 the Bush and Obama years reading blogs, articles, essays, sometimes even whole books (usually Chomsky) about our current state. My own impact on events? A perfectly round zero. Maybe ignorance is bliss.
That my situation is also the result of white male privilege. Others are living thru this much more intensely. The events of this time are written on their skin and psyche. I can pretend to “opt out” for a while, others can’t.
I’m telling friends “I’m on a news diet.” I’m happier…and one of the reasons you’re reading this now!
I was in the Funk Zone this afternoon for the soft opening of the LaPlace Wine Bar & Shop (man, they went all out with the hors d’oeuvres…I should’ve snuck home a full filet of lox for the morning), but on leaving I decided to stop by the Arts Fund and make chit chat and check out the current exhibit.
While I was about to leave a family rolled up, peeked in, and a boy about six stepped in to ask if this was a gallery.
Why yes it is, the gallery sitter replied. Do you like art?
I *am* an artist, the kid said.
Oh really? she said.
Yes, he said. Did you just open?
The sitter was torn between saying, no, we’ve been here for many decades, but instead said, the show just opened this month. Do you like it?
Yes! He continued. Was this your grand opening?
By this time I’m thinking this kid is wondrously precocious.
As I left, the kid did too–I think the parents were dragging him along to the wine bar opening–but then he doubled back.
I have some of my art in the car, do you want to see some?
Way to hustle, kid. Way to hustle.
This six year old spoke with more confidence about being an artist than the artists I hang out with, some who shuffle their feet in the dirt while admitting their profession.
Takeaway: Be more like this kid and less like the people who are gonna make him embarrassed later in life. Having said that, I certainly didn’t have that confidence when I was six, I was very shy. Is it just genetic luck?
Twitter is an open sewage pipe of hate.  No wonder we all pine for the days of the early internet…even the post- 9/11 version. Well, I discovered a site that is exactly that, it’s one I didn’t give up, and it’s something you may have heard of: Flickr.
I don’t know if anyone else thinks this, but Flickr is cool again. At least for me. I came back to it when I noticed that Instagram dropped a Flickr upload option. I guess their UPIs or whatever they call them stopped working, one of those under the hood changes that happens without anyone telling you. Like if you drove all the way to Palm Springs and didn’t get notification that, whoops, yeah, your car manufacturer had a disagreement with the coolant hose manufacturer and dropped all U-rings compliance, the ones connecting air to your face.
It turned out I had to rewire a IFTTT routine and then, boom, my Instagram uploads were once again going to Flickr.
But once on Flickr in order to confirm my upload, I began to wonder, why did I give this site up as an afterthought? And isn’t this what a lot of us have been looking for?
Very easy to make albums and join groups.
You can completely ignore everybody on Flickr and just use the site as storage cataloguing.
I stopped using Flickr as much around 2013, when it was slow to join the smartphone revolution, and uploading pics from the iPhone *as it happened* was preferable to taking photos on my various cameras, uploading them to Abode Bridge, sorting, processing, using Bridge’s interface to upload to Flickr. I was getting overwhelmed.
But now, I’m rebooting everything (and trying to sort out this blog).
This is all part of an effort by me–but I’ve noticed others doing this too–to move back to a pre-streaming, pre-social media, pre-Facebook era. That means more blogging, more owning of my own material. Less monetizing. So we’ll see. You can’t put the horse back in the barn, but I don’t have to chase after the horse.When you hear the word “negotiation,” it’s easy to think of those painfully long meetings between two or more stubborn parties, where everyone walks away unhappy. Take recent events in Congress, for instance. No matter what side you fall on the political spectrum, I think we can all agree that the seemingly endless battles over legislation get frustrating, to say the least.
And that’s just it. Negotiation doesn’t have to mean drawn out, exhausting exchanges. It can be as simple and pleasant as a chat with a server at a restaurant, or a polite conversation with a co-worker. 
1. Keep Your Goal at the Front of Your Mind. It’s easy to forget this when you’re in the middle of negotiation, as many tend to get distracted by emotional impulse. Yet staying close to your goals during negotiation makes things easier for both parties. You’ll be clear-headed and better able to express yourself with clarity and efficiency.
2. Reverse Roles. “You can’t persuade people of anything unless you know the pictures in their heads: their perceptions, sensibilities, needs, how they make commitments, whether they are trustworthy.” You need to have at least some idea of who the other person is. Minimize your own needs and pretend that you’re the least important person in the room. This shows that you are in tune with other people’s needs, and willing to make compromises.
3. Be Constructive, Not Manipulative. “Don’t deceive people.” Building trust is key. You might not get everything you want right away, but being open and honest while negotiating cultivates long-term relationships that yield greater results. If you cut corners, lie or hide your cards, the other party will begin to be suspicious (and rightly so), which is a big problem for good negotiation.
Try these ideas out and see what works for you. Become aware of what types of negotiations take place in your standard day, and where. Keep a mental log of how you tend to handle these, and use Diamond’s ideas as reference. See where you could improve, implement a plan, and take action. Good luck!
Stuart Diamond, Getting More: How You Can Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2010), 6, 7, 19.
I have a sample of this, and so finally wanted to try it out. This is Bird Pick’s more expensive gyokuro (out of 2 or 3 available).
I tried cold water brewing, first using near-freezing water (steeped for 7 minutes), then 140, 160, 180 steeps. (Not sure how long I let it steep at those temps, probably between 30 seconds – 1.5 minutes).
This had a nice marine-like taste to it, but it was sickeningly sweet; I thought about what the sweetness was like and I figured it out – it tasted just like fake sweeteners (not sure which one) – sweet n’ low, equal, or splenda. I HATE the taste of diet soft drinks or coffee with fake sweeteners. They have a very sickeningly sweet taste, and unfortunately, this tea reminded me of that flavor. I’m sure a gyokuro (or diet soft drink!) lover out there would find this tea delicious, but I didn’t particularly enjoy this first trial.
I am going to hold off on rating this one, as I want to try a regular brew first. Perhaps one reason I didn’t enjoy it is because it was very intense – not only cold-brewed, but 4g of leaf to 4oz water.
I don’t have much experience with gyokuro, so hopefully as I try more I’ll get an idea if I just don’t like gyokuro, or if it was simply this one. And perhaps I’ll even enjoy it with a regular brewing. I really want to like it.Senior Individualized Projects and other materials related to food and farming justice.
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