Mid-Atlantic Musings - Page 2

Stormy.... I love your new thread, and I think it should continue!
I hope you don't mind that I have started a Page 2. We came from here.... http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1071810/

We are getting snow... again! Areas south of DC (such as I) are expecting 10+ inches! Uuugghhhh!!!

Holly... I have been growing EEs for a number of years now on my balcony. Until the past two years, I just grew the regular Colocasia Esculenta.... but I feed the heck out of them with MG and they grow monstrous! Neighbors always exclaim about the "Ears" hanging over the edge of our balcony. This past summer, I added a number of varieties. I grew the regular C. Esculenta and C. Esculenta 'Black Magic', 'Black Jungle', 'Coffee Cups', 'Illustris', and my new favorites... 'Elapao' and 'Mojoito'. I also grew 'Lime Zinger' which is a Xanthosoma, and 'Hilo Beauty' whicj is an Alocasia. I added at the very end of the summer Alocasia varigata. They are wintering in the bedroom and look pretty ratty so I don't know yet what will survive.

This is 'Elapao'

This message was edited Jan 30, 2010 12:35 PM

This is 'Mojito'... Probably my most favorite!

VWR, I was over to the Aroid Forum last night for a short time. Boy the things you don't know. I had no idea what Aroid's were. Well I still don't really "know what all make up Aroids" but it turns out I have several of them including one of my favorite house plants the Prince of Orange Philo. I got my memory stick back last night with all my pictures and when I get a chance to download them I will post pictures of them all. I have wanted a Moonlight Philo to go with my Prince of Orange and I just picked up a small one last week. I also have an Alocasia Polly or I should say I did last summer we will she how everything comes back for me this spring. When I get a chance I will start a thread over there with a few pic of my Aroids. Thanks so much for the info, that is one of the really nice things about DG you never know what gem of info might come up in conversation.
Here is a recent pic of the PoO Holly

Wow... that's nice!

Yes... all philos are in the aroid family... and yes, many other houseplants are in the aroid family and people just don't realize. Peace lilies come to mind. I've always liked that lush, tropical look and feel... and nothing does that better than aroids.

Makin' me wish for summer as I watch it snow... *sigh*

Holly, this is OT from plants but, How is your memory stick working? I was wondering if I got one, if I can download all my pictures to it and then free up space on my computer. How easy is it to down load a picture for it directly on to DG to post a picture on a thread.
Thanks

Wow! Very pretty!

LadyG... nothing is OT here! Remember this is for our "musings"!

:o)

Ladyg, I'll have to have Ric answer. All I can tell you is that I have a good 4,000 or more pics on that memory stick and it was pretty easy to use. But I don't know if you can keep them organized. Of course we had to just dump all the info from my computer on it so I don't know if it was the way it was transferred to the stick but I had a smaller stick with more than 2,000 pictures on it and I had to reorganize all the pictures when I put those back into the computer. I do know that you can store all kinds of things on them like music.

VWR, I guess page 2 through me off. Also let me add I love the looks of the leaves that you posted and Holly's plant.

Holly, I was just wondering about the organization. Right now all my pictures are in "My Pictures" and there are many many folders. So if I transfer the entire My picture file will they still be in individual folders.
I'll wait for Ric to answer if that is better for you.

VWR hope the weather is kind to you, is it still snowing?

It is indeed still snowing and when I measured at about 3pm, we had 9 inches already! It's very cold here, and we are staying in and being lazy!

Mojito is very neat! Saw some really cool huge ones at a nursery here a few years ago. I had a Black Magic (probably really 'runner') but the mites decimated it. I really need better fertilizer scheduling- why am I so lazy on that?

Phew! Snow started here by 10 am and still coming down! Radar looks to show a few more hours at least. I went to bank , Target and thrift store but no further, just not very good to be out. DS (19) went ot the Polar Plunge in annapolis today, snow delayed them so they missed the 1 o clock, and then 3 o clock got cancelled! Bet he's disappointed. Minimum pledge of 50 to get in, gets you lunch and a sweatshirt but he reallly wanted the plunge experience for the first time.

you regulars may wish to check new thread from hart
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1072759/

Thanks, Sally (nice whisper, BTW!).

Hiya all - just sitting here, glued to my chair and refusing to move - Bandit snoring on the floor, monster puppy is chewing on a bone and the cats are giving me filthy looks for whatever reason - DH is out of town, so I'm trying my darnedest to not do anything! I had all kinds of grand plans about what I was going to do - once I took a look at the snow I quickly changed my mind and decided to hibernate in front of the laptop! I will have to actually get up and rummage for some food, one gets mighty hungry from doing naught!

I'm thinking I'll watch a couple of movies later on - there is only so much surfing I can do before I get tired of the laptop, I do have to work tomorrow, but nothing due until Tuesday morning - DH comes home on Monday nite, I'm hoping the snow is off the roads by then, if not I have to drive to Dulles and pick him up, the Mustang is NOT good for driving on snow - not sure how much snow we actually have, looks like 4-5 inches - temps are 17°F and the dogs were very quick to come in after their potty break - stay warm and safe! Beck

Sounds good and cozy Beck~~ Look at that guy--hope he can be happy with the majoirity of his bulk on a cushion, I can;t imagine they sell a cushion big enough to let him really stretch out. Oh yeah they do, it's called a full size bed. WOOF! .
Whats a good durable chewy for a big dog? Addy does not chew a fresh bone for more than an hour or two, Then lets them lay around the yard. Other things (pig ear) go down the hatch!

Sally - he's been gnawing on a giant nylabone since we got him, so far indestructible ^_^ And no, no beds big enough - I have to make them - and he eats them as fast as I can get them put together - so I go cheap and easy - right now he's really, really wanting to play with Bandit and won't leave him alone....Bandit just hid under the coffee table! It was too cold and snowy to take a walk with both of them and he's being a total putz! Buckethead that is....this was taken a month ago...his head reaches way above the armrest now....according to breed standard he should reach 32" at shoulder height when he's done growing UP - then the filling out will start, his chest is already huge!

Whoa! Trying to catch up and we're already on "Page 2"!

Stormy, I didn't even realize that was a "stone barn" on the first thread until I went back and clicked again on the image! LOVED the additional photos and the links with the history :)

VWR, years ago we had a Colocasia that showed up in the lot we were selling with the same variegation as 'Mojito'! We thought it was really unique and kept it for ourselves but it never made it through the winter :( Rick nicknamed it 'Schizophrenic'! LOL

Holly, I got 'Moonlight' last month!! It was one of the plants we had seen when we stopped by a nursery on the way home from Christmas shopping. For some reason, even though we grabbed a few other plants to bring home, in our haste we forgot to grab that one! When a friend stopped by and saw the plants we bought she planned a trip to that nursery the next week and I had her pick up a 'Moonlight' for us :) They were healthy plants and only $6.00!

Lady, I picked up an external hard drive a few years ago to store all of "My Pictures" on because they were starting to bog down my computer. I can't remember which one I got, only that it was 80 GB. I use it to back up some of my files as well and I've still got plenty of free space. Wow, they've really come down in price since I bought mine! I think I paid around $150 for mine and just checked so I could send you a link - A LOT cheaper now! http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150414&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&Order=PRICE If you've got a huge file with pictures it will take awhile to load them but just copy and paste and they remain intact, i.e. in their "individual folders" :) I've also got a couple of the memory sticks but their capacity is a lot smaller and I've got a lot of pictures!

Sally, thank you - I've been away for a couple of days and probably would have missed the thread :(

Becky, LOVE the photos of Samson, especially the second one! You can't see his eyes but I'll bet they're glued on the subject - FOOD! LOL

About 10" of snow here :( I don't mind the snow but it's cold out there - ONE degree this morning! Started staining my kitchen island yesterday - since I have to leave the door ajar to help with the smell it wasn't the best choice of projects to tackle yesterday with these temperatures :(

Bec, That dog is HUGE, LOL What a cute pup he is.
Ladyg, Our computer got some kind of bug. My daughters Brother in law took it to look at. We thought it would only take a week. Just about the time he got it he also got really busy at work and also started dating a new girl. So we waited forever to get it back. One of the issues was that it was so full of pictures that he couldn't get the programs loaded in the computer that would check for bugs. So we gave him a memory stick and he downloaded a couple of thousand pics on that. The rest he downloaded on a old hard drive that he had until we got another larger memory stick to him. Now I have all the pic back but only the first couple of thousand are in the computer. I guess Ric will put the rest in the lap top. We are talking about getting a separate hard drive for the pic or a larger rebuilt tower. Our computer is older & smaller.

Thanks for the computer chat. We should probably get some pics off the computer too. I saw sticks at office depot for ten bucks.

May I suggest also burning a CD of your pictures? I don't know how stable the sticks are.

The CD or DVD is a good idea... but the external hard drives that rcn referred to are an excellent choice, because you can leave them hooked up or take them off... your choice. Hubby got one for my computer where I back up all my photos. I have over 18,000 photos (42 GB) on my computer. My external hard drive is one TB (terrabyte) and cost $99 at Best Buy.

I tried to use CDs once but like you, VWR, I've got so many photos that it would have taken too many CDs to load them all! The external hard drive was a better solution and so much easier :) Wow, one TB - that will last forever!

I can only pipe in with "use an external harddrive" - number one, to back up your computer every week, number two - move all pics - using a stick or burning to CD is much too time consuming ^_^

even better... consider using an offsite backup system like Carbonite. We started using Carbonite a couple years ago, and it's such a good feeling to know that files are automagically backed up daily! It's set up on Jim's computer, but he set it up so that my photo & data files on the NAS (network storage device) are automatically copied to his computer, and from there they get backed up also. (You pay a monthly subscription fee, per computer.)

I agree about the external HD, but even so, they have been known to go south just as your computer can. Although, frankly, CD/DVD is far from safe forever; they degrade over time as well. No perfect answer except maybe Critter's.

I was thinking that if I had a second hard drive for pics I could just plug it into which ever computer I am using. Right now we have those first 2,000 or so in the old computer and Ric is planing on putting the rest in the laptop. I don't want them spread out all over the place.
VWR, Thanks for mentioning the 18,000 photos now I don't feel so bad. Ric keeps saying I have too many. LOL
We had the Austria pictures on a Kodak disc. They were taken back before we had a digital camera but Ric had a disc made as well as the printed pics. I asked him to find a couple of bird pictures I wanted to post and the disk keeps crashing my Photo program. Funny since it is a Kodak program and the disks are Kodak.

I sssooooo need to clean up my photos! I think (I know) I have way too many... but these are all my unedited photos, and I just haven't gotten rid of any yet.

Debbie, Part of the problem is our aged and very full PC, the other problem is, in trying to please the public Kodak has included Apple software in their format. This causes software conflicts and update issues. We can get our pics but it is a slow process. I believe a new tower with an external storage and Photo Shop may cure the problem. I need to talk to my SIL's brother for a setup. The only problem there is he's in rut and getting his ear may be the challenge. Ric

Sounds frustrating :( When, and if, you consider Photoshop, take a look at Photoshop Elements, if I remember correctly there's still a lot you can do with the cheaper program and it's much easier to use!

Yeap that's me "Cheap and Easy" LOL

Ric, take a look at Paint Shop Pro, also... I've been using it for several years now (just upgraded to a newer release), and I love it. I'm pretty sure it's got close to the same suite of features at Photoshop Elements (and at a lower price), or at least it has more features than I can manage to use, LOL.

Media storage is always a hugh problem. I've tried all methods. What I have learned is to back up to two different types of storage. If one implodes, the other probably will still be there. Third party services go out of business all of the time, with no warning. External drives, while more reliable than CDs and Memory sticks can still fail. Files created using Specialized viewing/storage programs often will not work with later editions of the same software.

I have transferred images from hard drive to floppy, from floppy to tape drives, from tape drives to CDs, from CDs to zip drives, from zip drives to memory sticks from memory sticks to external drives. I've emptied computers and used them as pure storage devices. Ultimately the technology of the external drives, or the software loaded on those drives will no longer be usable with newer hardware and software.There are problems with all of these alternatives. Be sure to keep 2 backups at all times to ensure that your photos are not lost. As new media storage devices become affordable, transfer your images to some of the newer devices or you may end up with unreadable files..

Foxy, Here's the website for the Wierd US books. Check it often, as they add 3 or 4 more books annually. I didn't order mine from the site, but got them from Amazon.

http://www.weirdnj.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&page=shop.browse&category_id=2&Itemid=26&vmcchk=1&Itemid=26

VWR, It's easy to see why you love that "Mojito". It is a real beauty. More and more I've seen EE's left outside to overwinter in pots here. Some of them must be hardier than reported.

Jill, Thanks for the tip. I like the pricing on the Paint Shop, even from the original source, and your sure you get the real deal. They even have a free download for trial use. I'm pretty sure I'll give it a try. I'm so frustrated by Kodak, I could spit! and now there are so many photo sharing sites, it isn't necessary anymore. Ric

When I was in school, my computer with Photoshop imploded and I ended up using Elements for half a semester - I couldn't find anything that I couldn't do in Elements that I could in PS.

I think last time I priced it at Costco, it was about $100. Photoshop, well.....

You're too funny.