Last night one of the local Chicago television stations, the ABC affiliate, did a nice report on heirloom apples. The report centered on none other than my buddies over at Nichols Farm as well as a Chicago restaurant named Spring that is using some of the heirloom varieties in their creations.
Nichols Farm has a lot more variety than I thought they did. The report claims about 200 different types of apples which would rival what I’ve heard about from Tree-mendus over in Michigan. Unfortunately unlike Tree-mendus they don’t have sales at the farm. I have to say though that its pretty neat to know that a place that is literally within a short driving distance has that great variety of apples (as well as other vegetables).
I also found out as a result of that report that Chicago does have a farmers market that continues on through December after most of the others stop. The Green City Market moves indoors for November and December. I’m going to have to check that one out on a Wednesday.
Links:
Via Kottke.
Wow. What a fantastic story.
I Heart Zappos
OK well maybe not. But based on the way Apple’s email to me crowing about iTunes Plus options on the iTunes store makes it sound you’d think they’d gone to mp3 format for those selections. I quote:
With high-quality 256-Kbps AAC encoding and no DRM (digital rights management), the iTunes Plus catalog is the largest DRM-free catalog in the world. And that means you can play iTunes Plus music on any iPod or other digital music player and an unlimited number of computers.
“Play music on any iPod or other digital music player” (emphasis mine). Surely they jest. The only other player I know of that currently plays AAC is the Zune. Apple certainly chose interesting phrasing. It sounds on first reading that these files will work with any player, iPod or otherwise. On second reading I’m not sure what they’re saying.
Whatever the case woe to the person who buys tracks off the music store only to find out that they don’t actually play on most other players save for the iPod lineup.
In part 1 of this series I had an intro about my use of GTD. In part 2 I want to talk about using Google Calendar (GCal) in my GTD system. Part 1 discussed the why around using Google Calendar. This part will discuss the how.
Multiple Calendars/Categories
One of the things I really love about Microsoft Outlook, especially the 2007 edition, is the ability to categorize your calendar items and assign colors (the color functionality was expanded in 2007). This gives you a nice visual cue as to what items belong where. This functionality can be easily duplicated within Google Calendar by using multiple calendars and their associated colors. Since Google “fixed” the calendar application to allow all calendars (not just the primary one) to allow reminders, etc. to be set and transmitted via email (or whichever option you choose) there is no reason not to do this.
Marking things complete
Part of my old workflow in Outlook was to use red for completed items. This gave me an instant visual cue as to which items I had already dealt with. You might ask why I’d do that and for some people it may not be necessary. David Allen says that the calendar should be sacred ground and that if something makes it’s way in there that it should be dealt with and not moved (of course there are exceptions…but in general that should be the case). The simple fact that an item is in the past indicates that it has been completed. Me? I’m paranoid. If I look back a month I want to know that I completed things (usually revolving around paying bills). The red indicator was great for that. Unfortunately I can’t do that in Google Calendar.
OK so I can sorta do it in Google Calendar. If an item isn’t part of a recurring series you can move the item to the Completed calendar/category to change the color to red (or whatever color means “complete” to you and stands out). However if an item you want to mark complete is part of a recurring series doing this will move every instance of the event to the Completed calendar/category. In most cases when you edit one instance of a series the calendar application will ask you if you want to apply changes to that one instance or the whole series but not in the case of changing which calendar something belongs too.
OK so you can’t use a Completed category…now what?
Glad you asked. Instead of changing the calendar to Completed I now just put an indicator at the beginning of the item “What” field. My indicator is (C). C for complete…get it? 
Easy as that and its a pretty obvious indicator. I plan on using that in other situations as well such as recording when I put gas in my car so I know how often I’ve been having to fill up, when I last had auto maintenance, etc.
The GCal Tickle
Ah yes. The infamous 43 Folders (the actual folders mind you…not the website). I use my calendar as my tickler file. I generally don’t have to store any paper so a note in my calendar on a specific date is good enough. Any required notes for an entry go into the description field. “Tickler file” entries get categorized into the very few major categories I use (like Financial for bills) and entered as “all day” events so they’re always at the top of the calendar. These items generally don’t require a certain time to get done, just some time that day. The nice thing about these entries is that GCal (Outlook does the same thing) defaults your availability status to ‘available’ for these entries so you don’t show up as busy. If I am going to be truly busy all day I create a real appointment that marks out my time for that whole day. That is a better visual indicator to me that I need to be doing something.
Conclusion
I hope this was helpful. It really isn’t that difficult but sometimes just reading how someone else does something is a great motivator for tweaking your own system. In part 3 of this short series of articles I’ll talk about using Remember the Milk and Toodledo for list management. I’ve still been using both of them simultaneously and they both work equally well for me as list managers. More in part 3.
The season is really winding down. The number of vendors is shrinking. I’m becoming depressed that really soon there won’t be any farmer’s markets available to me for quite a long time. I didn’t buy much today, just heirloom apples from Nichols Farm
- Northwestern Greening
- Northern Spy
- Red Stayman
I’m a liberal. I read a lot of liberal political blogs. I really hate this style of writing and it appears all over sites like dailykos.com (this example from crooksandliars.com…context is irrelevant):
Worst. Presidency. Ever.
Using. One. Word. As. A. Sentence. To. Emphasize. A. Statement. Is. Annoying.
Please guys stop this insanity.
I love the idea of Blog Action Day to bring awareness to environmental issues. I’m looking forward to reading what other people, more importantly those who I don’t already read, are saying about their thoughts on the environment and environmental issues.
My contribution is quite simple: eat as local as possible.
- Start a garden
This year my family has become a lot more involved in the local food movement for several reasons. I think it’s important to remove miles off the food that is finding its way to my table. The easiest way to do that was by planting a garden in our backyard. There simply isn’t a better way to remove food miles when you simply have to walk out your back door and grab the food. Obviously it is a lot easier if you have a backyard
I have smaller lot but there is plenty of room for a pretty large garden.
You don’t have a backyard? You can still do container gardening and the amount of food that is available even this way is pretty astounding. Fresh herbs, tomatoes, beans, etc. are all at your reach this way.
- Attend a farmers market
For many of us this is a great option. I am blessed to have great farmer’s markets available in my area. I work in downtown Chicago which has fantastic markets on Tuesday and Thursday throughout the summer. One of the amazing things about shopping at a farmer’s market is how it starts to reconnect you with the seasons. Unlike the local grocery store you’re not going to get strawberries throughout the growing season: you’re going to get them in late spring. The rest of the produce works the same way You get connected more to the seasons and what you eat. You learn how to cook differently because you learn more ways to cook what is currently available. Give it a try…you won’t be disappointed.
- Subscribe to a CSA
CSA – Community Supported Agriculture. You pay a fee for the season and each week you get fresh produce in a box delivered to a drop-off point near your home. See my comments above about connection to the seasons and new ways of cooking. Like a farmer’s market but delivered almost right to you door. And in many cases you can help out on the farm too if you want…
- Other ways of eating local
I also try to buy as much as I possibly can that is produced close to my home (your definition of close may be different than mine as I live in a major metro area where this stuff is a bit easier). I try to buy eggs and meat close to home. When I go shopping at the grocery store I look for items that are produced locally and buy those over other options that aren’t even if the local item costs more.
There you have it. My short and sweet list of ‘how to eat local’. I am not above buying non-local items. I want citrus, olive oil, coffee, etc. I just try to offset that with buying as locally as I can. Even in the case of coffee I buy from a local roaster. Sure the beans aren’t local but they do give a damn about the quality of the beans and the quality of life the farmers have. There’s a lot to be said in that.
Get out there. Research what options you have and pursue them. You’ll help local business. You’ll help the environment. You’ll feel good about yourself. What’s wrong with that?
I added this blog to their web page but never got a chance to get around to writing an environmental entry. I did however get one up over at my other blog, Greenability, so please see that. I am going to post the banner for Blog Action Day to show my support here.
Back to the market for apples for making a pie (and of course some for eating).
For pie:
For Eating:
Via More Deliberate Every Day comes this article which is an interview with Alton Brown. The story’s author asks Brown:
Are there any innovations in the food world that you’re excited about?
To which he responds:
I’m excited about the fact that people are finally starting to put aside useless terms like ‘organic’ and ’sustainable,’ and concentrating on words like ‘local’ — words that actually have meaning and have relation to our lives.
I’d agree that the term “local” has meaning but I’d definitely disagree with him that the term “organic” is useless. I would have to say that I think it means less today than it might have in the past given the move towards food conglomerate-sized organic farming but it still means something. I’d trust organic food, regardless of source, more than conventional. I’d trust it more for me and I’d trust it more for my kids. I’d trust it more for the planet. The term isn’t useless but it is over-used.
