Travel Time

Brent, Cadie and I just returned from a 5-day trip that actually turned into 12 days. Holy cow!

We had lots of fun doing our ‘West Coast Tour’, I’ll call it. We started up in Seattle for Thanksgiving and stayed a few days afterwords hanging out with family and friends. We ate at this cool diner that Brent’s cousins saw on the FoodNetwork’s Diners, Dives & Drive-In’s. Way good. We saw Brent’s old high school buddy & wife, and I got to go to my FAVORITE coffee shop in Seattle: Vivace!! (What-up Vivace homies!!) Vivace actually had to move locals… some sort of “emanate domain” issue. The word on the street is that the city was going to build their light rail right through the old shop. It was a great old place, very “coffee house”-esque, but their new place is so beautiful. You have to check them out when in Seattle up in the Capitol Hill dist. A bonus- we got to meet Brent’s friend (and mine now!) Derek Punsalan for coffee and we also hung out with Chris Pirillo then too. They were both gracious enough to talk tech talk with Brent for a few hours while Brent’s & my friend (Fred) and I talked seminary talk. We concluded our long stay with seeing friends from Maple Valley & we chilled at the SouthCenter mall - that’s what you do when you’ve got 4 kids under the age of four tagging along. Yep, we had a blast up in WA. And I even saw the sun the afternoon we had coffee with the fellas.

So we’re at the SeaTac airport about to head back to Phoenix, and Brent’s like, “I don’t want to go back to Phoenix yet.” So what do we do? We jump online (while sitting in the airport parking lot) & re-route to the Oakland airport. That’s right, OakTown baby. After buying some Crocs at the airport (not the ugly kind), we fly to the Bay Area - that’s where I’m from. That means I’ve got family and friends there too, whom we saw. That was great! After driving past Emeryville where Pixar lives (and watching Brent cry his sorry eyes out for not being able to visit them), we drove to the north bay. Brent, Cadie & I stayed a few nights at the Union Hotel in Benicia (the town where I graduated high school BTW). It was kinda nice acting like a tourist in my old home town. It’s a rather cute water-front artsy type of town that I totally recommend you vising one day. So we completely surprised my mom at her work. She was totally shocked to see us. It was worth it all to see the look on her face! We concluded our little Bay Area trip by driving up to Napa to see the beautiful vineyards and landscape there. We ate at Napa Style, Michael Chiarello’s restaurant (he’s on the Food Network) and it was so good! And guess what, Micahel Chiarello totally showed up. I sort of freaked out. Brent was like, “Are you gonna go & meet him?” Nah, I was having too much fun eating his food & feeding Cadie some of their yummy bread. We took some great pics of Cadie up there & I’m pretty sure Brent streamed a little bit of our time there too.

We finally booked our “return” flight to Phoenix on Friday… which actually included a stop in OC. So on Sunday we left Oakland for …. you guessed it… Disneyland!! We met up with Justine and were able to be her “tour guides” to Disneyland and California Adventure since it was her first time there. Gosh, we ran around everywhere in those two theme parks. Cadie was such a trooper. So was Justine. I totally have a blister on my toe from it all (dumb Crocs). We had a midnight dinner at IHOP, where Brent captured the funniest video of Justine making Cadence laugh. (As of right now, close to 17,000 people have viewed it on YouTube.) You’ll have to check it out! We concluded our Southern California adventure with hanging out with one of my best friends Kelli & her daughter at the Gypsy Den in Santa Ana. Brent says that he felt like such a hippy eating there, but I totally love it & the food/coffee.

Then, we came back to Phoenix where it’s in the 70’s. Bet you’re jealous!

Have a Merry, Merry Christmas everyone!

Filed under Cadie, PodCamp AZ, Splendid Things, Travel, iboughtamac | Comments (3)

Chocolate you can feel good about

Firstly, if you have a few minutes, you’ve got to read this article in the NY Times: When Chocolate is a way of life.

Monica Kramer recently sent Brent and I an email (and link to that article) about those cacao bean farms in Ecuador. Here’s an excerpt from her email:

I saw this article in the New York Times and thought of you…  It’s the little guys like this who can benefit from the the social media services your company offers so I thought I would pass this info along… Wouldn’t it be great if they could do weekly video broadcasts about their chocolate and show the world how they make it and how the employees lives are improved because of people such as us who are buying from them to help keep their organic and sustainably raised crops going because of this incredible global marketing campaign you guys created for them!  Talk about getting to know and support your [food] source.  :-)

 

I love seeing great ideas put into action! I’ve always hoped that the economies in Latin American countries could grow stronger so that more people would benefit from the wealth that lies within their own country. I think it takes some  business smarts, like what Ms. Logback brought to Kallari, to make some of these changes. And Monica’s right… incorporating the online community into this Ecuadorian business would certainly help them gain the exposure they need, espeically if they’re going to start making their own chocolate in their own factory. Wow!

Looks like they’re looking for volunteers currently, and unfortunately Brent’s & my ‘pro bono’ queue is pretty long right now. But I sent the farm in Ecuador an email with some ideas of incorporating videos, blogging, video-blogging, etc into their business. I hope they get some exposure & tap into the social media scene!

(P.S. I hear that they sell their chocolate at Whole Foods. I’ll have to check into that… Mmmm.)

Filed under Splendid Things, Travel | Comment (0)

This one time in El Salvador…

Have you ever woken up to the sound of automatic guns firing off? (All my homies from the ghetto say “Ay!”) That’s really not a common occurrence in my life, and I’m very thankful for that. But this has happened to me once before (unfortunately I’ve awoken to the sound of ‘regular’ guns firing off a few more times). I’m reminded of this incident on this day that we vote here in the USA.

The year was 1994. Were you alive then? I sure was. :0) I was in post-civil war San Salvador. The utter chaos of a 12 year war had substantially decreased by the time I had arrived, however, the effects of poverty and fear remained with many people. If you want to learn the background of this war, I highly recommend the movie Romero. Basically, what had happened was not uncommon to many Latin-American countries: “…peasants living at subsistence level without running water or electricity, while a tiny privileged minority lived in wealth and opulence…” Thank you, Wikipedia. And of course you’ve got the crazy government-backed military being countered by guerilla forces. And the Catholic church decides to take a moral stand, and pays for it with lives. And the events went on and on. But back to the machine guns.

I was asleep with several other friends of mine in a small apartment room. We were there on a trip to work with children of El Salvador. I was fairly young (shall I reveal my age here? … nah), and I didn’t entirely understand the situation I was in. I had known others who had gone down prior to my trip, and had been on a bus that was hijacked by men with guns. So I knew the situation was a little out of control. But, I was wrapped up in being surrounded by these awesome, lovely children. But then I woke up to machine gun fire.

The rounds went off and off. I awoke not really knowing what the heck was happening at first. It was early morning, if I remember correctly. I was startled not knowing if those shots were going to be coming my way. It sounded far enough away that I would be in safely for a little bit. The rounds continued. Were they just showing off? Were they hitting buildings? People? Later that day, my El Salvadoranian hosts made no mention of it. Neither did I. I wasn’t sure what to think. I was just thankful for being safe. But how about the people outside of my little apartment? Were they safe?

OK, so nothing big or scary happened that January morning. Hallelujah. But today, on the day that we assert our rights and our voice here in this country, I remember this time. As El Salvador was recovering back in 1993 from a horrendous war, I wonder now if my incredible hosts had gotten to experience the freedom to vote without oppression? My little apartment in San Salvador was safe… just as I am safe here in the US. But outside of these “walls” there are terrible things happening. The human rights violations that occur across the world… will those people be allowed to “stand up” and share their opinion? I don’t know. But I do know what he have in the US is truly an amazing experiment. It’s not perfect that’s for sure. However, I do know that I did not wake up to gun fire this morning. What a relief. I woke up to people Twittering about how they voted and were happy to do so. And what a challenge for me to wake up and remember that I have a major responsibility to help people on this earth, in my nation, my community and in my family.

Filed under Splendid Things, Think! Act!, Travel | Comment (0)