Welcome!
Welcome to my virtual community!
Holzemville used to exist only in my mind, but thanks to the World Wide Web, Holzemville is now somewhat real. Most of Holzemville is just my photo albums. Lots of pictures, especially if you like gardening or Christmas lights. There are also pictures of the city that I really live in: Oregon City, Oregon.
You can also explore some of my other interests. The Community Center has some essays on cooking and landscaping for the homeowner. The Television section has the fall network schedule grid, and descriptions of all the shows on the six broadcast networks. And The Holzemville Mall is where you can help me pay for this website by buying things from Amazon.com by using my affiliate links.
Thanks for visiting!
Latest News
May 29, 2006
I have started a new blog. This one is open to the public. It isn't going to be about me. It's my opinions on current and political events. There will be a lot of things that are local to Oregon City, the Portland Metro area, and Oregon, but occasionally I might comment on national issues, too.
I've seeded the blog with a number of posts, and as of now, comments are welcome. If you want to see this new blog, you can find it at http://www.holzemville.com/howiseethings.
January 5, 2006
There is some new stuff at Holzemville.
The Personal Finance Center is almost ready. There are links to the 2005 versions of all the Turbo Tax and Tax Cut software packages, and information on how to choose which one is right for anyone. There are also links to the Quicken and Microsoft Money 2006 versions, and information on how to chose the right version.
The Linksys Store makes sense of all the Linksys networking equipment. You can discover which router is best for your situation, and which networking cards work best with each router. You can also find out about the Linksys adapters for Vonage.
Vonage, the Broadband Phone Company, uses a broadband Internet connection, usually cable, to make phone calls instead of the phone network. You can connect ordinary telephones to a Vonage adapter from Linksys. Unlimited calls are $24.95/month. You can keep your own phone number. Long distance is included for free, as well as numerous other features that usually cost extra through traditional phone companies, like voice mail, and call forwarding. They also have a $14.95/month plan that includes 500 minutes. I turned my own $45/month phone bill (my local service plus long distance service) into a $15/month phone bill. That's $360 a year in savings. People who make a lot of long distance calls, or are paying for lots of extra features can save much more.
So let's get 2006 off to a great start.
December 4, 2005
Today in the daylight, I can see the damage to the inflatables is much greater than I originally thought. It appears that they used some kind of mechanical means to try to pull them down. The hoops for the guy wires on the sides of some are bent and tangled. Plastic bases are cracked, and metal ones bent. And most of the inflatables now have rips in them.
I may be able to sew them up. I may be able to unbend the metal. I may be able to work around the broken plastic. But I won't be able to fix it this year. Christmas is over.
I've moved the remains of the inflatables to the courtyard, and will probably bring them into the garage to dry out. I won't be lighting the rest of the decorations, and I'll be taking them down as I find the time over the next few weeks.
Right now I'm undecided as to whether I want to bother putting anything up next year. If I'm unable to salvage what was left behind, the damage totals about $500 in cash, and an undeterminable amount in both labor and trust.
December 3, 2005
Tonight the holiday lights display was vandalized. I'll have to wait until daylight to see everything, but The Grinch and one of the penguines were dragged down the street behind a car, and the polar bear was tipped over. A neighbor heard the noise, and let me know. When I called the police to report it, they said that they had another report in the area of a similar nature. I hope they catch the jerks.
November 17, 2005
Christmas lights pictures are now up at http://www.holzemville.com/xmas2005/
November 11, 2005
I had not realized how long it's been since I've added any news to this page. Apparently I've been very busy doing absolutely nothing important. Hmmm.
Today the news isn't what has happened. Today the news is what's going to happen. Next week is the week I put up the holiday lights. I'll be testing them briefly after dark late Friday night, and Saturday will be the first night they'll be on the timer. I do have some things to do over the weekend, but I expect that I will have pictures up by the Monday before Thanksgiving.
For those in the area, the lights will be on nightly from 4pm to Midnight, November 19 to January 1. The nights of December 24 and December 31, the lights will be on all night, and all day on December 25 and January 1. Midnight on January 1 they will go off for the year. That's 43 nights to see the display this year.
For those wondering, I spend about $250/year on new lights, extension cords, supplies, etc., and my electric bill goes up by about $75 to pay for the display. The last three years I've used compact florescent spotlights, but even outdoor rated spotlight bulbs don't usually last a full season in the rain. So this year, even though it may raise the electric bill, I'm probably going to use incandecent spotlights where needed. I'm just not going to spend the money on CF bulbs that don't last as long as regulars.
Look for some new inflatables this year, and some new scenes. There'll be fewer lights on the house itself, and I may skip the fence this year. How far I'll go, to some extent, will be governed by the weather. Too cold, too windy, and I'll spend more time inside.
Don't forget that if you want to buy anything from Amazon.com, use a link on one of my pages to go to Amazon. The referal fees I earn for sending buyers to Amazon help pay for this website, including the extra bandwidth needed for viewing of the holiday light pictures, easily the most popular part of this site. Thanks!
August 6, 2005
I thoguht I'd have early tomatoes this year, but it looks like they're going to be late. So far, I've gotten only one tomato off of my Early Girls. The damp weather in June and July didn't do much for the bees, so polination was slow. But we're finally getting some warm, dry weather, and those blosoms are starting to turn into small green tomatoes. When they start coming, they should come pretty darn good.
The hot, arid weather we've had for the past week is good news for the roses. The blackspot of the wet early summer is going away. No new pictures since the last batch. There probably won't be much in the line of pictures until September when the next season of color comes.
There's a new section up on my website. MAD-TV has some pages to help tell the various cast members apart. Over the 10 seasons, there were 44 regular cast and featured players. No single season ever had so many changes that there wasn't some continuity. It's kind of facinating how they've managed to stay so consistant for a decade, while their better known compitition struggles.
July 23, 2005
While I had the camera out, I took more pictures around the yard.
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I got around to taking another picture of me next to the lilies that better shows how tall they are. In the last picture, they didn't look so tall because standing next to them, I looked short and fat. Well, we're a little better. I don't look short anymore, but I still look fat. I look less fat while holding Kiddle, who was wondering what I was up to.
July 17, 2005
New pictures are up! The gladiolus, lilies and hollyhocks are starting to bloom. The lilies and hollyhocks are really tall, but it's hard to see in most pictures, so I took advantage of the timer on my digital camera, and took some pictures of me standing next to them. I thought that would help add some scale to the images so you can see how tall the flowers are. Instead, it just makes me look short and fat! I'll have to bring some other things over, and re-take the pictures. Maybe the lawn mower. I don't look short and fat next to the lawn mower.
Anyway, HERE are the pictures.
July 4, 2005
I've got some new pictures from around the garden posted now. You can find them here. The warm weather of the last few days has gotten some things to start blooming. For example, the first blooms of any of the daylilies was today. But most of the oriental and asiatic lilies haven't bloomed yet, and the hollyhocks are just starting. There are some sunflowers almost ready to bloom, too.
The roses are really pitiful this year. The damp May and wet June resulted in a record amount of black spot. Almost every week my yard waste bin was over half full with rose foliage that had to be pruned and discarded. Some of that pruning resulted in significant late growth of the canes, but the growth is very thin, and can hardly support flowers. And so many leaves had to be removed, the plants really aren't equipt with enough leaves to provide enough energy for a big bloom.
Hopefully if we have some good weather it won't be long until the fuchsia starts going wild, too. The gladiolus have some healthy foliage, too. And the containers of dianthus, alyssum and drawf snapdragon are starting to look pretty impresive, too. And I'm only about three - maybe as little as two - weeks away from tomatoes. So later this summer I should have some more great pictures.
July 1, 2005
Kiddle has gotten very adventurous this year. She's spending a lot of time climbing around on the rocks behind the pond, and has even found a few plateaus big enough to use to lounge.
No other pictures yet. The freaky weather hasn't been good for the landscape. Just as everything was ready to bloom, we had too much late-season rain. So now it's July, and we missed-out on that great late-spring/early-summer season of color. But chances are we should get some more seasonal weather coming up, and our mid-summer and late-summer color should be good. The hollyhocks and lillies are just starting, and the glads should be ready soon. Watch for pictures later this month!