Serge the Concierge

Sweet Tooth, Can't Get No Gluten or Dairy, Sweet Alternative Saves the Day

Don't get mad at me if you think this is old news.

OK the book originally came out in 2006.

Some might have missed it and its content is as relevant as ever.

For those of us with a sweet tooth who can't get no gluten or dairy (or soy) or choose not to, Sweet Alternative by Ariana Bundy saves the day.

Ariana shows us how to make caramel with fructose, pancakes with (?) chestnut flour plus deep chocolate muffins made from rice flour, creamy vanilla-studded pastry creams made with rice or almond milk, chewy chocolate chip cookies without gluten...

As Sweet Alternative is coming out in paperback (cover, my illustration) in the UK (Conran Octopus Publishing) on August 3, 2009, it gave me an opportunity to share it with you.

Doesn't it look yummy?

Pants to Poverty, Underwear turns Fair Trade and Organic, Greening our Drawers

Underwear inspired by Live Aid and Nelson Mandela, that's what the Pants Story from Pants to Poverty sounds like.

Their Fair Trade and Organic Underwear is now sold in 16 countries.

Social entrepreneurs greening our drawers for a light touch Green Day # 85

Previously on Green Day:
Gourmet Raw Food to L.A.T.E Ride, an All Night Bike Ride, July 09 Green Events in Chicago

No Hunger, Ask Al Gore to Make this Film that does not Exist Yet, See the Trailer

Rather than send him a script, Action Against Hunger put together a trailer for No Hunger , a film they would like Al Gore to be involved with since he was so successful getting the message across with An Inconvenient Truth.

64, 422 people have already signed the petition.

Will you join them?

Related: CauseWired in Action: Daniella's Apartment Fund by David Armano

Be a Dog with a Bone, Get some Wednesday Uplifting with Peggy McColl

I am not that big on motivational speakers and the latest secret sauce on how to fix everything.

I do appreciate the accent on the positive put forward by Peggy McColl on weekly radio show Attracting Abundance (Wednesdays).

Her book, Be a Dog with a Bone shares some of her recipes on how to make your dreams realities. She seasons them with a healthy dose of humor.

Here are some of them:

• Teach an old dog new tricks; the tricks of success
• Bark for what you want
• Stop chasing your tail
• Be a little dog with a big-dog attitude
• Lap up your success

A little Wednesday uplifting

Gourmet Raw Food to L.A.T.E Ride, an All Night Bike Ride, July 09 Green Events in Chicago

Sniffing around for fresh ideas like a pig hunting for precious truffles, I found a new squeeze named A Fresh Squeeze which started 'in the spring of 2006 with the idea of making it easier for Chicagoans to live a greener life.'

In their July Events Calendar, I noted:

"On July 10 at 7:00 pm a GOURMET RAW FOOD CUISINE CLASS; With Chef Linda Szarkowski of Green Spirit Living; Cost: $65 at Whole Foods Market - Lakeview... Learn How to Make: Old-Fashioned Chocolate Milkshakes, a Vegetable Platter with Mock Sour Cream and Chive Dip, Garden Burgers with BBQ Sauce, Coleslaw, Southern Greens, and Peach Cobbler."

Not sure what a Raw Peach Cobbler looks and tastes like though

In a different register is the L.A.T.E. Ride in Grant Park, July 12-13:

"Non-profit Friends of the Parks is sponsoring the 21st Edition of L.A.T.E Ride, an all-night bike riding affair. Join 10,000 other bikers as you pedal 25 miles throughout Chicago’s neighborhoods and lakefront. Proceeds benefit the creation of new Chicago parks as well as better management of resources, not to mention your heart."

The band Lubriphonic which appropriately plays (I quote) groovy organic funk-rock will warm up the riders around 11pm at Buckingham Fountain.

In the windy city for Green Day # 84

Previously on Green Day: Give and Get your Green Caffeine Fix with One Village Coffee

Other Nocturnal Happenings on 'Serge the Concierge':
October 31st, Halloween on Skates in France with Pari Roller

3 Days of Peace and Yoga, Wanderlust, Music Festival with a Different Recipe, Lake Tahoe, July 24-26

Following my No Vacation Nation thread, I was checking the correct definition of 'wanderlust' and discovered by accident the Wanderlust Festival which brings together Music and Yoga from July 24 to July 26, 2009 in Lake Tahoe (California).

Any other festival with a main stage at 8000 feet I wonder?

On the music side, line up counts Michael Franti, Spoon, Gillian Welch, Broken Social Scene, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings to name a few.

I noticed the Yoga Slackers in the Yoga lineup, great name...

For the Consumed to Thrifty crowd who cannot fork out the $120 plus dollars for 3 days, I suggest the Daytripper option: "Friday ($24.50), Saturday ($69.50), and Sunday ($49.50). These passes are for music only and are good for all music events (day and night) for that particular day. They also include the Funitel lift ticket for the days in which there is music on top of Squaw."

More music from a different kitchen:
Music not Druids, Green Man Festival in Glanusk Park, Wales (August 20-23)

Is Vagabond Life the Answer to No Vacation Nation Conundrum?

Ask anyone you know why they don't take what I call a real vacation (2 weeks or more) and the answer will probably I do not have the money or I do not have the time (my job does not allow me to) or both.

Call them Nomads or Vagabonds, a number of people in the US and around the globe are exploring ways to blend work and life with their wanderlust.

Type 'Vagabonding' in your search box and you will find Rolf Potts who defines it as "taking time off from your normal life — from six weeks, to four months, to two years — to discover and experience the world".

Since he already was a travel writer, he might not be the best example. Greg Rogers of Vagabonding Life who describes his 'program' as  'Escaping corporate America and traveling around the world on the cheap!' is a more to the point illustration.

Another benefit of Vagabonding highlighted by Nomadic Matt is that as time is not of the essence you have a better chance to travel green.

Pat of Digital Vagabonding calls it 'Life off the leash'.

Which leads me to another category Digital Nomads some of which might be blending life, work and travel while other digital nomads are just workaholics jumping from one project to the other, not really explorers.

I would definitely put In the life, work, travel blending Soul Travelers 3 (parents in their 50's, child 5) who with the arrival of Summer left their Andalusian base for a European Roadtrip.

Work, life and money on the go for Monday Work Etiquette # 97

Previously on Monday Work Etiquette:
In No Vacation Nation, She Wants 6 Weeks Summer Vacation, These Americans Settle for 3

With Furloughs Will Americans Learn to Play? No Vacation Nation No 3

I had not thought of furloughs as an opportunity for Americans and others to learn how to enjoy their play time until I read Time will tell (FT, July 1, 2009).

Those who will most enjoy the 'forced' time off brought upon us by the recession have a cushion to fall back on. If you are scraping to get by, working less will be a source of stress.

Anita Bruzzese in Will Furloughs Change the American Workplace Forever? (45 Things, March 09) gets Lynnette Harris personal take on these hours of free time:

"Her first thought was that is was a much better alternative than making layoffs.

Her second thought was that she would finally have time to wade through her book club’s selection this month: the 900-page classic, “Don Quixote.”

“You can grouse about the furlough, but you can also look at it another way. So, I choose to think that I’ll be home to have a girls spa day with my daughter. I’ll clean out a couple of closets while the witnesses are at school and won’t stop me from donating things they haven’t used in years to a local second-hand store.”

Cali Yost offered a “Downsizing Flexibility Champions”—Alternatives to Layoffs Honor Roll (Fast Company Expert Blog, May 09) with a global list of companies and the way they cope with the challenges they face.

Getting back to Time will Tell, it chooses as an example Martin Thomas who "is at the forefront of a shift in working habits sweeping the world. The product manager at British Airways has just decided to take a month off without pay this summer and then work part-time for the following 14 months – and that is precisely what the lossmaking airline wants. “It was an opportunity to give some focused time that I wouldn’t have been able to commit to if this opportunity hadn’t presented itself,” says Mr Thomas, who will help his parents set up a charity in Wales as well as enjoying more time with his wife and two daughters."

As for the short time fruits of his break, Martin Thomas says in the same piece “The first priority of my unpaid leave is to recharge the batteries ... I’m also hoping that my month off coincides with some rather nice summer sun.”

You could also contribute to the Summer of Social Good which runs until August 28, 2009.

Are you taking a longer Independence Day Week-End?

No Vacation Nation #3

Take a Break or Be Broken, Ready for Right to Vacation Act? No Vacation Nation No 2

Even though I have been following Seattle enlightened man John de Graff of Take Back Your Time Day fame for a while, I completely forgot his related campaign for a Right 2 Vacation act as I was writing about our need for vacations and lack of it in the US.

In March 2008, he shared his thoughts on the topic for Experience Life Magazine with powerful pointers such as Take a Break or Be Broken, More than Fond Memories and A Month of Sundays under the banner of health and wellness.

Funny coincidence as I noted in my previous No Vacation Nation piece that vacations should be included in Health Benefits.

Under Take a Break — or Be Broken , John de Graff quotes the author of Work to Live (Perigree, 2003), Joe Robinson, a former Los Angeles Times outdoor writer who is now a life-balance trainer  stating that:

“Men reduce their risk of a heart attack by 30 percent and women by 50,” he adds, citing data from the ongoing Framingham Heart Study and a State University of New York at Oswego study. “There seems to be no positive effect when you just take a day off here and there. It may help you de-stress a little mentally, but it doesn’t reduce your risk of heart failure. You need a block of time to do that.”

 

Many of us know from personal experience that it often takes a week to decompress and another week to get meaningful rest at a snail pace (hence the illustration above, a 'grapesnail' from Wikipedia)

As Slow Planet puts it "Slow is not about doing everything at a snail's pace; it's about working, playing and living better by doing everything at the right speed."

Have a relaxing moment (or two) if not a relaxing day!

Related: In No Vacation Nation, She Wants 6 Weeks Summer Vacation, These Americans Settle for 3

In No Vacation Nation, She Wants 6 Weeks Summer Vacation, These Americans Settle for 3

A couple I run into on occasion has a taste for travel both in the US and abroad.

What makes them stand out from the crowd is that they take around 3 months vacations a year.
She wants 6 weeks summer vacation, they settled for 3.
Today they are on their way to Scandinavia, Finland and the Baltic Republics.
They organized their work around their play time.
She believes that she keeps him sane, healthy and more productive.
They return from their various trips, batteries recharged and full of new ideas and perspectives.

Refreshing by American standards

As to the reasons why more of us in the USA don't take at least a couple weeks off in the summer, Ezra Klein in Why We Don't Vacation Like the French (American Prospect, July 07) offered an answer:

"Rebecca Ray and John Schmitt of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in No Vacation Nation wrote that the United States,"is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation." Take notice of that word "only." Every other advanced economy offers a government guarantee of paid vacation to its workforce. Britain assures its workforce of 20 days of guaranteed, compensated leave. Germany gives 24. And France gives, yes, 30.

We guarantee zero. Absolutely none. That's why one out of 10 full-time American employees, and more than six out of 10 part-time employees, get no vacation. And even among workers with paid vacation benefits, the average number of days enjoyed is a mere 12. In other words, even those of us who are lucky enough to get some vacation typically receive just over a third of what the French are guaranteed."

In sectors such as the hospitality industry, in some states employers who offer 'vacation time' to their staff have the option to pay them less than minimum wage for this 'earned benefit'.

Musician Jonathan Coulton in Summer Vacation (June 17) reminds us that the idea of Summer is to Slow Down:

"Part of my goal for this Summer is to take as much pressure off as I can and pry apart some space for doing just that. I’m not promising to write you a bunch of songs exactly, in fact I kind of have to keep my goals a little fuzzier than that in order to not frighten the muse away. I don’t know exactly where I’m going or what I’m working towards, and I forgive myself in advance for that because that’s sort of the point."

Should paid vacations be part of health benefits instead?

Like the outdoors, there is an inexpensive option in 2009, the US National Park Service offers 2 Fee-Free Weekends at more than 100 national parks that usually charge entrance fees on the following dates:

• July 18-19, 2009
• August 15-16, 2009

Amongst those included is the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument (pictured below, from National Parks site).

Working for the Yankee Dollar on Monday Work Etiquette # 96

Previously: Can Boredom Steal the Show at Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston?