This weekend, Allie and I are going to participate in the annual Running of the Squirrels.

Not these squirrels:



These squirrels:





More here and here.

As you can see, this is serious business.

leaf eaters

There's a part in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle where Barbara Kingsolver says something like spring is the time when we stuff our faces with leaves. Sounds about right.

I laid down a law a couple of weeks ago. I said to Allie we need to eat two large salads everyday. And when I say large I mean gigantic. I've been eating mine out of a mixing bowl.

We've been obeying the law for the most part. But we've made barely a dent in the garden. And now some of it is starting to bolt.

Chard:




Lettuce:




Romaine:


The other night, as we were eating salads on the porch, I wondered aloud if we've evolved to store up the nutrients you get leafy greens each fall and then replenish them in the spring. Because those are the times when they grow like crazy. And there's no way to stock pile them. You've just got to eat and eat and compost the rest.

I think this is the way we've evolved. At least in growing zones four to six.

In other news, this not a head of pink lettuce but a rose I dug out of my grandma's yard and brought to KC on a plane five years ago:


As you can see, it's doing just fine.

archives

These are my files from Cross-X. I've kept them around for three years. Last week I dumped all but the notebooks in the recycle bin. And I only kept those because I didn't have enough room to stuff those in too.

I kept them around for obvious reasons. Who wants to get rid of such impressive evidence of hard work?

On the other hand, it's kind of stupid to keep them. It's not like I'm Robert Caro.

So I'll do the next best thing. I'll print up one of these pictures and put it somewhere by my desk.

b-day

We treat each other pretty good on birthday's around here.

I woke up this morning and got exactly what I wanted -- a last little boost toward a 160g iPod.

Tonight I'm having steak from a well-treated cow and key lime pie.

A month from now it'll be my turn to make someone else's day.

And for your listening pleasure, one of the best Grateful Dead concerts ever, on this day 36 years ago at RFK Stadium in Washington D.C.



(It's almost 5 hours long, so save it for when you've got a bunch of computer work to do.)

libre

I like to speak a little Spanish when I go to the corner store -- the carneceria.

Tonight I went there to get a pound of liver. But I wound up asking for a book of liver.

Oh well. At least I didn't ask for it for free.

sonic

As part of my ongoing reclamation of days gone by, I've picked up my old Sonic Youth habit.

Sonic Youth was easily my favorite band through college and for the first couple of years after. I saw them in concert five times, the last being in 1999 in Santa Fe.

They have a new album and they're on tour. I'm going to see them in July. Right here in Kansas City. No traveling.

It's kind of funny, I guess. They're all in their 50s now. They've been asked if they will change their name, now that they're so much older and they've said no. They think it's more radical the older they get.

Best of all, I was pleased to discover that there are tons of Sonic Youth bootlegs free for the taking on the Internets. Over the last week or so I've downloaded several dozen and am enjoying them immensely.

I'm well aware that they're an acquired taste. Allie can't stand them.

news

It's hard to not comment on this.

mutiny, i promise you

see through

The Obama Administration is doing a great job making information available to people. They're doing such a great job, in fact, it's hard to keep up with it. Honestly, I've given up trying.

I subscribe to the RSS feed of three White House blogs, all of which update several times a day. The press feed updates a couple dozen times a day, often with complete transcripts of press conferences.

Today they touted their new site, Data.gov, where they offer raw data on stuff like Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Divorces, Business Enterprise, Education, Energy and Utilities, Federal Government Finances and Employment, Geography and Environment, Health and Nutrition, Income, Expenditures, Poverty, and Wealth, Law Enforcement, Courts, and Prisons.

Absolutely amazing.

It's too bad reporters are a dying breed. Maybe bloggers will step up and dig into this stuff. More likely, it'll be folks at universities and think tanks.

I love the White House folks' enthusiasm about the project:

"Democratizing government data will help change how government operates—and give citizens the ability to participate in making government services more effective, accessible, and transparent."

Right on. Hope they're right.

listen up

be1 kansas city report

I had the Be1KC event last night. It was cold and raining, so not many people showed up. In fact, none of the official-type people I invited made it.

But there were a couple of people who wanted to help kids, so I'm going to help them get in touch with folks who can help them do that.

The main result is that I'm going to step up my involvement. The president of our neighborhood association showed up, and he said some of the high school administrators have reached out to them. So I made a commitment to be the neighborhood's liaison with the school. I'm going to get in touch with folks there, and stay in touch with them, so I can keep abreast of stuff that's happening there. That way when there's an activity neighborhood folks can help out with, I can try to round people up.

It's a little bit. But every little bit helps.

beard: week 7

I was going to let it go until August.

But it was starting to feel like moss.

And I'm a roooollling stoooonne!

friends and family in the media

There was a cool article in the Elkhart Truth about my uncle Evan and a forest he planted.

And one of Ebony Rose's speeches is included in an online project about race hosted by Stanford.

That's all for now.

who woulda thunk it?

Via my friend and fellow descendent of martyrs, Joel, comes this shocking news.

This gives me good cause for growing my beard.

nuni and nooni schoener

Mice sometimes seek refuge in our home. Allie and I have named every mouse we've ever seen in our house Nuni Schoener or Nooni Schoener, after one of our favorite couples from Saturday Night Live.

Usually, the Schoeners are not a big deal. They show up a few times during winter months and then the disappear. But this year there seems to be a lot of Nunis so we had to take action.

We don't want to kill them, because they're so cute. And our cats don't seem to want to either. So we took a cue from Allie's sister and rigged a humane trap.

We put some peanut butter and ketchup in the end of a carboard tube from a paper towel roll. Then we balance it on the edge of a shelf, above a tall garbage can. When the mice get to the end of the tube where the food is, they tip it over and into the can, where they're trapped.

It works!





We've caught four today and we've driven each to a wooded spot about two miles from our house.

I would like to know if mice can find one another and rebuild their communities in new locations. I hope so.

be1 kansas city

There's an article in my neighborhood newspaper about an event I'm hosting on April 27.

It's part of the Be1 campaign that school board member has spearheaded. The goal is to encourage folks to get become mentors for kids at Kansas City schools.

The event will be at 6:30 p.m. at the Northeast Branch of the Kansas City Library.

It'll be pretty mellow. I'll talk a little about my experience helping the debaters at Central. Hopefully, one of the debaters will be there, and they'll talk about what it's like to have an old freak like me hanging around, trying to help out. I've also invited a teacher from Northeast High and some local social-worker-type people.

I'll post more about it in the coming days. Hope some of you can attend!

beard: week 6

bring out your dead

There's a good article in today's Times about my current hobby.

beard: week 5

beard: week 4