the Life of Zim

Well yesterday there was a 37 °F difference between the high and low temps for the day. Welcome to Minnesota. Definitely one of the colder days of the year as it barely got below zero. The high temperature for the day was 36 °F and by the end of the day it was at -1 °F. Freaking insanity. And on top of the temperature change it snowed all night, which has made for an exceptionally interesting Monday. Luckily didn’t fall at all on the way in, but there were definitely some wobbly moments. The forecast for today calls for a HIGH of -1 °F. Biking it this morning it was around -5 °F and snowy roads. So as you can imagine the ride in was pretty brutal. It’s never too bad as long as you’re covered up well enough, but baring the cold again definitely makes me more anxious to get out to Portland. I keep feeling like we’re going to get out there at the end of January with temps like 40° when we’ve been used to temps around 0°. I’m picturing us riding our bikes in t-shirts and everyone looking at us like we’re out of our minds. It should be a nice sudden change in climate though. Just when we think we can’t take any more of the Minnesota winter, we won’t have to.

Speaking of Portland, for all of the good people that like to keep up with my blog, we’ve got some exciting news from this weekend. We’ve got a place to live! Laura actually just mailed a signed lease and check for the a deposit and first month’s rent on a house in St. Johns. It’s a nice little house as we’ve seen from pictures. We had one of Laura’s friends that lives in Portland check it out to make sure it looked kosher. It’s a pretty sweet area (as far as we can tell). We’ll be about 7 miles from downtown, which isn’t super close but definitely bikable. We’ll also be just across the river from Forest Park, which is amazing. The woman renting the house to us is a social working going back to school for her Masters in Social Work, and will actually be living in the basement apartment of the house. I guess she’s normally lived in the house and rented the basement, but as she’s going back to school needs the extra money and has decided to rent out the house. She’s in her mid-30’s, seems like a very nice lady, and has a 12 year old dog named Blue. We’re definitely very excited about the house, but nervous at the same time. It’s a pretty big commitment for a year when we haven’t actually seen the place, but sometimes you’ve just gotta jump. We’ll be paying rent both in Minneapolis and Portland for January, which sucks a little, but it’s nice to know that we’ve got our new home figured out. Next step is figuring out how to get all of hour shit out there.

Well I’ve definately been slacking on my posts recently. No real particular reason. I guess life’s just been slowing down so there’s not much to write about. That or there so much shit going on I can’t stop to think. The world may never know.

Thanksgiving was two weeks ago tomorrow (WOW – I’ve been seriously slackin’). This year was fairly laid back, but a lot of fun and always good to see so much family. Rob and Nancy Marshall came up to visit and spend Thanksgiving day with us this year. It was great to see them and introduce them to more of the family. They’d met my Mom a few months back on their last visit to town, but this year they got to meet some extended family and my Dad and Kathryn, which was a lot of fun. They even met Molly via Skype.

Cheese Ball!?!

Appetizers Galore

Looks like Rob fell asleep... but not really.

The Feast

Family and Family

Done and Done

Check it, yo!

No, I didn’t make it.

Well I just finished watching the Future of Food. You can find it on Netflix’s Watch Now, which you can now use on a mac. Now granted the movie came out four years ago, so if you’ve seen it I’m sorry it took me so long to see it. I have to say, it is one of the most disturbing things I have seen or read in a very long time. I like to think that Laura and I are pretty good at watching documentaries on global and national issues. We’ve seen dozens of films on topics like Climate Change, the Energy Crisis, the War in Iraq, Religion, and Health Care. I must say the Future of Food takes the cake by far.

I think the crucial factor in this is the fact that as a citizen, consumer, and human being, we really have little to no control over the issue. This appears on multiple levels, the main of which is the fact that the changes in our food could very well become permanent and unavoidable due to the irresponsibility of few. The film primarily deals with the dangers of genetically engineering food. One of the main issues here is that if a GE (genetically engineered) seed is introduced to a non GE seed, the two will combine and there will forever be GE’ness(?) in the new seed. It’s like having a bowl of sugar and pouring in a little salt. Except that the salt gradually turns all of the sugar into salt. So maybe that’s not the best example.

The other disturbing fact that I came away with (again for numerous reasons) is that fact that people and companies can patent seeds (and other living things). To me it seems like a pretty big no brainer that allowing people to patent living things. One very good reason is that a living thing is capable of surviving and finding it’s own way. This causes an issue in the example(s) found in the film where a patented seed has made it’s way into a farmers field. Now the owner of the patent can seek legal action (sue) the farmer for using the seed without a license. I could probably write a paper (or even a book) on this issue, but for the blog I’ll just leaving it as saying it’s just plain wrong.

Bottom line, this film is incredible. It gives so much insight and thought to such a every day thing as food, that most people really don’t consider. If you haven’t seen it, you should. If you have seen it, you should watch it again. Food is something that effects us all, always, no matter what. And it’s something that so many people give so little thought to.