This year has been challenging in a new kind of way.

Mostly, this is due to a client deciding that they were just not going to pay me for a contract. Right when I was finishing up. It was really disappointing, because I was building this awesome new shed and had finished the framing for the roof and the walls and brought out the metal sheeting for the roof and some concrete hardy board for the walls, both of which were very cool new outdoor building products from Texas. I was ready to make a masterpiece. Then this person just decided that they needed to cancel; no real reason.

I worked on this project for over a month. The whole thing sits on a massive French drain that I built one top of 6 large footings. The shed’s infrastructure came out pretty good in the end, once another guy came in a finished it for less money. Unfortunately, I have no recourse because I still don’t have my landscaping license; which is bullshit to begin with. This whole ordeal is making me rethink getting back into the landscaping industry.

Licensing Difficulties

Earlier in the year, I had applied for a new landscaping contractors license and I was supposed to test in October, but I wasn’t able to find a reference. The state also tried to force me to change my business name to include “landscaping”, which is kind of a silly overstepping of the government. These regulations are supposed to help people somehow? The state of California, seems especially intent on preventing smaller businesses from even starting. Food is controlled; medicine is controlled (and by the way, mushrooms are still schedule 1, same as heroine!), poison from big companies is allowed, everything seems to have been over stabilized because of the military industrial complex

s need to stabilize the economy to sustain growth. You can tell that this system which has entrenched itself into the court systems has no interest in the commonwealth. The infrastructure, roads, power lines, etc are deteriorating pretty badly. They are also very poorly planned, scheduled, and constructed. At this point, it makes more sense for these companies to build things that deteriorate quickly because their contracts become more valuable. Similar to a car company making cheaper parts that you won’t notice. Regulation actually seems to be counterproductive in these areas. You’d think the government would want to spend more money helping the homeless and working on immigration rather than running sting operations and all of the infrastructure required to test and charge for landscaping licenses, maintain a board etc. It’s like the DMV charging a little bit extra every year. Why don’t our taxes cover DMV fees in the state of California? Why are paying the DMV fees at all?

These regulations are formulated so that larger companies, that are entrenched, have the upper hand when it comes to business operations. This is called regulatory capture and it is basically now a reality in many places in America. People that participate in the justice and court systems say that this is true of the courts as well, though I don’t have experience with this. It seems to be rampant in the divorce industry; there is an exploitation occurring.

This is a new age form of governmental monopolization, similar to the inefficacies of communism. It reminds me a lot of Paris when I was 20; it’s nearly impossible to do anything because of the amount of rules that exist! It’s happening in every industry as the military industrial complex expands; Dwight Eisenhower warned about this after WWII. So we can dismantle it, but it’s going to take a decade or more. But anyways, the state said that I had to have “landscaping” in my business name (which is nonsense, because I was already doing all kinds of things that normal people would not call “landscaping”.), including plumbing and some light electrical work. What is with the reference? No exceptions for college graduates, no talking to customers. Why do they even test people, these aren’t skills you can reasonably “prove” on a test. It’s just another system of government trying to control things that it shouldn’t. I’ve heard from a few contractors that the test is mostly about the business portion anyways; rules which the regulatory bodies decide on. Its a conflict of interest.

Resigning to let go and Move on

I have no recourse except to let myself be taken by this client. Kinda sucks. But overall it a good lesson. And now I want to get out of the landscaping industry. It’s a pretty sad situation, but things could be much worse. I still am very healthy, I am learning, I didn’t lose everything I own. But honestly all of this licensing and client nonsense makes me want to leave the state. Who do these people think they are? In many other states, there are literally 0 laws about landscaping. There are many, far more important issues for the government to focus on that could actually be productive for society. We need to figure out our rehabilitation, education, and prison systems. This should be consuming every last ounce of energy of the government and state.

Taking Refuge at Bushnell’s Landscaping in Granite Bay

I decided that I needed to get a real job. To get some experience in the field working for someone that could vouch for me to get my landscaping licensing. To try to find mentor to help me to see into the future and decide if this would be a path for me. I decided to get a job for Bushnell’s in Granite Bay, CA. I needed to go completely legit, and work on my schooling to become some kind of engineer, designer, creator, whatever. Something involving computation, but also lots of math, modeling, etc. To be honest, I have been missing working with computers for a while and the recent advances in AI have me drooling to get my hands on some more advanced machine learning models. I am a giant data nerd and have been since I played WOW when I was 15. Don’t tell anyone ffs. I am currently taking math and physics classes online and it has been awesome. I also getting back into coding with python and data analysis, all of which seems to work and flow really well together. Soon, I’ll be learning more advanced biology, neuroscience, and cellular mechanics. stuff like that. I am going to stop doing as much labor and start working on designs. At the end of last year, I was considering buying a little walk on tractor.

Bushnell was very receptive to getting a new employee that had some experience landscaping, so I got the slightly more than full-time job working at the Nursery and for his landscaping company. It’s pretty nice to have a steady stream of working coming in, even though it is only maintenance. Refocusing on design is going to be great for me. I am also really hoping that Bushnell will sponsor me to test for my licensing. I am not a fan of maintenance work, I like making new things and installing, but I have come to appreciate the steady work on maintenance. I’ll do maintenance, but I don’t like it very much. I’d prefer to be repairing an irrigation system or adding drainage, or still my favorite of all time, planting plants. Soon, I’m hoping to get working on some larger projects with Bushnell and I’ll feature some of his work to show off why it’s awesome, and how his systems are designed.

This has been a fairly wet winter and I have spent a lot of time outside doing maintenance and fertilizing plants, I’ve been working a lot. But the work is much lighter than the construction work I was doing before so it’s not a big deal. I got sick a couple of times this winter, but it felt like a good sick, like it made me healthier to go through and experience the bacteria or viruses or whatever.

I had never done a liquid fertilizer before so I got to learn about nitrogen and spreading agents and humic acid and stuff. It’s really amazing what some fertilizer can do for plant growth and health. I am thinking of formulating my own mixture with liquid kelp and bat guano and experimenting with some nutrient enhancements. Different plants have different fertilization specifications so that is something interesting I will have a chance to learn and experiment with. Bushnell has some amazing work.

Leveling Up to Landscape Designer

Dave Bushnell’s work has an obviously superior quality to it; he has the ability to grow a plant from a seed and then install it into a client’s yard. You can see distinction in the end product. This control over the plant’s life gives him a somewhat unparalleled design ability to understand how plants can flow and grow together, which is the most important part of any ecosystem, but especially an ornamental landscape. The plants and colors need to fit together to move the human eye around the scene and generally you want the plants to exist together in a harmonious equilibrium. I have done a decent amount of designing in the wood-working and fencing and gate building fields as well so I can create entryways that invite and appeal and just can’t wait to be walked through! Complimenting areas with greenery, or specialized architectural features: stone walls, arches, stone steps, etc is a great way to enhance the enjoyability of a space.

Design is going to be the future of my landscaping business. In a few years I’m hoping to have 2-3 Tesla bots or similar running around doing landscaping and I’ll just focus on the planning and logistics of the planting, drainage, and irrigation systems that I install. I’ll also want to build rock walls, patios, decks, etc. all to create wonderful spaces for people to enjoy.

I’m not sure if I’m going to move to Texas or not yet; it is very appealing because of the law. California is going down, quickly and I do not want to be a part of any of what is happening here.

Delays and Updates for Eros Part 3

I was planning on finishing my album in the beginning of the year, but because I got a full time job working at Bushnell’s I’ve had time to think more about the last tracks and what I want to create with them. I have three more tracks that are coming out shortly here.

Battle for Mars is the newest and last track of the EROS Part 3 album; it has two version, the long version and the shorter version, each of which has a unique flavor. I have spent about 5 months on these pieces of music so I hope you have a chance to enjoy them. I’ll be uploading the album to Spotify for a release date on the 1st of June. I’ll post an article when I release the album, but for now you can enjoy the track on SoundCloud, its out there 😀

Yoga as a constant force

Mediation and yoga have been very important for me during this tumultuous time where I get myself out of this little situation. After having that client cancel on me, I was fuming and I really had no way to vent the energy. Yoga was tremendously helpful; it helps me to process emotions. I generally do lots of exercise to move through deeper kinds of feelings like what I was dealing with at the end of last year. Yoga and my movement practice are a very important refuge and it always comes in handy. Breathing control is always very useful. It still took about a month to get over; but without yoga I think it would have taken me much longer. Now I am just getting refocused on the path to wherever new job as an opportunity to get back into my practice and start documenting more of my findings, as I do think that yoga is a form of science and that we should be using it to ameliorate our mental health. Think of it like breath science and thought training, focusing, something like that while exercising. It is a very interesting phenomenon. I’m looking forward to teaching this week, so see you at East Wind if you get a chance to take my class.

Yoga has helped me in a huge way through this whole process. Its really helped in letting go of holding any grudges.

I’ll be creating more yoga content soon here, once I cool down from working all the time, which I am still doing to get myself out of this silly debt.