Why I Oughta...

More than 130 years old , this Dragon Tree at the Hotel Del Coronado is a stunner.   Even the hotel itself says that the tree "is almost as iconic as their signature red roofs" .  And it is right outside the front door of the hotel.  Well, it is a little bit offset, but if you are walking up the walk from the beachside area towards the front door, you walk right past it. Check out the marker below: It reads: Dragon Tree  Dracaena Draco  Native to the Canary Islands, this unusual tree was planted at The Del prior to the turn of the century where it thrives in our temperate southern California coastal climate. The dragon tree was used as a backdrop in the Marilyn Monroe movie 'Some Like It Hot', which was filmed at The Del in 1958. I haven't seen the movie, but I guess now it should be on our list, right?  The film has a 97% Fresh ranking on Rotten Tomatoes , but it is NOT at all about what I figured it was going to be about.  The plot : Two Stru

Back in May of this year, I shared my plans to plant some Dahlia tubers directly in the ground in one of our landscape beds along the south property line.  That post is here .   In that post, I described the two varieties - one being a semi-cactus and the other being a dinner plate. Specifically I planted three Big Brother Dinner plate Dahlias . And, I planted three Color Spectacle Semi-Cactus Dahlia s. Please go click those links.  And make sure my eyes aren't fooling me.  They're both orange, right?  Like, totally orange.  The packages of both show orange flowers.  And...I love orange flowers.  Well, I like orange most things.  But, have a special soft-spot for orange flowers.  Now, scroll back to the top of this post.  That's a couple of the Big Brother Dinner plate flowers about to burst open.  And now, check out the photo below.  That's one of the Color Spectacle flowers starting to open up. They're, ummm, not orange.  Right?  Those are tota

Just a little bit over a week ago, I shared ANOTHER 1 post about the trees that I saw in Tokyo and talked about how I'm in the middle of a bit of a crush on Japanese horticulture.  That crush certainly is most-focused on trees (both deciduous and coniferous) that are typically columnar in shape, but it also extends to gardens in general.  This post is about a little hidden garden called the Gotenyama Garden that is right outside the Tokyo Marriott in Shinagawa.  The same place that had that epic honeycomb setup I shared back in July . The Cherry Blossom tree that I included in a post with some Nagoya-area trees back in April of this year is from the very top of Gotenyama Garden, but that was as far as I was able to *get* to in the garden on my previous trip.  Just a quick step outside to grab a photo.  This time, I was able to wander in there a bit further.  And it is pretty great! Starting with the image you see at the top that shows one of the intermediate levels of a

I guess this is part of the continuing series of posts chronicling the various soda cans I came across over my visits to JAPAC.  This one - Monarch American Soda Water - was from the hotel lounge in the hotel I was staying at in Singapore.  Previous ones were J-Cola from Japan .  And just recently, three Coke Zero cans from Tokyo and Singapore .  You can see that this one reads: "Original from USA".   Kind of interesting that they're marketing the USA-aspect of the stuff and not, say, France, where "Big Sparkling" (you know.....La Croix, Perrier seem to be from). And, just for the record, I think I coined the term "Big Sparkling" right now.  I think we can lump  Topo Chico, Bubly (owned by Pepsi), and perhaps Schweppes along with La Croix and Perrier into "Big Sparkling", right?  Spindrift - for now - can still cling to it's independent roots. I'm good with Big Sparkling.  Drink the stuff as often as I can.

This is maybe my favorite version of Bob Dylan.  Maybe.  I don't mean the song, specifically.  But...it is really great.  It is 'One More Night' from Nashville Skyline which was released April 9, 1969 . It has only been played twice live.  Yeah...twice.  June of 1990 and September of 1995 . But, by saying *favorite* Bob Dylan, I'm talking about how the whole thing comes together.  The song, the voice (according to some...he stopped smoking (???) and you can hear it in his voice.  I mean...those people who say to you:  I hate Bob Dylan's voice.  That voice, etc.  Just have them play this video above and then see if they stand by their answer??!?), the sound and the flow of the entire record.  Just really great. I remember the first time I had ever heard of Nashville Skyline.  My friend Neil (son of Super Coach Jer, sometimes AKA Mitch) and I went to Threshold Records in Tinley Park.  And after nosing around some vinyl, Neil plucked Nashville Skyline out of t

This is the first season that I've taken a high degree of interest in our lawn.  This is also the first time that I'm cutting the grass (in the front) by myself.  For the past few seasons, we've used a service to cut the front (while Go-Go - our Automower - cuts the back) and I wasn't ever really pleased with how they worked our lawn.  They came every week, no matter what and that, I think, made for a less-than-ideal lawn for us.  There were some ruts that I fixed this Spring with seed and I think generally, they were cutting it too short and coming EVERY WEEK just to put in the billings.  I get that.  They're running a business.  But, when the price increases came this Spring, I just decided to buy a lawnmower.  My FIRST lawn mower and cut it myself.  The front itself isn't very big (including the parkways and the side strip on the other side of the driveway, we're talking less than 2,500 square feet), so it doesn't take long.  And, once I started t

I didn't get to see a lot of Singapore, but one thing I was struck by was all the shipping traffic in/around the coast.  Here's a shot I saw on departure as we took off out of the airport on a morning flight.  Quite an armada of container ships, right?  This was the view off the coast, too.  We see ships on the horizon when we're on vacation - in California or Florida - but they're just occasional blips on floating on the sea far out there.  Not quite the same thing going on here - which I assume is for a variety of reasons including the size of the passages and the restrictions/regulations placed on the voyages.  But, all that stuff we buy has to come from somewhere, right?