Spring has sprung,
The grass is riz,
I wonder where the flowers is?
My mom used to always quote that about this time of year. Don’t know where its from, but it brings a smile to my face.
We had a late “January” thaw in Utah this year, so I don’t know if we’ll get any more substantial snow over the next few weeks. The snow is pretty much gone from the yard, the ice on our pond is gone and I see my fishies made it through another winter. Birds are chirping and the buds on the Lenten roses are pushing up. Crocus should be popping up pretty soon too! I can go for walks and the occasional bike ride instead of using the elliptical machine. The TV in the room with the elliptical machine is dying, so it has been particularly boring to use the elliptical. Thank goodness for MP3 players!
Back in the beginning of January, NPR interviewed Michael Pollan, the author of several books related to food. The interview is in regards to his latest book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
. His advise is simple, and the book can be distilled down to seven words - “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” I’m looking forward to reading it in the near future.
Here’s a link to the audio interview.
NPR : Author Comes to Natural Food’s ‘Defense’
I’m currently reading Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
. I grew up on a farm, not a corn farm, but we grew more than 1,000 acres of wheat and barley. Even with that background, this book has been an education for me. I’m only a few dozen pages into it, but so far almost every page has given me several “wow, I had no idea” moments.
Many years ago I read Diet for a New America
by John Robbins. That was also an educational read, but I think Robbins’ agenda was to turn us all into vegetarians. Pollan’s agenda is subtler. He wants us to be aware of the costs to our health and to the environment of our food choices, and how interwoven agribusiness, politics and health have become. I recommend The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals to anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of how what’s on your dinner plate ended up there.
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Tuesday night, 2/5/08, I had the privilege of attending a screening of an upcoming documentary named “Reserved to Fight.” This film follows four Marines - members of Fox Company 2/23, a Marine Reserve unit headquartered in Utah. The unit was among the first to enter Iraq during the invasion and was the spearhead into Baghdad. The purpose of the documentary is to show not the war, but how these Marines struggle to readjust to society upon their return from Iraq.
I thought the film was superbly done and is a must see. Of course, I’m a little biased. One of the producers was my daughter-in-law, Leith Tarr Christensen. It is because of this project that she and my son McKay (who was a member of the unit) met.
It will be aired this fall on PBS. The distributor and the producers also want to do a tour of colleges and high schools where the documentary would be shown. They have received enough funding to produce the film for PBS, but are seeking additional funds for the tour. If you’d like to make a contribution, they would be most grateful. Information on how to contribute as well as the trailer and other information can be found at http://www.reservedtofight.com.
Just one other note regarding Leith and Mack. They are expecting their first child, and our first grandchild. She’s expected in late June. (She is a she)
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Wow, it’s been a very long time since I’ve posted anything significant here. Several family members and I recently went on holiday to South Africa. We’ve been back for a week now. It’s going to take a while to put something together, but I will post thoughts & pics of the trip.
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What a wonderful day today! I say that for two reasons. First, it was a very cold January in Utah. We had the 2nd longest stretch of sub-freezing weather in Utah’s recorded history - 18 days. This week has been quite warm, getting up to 50 today. It allowed me to go on my first bike ride of the year. (the pedal kind-not the powered variety) It will get cold again, but it was great to take a little spin.
Second, it is the first day that I heard birds singing. Songbirds usually sing to attract a mate or to mark their territory. When they start singing is controlled by day length. So, it means that in my latitude the days are long enough for whatever kind was singing to start their mating rituals. Spring is on its way!
I have been rather negligent in posting over the last several months. Maybe now that the days are getting longer, I’ll feel more like posting.
Saturday November 11th is Veteran’s day. If you work for the government, you got to take Friday off. For most of us, we only think about it if we try to go to the post office and discover that it’s closed.
As the father of a son who served in Iraq and who will be returning to the region next year, I think of our all-volunteer armed forces and am very grateful that they are willing to take up arms to fight for our rights and the rights of others. I hope you will pause and remember those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice and those who now serve so that we can enjoy the freedoms we do.
In a similar vein, my son and daughter-in-law met while she was working on a documentary. It deals with my son’s Marine Reserve unit and how they adjusted to life back in the US after their deployment. It was picked up by PBS and is in post production now. Here’s a web site for the film.
(1720 11/02/2006) I’m listening to the Microsoft/Novell press conference right now. Steve Ballimer announced that the two companies will collaborate on several fronts:
First, technological collaboration, principally virtualization & document file formats. The companies will optimize paravirtualization for both SuSE Linux on Windows and Windows on SuSE Linux. Part of this collaboration will be better interoperability between Active Directory and eDirectory. Also, better management of the two platforms.
Next, an intellectual property bridge between open source & proprietary source - more info to come from the legal eagles. Sounds like there will be no patent infringement suits for individual open source developers.
Finally, business cooperation - sales & marketing for collaborative solutions, while still competing on the OS front. Microsoft will have sales people who will sell SuSE Linux when customers have a need. Developers will collaberate between both companies.
The talks between the two companies have been going on since April. The biggest sticking points were around intellectual property.
Here’s a link to Novell’s FAQ (can’t be too frequently yet, since it was just posted!) regarding the announcement.
Here’s an open letter regarding the announcement.
Here’s the official press release.
I just saw on CNBC that Microsoft will support SuSE Linux. I don’t know what that means yet. Ballimer has a press conference shortly. Red Hat stock is down on the news and Novell’s is up.
Here’s a link to a Reuter’s article about it.
BT has chosen Novell eDirectory and Identity Manager to manage 28 million customer identities for their updated authentication/authorization architecture. BT has been a long-time Novell customer, but this shows they are willing to stick with their vendor, when they could migrate to any one of several providers.
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