Brian Kerr

Ann Arbor needs a convention center like it needs a place to have a meeting. Google will kindly tell you how and when to take the bus in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. You can get a share from the Community Farm, but only if you can drive your herbivorous ass out there.

What can you do to make a difference in southeastern Michigan’s economy? You gotta say, “I’m from the Detroit region, where innovation and opportunity thrive.” If you drink this punch, you will not explode.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, it takes six thousand characters to explain how to write great copy in 160 characters.

You can’t understand what’s happening right now in America.

I wrote and rewrote and deleted this paragraph, replacing it with this trash. Some things are too true to explain in 140 or 160 or 255 or 821 characters.

(tags: 140 160 255 821 aata bus community-farm delta city food google innovation opportunity ypsilanti)

Community Farm of Ann Arbor distribution, per an anonymous embedded microcorrespondent:

nice sweet potatoes and broccoli and an eggplant and more of those weird Japanese greens. Some kale, too. And a nice head of lettuce. And a pumpkin for you!

Note from the farm chalkboard: the butterflies like to lay eggs in broccoli in this hot weather we’ve had. Soaking the broccoli in cold salty water will dispatch any errant caterpillars. I tried it last night and it worked!

(tags: annarbor butterflies caterpillars community-farm food)

Late last week, Catherine twitterinvited folks to bulk up Ann Arbor on Placeshout. Three days later, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti are the first and third most “shouted” cities, with San Francisco coming in second. This reminds me of the early, happy days of upcoming.org, when Ann Arbor was one of the locations with the most user and event churn.

So what the hell is Placeshout? Take a look. For context, see Ed’s notes on the KARB/KYIP Placeshout event. Here’s all of my activity on the site.

It’s too bad there’s no API, and no feeds. You can search and Google Maps browse and so forth right on the site, so there’s no pressing need, beyond the standard desire to pipe Placeshout white noise into various filters. Or grab a KML. Or update Placeshout from Twitter (I can only assume that’s what the additional 40 characters in twitterspace are for).

I do like how you aren’t expected to make friends with everybody. It’s enough, at least for now, to see a username you know and think O HAI and just move on with the pressing business of downrating inappropriately positive reviews of Ann Arbor’s crappier brewpubs.

(tags: annarbor coffee food interaction media microneogeography networks placeshout representation twitter ypsilanti)

I fell off the, uh, herblogging tractor, but here’s this week’s Community Farm of Ann Arbor distribution:

• bok choy
• chard
• kale
• melon
• mitzuna (a microscopic, cute bok choy-alike)
• nasu (eggplant)
• peppers (hot)
• peppers (sweet)
• rosemary
• summer squash
• tomatoes

Heavy emphasis on tomatoes lately. Liana has a bunch of this week’s share bubbling toward its fate as tonight’s dinner, a massive galaxy class pot of vegetable udon.

(tags: annarbor community-farm food)

Community Farm of Ann Arbor distribution:

• basil
• corn
• cucumber
• lettuce
• squash
• squash
• sweet / lil’ green pepper
• swiss chard
• tomatoes
• watermelon

more cute flowers too. Intensely warm day, dry and dusty at the farm.

(tags: annarbor community-farm food)

Community Farm of Ann Arbor distribution:

• basil
• beets
• cabbage
• carrots
• collards
• cucumbers
• garlic
• green beans
• lettuce
• rosemary
• squash
• tomatoes

— and some cute flowers.

The farm was totally deserted when I showed up a couple hours earlier than usual, just me and a little whining farm cat. I was probably only there for fifteen minutes total, but it was exactly the nice pause I needed in my day: time to not stare into an LCD, to be outside, smells of dirt and dust and fresh hay and rosemary.

Also brought home leftovers from microcoworking ¬art ¬fair Donut Day, where we enjoyed donuts ⦾ and coffee ♨.

(tags: annarbor community-farm food)

Community Farm of Ann Arbor distribution, twitter style: cabbage carrots beet onions garlic summer squash cukes kale swiss chard — plus green beans. Additionally: ubifarm ubifarm ubifarm pass it on.

(tags: annarbor community-farm food)