Community

Business and Environmental Leadership was very interesting today. We had 3 interesting chapters for our seminar class and the discussion took a very interesting turn. First we had a representative from Acre Gourmet who had many interesting things to say. One if their values is 'community' development which leads them to prefer buying from local independant farmers instead of large agra-business operations. One shocking comment is that a McDonald's burger can contain meat from over 1000 cows b/c of the enormous centralized meat processing plants. mmmm

The Green to Gold chapter was on inspiring a green culture in business and I thought it was quite interesting. However, the student who presented it gave a quick summary and then connected it to her recent experience of traveling to Honduras and being shocked to see McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, and KFC there near the airport. She commented that these businesses corrupt the local culture by offering unhealthful food and eroding the social fabric of interconnectedness in that society.

At first, I didn't see the connection to our topic but the discussion took off like a rocket and carried us for an hour. Many students seemed to resonate with her criticism of large business as somehow responsible for social erosion in the US. And, they all seemed to share a ...

Yosemite Ostrander Lake Snow Shoe Trip

 
 
 
 

Over Spring Break - now two weeks ago - i had a great trip to yosemite. I've never been to the Yose high country in the winter. This was a real treat. It was the last weekend that the Badger Pass ski area was going to be open. So, the Glacier Point Road cross country ski path was still well groomed and holding several feet of snow. I hiked in on Horizion Ridge trail off of GPR and camped on the ridge looking out over the Clark Range. It was a terriffic view from the tent. Setting up camp in the deep snow was really fun. I learned not to bury things as tent anchors that I'll need in the morning when the snow is hard - like snowshoes. That took an hour of chopping.

I had fun getting a little lost when I left the Ostrander Ski Hut - which was incredible. (read all about it here in a Chronicle article) Long story short, there are two marked trails, one of which is not on the map and goes the wrong way - guess which one I took. :)

I made it out to Taft Point which has a great view of the valley which was a nice surprise. Check out The Prow view. Wow.