traveling
pronald | April 4, 2011I walked into the gleaming 'Orchard in a box", a closed greenhouse where no pollen can flow outside. The apple was red, red, red inside and out and I wanted it. But because I was in New Zealand, where experimenting with genetically engineered food is highly regulated, tasting was banned.
How was this forbidden fruit created? By overexpression of an apple transcription factor in the white-fleshed, tasty Royal Gala variety. The transcription factor was isolated from an apple that has both red flesh and red skin, that occurs in Central Asia. However, these apples are normally quite bitter…
pronald | December 28, 2010Happy Holidays from my friends Finn and Gunilla with winter photos of their farm.
pronald | September 7, 2010 in 2007 Yonah opted out of a Bar Mitzvah. His alternative rite of passage was riding a bike from San Francisco to Washington DC with the rest of the family in tow.
His Dad, Matt, is a mediocre selling author whose most recent royalty check for his "breakthrough book" was only four figures. (Two of the figures standing to the right of the decimal point.) Undaunted, he has recently finished a memoir of their epic journey.
Read the first chapter here.
pronald | March 18, 2010I try not to travel in the spring. Instead of the stale air of the airplane, I try to get out to the mountains, the beach, the garden or to the nearby foothills.
Last weekend my daughter and I (who is 8 years old today), went for a walk. I thought she was strong enough to do the 5 mile hike in the Stebbins Cold Canyon Preserve so off we happily went. As we started up the VERY steep hill, her trust began to dissipate. Then the inevitable "I want to go home".
I definitely did not want to go home. More than that, I did not want her to want to go home.
"Look, a soap plant, the people that were…
pronald | November 7, 2009I am traveling now far away from home towards a large lake in Zurich. What a perfect time to receive this poem from Jan Visser.
Le Lac (written in 1820 by Alphonse de Lamartine)
Ainsi, toujours poussés vers de nouveaux rivages,
dans la nuit éternelle emportés sans retour,
ne pourrons-nous jamais sur l'océan des âges
jeter l'ancre un seul jour?
à lac! l'année à peine a fini sa carrière,
et près des flots chéris qu'elle devait revoir,
regarde! je viens seul m'asseoir sur cette pierre
où tu la vis s'asseoir!
Tu mugissais ainsi sous ces roches profondes;
ainsi tu te brisais sur leurs…