'Tis the season

Getting ready for spring in the middle of winter is like counting down christmas in the middle of October. I know it's coming but it's taking it's own sweet tome to get here. Working at a garden store isn't helping me either. As soon as customers start showing up to get the seeds for this years garden my brain starts scheming about how all the things I want to plant this year.

I don't know if I can wait for the ground to thaw before I start breaking ground in our little growing patch. The dirt seems to be calling my name and begging me to get my hands and knees all muddy.

Just to see who all reads this post, I want some suggestions on what to plant this year. If you read this post you MUST write a comment and give atleast one suggestion. two or three would be great too. Ill keep a detailed acount of all i plant and you can see how your suggestions turn out!

A man's shopping trip

Last night I was killing time while waiting to pick Kylee Up from work. I went in to a few stores that she doesn't appreciate as much as I do though I'm not sure why. Best buy was my first stop but it was a forgetable experience. I mostly just wanted to dream about having a man cave. After that I skipped over to O'Reilly Auto (formally Checkers) to see if they had a part I need for the car. As I walked in to the store I was greeted by Thomas, a guy about my age, who talked to me not as a customer but like we'd been friends for quite a while. we talked about the part for a bit but when he couldn't find it in his database he did something I didn't expect. He picked up the phone and asked AutoZone down the street if they had it. Wow! Turns out the tailgate assembly for an Isuzu is a very rare thing. Now here is where any other sales person would say,"anything else I can get for you?" Trust me its almost programmed into them. But Thomas just kept making small talk about my car and how I like it. He even casually suggested I get some WD-40 to try and loosen the Tailgate latch. It wasn't a pressured sale. I even felt like I had wanted to do that all along. I left the store with my can of lubricant and a good feeling that I seldom get when I go shopping. Way to go Thomas for making shopping feel more like going to see a friend instead of an in and out service.

Jake, sure I'll buy another one!

Requiem for a Light

Lately I've been in one of those learning moods. No, not one of those study for the classes I've signed up for this semester. Mostly I've been interested in LED Lights and what is actually going on inside those tiny little gadgets. So one hour later after browsing Wikipedia I find myself now an expert on Light-Emitting-Diodes. I could explain in big geeky terms just how they work but unless you understand the energy clouds of atoms that house electrons its all going to sound foreign to you. But trust me, its cool. I've been trying to find some light source for our fish tank and I've played with the idea of setting up my own LED array of different colors for the tank. My only issue with LED's is that as cool as they are they are nothing like natural light from the sun.
Our Neighbor is actually a plant science major at USU and is studing the effects of LED's on plants (this work may or may not be related to growing plants on the international space station). Until I make up my mind on how light the aquarium we're going to stick with these cool little sinking LED's we found at Micheal's craft store for 50%.