Bidets cousin Johny trying out for AI

a serious burger

brit flashing

so here it is for anyone who may be interested , allan

Out West where the deer and the buffalo roam

This was a picture of the area that guy was in that was attacked by a mountain lion a bit back . I kept it because I thought it looked like a damn painting and a beautiful one at that , allan

THE cat for fourflights

No the cat hasnt died like I said she would be dead if I ran her picture again, THIS CAT MAY NEVER DIE ! but fou wantd to see a picture of her, allan

Our Nurse Ratchet has been smoked out and here she is

Yes , Hitler was terrific at picking out small typos and misspellings too . So lets guess who "our " nurse ratchet turned out to be after all . Just a hint , it's not that buffon Emmawrites , Keep guessing , allan

Heres Emma after hearing the news

This is purported to be an actual picture of EmmaWrites after hearing that I was successfully reinstated to full membership on the bookshelf site . See the little smile and the twinkle in her eyes . What would Emma do without me? allan

Georgia O'keefe

This is one of my all time favorite paintings .

For Four , the ocean meeting fire island

funny picture I found

This was a picture that was used in some article about "global warming" I was reading recently . I thought it extremely funny in its rediculousness.

It's amazing to me how people have jumped on this band wagon about global warming but so seems to be the sheep like nature of most humans. Sure the earths warming . and sure mans activities may be adding to it but does anyone seriously think trying to have cars that are less polluting is going to change that in a short 10 years ? Lets not forget the emerging counties of the world are China and India and between them they have upwards of 2.5 billion people . In 20 years when all those people are also driving cars you are going to really see some serious global warming and don't think for one second Al Gore is going to keep those masses from behind the wheel . The best thing to do is accept the fact the globe is probably warming because of what humans are doing (or at the least we are adding to it) and yes , hope for the best . Hell , its 10 here right now . me I'm sick of the cold winters . Its funny how people are always so willing to jump on the doomsday train when instead maybe global warming will be a panecea , we simply don't know . Give it some thought , allan

Amorphophallus titanum

For 12 , this is the plant I was talking about last night in the chat . It's called the corpse flower and smells like a corpse to attracted pollinators . Obviously it's tropical and as far as I know fairly rare . I think it's from borneo ?? In a bit I'll run another picture of whats called the worlds largest flower but I need to go out now ,, see ya , allan

Odontoglossum Grande , a species orchid

Years ago I used to get these plants from an orchid nursery in Guatamala . They were jungle collected plants that were huge for 1 dollar each . I could generally bust them up into 3 to 4 plants each . I had to grow them for one to two years ( this guys plants were rough looking when I would get them ) then put flowers on them and wholesale them in NYC for 25 dollars a plant . Those days are long gone in the orchid bussiness but it was great when importing extremely cheap jungle collected plants was a large part of the orchid bussiness . Everything now is nursery grown and way more money per plant (better plants too) but thats the way of the world . Things change . Allan

Odontoglossum x miltonia hybrids in a greenhouse

WOOF WOOF!

Again the giant water lily 12 and an underneath veiw

Longwood Gardens, one of the world’s largest and finest display gardens, features several acres of conservatories, including a spectacular summer display of hybrids of Victoria Amazonica and Victoria Cruziana, giant water lilies with pads up to seven feet across and armored with long spines. The genus Amazonica was discovered in 1801, and named for Queen Victoria. The giant water lilies are found in Equatorial Brazil along the backwaters of the Amazon River. Their huge flowers open at night, and are said to have an aroma like pineapple

Heres a great pic 12

This looks like an S gigantea again but check out all the flies on it and what seems to be a frog ( I don't know if that frog is real tho ) . 12 , click on all these pictures to blow them up for an even better look. These flowers are very fleshy by the way , thats a spent one laying behind the open one . This stuff is sexy baby , hahahaha , allan

stapelia link for 12

heres a link 12 showing many other of the stapelia tribe . There are many there I had and looking at them makes me want to get into it again , allan

Heres another Stapelia 12

This one is S. variagata . Also an easy one with smaller more colorful flowers . I think when I was into these plants ages ago I had upwards of 150 varieties some rather rare and difficult to grow . The obscure ones are only interesting to people who are really into this stuff often having small flowers but interesting stems . A few were considered almost impossible to cultivate so I grew them from seed and was able to grow them . I tend to do that with most plants . Maybe its the challenge of growing the hard stuff. In the past I've had some of the most rediculous orchids that I only tried growing to satisfy my ego . Once I lost interest they would dissappear into the larger orchid collection and tend to be forgotten and die off . allan

Here 12 , stapelia gigantia

These flowers are about 10 inches across and as I said smell like rotted meat . I used to have a huge collection of this family years ago . They are always star shaped flowers ranging from teeny things to these huge ones . Many have interesting coloration . None ever smell pleasant . Look up the family.They are great ,easy to grow succulent plants . I might start getting some again . I miss this type of plant and after all these years i'm extremely jaded to orchids , allan

Continuation of the compostumbler

and the principle behind how it works . Allan

Giant water lily

I've run this picture before of whats called the giant water lily . Again I forget the botanical name but no matter . These pads are 4 feet across and made of a very spongey material that is very bouyant. I had a book once where a very old pictire of this plant had a young girl standing on one of these pads . . These damn things are gorgeous but as you can see you need a giant lily pond to have them . allan

a monkey pitcher plant

this is the pitcher on a an insectivious plant called a monkey pitcher plant . The botanical name escapes me . Insects fall into the top of this pitcher and powerful enzymes dissolve them and the plant feeds off of it . there are many species of these things . Some with very large pitchers . Maybe tomorrow I will find a nursery that specializes in insectivious plants and run a link here. There are such nurseries I'll just need to find them again . allan

Jag engine ready to go

This damn thing is a work of art right up there with the statue of David ( yes kal , you ) . Engines are extraordinary things and its only that they are so common that we take them for granted ( plus they hide under hoods ) But seen like this one freshly rebuilt and ready to power a classic Jag makes my heart glad , allan

A great composter

This here thing is called a Compostumbler and I can highly reccomend it if you have a big yard with lots of clippings and junk to deal with. Years ago overwhelmed with organic debris from my property I bought one of these things thinking it probably wouldn't work well but I needed to give it a shot since the towns here have become cranky about picking up yard debris . Old Bill slapped it together in minutes ( a few hours really ) and we were on our way . He filled it up . Spun it a few times and he would spin it whenever he was here ( I would spin it too on Bills off days ) . To make a long story short the damn thing works like a charm producing fantastic compost in a matter of weeks that make a super addition to any garden . It aint cheap . I was just pricing a new one since my original will need replacement soon ( If it were protected under an awning or in a carport I think it might last forever but mine has been out in the weather for at least 10 years or more . OK, 425 , no shipping from a place in texas was the best price I found today . I forget the name of the place but its easy to find with keyword . Just put in compostumbler and you will see it . Thats it , i highly reccomend this product if as I said you need to get rid of lots of yard debris. Allan

for bert

This may be just as example of different personalities. We in the Greek choir are the "nice" people. Allan and the like-minded cohort anonypusses are the "tell it like it is" people.Say a kid related to Allan graduates from college. Allan is invited to a graduation party. He gets there and watches the Greek Chorus people praising the boy, lauding him for his achievement. When Allan gets a chance at the boy, he lambasts him for wasting his time getting a degree in English and warns the kid about how tough life is and how he would have been better off something else. He tells him how hard it's going to be to make a living.Some of the people at the party would be aghast at Allan's behavior, some would pretend to be shocked, but secretly would agree that getting a degree in English wasn't all that smart a move. And some would vocalize a semblance of agreement with Allan.Then 18 months later, at the funeral after the kid committed suicide because he couldn't get a job, Allan would go to the wake and tell people, "I told you so!" And he had! Again, the Greek Chorus would go tsk tsk, some would pretend to go tsk tsk and some would say, outloud, that Allan was correct.And frankly, there is no "right" way to be. We all follow the paths on which we feel most comfortable. And if you're comfortable with who you are, who the hell cares what anyone else thinks?
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Now I'm going to explain something to you bert about your post but I will explain it here and not in Schells blog .

first , I agree 100 percent with your last paragraph . There is no right way and there is no wrong way in life you are absolutely right .

Second , there are no people who are always nice . . Are there people who are always nasty ? Maybe a few but even truely nasty people may do something nice from time to time . I'll use the old worn illustration of Hitler liikely one of the truely nastiest people in history . He loved his mother dearly and also loved dogs . Sure it aint much but you get my point .

Thirdly , I never used the term " this is the way it is" . The term I used is " as I see it " and there is tremendous difference between the two terms . I wont bother explaining . If you can't see the difference then I'm wasting my time typing.

Fourthly . I would be the first to congradulate the kid on his degree without further comment . If the kid asked me if I thought the english degree was a good and i knew it wasn't I would ask him if he really wanted my opinion. If he said yes I would tell him what I thought basically as Schell appeared to be asking for opinions on her problem and I told her what I truely thought of the situation .

If the kid killed himself I would never ever even think it was because he had gotten the English degree but would have to assume there were deep seated problems I didn't know about . No one who is sane at all kills himself over a lousy english degree.

Fiftly,I'm not an " I told you so " type of person in the least Bert and on schells blog I hope she chooses the right thing to do but conversely from reading everything she has written it seems to me ( and as usual this is my opinion or as I see it) it strikes me over and over from what she writes that schell and her boy are bad for each other . That the boy needs people helping him with his problems that are completely objective in how they see him and thats not schell or her husband . Also going away to a school is a fantastic growing up experience ( or can be) . It brings new horizons into ones life and hopefully with the right supervision will help the boy solve his problems . ( perhaps a school specializing in bi polar kids if he really is bi polar would be best but away from the home that seems to bring out these episodes ) . Hey bert,. I be way off base and the kid might go off to a school and get even worse but maybe the new surroundings are just what he needs .

sixtly ,The anon people who come in there are not my cohorts . If you havent figured me out by now I stand alone when I have opinions and don't need a gang to back me up . If an anon agrees with me , fine , if not fine too . Personally I would never type an anon post and don't understand why some people do . ANd yes bert I have an idea who the anon people are . Thats not my problem. take it up with them .

That will do for now bert , I have something important I have to do before the sunsets . I'm going to post this , if there are typos sorry but i havent the time to correct them. I will gladly continue later when I have all my work done here bert and yes my making a living is far more important to me then schells problems . It's called the realities of life bert and schell can be assured when the bill collector calls me I wont ask her for money , see you later , allan