The River

The personal professional blog of Pamela Parker -- musings on marketing, advertising, media and technology.

The Slide, From the Air

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Wow. Doc Searls points to a stunning photo from the Ventura County Star of the mudslide in La Conchita.

We’re finally getting blue skies in the Bay Area, after days of heavy rainfall. How can a state that’s so blessed by nature (stunning beauty and productive agriculture) also be so cursed?

Moo Moo Marketing

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Just got a customer retention e-mail from Niman Ranch that describes what its cattle eat in the winter. An excerpt:

When our cattle come to us from pasture, we feed them a ration of corn, wheat, barley, molasses, soybean and hay. The ration, which we have developed and refined over the years with the help of our veterinarians, doesn’t change depending on the season. But our cattle’s eating habits do.

Our cattle eat about 40 pounds of ration per day. When the winter comes and it gets colder, the cattle tend to eat more, to help them keep warmer. They almost have a sixth sense, letting them know a storm is coming, and may increase their consumption upto a range of 45 to 47 pounds of ration a day. When the storm arrives, interestingly, they back away from feed and may decrease to 38 pounds.

Their ration is 60 to 70 per cent dry matter. The liquid part of their feed consists of molasses whey and corn silage.

We’ve gotten so far removed from the processes that create the foods we eat that hearing about the eating habits of cattle is exotic and yet, somehow, comforting. I remember my rancher dad coming to visit me when I was living in Manhattan. His comment was something like, "So many people. Who is raising the food to feed them all?"

Of course, Niman Ranch’s e-mail message is especially comforting in this age of agribusiness and mad cow disease, when you’re often not really sure (and you probably don’t want to know) where your food is coming from. I just found it an interesting, amusing — and effective — sort of commentary on modern life. It might even drive me to buy more meat online.

Gecko Encounter

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We definitely feel closer to nature here in our new California abode. We found a couple of creatures, which seem gecko-like to me, in our back yard this weekend. The above one (shown on a piece of egg carton) was the smaller of the two. We also went out exploring the Wildcat Creek trail in Wildcat Canyon Park near our house. Still adjusting to the elevation changes (read: still huffing and puffing) on walks around here.

The gecko pictures – taken with my camera phone – could have been way better. That’s why I’m pleased to announce the expected arrival of a new digital camera. (The last one got dropped on its telephoto lens and was last seen emitting smoke and a bad smell.) Dell’s online store says we should be getting the new one, a Canon Powershot A95, sometime today. In making the purchase decision, we relied heavily on a David Pogue set of reviews on NYTimes.com.

UPDATE:Looks like our little buddy might be a salamander, though I do think the larger one (who we’ll check on later this week) is a gecko.

Real People and Blogs

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Interesting discussion going on now on KFOG radio about blogs and their merits. (Am overhearing this on my colleague’s radio in the next cube.) Great to hear "real people" on mainstream media talking about blogs and how they fit into their lives. RSS feeds even came up. The whole discussion sprung from a news report about the recently released Pew Internet and American Life project study.

BTW, missed blogs immensely upon hearing of the tsunami disaster while stuck in the Piney Woods of E. Texas without Internet access (not even on my phone!). I returned to find an Australian blogging "friend" (who probably doesn’t even know I read her) writing about the desperate search for her Achenese (sp?) husband’s family.  She usually writes about diet and exercise, but obviously that wasn’t what her life (or her blog) was about at that moment.