Remember when you were a kid frying ants with a magnifying glass…

…yeah, i’m still doing it…and getting PAID for it!

Last week was a proposal week for us at work, which means less sitting in front of the computer designing hardware, and more working in the lab doing rapid prototyping and proof of concept models with materials we have laying around the lab or buy on runs to the hardware store.

Things get a little crazy, some people react to the pressure by getting more high strung, some don’t change their behavior at all, and others just get ‘in the zone’. It’s a time when ideas fly and go from sketches on a piece of paper to reality in a matter of hours. Some people love proposal week, others hate it. I’m definitely one of the former. Sure the pace is higher and more intense than we could hold week after week, but to mix things up and sprint every once in a while is a hell of a lot of fun.

In other news, after thinking about it for months, Rachel and i were motivated by our friend Jenny (a recent convert to cycling) to enroll in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program with Blue House Farm. The way it works is we pay up front for 25 (of 52) weeks of fresh produce, taking on some of the risk of the farm. For those 25 weeks we pick up a box full of produce in a location a few blocks from our apartment on Thursdays. This way, we get fresh, seasonal, local, organic (am i missing any trendy food adjectives that might apply?) produce every week, we support local farmers, and it helps us to learn to cook with ingredients we wouldn’t otherwise buy. Everyone wins!

This week we got our first box. It included romain lettuce, corn, potatoes, leeks, jalapenos, summer squash, purple bell peppers, cilantro, and basil. They also have an option for fresh flowers with every box, which we chose to go ahead and do.

We jumped in about half way through the 25 weeks, so when they wrap up for the winter/spring, we may try another company that runs year-round, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. For the time being, it takes about 5 meals to use all of the produce in a box, so i’m excited to enter an ‘Iron Chef’ situation and produce five meals based on whatever we get in our box. It should be a good time and good eating. I’m excited.