Today was the old boys annual summer picnic. The president is owner of an organic farm and he let us use his place farm for BBQ. After the BBQ, we had a tour inside the farm. Modern farming is a capital intensive business with lots of agricultural technology. The organic farm is a 10 acres of green house, growing two hundred thousand plants with about 30 vegetable on each plant. That worths more than $1 million of vegetable in retail value. The temperature and water is computer controlled. The farm grows only organic pepper, cucumber and tomato, since organic food can sell at a premium.

I always thought growing organic food must be very dirty, but I was totally wrong. The farm use organic fertilizers that looks just like normal fertilizer, except it is made by organic materials. Since the vegetables are growing indoor, there is less pest hazard. The farm use organic means for pest control, having some good insects that hunt pests and growing plants that drive away pests. The farm buy bees in carton boxes for pollinating the plants. Harvest is labor intensive, although there are rail system inside the green house to help transporting the vegetable. During the tour, the owner pick some fresh pepper off from the plant to give us a try. Since the vegetable is pure organic with no harmful chemical, we can eat the pepper picked right off the plant. It tastes very good. This tour totally change my perception on farmers and found new respects to them. I always think farming is so boring and so out of fashion. In reality, farming is an engineering challenge to grow enough food to feed everyone.

10 acres of green house

  Rows of vegetables under the glass roof

Newly planted

Rail trolley for harvest

Big red pepper

There are some cost you cannot avoid, going to optometrist is one of those.  I wanted to get a pair of new glasses.  Not because I can’t see clearly with my old glasses, but rather want to get a new look.  I thought my original sight prescription is still OK, so I didn’t bother to visit an optometrist before buying glasses.  When I pick my glasses, I let the shop did sight test for my new glasses. When I pick up the new glasses, I find my vision of my left eye is kinda funny, like looking through magnify glasses.  I have the shop change the lens but the sight is equally bad.  The sales said I have a lazy eye, but that doesn’t sound right to me, I am fine with my old glasses.  So I figure it is time to seek professional help from an optometrist and do a full eye exam.  It turn out the result of the sight test is away off.  My eyes are quite health, but the left lens is +1.0 more than it should be.  That’s why I am seeing funny vision and thought something is wrong with my left eye.  The moral of this story: 1. Never trust any sales person. 2.  You can’t cheap out all the time.  If the money is ought to spend, then you have to spend the money.

I like to categorize things according to the gender role, something are for girls, something are for guys and something are neutral. The category is not use in the sense of gender specific language like French or German, but relate to the social context of male and female. Today I came across piece of scientific research on why girls like pink. Many people think the preference of color are just personal taste, but this studies shows that female are biologically programmed to prefer pinkish color. One theory to explain the result is that in prehistoric time, female collect fruit and take care of children while male hunt. Therefore female develop more sensitive to color of red, so that they can spot riped fruits and judge health of a baby from the change in his skin color.

Male and female alike prefer blue color, but female prefer a redder hue of blue. Scientist has figured that the likeliness of blue is due to the color of the sky. A blue sky means good weather, which is good for hunting or fruit collection, so mind of our caveman ancestors are programmed to like this color. Pat and my friends sometimes make fun of my male vs female categories. I believe scientist will find proofs for my categories with the advance of science. Maybe I have to refine my classification as new evidence surface, but the framework is the result of million years human evolution. Let’s see who will have the last laugh.

I love playing racing games. I spent lot of time and money in Arcade when I was young. I specially fond of driving game by Sega, starting from Virtual Race, to Daytona, to Super GT, to Daytona 2. Although I am not exceptionally good, I can still manage to complete the hardest track within the time limit.

In PC, I also played a long lived series of driving game, Test Drive. I started with Test Drive 2, which was in 2D graphics. The first of its kind 3D Test Drive 3 really gave me a wow back then. I just downloaded a copy of Test Drive Unlimited and it reminds me the good old day of playing racing games. The graphics is very impressing even on my mid-range computer.

The game is staged in Haiwaii. Its map mimics the real road in Hawaii and you can drive freely touring the island as you like. Kind of like Grand Theft Auto, minus the violent part. Too bad that I don’t have a steering wheel. It feels awkward playing driving game with a keyboard. I am thinking seriously whether should I buy a steering wheel, if I can find a cheap one. My only concern is I may not have time to play. The good thing about driving game is you can play one race at a time. There is no story element to stop you from quit playing.