Last grow class for awhile...

Saturday Bulldog grow class blowout Grow class in Oaksterdam has been a tradition and blessing for the last 4 years. During those 4 years there’s ‘regulars’ that attend 95% of the classes. There’s a pretty strong comradery with the quality of affording easy familiarity and sociability amongst the old timers. Today’s grow class was just that with the usual mixing of ‘someone’s grandma’ and ‘up North crop wizard’ that has to be seen to be believed. The diversity of the 20 or so attendees at today’s grow class was a macrocosm of the bay area. Some are good at rolling joints, others are good at smoking them, and so it goes and everyone more than tolerated everyone else. We’ll now observe a moment of silence for the clones grandma had that perished….. (sniff) For the noobs, they are in for a real treat, and as one fellow expressed to Scrappy after class as he was leaving “Man, I’m new and you just blow me away with how much you know and how well you explain it.” I knew that made Scrappy’s day and some regular grow classer’s day too because we know we turned a light on in that guys head that’s going to be burning quite brightly for years to come. The last grow class at the Bulldog Coffee Shop? You know that was the first question for professor Scrappy as class gathered. For those that don’t know Scrappy is riding off into the sunset with his soon to-be-bride. My crystal ball sees children, moving, marriage and the need for a Hiatus from the rigors of 4 years of grow class. Scrappy has expressed an interest at returning in a couple months and if it’s longer the fire will still be evident and grow class will continue. It’s possible the venue will change to a bigger Oaksterdam location, possibly the gift shop on 15th as it was mentioned. Richard Lee sure was a gracious host and the consumate humanitarian. He’s a fellow that always has concern for helping the welfare and happiness of people and grow class offers him our heartfelt thanks. How do I grow thick dense buds? Ahhh… now there’s a question to ponder. The short answer is to show up at grow class. The real story is growing big buds involves optimized climate control, and the process got as technical as any question ever posed at class. And this particular class was as technical as I’ve ever seen it get. No wonder the noob left ‘blown away’. What the hell is going on outside? Sounds goofy but good question! Just as grow class convened you could not help but notice police orbiting the area. “Oh No” thought I. The police have uncovered our sacred secret grow class and fire and damnation will wreak havoc in our world! Then the odd occurrences started to develop. Sirens would blast and then cars rigged with Hollywood action camera booms started driving down Broadway, right in front of our view as we were seated towards the white board and with the front picture window facing Broadway making an interesting backdrop. Well the first couple times it appeared this boom was some sort of backhoe or something but after the third time it dawns on us they are filming a movie and it’s a camera at the end of the boom. From the looks of the beater car they were using this movie critic is thinking ‘low budget’. But it’s one of the cool mystique happenings of Oaksterdam much like Tommy Lee getting a new tattoo across the street from the SR-71. If anyone knows what they were filming inquiring minds want to know. Any gossip is good gossip. What an intro for the next question. Where is Mars? Did Mars go to Mars to get the candy bars? I doubt it. But rumors and gossip ensued as the Oaksterdam medical marijuana community put their collective minds together to 'hash' out the possible scenarios. Some say she was asked to leave by the admins as her other responsibilities could create the old conflict of interests with Icmag. It’s possible that’s what happened, but my opinion is they still need a moderator and she was good at it and they’ve been tolerant to content like this I’ve developed for weedbay that gets cross posted over several sites. My gut tells me Mars is simply taming wilder frontiers than the civilized comforts of California perhaps due to her work with the ASA. Maybe she’s in Colorado amid huge egos and little experience in grassroots organization and is simply too busy to baby sit us any longer. Maybe she’ll be back, I sure hope so. Much respect in any case. Journalistic rumor mongering is just too tempting in this topic, excuse me. Cannabis Cruise, wtf? Sounds sick, I didn’t know Oaksterdam had it’s own navy but…. YES! In case Oaksterdam succeeds from the union we do have a small navy based – where else? – at Lake Merrit. On loan from the city of Oakland one vessel and one vessel only is allowed to have a motor. That combined with the savy 21 year old sea dog of a captain your vessel is free to smoke out while blasting ‘smoke on the water’ by Deep Purple on your Ipod. But wait a sec, aren’t there navigational hazards like sunken battleships leftover from when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor and aren’t those waters haunted by the ghost of Long John Silver? Of course they are, that’s why a life preserver is required. Coming soon and priced ‘affordable’ I’ll see you cruising matey. What about that story on weedbay? Yeah, this question was brought up and caught me a bit off guard but the stories I select for weedbay sometimes are not the run of the mill sources. My story content tends to ebb and flow much like the bay itself but I was asked by someone I admire to bring more light onto some of these stories where patients are in need of help. People like Richard and Vanessa and sites like Hempevolution.org and medicalmarijuanaofamerica.com are trusted news sources and I recommend them. Here’s some of the more current articles. http://www.weedbay.net/comments.php...=1&shownews=176 about Nathanial Archer and http://www.weedbay.net/comments.php...=1&shownews=176 that is Stephanie Landa holding the sign, btw. And the point is to keep blogging and posting in the forums. Small blog sites like Scrappy’s http://growlove.blogspot.com/ get picked up by Google and they attain a page rank which is a rating of how important Google views your site’s worth. His small site which he doesn’t spend much time creating has attained the same rank as much bigger sites, currently tied with weedtracker. So keep blogging and posting and do whatever you can do to spread the word and the love. Oaksterdamnews.com is another good site I should mention. They are doing Jury Education at the federal court house. Oddly I was summoned for Jury duty on the day jury selection was to take place for the Ed Rosenthal case. His jury selection was however postponed, and comes in March I think. I wasn’t required to show up that day, but think about it. You could be on a jury where a patient needs help and the jury system was designed with this check and balance for over aggressive laws. Sorry for rambling. What’s the new strains I keep hearing about? I’ll spill the beans, errr, clones. SR-71 is going to start stocking: AK-47 (nice plant) Black Widow ( Shanti Strain?) Strawberry Cough (amazing) And some other stuff, hell I can’t remember. Now is a good time to buy clones at SR-71 and the other clubs as Spring is approaching and supply dwindles then. So buy them now, veg them indoors and they will be taller than your neighbors when you put them outside. If I put 2 plants in the same pot everything is cool, right? Oh hell no, stand back, in fact. Cannabis will try to kill another plant on it’s turf and it’s quite the bitch fight. The larger plant can even employ chemical warfare to gas the weaker opponent. Who knew? Grow class rolls on for one more episode. Meet us at Harborside and well send this off properly. Not that we didn’t try at the Bulldog. I’ll speak for everyone and let you know we all enjoyed it. This report didn't really even scratch the surface of what all was discussed and I for one will dearly miss grow class. But Oaksterdam is still a happening place and if it wasn't a secret I could tell you more, but that's for another article. Spread the love and stay safe.