Thomas M Abercrombie
http://tomabercrombie.posterous.com
Ini Spesifikasi Hp Terbaru Realme, Reame 5s
3 years ago
Friday, September 3, 2010
From high in the mtns we wish you a prosperous weekend ahh so Nepal city
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Diedrich Is the Real Sustainable Deal , Newport Beach @ Westcliff
Such good coffee and amazing thinking should come with a warning label like “Look out world, ain’t no stopping you now!”
In case you have been living under a rock the last couple decades, Martin Diedrich is the thought leader and titan of the coffeehouse industry. He is also a local.
For those of us trying to reinvent ourselves in a challenging economy, Martin provides hope and a bit of a road map.
Now, I say authentic sustainable thinker because Martin did not read this stuff in a book, nor glean it from a documentary. His original thinking came from experiences growing up on his family coffee farm in Guatemala, providing intimate knowledge that food does not come from the Ralphs bush, while forming an understanding of the natural system that sustains us.
Full disclosure on this green story: I will do my best to parrot the wisdom shared with me, to be a conduit for amazing thoughts. Rather than have one giant quotation, know that these are Martin’s words and thoughts. Words like “community” were used often and represent the linchpin of Martin’s sustainable thinking. I will leave you to visit www.Keancoffee.com to get the backstory of his history, family and entrepreneurial success. We will focus on the evolving story, on the future.
Kéan Coffee, named for Diedrich’s son, is established, voted best coffeehouse in OC and recognized by the community. The name represents the family thinking that they are looking forward, not back. Whenever you wonder how Martin came up with a decision for where to source coffee beans, what to pay for them, what he was going to allow in his coffeehouse experience and what would not be tolerated, the same simple mantra was the guide, “It was the right thing to do.”
Social justice goes hand-in-hand with environmental well-being, and is a direct focus of Kéan Coffee. Dealing with and being dependant on agricultural products necessitates this focus. Martin is well traveled, a geologist and early Indiana Jones, with a resultant empathy for the people who grow, harvest and produce the crops. He points out that we, as consumers, have a direct impact on agricultural workers’ lives. He and Karen apply their personal values and use their purchasing power to buy socially and environmentally sustainable products as much as possible.
In part, not entirely, Kéan Coffee uses fair trade, organic and in other ways sustainably grown coffee. The expanded discussion on sustainable coffee purchasing philosophy is a whole ’nuther cup of latte. In order to get quality, year after year, Martin will pay a fair price. If he were to “grind” a supplier, sacrifices in quality of coffee and in life would be the unacceptable consequences.
“Shop local” is not theoretical rhetoric to Martin, as Kéan Coffee seeks to support and sustain the small local business person. Trying in every way to keep local bolsters the local economy, which is good for his business too. Besides, doing the right thing is to serve the best bagels - sourced just down the street at Shirley’s Bagels. If you’re at Shirley’s and want a cup of fresh coffee, you guessed it, they serve Kéan coffee.
Unlike the folks at BP, you will not find Martin nor Kéan Coffee boasting of environmental accolades. “Greenwashing” is an accusatory term, labeling the recipient as an entity that tries to take one green decision, and paint the whole company green. Martin slides in a reference to another coffee company with a green logo, the one that serves burnt coffee to the sheople. Martin is disappointed in companies that use hucksterisms to try to make you feel good about using their products.
Please, do not let all this wonderful sustainable thinking lead you into thinking Martin does not know how to run a business. This entrepreneurial coffeehouse purveyor of community knows exactly what he is doing in a low-ticket, low-margin, high-turn model where the experience is integrated with a quality product. With one eye on our conversation and one eye on the business, Martin took time for an employee discussion about why an operational process not followed results in a quantifiable operational expense that is money Kéan Coffee cannot share with employees.
There is no us and them with Martin, his family, nor Kéan Coffee - no putting up fences. Water does not know fences. Everyone can drink some water, drink some air and have some of the best fresh coffee or Latte Art, a signature of the craft at Kéan Coffee. You will go for the coffee, and return for the coffeehouse experience, powered by an authentic sustainable thinker.
Rachmaninoff Dazzles
By Roger Bloom | NB Indy
It was a perfect night for the Pacific Symphony’s annual Tchaikovsky Spectacular, with clear skies and moderate temperatures at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater.
The full-house crowd was happily anticipating an evening of comfortable classical – the “Swan Lake” Suite – and, having filed past 19 cannons arrayed on the lawn on their way to their seats, the orgiastic bombast of the 1812 Overture.
Challenging is hardly the word to describe Rachmaninoff’s epic concerto, which is so fiendishly complicated in some passages that the technical demands on the pianist can overwhelm any thought of interpretation or expression.
But not so with Pasternak. He was not only technically flawless, but he was soaring, intimate, lushly romantic or quietly contemplative in turns – the complete master of the music, bending it to his expressive will. It was a wonderful performance. Even, well, spectacular.
And the Pacific Symphony, perhaps sensing there was something special going on, seemed to rise to the occasion, providing spot-on support with energy and elan, especially among the winds, but extending across the whole ensemble – while St.Clair conducted as if transported.
The explosion of applause and cheering following the final note – coming from both the audience and on stage – was perhaps in its way more powerful than the much louder airbursts that closed the concert an hour or so later.
St.Clair, having served up a gourmet first course, then brought the orchestra back from the intermission to plunge into the meat and potatoes of the evening, delivering the Swan Lake suite with flair and good spirit, highlighted by the work of oboeist Jessica Pearlman and first violin and concertmaster Raymond Kobler.
Finally, then, came the 1812, to which St.Clair and the orchestra gave their all even as they appeared also to be having fun with it. The cannons boomed, the fireworks cascaded, everybody’s blood was up.
But it was a bit of an anti-climax, with the memory of the first half”s Rachmaninoff still in mind.
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