nGreat story. Harry makes hard work into an interesting story. Sounds like the wife and dog enjoyed it!
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MOVING THE LILAC BUSH ON A RAINY DAYnn
n There sits the lilac bush, a good lilac bush, blooms yearly, looks good, planted eleven years ago, but now is out of place for the new landscape scheme. What to do? Cut it down and destroy all that nature has given us? Move it to a new location, as impossible as that seems? Let’s opt for the move. What the heck, time is of no importance, semi-retirement give us plenty of it to use in various ways. It is a rain day. So let us move an eleven year old lilac bush and its eight cubic foot root ball. Oh yeah, lets have some fun. (Picture was taken on a day when it was not raining.)nnThe preparation begins. First you spend a couple of hours removing the planter box from around the lilac bush. This requires a carpenter’s hammer, a crow bar, and some patience. It also leads to the discovery that, yes, termites do eat redwood. nnThe next step is to wrap the root ball in plastic and secure the plastic so that you can move the bush without the soil falling away from the roots. Securing the plastic wrap with duct tape works well. However, if you have a large ten month old ninety pound Rottweiler puppy, secure the puppy. Puppies like to join the wrapping of the root ball fun by biting the duct tape. It is counter productive, but the puppy has a great time.nnOnce you have the root ball secure, go to the garden shed and get a twenty foot long 3/8 inch diameter logging cable with looped ends. Wrap the cable around the base of the root ball, secure the other end to your 4 WD truck and then pull away slowly. This severs the root ball from the ground, leaving an eight cubic foot mass to be moved. Oh, make sure puppy stays secured. Puppies think wrapping logging cable is also great fun. They love to grab the loose end and play tug of war. While they may be enjoying themselves, frustration does set it. Caution, do not try and kick puppy, it will dodge and you will fall down. Puppy will stay just out of your reach and have an expression very close to mirthful enjoyment.nnNow that the root ball is cut off from the tap root it is time to load it onto a garden cart. This requires strength, foul language, a leverage bar, some plywood and a tolerant if not totally approving wife. Strength is needed to slide the root ball onto a piece of plywood. The plywood will provide a stable base for manipulating the root ball. The foul language reduces the tension and frustration of being 55 years old and trying to move a 400 pound object with no leverage. The leverage bar provides the leverage that the foul language is protesting. A 5 foot long 1 inch diameter steel bar works well. The wife, or next door neighbor if you live somewhere where there is one ( I do not ), provides the extra pair of hands God neglected to provide you with. These come in handy for moving small pieces of 2×4 under the root ball to give additional angles of leverage as the weighty mass is levered up a few inches at a time.nnAt this point, if you have foolishly let puppy out, lock the crazed thing up again. It is no good threatening to shoot it every time it runs up and nips you on the rear end while you are trying to lift the root ball. Puppies apparently take life threatening comments to be part of their way of having fun. (Note: Do not try and spear the puppy with leverage bar, when thrown it is causes muscle strain that later really hurts and the bar is so damn heavy anyway you really cannot throw it that far.) Puppies are pretty damn quick and move out of the way fast.nnOnce you have managed to load root ball and bush onto a garden cart, slowly take it down hill to its new location. First, if it somehow got lose, lock the damn puppy up again. Snapping at garden cart wheels is just as much fun as nipping at bent over masters. Once you have the lilac bush where it is going to be planted, sit and contemplate just how in the heck you are going to lift about 400 pound, 2 feet into the air and drop into in a planter box. In a very short time you come to realize that this is not going to happen at your age in this lifetime. Now, think back, how did your ancestors do this type of thing. Well, the Egyptians used slave labor to build the pyramids. All you have is a semi-tolerant wife and a crazed puppy who thinks you exist solely to amuse her (the puppy not necessarily the wife).nnYes, a revelation! You remember reading that stone aged tribesmen built Stonehenge by raising the heavy stones using a cross crib method. If your Stone Age ancestors did it, so can you. Collect all the scrap 2×4 and 2×6 pieces you can find. Ready the leverage bar, encourage the wife, control the temper, modify the language , let’s build a cross crib lift carriage.nnTry to be calm and patient with long suffering wife. She did not anticipate this regression to Stone Aged servitude. Slowly and clearly explain that each cross piece has to go over the other crosspieces as you attempt to hold the whole root ball up. An occasional smile disguised as a painful grimace provides encouragement.nnNow you have raised the root ball and bush to the required height. OK it has taken several hours, but it is there. Now you need to push it into the planter box. Using the good old leverage principles of Archimedes, it is done. The lilac bush is in place. Now fill in the planter, water, clean up the mess, take a shower, open a bottle of wine, get drunk, attempt to make love to wife, get rebuked, fall asleep, Oh, do not forget to go and pet the puppy and tell her you will get even later.nnHappy Gardening!
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MURPHYS MADE THE NEWS!nnCalaveras County, CA – Three illegal grow raids on two days last week resulted in an estimated $8 million worth of marijuana being seized, and one of the properties involved used to be a Murphys dog kennel. The searches, two on Thursday and one on Friday, were conducted…n
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nHOW I BUILT MY COMPUTERn
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nVideo shows an enormous line of Teslas waiting to charge in LouisiananYesterday I was in Louisiana along I10. I stopped to get gas when I noticed a line of cars all waiting. Come to find out – it was a line of Tesla’s waiting their turn to charge up. Curious, I pulled over and asked the guy how long it took to charge- he said normally 30 min but these stations are running slow due to demand so it’s over an hour per car. Take a look at this line…. Each car is over an hour to charge. Hope those people have food and clothes – they may not make dinner.n
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nAbandoned EV’s in China. Fact checked by Reuters. No matter WHY they were abandoned, they ultimately WERE ABANDONED with no reply on what the company plans to do with them now. I wouldn’t exactly call this “green.” The truth is that rarely are things really “green.” Just food for thought.
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The vehicles belong to an Hangzhou-based electric car rideshare company called Microcity, subsidiarity of an electric car rental company named Zhejiang Zuozhongyou Electric Car Service Limited, according to the company’s former brand manager.
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“The cars in the photo belonged to Hangzhou Microcity, “Lou Gaofeng told AFP.
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Launched in Hangzhou in 2013, Microcity’s electric car rideshare service aimed to tackle emissions, congestion, and limited parking space, according to the local government’s website.
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Car sharing services in Chinese have struggled to keep their business model profitable. In 2019, Hong Kong-based newspaper South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that many firms had gone bankrupt after an initial boom in ride-sharing apps in the 2010s, aided by the low price of electric cars.
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Chinese media reported that thousands of Microcity electric cars have ended up in parking lots on the outskirts of Hangzhou since 2019 (here, here, and here).
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Lou told local newspaper Hangzhou.com.cn in April 2019 that around 3,000 Microcity cars are parked in three different parking lots along the Qiantang River. However, according to the company’s former manager, not all the cars were defective.
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“I had clearly explained at that time that not all of them had problems. Some of them had problems, some could still be used, others were old enough to be sold to another company and disassembled,” he told AFP.
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“Second, it had nothing to do with the spontaneous combustion of the battery. Most of them were the first generation electric vehicles produced in 2013 and even earlier and should be replaced due to technological progress.”
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Microcity’s current management did not respond to AFP’s inquiries on what the company plans to do with the cars in the future.
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Why does it matter? Read Full Article HEREnThe video quickly garnered attention online as commenters debated whether traditional gas-powered vehicles remain more efficient than newer electric vehicles even as gas prices skyrocket across the U.S. amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.n
The Keith Kelley Club will be out at this festival honoring Kevin Nishita.nSince 1978, the Nikkei Matsuri Festival has showcased the contributions and cultural achievements of the Japanese American community. Nikkei Matsuri’s origin began with the City of San Jose’s 1977 Bicentennial Celebration, Issei Legacy, which was an event that coordinated over thirty Japanese American cultural groups and associations. This network of organizations and volunteers established the framework for Nikkei Matsuri Festivals to come.
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Germaine Antonowicz & I will be out representing. Come out and see us! We will have Kevin Nishita t-shirts for sale.
nNew San Jose deputy chief gives new look, leadership to investigations
nGreat story. Harry makes hard work into an interesting story. Sounds like the wife and dog enjoyed it!
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There sits the lilac bush, a good lilac bush, blooms yearly, looks good, planted eleven years ago, but now is out of place for the new landscape scheme. What to do? Cut it down and destroy all that nature has given us? Move it to a new location, as impossible as that seems? Let’s opt for the move. What the heck, time is of no importance, semi-retirement give us plenty of it to use in various ways. It is a rain day. So let us move an eleven year old lilac bush and its eight cubic foot root ball. Oh yeah, lets have some fun. (Picture was taken on a day when it was not raining.)
Yes, a revelation! You remember reading that stone aged tribesmen built Stonehenge by raising the heavy stones using a cross crib method. If your Stone Age ancestors did it, so can you. Collect all the scrap 2×4 and 2×6 pieces you can find. Ready the leverage bar, encourage the wife, control the temper, modify the language , let’s build a cross crib lift carriage.
Now you have raised the root ball and bush to the required height. OK it has taken several hours, but it is there. Now you need to push it into the planter box. Using the good old leverage principles of Archimedes, it is done. The lilac bush is in place. Now fill in the planter, water, clean up the mess, take a shower, open a bottle of wine, get drunk, attempt to make love to wife, get rebuked, fall asleep, Oh, do not forget to go and pet the puppy and tell her you will get even later.
nCalaveras County, CA – Three illegal grow raids on two days last week resulted in an estimated $8 million worth of marijuana being seized, and one of the properties involved used to be a Murphys dog kennel. The searches, two on Thursday and one on Friday, were conducted…n
nVideo shows an enormous line of Teslas waiting to charge in LouisiananYesterday I was in Louisiana along I10. I stopped to get gas when I noticed a line of cars all waiting. Come to find out – it was a line of Tesla’s waiting their turn to charge up. Curious, I pulled over and asked the guy how long it took to charge- he said normally 30 min but these stations are running slow due to demand so it’s over an hour per car. Take a look at this line…. Each car is over an hour to charge. Hope those people have food and clothes – they may not make dinner.n
nAbandoned EV’s in China. Fact checked by Reuters. No matter WHY they were abandoned, they ultimately WERE ABANDONED with no reply on what the company plans to do with them now. I wouldn’t exactly call this “green.” The truth is that rarely are things really “green.” Just food for thought. 
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nParents Set Up Hidden Camera And Catch Cat CuddlingnTheir Anxious Dog
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REMEMBER WHEN YOU NEVER WENT OUT WITHOUT IT?