Current mood:	creative
Current music:	just see my last.fm stream (user tbc0)

How to Plant Your Garden
My dad sent me a copy of a poem illuminated with some attractive graphics, so I decided to share it with my readers. It goes like this:

How to Plant Your Garden

First, you come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses

For the garden of your daily living,
Plant three rows of peas:

   1. Peace of mind
   2. Peace of heart
   3. Peace of soul

Plant four rows of squash:

   1. Squash gossip
   2. Squash indifference
   3. Squash grumbling
   4. Squash selfishness

Plant four rows of lettuce:

   1. Let us be faithful
   2. Let us be kind
   3. Let us be patient
   4. Let us love one another

No garden is without turnips:

   1. Turn up for meetings
   2. Turn up for service
   3. Turn up to help one another

To conclude our garden we must have thyme:

   1. Time for each other
   2. Time for family
   3. Time for friends

Water freely with patience and cultivate with love.
There is much fruit in your garden because you reap what you sow.

-- Author Unknown

I have several reasons for posting this poem on my blog even though you can find it at several other places on the Web. First, I like the graphics so much that I made my own illuminated copy of the poem at http://purl.org/net/tbc/garden/. Have a look. It's simply but attractively formatted so that you can easily copy & paste it into email. Second, I want to see how my copy spreads compared with others. Is an initial link from a blog to a PURL enough for Google to give my copy good placement? Third, since it seems that there's no stopping people from forwarding chain email, I'd like to model how to do it. Note how my illuminated copy is formatted, and note how I cite my sources. If you know the author of the poem or the designer of the graphics, please let me know. Finally, note how I add myself to the chain: "HTML formatting by Tim Chambers 1E4AF729D5CEFFD0." It frustrates me when I get chain email without sources. And note how I couple this blog entry to the copy that's suitable for forwarding. I'm sure it's a lost cause, but if I can convince just one person to improve Internet communications then it was worth the time I spent writing this blog entry.

And in case you're wondering about "1E4AF729D5CEFFD0" -- it's my GPG fingerprint. It's my totally unique identifier. Who else but me would bother including that particular hexadecimal number on Web pages? So far I've been able to use it to ensure that Google returns content unique to me with 100% accuracy.