Radio is the sound salvation... Radio is cleaning up the nation
Jaguar-friendly weblog software is like most Pentagon weapons programs, they work great in trials. Over the past few months, as I've prepared my beta-blog for wider release, I went on several bourgeois capitalist mini-frenzies. I was trying to find something that would meet my need for ease of publishing, the ability to add as many, or as few gimcracks and geegaws (i.e., hyperlinks that work) as I wanted, and wouldn't require I spend more time formatting than writing. I own several "new and improved" Weblog software packages I'll never use, purchased without following some simple George Carlin logic... how can something be new and improved? If something is new, and already needs improvement, it must really suck.

Now it seems like I have something even an HTML dunce like me can't screw up too badly. I mean, look at me! Day two, and I've already put up graphics with wraparound text, and the little license-plate thingy. Big-time stuff, that.

The license-plate thingy is just my way of peeing on the "default template" and making it mine, but it already bugs me. The characters on real Mass plates are red, and these aren't. I like the Cape background better than the plain old "Spirit of America" edition, which I think is a reference to the Craig Breedlove rocket cars that have set land speed records, which makes sense the way us "Massholes" drive.

But I digress. I'm thrilled about Radio. Looks like I can focus on content again (and no weblog program can help me with that!) Considering my prior purchases, I'm even more thrilled that I have the better part of a month, with full functionality, to figure out if Radio's a keeper. So far, it looks good. No random, yet ponderous FTP issues, no long exception logs, help there when I need it. What a country. In Soviet Union, radio didn't even come with batteries...

Now, off to enjoy what's left of my soaked Labor Day. 8:12:52 PM    comment []trackback []  

Sunday was a fair day
I spent part of the afternoon hanging out with young chicks... pullets and hens too... in the poultry barn at the 3 County Fair in Northampton. It's been quite a few years since I've been to an agricultural fair. Growing up in Illinois, they were harder for me to avoid. And with that Illinois background a little chauvinism came out of me, so certain was I that this cute little fair in our regional hippie haven might actually have a few ears of corn, and a cow or two. After all, Massachusetts hasn't been able to feed itself for many years (unless perhaps one were to dine solely on cranberries).

That's why it's important they have fairs like these, so smartass suburbanites like me can at least acknowledge and appreciate the efforts of local agrarians. I learned there is a thriving and diverse agribusiness in western Mass (I think some of it was tucked in between all those antique stores and curio shops on Route 9. Go see it sometime before the Lowe's is built). Matter of fact, they've been showcasing their goods annually in Northampton every year since 1818, the year Illinois became a state. Chauvinism indeed. And the influence of all those back-to-the-landers in Hampshire County may be helping to keep it growing. A lot of the stuff out here is grown organically and sold direct-to-consumer, so it's in high demand.

I didn't start from scratch here... I knew the steps leading from dairy cow to milk cartons going in, but it's safe to say more than a few of the people who watched milking take place at the fair were first-timers. And back in that poultry barn, I learned that Leghorns and Rhode Island Reds really do look like the cartoon characters. As best as I can figure, Cornelius is a Wyandotte who enjoys a Grateful Dead tie-dye look. Or maybe he's an English Red? Oh well, they all look the same in sandwich form.

One of the things I liked best about my agri-tour is seeing how, in this area at least, it's remained mostly family owned and intergenerational. That's a way of life I'd understood to have largely disappeared. I can barely keep my windowboxes alive with pre-packaged, pre-fertilized seedlings. It's humbling that there are 12-year-olds in the region who have already forgotten more than I'll ever know about horticulture. And though they might not always think so themselves, there's plenty that's noble about what they're doing.

It'll take a little more effort out of me to buy local fruits and veggies, but I couldn't leave that fair without resolving that I'll do it when I can. Farmers' markets abound in the region, as do a bunch of roadside stands. If circumstances came about where we'd have to start growing more of our own again, I'd like to help out some of the people we'll depend on to make that happen.

Now, if someone can get milk in glass bottles delivered to my apartment, that'd be swell too. 11:11:53 AM    comment []trackback []