Thank you all so much. The compliments are more than generous, and much appreciated! This is indeed an annual show. In fact, all of the local societies have an annual show and sale down here in Southern California. It ends up being a whole season of shows, lasting late spring to late summer! I suspect I will do much better next year as well. Mostly because the two people who beat me will be forced to move up into Advanced, while I still get another year as a Novice. Plus, I am intending to enter *two* car loads next year! ;-) I can't speak to any other club's show, but the way it works at ours is pretty casual. On Friday, you bring in each of your plants and place them on the appropriate table. Then you fill out a little card, yellow for novice and purple for advanced, with your name and scientific name of the plant. You simply place the card with your plant and voila! its entered. You take a final count and write your name and the number of plants you've entered on the master list and your done. Hauling the plants is a lot of work, especially for those of us interested in fat plants. I suppose it ends up being a painful experience for all those cacti growers too. What is truly amazing is the amount of work the vendors put in hauling their wares and show plants. These people are moving a dozen flats of 4" plants, *plus* a bunch of gorgeous show plants too. I suppose a number of plants get damaged in the move, but so long as you are careful, it isn't like anything really gets ruined. I had a pot tip over (that really tall Dorstenia) but I just repotted it there, it wasn't a big deal. For the risk involved, the reward of sharing our plants with a curious public and the adulation of your peers is well worth it. While there is no formal rule about what type of container your plant is in, there is a deeply ingrained tradition of using relatively muted, earth-toned ceramic pots. More and more the pots are being considered as much a part of the hobby as the plants themselves. Actually, for all I know, it has always been like that, but even in my short experience that would seem to be the case. Technically, only 10% of the plants "score" is from staging, but in practice, that just isn't true. There was a particular guy at this show who had some really stellar plants in pretty unique pots. I personally loved them, I know some others did too. The judges on the other hand, hated them. Time after time, plants that should have won on their own merits, were losing to plants with more conventional pots. Given that condition is supposed to account for 70%, and size/difficulty account 15% it is hard to deny that the container and staging factor more into what plants win than what is stated in the rules. In short, there were a couple of plants there in plastic nursery pots, but if you want to be one of the "cool kids," you've got to stage your stuff in fancy oxide-stained ceramic! :-) I quite often forget the stupendous luck I have in living in SoCal. Even a small show like ours is really full of some amazing plants that could easily be among the world's best. I wish that everyone on this forum could experience a show, but between geography and climate, it just isn't possible. For those of you lucky enough to be able to participate in a local club or show, it is an opportunity you shouldn't pass up. For everyone else, all I can do is post pictures!

Kara, holy cow!!! What a beautiful plant! I can't blame you for favoring this one. I wish I had one in my front yard. You must admire it every time you walk by. It is simply amazing...Thanks for taking that pic for us... Nancy, not sure which one I would keep either!! Lol. So many favorites but if forced, we would all have to pic one( Stupidlazydog...You crack me up lol I would have a hard time especially if I had the room to grow more like you to..You have some gems there and I love seeing you post them. Thanks Gabby, quite interesting..Does it grow slowly? What a great color on that. I am almost in love with anything that grows black leaves, like the 'black prince'. What a nice dark color on that one. Josue, wow, what a huge Aloe..I'll bet you could squeeze juice out of those leaves..Very big. Maria, did I ever tell you how badly I want one? Yup. I keep admiring your plant there. You must look at it every day and treasure that one. Love that one. Mike

I find it useful to mentally replace the phrase "in the Cloud" with "on someone else's computer" It's accurate and it makes some decisions obvious. Change the question "Do I want to store my tax return data in the cloud?" to "Do I want to store my tax return data on someone else's computer?" and to me at least the answer is a resounding no. If some data is sensitive in some way, and you store it "in the cloud" where you can access it via the Internet, then you are trusting that cloud hosts assertions that they have good security practices, and trustworthy employees and that they will not go out of business or unilaterally change the agreement between you and them.

You don't still do this on weekends? As a matter of fact yes. Maybe not on the roof (well at least in the winter) but spent yesterday tiling a bathroom I completely gutted. Given that the damn architects punchlist is now over 30 pages long I don't think I'll be done 'till '24!