Miscellaneous Items

The Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Mola-mola

One of our favorite places to go is the Monterey Bay Aquarium located in Monterey, California. Have you ever seen a Sunfish? It is a large, solitary fish also known as a Mola-mola that is one of the main attractions in the Outer Bay display. Here is a link for more (and much better!) pictures of the Sunfish.

Call me, I dare you!

The National Do-Not-Call Registry (run by the Federal Trade Commission FTC) is finally being put in place. The web site for sign ups will be activated in July 2003 and the telemarketing firms are supposed to subscribe to it by October 1, 2003 under a $11,000 per violation penalty. It's no wonder the Direct Marketing Association doesn't like this at all.

The California do-not-call list is up and running as of 4/1/2003 which will actually feed the national list.

Hallelujah. About time this thing is up and running. I don't care so much about the free-speech rights of the telemarketing firms as I do about the privacy of my dinner.

Note that a whole bunch of exceptions are in place meaning that the following types of firms can still call: "charities, political candidates and groups, business with fewer than 5 employees, and companies that have a preexisting relationship with a consumer during the previous 18 months." See SF Chronicle newspaper article on 4/31/2003 for details. Don't forget that if you tell any telemarketing firm to put your number on their do not call list, they are legally obligated to keep you on that list for 7 months.

Castle Air Museum

Several years ago, our extended family packed ourselves tight into a 15-person rental van and drove south 2 hours from the San Francisco Bay Area to Atwater, Ca for our long planned visit to the Castle Air Museum.

Opera browser version 7.10 can be downloaded through this link. Note that this is a 12 megabyte file and may time to download since my upload speed is limited to 512mb/sec.

You can also download this file from the Opera web site at www.opera.com. That would probably be a much faster download.

My resume is here in Microsoft Word format. Right click on the link and click on the "save file as..." menu.

Marissa and Sarah at the Ferry Plaza farmer's market in May, 2004

How Far Does Your Food Travel To Get To Your Plate?

We are very avid fans of our local farmer's market. Every week, at least once a week and often twice a week, we go to the farmer's market to shop for fresh vegetables and fruit. We initially started going to the farmer's market because we thought the produce was fresher and we felt good about supporting the local farmers.

That was probably ten years ago. Today, we hardly ever buy produce at the grocery anymore. Read this document by the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture to understand the extent to which food is trucked these days. Imagine also how produce like these have to be kept fresh -- somehow, as it travels hundreds or thousands of miles before you see it at the grocery.