So today is Father’s Day.  The day to honor your dad, tell him you love and appreciate him, sit down and have a beer or watch a game with him.  The latter for most people means making the effort to spend time with him because you know he’s been wanting to see you for a long time but hey, you live pretty far away and are very busy trying to make ends meet, but you’ll make the effort ‘cause it’s Father’s Day.

From “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin:
   My son turned ten just the other day
   He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play
   Can you teach me to throw", I said "Not today
   I got a lot to do", he said, "That's ok"
   And he walked away but his smile never dimmed
   And I said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah
   You know I'm gonna be like him"

I’m not one to make any day a special day unless it’s actually deserved.  And we all know there’s a lot of fathers out there that have dropped the ball in so many ways that it’s impossible to keep track.  Plenty of fathers who can’t communicate, never let you know who they really are, plenty who throw money at you but would rather count holes in a bowling ball than have to sit through one of your school plays or meet with a teacher.  But barring violence or absence, we love them anyway.  

From “American Primitive” by William Jay Smith:
   Look at him there in his stovepipe hat,
   His high-top shoes, and his handsome collar;
   Only my Daddy could look like that,
   And I love my Daddy like he loves his Dollar.

And then there are the dads for whom Father’s Day was made:

From “Always there for Me” by Aarthi:
   I know you will always hear my rumbling and bear my blaring
   I know you will always stand by me even if the world is against
   I know you will always adore me and elevate me
   I know you will think about me every moment
   I know you will be infelicitous without your princess
   I know you will always be there for me
   You know I love you.

So this day for fathers works both ways.  I maintain that you don’t need to acknowledge Father’s Day unless your father deserves it, but I sincerely hope that your father is one who does.

    From the press press release:
Happy hour will be offered all night featuring $3 drafts and $1 off glasses of wine. 5% of all proceeds for the entire day of 5/15/12 will be donated to the Austin Sustainable Food Center.

Open 7 days a week until midnight, Cenote is located at the northwest corner of East Cesar Chavez and Medina, in a historic home built in 1887, which received the “Merit Award for Adaptive Use” from the Heritage Society of Austin in 2011. 

We specialize in high quality espresso and coffee that comes from local roasters Cuvee'. Cenote offers a full brunch menu until 4pm daily and a limited evening menu until 11pm featuring dishes that use as many locally sourced ingredients as possible including eggs from Coyote Creek Farm and produce from vendors such as Johnson’s Backyard Garden.

Hope to see ya there!

When I wrote the entry for 4/24/12 I mentioned that I would come back to Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains.  This is that post.
    As previously mentioned, Carr wrote a second book entitled The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing How we Think, Read, and Remember.  Not just our brains, but the very fabric of our lives, from day-to-day relationships, casual communications as well as deepest and most heartfelt discussions, how we've been propelled into the age of surveillance, and finally, the focus of this post: economics.
     "How boring!" you say.
     Ah, but not!  Carr likens the Age of the Internet circa 2012 to the Age of Serfdom in which wealthy landowners rented out plots of land to peasant farmers ostensibly for the purpose of providing them a good living as well as food on their tables.  In truth, history documents the rise of the class system with the poor growing increasingly poor as the Lord of the Manor takes increasingly greedy shares of the crops while slowly upping the rents. 
      Fast forward to 2012, we're well into the Information Age with the internet being its catalyst, growing so rapidly that students who begin college to study internet technologies are faced with new curricula 2-3 times each semester.  Essentially, these students are ready for "continuing education" just a couple months after graduation.  One of the latest innovations is "cloud" technology wherein resides all you might ever need to know or software you ever need to use, or storage space for your songs and photos and literary creations -- all of it residing somewhere up there in the ether as opposed to on your own computer. This amounts to an "expert" always on hand to update your software, file your photos, or lend you the latest and greatest technologies and tools.  All you have to do is access the "cloud" when you, the consumer, need to retrieve one of your photos, listen to a song, design a graphic, or even write a letter.  The catch is this: like the Lord of the Manor, the internet entrepreneurs hold your tools in their hands (and in the case of photos, they hold your work!).  "Cloud" pricing can rise on a whim or upon the sale of a "cloud company" to another cloud company.  Moreover, cloud access is controlled by your ISP involving yet another fee, content is monitored and "surveilled" for offensive keywords (primarily by the Justice Department looking for the o so elusive enemy du jour), and content may or may NOT be yours after all. Twitter is currently involved in a court dispute with the Justice Department over who owns the words written by one of its users.  Read about it here.  Copyright issues are only beginning to be explored and challenged in court, but in the meantime, it's quite logical to believe that you may not be able to access your work for a period of time, and you may end up not owning it all.  Needless to say, the ownership issue is an additional economic consideration as the Information Age continues to evolve.
      So the cloud phenomenon is turning computer access into a utility company.  The user has plenty of liberties, but a blackout could occur at any time. 
      It's perhaps a bit too early to judge the accuracy of Carr's thesis when it comes to the economics of cloud technology, but suffice it to say, he's nailed it on his other observations about how the internet is changing us, The change in our methods and depth of our communications as well as our ability to retain what we read has been scientifically documented, and let's face it - is fairly obvious to anyone who's already done a fair bit of communicating offline in their lifetime.  Babies born today, however, may not ever learn the art of letter-writing by hand or figure out that their face-to-face communications are going to do more for their social skills than any social network could ever do.  And who knows?  Maybe their kids won't actually ever own their work but become part of a Gattaca in the making. This should give us all something to think about as we ponder the clouds.
       

I've been meaning to write about Green Polka Dot Box (GPDB) for awhile now.  Though it's a brand new organic food co-op, I tend to already take advantage of it.  As a gluten-free baker, I try my best to use organics whenever possible, and it's imperative for me to never ever knowingly use any geneticially-modified ingredients, so I especially appreciate The Green Polka Dot Box and their commitment to organic, non-GMO foods at discount prices. 

    Launched late in 2011, this company was the brainchild of a former Costco executive named Rod Smith who recognized the need for lower-priced organic foods, especially in rural areas where organics are often hard to come by.  Proudly referring to GPDB as a "buying collective," part of their mission is to help educate people about the connection between diet and disease.  Though located in Utah, they ship to every zip code in America, meaning that if you bale on civilization but still have a post office address, you're covered. 
     They don't carry every brand that I used to routinely buy, but thus far I've been pleasantly surprised to find organic versions of most my baking supplies, including Bob's Red Mill flours, organic sugars, olive oils, dried fruits, and vanilla  (which I go through like water!).  I've also discovered some organic chips that I didn't know existed that are quite good, and a new brand of gluten-free crackers that I will definitely be buying again.
     And here's the best part for those folks stuck in pesticide/herbicide zones across the country.   GPDB has already launched a fresh produce delivery service in the western U.S., partnering with local farmers who pick, pack, and ship produce within their region with a two-day delivery promise.   Other regions of the country will follow within the next couple of years, but they keep in touch with members regularly to update on the progress of making that happen.  They have also been pretty good to let members know when new brands are added (for instance, Newman's Own just added quite a few new products since the initial launch of the company). Since they are a new company, they are still in 'stock' mode, so new brands are appearing regularly.  Additionally, members can suggest products and brands to add, and they will follow up.  (Some brands have declined the opportunity, which I think is pretty lame, but others will no doubt fill the void.)

     Want to peruse the site just to see what they have?  You can do that here.  And if you decide to join, I have 3 free memberships to give away right now.  A membership is good for one year, and at that point you can choose whether or not you want to renew.  If not by gift invitation, memberships start at $50/yr., no minimum purchase, no regular purchase required, and purchases of $99 ship for free.  (I always take advantage of the free ship because shipping tends to be so expensive these days. ) There's also a reward membership plan for $125/yr that allows you to earn points for referrals.  (As a founding member, my free membership offer to you is different than this referral plan.) The link above will allow you to peruse the site, but if you decide you want one of my free memberships, please contact me via the contact link above, and I'll send you the link to the free membership.  First come, first served.
      It may not be for everyone, but quite honestly I absolutely love it.
    

     

I learned a new term this week: "Earthing" refers to the act of grounding yourself by walking barefoot on surfaces that conduct electrons from the earth to your body.  The best earth surface for conduction is a sandy beach, but early morning dew-covered grass is a close second according to the scientists who are studying this phenomenon.   (So that's why we humans immediately go barefoot when we hit a nice beach).
    Of course, this is a gross simplification of the term, but I had no idea that we humans thrive on these earth-born electrons.
   Dr. Joe Mercola did an article on this recently, but it was a guy named Clint Ober who actually spearheaded the research after a serious health crisis led him to alternative therapies.  Along with Martin Zucker and cardiologist Dr. Stephen Sinatra, he wrote the book Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever? (Basic Health Publications, 2010) which claims that earthing not only thins the blood and lowers blood pressure but reduces inflammation, stress, and fatigue.  Some readers claim that by sleeping with a ground, serious health conditions have improved dramatically.
   Dr. James Oschman (U Pittsburg) took it all a step further by scientifically documenting the effects of earthing on the body.  (See the link to Mercola's article above for details).  From the article:  "So really what is happening with grounding or earthing is that you're protecting your body from -- I call it, collateral damage," Dr. Oschman says. "Damage that was not intended to take place but does take place because we have disconnected ourselves from the Earth by putting rubber and plastic on the bottoms of our shoes."
    This makes so much sense to me -- we have lost the connection to our earth on so many levels it's hard to quantify.  Could a daily, habitual "earthing practice" help restore us physically, mentally, and spiritually?  It certainly can't hurt to try.
    Highly recommend reading this one. 

Not long ago I picked up Nicholas Carr's book  The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains and found myself nodding YES YES every few pages.  As someone who had always loved to read good nonfiction, I recognized in myself many of the very points that Carr makes -- one of which is that that we are becoming so used to processing myriad bits and pieces of information on the internet that most of us have a difficult time committing much of ANYthing we read to long-term memory anymore. 

More than just a theory, Carr references studies over several decades documenting the abilities of working memory ("the contents of our consciousness") versus long-term memory and how what resides in long-term memory shapes who we are, what we believe, how we act and behave.  Contrary to the earliest studies in the 1950s that report the human mind can "work" with up to seven pieces of information at a time, the latest research shows it's only two or three.  I had to stop and ask myself if the later, lesser number is a product of the internet/information age.  Have we actually regressed in our ability to remember what we read because of the constant bombardment of rapid-fire headlines on a daily basis?

I'm one of those who has fallen victim to this phenomenon. I follow the skimming of headlines with the skimming of articles linked to them.  How much do I remember?  Not much.  I confess that I've been doing this so long that I KNOW I can't remember... So I now have a system of folders and files to pack away the urls of stories that contain info/stats/facts that I want to retain.  (Ironically, I usually remember there's something I can't remember if I only knew where the heck to find it!)

But I digress.  Far more than just our ability to retain what we read, Carr outlines  how the internet is changing everything from behavior to values to even our economy (more on that one in a later post).  Now that I bake for Cenote, I find myself passing through the cafe's seating area several times a week, and rarely do I see anyone involved in conversation.  Rather I notice a sea of computers engaged with their robots (forgive me for saying so, but this is my observation, and I readily admit that I could just as easily be one myself).  In fact, as I was doing a routine task, I tried to engage a computer user in conversation only to be completely ignored -- I didn't realize she was wearing headphones. Even though I was about two feet from her at the time she never raised her eyes nor acknowledged my greeting.  (Her dog, however, loved the attention ... we had a great little chat.)

So if so many of us, myself included, spend so much time behind our computers engaged only with some highly suspicious EMF waves and free-content-creators, aka "crowds" that we'll never meet, I can't help but wonder what and WHO will we actually remember tomorrow?  It's worrisome.  I am going to have a really hard time breaking this habit, but I'm gonna try.

Gardening in Austin can be a real challenge, but o so rewarding when conditions are right and critters are scarce.  Although it's a bit late in the season (mid-April) for root crops to thrive here, I found myself with a lot more beets and carrots than I thought possible for this time of year.  But it's time  -- no, it's PAST time to plant for summer, so I pulled up everything in the biggest garden bed.  The table in the photo is about 60" in diameter, so that should tell you how much of these sweet veggies we have to use up at our house (and there's still another bed to harvest).  I don't know why, but home-grown root veggies are soooooo much sweeter than store-bought. Me thinks it's time for a juice fast around here.
   (and I'm thinkin' Sippie might have to add some fresh green soup to the menu next winter.)