Brad’s Take

Frank W. James at Corn, beans, spent brass, an empty page and a deadline, writes about the Death of Service – how franchise fast food joints don’t care about serving the customer.

My son actually got me to thinking about this some time ago and I’ve been checking in terms of personal experiences ever since, but he believes besides the lack of culinary excellence associated with all fast food enterprises there is also the accompanying complete lack of service.

His theory is these businesses work off ‘numbers’. All fast food ‘restaurants’ are built for volume and that’s how their individual success or failure is graded. If they screw up your particular order (because maybe you DON’T want cheese on your burger, or pickles or Gawd knows what else) they don’t care. They know there will always be someone else standing in line to take your place and your complaint or momentary discomfort is meaningless to their profit at the end of the day.

In short, they could give a shit if you come or go.

My first reaction is to think, well, if the employee wants to see the job as an opportunity to serve the public, working in a fast-food joint won’t prevent her or him from providing service.

But, you know, there are a couple of things that complicate the issue. One is turnover. When you take a new job, all your attention is on learning to read your boss to find what is expected. Two businesses can give the same instructions, in the same words, and mean different things. A new hire takes time to figure out what the words mean. When the environment is geared to lots of turnover, then that “learn the formula” distraction is going to be a powerful motivation for the entire work force there.

Established franchises have a formula for success. The franchise owner, the store manager, the shift leads, the worker at the cooker or register or dumping trash all have a job description defined to avoid errors. Meeting daily metrics and reports gets to be the major hurdle of the average work day. It can be easy to view this as “the goal” of the day.

High volume eateries often assign each sale a number to track the order, so they can track the order and hand the correctly assembled tray to the right customer. Hopefully. Unless one is careful, it becomes simple to transform the customer, in the employee’s mind, with the order or order number.

The immediate task of the cashier is the order – get it taken correctly, meet the manager’s or computer’s demand for specific information, in a specific order. Especially when trying to work through a line of visitors waiting to place and order, it is easy to let the attention focus on procedures, on money handling, on serving the computer. And the job slips from serving the community or the customer, to serving the computer, or perhaps the cash register or cash drawer.

I have walked out of various fast-food joints, when it takes too long to get someone’s attention, to get a cashier to take my order. I find that taking 45 seconds or more, with people “busy” behind the counter, to get someone engaged in my order is about as long as I intend to wait. I have been disappointed in food quality, and angered by further unneeded delays each time I put up with shoddy business practices like that. Supposedly there is someone, on each shift, every day, to be working an order-taking station. Whether they are being over-tasked and used for additional functions by an inept manager, whether they are ignorant about priorities of various tasks – I don’t care. Watching people bustle behind the counter, but not prompt at taking the next order is a sign, to me, of a manager failure. The manager fails to keep the work force in discipline, fails to keep the focus on actual service instead of looking busy, or fails to train people to meet primary assignments before working on secondary tasks.

When I moved to Phoenix (west of town, Goodyear, AZ), I had been a long-time customer of Taco Bell. But in Phoenix, I found that with a few exceptions, service was dead slow. Something like 10 or 15 minutes slow, in almost all stores. The exceptions occurred at a couple of stores, on certain shifts. The shift lead at certain stores could achieve a good quality product, without the ghastly delays. But evidently the district manager set the tone for the whole region – slow.

In part I agree with Frank. The nature of franchised fast food relies on newly-hired employees, and prescription workplace rules intended to keep quality high in the presence of green employees (which stifles the ability of the store to benefit from experienced employees).

But I think there is reason to consider the employee, too. Many are at their first job, or haven’t worked anywhere but in fast food. Others are working part time, or are working there because nothing else is available – that is, this is a last resort, not a cherished career goal. And many do not got to work with the intent to serve the community.

I know that having a dating partner that relies on emails, texting, or even lots of phone calls for “communication” in the relationship – is a big red flag and sign of a strong reason to leave. Electronics interfere in communication. Think of voice mail, those annoying “press 1 for sales, press 2 for technical support ..” automated replacements for people. Letting the computer define taking an order asserts an abuse to the customer in the name of “quality control”. Instead of an employee working to understand what the customer needs, the task becomes impersonal, translating what the customer needs into what the computer will accept. And defining the customer as an order number.

Combine the computerized interface with an employee paradigm of an assumption of using new hires in a consistent fashion – and Frank’s criticism of the industry pretty much holds true.

I suggest that the single greatest force for dehumanizing service, is an electronic order system. When I walk up to the counter at Wendy’s, and I am thinking what I want to eat – but the person taking my order cannot get to what I want to eat, until I answer the computer’s “Is this for takeout or dine in?” – that feels abusive. Even if the cashier is prompt and order taking runs quickly there.

I am making a list. Anyone calling on my home phone – listed with the “do not call” list – to promote a candidate, and I add them to my list.

Because politicians exempted themselves from telemarketing, common sense, common courtesy rules does not mean they have my permission to disturb me or clutter my phone messages.

I intend to vote *against* every candidate for office that calls, or solicits my vote.

There is a “do not call” list. If a politician cannot adhere to common courtesy, she/he cannot deserve my support.

Hip Mountain Momma writes on One Small Change about going No Poo – that is, no commercial shampoo. She shows a nice video clip about mixing a couple spoonfuls of baking soda into a quart of warm water for washing, then a finger or so if apple cider vinegar in a glass – filled with water in the shower – for a rinse.

A couple of issues bother me.

First, HMM (re-)uses a quart glass jar for the baking soda mix. That seems risky to me, in the shower. Any surface solid enough to stand on is solid enough, at the right angle, to break the jar if it slips. I understand about not encouraging plastic containers. HMM mentions not having to buy commercial shampoos in additional plastic containers each time you run out – but there is a reason for the plastic. It won’t shatter and slice feet and skin.

When I grew up we had aluminum pitchers that were reasonably robust, and wouldn’t shatter if broken. I don’t see them much anymore, plastic seems much more amenable to mass production. But they still show up in yard sales and the Salvation Army thrift store. I recommend a non-rustable metal container in the shower, or just reuse the dreaded plastic. Same with the vinegar rinse; keep glass away from bare skin and wet hands.

Then there is the part where HMM mentions pouring the baking soda mix over her hair, let it set for a minute or so, then rinse “really well”. Then pour on the apple cider vinegar mix, and “rinse really well.”

Is this “organic” and “plastic free” and “dangerous chemical elimination” approach – using more water?

Is she using the “rinse with water, towel dry, and brush it” form of intermediate care? Or is her hair longer than necessary – that is, is her long hair an ostentatious, conspicuous display of affluence?

Walter Russel Mead writes at The American Interest about the recent report by investigators from the Climate Change scientific community, which happens to clear the Climate Research Unit of the East Anglia University (where all those embarrassing emails were swiped and published), and thus the UN Interagency Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). They did no wrong, according to the report of people with careers vested in climate change and the climate change community.

In Walter Russel Mead’s words, my own feelings are as follows

In sum, the mainstream press seems to be swinging around toward the views expressed on this blog: that the scandals may not discredit or even really affect the underlying scientific arguments about climate change but they do cast doubt on the perspicacity of the movement’s leadership — and that a fundamental rethink is called for.

1. I am satisfied that the data used, as well as data available to the world, has been irretrevably doctored to support a finding of AGW – anthropogenic (man made) global warming.

I am satisfied that careers have been terminated or disrupted, reports and findings hidden, banned, or intimidated out of existence, that might have disagreed with the AGW community findings and agenda.

2. I am satisfied that elected officials – politicians – have used the banner of AGW to further their careers and that elected officials and bureaucrats have used the banner of AGW to expand the scope of their authority and power.
3. I am satisfied than in a “publish or perish” world of academic study, that increasingly alarmist and pessimistic findings are required to obtain funding and facilities, and to achieve the publication and recognition researchers are required to obtain, to progress in their careers.

What does this mean? I dunno. I believe that what is called science, among the global warming so-called “science” community, the warmers, has obscured the actual recording of data and analysis of what that data means. That is, the globe may be warming, and it certainly seems to be becoming less mild, but there is no one apparently free to report findings unbiased by the agenda of the warmers. And I distrust, vehemently, the warmers and their reports and especially their predictions.

Which leaves a quandary.

See, I recall a credible report that the mildest decade on record was the 1950′s. For those that don’t recall, or disregarded their world history, there was sharp upturn in consumption of fossil fuels, productions of steel and other materials in production facilities that paid scant attention to pollution potential, and long before anyone worried much about fuel conservation in internal combustion engines. Some refer to this period as World War II. Coincidence? Probably. I think, myself, that the 1950′s was a watershed time, an easing of environmental tensions between the last ice age and the (probable, sometime) next ice age or other significant environmental event. That is, it makes sense that every decade since the 1950′s will continue, for some time to come, to be less “mild” than the previous decade. When counting decades, recall that the sun has a major turbulence cycle on an 11-year long period. And that there appear to be some longer term (2300 year?) cycles as well.

I was taught that the origin of technology in civilization was when people started living in the temperate zones, when shelter and techniques were needed to adapt to cold winters and seasonal changes. Will this current excursion of the environment be as empowering in the chronicles of human development?

I dunno.

I look to those like Sharon Astyk in her Casaubon’s Book blog on Peak Oil and global warming, her Chatelaine’s Keys blog on after-the-peak gardening, food prep, and living, and John Michael Greer’ ArchDruid Report for guidance and insight into social and economic changes due to Peak Oil – which happen to coincide with what those positing AGW advocate.

But I won’t be asking the UN/IPCC or CRU at East Anglia University what they think.

John Michael Greer writes persuasively about the end of the era of cheap energy: Peak Oil.

That is, the availability of massive amounts of energy, readily available, have dominated human culture and society since the discovery of charcoal and coal, and later oil. Today we revel in nylon, and polyester, in commutes to jobs, regional “local” medical facilities, stores, and manufacturers that operate “just in time” rather than stockpile – conserve transportation costs – materials and supplies. We think nothing of an airplane flight to “save time”, or utilize toys and clothes and personal vehicles made hundreds or thousands of miles, or continents and oceans, away. We chucked Grandpa’s push-type reel mower for a motor-driven lawn mower – without considering whether the pushing – and results – are actually easier. Riding mowers, bigger engines, these trade the use of cheap energy – often transported to us from thousands of miles away – for “time”.

So – what happens when the trucks bringing sheep from Wyoming to the local grocery store, or cattle or hogs from slaughterhouses in the Midwest – cannot get fuel? What happens when the tractor dealers serving the great farms and heavy farm equipment in use today – cannot make enough money to keep service technicians employed, or to replenish repair and maintenance parts? What happens when the cost to make and transport fertilizer to grow the expected crops today, make the cost to plant greater than the best possible harvest?

What happens when the farmer cannot afford the cost of sending the crop to buyers?

Food security – the risk that changes in oil availability could mean not enough food is available – is one concern about economic instability, and especially Peak Oil.

Today, and for decades in the past, houses have been built on the assumption of central heating and air conditioning. What happens, in one prediction, when by 2012, the average American family cannot pay their utility bills? In Iowa I lived in farm houses that were built when single-room, oil stoves were the expected heating unit, and central furnace was added after the building was built. The rooms all had higher ceilings than modern houses. The windows were taller, and substantial storm windows replaced screens each fall, to be swapped back each summer. One or two rooms were heated, and frost in the bedroom wasn’t that exceptional. Lots of blankets helped. Anyone notice that kids today have more asthma, than kids in the past?

So, I just spent a week working around the Cheyenne, OK area. West of the little town of Cheyenne, on state road 47 at US Highway 283, is the Black Kettle Grasslands, and the Battle of the Washita Overlook.

Then Lt. Col. George Custer – this was 1868, before his grandstanding at the battle of the Little Bighorn – let the 7th US Cavalry, about 500 troopers, in attacking a band of Cheyenne under chief Black Kettle while sleeping in their winter camp. The day before the leaders of the village had returned from asking for peace and freedom from Army attacks. The Indian Territory command couldn’t grant them anything – it seems General Sheridan up in Kansas faced roaming bands of warriors – and intended to track them down when they returned to their home camps. Which Custer did. Sheridan’s orders were to kill or hang warriors, his unstated but well understood orders were to kill women and children as well, to take no prisoners. All ponies, supplies, etc. were to be destroyed. That is, something of a “scorched earth” approach. Anyway. So, Custer attacks, and likely 16 warriors, and 40 women and children are killed. One intrepid officer, Major Joel Elliot, likely without orders, pursued a band of warriors with 20 men. About a mile from camp they “met resistance” and were all killed.

Most of this story is engraved on the markers at the battleground overlook tourist site, on the OK highway 45a loop just west of Cheyenne, OK. There is more on Wikipedia.

A couple of thoughts came to me, reading the markers at the site. One is – when Custer had the (largely civilians) at a 500 soldiers to maybe a couple hundred (sleeping) warriors, chiefs, and families – he kicked butt. The Army usually does, ask around in Iraq and other places. But when 20 troops and an intrepid leader got separated, and ran into Indian warriors – they got their clock cleaned, hard.

That is, there isn’t an obvious superiority between the Cheyenne people in their winter lodges, and the Army troops. Any superiority has to do with weapons and numbers; the people are reasonably equivalent.

One obvious difference, to me, is that Custer enjoyed an energy superiority. It is cheap energy that mass produces Army weapons, uniforms, and gear. It is cheap energy that envisions and supplies forts and troops far in advance of the farms and merchants that made up America at the time.

The Amish today live apart from much of American society, by choice. Most live without cable or electricity running to their home; they live pretty well. They eschew much of modern medicine, and government intervention. Many use kerosene, some gasoline and diesel engines. They use coal, and charcoal, and burn wood, I imagine. But their daily use is much less than mainstream America.

That Cheyenne tribe, living through the winters in their lodges and villages, with their families about them and their rich cultural heritage, they managed without much cheap energy, at least in today’s terms. Where food is available, animals and even slaves or other forced labor are sources of cheap energy, not much seen in the affluent Western world based in cheap energy and especially cheap oil.

Today JMG paints a picture of the future in pessimistic terms. He claims that the end of this era of cheap energy means starvation for some, displacement and hardship for many. If we as a people can no longer afford to commute via private vehicle to work – then how long before the protection of fire and police efforts are limited to a short distance around their sites/offices? The national economy component of national security will, necessarily, crumble, since it is built on the free flow of cash as cheap energy flows about the industrial, commercial, and private sectors. Which means that more emphasis than ever will be needed to provide adequate military security. The risk of foreign invasion as well as internal interference to destabilize states and the nation will increase. We will need to divert much oil and other energy to military needs.

Some few, as always, will be able to take advantage of the situation and those around them. For the rest – I imagine that family and community ties will enrich some folks, the traditions of playing music instruments, and telling stories and songs as a means of preserving histories will enrich other lives.

Much of the Western World is based on an assumption of insatiable personal ambition for money and symbols of affluence. Perhaps we can choose to trade this (oligarchy imposed) sham with a more meaningful view of life and family, and community.

So my big plans for the garden are still more plans than plantings.

The starts for the watermelon (8 of 9 seeds) were about 4-5″, and straining with roots wanting more dirt than the starting cell. But the luffa (loofah) – 3 of 9 seeds – was what got me motivated. The first start was starting to throw a creeping vine, about 12″. The 2nd and 3rd seeds popped out of the dirt nearly two weeks later, and I lost one of those two while “hardening off” the flat. That gave me three hills (three starts each) of watermelon, and one of the luffa with two starts.

I tried disking up the garden space. An offset disk, 15 feet wide, is a heavy piece of machinery, not well suited to preparing a 25 by 50 foot space. That is, I used up the space under the disk, 4 to 8 feet, off the east side, getting the disk into the dirt and started tearing off sod. Then it worked fairly well, to the 50 foot end of what I wanted tore up. I made a couple of passes, last Monday, and much of the sod died off over the following few days. Except the east part, where I had set my sights on putting the Watermelon, and, in the northeast 6×10 spot, popcorn. I hacked it up some, weedeated the prairie grass a bunch, gathered compost.

I want to start a compost pile, really I do. But for now – I went into the pony’s yard, and scraped up some of the decade-old piles where hay bales had been set, and ancient layers of favorite spots for droppings. With the wheelbarrow full of clods and dirt, I screened out fines with a 2 foot square section of half-inch mesh hardware cloth. The big pieces, and any grubs I spotted, entertained the chickens something awesome. You would have thought they were getting tickets to Ironman 2 (or maybe Letters to Juliet, depending). A few buckets of screenings and the next day all there is is a bit of loose dirt (compost) waiting to be scraped up and re-screened – or maybe fill in some holes in the chicken pen.

I am jealous of my neighbor, Jim. Jim has a nice, big 15 by 50 foot oval space where an above ground swimming pool was taken out. Leaving a nice, deep bed of sand. Sand will be much easier to hoe than my heavy clay prairie sod.

For each of the four hills I dumped a bucket of the clods where I wanted the hill, then a bucket of screened compost. Next I combined peat moss and vermiculite with some of the fines, and made a bit of nest for each start on the top of the hill. I found a kitchen butter knife works pretty well to lift starts out of the starting cells, and used an old butter knife for the watermelon and luffa. For the watermelons I tried to set one of the biggest three starts in each of the hills. Then the water hose and start wetting down the hills. This turned out to be a bit time consuming, trying to get all that peat moss and vermiculite saturated the first time. It seems that using materials intended to absorb water, for some reason, means that they, um, absorb more water than I expected.

I am working on sod and dirt condition for putting down peppers and tomatoes. They would do better in the sun than under my grow light. I managed to find homes for most of my starts, but the remaining list still seems daunting. I wanted to try four Poblano/Anzo peppers, but somehow ended up with some of the seriously hot peppers – that I don’t care for – three Jalapenos and a Hungarian Yellow Hot. I suppose those last four might just get “lost”, I haven’t decided.

Of the sweet peppers, I gave away another of the Sweet Chocolate and a Red Cheese yesterday. That leaves me six of each. Maybe I can open a road-side stand or something. There are four Purple Beauty starts, and then I “rescued” some distressed peppers at TSC – two “Better Belle” and two yellow peppers. The color variety interested me, and the green bell peppers (how did I forget to order seed?) are the only ones I have actually used to cook.

Most of my starts, and all of the tomatoes and except the last four rescues, have been heritage varieties. Open pollinated. I could keep seeds on the peppers, except they cross pollinate when different strains are grown within 500 feet of one another. The tomatoes should make good seed-keepers, and won’t be propagating the tomato blight of last year that so many people got using commercially started plants.

So, I figure a garden might be nice. I like popcorn, I plan a patch of that, maybe 6×10. I like a nice bell pepper in the crock pot, so a few would be handy. A couple of tomatoes seem like they would go well in the crock pot, too. And beans. Lots of beans. I forget why, I think for combining with vienna sausage or hot dogs. Maybe some ground beef and peppers for a version of chili without chili powder (I consider “spicy” is when I add brown sugar to the oatmeal).

So I got to ordering seed. I have a box. Some say to start the seeds early. I built a bracket for an old card table; it holds a 13 watt flourescent under-counter light fixture, with an 18 inch grow light, about 17 inches above the table. The table sets in front of an east-facing windows.

Lowe’s had some jiffy planting setups. I picked up a three-pack of trays with 72 little plug cells each, and another with five of the cardboard plug 10-packs.

I figured if I needed to thin things, I should plant the beefsteak tomatoes (millingtonseed.com) and black cherry tomatoes (Baker Creek Nursery, rareseeds.com) two to a plug, then replant if both seeds sprouted. Almost all did. I figured, if everyone is buying tomatoes at $3 and $4 at Lowes, I can sell a bunch at the flea market and make up the cost of the Lowe’s expedition for planting stuff. Greenfield’s nursery opened a hut behind Payless Shoes here in Ponca City. $2.50 for four plants. I sold 48 plants at $0.50 each, gave away a couple dozen. I have six beefsteak plants about 3-4 inches (I sold and gave away the bigger plants, it just seemed right), and three Black Cherry (I wanted to keep four, but, well). So I didn’t make a bunch, and the starting planters didn’t cost much.

The peppers were interesting. I ordered Red Cheese (Baker Creek Nursery, rareseeds.com) and Purple Beauty. They stuck in a packet of Sweet Chocolate peppers. The Sweet Chocolate germinated 100%, quickly, and matured faster than the other peppers; they look exciting. In my excitement, though, I forgot to order Bell peppers – so I picked up a distressed pair at TSC. I am looking forward to these peppers, for me and maybe some to sell. We’ll see.

I have been reading about some good Brussel’s Sprouts, so I got some. And feeding cabbage and broccoli to the chickens seems to make sense. Supposedly I can feed Mangel-Wurzel (a beet plant) to the pony. We’ll see – I have been feeding beet pulp shreds for years.

Now, if I can manage to covert historic-grade prairie sod to garden soil bed. .

Just words.

Over the past couple of weeks I have learned a couple of things, learned while responding to John Michael Greer’s Archdruid Report articles on Peak Oil, the economic decline and speculation on the coming post-industrial society/culture. JMG refers to the current changes in America as “becoming a third world nation.”

1. Affluence. This is the distance between a person and rote labor.
2. Efficiency. This is the elimination of waste that affects return on investment, almost always measured in currency, and taken from the perspective of the owner/investor in a commercial or industrial venture.

The Archdruid Report.

JMG uses the term household economy to describe the production, exchange, and consumption of goods and services amongst the home and family, that doesn’t involve a cash flow. This is somewhat akin to Sharon Astyk’s informal economy, which I prefer. Setting an informal economy in relationship to a formal, cash-based economy makes the distinctions easy to label and to comprehend. The term informal economy has the additional benefit of identifying why it is disparaged by those involved in maximizing profits for employers, investors, and tracking cash flow for governments.

Can there be affluence in an informal economy? Yep. If affluence is avoiding the need to perform physical labor, then have kids. As the children mature, put them to work. Presto. Work gets done that Mom and Dad don’t have to do – affluence.

Today JMG advocates many families re-evaluate the cost of that second income. He points out that, in pure cash terms, it makes sense for many families to abandon that second income, and keep one adult at home. Reduce paid child care and housekeeping costs, qualify for a lower income tax bracket, and garden and cook from scratch instead of ready-to-eat dishes and meals.

And JMG laments that no one will take this eminently sensible advice.

Affluence.

There have been people in recorded history that turned from a cash-based affluence to lead a “simpler” life. Others refuse to leave enlisted ranks in the military, or advance into supervisory or management roles, because they prefer the craft and skills they exhibit every day, to the affluence and isolation of a strategic, rather than a tactical, definition of their work life.

But most people are driven to accumulate more assets than they consume this week. The taste of “running out” or sometimes lessons from elders that survived shortages of food, water, shelter, and other necessities of life, warns us that in bad times, we may need to rely on things saved in better times, when more assets were available.

Formal economy forces turn this cultural drive to conservation into . . ambition.

Ambition.

Ambition comes in many forms. Ambition is the need to build up the pantry, so that low-cost food is available when needed. Ambition is investing in a growing business, so that more money is generated for later times. Ambition is a community or business recognizing that good managers and supervisors are able to increase the efficiency (rate of cash return to the investor) of an organization. And convincing people that they are worth more to the community and business in advanced levels of responsibility and authority – and thus ambition has come to be a societal imperative to advance one’s career. To improve the efficiency of the company. For more efficient returns of cash to the investor, the owner.

A change in perspective.

A couple of points JMG overlooked, in advocating single-family incomes. While he acknowledges derision about becoming a house-husband or house-wife, he only recognizes that choosing to abandon outside-the-home income is a sacrifice. That is, choosing to live with less cash and greater home autonomy now because the need is coming soon anyway, and getting a head start while society still provides lots of options while gathering tools and implements to better survive coming harsh times just makes sense.

At the same time JMG describes his household economy he doesn’t make plain that it is described in different terms than the formal, commercial and industrial cash economy. Sharon’s informal economy, however, makes fairly plain that the services and goods are evaluated on a barter system, on an ad hoc basis. Applying my own, new word – I would contend that affluence, avoiding rote work, is present in the formal economy by hiring or buying necessities. What affluence there is in the informal economy is expressed by doing work one enjoys, or that can be traded for what is desired.

A different affluence.

What JMG suggests – reducing unemployment, reducing the clutter and waste of pre-packaged, pre-prepared foods and goods, reducing out-of-home costs by choosing one partner to function at home, is nothing less than redefining affluence from dollar terms, to a more fundamental “distance from rote labor” – and recognizing that we aren’t really all that affluent today.

Thoughts?

Google Earth computer program

Google offers a nifty earth-scene program GoogleEarth. Go to Google.com, on the menu at the top-left or wherever, select the drop-down list under “more”, then “even more”. In alphabetic order is “Earth”. This is a fairly large application, you download it and install it, that will then connect to Google for information about what part of the Earth you are looking at. It is fascinating to see moderately detailed images of your house, your city, the nation, or the world.

Earth comes in three flavors or prices. Google Earth is free – I have used it for several years, it is great. Google Earth Pro is $400, and I don’t know what that looks like. Then there is Google Earth Enterprise Solution – $Call $$Us. I think part of the difference is how fine a detail you get, and whether the images are a few years old (Google Earth free edition) or real time ($Call $$Us version).

Wunderground.com

I like the weather presentation at Wunderground.com (Weather Underground. Huh.) A few months ago they added a display option called “WunderMap”. It sure looks like Google Earth. It sticks current temps and radar activity (rain, snow, etc.) on top of satellite imagery of the ground. Really good satellite imagery.

This morning I wanted to check on the weather where a friend is working. While looking at the WunderMap, I zoomed out to see the whole nation, and noticed nothing much doing around North Dakota at the moment.

There has been so much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the storm on the East Coast I grabbed the image with the cursor, and dragged Washington, DC to the center of the image, and zoomed in slightly.

The Ocean

I noticed the Continental Shelf – the gradually deepening, rather flat extent of ocean floor near coast lines.

It looked gorgeous.

I zoomed out a bit. I had read a few months ago about the Gulf stream and how it flowed to the North Atlantic – and sank, to flow along the bottom of the ocean back to the Gulf of Mexico.

There is a seam along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, guiding those warmed waters from Mexico up to warm and modify the weather for Ireland and the United Kingdom. And it is gorgeous, zoomed out to see most of the Atlantic Ocean from in one view.

Across the Pond

At the time of Columbus’ sailing, the general wisdom was for ships to stay nearly within sight of land, maybe several miles, depending on how tall the ship was for a lookout to keep track. Zoom in on the British Isles, and notice the broad and nearly flat (I am still admiring WunderMap at Wunderground.com) continental shelf – which moderates the power of the waves likely to be encountered by a ship. It is amazing to view, in colors representing height and depth (topological view of the ocean floor), the character and historical impact of the shape of the ocean floor.

Fault Lines

Back on the US side of the Atlantic, I noticed a string of “pimples” off the shores of New England – volcanic cones. A fiction book some years ago posited a major earthquake in New England. There are fairly major fault lines there – and I can see the progression leading up from the depths of the ocean and across the continental shelf there.

I looked for Haiti (not that Haiti has been in the news, or earthquakes there). That is one folded and torn piece of ocean bottom. The ridge from Haiti to the south, and crevasse to the north across the ocean floor sure look to me to indicate lots of stress in the earth’s crust, cutting right across Haiti.

And it is interesting to see the wide range of depths around the Caribbean Sea. Amazing – no wonder wrecks got so very lost. Or that the waters were so troubled as to sink so many ships over the centuries.

The oceans, as seen through WunderMap and Google Earth. Amazing.

UPDATE:

I glanced at the Indian ocean (South of India, between Africa and Australia is how I think of it). There was temperature and wind marker – at the top of a single volcano cone, on a fold of the ocean, in the middle of, well, ocean. Ile Amsterdam.

I zoomed in on the mountain – closer than they had imagery for all the surrounding water. Move the image to the center, zoom a little bit, repeat. There is a ring of trees just off the ocean on the east side of the island. With a road leading north. And a Land Rover-looking vehicle on the winding track, heading north. On the North side of the island is a group of buildings – La Roche Godon. Amazing. (67 degrees, wind to the southwest, from a station on the shore, to the west of La Roche Godon.)

The Crunchy Chicken kicks off her latest Challenge to Reduce Food Waste.

I wish all that participate good luck on making your food quantity match your needs, budgeting anything can be a challenge. Luck to all of us to do better, too!

Reading Crunchy’s article, it occurred to me – if you have too much food around, does that mean you aren’t feeding friends and neighbors often enough?

Which brings up Sharon Astyk’s concern about community building as a necessary part of Peak Oil preparation. How can you balance a tightly planned menu with trading meals – having guests, or eating elsewhere – at either planned or spontaneous events or invitations?

In the last few decades many of us have come to think of meal time as the family only, when we should also be considering sharing hospitality and meals. I can remember, years ago, recipes always came with suggestions on how to stretch the unexpectedly for an extra plate or two.

My Dad farmed. When trading work, if you were at the neighbor’s place at noon, or they were at your place for shared work – mid-day meal was provided and expected. And was almost as substantial as a social event related to the work, as a substantial “hungry man’s” meal.

I would like to see adding a guest invitation per week to the reduce waste challenge.

Because I think that what is needed isn’t just parsimony – using the bare minimum. I think we need to use that frugality to amass useful and usable surplus – wealth. Wealth, or surplus, allows us to be generous. You cannot give when you don’t have a needed asset.

When growing up, I recall spending weeks visiting cousins and my grandparents from year to year. This kept the extended family together, expanded our awareness of the world and different ways to live, and exposed us to different kinds of discipline and even different ways to prepare food.

Eating at a neighbor’s house happened at least monthly, if not every other week or so, more often in the summer. You know, when you could send someone to the garden for an extra bowl of peas and tomatoes for the dinner already on the stove.

I see Crunchy’s mid-winter food waste challenge as being a great exercise in planning and values. But I would hate to have someone overlook keeping a well-stocked pantry, and using it well to offer hospitality and build relationships and community. Or even just to brag a bit on canning, gardening, and cooking skills. Because that happened a bit, too. Anyone could feel just a bit content, for a reputation as setting a “good” table.

I am thinking my plans for a garden are even more important than I thought, if I can use it to stretch food resources to cover more shared meals. Now if I can just get the clutter off the pile where I think I left the kitchen table. . .