Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

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Panettone

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

I just happen to be back in Sao Paulo by way of a few “off the grid” days in Fortaleza spent gazing out onto a warm and gusty Atlantic Ocean way up there in the state of Ceara, the land of the beach, the Cashew nut tree, the Donkey, no small mount of plastic trash and the billion and one wind turbines turning endless miles of remarkable coastal dunescape into a wind farm. (A tale for later) It is all part of a week  that somehow started with pitching Flowerbud.com at a “Sustainable/Green Living” convention in NYC, where I spend a day wedged between a cooperative of Organic Goat’s Cheese & Ice Cream vendors from northern California. A couple of hilarious holistic medicine woman from Michigan, selling cremes/rubs and other curiously scented juju and medicaments with names like the “I’m Wounded Creme”. Opposite me, a rather striking lady promotes Zestra, an essential arousal oil for topical application by women to enhance “deep pleasurable sensations” It acts within minutes and lasts for 45. Ah, the power of botanicals, clinically proven of course. What spin might TV’s Madmen place on this? My guess is that of  all assembled… goats, cremes, flowers, aspirin holders, exercise monitors and so on, the rather striking lady has the most to gain from the sometimes hard and sometimes not so hard to grasp concept of “sustainable arousal”.

But I am getting blown off course here and I have a few hours in the middle of the day to learn something new and interesting and great good fortune has a recent acquaintance of mine, a young and indecently prosperous graphic designer taking me to a client for lunch and a ‘field trip’ all in one location deep in the endless megalopolis that is Sao Paulo. (more…)

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The Vase Runner

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

Barely off Delta’s Nice/Amsterdam/Portland flight (vacated by Northwest post ticket purchase and now code shared with KLM and Air France… really! ) when handed a ticket to Long Beach, CA along with instructions to disburse among a half dozen farms, a container load of Flowerbud’s acrylic vases that are painfully late in from China. The approach into Long Beach takes us above the billowing smoke from the still rampant blaze that is the Station Fire,  an arson caused conflagration in some foothills east of LA. Of all the LA area airports used by me this past decade, Long Beach has never counted among them, until now. To say the least it is small, quaint almost. Eminently manageable and as far from what one might imagine an airport in Los Angeles to be as possible. No frill, no flash and quite some number of trailers operating as peoples offices. California continues showing us that the 31st state is in a state of penury… the first of many such glimpses I catch through the dried up and weedy landscaping, the endless trash blowing roadside, and for the next 1975 miles, feel… as I bounce through potholes and thump over misaligned bridge expansion joints and collapsed concrete in freeway lanes. (more…)

Posted in Business, Farming, Flowerbud, Flowers, Musings, Travel, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Keeping the Blue Side Up

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

I took another flight a week or so ago, one of countless thousands, yet in many ways, despite it being far the most expensive it was without doubt the one that was the most gratifying and rewarding and all things being equal, worth the money. There was no upgrade to business class, no glass of wine, eye mask or newspaper. It started and ended in the very same place and flew (relative to others I take) slow and low over some spectacular territory. This was a case of very much seeing the trees in the forest… and the river running through it. (more…)

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DROPPED OFF THE BACK

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

It seems an awfully long time since I hopped in that cab on a snowy day at JFK and headed into mid-town Manhattan. This is as good a time as any to reminisce, when trying to hang with the super fast pack on a benefit ride through the Sammamish Valley of Washington State. It is three years since last in the city and I am intrigued on seeing I can now swipe a credit card in the back seat of the taxi to settle my fare. Tempted into doing so I can’t help but wonder about the cases of fraud we see from Ghana, Nigeria and from NYC itself as unidentified persons use stolen card numbers to attempt flower purchases for whichever witless squeeze they have fooled into aiding and abetting them. Guys from Ghana seem to have the capacity to have women from Spokane fall for them site unseen…. and usually for roses. How special!

Despite the intervening years the staff at The Lucerne Hotel instantly access my history and address me as If I had never been absent and I was an enjoyable guest to have stay. Remarkable how adroit they are at making one feel this welcome. I head up the elevator in search of hot water and momentary respite from the travel. Heading the bike up the first notable incline and already well back in the pack of twenty and thirty year olds and with a gal, an Olympian and a past national champion of New Zealand I seek a better gear (more…)

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Escape 2 New York

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

Am long overdue to flee this miserable grey town that has just managed to get itself recognized as “the most miserable city ” in which to live in the USA. It is self absorbed right now with a mayor, the epitome of Portland’s new found metrosexuality ( tree felling, farming and fishing are frowned upon here now) who turns out rather to have a penchant for the underage male and a sack full of lies to go along with what he would have stump town’s gullible and stupidly tolerant consider a mere peccadillo. Add to that some pale faced woman at U of O whose power trip of transparently veiled threats to see the old White Satin/White Stag/Made In Oregon sign “go dark” if she and the powers in Eugene (likely the second most miserable place in the US) don’t get their way in changing its neon garish statement to promote “The Ducks” of all things. Maybe we should just call in “A Beaver” to chop the damn thing down. Geez, are we not now all scared witless when piling this on top of all the really serious stuff in life just now? Only in Portland, OR could the self promoting, made for TV pompous classes with the chichi spectacles a la Palin of Alaska, dodge the potholes, a sales tax, bums and collapsing bridges to add their verbal drizzle to the incessant meteorological kind. Thank heavens for little green apples, a few Republicans out on the farthest reaches of Sauvie Island and direct Delta flights to JFK.

The fact the flight requires a 4 am turnout is nothing to the thrill of leaving the forest and dropping in on Manhattan and a courtesy upgrade can only improve the mood. Prior to bag pack and catnap I see reports of an imminent late season snow storm for the city and other parts of the east coast with numbers ranging from 5″-10″ of snow on Long Island. Now that could well add a complication or two to a very tight schedule. (more…)

Posted in Business, Flowerbud, Musings, Travel, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

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