did not have one and I found plenty of things to do to keep me busy.

As a kid, eight or ten or so I got up early to watch whatever they had when the station came online. There were some educational bits, one piece about the investor of safety glass. His sweetheart was sliced to ribbons in an automobile accident. He vowed to avoid it from happening again. The show showed him hitting panes of glass with a hammer over and over until he hit on layering (do not trust my memories here, but I think…) shellac or something Similar coating both sides with it.

https://jamesclear.com/3-2-1/april-14-2022

It is worth the effort of typing that URL into your computer. James Clear is the author of MABE (I really need to get an eraser) Atomic Habits and has a weekly, on Thursdays, idea blog.

This week’s episode starts with:

For those who expect everything, there are many curses.
For those who appreciate everything, there are many blessings.

That is followed by two other quotes from him. Then there are two quotes. This one led off with a piece from Tiny Beautiful Things, Cheryl Strayed

Nobody’s going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you’re rich or poor, out of money or racking it in, the beneficiary of ridiculous fortunes or terrible injustices. And you have to do it no matter what is
True. …

He, James Clear, then goes on to pose a question or two. I will leave it to you to find out for yourself.

I am going down a rabbit hold. Sesame Street started on PBS. According to Wikipedia Sesame Street rand from 1969 to 2015 on PBS. However, Wikipedia shows PBS launch date of being October 5, 1970. Somebody’s wrong here. More digging to do.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm :: 2022-04-14

Sounds of Not Silence

OK, I am thinking about not writing now but writing at 3:00 or h:00 in the morning instead. Nah, that is silly. I am not a silly.

Blood on the Tracks and Rumours, to name the two that come to mind right now, they are embedded in my mind. What did a 65 year old buy have the same reaction to music released in late twenties? Certainly not albums, Ah heck, they had a collection of 78rpm records bound into “albums” like photograph albums. They did not get a format we recognize – those were introduced in 1948. Take a look at Wikipedia’s article “Album” which provides a nice history of albums.

Interestingly, they list “the dominate form of recorded music” from the mid-1960s through early 21st century. Most of us, like me, were alive and listening to it throughout its history. Did you realize that? Were you aware that you were listening to something that would fade away? It brings to mind the days of black and white photographs, now described as an alternative format.

What else do we have fading away? TX(get a list of them)

Not going to touch the subject of affordable housing – even in New York City and San Francisco — before they realized what they could make and decided they needed to make those bucks.

I prefer to listen to silence while I work, Where work meant employment and doing things around the house. I like the sound of Silence, still do. Today I am listening to Rumours. As I use a bluetooth connection to my hearing aides it is like having a really nice headphone set.

Think it is time to go off in search of 25¢ beers and summers of discovering being me.

—- MichaelRpdx :: rkmm :: 2022-04-13

Collecting Thoughts at 4:00am

It has to stop.
It really must stop.
There was no snow on the ground. It is cold enough to be there. But none, at least no snow yet. But here I am at 4:00 am awake for an hour, So I type. I do not need to stop typing. I do not need to be up and awake at those small digits. The only positive thing is reading about other people who wake up in those hours and they cannot sleep either. What it it about 3:00 that wakes people?

Underwood, that was the type of typewriter my Mom had, the one she used to type my Dad’s resumes on that H she used to type my first term paper in ninth grade before I knew how to type but was required by the teacher. My wife says it is better to collect typewriters than to collect guns. She said the same thing about fountain pens.

But here I am at 4:00 am collecting thoughts and typing them out. Coming up with what goes now, right now, onto the paper. Onto paper bits of thoughts appear from under my fingers to something I foist on to all of you.

I am not watching YouTube or attempting to read. Though it seems like a nice thought to absorb what others have written and rewrote and had an editor go over it and then they come together to a final manuscript and sent it to a printer. There is a lot of work there to create a book.

Naked Statues. Fat Gladiators and War Elephants is a book about ancient Greeks and Romans. It is filled with answers to the questions you were afraid to ask in school. I went to it to see about books. It has a glossary and from bison; body hair, removal of; to boxing; bras; and breast bands there is no mention of books. Were people unafraid to ask about books for Greeks and Romans? Or was Garrett Ryan, the author, too subsumed in writing a book to consider the topic of one?

A trip to the internet is not something I want to do in the early hours of the day. This needs to be wrapped up. It is approaching 7:00 in our editor#s time zone. Time to submit.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm :: 2022-O4-13

Up Early Today

It is mostly green again. Mostly. It was quite the surprise to wake up to snow falling at 3:00am. It continued to snow through the morning. It did not snow a foot in Grangeville like it did when I grew up. They do have 10 days or so to meet that retelling of my youth. (I have a sister in Grangeville, that is how I know about their weather. )

After I finished typing this morning it was time to not go back to sleep, I just could not get back to it again. (if you wake up at 3:00 or 4:00 and are Awake you know this state of being )

I checked YouTube and found a piece by Joe Van Cleave (it would be nice to have an eraser….) he had put up called “Royal Mercury Sound Insulation Kit” and hey wait, I have one of those. So I settled in and watched it. It is an easy piece of work and, yep, it helps. Joe said maybe the kit would be for sale. The source was Ted Munk. I dashed off a note asking if that were the case. As it turns out, it is not. It was a nice gift from a nice guy to a nice guy. Ted did tell me what he used to make it.

A used Yoga mat (in his case a $3X $1 thing from a thrift store) thick felt from the thrift store or a craft place, and grommets from Ace Hardware. For less than $5 (7) bucks it, a Royal Mercury, is as Joe Van Cleave wrote “rendering it even better than new!”

We will see how it works out for me.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm :: 2022-Ol-11

PS –

Keep On Thruckin Mike: I fly get a starter sentence and let it go from there. This is a land of First Drafts for me here. There have been times when I laid out a list of things to cover. Those are ideas and I fill them out.

Catalina: you bet I remember. Want more? 😉 (Though I do have more, they are available.) How is your ink supply? First one is free. Like so many say. Thank you for warming my heart.

You think I would read One Typed Page before I sign off.

Leo: My count is still in the single digits. I think. But there is a really nice Underwood …

A Pile of Not To Be Read

OK, I must admit, I have a problem. All of the books and one missing, On Writing, Stephen King, were found within an arm’s reach of my seating area. All of them ready to be picked up to be read. Which I have done, more or less, recently. You see, I must admit, I must admit to my problem. I am a glutton.

You know gluttony from people with eating or gathering up money. It does not matter how much you have, you want more. And so I do. I want more to read. I do not do the skimming and calling that reading. I pick up one and read each chapter, sometimes a few times, to make sure I get it.

But like the gluttony of, for food, I do not finish them. If the book does not satisfy me I will toss it aside. That is about to happen to The Drawing of The Three, which is surprising given how I was sucked into On Writing there was a lot of difference between the two books, but one of them just did not do it for me. In contrast, Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants which is a library book, and (I hope, for Christmas, if not I will buy a copy, hint hint) It is really fascinating.

In my defense, I do not buy all those books. I go to the library, and the Multnomah County Library is famed for being a great one. Well, I expect everyone likes their library a lot and think it is one of the best.

I have some books to read. More later.

MichaelRpdx :: rkmm :: 2021-12-13

 

Routines

Get up. And return to a returning routine. Morning Pages. Again. These are part of my routine since April 2015. Not all the time. Not in September of 2028. Not in November 2021. For the most part, I have kept up that routine for seven years. Unlike drinking coffee, which I have kept up since 1973, or was it 1972? When I took it black, no sugar. No, I did not like it that way when I started. But I knew that I would come to like it that way and I would be able to enjoy it even when there was no sugar available. Like waking up early in the morning, with the sun in summer and in the dark of winter. I do not know when that started. I was up for the TV Stations coming on in the morning. 6:00? That was the way of TVs in our early days.

Now I get up. And the day is mine to determine. This is the way retirement works. You get to make your own routines. If you have yet to retire, if you have not retired, that is my advice for you. Figure out what you are going to do. Sitting around and watching TV is a terrible way to spend your time.

One of my personal issues is being interested in too many things. But I “get into” something and I go all in and learn as much as I can about it. I am good at that, researching something. And then I do whatever it is for a few years. Then another thing catches my attention and I am off onto that. I learn a lot about whatever it is.

You realize, I hope, that I am talking to myself here. As I figure out the things that I will continue to do for as long as I am alive.

I think, I Think, I am figuring it out now. We will find out.

MichaelRpdx :: rkmm :: 2021-12-10

Dusty Things To Keep

Ron A wrote about his wife and her time Going through her mother’s things. And bringing home more and more things to be gone through later. Your house and garage are filling up.

You still have room for more. That sounds good to me. My wife spent a solid nine months of life and 18 months of calendar time going through her folks house. Our upstairs, our garage, a large portion of the basement are all filled. My wife is going through it all now. It will happen, your wife will go through everything she is bringing home now. She will go through it when she is ready. My only advice to you is: find a secure storage unit and get that for her. It is the shits when someone breaks into it and steals your stuff.

All of, as near as I can tell, all of my One Typed Page items, the one I have typed, as online. I get my daily-ish page up there before you see them. As soon as I finish finish typing them, I photograph them and email in here and copy to myself. Then an OCR program turns the paper into something ready for spell checking and putting online. Why do that?

“Got me” was my first answer to myself. I like having a corrected version available and it is searching, Searchable too. I use Word Press like Daniel does. And gee, with almost 250 posts I am sure I have over 50,000 words there. Another book?Yeah, right. Another book about “I have nothing to say…” At least when someone goes through my things (years from now, I have dodged death three times so far, another six to go) they can just delete the stuff.

Do you remember what you were thinking at 5:00 last night? Those thoughts are just so slippery. It takes no time at all for them to be gone. What is the use of thoughts?

Yeah, I am starting to drift along here. More later.

MichaelRpdx :: rkmm :: 2021-12-07

Random Thoughts

Wandering around, trying to think of what, something to type. It might, just might, to sit down and put your fingers on the typewriter. Then anything that comes to mind can be typed. Right now. It is not like I am in Belize. That was the destination of friends who posted (on Instagram) one of two passports and two beers. They were on their way at that time. Now we have a pair of feet and a pool. What would I do with a pool anyway? It is way too cold here where cold is in the Os. Random thoughts

It is an upgrade, no no, Is it an upgrade when you switch from some 70s typewriter made of plastic to a 50s era Royal? To go from one with tab stops to one without because you do not need them? What is “upgrade” in the typewriter world?

I had forgotten how easy it was to “upgrade” some software. Where “some” is something made by people who care about a product for something besides money. Wikimedia Foundation being the source of my happiness. They need to upgrade because of the software has to keep ahead of the foul guys. But jeez, the upgrading was so simple, I had forgotten what it was like. They did not request any money, again. Here is the course for the software. Have at it.

I gave them money anyway. Do not ask, well they do actually via Wikipedia, one in a while. There. And if you do not give to them there, well that is OK. You can still use Wikipedia. Which I do a lot. Was it Pliny the Younger or Pliny the Elder I wanted to refer to? They had articles on both. It was the younger I was after. (Yes, I spelled it as Pliney, not correctly as Pliny.)

A bit of time away from the typewriter and I have lost my thought stream. Off the train of thought goes without me.

I will catch another one tomorrow. Until then, enjoy.

MichaelRpdx :: rkmm 2021-12-04