I came up with a new word the other day. "Spitulate". It'll be in a dictionary some day. As contributed by the big Ambigui. It's a combination of spitball, you know, when you're making semi-uninformed stuff up on the spur of the moment; "Hey, I'm spitballing ovah here!"
I've been primarily substituting it for "speculate", but I've also found it can be substituted for any number of other "thinking" type verbs. Such as calculate, confabulate, cogitate, formulate, postulate, hypothecate, matriculate, perambulate, pontificate, and one of my very most favorites but rarely ever used circumambulate.
Besides being way too hard to pronounce who the hell knows what it means?
I get the circum part. It could be as simple as trying to draw a line with a marker around a beach ball. Or trying to go around the globe in a thirty foot ship in the 1600's. Or it could have something to do with that scary traditional thing they do to men's penis's when they are completely innocent little babies.
"Hey, kid. Just let me cause some excruciating pain to a soon to be most favorite appendage as a way of welcoming your chaste little body and soul to the world."
It's the ambulate part just after you've circumed that I'm skeptical about. I'm not sure ambulating is even legal.
Did anybody else out there read the somewhat recent AARP article about how to fall safely?
I found it rather illuminatingly scary. I mean, they show you with pictures how to drop and roll, but they say the best way to learn to do it properly is to practice. Think about that. They're advising people like me, old farts in their sixties, to practice falling.
That article was probably sponsored by the wheel chair industry.
Speaking of falling and wheel chairs, I FINIALLY got the MRI done on my left knee, four and a half months after the initial injury. (And I have decent health insurance.)
"There is a complex tear involving the posterior horn and adjacent posterior root attachment of the medial meniscus..."
And so on and so forth. There's a lot more. It's pretty tore up.
Baker's Cyst? Fuck that nurse practitioner. I don't have time to make shit up and I don't habitually take pain pills. Surgery will be scheduled for late May to early June.
If you read this blog from time to time you may have noticed I've been away from the keyboard for a while. Well, something somewhat unexpected has come my way that looks like it's going to take me away to the business world once again.
It all has to do with an invention related to marijuana harvesting. It's going to be called "The Deresinator". If you've ever trimmed marijuana you'll comprehend the value and necessity. If you've never trimmed marijuana or even know what marijuana is I may have already said too much. And yes, it is possible I may have been remotely involved with the medicinal marijuana industry here in California for a few years now.
There's nothing like "The Deresinator" on the market today. It's will save trimmers and growers time and money. And mess. And rather than try and enter an extremely regulated and expensive burgeoning and exploding green gold rush market, we're making unregulated but really useful and not so expensive shovels. Those familiar with the 1850's real gold rush here in California will understand that analogy.
We plan on entering the market with a beta model this fall, and then ramp up for production and release on 4/20/2019. Those familiar with marijuana will understand the significance of that date.
It's been an education to say the least, starting with a design concept. We (my son and I are partners, actually now through a newly formed LLC) initially went through a design and concept firm in Minneapolis. And that took some research just to find them.
The internet is rife with sharks and thieves that would part would-be dreamers from their hard earned money. A lot of people think up a lot of things, apparently, and there are a lot of other people that would offer promises and solutions but not really follow through.
Fortunately my intuitive bullshit radar still works from my previous tenure in the business world. Apparently my prolonged recess here on the hill has not dulled all of my say what? veracity.
I left a message at an 800 # from an invention website. Pick a site. There's a slew of them. And when homeboy returned the call, he stated he was there to facilitate my dreams. My dreams? What has that got to do with the reality of the situation? Red flags started exploding.
I put him off. I'm still good at that too. And then I started delving. The government's patent office website has a ton of useful information: USTPO.GOV. And inventor beware, there are a ton of inventor scam sites out there.
At any rate, I found one of the good guys, and we got a provisional (one year) patent through them. But then there's the utility patent, and getting all the internal working mechanisms actually functioning and so on and so forth.
So the next story has to do with a business trip my son and I took up to The Dalles, Oregon this last January to meet with the gentleman who is doing the final engineering and design work to bring our product to the utility patent and testing phase.
Anyway, we had a very productive meeting and then my son and I went on a research mission. You know, visiting one or two of the many retail pot shops that are in and around Portland these days. I mean, when you look at Portland on weedmaps.com it looks a lot like Amsterdam...if you know what I mean.
We did discover that most of the retail marijuana for sale was hand trimmed, which is good, because that's what our invention will service. There are many different kinds of machines that will actually trim the buds (or flowers), but the majority of retail customers and connoisseurs prefer the hand manicured buds. Machines tend to rape and pillage, and the buds do not reflect that pain well.
We checked in to a motel near PDX around 4 PM and took a brief respite before considering dinner. My son, handy with the smart phone, started looking for restaurants near to where we were. I would have been in the phone book-if they still have one-because I don't have a smart phone. I still sport a flip phone.
So a Famous Dave's BBQ joint was nearby. They're good, but they're a chain. I think my lovely wife and I dined there somewhere in Tennessee one time. They were an option, but then he stumbled upon "Wild Bill's Steakhouse", boasting the finest food west of the Rio Grande.
And they even had frog legs on the menu, something my son has never had. I figured that was a pretty big (and weird) boast, touting the Rio Grande when we were a mere mile from the mighty Columbia. But what the hell, we had to check out that boast.
When we got there it turned out Wild Bill's was more of an old fashioned sports bar than steak house. But they did have some top notch looking meat on the menu, only no mention of frog legs.
So my son inquired.
And the waitress, getting a rather puzzled look on her face, said, "Um, no."
We shrugged. That omission was certainly not going to blow the deal.
So he ordered a $15 filet mignon. I ordered an $8 burger. They were both great.
When we returned to our room we discovered the Wild Bill's he was looking at was located in Missouri. I have since discovered there are probably about a hundred Wild Bill's eateries scattered throughout the US. Apparently a lot of Bill's boast beef. Go figure.
Things around the old homestead are still chugging along. I hope to get a few more garden areas on automatic drip this year, including the orchard. I have also been working feverishly to get the last bit of ground around the house landscaped.
Then my ultimate master plan will be completed. I will be able to walk around the entire house barefoot and not act like I am walking on hot coals anywhere.
While I am not giving up this blog entirely, you may be happy to know I will soon be blogging primarily for a new website, cleantrimming.com. It's not quite up and operational yet, but should be within a month or so. I will keep you posted.
Marketing for this product should be a gas, besides the blog there will probably be some U-Tube videos. Hilarity in marketing will accompany the extreme functionality of our new product.
And with that I wish you a happy Spring, as current April showers dance upon the awning outside my window.
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