Every two years, a new class of home gardeners are trained by the county in an effort to expand the knowledge base of "intelligent" gardening in the area (versus the hocus-pocus, fear-based tactics that could be prevalent if not continuously beaten down (think "intelligent design" and you have hocus-pocus)).

When I was trained, the procedure was to invite several people in the new class to help out in various ways: after class cleanup, sound system and projector setup, instructor help, table and chairs setup and the like. I and two other classmates, my carpool buddies actually, signed up for the sound system and projector setup. The three of us were immediately integrated into the program, meeting all of the teachers and experienced gardeners each week.

This, to me, was integral to my enjoyment of the program. I didn't have to work to meet anyone, I just met them, and everyone knew me. That seems to be a trend in my group activities - everyone knows me, I remember maybe half of everyone else. Happened in high school (a school of 3000+ students), college (okay, only 820 there), and various ultimate leagues (150 or so players).

This class, however, the PTB have decided to coddle the new class, and instead of inviting two or three people from the new class to both learn the sound system and project setup, a chairperson of the A/V committee will lean on the people who have been trained on the A/V equipment to sign up to set up and run the sound system, projector and computer or the video camera. Instead of two people for the systems (recalling that I can and did all three systems by myself just fine, but with lots of grumbling that I was the only one doing the A/V equipment, being unable to get ANYONE to help me, which is a different story that apparently I haven't complained about, er, told), three people were asked to sign up for each class.

As I tend to ignore calls to my phones from numbers I don't recognize, I didn't receive any of the initial can-you-help-these-days calls. I did, however, receive the we-don't-have-anyone-help call, and signed up for about 6 of the 15 classes, despite my huge misgivings about taking away the opportunity from someone in the new class.

Today was the first of those classes.

Somehow I managed to drag my sleepy butt out of bed this morning early enough to both hit the Starbucks for a tasty Signature hot chocolate and make it to the A/V equipment location on time. Yay, me!

On my way up to retrieve the video equipment, I met up with a fellow gardener heading downstairs with the audio equipment. She was good, so I continued up to the office area, opened the equipment cabinet, and discovered the equipment was all gone.

Now, this is another problem I have with the current setup. Does the first person take all of the equipment over to the other building for setup, or does he take only the equipment that he's signed up to manage? After setting up the first part of the equipment, does he setup the rest of the equipment, in case the next person is too late to do so? The whole thing beomes a minor clusterf--k, and I particularly dislike clusterf--ks.

So, after realizing that a fellow gardener has reduced my workload by taking over the equipment I'm responsible for settup up, giving a small thanks, and worrying a little bit aabout whether or not the equipment was actually over in the training class, I closed the cabinet, locked it up, and wandered out of the office (running into a remarkably attractive young county employee in the process - gee, don't I wish I wasn't dressed in a sweatshirt and baggy cords - phooey).

I caught up to the previous gardener who was still struggling with the audio equipment. I mentioned I was doing the video equipment when she noticed I wasn't carrying anything. She commented, no, no, the tripod was still in the cabinet, it was behind the speaker stand, and she left it there. Really? I asked, wondering how much to trust myself versus how much to trust her observations. No, she was sure, it was still there, so I went back up to look.

For those of you in the audience, an easel is not the same as a tripod.

In a huff, I stomped back out of the office, stopping my huff when I ran into the cute county employee, and wandered over to the training building, grumbling the whole way about how much of a cluster this is turning into.

I arrived twenty minutes before class, ready to setup some equipment, to find that everything had been set up. I didn't need to do a single thing, though I did help the fellow gardener with the sound system setup. To my surprise, I didn't need to do the video for the class, either. I find the videoing of the classes the most tedious of the three equipment responsibilities, mostly because you can't just walk away, you have to pay attention to keep the speaker on screen the whole class. That, and you have to balance centering with too much centering - if you move the camera continuously, a viewer of the resulting video invariably becomes seasick.

So, here I was signed up for the video, which I didn't have to do, for a class that I didn't need or want to take, at a time that's too early for me, on a day that's horribly busy for me.

I can't say I'm particularly happy about this outcome.

Though, I do have three hours to catch up on blogging, I guess.

A couple days ago, I woke up in the morning and cleared my throat. I've been sounding more and more like a crotchety old man over the last month as I snorted and hacked and coughed up and out whatever the heck was stuck in my nose and throat. My throat clearing has been so going on so long that both I stopped noticing I was doing it and Kris stopped teasing me about it since it was no longer humourous.

What made the throat clearing different a few days ago was the blood that came out with the mucus. That, and the multivitamin sized chunk of something that came out afterward on the next clearing. Okay, yeah, something wasn't right, and I probably needed to have this checked out.

So, I walked into the doctor's office for an appointment, and walked out with the diagnosis of a sinus infection and a much-too-big bottle of antibiotics. Given that I could trace the mucus discoloration back to September in my health journal, I probably should have addresed this problem a while ago.

I can't say I'm particularly happy about taking antibiotics, having finally rebalanced my gut bacteria after a sugar binge that totally changed the quality of my, well, I did say too much information.

However, after two days of being on antibiotics now, I have to say I'm starting to smell the world again. That, and taste my food again. The salad I bought today from Fresh Choice was AMAZING. I found out, however, that I'm not able to eat the red onions I've been eating as apples as of late, now that I can taste again. Man, those things are pungent! I think I might have to go from medium back to mild on my salsa, too, given that I'll be able to taste food again, and not just use my pain threshold as a guide for what's too hot.

I also found out that my bedroom smells bad. Holy moly, do those dogs stink, and they've been rubbing themselves all over the bed when they sleep on it during the day. New rules starting up - no dogs in the bedroom during the day, no dogs on the bed. Done. No more.

I think the biggest suprise of being able to smell again happened this evening.

You know what? My shit DOES stink.

Okay, wow, yes, I have completely confirmed that my enjoyment of a class is mostly dependent on the other students in the class. This is a new revelation for me, and might be limited to just hands-on classes, or even just printing classes, but, ho, boy, is the correlation strong (one might say direct).

Today's class was a photopolymer plate making class, where we learned how to make custom, metal backed, plastic plates for letterpress printing. The basic process is to expose parts of a light-senstive plastic which is bonded to a metal plate, to ultraviolet light. The plastic that isn't covered up hardens, the rest of the unexposed plastic stays soft and can then be washed away, revealing a custom printing plate.

The process is straight forward, and very similar to the silk screening screen making process I learned in college, and vaguely recall. The class taught us how ot use the center's equipment specifically.

There were five other students in tonight's class: two students from a local art college, a couple who owned their own printing press and an outgoing software project manager. The "adults" of the class, the four of us old enough to be the parents of the two art college students, spent a while talking outside, which was nice in the warm, summer-like evening. The couple were on their second press, having accidently dropped their first press and ruining it when moving it into their garage. The guy of the couple seemed to know a lot, and explained concepts well. I thought he was very Bob Diller-like, so immediately liked him. The woman was a little spacey, but not in a clueless way, more in a I'm-digesting-what-you-just-said way.

The class material itself wasn't complicated, nor very dense. The instructor reviewed it all fairly quickly.

Turns out, the two art college girls were in the class because they had an assignment due on Saturday and had forgotten how to create the plates necessary to complete the project. The looked online, found this class, and decided to take it in order to relearn the plate making process, make a plate and finish their assignment. Although I applaud their resourcefulness in finding and taking the class, I couldn't help but be annoyed at the too specific questions they'd ask and the just the fact that wouldn't reviewing their own notes or asking at their college been cheaper and more efficient than paying $100 for a new class plus lab time? Or even asking a classmate for help?

One of the two students brought in a negative that, although right read, emulsion down, wasn't reverse, and more than once confused the instructor in its processing (Why didn't this part wash off? Oh yes, this ENTIRE AREA was exposed).

As annoyed as I was by the students, I was far more annoyed by the end of the class by the software manager guy. He had taken the same classes I had taken, but was much more vocal in sharing his knowledge.

The class finished early, so I asked the instructor for an overview of how she handled lining up multiple printing plates (also known as registering) when printing in different colors on the same piece. Now, I didn't want to listen to a know-it-all guy tell me what I myself learned in the various classes I had already taken. I wanted to hear what someone who prints on thousands of dollars of paper a year has to tell me about her process is, what tricks does she use, what bits of wisdom could she share.

Instead, the know-it-all guy stood right next to me talking at a louder volume than the instructor, neither of which stopped for the other. I completely missed what she said and wanted to punch the guy, or at least tell him to shut the fuck up already, you're not telling me anything I haven't already learned and YOU DON"T HAVE PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE so SHUT UP.

Although I walked away knowing enough to be able to rent the equipment, I definitely left the class completely annoyed.

Yay, skillsets.

Boo, know-it-all people who can't shut up.

At least I've learned that even though I do know it all, I don't have to share.

This morning, before heading off to a client's facility, I decided to run a few errands, one of which was deposit a couple checks. I parked in the front parking lot of my bank, a lot I normally don't park in because I'm usually going to both this bank and the bank next to it, so I park in the back lot.

The front lot has parking spots at an angle on both sides of the one way driveway down the side of the building. Cars pull in at a less-than-45° angle to park, then later back out and pull forward to leave.

When I was done and ready to pull out to leave, I watched the cars behind me until they pulled past, and waited for a pedestrian to either pause or pass. When she paused, and waved me along, I backed out of my spot, noticing two other cars had pulled into the driveway and were waiting for me.

As I finished backing out, the pedestrian started walking along my car to the right, and I shifted my car from reverse to first. I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye to the left. I turned to look left.

And saw a huge red truck reverse lights on, brake lights off, backing up, straight at me at a noticeable speed.

I laid on the horn, a horn getting a lot of use as of late, and held it there until the brake lights came on. I'm sure I startled the pedestrian, to my chagrin, as I hate when people honk when I'm walking by - horns are LOUD.

With the truck stopped, I pulled forward and drove away.

As I left the lot, heart thumping, thankful my car wasn't hit, I couldn't help but wonder, why didn't the car behind me, the driver of which had a front row seat of the impending disaster, honk? Why didn't the driver help me out by honking to stop both of us from colliding?

I have decided that the next bit of memorization that I'm going to do is Licoln's Gettysburg Address. I'm not sure if this is the exact speech, as I copied it from Wikipedia, but it's close enough. This one is 264 words long, whereas I've read the Address was 273 words long. Of course, I've also read that it's 270 words long.

Regardless of the length, if you hear me singing, it's the periodic table; quoting in a sing-song lilt, it's the Jaberwocky, or mumbling, it's the Gettysburg Address.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.