The View from the Saddle

A few weeks ago while riding my bike up the Corte Madera grade, a deer casually walked out of the woods, stopped by the side of the road, watched me ride by, then, I kid you not, looked the other way before walking across the street.


I chuckled to myself about this human-like behavior then got to thinking about all of the unusual sights I've seen while riding my bike.

First, the animals. I've seen many deer and the occasional racoon, which usually flee when they hear me coming. The turkeys, however, do not. They aren't afraid of cyclists. Problem is they travel in groups. They'll move out of one's way, but take their sweet time doing so. I've nearly hit turkeys several times, which can be pretty scary when you're going downhill at 30 miles per hour.


By the way: do you know that the term for a group of turkeys is "rafter" or "gang"? Gang seems especially appropriate for the turkeys around here - they walk around like they own the place.

On the stretch of Shoreline Highway between Muir Beach and the Panoramic Highway junction, I often see Red Tailed Hawks, Owls and other predatory birds roosting on the utility lines or soaring above the valley.


Very cool, especially during the spring, when you can see lots of young Red Tails learning to fly and hunt.

Most unusual animal sightings were the Bobcat, which bolted into the woods after I startled it, and the red fox which darted across the road in front of me. The fox sighting was so unexpected that I googled them when I got home. As I suspected, this is not a native species. Was I seeing things? Then, a couple of weeks later, I saw it again.


Unmistakeably a red fox. So, how did it get here?

Ridgecrest Boulevard between Rock Springs and Bolinas-Fairfax road on Mt Tam is a very popular spot for filming car commercials. While on my rides, I've stumbled upon film crews three times; once while filming a Dodge Magnum commercial and twice for different Acura models, the RDX and the TSX


I also see a lot of cars and car clubs that are just out for fun. The roads I chose to ride are hilly and winding. Good workout going up, a blast coming down. Very little car normal car traffic, but lots of cars whose drivers are attracted to the thrill of driving twisting roads.

Among the cars I've seen are a rare Delorean, which you may recognize from the "Back to the Future" movies. This was a weird car built in Ireland with the engine in the middle, not the front, butterfly doors which open upward like wings and an unpainted body made of stainless steel.


I saw a group of five climbing the road above Alpine Lake.

Another time a metallic blue Ferrari F40 came screaming down the road in the opposite direction. I heard this car long before I saw it.


As it passed me, I got a good look at the driver. It was multiple Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson, who lived in Tiburon at the time.


Makes sense that fast runners like fast cars.

Once, a racy looking red car that I'd never seen before passed me just outside of Mill Valley.


It turned out to be an Infiniti G35 coupe, which had not yet been released for sale. It was being road tested by Car & Driver magazine. I later saw the article, along with photos unmistakeably taken in Marin, in which the writer described the test route "on Highway One, north of San Francisco".

One of the first cars that allowed its buyers to customize the way it looked with special paint, wheels and stripes was the Mini Cooper. In order to advertise this and to show the car off before making available for sale, Mini got a group of drivers to go on a coast to coast tour. I encountered this tour, 18 Minis, all customized differently, between Muir and Stinson beaches.


The most memorable and unusual car encounter I had was in 2004, when Lamborghini, an Italian manufacturer of "supercars" introduced a new model called the Gallardo. The Gallardo sells for a mere $200,000, or about the same as 20 Honda Civics. To celebrate the introduction of the Gallardo, and the 40th birthday of the company, Lamborghini invited all Lamborghini owners in the Bay Area to join a couple of Gallardos for a drive. 128 Lamborghinis showed up.


They passed me on the road between Olema and Point Reyes. Loud, beautiful, fast.

Finally, there are the unusual people I've encountered. There was the guy celebrating his 70th birthday, blowing past me on the way up Mt. Tam, and the guy, bombing down the mountain, screaming "YEE HAAAA!", a camera phone taped to his helmet.


Then there were the skateboaders. I encountered three skateboarders racing down a long downhill near Alpine Lake at about 25 miles per hour.


As I pulled alongside one of them, he glanced at me and said, "What's up dude?"

Weight Obsession

One of the nice little things that happened when my family sat down for our Thanksgiving meal (at a restaurant in Carmel) was that my sister ordered, and ate, a steak and everything that came with it, including potatos, a salad and dessert. It told me that my sister is finally happy with the way she looks.


My sister has never been overweight. In fact, she always been on the thin side. But, for as long as I can remember, she's been on a diet. When we were kids and our family went out to eat, she would order a salad for her main course because it was low in calories. The salads she'd order were so small and so low cal that she'd pick at everyone else's food, she was so hungry. So, I was glad to see her eat at Thanksgiving not only for her sake, but for mine, for it meant I got to eat my whole meal too!

Unfortunately, the next day I heard one of my nieces ask the dreaded question: "does this make me look fat?"

First of all, she is nowhere close to looking fat. Secondly, she's 10 years old, which means that she should be gaining weight, for she is growing. Rapid and sudden weight gain at this age is normal and should not be interpreted to mean that one is "getting fat".

Our society places way too much importance on the way a person looks. This overemphasis on appearance leads to people being overly concerned about their weight.

On the other hand, obesity among young people is a problem in this country. This is basically the result of too much of the wrong kind of food and not enough exercise.


The simple solution: eat sensibly, that is, don't eat too much sweet or fatty foods and get regular exercise.


Good news: the people of Marin County are thought to be the "skinniest" in California because of the way we eat and the amount of exercise we get.

So, do you want to know where you stand? Are you part of the obesity epidemic or are you unnecessarily worried about your weight? I've added a gadget to the sidebar which can help you figure it out. It's called a Body Mass Index Calculator (BMI).

To use it, simply enter your height and weight in the appropriate boxes, then click on the Body Mass Indicator box at the bottom and you will get your BMI. Then, compare your BMI to the range shown in the box below the calculator. Most of you will be happy with what you see, for in my experience with fitness testing at Park School, I've found only one or two students each year who have a BMI in the overweight range.

Please note that BMI is only a estimate of fitness and not perfect. For example my BMI is 24.9. According to the adult BMI scale, that means that I'm overweight. I'm not. My BMI is high because I have big leg muscles from riding my bike so much. Muscle weighs more than fat which causes my BMI to be high. So, while BMI is helpful, it isn't the final word.

Revolution Foods Pt II - Your Chance to be Heard

I've been told that representatives from representatives from Revolution Foods will soon be coming to Park School to gather feedback on their meals. Here's your chance to voice your opinion!

Remember, the object here is to help them make their food more appealing, so be constructive and be specific. Just saying "I don't like the pizza" doesn't help. Explain what it is about the pizza, or whatever meal you want to talk about, that you don't like. If you can, tell them what you like about their food, too. This will give them a wider range of information from which they can get ideas to make the food better.

Have fun!

How Far We've Come

Three weeks after an amazing national election, another American institution did something that was unimaginable only a few years ago: A major league baseball team, the Seattle Mariners, made a Japanese-American man, Don Wakamatsu, its manager.


You kids probably don't think this is a big deal. That is a good thing, for the truth is, you shouldn't. But, it is a pretty big deal to me. Not Barack Obama big, but big enough, for it is another indication of America's growing acceptance of people of color.

This was not always the case.

You probably know that the first African-Americans arrived here against their will as slaves. Slavery was legal in the United States from 1654 to 1865. When America declared its independence from Great Britain in 1776 by saying that "all men are created equal" and that everyone was entitled to "life, liberty (freedom) and the pursuit of happiness", they didn't include slaves. Slaves weren't freed until after the long, bloody American Civil War.


Once freed, African Americans weren't treated equally. They couldn't hold the same jobs, go the same schools, or use the same businesses as Caucasian Americans. This is called racial discrimination.

Not only that, they were only allowed to live in certain areas of most cities and towns. This is called segregation.


You may not believe this now, but all of this was legal until the Civil Rights Movement of 1955-1968 fought against and succeeded in ending all of these unfair practices.


The relations between African Americans by Caucasian Americans have been slowly but steadily improving ever since.

African Americans were not the only ethnic group subjected to racial discrimination.

When the US was building the Transcontinental Railroad, many Chinese immigrated to the United States to help build it.


Fearful that the Chinese would take jobs from others, the US government created a law called The Chinese Exclusion Act in 1883.


This law prevented most Chinese people from moving to the United States. After the law was enacted, very few Chinese were allowed into the country. In the 30 years between 1910 and 1940, only 56,113 Chinese were allowed to enter the US, an average of 1,870 per year. By comparison, 1,004,756 Europeans were allowed to enter the US in 1907 alone.

The law wasn't repealed (canceled) until 1943. Even today, if one were to look at the United States Code (the book of US law), one would find that Chapter 7 of Title 8 is entitled "Exclusion of Chinese." Of the 15 chapters in Title 8 (Aliens and Nationality), it is the only one that is completely focused on a specific nationality or ethnic group.

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1942, the United States government decided that all Japanese living in the US were threats to national security.


All Japanese living in the US were moved into places called "internment camps" which were really prisons in remote, unpopulated areas of the country.


By being forced to move, all of these people lost their jobs, their homes and their businesses.


The funny thing was, America was also at war with Germany, but no Germans were placed in internment camps.

So why were the Japanese moved? For that matter, why exclude only Chinese immigrants and segregate the African American population? Simple answer: they were all visibly different from the Caucasian majority because of the color of their skin.

Today, I marvel at how much has changed.

In a sport where African Americans were once excluded from participation, Tiger Woods is regarded as the greatest player of all time.



Ang Lee, a Chinese man, won an Oscar for Best Director (Brokeback Mountain).



A Japanese man is such a big star in baseball, America's game, that he is known only by his first name, Ichiro.



And an African American man has been elected President of the United States of America.


Best of all, most of you don't think much of any of this. To me, that is the best indicator of how far we've come as a nation.

Big Man on Campus

I keep hearing students talk about the "popular people". My question is: what makes them popular? They exclude others, they make fun of the less fortunate and hang out only with themselves. To me, their "popularity" is a figment of their own imaginations.

Here's the story of a guy who was genuinely popular; liked, admired and respected by everyone he met.

My first high school coaching job was at San Rafael High School, where I coached freshman girls, then JV girls and was varsity assistant. While I was there, the undisputed Big Man on Campus was a boy named Will.

The term "Big Man on Campus" (BMOC) usually refers to the most popular and famous athlete at a school. This is not an elected position. It isn't even a formal or real position. It is really just a reflection of how a school's population views a particular student.

Will's dad, Max, was a major league baseball player. Will was a basketball star. You might think that a kid with this kind of background and ability would be arrogant, or self-centered or a bully, but Will was none of these things. He was, in fact, one of the nicest kids I've ever met.


Whenever our paths crossed at school, he'd nod at me and say: "Hey, Coach," even though we'd never really met. He'd also say "hi" to the girls on my team (one of my girls practically fainted after he said hi to her. "Will knows my name!" she cried). If his teammates on the varsity team started to make fun of the kids on the lower level teams, he's just shake his head and say, "c'mon guys, just leave 'em alone."

During this time, there was another student at school named Ryan. Ryan was on the Cross Country team. Ryan wasn't very good, for he had Cerebral Palsy, a brain disorder in which a person cannot fully control his body.

Cross country practice consisted of running many, many laps around the school's track. Ryan was very slow, so he ran alone, far behind the rest of the team.

Will would also run laps to get into shape for basketball. One day, he saw Ryan running alone, so he decided to run with Ryan.

Soon, each day, Will would run a half lap with Ryan, then continue on his way.

After that, whenever Will saw Ryan at school, Will would give Ryan a little punch on the shoulder and say: "Hey Ryan, how's it going, man?"

Later that year a banquet was held for all of the school's basketball players. While the boy's coach was talking about his team, Ryan's dad suddenly stood up and interrupted him.

"No matter what kind of player Will is," he said, "he is alright by me. He is my son's friend. Because of that, my boy looks forward to going to school everyday, and that wasn't always true. If Will were to run for mayor today, he'd have my vote."

Will was a great player. He became well known because of his basketball skill, but he was genuinely popular because of the kind of person he was.

Will was such a good player that several colleges offered him scholarships (where the school pays for the player's education) in the hope that he would play basketball for them. Instead, true to his character, Will chose to go to Princeton, one of the most difficult schools in the country to get into and a school that didn't offer scholarships.

"I've always wanted to go to an Ivy League school," he said at the time.

While there, Will became a star basketball player, leading his team to an NCAA tournament appearance. He also played for the Princeton baseball team. Baseball was Will's second sport, but he worked as hard at it as he did at everything else.

Today, Will is an outfielder for the San Diego Padres.

The Power of the People

This week the people of the United States elected a president who ran a campaign unlike any seen before. While his opponent ran a campaign based on fear, Barack Obama ran a campaign based on the ideas of inclusion, cooperation, communication and hope. He ran a campaign in which he made every American feel that they had a voice, then did everything he could to insure that every American expressed that voice by making sure they registered to vote.

Everywhere he went, 10s of thousands of people came to hear him speak, because he made them feel included and important. When he was elected many of these people cried tears of joy.

When he appeared in Chicago to address the huge crowd gathered there, he said:

"This is your victory."

Instead of bragging or thumping his chest, he said:

"Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same ... pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long."

To his opponents, he said:

"And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too."

And, to the American people, he said:

"But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you."

The President of the United States of America is often viewed as "the most powerful man in the free world." Everything he's done so far shows that president-elect Obama understands the responsibility that comes with so much power. He also knows the true source of his power: it is the power of the people. All people, not just his people.

Obama wants to make America a country others aspire to be, a place which is admired and respected, not a country which is feared and hated.

We can all learn a lesson from this.

Halloween 2008

Captains

"With great power comes great responsibility" - Uncle Ben Parker to nephew Peter, a.k.a. Spiderman

Okay, so now we've elected captains, the captains have picked teams and the soccer tournament has started. All the captains have to do now is Ro Sham Bo at the beginning of each game, right?

No. In some ways, the captains responsibilities are just beginning. The position of tournament team captain is a great chance for those who earn it to explore and test leadership abilities.

The two biggest challenges captains face are: 1) Keep the games competitive, but friendly, and most importantly, 2) Keep everyone on your team happy.

Through the years, I've seen some great captains. Examples:

Julia R.

Julia was a hockey captain. After her team tied its first playoff game, they chose a shootout as the tiebreaker. One of the team's players, Emily, was very nervous about it and told me so: "Mr Tong," she said, "I'm so scared I think I'm going to pee in my pants."

Julia heard this. She walked to Emily and said, "It will be okay. Just do your best. I'll still be your friend no matter what."

Emily missed. Julia ran over to her and gave her a huge hug.

Max K

Another hockey team captain, Max decided early in the tournament that his team was too slow to score many goals, so he convinced his whole team to concentrate on playing defense. The entire team purposely spent most of its games on the defensive end of the field.

They tried to score by slapping miss opponents shot way down the field and chasing them, hoping for a breakaway. This approach lead to many ties and no wins during the round robin. In the playoffs, they recorded their first win, 1-0 scoring their only goal on a breakaway. They made the finals.

In the championship game, they stuck to their game plan and held a high scoring opponent scoreless for most of the game. The game was decided in the last 30 seconds, when Max's opponent scored on a desperate 70 foot slap shot that bounced over several defender's sticks, including the goalie's.

A truly valiant effort by a physically over-matched team whose captain found a way for them to be successful.

Phebe M

Phebe did a remarkable job of rotating players in such a way as to insure that everybody got to play every position they wanted to play. The players were happy and it showed on the field, where the team finished the round robin in 1st place.

In the first round of the playoffs, Phebe stuck to her plan, rotating her players as usual, even though by now it was clear that some lineups were stronger than others. Phebe kept her players focused and enthused by offering words of encouragement like "good shot", and "it's okay" to her players. The players worked hard for each other, but the game ended in a tie. This meant a shootout.

During the shootout, Phebe, instead of putting her team's best goalie in goal, continued to rotate players at that position. One player allowed two goals, but the shootout ended in a 2-2 tie. This meant a sudden death shootout.

When it was time for the player who allowed the goals in the first shootout to take his turn, he hesitated. "I think maybe someone else should take my turn," he said.

"We can do that if you want," Phebe replied, "but I think you're one of our best goalies. I know you can this. We trust you."

The boy stepped into the goal and stopped the shot. Phebe's team went on to win the championship.

Afterward, one of Phebe's teammates, Sareesha, told me, "Mr. T., Phebe's a really good coach. I wish I could always be on her team."

Pat C

Pat C was a natural leader. He would organize whatever team he was on whether or not he was the captain. He came up with cheers for all of his teams. The team would use the cheer before each game. Any team he was on was always motivated and fired up through the sheer force of Pat's personality.

In the spring of 2002, Pat was officially the captain of a baseball team. We were having a mock World Series between the "Yankees" and the "Twins" (yes, I know that these are both AL teams, but these are the names the kids chose).

Before the first game, Pat walked out to address the whole class.

"Okay," he said, "I want the Twins to line up on the 3rd base line, and the Yankees to line up on the 1st base line."

Both teams did as they were told.

"Now," continued Pat, "Everybody take off their hats."

Everyone did.

"Okay. Now let's have a moment of silence for the victims of 9/11."

Once play started, Pat had plans for both offense and defense.

When his Yankees were in the field, he positioned his defenders according to where he thought the hitter was going to hit the ball.

When his team was batting, Pat always stood in the 3rd base coaches box. From there, using signals that he made up, he would tell his batters where to hit the ball. He would also give base runners instructions.

The result was almost unbelievable. His team played like it had been together for years; crisp, precise, machine-like.

On top of all this, he was very supportive of his players.

One girl, Lila, was a very good hitter, but not very confident and very shy. Pat knew this.

During one game, Lila came up with the bases loaded. The Yankees were behind. The Twins needed one out. Lila grounded weakly to the pitcher. Inning over. The Yankees groaned.

"Shut up!" shouted Pat, "she's a good hitter."

Turning to Lila, he said, "Nice try. You'll get 'em next time."

Later, Lila came to bat with runners on 2nd and 3rd. This time, Lila singled sharply to right, driving in both runners. Pat, from his spot on the 3rd base line, glanced at his team, nodded as if to say "see?", then shouted to Lila: "Good Job, Lila! Nice Poke!"

For the remainder of the tournament, the Yankees cheered for Lila every time she came up and she became a very valuable hitter for the team.

So you see, a captaincy is what one makes of it. Will I be writing about one of you someday?

Stories for Halloween...Do You Believe?

Baby Ghost


A woman named Mrs. Andrews was visiting the grave of her daughter in a cemetery in Queensland, Australia in 1946 or 1947. Her daughter Joyce had died about a year earlier, in 1945, at the age of 17. Mrs. Andrews saw nothing unusual when she took this photo of Joyce's gravemarker.

When the film was developed, Mrs. Andrews was astonished to see the image of a small child sitting happily at her daughter's grave. The ghost child seem to be aware of Mrs. Andrews since he or she is looking directly into the camera.

Is is possibly a double exposure? Mrs. Andrews said there were no such children nearby when she took the photograph and, moreover, did not recognize the child at all – it was no one she would have taken a picture of. She remarked that she did not believe it was the ghost of her daughter as a child.

Investigating this case, Australian paranormal researcher Tony Healy visited the cemetery in the late 1990s. Near Joyce's grave he found the graves of two infant girls.

Grandpa's Ghost


This photo was received from Denise Russell. "The lady in the color photo is my granny," she says. "She lived on her own until age 94, when her mind started to weaken and had to be moved to an assisted living home for her own safety. At the end of the first week, there was a picnic for the residents and their families. My mother and sister attended. My sister took two pictures that day, and this is one of them. It was taken on Sunday, 8/17/97, and we think the man behind her is my grandpa who passed away on Sunday, 8/14/84.

We did not notice the man in the picture until Christmas Day, 2000 (granny had since passed away), while browsing through some loose family photos at my parents' house. My sister thought it was such a nice picture of granny that she even made a copy for mom, but still, nobody noticed the man behind her for over three years! When I arrived at my parents' house that Christmas day, my sister handed me the picture and said, "Who do you think this man behind granny looks like?" It took a few seconds for it to sink in. I was absolutely speechless. The black and white photos show that it really looks like him.

Ghostly Grip



This interesting photo was taken sometime around the year 2000 in Manilla, Republic of the Philippines. According to The Ghost Research Society, two girlfriends were out for a walk one warm night. One of them entreated a passing stranger to photograph them using her cell phone's camera (hence the low-resolution picture). The result is shown here, with a transparent figure seeming to tug on the girl's arm with a firm if friendly grip.

Without further information on this photo, we have to admit that the ghost could have been added with image processing software. But if it's genuine and untouched, it certainly qualifies as one of the best ghost photos.

Truly Popular, Truly Powerful

Why is it that people feel the need to make others feel bad? Why is it that people need to exert power over others in order to feel powerful? Answer: because somewhere inside, the people who do this are unsatisfied with, or lack confidence in themselves.

Want to be truly popular and feel good about yourself? Go out of your way to do something nice to someone. Give someone a compliment. Offer someone a hand with something with which they're having difficulty. Just say "hi" to someone by name. Do all of these things sincerely, and soon you will have the respect of more people and more friends than you ever had before.

I know. I speak from personal experience.

So, if being nice to people results in more friends, why don't more people do it? There's a simple answer to that too: being friendly and complimentary and helpful opens you up to being hurt in return. Safer to be mean because it puts others on the defensive.

I'll tell you this much: if you're genuinely nice to others, you will be repaid in kind 10, 100, 1000 times over. It's worth the risk.

This will give you a true kind of power. Not power over people but power of people. Not the power of intimidation, but the power of cooperation. There's even a word for this: synergy

I know. I speak from personal experience.

Finally, remember this:

"No one can make you feel inferior unless you let them." - Eleanor Roosevelt

Ducks on the Pond

A creek passes within about 150 feet of my home. There is a eddy in the creek just where it goes under my street, which creates a deep pool. The pool attracts a lot of wildlife. Every time I pass it on my way to and from school, I stop to see if anything's happening there. It's a little window into the natural world around us.


Every year around this time, a life and death struggle takes place there. The contestants are baby steelhead trout and ducks.

Over the course of each summer, I see a gradual increase in the number of steelhead fingerlings in the pool. I've never seen any adult steelhead there, so I guess the fingerlings drift downstream from their birthing place and stop in the pool because it is so deep. By the time school starts, there are hundreds of fingerlings in the pool. After awhile, ducks and other birds discover the fish and start hanging out at the pool too.


The steelhead are at a big disadvantage because they have nowhere to go. By late summer/early fall the water level in the creek is so low that it isn't flowing to the bay. The trout are stuck in the pool. This allows the ducks to calmly float on the surface and casually pick off the trout one by one.

Last year the trout were almost wiped out. They weren't, obviously, because some came back this year to lay eggs, but it was close. One morning last fall I counted 14 ducks on the pond at once, all looking for a quick bite to eat.

I haven't seen more than 4 ducks at one time on the pool this year, which has helped the little fish. I still see dozens of 2" long fingerlings in the pool. Missing, however, are the big ones: a couple of fish that had grown to around 6 inches in length. Did they escape downstream, or did one of the ducks get them?

Each year, I find myself hoping for one good rainstorm to raise the level of the creek high enough that the fish can escape downstream to the bay. Would this save the fish?

Not really, for the bay and ocean are full of other predators. Still, it gives the fish a fighting chance.

Better than being stuck in a pond with no place to go and hungry ducks floating above.

Putting the "Revolution" in Revolution Foods

First off, let me say that I'm totally in favor of what Revolution Foods is trying to do: provide healthy, organic lunches from sustainable sources to all of you.

The problem is that a lot of kids don't eat the lunches.

Each day after you are excused from your lunch tables to go play, the Green Team is bombarded with uneaten lunches. It's as if the kids are revolting against Revolution Foods. Not exactly what the company owners had in mind when they named the company.


This creates another problem: a whole bunch of unnecessary waste being sent to our already overburdened landfills.

To me, this is a classic example of the so called "law of unintended consequences" in which an attempt to solve one problem creates a whole different one.

Perhaps the greatest example of this is rabbits in Australia. There, in 1859, a landowner brought in 24 rabbits, along with some other animals, in order to have something to hunt. Rabbits breed early and often and in Australia, it has no natural predators (animals that eat rabbits), so there was nothing to stop the rabbit population from getting bigger. 10 years later, 24 rabbits had become millions.


There were so many rabbits that they ate all the crops and all the food meant for farm animals. A "rabbit proof fence" was built to keep the rabbits away from the farmland. The fence is 2021 miles long (to get an idea of how long that is, the distance between Mill Valley and Lake Tahoe is about 200 miles, so the fence equal in length to about 5 round trips to Tahoe).



Now I'm sure that Revolution Foods won't cause any wild consequence like that, but the fact remains that kids basically don't like the food. The question is why not and what can Revolution Foods do about it?

I think that the problem has a simple cause and a simple solution. See, I like the food. Kids don't. This suggests that the food is being made for adult tastes, not kids'.

Kid have undeveloped palates. My two nieces' favorite restaurant meal is plain pasta with parmesan cheese. Kids are capable of tasting 4 basic things: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Many restaurant chefs know this. Go to some upscale restaurant (semi-fancy) which serves some exotic food like "pan-asian fusion cuisine" to adults and you will find a kids menu offering things like macaroni & cheese and chicken strips (fancy chicken strips, but chicken strips nonetheless). Kids don't like exotic and fancy, they like simple (my nephew is an exception, but that is a story for another post).

I know that Revolution Foods is very serious about their business. Their food is better this year than last, so I know they're trying to make the food tastier for you.

Here's how you can help them: Every now and then, someone from the company comes to Park and asks kids how they like the food. If they ask you, be respectful, but honest. If you don't like something, like the sloppy joes, try to explain why. Don't just say "it's gross". If you give them good feedback("it's dry", "all I taste is bread"), they will take it back to their bosses and the lunches will improve. Then we'll have a real food revolution - healthy food that kids will actually eat!

How to Wear a Pinnie

So, we played soccer in PE today and one of the teams wanted to wear pinnies so they could recognize their teammates. It took nearly 5 minutes for everyone to put them on, for a lot of the kids couldn't figure out to do it.

What they didn't realize is there are many ways to wear a pinny. So many in fact, that a pinny can be considered a fashion accessory. Take a look:

Normal


As a shawl


A tropical bare midriff look


V-neck vest


Off the shoulder