making applesauce from old apples, mentally transitioning into a week at the office
This morning at 2:44 AM Eastern, Motts began following me on twitter. I’m fairly certain that nobody at Motts is actually reading my tweets. I’m also fairly certain that no person at Motts is actually paying enough attention to tweets about apples or applesauce to have made a conscious decision to start following me because of my tweet.
What I suspect is that Motts has some BI type application that is reading one of the many rss feeds that exist for twitter and then following people via the twitter API.
Now, I’ve got no misconceptions about my privacy or lack thereof as a result of my choosing to use twitter or any other service or site, but no matter how you slice it, this is disturbing. It makes you wonder what other company, government, or organized crime group is reading tweets.
And to think, Motts just thought that maybe I’d follow them so that they could sell me applesauce instead of me making it from scratch.
What seems like ages ago was really only about a 16 months. I wrote a post on titled the importance of giving back. I had no idea at that time that it would be the single most popular post on this blog (as of now). In retrospect, the title was a bit misleading, because I started the post with ten things that were going well in my life, and then tried to tie the post back to the title. Often, I start a post with one idea in mind and then the mind wanders. At any rate, I thought it might be good to give an update. So here are ten things that are currently going well in my life:
Everyone is healthy in the family.
Mr. Grey is growing up quickly. He isn’t even two years old, but it sure feels like it when I look at him and when he talks. (complete sentences!)
Mrs. TKD has been home with Mr. Grey now for over a year and they are getting on well with that arrangement. I know that it is trying at times for her, but it is working.
While there has been a lot of turmoil at work, I’m still employed and actually enjoying some of the work that I’ve got on my plate.
We are secure financially.
I’ve had some free time to go biking and to garden over the past six months.
I’ve lost some weight, and believe I’m on track to lose some more.
Our families continue to be strong and supportive.
We are lucky enough to live where we want to live.
We have a close circle of friends who enrich our lives.
As anyone who knows me well will tell you, I love food. I spend a great deal of my free time cooking, often as a form of stress relief. Even this morning, I was thinking about how I’m going to make some chicken corn soup this afternoon to go with this dreary, cold, grey, and wet day we’re having here in Maryland. I’ve had a long week and neglected some important things while attending to my work. So, today, I’m taking it a bit more slowly and I’ve spent a few minutes looking at some of my favorite websites and catching up on some social networks.
I came across this from one.org on twitter:
The ONE Blog Food Security in Focus series brings issues of
security & agriculture into sharp detail. Keep an eye
I usually spend some time each week keeping abreast of topics related to organic agriculture, food safety, and food security, as part of my general interest and concern for the overall health of the globe. Since I’ve been so busy, I hadn’t realized that today, October 16th, is World Food Day. World Food Day was first celebrated in 1981 to recognize the founding of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on Oct. 16th 1945 and to increase awareness and inspire action to solve global hunger.
In this day and age there really is no reason for people anywhere in the world to go hungry. The US grain belt produces enough grain to feed the world, but due to politics this food never reaches people who need it. Some of it goes to feed animals unhealthy diets which result in unhealthy meat at the dinner table. Some of it goes to produce “alternative” and “clean” fuel intended to replace oil – this fuel is neither alternative or clean because it requires signficantly more gallons of oil to produce a single gallon of ethanol. Some of it, and this is probably the most egregious point, simply sits and rots.
Today, I’m going to be mindful of my good fortune – I was born in the US and have never had to worry about a meal in my life. But I’m also going to start on an annual tradition that Mrs. TKD and I have been doing for a few years – planning for and purchasing the fixings for a thanksgiving meal for a local family in need.
I took last Friday off since I had to work on Saturday. (It was a long day, 10 plus hours of network configurations. That was the down side of the weekend.) I spent the morning with Mr. Grey and Mrs. TKD at his music class. A music class for 2 year olds is a laugh riot. If you haven’t been to one, you need to go. After music class, Mr. Grey and I went and had lunch with my mom. Mr. Grey and I had a great time seeing Grandma. That night we went over to our friends’ house and had a barbecue on the deck we built together last weekend. Mr. Grey was having a blast playing with their girl’s soccer balls.
It was pretty funny to watch him, cause he really is only 3 times as big as the ball. But he loved playing with it. He hasn’t gotten the concept of kicking rather than throwing the ball, but we’ll work on that.
Okay, it’s a bit early in the morning for a rant, but here it comes. It’s really cold this morning compared to Friday – a 40F swing in temperatures. My good friend made a comment on this swing on Facebook and one of his “friends” comment was this:
it’s the global warming. we’re all going to die! have some hot cocoa for me…
Oh, that gets my dander up! First and foremost, if you’ve paid any attention to the science, you’d know that regardless of what you call it there have been significant changes to the Earth’s climate in the last 50 years. Secondly, you’d know that these changes coincide with a rise in the median temperature of the earth worldwide. I cannot over emphasize that its an average and worldwide. Thirdly, if you’d know that scientists now understand that these changes in climate are having different adverse affects in different parts of the world.
Yes, the facts surrounding the global climate emergency are sometimes incongruous. But they are facts, and the scientific evidence proves that this is real. Every living thing on earth has a stake in this. The only thing about this comment that rings true is that we will all die. The question is whether or not we have the courage to take a stand and try to ensure that it’s not a mass suicide due to inaction.
But the thing that really got me going this morning is this: IT’S AUTUMN, IN MARYLAND.
The weather in the Mid-Atlantic US has always suffered from radical changes in short periods of time. The two temperate seasons (Autumn and Spring) are usually characterized by these swings in temperature. There’s no need for an asinine comment like the one listed above.
Now, I’m going to go out and ENJOY this lovely 45F morning.
