SWCAMBORNE

In his book World Without End one of Ken Follett’s characters explains that rebuilding the cathederal steeple is necessary for the survival of the city.

Ely

He argued that a tall steeple could be seen from far away and would attract people who had things to trade. Trade was necessary for the town to grow and so a steeple was a necessary commercial venture as well as a tribute to god and the church. This argument was made to get the merchants in town to pitch in the money to build the steeple and it may or may not be true. We do know that some towns, ventures, churches and instutions thrive and some do not.

Anker Wat

My question is in this era of electronic communication; What are the modern steeples? Advertising is the obvious answer but there are other currents running through society that cause some ideas to become wildly popular and some never reach visibility. Malcolm Gladwell considers this in The Tipping Point but he is not able to say “If you do ______ your venture will succeed.”

An Italian hill town

So what are the steeples today that draw our tastes one way or the other? Why New York and London? Not Buffalo or Newcastle?

Tropical Lily

Clear Water

Life is Good

Maybe we need a UV Filter equivalent for our lives?

We went to our third baseball game of the year on Saturday night and the Dodgers lost again. So far we are 0 – 3. Other than that it was a perfect evening it didn’t rain and the company, Lillian and Barbara, was very simpatico. Baseball is an anachronism. It moves slowly in a fast paced world and the players spit. I think it can survive the slow but I don’t know if it can survive the HD spitting.

excellent seats

Nurit and I are planning a road trip to Arizona and Colorado in August to finish visiting all of the National League West ballparks. Maybe I’ll make a sign that says “Stop HD Spitting” or “Kobe Doesn’t Spit.” and try to get on TV.
Life is Good!

In 1971 gasoline was $0.35 a gallon in California and a first class stamp cost $0.08 now gasoline costs $4.00 and first class postage is $0.42. Gasoline has gone up by a factor of 11 and postage has gone up by only a factor of 5. Not what I expected and I’ll admit to trying to find a spot on the curve where stamps had gone up more than gasoline but I couldn’t find one. Gasoline is getting relatively more expensive.

Don’t panic.  People are incredibly ingenious. A hundred years ago whale oil got so expensive we had to discover petroleum. What will be next?

Postage Rate Information courtesy of AKDart

Gasoline price information courtesy of California Energy Commission

“A price increase is a message about scarcity.

Price controls are like shooting the messenger.”

Alexander Tabarrok

“The difficult done immediately
The impossible takes a little longer
Miracles by appointment only!”
Steve Merlo

Where in your Kitchen is the Fire Extinguisher?

Do you know how to use it?

Is it out of date?

Knowing these three things could save your kitchen and your home.

It did mine about 15 years ago.

A new one sell for $16.99 at Target or on line.

Now there are no excuses.

I just realized this rant is projection.

In eight months I hadn’t put the extinguisher back in the newly remodeled kitchen.  Now I’ve and I’ve yelled at you about it and I feel better.

Life is Good!

Radical Immigration is a real movement because it now has a T-shirt:

And you can buy one. The line on the back was created by Gene B.

Gene will be disappointed by the royalties but will enjoy the accolades. The on-line store was created by Tom J. using the CafePress site we were introduced to by Howard’s brother.

Progress is Being Made

Yesterday I made a post about strawberry prints and via email I received this image:

Merlot on the Bounty

from my friend the multi-talented painter Cindy Packard Richmond.  She wrote “Great minds” on the email and sent it.  I have written about Cindy and her work before and have a link to her site on my blog roll.  This email cheered me up two ways: First somebody is reading my blog occasionally and second my fruit print idea has crossed the mind of someone much more talented than I and has been turned into a product.

Sometimes I’ll get an email from someone about one of my ideas saying something like “to late” or “already done”  These people see ideas differently than I do.  I see ideas as if they were fireworks to be enjoyed as they come into view.  Other people seeing the same fireworks increases my enjoyment of them because we can ooh and aah together.  To me having ideas is not a competition it is a game.  It is an engaging conversation not an argument.

Ideas are the seeds necessary for new products, services and approaches.  But in the same way that a seed has to be planted, cultivated, harvested and processed before it becomes food; ideas have to be developed, tested and tinkered with with before they become useful.  To  torture this metaphor a bit more remember the parable of the grain and how much had to be scattered so that some of it would land on the arable land.  The rewards in the marketplace tend to go to the people who do the hard work not to the ones who just have the ideas.  And that, I think, is the way it should be.

While cutting strawberries for breakfast the other morning I noticed that they dyed the paper towel in a nice looking pattern.

cut strawberries

Somebody with some artistic ability could make and sell All Natural Fruit Prints.  On 100% recycled paper of course.

the print

I came across some historic picture of Coventry, Brandon and Covmex and am going to get them scanned so I don’t have to keep the hard copies.

Dave C with the Mexicali Employee of the Year circa 1990

This photo reminded me of two of the rules we had for running our little factories. One was take a photo of all the employees every year. And the other was catch people doing things right. There were about 12 to 14 other simple rules I’ll look for them and post them when I find them. If anybody knows who the woman with Dave C is let me know.

Simon