Front Garden

 Based on the image you sent, it appears that the dirt section of your front yard receives full sun. Here are some plants that would be appropriate for a sunny location in Gainesville, Florida:

• Muhly Grass (Pink Muhly Grass, Gulf Muhly Grass): These warm-season ornamental grasses are known for their beautiful, pink flower plumes that appear in the fall. They are drought-tolerant, low-maintenance, and deer-resistant.
  
  
  
• Butterfly Bush (Buddleia): This fast-growing shrub attracts butterflies and hummingbirds with its clusters of fragrant flowers. It blooms throughout the summer and fall and is tolerant of drought and heat.
  
  
  
• Firebush (Hamelia patens): This Florida native shrub is another great choice for attracting butterflies and hummingbirds. It produces clusters of orange or red flowers throughout the year and is tolerant of drought, heat, and salt.
  
  
  
• Yellow Porterweed (Hypericum buckleyi): This Florida native wildflower is a low-maintenance perennial that produces bright yellow flowers in the summer. It is drought-tolerant and deer-resistant.
  
  
  
• Gopher Plant (Liriope spicata): This evergreen perennial is known for its clumping form and dark green, strap-like leaves. It produces spikes of purple flowers in the summer and is tolerant of drought, heat, and shade.
  
  
  

These are just a few suggestions, and there are many other plants that would do well in your location. When choosing plants, it is important to consider the amount of sunlight the area receives, as well as the soil drainage. You may also want to consult with a local nursery or gardening center for more specific recommendations.

Some finished views of the dirt area outside the apartment.

The Weekly Challenge

This Saturday perhaps:
Imagine waking up one morning and being a different person.
That is the first fact in this little story.

You have all the same memories as before - because memories, both muscle and mental (and emotional but that’s another topic), are all we have, once crossing that gap.

"You know the day destroys the night, night divides the day", 

You're the “soul skipper“, the “deadman switcher“.

And you have all the same potential thoughts as you did the day before. 

The language is still there. 

Your use of that language - accents, idioms used, including your name - is not.

And today you’re a different person. 

What would that mean? How about, a different personality? 

Rather than soft-spoken, be more forceful. 

Rather than whiney and submissive, be more firm and direct. 

Rather than sounding arrogant, be more humble. 

The possibilities are endless, certainly more than 7 billion.

How would this new personality be crafted? 

By the use of descriptions, the way a programmer or an author would? Bottom up?

Does it start with visions, like a prepared plate of food, envisioned, can then be described in detail for production, or invention if needed? Top down.

So on Saturday be someone else. 

Get used to doing it. 

(extra credit: Daily challenge, always after the morning silence.)

The Challenge

There is a 2 part challenge present for any man who is attempting to do anything:

*The challenge of understanding what FUTURE he is fighting to become. 

*The challenge of understanding exactly what PRESENT he is struggling against.

But, if what a man is, is "his fight to become something," 

then that is the very PRESENT circumstance he must struggle against.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ever notice how email discussion lists (particularly, nowadays, on Facebook and Yahoo groups) having to do with troubleshooting mechanical things, such as software, are by far the most active, as well as useful? If a bit of code is posted to a list, it can be tested by all the participants. If a certain participant cannot get a bit of code to function properly, he either reports the code as buggy somehow, for the benefit of the code's author, or he recognizes that he doesn't understand how to get the bit of code to "work right." In said latter case, the rest of the list may throw pointers his way so he may be able to finally coax desired functionality from the object.

Such a list is so tremendously active, literally with 100's of posts per day, because there is no room for opinion. Everything posted can be verified as a testable reality; everyone works with the same hard code. There are no "feelings" or "reputations" at stake. All work for the sole common focus of further developing the versatility of the very functionality of the software itself.

Email lists which allow at all for the admission of "personal values-cum-philosophical approaches," stand still in comparison to the former sort of list, because somehow everybody believes they are personally right in opposition to others who have not "seen the light." This in fact represents a bit of software development which never makes it to fresher, more complex versions, because of the fact that every line of code involved literally fears for it's life.

The only way to improve or expand the functionality/versatility of software is to continually consider what the application is useful for, what it is not useful for, and therefore how it may be given the active life-of-expansion, the life that all potentially useful software deserves. Lines of code however, the very bones of the application, must be continually killed and re-written. The software itself is an endlessly and absolutely plastic functionality.

Funny, when a line of code written, 

believes itself to be a cable, or a keyboard, or a plug.

The destiny of code is to be written, and re-written, 

endlessly expanding and living.

The destiny of a scsi cable is the garbage can. 

(from a collection of unpublished papers circa 1998 but still relevant today)

What IS "My Life"

Humans are caught between a depression-producing neurally-connected web of poorly maintained and difficult to clearly recall memories, regrets, and missed opportunities, AND an anxiety-producing amorphous cloud of hopes, fears, plans, dreams, expectations and simulations of which, probably, 95-99+% will never, ever come to pass.

There one is, 
"Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle 
With "Me".

But, what IS "Me"? Realize, without imagination and fantasy, that there is no "self", but a smattering of "consciousness of brain activity" that we call senses: sounds, smells, tastes, visions, thoughts, feelings, etc., and, making matters muddier, that same consciousness is a byproduct of brain activity. So which came first? "Consciousness of brain activity", or "Brain activated consciousness"?

 When the brain dies, consciousness dies. 

No more mind, no more thoughts and no more sensations. 

No more "ghost in the brain".  No more "soul". 

And, no more "me".

And, what IS "My Life"? When the party is over, and the guests have all retired to their corner of the world brain that last contained them, what is my life then? There is no Who that lives on, and on. There is just YOU THERE, RIGHT NOW, conscious of the "squiggles on this page", words, sentences, and the environment around your head and body, whilst hundreds of thousands of randomly arising associations are making your short-term AIM to read this damn silliness in front of you, all the more difficult. It is kind of amazing that anything actually gets done at all.

Is ANYONE still with me?

After all is thought, said and done, there are no Human Beings either. They are, for most people alive today, another species, or even a sub-species. Non-human animals don't act this way; they are genetically inclined to be one-with those of their own species till death - and sometimes, even one-with those not of their own species. But many humans, by the age of 7-14-21 or so, are already exhibiting signs of being a freak, an outcast, anti-socially damaged goods, and "not of this world". The next thing you know, they are acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and locating "gun free zones" to take out their seemingly abnormal brain firings of another kind (but are they... really?), on the surrounding life forms. Try to find a non-human life form that acts this way, excluding deadly viruses and other pathogens that have no idea what's going on, or maybe, no creature that acts this way has any idea what's going on.

Humans are just a couple neural-firings away from EITHER descending into a distorted chasm of negative hostility based upon self-survival, or self-destruction, at ANY COST... OR, ascending into a clarified crescendo of epiphanic mind music of cosmic proportions, OR, something in-between, or out-landish. 

Draining the Swamp, and other fantasies

Regarding the DEEP STATE, the SWAMP, the EVIL UNDERBELLY, here is something I just read from an anonymous friend, and agree with for the most part. LONG READ! WELL WORTH IT!

Most People involved in the Drain the Swamp MAGA movement do not really understand what drain the swamp really actually 100% means. Your mind wont grasp just how bad and how deep this goes.

First, the gun control stuff is exactly the same as the DACA stuff Trump did recently. He offered them 1.8 million people to have a pathway to citizenship over 12 years. And there were only under 800,000 DACA people. He knew the democrats and the deep state would never agree to this. They could not allow the ending of the lottery or the ending of DACA to happen or the wall being built, so they could not agree. Now DACA is dead, the DACA people are starting to see it and have already turned on the democrats. Now there will be no DACA agreement and they will ALL go away.

This gun control stuff is the same thing - exactly the same. He is offering some, but not much, and he knows they can't accept it. The Deep State knows they have to confiscate guns, period, or they lose and he is not offering that. Period. They will never make an agreement - it will be just like DACA. And it will go away because they were unwilling to make any deal that did not confiscate guns. And there will be no deal. He is showing the American people the deep state does not want to make any agreement that does not hurt the American people and enrich the deep state, and Trump is winning on this. Trump is offering bump stocks? HAHAHA! Anyone who has ever hunted and or served in the military would never use one of those, it reduces your accuracy terribly. Even the other stuff he has offered is so far short of confiscation he knows they can't accept.

What does it mean to drain the swamp to all of you? You think they can go out and get 10,000 evil folks and put them away for life or even execute them and The Deep State Swamp is now drained? You can't possibly be that stupid! So you think you can take out 10,000, maybe 20,000 deep stater folks and things are now good? Perhaps think you can leave intact the apparatus of the deep state and we win? What? You have to be kidding! What funds the deep state right up front? Do any of you have any clue at all? The deep state set this up back around 1913-1914 and they do not need a single person in our government to be on their side for it to keep paying them daily! If you believe that by getting rid of the bad people you have won you are dead wrong.

So what does fund the deep state? Its the Federal Reserve. It was created through murder done in 1912 (the only rich folks who opposed the federal reserve all died on the titanic and the ones who wanted it decided not to go on the maiden voyage. Still believe in coincidence?) So that it could be set up without opposition and through inflation began to steal literally multi millions of dollars per year from every place a FED bank was located. What is worse is right now as we speak there are only 3 countries in the whole world that do not have a federal reserve bank. The Federal Reserve must be totally destroyed to stop the main funding path to the deep state. And yes, through every single country. Still can't grasp how deep this is and how bad it really is? The US must go back to treasury notes backed by gold and the FED has to be burned to the ground with not one thing of it left in the world. Do you not realize they caused the great depression, World War I and World War II and all the wars in between? WAKE UP! They hate your guts!

Now once you get the FED do you think you have dismantled the Deep State? No! You have only scratched the surface. Lets look at the education in the US. The DEPT of Education has for years with teachers unions (private and government) been manipulating education in this country to dumb the population down and to make the young people all start to hate the American Dream. As long as it exists, a part of the deep state exists. We must take education back from this unconstitutional entity and get rid of it lock stock and barrel. In fact, now the Dept of Education controls every single level of education in the country for K through college, and in the process they got rid of all vocational and tech schools that were never run by the government and most of you are too young to remember them. This entity is federal, state, county and city levels. It's a cancer in the heart of our future.

What else is Deep state. Lets look at the constitution and you see the only thing the US Federal Government can own is Washington DC. Nothing else is allowed to them at all! Therefore if we want the deep state gone we have to remove all land from federal control outside of Washington DC. All National parks and all LAND currently owned by the Government, all waterways and wetlands and state land, needs to be returned to the states. Period! Do you have any idea why they justified much of this? Because some states had great national parks and gained lots of money and others did not so they let the government control it to disburse revenue from each park evenly among the states and its totally unconstitutional. In fact all the money is not actually given to the states. The deep state steals billions of it annually. Still think there are no coincidences going on here? WAKE UP!

In fact if you look at every department of the Federal Government you find over 80% of it was created between 1913 and now, with much of it being put in place in the 1947-1960 time frame. Yeah... right after World War II, what a coincidence that one is. You know what's odd? JFK was trying to take it apart and they killed him. Still think there are no coincidences? JFK was one of the good guys and he was a democrat and I hate democrats. Think that is unchristian? Well, I hate people who have murdered millions of children and are still doing it.

We have to get rid of the IRS, EPA, FDA, CDC, Dept of Agriculture, BATF (now calling themselves the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives - none of which are illegal), BLM (Bureau of Land Management), Dept of Forestry, National Park foundations and departments in the interior, and a hundred more because they are all DEEP STATE evil! Are you starting to get the picture yet? Even a little?

You have no idea what is coming, and while you are looking at crap that Trump is using to prove they don't give a crap about you or anyone else in the country, most of you still can't SEE IT! They hate us all - Liberals, Conservatives, Christians, anti-Christians, all of us. Rather than have us awake they would rather see us all DEAD! Are you starting to get it yet? Just a little? WAKE UP! Stop chasing Ghosts and start to look how deep the deep state really is and what its doing to you! They want you docile or DEAD!

---

Here is how I think this is going to go down. Right now the deep state is purging most conservative and middle of the road neutral web sites from Facebook, Google, Twitter, and YouTube. They are also starting Denial of Service attacks on most alternative news sites on the web. Once they get that done - and they are accelerating it rapidly now - then only the deep state point of view will be left on the internet. And the MSM will be left on TV (think you will hear the truth from them?) The good guys I believe will not allow that to continue so when it's close to done they will pull the plug on the whole internet. It may get even worse than that. Do you have any clue what pulling the plug on the whole internet will do? No credit cards will work, no bank will be able to give out money or at least very few will and the only thing that will work is cash. How long can you and your neighbors last under that condition? How long do you think businesses will last? Are you starting to get the picture yet? WAKE UP! During that time the Good guys will win or the Bad guys will win. Your options are few.... PRAY. Pray like your life depends on it because it does. Pray for the good guys and pray for Trump and pray that JFK's death will be revealed for the truth of the man he was.

When it ends and things begin to be restored. Two things will happen. Trump will have won and a convention of governors will have restored the constitution of 1786 (or 1787) back to the US. Trump will have kept his word to the people of this country and he will have restored the constitution to the people and not to the Deep state. The immediate effect of which will be the removal of most of the current parts of the federal government forever. Or people will show up at your door to confiscate your guns and probably your life. You will then have the option of fighting back and dying or maybe low probability living. Or you can meekly give up and let them take you away to be killed or reeducated and losing your soul forever. Your option. As for me and mine, I know who I believe and am fully ready to fight till God takes me home. What about you?

How many people do you really think understand what is about to happen?
How many do you think are ready?

"It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World"

"This is a mans world,

This is a mans world

But it would be nothing, nothing

Without a woman or a girl..." Mr. J. B.

The body is a great and wonderful thing, 

but it is nothing, 

NOTHING, 

without a brain and a mind. 

This planet, Earth, the third rock from Sol, has been around for four and half billion years or so, and Life has been populating and repopulating for three and a half billion years or so, and Man has been walking and talking for the last hundred thousand years or so, but only in the last few thousand have things really taken off.

In the last few hundred years or so - while accelerating decade by decade, such that in only a couple hundred years or so - life expectancy has more than doubled, technology has put men on the moon, and has produced smart wireless devices that can wrap around your ears and eyes, while your car drives itself - with humans as the passengers - to wherever you like. 

BUT, the brain and the mind is made for much more than just altering the look and feel of this planet, increasing the number of objects that are mostly useless, and generating wealth for the fewest of the few, while the rest remain nearly in poverty. This extremely obvious fact, for some, has all but escaped most everyone such that their main examples of "personal achievement" has mostly to do with physical pursuits - building things, accumulating things, playing with things... things, Things and more THINGS!

The body is a great and wonderful thing, but it is nothing, NOTHING, without an Aim and a Wish. The body has been around for about 4 to 7 decades or so, give or take, and has been wandering around a VERY small patch of land for most, if not all of that time, but ask yourself, honestly, what do you have to "show for it" intellectually, spiritually? Do you spend most of your time thinking about yourself, your issues, your concerns, your irritations, OR are you actually beginning to investigate, and explore, and discover, and create that which only the Brain and Mind, governed by Aim and Wish can DO, even more than anything else you do, physically?

The Aim and the Wish were not "designed" (by D(esigne)r Who) for altering the planet, or the body, but for experiencing Higher Mind, which everyone has direct access to (by virtue of having been born of woman, as a result of the sperm & egg hookup sequence) even this instant, as you are reading these words, and thinking your thoughts about them.

Ask yourself, what do you have to "show for it," intellectually, spiritually, that you can demonstrate not only to yourself, but to others if asked, that ADVANCES your CHANCES of SUCCESS at This Thing you have embarked upon so many years or decades ago?

Because, remember 

Success is NOT Assured

(#3 of three links)

Anomaly - Glorious, or Horribilis?

Recently overheard at my local 

caffeine-imbibing establishment,

(slightly edited for content from "True Detective, S1") 

"I consider myself a realist, or in philosophical terms a pessimist - it means I'm bad at parties. I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in human evolution. We became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect of nature, but separate from itself. 

"We are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are "things" that labor under the illusion of having a "self", but it's really just a secretion of sensory experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each SOME-body, when in fact everybody is NO-body. 

"I think the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming, stop reproducing, and walk hand-in-hand into extinction. One last midnight - brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal. (Obvious question then: what's the point of getting out of bed every morning?) I tell myself I bear witness. But, the real answer is that it's obviously my programming, and I lack the constitution for suicide."

The Speaker continues...

"The common good has got to make up fairy tales, and fairy tales are not good for anybody. (Referring to religion in general:) If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then that person is a piece of shit. What does it say about life, huh? You've got to get together, tell yourself stories that violate every law of the universe just to get through the day? (Obvious question: you figure it's all a scam right?) Yeah, it's been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey: (pointing up) 'He said... for You... to give me YOUR share.'"

"People. They're so frail they'd rather put a coin in a wishing well, rather than buy dinner! As for the preachers, it is all just the transference of fear and self-loathing to an Authoritarian Vessel - catharsis. The preacher absorbs their followers dread with his narrative, and because of this he is effective in proportion to the amount of certainty he can project. Certain linguistic anthropologists think that religion is a language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain, that dulls critical thinking. (But, having none,) at least I am not racing to a red light."

The Speaker continues...

"You see, we've been caught in what I call "a life trap", a gene-deep certainty that things will be different... that you'll move to another city and meet the people that'll be your friends for the rest of your life; that you'll fall in love and be fulfilled. Fuckin' fullfillment, and closure: just empty jars to hold this shit-storm. Nothing is ever fulfilled until the very end. And closure?...?...? No, no, no... nothing is ever over.

"The ontological fallacy of expecting a light at the end of a tunnel, that's what the preacher sells, same as a shrink. You see, the preacher encourages your capacity for illusion, and then he tells you it's a virtue. It's such a sense of entitlement, isn't it? "All of this is for me, Me, ME!" We are so fuckin' important, right, right? 

"People. I have seen the finale of thousands of lives, young, old, each one so sure of their realness, and that their sensory experience constituted a unique individual, with purpose and meaning, so certain that they were more than just a biological puppet. But... truth wills out, and everybody sees - once the strings are cut, all fall down. These still bodies each so certain they were more than the sum of their urges. All that useless spinning, tired mind collisions, so full of desire and ignorance."

The Speaker summarizes...

"This - THIS - is what I'm talking about: Time, and Death, and Futility. There are broader ideas at work here... in that last nanosecond before their inevitable death they saw what they were. That you, your self, it's all a big drama. It was never anything but a jury-rig of presumption and dumb will, and you could just let go, finally knowing that you didn't have to hold on so tight. To realize that in all your life - all your love, all your hate, all your memory, all your pain - it was all the same thing. It was all the same dream that you had inside that locked room up here, between the ears. Just a dream about being... a 'person'... a 'self'... a 'me'... an 'I'."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Glorious or Horribilus or Both?