Business of Clean Energy in Alaska Conference 1 -

I came into as the panel had just started:

10:45-12:15pm
Attracting Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Businesses: Effective Policy and the Impact On the State’s Economy
A discussion of the means by which Alaska can attract EE /RE businesses to the state through policy design.

• Moderator: Larry Flowers National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

• Lori Bird Senior Analyst, NREL, Golden CO
• Noah Long National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), San Francisco CA
• Thomas J. Tuffey Director, PennFuture Center for Energy Enterprise and Environment, West Chester PA

The pictures show the speakers in order. The moderator is on the right of the podium.


Here's what I got out of this session:

Three key terms we should know:
Feeding Tariffs
Net Metering
Decoupling

I'll try to put links up to these later.







The basic issue is mental. People are so used to the old way of doing things, plus large traditional energy companies have set up regulatory environments that favor themselves and the status quo. But these panelists convinced me that there are very feasible alternative futures if we can let go of the old models.





And that's happening everywhere. California was Noah's subject. He said his presentation was online, and I'll try to link to it later.





Tuffey impressed me the most. He talked about the nitty gritty work of getting organized, getting credibility through expertise, and working with the key players, including businesses to help them understand their opportunities. Go to all the utility rate setting meetings and be involved in all work on regulations and lawmaking. He spoke without slides and spoke with conviction and with connection to the audience the other two speakers didn't have.

As always, this is just a snapshot to give you a sense of what is going on here at the Denaina Center in Anchorage. Given my bandaged together fingers I decided to had write my notes (right hand is ok).

Alaskan Among Google Doodle Finalists

Google's put up a link to their doodle contest for school kids. Normally I wouldn't promote such a blatant attempt to brainwash kids and get cheap art work, but there's an Alaskan among the finalists.
Geordey Sherrick from Juneau Douglas High School was the Region 10 winner in the grades 10-12 category. From what I can tell from the contest rules, he has already won a trip to New York on May 20.

But now the voting is open to the public, so if you want to vote for him, or any other regional finalist, you can vote here. I happen to think Geordey's is the best of his grade level - simple, clean, and elegant.

There were two state finalists for each level.

The other Alaska 10-12th grade winner is Alexandra Crowder.

The Alaska 7-9th grade winners are:

Kyra Laulainen and

Katherine Seeman

Alaska's 4-6th grade winners are

Michael Parnaell and

Malia Transue

And the Alaska K-3rd grade winners are

Elijah Griffin and

May Geml

Contests with two winners per state are great opportunities for people living in states with small populations like Alaska.

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Friday 2

It's 11:30, they've just reopened the doors to where the delegates have been discussing final language for the Declaration. There was a lot of people hanging around outside so it was a chance to talk to people. And today I remembered why I have been riding my bike down here the last three days. I had to run over to the credit union to get more quarters for the parking meter. The Denali Credit Union has a branch across the street in City Hall. But their policy is they won't even give change to someone who is not a member! I couldn't believe it. They said they have to run everything through an account, even change. Fortunately I ran into someone in the City Hall lobby I knew and when I told her what happened she took me back into the Credit Union and got the change through her account. Then I went down the street and put quarters into the meter and was back in plenty of time.

The Youth Delegation is announcing that they are meeting next door and that they aren't compromising. Not sure what that means. Patricia Cochran is calling all the steering committee members to come forward for the signing.

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

This is that part of the meeting where people are quietly reading and talking in small groups. The media have been allowed back into the hall, but not much is officially happening.

Digital Detox - Monday April 20

I was just thinking this morning that maybe I should have a day a week where I don't touch my computer. (If I were an orthodox Jew I'd already have this on the Sabbath.)

And then I got an email just now with this message:

Computer screens, iPods, TVs, phones and the dozens of other devices we’re cybernetically attached to are so pervasive that we can’t escape them. We live them, we breath them, we need them ... Or do we?

On Monday, April 20, Adbusters challenges you to do the unthinkable: unplug. Say good-bye to Twitter and Facebook. Turn off your TV, iPhone and Xbox. Reconnect with the natural world and the people around you. You’ll be amazed at how the magic creeps back into your life.

Go to www.adbusters.org for inspiration, articles, videos, posters and more. Next Monday, don't be afraid and don't find excuses ... take the plunge and see what happens.

Did that suggest a whole week? I think just one day would make a good start. So, I challenge you to pick one of the next seven days to just shut off everything digital (good thing I still have a turntable) and take in reality without the virtual shield.

Thanks, Jim.

Poster from this Adbuster link.

[For those of you who saw the earlier version of this with the message cut on the right, I just got rid of the box. But if someone would like to suggest a relatively easy way to adjust the code in the box to do the same thing, I'm listening.]

Sutton's Greenhouse - Buy Local

It was pushing 50˚F (10˚C) when I did my run today and the sun was bright and the sky blue.

But it was grey Tuesday until I got to Sutton's. This is our neighborhood greenhouse. Family owned and run. It's not your spic-n-span everything-in-order store. It feels like it's lived in. It's one of those vestiges of how things used to be. Like Spada's that used to be near the corner of Tudor and Lake Otis. You know this is a labor of love because they can't be making too much money from this. The back rooms aren't open yet, but the green and the warmth and the fragrance made for a great stop.

And there are bargains still to be had. Most of the plants for sale in the picture are plugs - little plants in individual plugs of soil. The ones in front here weren't cheap - $1.95 each. But the ones in back were only 25¢. There were too many good ones for me to decide. And if I get them, then I have to care for them pretty quick. So I just bought some seeds, for now, and I'll go back and pick out the plugs I want and can handle.


Before you go get plants at national corporate stores like Lowe's or Home Depot or even Costco, check out the local greenhouses like Sutton's that are run by local folks and much more of the money you spend stays in Anchorage. Even if some things are a little more expensive, you know that most of the plants were grown locally [I called and asked and they guessed about 60% are locally grown.]. That saves energy shipping them up here. (OK, what's the tradeoff between the shipping energy use and keeping greenhouses going here? I don't know, but most things from Lowe's are grown in greenhouses outside as well.) And the plants here are grown by people who know what grows well in Anchorage. And unlike most of the clerks at Lowe's, the people here can answer your questions.

Sutton's is at 2845 E Tudor Rd on the corner of Wright Street and Tudor - a few blocks east of Lake Otis. If you're headed toward the mountains, it's on your left. 907-563-5521

It started with the bike pump

Martial chaos in Bangkok. Clues to check out on the Stevens' case. Local outrage about the comments of the Palin attorney general pick, but with hints his nomination isn't doing well. It was already afternoon when we finally got up - not sure I can still blame this on jet lag. And as I write I realize I totally forgot about the Songkran celebrations at the Thai Wat here in Anchorage. Taxes to get organized. And I found a website with links to Thai music videos - a great way to work on my Thai since they have the Thai words below. And unlike on Thai tv, I can stop them and play them again til I get it.

The relative warmth - low 40s, about 7˚C - and the rapidly disappearing snow were calling too. The deck was clear, the back and front yards are showing a lot more brown in just the few days we've been home.

So let's chuck everything and ride over to Suttons and look for some seeds, maybe even some seedlings.

But when I got the bikes out, J's tires were soft. The pump wasn't where it was supposed to be in the garage. I seemed to vaguely remember thinking about taking it to Thailand with us back in January, so where did it end up? Not in the two most likely places.



Then I looked into M's old room which has turned into our store room. We'd cleared out some closets and drawers and cabinets to give our house sitters some room. It got a little rough at the end as we just threw things in to get them out of the way before heading to the airport. Was it in there?

Well, sorting through the old stuff and getting rid of as much as we can was also on the list of todo's and maybe the pump was buried in there. About two hours later, with a lot more floor showing, I found the pump. But it was too late to go. We lived in two rooms in Chiang Mai quite comfortably. Certainly we can get rid of a lot of stuff in here.

Celebrity Product Placement and Palin's Arctic Cat Coat

I'm a little behind on what's going on in Alaska, but I see that Linda Kellen Biegel at Blue Oasis has riled up a bunch of folks for filing an ethics complaint against Gov. Palin.

The complaint alleges a conflict of interest when Governor Palin wore specially designed snow-machine gear advertising her husband Todd's biggest Iron Dog sponsor, Arctic Cat Inc. She did so while acting in her official capacity as Governor of the State of Alaska and official starter of the Iron Dog Snow Machine Race.

[The picture is from the Blue Oasis post too so you can see what the complaint is about.]

According to later posts, she's gotten a lot of nasty comments, emails, and phone calls. Some of the comments on her blog carry a theme of "So what's the big deal, I wear logo stuff all the time on all my clothes."

So I googled around to find out about product placement and celebrity endorsements.

In an article published last October in Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Sarah Jane Gilbert wrote about Harvard Business Professor Anita Elberse whose favorite research topic is described as "the value created and captured by superstars."

Anita Elberse: The sports marketing industry, covering everything from television rights to endorsements, sponsorships, and merchandising, is an important sector and growing rapidly. In its Global Entertainment and Media Outlook, PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated that the sports industry accounted for around $50 billion in revenues in the United States in 2007, up from just under $35 billion in 2001. On a global scale, total revenues are expected to be nearly $100 billion this year, compared with $70 billion in 2001.

As far as endorsements are concerned, marketers increasingly turn to athletes to promote their products. The marketing executives I spoke with told me they value these endorsements especially because it is getting more and more difficult to reach a wide group of consumers using traditional ways of advertising such as television commercials, and harder to gain credibility with commercial messages.

You can read the whole Elberse interview at the Harvard link above. Here's one more excerpt:

[B]ecause star athletes and other celebrities are "brands" that have certain meanings for consumers, companies can spend millions of dollars to align themselves with those celebrities. They hope those celebrities' brands "rub off" on the products they are trying to sell, be it apparel, cars, or beauty products. . .

Considering the limited free time an athlete like Sharapova has in a year filled with training sessions and tournaments across the globe—less than 20 days remain for sponsorship commitments—I found it remarkable to learn how much value is generated.

There are also articles that suggest that the return on investment isn't really there. InnovationsReport writes, for example, that

Advertisements featuring endorsements by celebrities such as David Beckham are less effective than those featuring ordinary people, new research suggests.

Perhaps the marketing people just like being around celebrities so pushing endorsements gives them that opportunity. Whether on the whole these product placements are worth the money (we all now know about the fallibility of banking experts who pushed the various home loan packages, so why should marketing experts who push celebrity endorsements be any more reliable?) the fact is that businesses believe in them enough to spend tens (hundreds?) of millions of dollars every year on them.

In an article about strategies for getting celebrities to publicly use their products, Jonathan Holiff, describe as the president and CEO of The Hollywood-Madison Group, offers three strategies for getting products out to celebrities.

1. Gifting the talent (this usually involves supplying products for gift bags at live events)

2. Product seeding (products are distributed more widely in hopes of securing a promotional benefit and kicking off a trend)

3. Barter relationships (individual celebrities agree to participate in custom programs in exchange for valuable products).

He says the most effective is the third, barter relationships. He goes on to give an example of promoting the Sony CD Mavica digital camera.

Sony wanted to involve celebrities with its products and wanted that involvement to influence the public in a meaningful way. They sought a high-profile event—preferably benefiting charity—upon which to launch a yearlong press campaign in time for the Christmas shopping season. The focus: to promote the simplicity of CD-based photography.

So, with a limited budget, Holiff's company suggested getting celebrities to take pictures of what "freedom" means to them, that would be auctioned off for charity. The point was to use several ploys here to entice the celebrities into participating:

Such an artistic challenge, coupled with the prospect of receiving free Sony products, not only served to induce celebrities to participate but also offered us an extraordinary opportunity: to frame these pictures and mount an exhibition that raised money for charity. Indeed, the charity component attracted higher-caliber celebrities and provided the "hook" to draw media attention. . .

Fifteen top celebrities demonstrated the practical use of Sony's product and authorized the use of their names, likenesses and opinions about the product for press and marketing purposes (for one year). Sony received free advertising for its product in print and online for three months (worth an estimated $100,000), as well as 3.6 million Web page impressions (auction as a whole) and national press coverage, including Entertainment Tonight.

Clearly, some celebrity marketing campaigns work better than others. Martin Roll, who is described on VentureRepublic as a

world-renowned thought-leader on value creation through brand equity

describes some essentials of celebrity endorsements.

* Attractiveness of the celebrity: This principle states that an attractive endorser will have a positive impact on the endorsement. The endorser should be attractive to the target audience in certain aspects like physical appearance, intellectual capabilities, athletic competence, and lifestyle. It has been proved that an endorser that appears attractive as defined above has a grater chance of enhancing the memory of the brand that he/she endorses.

* Credibility of the celebrity: This principle states that for any brand-celebrity collaboration to be successful, the personal credibility of the celebrity is crucial. Credibility is defined here as the celebrities’ perceived expertise and trustworthiness. As celebrity endorsements act as an external cue that enable consumers to sift through the tremendous brand clutter in the market, the credibility factor of the celebrity greatly influences the acceptance with consumers.

* Meaning transfer between the celebrity and the brand: This principle states that the success of the brand-celebrity collaboration heavily depends on the compatibility between the brand and the celebrity in terms of identity, personality, positioning in the market vis-à-vis competitors, and lifestyle. When a brand signs on a celebrity, these are some of the compatibility factors that have to exist for the brand to leverage the maximum from that collaboration.

Palin scores high on the physical attractiveness. I would say the audiences are split on her, but she has some extremely enthusiastic followers along with those fairly strongly opposed. So it's mixed on the second criterion. But surely there aren't too many - maybe none - celebrities of Palin's level who is so compatible to snow machine racing. So, this is probably a pretty good celebrity catch for Arctic Cat.

But Ronnie05 on his blog points out another celebrity endorsement:

Research In Motion and Blackberry do not require any celebrity endorsement. Why would they when the biggest celebrity in the world, the single “hero” in the world and in America, is doing it for them and is not charging a single cent. Barrack Obama’s penchant for the “Blackberry” has steadily found its way into the press.

The question is whether Palin's use of the Arctic Cat coats is the same thing as Obama's use of his Blackberry. The Blackberry is a tool that many people use and presumably Obama picked his up on his own and the press happened to catch him using it. I guess we should dispatch someone to find out if the Blackberry company gave it to him in hopes he would be photographed using it.


Given the amount of money spent on celebrity placements, and the careful planning placement specialists seem to go through to get the right people to publicly use their products, I think it would be of interest to us all to hear exactly how it came to be that Gov. Palin wore that coat at the opening of the Iron Dog race.

Two basic questions we need answered are:

1. How did Palin get the coats? Did she go out an buy it? Was it something that she had in the closet and that she wears all the time? Was it a gift from Arctic Cat?

2. Did Arctic Cat in any way influence Palin to wear the coat at the start of the Iron Dog race?

If it was a gift from Arctic Cat, given what I've been reading on product placement, it probably wasn't just an accident that the Governor of Alaska opened the Iron Dog Snow Machine Race wearing the coat. There were probably product placement pros carefully plotting the whole thing.

Just as Jonathan Holiff outlines how they plotted to get celebrities to use the Sony cameras by setting up a contest that benefited charity, Arctic Cat's marketing specialists probably said, "This will look so natural. We already sponsor her husband, so why wouldn't we give him and his family jackets? And then all she has to do is wear it when she opens the race. Bingo, we'll have pictures of Sarah Palin, one of the most well known celebrities in the US, who also happens to be linked in the public's mind to snow machines, all over the place."

There doesn't even have to be any sort of additional payment to Palin (though Biegel's complaint says Arctic Cat is Todd Palin's biggest Iron Dog sponsor, so the Palin family is getting something from the company.) And Palin likely did not give them any rights to use the pictures (though we should ask about that too just to be sure).

And Palin might have been lulled into all this just as all those celebrities who get gifts are. You get a free camera, we challenge your ego by getting you to take pictures we're going to sell for charity, and we'll throw in "Freedom" as the theme for the pictures. Who can resist?

But Palin isn't just a celebrity. She's a government official. She's a representative of the People of Alaska, the head of our government. Our governor must separate private product endorsements from her official duties as governor. And yes, making appearances at the openings of events, cutting ribbons for new roads, etc. in her capacity as governor are official duties. [Would she have been invited if she were not the governor?] And furthermore, this is a politician who became governor in part on her strong stance against public officials whose personal interests and public interests overlapped.

So for those who say they wear clothing with brand names attached all the time, I would say I suspect this isn't some trivial incident comparable to her happening to put on Levis and someone complains that the little red tag in back is an endorsement. These are big conspicuous coats with giant endorsements all over them. This is big business and potentially worth lots of money for Arctic Cat.

So, did Sarah buy these coats or were they given to her?
How did she decide to wear them to the opening of the race?
Did Arctic Cat and/or their marketing company have a plan for getting Palin to wear the coat at the opening of the race?

If this were an isolated event, I might be more likely to lean with those who say to give her a pass on this. But sometimes the problem is a series of small events, no single event being that big a deal. And if we are serious about having politicians who aren't tainted by special interests, then we have to call every single case so that politicians finally learn that their jobs are to serve the public without getting extra benefits for themselves along the way. If all these sorts of special perks are too much of a hassle, then maybe the people who run for office to get them will find more hassle-free endeavors.

And it means holding Democrats accountable as well as Republicans.

Bangkok Stop

At JL's insistence, we added a night in Bangkok on our trip home from Hanoi. J was in my Peace Corps group and was in the next province to mine 40 some years ago. He's been involved with Peace Corps and/or AID until he retired and now lives in Bangkok in a house he and his wife built [remodeled] on her old family property. [She said she would have built such a big house.] We're staying in a beautiful guest house in the back.

They heard that banana trees were a good way to green up the yard fast after the construction and so now they have a collection of lots (I forgot the number) of different kinds of banana trees. This was perhaps the strangest - it's got hundreds of tiny bananas.

This condo building towers above their place. It's distinction is that every condo has its own swimming pool. But J isn't sure they have enough money to finish it. It seems that nothing's been done on it for a while and it's not done. The penthouse on top comes with its own helipad. So if you're interested, email me and I'll get you in contact with J.

We walked around the neighborhood. This will give you a little idea.

J wanted something at the supermarket, so I checked out the fish department.

750 Baht is about $20. So this Tasmanian salmon is under $10 a pound.
Presumably this is previously frozen salmon and farmed salmon,
but I didn't see anything that gave that sort of info.

Then we stopped at the Spa for some iced chocolates and I had mandarin-passion fruit.

Then tonight we had dinner at a beautiful Northern Thai place close by.
Here's the fish dish. With all the ingredients of Miang.

Here are the culprits at dinner.

I really don't have much time to say much more. I'm feeling a little guilty staying at this beautiful spot while my colleagues are a few kilometers away sleeping on the street in front of Government House. I did talk to Bon by phone today and the Prime Minister has signed something - I think to set up a committee to study and resolve the issues the farmers have brought to Bangkok. I'm hoping to get down there tomorrow before we fly home. They are due to bus home tomorrow night.

I'm letting Hanoi sink in before writing anything more. All I know is that I was headachy the whole time. That's not my style. I'm guessing it was the traffic and noise - and trying to dodge motorcycles every time I crossed a street.

Oh yes, tomorrow is the 50th Anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising. Tibet's been closed off and they are expecting protests at Chinese embassies around the world. Apparently there's been disputes among Tibetans and there may be more vigorous protests than in the past, possibly even some suicides in protest. Or so the rumors go.

Hanoi Traffic

We spent the day walking. I did get my ATM card back and it still works. It seems if you don't get the right pin the first time, they keep the card. I didn't get it right because I didn't push the buttons hard enough. Viet (above) whose headed to school in Texas worked out the card.




This is the headquarters of the bank whose ATM ate my card. The guard came over to tell me not to take pictures. Then when I asked Viet if I could take his picture he said sure, right in front of the guard, who got angry, so we went outside to take his picture.



We're booked on a tour to Halong Bay tomorrow. Overnight onland in a hotel, then back on the boat Sunday. Everyone assures us the water is totally calm. Prices shifted from the original recommended internet company that wanted $250 per person, to $125 per person, and finally we got it at $57 per person. Granted, we aren't staying on the boat overnight so that lowers the price, but J was worried about being seasick. And I think the first one included a private car and now were in a van with others, but that's fine.

So here's why I'm feeling a bit headachy today. The video is short, but gives you a good sense of getting across the street in the old quarter of Hanoi.

CSAs and other Creative Ways to Sell Vegies

One of the functions of my organization here, and ones it works with, is to help farmers be self-sufficient and sustainable. But ultimately you must have a market for your goods. Tok (it's an unaspirated T that sounds a lot like a D) is working on his dissertation and has been working with farmers for a couple of years now. And despite his T-shirt (a gift he told me) he talks about marketing and about going to a seminar on branding. Last year he took me out to Mr. Diraek's farm when I got here. And last week we talked about getting consumers to buy shares in the farm. I talked about people I knew in Anchorage who did just that, and got a huge box of fresh vegetables every week or so all summer. I promised him I'd get him information on how people do that in the US. So here's some of that information. With pictures of today's trip out to one of the farmers' markets where they sell their organic produce.

I discovered the word is CSA or Consumer Supported Agriculture. It's done a variety of ways. From Local Harvest:

A CSA, (for Community Supported Agriculture) is a way for the food buying public to create a relationship with a farm and to receive a weekly basket of produce. By making a financial commitment to a farm, people become "members" (or "shareholders," or "subscribers") of the CSA. Most CSA farmers prefer that members pay for the season up-front, but some farmers will accept weekly or monthly payments. Some CSAs also require that members work a small number of hours on the farm during the growing season.

A CSA season typically runs from late spring through early fall. The number of CSAs in the United States was estimated at 50 in 1990, and has since grown to over 2200.

UMassVegetable gives a detailed description of CSAs. Here's a bit on how they work:

How Does CSA Work?

Money, Members and Management

A farmer or grower, often with the assistance of a core group, draws up a budget reflecting the production costs for the year. This includes all salaries, distribution costs, investments for seeds and tools, land payments, taxes, machinery maintenance, etc. The budget is then divided by the number of people the farm will provide for and this determines the cost of each share of the harvest. One share is usually designed to provide the weekly vegetable needs for a family of four. Share prices reflect many variables and average between $300 and $600. Flowers, fruit, meat, honey, eggs and dairy products are also available through some CSA.

Brookfieldfarm.org explains what a share includes on their farm.

What's in a share?

• Between 5 and 18 lbs. (14 lbs. avg.) of produce each week from the first week of June ‘til Thanksgiving
• We think this will be sufficient produce for 2 adults (non-vegetarian) or 1 adult (vegetarian)

All shares also include:

• a variety of Pick-Your-Own (PYO) vegetables, herbs, berries, and flowers (we harvest about 90% of the food for you - but some items are strictly PYO - beans, peas, cherry tomatoes, flowers, and strawberries)
• the opportunity to purchase our own bulk produce at wholesale prices for canning and freezing
• the opportunity to purchase Brookfield Farm raised beef and pork
• a weekly newsletter during harvest season with recipes, farm news, and other good stuff!
• access to Brookfield Farm's 50 acres of land for recreational use
• the opportunity for your family to participate in educational programs and seasonal festivals

A Share is Seasonal:

• Throughout the season, your weekly share is made up of the freshest vegetables available from the farm. The variety and amount in the share depend on the season and the weather.
• Here’s a sample of what you might get in one week’s share in June and September: (You can click the link to see what's in the shares)
  

Here's link to a photo tour of the Brookfield farm.


Heirloom farms has 'workshares' as well as CSA:

What is a Workshare?

A workshare is someone who works 8 hours a week from the middle of May through the end of October in exchange for a share of the farm's produce. Workshares differ from one-time volunteers and CSA members who perform a work commitment in that they develop some skill and speed over the course of a season, which gives them an important role to play in meeting the farm's labor needs.

These are jackfruit.

This is Khiew - it means green. Mr. Diraek is her husband. She was tired after getting up around 4am to get things to the market by 5 or 6am. We got there late when most people had already left. She said this was hard work. Tok showed me a powerpoint yesterday where he's got various marketing ideas in the works - from CSA's to home and office delivery. In some ways, this is really a return to Thailand's past where food was grown with natural fertilizers and not full of pesticides and farmers sold their produce locally. And it's also part of a worldwide trend. They key is making it work right. As Khiew's tired face shows this isn't easy. But they are doing the most important job - producing good food.

These are the prices agreed upon by the farmers. They're a good buy.

And here is one of the farmers' id certifying his organic credentials. A New York Times article today says that consumers aren't always aware that US organic labeling doesn't mean the food is safer than non-organic food. It's only about how it is grown. That farmers work hard seems to be true around the world. But they are trying out new ways to connect with consumers.


Continuing with the varieties of CSAs,

Alaska's Glaciervalleycsa expands the idea by getting produce from Outside Alaska as well as Alaska (it's year round). The interesting thing is that you can order a
box (they choose what goes in the box) when you want, but you don't have
to get a box every week. One reader posted a message that this wasn't really a CSA because they imported food from elsewhere. The response was, well, if they are going to provide food year round in Alaska, they have to. Are the vegies they get any different from what Safeway and Fred Meyers sells? I don't know.

And there is even a site that advertises for
Internships, Apprenticeships, and Jobs on Organic and Sustainable ...
Here's a site looking for organic volunteers and employees. It says
"Educational Exchanges in Sustainability" This appears to be the page
for Alaska farms. I'm not excited how the site looks on my computer.

Here's from one of the Anchorage Daily News blogs about CSA's in the
Anchorage area.


And an Alaska Farm: Alaska Organic Farm

To what extent can Alaska farms feed Alaskans? How much can rural Alaskans grow in the summer? In greenhouses in the winter? You can argue that these kinds of grown foods aren't traditional foods, but they would be much healthier than a lot of the food sold in rural Alaska.

Bike Ride to Hang Dong 2 - Furniture World

[Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 10pm Thai time]

Lots happening, way behind blogging. Let me finish the bike trip from last Saturday. We arrived in Hang Dong about 12:30pm and there was a huge furniture store so we stopped to look around. When I say "store" it certainly wasn't like a furniture store in Anchorage or elsewhere in the US. It was mostly very open buildings and a lot of stuff was actually outside. It was really more like a museum.We parked our bikes next to the Chinese room and as we walked around a delightful woman discretely began talking to us, explaining what we were looking at.
And inviting us to see other parts. Soon she was back with a tray and a couple of cold sealed cups of water.


At this point, seeing the whole front - India now - I was overwhelmed at the kinds of stuff they had.

There was door after door after door. These two are Chinese, and these are the insides. There were Indian doors and Pakistani doors as well. Not to mention windows. Part of me is wondering whether these are from places that were demolished for high rises or whether they just bought them off of people's houses.

If I were a US interior decorator, I'd spend a lot of time in Hang Dong and simply convince my clients that the wait was well worth what you got. Things weren't not terribly expensive at all. Some of the elaborate Indian doors - not those above - she said were 27,000 Baht - about $755. You could pay that much for a door at Home Depot and not get anything nearly as exciting as these. Of course, the catch is the shipping costs. We didn't get into that since I wasn't buying a door.

Here was a small display under a corrugated steel roof of how you might furnish your room. If we had a room that big.

These men are guarding the Burmese room.

And then there was the room of mostly Indian lamps. Here's is where we broke down. Two small hanging lamp shades for over our dining room table. They assured us they'd pack them so they wouldn't break and we could carry them on to the plane But even if we didn't carry them on they wouldn't break. We'll figure this all out when we get home. Will the work over the dining room table? We'll see.

These are Pakistani beds. There were lots and lots of them.

Here's our host. She apologized that she couldn't speak English - her parents were very poor and couldn't afford school for her beyond a couple of years. But she was so charming and such a great host - very Thai in that regard. As you can guess, this place covered a lot of land.

Bathroom sink anyone? The water worked.

And there were little things too, like drawer pulls, door handles, hat and clothes hooks, and things I wasn't sure about. We bought some drawer pulls too. I have no idea what we're going to do with them, but we'll figures something out.


Here is part of the front of the store that faces the street. As you can see, this place is called the Golden Triangle and you can visit their website yourself. And order an Indian door or a Chinese door, or maybe have a Thai door made. My guess is that most of the website is the Chiang Mai store, not the Hang Dong. As you can see it is a little slicker presentation than here. And while she didn't teach me the pricing code on the stickers until we were in the last room we looked at, the prices she did quote me seemed to be much less than what is on the website. If you were really going to buy a few large items, you could pay for your trip to Thailand and more in the savings you'd get. And the selection is sooooooo much greater.

After the Golden Triangle, we were overloaded. We rode our bikes a little way, but stopped for lunch where we saw the Elvis and the King picture. This was on a street that turned off from the main road and was furniture store after beautiful furniture store. I'm not sure how far it went. Our host had suggested we ride out to a place called Baan Tawai that was 3 km away. We'd had our quota of furniture for the day, but I can imagine there were stores the whole way. Not sure though. There was a whole complex of buildings - most still empty - that looked like it was going to be a furniture store city. Above I peeked into a lamp store that wasn't open.

Here you can see just a small glimpse of this newly built set of shops - as far as the eye could see in the picture - most still empty.

And I couldn't help but take this picture of the exquisity wood doors on this brand new - well I'm guessing it's a house - in the middle of this area with all the storefronts. Well, on second thought, maybe those doors open up into a store, with the house on top. As I say, this would be an interior decorators dream trip.

Now, let's talk about beauty and consumption. We are in a phase of our lives when we are trying to get rid of things, not take in new things. We aren't the sort of people who economists say make the economy work. And I think we have to have a new level of equilibrium in our economy so that we don't keep wasting so many resources just to package the things we buy, let alone the resources for the things themselves. We try to limit our purchases to things that have practical use, that we need, and that bring aesthetic pleasure. I think beautiful things are probably calming. But we want things that are seriously beautiful and will continue to bring that satisfaction for years and years. So, our temporary fix of a dining room lamp, a Japanese paper globe that has some tears in it now, is in need of replacement. So the two lampshades, theoretically, are a purchase that has a practical use and one that we have a need for. Whether we will be able to get enough light inside these lampshades and then out into the room is another questions. But for us this was like walking through a museum of of beautiful pieces of art, pieces that also happened to have price tags.

We biked back to the Golden Triangle, picked up our purchases, crossed the street and hailed a yellow song thaew. The driver got out, climbed up to the roof, untied the giant bungee cord, and I passed up the two bikes and he put them in place and tied them down. In 20 minutes we were in downtown Chiang Mai, and biked the rest of the way home.