Ben & Shae Cecka's family in Gilbert, AZ

The trip was a mild success for everyone. I needed a lot more time to accomplish what I needed to do. The remote access tools I installed have already come in handy on my first day back home though! That should be test enough that they were needed. With the holiday shipping season coming up I have a feeling that it will be even more important for me to be able to access this systems directly.

I have never really thought of the desert as anything but desolate space. A barren land for the vultures. On this excursion I think I felt how Alice Walker must have felt when she “saw” the desert:

I am so thankful I have seen
The Desert
And the creatures in the desert
And the desert Itself.

The desert has its own moon
Which I have seen
With my own eye.
There is no flag on it.

Trees of the desert have arms
All of which are always up
That is because the moon is up
The sun is up Also the sky
The Stars Clouds None with flags.

If there were flags,
I doubt the trees would point.
Would you?

It was beautiful.

Poem from – Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self

Although permission was not required, Starbucks and its pulp manufacturer, the Mississippi River Corporation, decided to seek Food and Drug Administration approval for the new cup material, which is made from paper that had previous consumer uses. In September, Mississippi River and Starbucks received approval under the agency’s two-year-old food contact notification program.

This is a nice thing to see in the paper. They estimate that it will save about five million pounds per year in virgin tree fiber. I do hope that Starbucks doesn’t stop here and continues to research other ways in which they can better the environment.

Some other food companies have made their own efforts. McDonald’s uses recycled material in its napkins, tray liners, meal boxes and its carryout trays and bags. The company says it is the largest user of recycled paper in the food service industry, buying $100 million worth of material. Two years ago, Coca-Cola started using 10 percent recycled plastic for its bottles.

As an ex-Starbucks employee I’m very happy to know they at least care enough about their image to do something… or maybe it really is just for the environment.

Source

Ok – after much loss of hair I found a few more small problems with the commenting area of the journal. They are fixed now and shouldn’t come up again. If anybody has any problems then please email us or use the contact page.