holy moley, kim gordon of sonic youth fame turned 60 yesterday. happy birthday! i can't possibly be the only man or woman of a certain age who crushed hard on kim as a teenager in the 80s and didn't realize she was in her 30s? truth be told i might still have a crush on her and who wouldn't - from the elle profile - "In that moment, Gordon was the ultimate hipster Renaissance woman I aspired to be, a feminist rebel who could make avant-garde art all day, then cook a killer dinner for her family at night."#
i subscribe to the embodied mind thesis which posits that the nature of the human mind is largely determined by the form of the human body and central to that theory is the concept of neurotransmission. i.e. we perceive and think through sensory tranmsissions integrated and mediated by neurons. so it's remarkable to see new research done on mouse chimeras which indicates that lowly "helper cells" called astrocytes, not just the number of neurons and their interconnections, might possibly be the key to human intelligence. according to one researcher, "It’s a stunning result. It provides the first unequivocal evidence that astrocytes may well have been one of the evolutionary drivers of human capabilities." and if peripheral cells like astrocytes might play a key role in human intelligence, what other cells might also be involved like, say, in the gut? related to the embodied mind this recent radiolab podcast, "speed" has a segment "never quite now" where they discuss the slowness of neurotransmission which happens at about 27 meters per second or 60 miles per hour which means usain bolt runs at about half the speed of his nerve transmission and it takes a full 1/4 of a second for visual stimulus to reach the motor centers of your brain which is about the same time as it takes to transmit a telegraph from new york to chicago. everything you experience has already happened! you're stuck in the past! contemplate what that means when you're driving down the road at 60 miles per hour! somehow, in my mind, this makes me wonder what do whales see ( and think )?
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Shot with Black Magic Cinema camera and 5D mark II, using a 100mm Canon lens from a remote controlled helicopter in combination with the Freefly MoVI MR.
building two 7 foot long cedar window boxes isn’t really all that hard, but like most projects it’s never going to get done unless i set aside the time to actually do it! so, this year i made the perennial to-do item on my list a mother’s day gift for kris so i’d be sure to get it done
they are simple boxes made similar to what’s shown in this martha stewart cedar window box how-to. i used three 1″x10″ cedar boards with 2 1″x1″ cedar “cleats”, which hold the front and back and sides, drilled and glued to the bottom board. i trimmed the bottom board to 8″ wide so i could flare out the front of the box to give it a little more style that a simple rectangle.
i suppose i could fancy them up with some trim at some point.
the far right side is a new 33,000 square foot addition which was not significantly damaged and may be able to house employees quite quickly after getting a thorough cleaning.
the west end of the building suffered significant damage is will be razed and rebuilt. the fire is still smoldering and flared up last night causing the local volunteer fire department to come back out and douse it with 500,000 gallons of water at 2 a.m.
of course, this whole mess is very personal since i work here! but it’s extra personal to know that kris’ desk is right smack in the middle of this picture on the 2nd floor. so, thankful that she was not in the building and that everyone else got out safely.
the day after the fire at organic valley headquarters some emplyees who had work areas that weren’t destroyed or in structurally unsound areas were let back into the building for a few minutes to gather “critical” documents.
not wanting to be in the building for too long since there was a line of people waiting to get in after me, i gathered a few things that i needed for work and left a lot of other stuff thinking that i’d get another chance to get it. that chance never came since later that day officials announced that employees were not allowed back into the building and i was really bummed out because i left a painting that odin made for me when he was six that’s been hanging near my desk for several years.
i am so thankful that good samaritan who was allowed into the building grabbed the painting from my desk a day later!
sadly, there was a fire at organic valley headquarters yesterday that damaged the west portion of the building pretty badly. luckily, kris and i were not in the building when it was evacuated around 4:10pm. i left at 4:05 in the rideshare van back to viroqua with my computer and phone to get prepared to leave town for a few days for a department retreat. so i’m lucky to have a computer an an internet connection and can keep calm and carry on from home while we figure out the next steps.
looking at the damage from the fire today, i’m so very thankful that everyone got out of the building and that nobody was hurt. while certainly sad to see the damage, property is – of course – replaceable and rebuildable and i have no doubt that the cleanup and rebuild will happen quickly. fortunately, our distribution center and other facilities are fully operational and we have contingency plans in progress so we are able to continue to deliver all the wonderful products you love
it’s been awesome to hear all the expressions of support from the community, around the state and around the country. i know it really does mean a lot to me and all the other employees.
tomorrow i get to go in and recover what i can from my area which is on the 2nd floor to the right next to the new addition all the way to the right and somewhat distanced from the major damage. kris’ desk is on the 2nd floor pretty much right smack dab in the middle of the worst damage. i doubt she’ll be able to recover anything.
my understanding is that while the rest of the floor looks like a bomb went off, my relatively notorious leaning stack of papers that i’ve been meaning to clean up any day now for the past year that has always been threatening to teeter over is still standing and still threatening to teeter over.
i’m still working on meeting my 100 consecutive push-up and 200 consecutive sit-up goal. it’s hard to believe i’ve done almost 4,000 push-ups and 7,000 sit-ups over the past 12 weeks! it might be a few more weeks before i actually hit the goal, but then i’ll definitely be looking for a “maintenance” fitness routine that fits my original requirements:
“i’m looking for something that doesn’t require a lot of expensive equipment ( maybe a few dumb bells), that can be done a few times a week for relatively short periods of time ( 30-60 minutes ) that will play well with running ( i.e. not looking to bulk up )”
“The following is an example of a 12-station HICT program. All exercises can be done with body weight and implements easily acquired in almost any setting (e.g., home, office, hotel room, etc.). The exercise order allows for a total body exercise to significantly increase the heart rate while the lower, upper, and core exercises function to maintain the increased heart rate while developing strength.
Exercises are performed for 30 seconds, with 10 seconds of transition time between bouts. Total time for the entire circuit workout is approximately 7 minutes. The circuit can be repeated 2 to 3 times.
1. Jumping jacks Total body
2. Wall sit Lower body
3. Push-up Upper body
4. Abdominal crunch Core
5. Step-up onto chair Total body
6. Squat Lower body
7. Triceps dip on chair Upper body
8. Plank Core
9. High knees/running in place Total body
10. Lunge Lower body
11. Push-up and rotation Upper body
12. Side plank Core
“The exercises should be performed in rapid succession, allowing 30 seconds for each, while, throughout, the intensity hovers at about an 8 on a discomfort scale of 1 to 10, Mr. Jordan says. Those seven minutes should be, in a word, unpleasant. The upside is, after seven minutes, you’re done.”
awhile back i posted the following which is somewhat uncharacteristic in it’s lack of sarcasm or super dry wit after hanging out with organic valley farmers at our annual meeting.
got to spend a few days with some of the wonderful farmers who own our cooperative during our annual meeting. no joke, i love my job.
what would possibly instill such sincerity in moi? well, now i can give you a glimpse! we made a little video that does a good job capturing why i love working for the cooperative. i’ll bet you can’t help but be a little inspired. and the best part? it’s the real deal. we’re all just crazy enough to believe we can change the world.
about a week into Odin’s Rather Mundane Adventures with Chickenpox, around dinner time he suddenly and very unexpectedly complained of A Very Bad Headache which is Very Unusual for a boy who never gets headaches but not, perhaps so unusual for a boy with chickenpox. but the headache quickly turned from bad to worse and we were left perplexed at the sight of him curled up in a ball on the couch rocking back and forth in pain.
hmmmmm. probably, maybe dehydration, we thought.
we gave him a cool cloth to put on his head and some acetaminophen and then made the mistake of googling “severe headache and chickenpox”. OH MY GOD IT MIGHT BE ENCEPHALITIS. or maybe it’s just a headache. some sites say to look for other unusual behaviors. ok. while we’re looking for other unusual behaviors, he starts nodding off. and not just a little drowsy kind-of nodding off. like, suddenly asleep so hard we have a hard time waking him up. and when we do wake him up he seems a bit disoriented.
weird. and even knowing that it was probably nothing we decided it was worth a quick trip to the emergency clinic at the hospital juuuuuust to make sure we weren’t missing something.
turns out, while the clinic staff was nice, they really were not particularly enthused about seeing A Very Contagious Boy and made him wear a mask and asked that he be very conscientious about what he touched while we waited to see a doctor.
we waited just long enough to play a game of I spy which also was just long enough for the acetaminophen to kick in which made the headache go away which combined with the adrenalin from the hospital visit meant he was pretty much back to normal. no more sleepy, sleepy!
but the doctor poked here and there and asked him a few questions and listened to his heart. “well, he’s dehydrated. his resting heart-rate is almost a 100bpm which means i could almost diagnose him with tachycardia from the dehydration. and he’s probably really overtired if he’s been getting a few hours less sleep than normal over the past week. parents often underestimate just how much more fluid and electrolytes a child needs when they’re sick over a long period of time. quite a healthy boy all things considered! drink lots of more fluid, get lots more sleep. even if he doesn’t seem sick, he’s sick and his body is working extra hard to get better!”
sigh. we felt a little foolish but, hey, better safe than sorry. and it was good reminder that even seasoned pros who spent 96 days in intensive care can be knocked off their game whole googling symptoms
maybe a slide ( or water slide?! ) that take a steep dive off the deck and a few twists and turns on the way down. or maybe a climbing wall up one side with monkey bars along the bottom of the deck to a fireman’s pole that you slide down. certainly a hammock 15 feet up on the trees is necessary!
i have no idea how many of his crazy ideas we’ll build but i do love that he has crazy ideas and usually has a credible plan in his mind for how to build them.
