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Category: Life

Well, there goes the rest of my free time.

2008-06-20 John Winkelman

Bobstrosity, a Spore Creature

The rest of my creatures can be found here.

Posted in LifeTagged games comment on Well, there goes the rest of my free time.

Festival 2008

2008-06-04 John Winkelman

Well, we finally got put on the schedule, so here it is:

We will be performing on Saturday, June 7, from 1:00pm to 2:00pm at the Adult Involvement Stage behind the County Building. The Adult Involvement Stage is the large terrace which overlooks Monroe Avenue and DeVos Place. Click here for a map.

If you have not seen our shows before, they area lot of fun. Photos from last year can be seen here.

Hope to see you there!

Posted in LifeTagged martial arts comment on Festival 2008

Just When…

2008-05-31 John Winkelman

Just when you thought the world was going to Hell in a handbasket – American economy is tanking, more than the usual number of middle-east quagmires, gas prices skyrocketing – you see something so out-of-this-world amazing that you think maybe, just maybe, there is some hope for our species after all.

I’m talking about this.

Posted in Life comment on Just When…

The Weekly Avocados, week 5

2008-05-12 John Winkelman

Three Avocados

Here they are, in all their glory. The oldest one is in the middle. It should have the beginnings of leaves in another week or so.

Posted in LifeTagged gardening comment on The Weekly Avocados, week 5

The Weekly Avocado, week 4 – and a how-to

2008-05-06 John Winkelman

Avocado Tree, week 4

Yup. More roots coming in. Shouldn’t be long before there are shoots coming out the top.

In other news, two more of my avocado seeds have started sprouting. At the same time. The same day, even. So for all you people who want to know my secret, here it is:

1. Eat an avocado.
2. Clean the pit carefully, and set aside of a couple of days, until completely dry to the touch.
3. Carefully peel all of the brown skin from the pit. At this point it should come off fairly easily.
4. Cut the top and bottom from the pit; maybe a quarter of an inch each, but be careful on the bottom that you don’t slice into the seed inside the pit.
5. Now you should be able to see the natural split in the avocado pit. Carefully, very carefully, insert a thin knife blade a bit and just barely begin to pry the two halves apart. You don’t want them to come completely apart; just enough to weaken the seam between the halves.
6. Toothpicks around the perimeter, suspend the pit half submerged in a container of water as in the above photo.

The change here, from other online instructions, is the weakening of the seam between the halves of the pit. In most every failed attempt, the pit remained a solid whole and I think this prevented the seed from sprouting. This is not to say this method is foolproof, but it seemed to work okay for me (call it fool resistant instead).

I have two more pits waiting, and I will try with them too. I will post progress if and when there is any to report.

Posted in LifeTagged gardening comment on The Weekly Avocado, week 4 – and a how-to

What is this, California?

2008-04-18 John Winkelman

We just had an earthquake! About 20 seconds of my house shaking, walls creaking, and bed moving like a washing machine agitator. Woke me up, too – just after 5:30 this morning.

Forget coffee – nothing gets you out of bed like a big steaming cup of ADRENALINE!

Posted in Life comment on What is this, California?

O Avocado

2008-04-14 John Winkelman

I eat a lot of avocados.

Truth be told, I probably eat more avocados than any other single fruit or vegetable, except maybe bananas or pizza.

This means I end up with a lot of avocado pits.

This past summer, I did a little research, to see if there was anything I could do with an avocado pit after the rest of the avocado had been eaten. Someone – possibly my girlfriend – told me I should try to grow an avocado tree.

So I did. They are easy to grow, if you happen to have a pit which has within it the spark of life. Perhaps 9 times out of 10 the pit will sit there and shrivel and get slimy. But O, that tenth time!

I have managed, in the last eight months, to sprout three avocado trees. The first one was this past summer. After the roots looked good and long I transplanted it into a pot out on my front porch. When I got home from work, the plant was gone and there were SQUIRREL FOOTPRINTS in the soil in the pot.

Argh.

Round about the end of summer another seed germinated. This one I kept inside, and at the moment the plant is about eighteen inches tall, green, leafy and – as far as I can tell – happy and healthy. This one is staying inside until it is too big to be eaten by any of the local wildlife.

This past weekend, I noticed that one of the seeds sitting in the kitchen window had begun to grow.

This is how I start the seeds. All it takes is a small jar, three toothpicks, a sunny window, and some patience.

The Avocado Nursery

The Avocado Tree, Week 1

That little nubbin coming out of the bottom of the pit is a root. In another couple of weeks a small stem will sprout from the top of the avocado, and then, once it begins to grow a couple of leaves, it will be time to put it in a pot.

If you want to try this yourself, I recommend using the seeds from organically-grown avocados, rather than the big supermarket chains, although this might not make any difference. Don’t expect to have fruit bearing trees any time in the next decade, and then only if you have several trees in the same space. This is definitely a labor of love.

Posted in LifeTagged gardening comment on O Avocado

Dave Eggers at TED

2008-04-01 John Winkelman

I have been a big fan of the various works and projects of Dave Eggers for several years. He brings a wise-yet-quirky view to things that quite often rings true with me.

Recently, Mr. Eggers won a TED Prize, and a couple of weeks ago his TED Prize Wish speech was uploaded to the TED website. Therein he tells of the history of the writing workshop 826 Valencia, and its various offspring and spin-offs. Very funny, very inspiring, and it gives me an unaccustomed level of hope for the future.

For more inspiration, watch every other video at the TED website.

Posted in Life comment on Dave Eggers at TED

Encyclopedia of Life

2008-03-24 John Winkelman

A random bit of browsing this morning revealed to me that, with little apparent fanfare, the Encyclopedia of Life launched a few weeks ago. Right now there are about 30,000 animals in the database, which is about 1% of what they hope to accomplish over the next ten years.

Here are some notable links related to the EOL:

E.O. Wilson’s TED Prize wish.
Kevin Kelly’s meditation on the EOL.
Write-up at the New York Times.

I could go on at length about the significance of this project, but I think of Mr. Wilson just about covers it in his talk.

Posted in Life comment on Encyclopedia of Life

Practicing

2008-03-13 John Winkelman

One of our students, Anna, recently took several photos of one of our kung fu classes. She has posted them, along with others she has taken along the way, in a gallery at her DeviantArt page. She has also graciously allowed us to post some of her photos on Master Lee’s website. I will be putting those up as I have time and energy.

Class has been going well this year. We have more students than I have ever seen, with a steady influx of new people. The youngest is about seven, and the oldest in his early seventies. We are already signed up for the annual Festival of the Arts show, about which I have high hopes. The shows just seem to keep getting better and better, which is a tribute both to Master Lee and his students.

I love what I do.

Posted in LifeTagged martial arts comment on Practicing

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