This is our box for the week from Eatwell Farm.  We’ve got apples, oranges, lemons, strawberries, lemon balm, parsley, sugar snap peas, green garlic, spring onions, spinach, carrots, mixed greens.

We’re on the 12 week program (13th week is free) w/ a half dozen eggs, which comes to about $29 a box.  Considering we get our box next door, the fruits and vegetables are organic AND they’re picked the week of delivery, it’s a no brainer value — and ridiculous from a freshness standpoint.

You also get things you might not normally buy at the store like romanesco, daikon, rainbow chard, jerusalem artichokes, rutabagas, and watermelon radish.  And you learn to eat seasonally, which makes you realize we actually do have seasons in Northern California.

There are a few drawbacks.  It’s not always easy to eat everything in a week, and you do have to cook.  You might get weeks of weeks of something you might not like for example red cabbage or kale.  You might not have enough of something to finish a recipe — need one more eggplant or one more onion, so you’ll have to supplement that at the store.  You’ll also never get bananas (obviously) and probably some other “non-standard” vegetable.

Sign up with Eatwell if you’re in the Bay Area or I’d encourage signing up for another Community Support Agriculture (CSA) program like Eatwell Farm.  A lot of them are popping up all over California and the rest of the United States.

—

* Hard to say whether or not CSA is scalable, I’m sure less than 1% of the country subscribes to a CSA.  But it would be great to see because in practice we feel healthier and feel better knowing where our  food comes from and the knowing the people who farm it.

]]> http://www.rebron.org/2011/04/28/eatwell-farm/feed/ 3 http://www.rebron.org/2011/04/05/some-beverages-from-oakland/ http://www.rebron.org/2011/04/05/some-beverages-from-oakland/#comments Tue, 05 Apr 2011 23:34:03 +0000 rebron http://www.rebron.org/?p=2651

Oakland has some pretty good drinks.  A few that I really like:

• Gin and Tonic from Pizzaiolo; the tonic is a house made tonic by Cate Whalen
• As good as the gin and tonic is, I like their whiskey cocktail better.  It’s made with Buffalo Trace bourbon whiskey (my favorite liquor)
• Linden St. Black Lager or their Common Lager are really nice, can only be found on tap at just a few places.
• Blue Bottle’s Bella Donovan coffee is what I normally drink for coffee (daily basis)

Haven’t really tried Numi tea, another Oakland company.  We want to but just haven’t pulled the trigger we have so much tea in the house.  I get tea from Teance in Berkeley, their ba bao chao and pu-erh teas and we also get tea from Republic of Tea, Ginseng peppermint and several other kinds.  We’ve got a lot of tea.  We’ll try Numi eventually.

These are the sites I visit almost everyday:

• Google News, Google Finance, WSJ.com, Economist.com, SFGate.com, NYTimes.com, ESPN, News.com (I open these all at once in a Tab, and I’ve been visiting these sites for years)
• The most interesting/entertaining: Facebook, Twitter, HuffingtonPost
• New to me: Groupon (group coupons), Pandora (web radio, w/ a great music recommendation engine, Oakland company) – knew about them but was hesitant to sign up

I access Gmail via Thunderbird so only go to Gmail every once in a while to check out new features.

The other sites I visit are only through a quick scan of their feeds, i.e. Lifehacker, Engadget, All Things Digital, Oakland North, Oakland Local, etc.

Would love recommendations on other sites to check out.

General Happenings

• Chilean Miners rescued after 69 days trapped in a mine
• Earthquake in Haiti
• Volcanic ash from Eyjafjallajökull
• Deepwater Horizon Oil spill
• Wikileaks releases cables/documents
• Republican’s win control of House of Representatives
• Slow recovery Dow at 11,000.

Tech

• Apple releases iPad (and an updated MacBook Air)
• Android making gains, Nexus One and Nexus S released
• Rise of the App stores
• Facebook/Twitter continue to grain traction

Sports

• Winter Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler
• FIFA World Cup won by Spain
• Saints over Colts to win Super Bowl
• Lakers beat Celtics NBA Finals
• SF Giants beat Texas Rangers to win World Series

Obits

• JD Salinger, President of Poland, Gary Coleman, Dennis Hopper, Manute Bol, Robert Byrd

Personal

• General: Attic insulation w/ new attic ladder, other home energy work
• Travel: Kirkwood/NorthStar (good snow), Whistler, Turks & Caicos
• Races: Oakland 1/2 Marathon, Ironman St. George, Ironman Canada, NorthFace 50k
• Work: Thunderbird 3.x releases
• Restaurants: Commis and Rikyu mostly
• Too many purchases.

One bike is good but if I could have three, one would be a steel bike from Sacha White of Vanilla Bicycles, their alter ego of Speedvagen, or a Dario Pegoretti bike from Italy.  (The second one would be a titanium bike from Moots and the third one would be a Parlee carbon fiber bike…ok, fine, and a fourth Parlee triathlon bike).

The bikes from these two guys are well built and just pretty — construction, paint job, geometry.  Steel isn’t the lightest frame material but can be made pretty light and supposedly the ride is fast, responsive, and fantastic.  Steel is also supposed to be pretty durable and easy to repair.

Oh, well.

It’s obvious the majority of my friends aren’t reading my blog posts but I can probably do a better job of linking Facebook and Twitter to this blog.

Anyhow, short update:

• We’re on version 3.1.4 for Thunderbird, working on Thunderbird 3.2 due out later this year;
• Working through updating Mozilla Messaging to coincide with mozilla.org/.com updates;
• Wrapped up Ironman Canada in August (and Ironman St George last May), signed up for Ironman St George for next year;
• Starting up trail running and doing a lot of it in the East Bay hills, which is neat, this is in place of road running which is super high impact;
• Might be re-upping to be an Executive Board Member for Alameda Council, BSA;
• Doing some more Boy Scout related stuff this year mainly driving and camp outs (local program is good, National politics not so good);
• We have a 10 year wedding anniversary trip in November to Turks and Caicos;
• Starting to plan for snowboarding outings, hopefully will be another good snow year;
• and then we’re in 2011.  That was quick.

I’ll post some race reports and photos soon from Canada, and a few things I’ve stumbled upon and like.  Turns out at the age of 34 and male and married, I’m in the very desirable target market for a lot of companies and I’m obviously observant of the advertising being thrown at me/us.  Some of the marketing does make it through unfortunately.

The other next up is figuring out how to integrate blog, Twitter, Facebook, email a little better.  It’s not as cohesive as I’d like.

I ran the Oakland 1/2 Marathon yesterday, the inaugural Oakland running festival which had other running events like a relay, 5k, and of course the full marathon.

I had a lot of fun, the course is super fast and flat, folks were great/happy/excited, the running shirt was nice.  The support was awesome, no shortage of volunteers and spectators.  I was surprised by the number of people that were out and about cheering (moreso than the San Francisco marathon).

Ran into a few folks Derrick and Dr. Bean from IronTeam.  Ben was at the finish line volunteering.

More thoughts from other folks

The other day, I encountered eight (eight!) people who had come to town just for the marathon. All of them made a point of saying how surprised they were to discover what a beautiful city Oakland is. It was totally heartwarming.

A friend of mine was telling me that the prettiest money she ever saw was the Dutch guilder.  I had to look it up and I now have to agree.  Wouldn’t be a bad collection to framed up on a wall somewhere.

Top of lift six, Cornice Express at Kirkwood.

What a great snow year in Tahoe!  We’ve been up a few times, wished we could have gone up more.  We’ve really only gone to Kirkwood which gets a ton of snow early in the season and it got dumped on this year, so we just kept going there.

Here, I’m all Burton-ed out.  Jacket is from the Shaun White collection.  Shirt is a snowboarding shirt from Burton too.  Snowboard pants are denim (goretex but it does still get cold and wet so good for warm days…but they do look cool).  Boots are Burton Hail.  The helmet is Giro, the bindings are Flow, the sunglasses are Oakley, the cap is from Rapha.

I’m more than happy to model Burton’s 2011 collection next year…Call me :-)

[Apologies for the lack of writing, going back to writing now, hopefully a post a week if not more].

Great job!  Lot of great changes to help move the web forward.

Check out http://hacks.mozilla.org to test drive our new toy.

Palm Pre looks pretty good, probably will wait for the next version though.  Even with the iPhone 3GS, it’s probably the right upgrade path from a Treo.  A lower price/plan, better battery life would have knocked the Palm Pre out of the ballpark, but still good.  Walt Mossberg’s review

Other stuff I’ve been playing around with:

• an unlocked G1 phone (w/ Android 1.5, fun to play with)
• mobile wireless via Sprint (though heard AT&T’s was 3x faster)

I check out the Netbooks every once in a while and I like the Dell Minis but there’s so many out there now.  It’s an interesting (and confusing) product segmentation — second laptop, ultralight for business travelers, kids.

• still on track for a bathroom remodel this Summer, uncertain on the details
• no matter how we calculate solar panels, it makes no sense for us so evaluating led lights, attic insulation, solar attic fan
• Rikyu updated their menu — it’s our go to restaurant, *great* food
• When it’s out, will probably go with the Palm Pre to replace  a 2+ year old Treo for the boss lady (I still think *smart* phones are gadget overboard)
• Couple of interesting pop culture links: Susan Boyle and YouTube symphony

work

• Thunderbird 3 launch – going to be very fun
  
• SpreadThunderbird – slowly coming along
  
• GetSatisfaction/Thunderbird – customer support for software is certainly challenging
  

travel

• nothing planned yet for fun or for work, maybe a weekend side trip

volunteering

• landscaping project at Santa Fe elementary school

books

• struggling through The Intelligent Investor but already made some money just reading through the first 3 chapters
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

training/events

• finally starting marathon training for SF marathon in July
• planning to struggle through the Marin Century in August
• Berkeley pow wow May 2
• Stanford pow wow 8 – 10

At some point got caught up with finding nice bed linens.  Eventually settled on the following:

• Thomas Lee sheet and pillow set — a flat sheet, fitted sheet, and two pillow cases.  They’re 500 thread count cotton sheets which seems fine to me, neither arbitrarily too high or too low.  In any case, sheets are comfortable and reasonably priced.
• Libeco Belgian linens — have a couple pillow cases and I like their linen sheets
• Rough Linen — haven’t gotten anything from here but local company and I like the simplicity of their products
• Pacific Coast pillows and comforters — very comfortable, got the firm and ‘luxury’ down pillow

If you’re going to spend 6 – 8 hours a night on your bed, might as well make it comfortable.  We’re still sleeping on a $200 Serta mattress from 1999, it’s still very comfortable — so it’s not all about getting the most expensive, just what’s comfortable.

Some good ideas for a vegetable garden (especially for people with a new empty backyard).

Square Foot Garding from Frugal Dad

Another cool photo.  Discovery launch — supposed to launch in two days if the weather cooperates.

The Last Great Race on Earth

Thought this was a neat photo set from The Big Picture blog.  There are some crazy races out there, the Badwater Ultramarathon is up there but the multiday endurance races in extremely cold or hot weather are the ones that are even crazier for me.

Green collar jobs are blue collar jobs in green businesses – that is, manual labor jobs in businesses whose products and services directly improve environmental quality (Pinderhughes, 2006). Green collar jobs are located in large and small for-profit businesses, non-profit organizations, social enterprises, and public sector institutions. What unites these jobs is that all of them are associated with manual labor work that directly improves environmental quality.

Here’s more info:

• Green Collar Jobs Executive Summary [.pdf]
• Green Collar Jobs [.pdf]
• Oakland Green Job corp
• The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones
• Raquel River Pinderhughes

We’ve been hearing about Green Collar jobs in Oakland for quite some time — because of Van Jones and the Ella Baker Center which is on 40th Street, a little over a mile from where we live.  The rest of the country is going to hear more about it so might as well link to the source of the Green Collar job concepts.

This is my Xbox avatar – rebron2000.  The hair, glasses, blue polo, cargo shorts, and Keen’s are about right; and sadly, this *still* may be my signature look.  I have upgraded my wardrobe in real life but thought this was fairly amusing.

In any case, if you happen to stumble on rebron2000 on Xbox live and he’s kicking your butt at Halo or whatever other games I have, it’s not me, it’s a 10 year old or one of several 10 year olds.  Ha!

• We only got to snowboard twice this season but awesome snow both times.  Hopefully can get in 2 or 3 more visits.
• We’ve got a bathroom remodel that we’re trying to target for June/Summer.  After that, we’re about done as we can’t really do much else to the house.
• Here are those videos with George Carlin and kids 1, 2, 3, or Parenting 101

work

• With Mozilla Messaging since last Summer.  Been working on this cool new web site redesign, that we’ll be launching soon.  Check it out and send me email if you see any issues.
• Also, working on www.spreadthunderbird.com
• And, Thunderbird 3 betas.

travel

• nothing planned but considering a cruise or trip to Alaska sometime this Summer

volunteering

• none, looking for opportunities

books

• for Q1: The Intelligent Investor, Dreams from My Father, Truth about Money, (re-reading) The Joys of Motherhood

training/events

• SF Marathon (registered); Marin Century
• Pow wows: CAL in April, Stanford in May; others still tbd

Some notes:

• Barack Obama is a victim of awesomeness and so is his web site: WhiteHouse.gov.  Check out this first blog post and his agenda.
• This is the sign-up form to get email updates from the Office of The President, WhiteHouse.gov
• President Obama’s Official Portrait
• Working with the local government and our local communities seems to be one of the best ways for most of us to get involved in changing the way things are.

This and the BART shooting at the Fruitvale BART station are not good ways to start off 2009.

I kind of wish we can come up with some web site, solvingbigproblems.org or something like that where we can list out the problems, solutions to those problems, get people who can act on those solutions to work on it, and then finally fixing it and moving on to the next thing.

We get stuck in these cycles and it just never ends.

General Happenings

• Year in song
• Year in Pictures NY Times, Big Picture Blog
• Beijing Olympics
• Obama elected President of the United States of America
• Bailouts for financial and auto industries.
• Recession, Dow at 8500.

Tech

• Mozilla Messaging forms.  Firefox 3 ships.  Chrome launches.
• LCD tvs get cheap, SSD to mass production, Netbooks.
• G1 Phone launched.  New aluminum MacBooks.  Facebook Connect launches.
• Move towards green tech and energy.

Sports

• Phelps and 8 Gold Medals
• NY Giants win Super Bowl
• Celtics beat Lakers, NBA Finals
• ? win World Series

Obits

• TD, George Carlin, Bernie Mac, Eartha Kitt, Randy Pausch, Paul Newman, Tim Russert

Personal

• Kitchen remodel: BlueStar range, PaperStone, cork floors.
• SF marathon
• Travel: Kirkwood/NorthStar (good snow)/Whistler/Kailua
• Instant Soccer Dad for GF III
• Back at Mozilla.  Work for Mozilla Messaging
• Three car accidents – X3, IS, Odyssey
• Ad Hoc, Michael Mina, Rivoli, Rikyu, Brick Pig’s House
• Too many purchases.

An overall strange year.

• Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights
• Charles Hamilton Houston Bar Association
• National Organization for Women
• Stanford Fund
• Stanford Black Community Services Center
• Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
• Harvard Public Interest Auction
• NPR – KQED
• San Francisco Aids Marathon
• Project Open Hand
• Alameda County Food Bank
• National Center for Youth Law
• Anwar Foundation
• BSA – Alameda Council
• Planned Parenthood
• Habitat for Humanity
• East Bay Habitat for Humanity
• NAACP
• ACLU
• I Have a Dream Foundation
• A Safe Place

Hope everyone has a safe and happy holidays!

—–

p.s. It’s shaping up to be a nice snow season this year; lots more snow this year than last year by Christmas day.  Anyone interested in hanging out let us know, we like Kirkwood, North Star, and I want to try Alpine Meadows this year.  We may try the Bay Area ski bus too.

• Finished reading Crucial Conversations, a good book on talking through tough topics.
• The Audacity of Hope, I bought a long time ago but just got around to reading it.
• Re-read the Paradox of Choice and still learning to become a satisficer which is the maximizer strategy anyway.

I could use some more book recommendations if you have them.