Tag: busy

Overload

Post author By David
Post date June 14, 2008
No Comments on Overload

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These last couple of days have been overwhelming. I can hardly keep up with everything I need to do – which is why I failed to post. I’m still trying to catch up so this is mostly a chance for me prove that I have not disappeared. It is also a chance for me to point to the Radio West show from yesterday, The Case for the Independent Farm.

I was very excited when I started listening to the show. It really makes you take a fresh look at agriculture as a business and also at how the production of our true necessities (such as food) affects our lives and our lifestyles so broadly. I am hoping to break the whole show down and share more of what I learned from it. Until then, here’s one nugget:

The encouragement {in agriculture} is to do more work with less people, hence the myth that modern farming is efficient – well it’s more efficient per man hour but it’s not more efficient per acre, if anything it’s much less efficient per acre but we tend to measure efficiency in man hours and capital rather than in land which is the one variable that we probably won’t ever have any more of. – George Pyle, author of Raising Less Corn, More Hell

Tags busy, economics, Radio West, subsidies

life

Crunch Time

January was a very nice month for me as I was able to write every single day. Plenty of things have been happening in politics as the presidential primaries have twisted and turned on the path to next Tuesday. I’ve also had final opportunities to comment on the Mountain View Corridor and the opening of the 2008 legislative session to keep my mind occupied.

Having things to write about was obviously not a problem, but having time to write was surprising. things have been building up at work towards a new product launch. I have spent this last week working 12+ hour days in preparation for that event. It’s now crunch time in our product launch, at the same time as political crunch time for people to get serious about making a choice about where our nation should be headed politically. The primaries are the best time to make an impact in the voting booth – after that your options are much more limited.

Tags busy, primaries, work

culture life

Cell-Phone Culture

Over the course of the last year I have become very aware of what I call our cell-phone culture. Let me preface my commentary by saying that I have nothing against cell phones. I used to have one, and the day may come when I have one again, but currently I do not have one.

After moving into a new house and a new neighborhood last year, I found it hard to contact anyone in my neighborhood. I have been working with the local Boy Scout troop and I had phone numbers for most of the people but whenever I tried to contact people I could never catch them. I also discovered that there were messages being sent to “everybody” that were not coming to me. Given time I was able to diagnose the cause of both those problems. The messages I was not getting were text messages on cell phones – a loop which could not include me since I have no cell. The problem with me trying to contact anyone else was that I had their home phone numbers which were virtually useless since they all rely on their cell phones for people to contact them.

Since that first identification of the influence of cell phones on society I have identified other effects of the cell-phone culture. I see people around me busily doing much more than people did when I was growing up. There are more soccer games (or any other sport), more music lessons, and dance classes. Families are split in more directions as both parents run separate errands and any older children are busy with their own agendas. The members of the family keep each other updated on their whereabouts with calls and messages from their phones without ever having to see each other. This was all driven home to me this weekend when my backyard neighbor was talking to us over the fence. She had her phone with her and while we were talking she got a message from her oldest daughter. The daughter had gone shopping for a prom dress with the stipulation that her mother had to approve anything she wanted to buy. The message was a picture of the prom-dress-of-choice. No need for mom to come along in order to secure her approval. In fact it was not even necessary to take a picture and show it to mom for approval before going back to purchase the dress. She could go shopping and get the required approval while Mom was outside talking to the neighbors.

Not all of this is bad, but I have concluded that if and when I have a cell phone again I will be conscious to avoid cluttering up my schedule just because I can stay in contact while driving myself crazy and back.

Tags busy, cell phones, insights