My Lil’ Saigon

Since my last vist, I’ve been quite busy. Some of you may have noticed this my by absolute absence from any online communication. (Skype, Gmail, Blog, Facebook, etc etc), as well as my complete avoidance of district 1 for the most part.

What I’ve been up to?…. In short, I’ve been trying to figure out how to do my job more efficiently so that I can have a little more free time. Mainly I’ve been busy with keeping up with staffing, events, events requests, and organizing to open up a new takeaway/delivery Fish&Chips shop for the restaurant I work for.

To this point, the biggest achievement we’ve had has to be the successfully held Porsche Vietnam Launch Event. From my Flickr account (bdcotter’s Flickr) you can see some of the things that happened at the event. We had a buffet for 100 people including Fresh Grilled Ribeye Steak, Cajun Chicken Breast. Fresh Grilled Crab, Prawns, and Seabass. A variety of Salads and our Home Made Passion Fruit Parfait, a Creme Brulee, and some Ice Cream. The entire restaurant was decked out in Porsche gear and I even got a picture or 2 with the models (woo!). The two models of cars were the Cayman and the new Boxster.  I didn’t get too many pictures but it was a great event and I look forward to holding more of the same at some point….

Now… its back to business as normal… Talk to you soon! (Not 2 months later, I swear!)

I’m pretty sure I’ve been inhaling a large amount of particulates the last 3 or so weeks. The sky has been grey for almost 2 weeks solid now, and the sun rarely breaks through. When I drive I feel like little things are pelting my face ( except when I’m in a traffic jam, then I feel like I’m being smoked with a fine sulphide-apple wood).

I haven’t seen any articles on it, but I’m almost positive that the increase of truck and ship traffic, in addition to more cars and factories have contributed a huge amount of particulates to the city area. I don’t remember the skies being so grey last year,  but maybe I’m wrong.

Either way… Tet is coming up again, and food preparations are already under way. In the kitchen here, there are currently some sweet onions under construction. One of my personal favorites, it is funny because in the states sweet onions are used as garnish for drinks, but here it is another side dish. Yummy. I think I’m gonna take a lot of pictures this year of all my favorite tet foods.

Well… favorite until the 4th day, when I’m feeling a little porked out.

2007 is gone. My blog failed terribly. I hope that this year I will write more, post more pictures, and generally have a more “social” year.

Just as a reminder to all.. my pictures (on the right side) are open to the public and I wish all of you could look at them.. and leave comments!

Happy 2008 from Vietnam. My Lil’ Saigon hopes to see you more often in the future.

conservation

|ˌkänsərˈvā sh ən| noun

the action of conserving something, in particular

• preservation, protection, or restoration of the natural environment, natural ecosystems, vegetation, and wildlife.

• preservation, repair, and prevention of deterioration of archaeological, historical, and cultural sites and artifacts.

• prevention of excessive or wasteful use of a resource.

• Physics the principle by which the total value of a physical quantity (such as energy, mass, or linear or angular momentum) remains constant in a system.

In school I studied conservation. Through almost all of my studies, the focus was prevention of loss, protection of the “helpless”, or punishment of the “evil doer”. In other words, stop, fight, prosecute. In the globalized, monetized, capitalistic world we live in, this is like a 5 year-old trying to walk on his hands through midday HCMC traffic, it may be possible sometimes, but in the most part you’ll probably end up battered, bruised and lucky to be alive. (On the positive side, many of our current day successes in conservation used this model, and I give many thanks to teh people who fought to make it that way. For some things, absolute conservation is the only way, otherwise the animal ( or whatever) may be gone before a more efficient way is found) The point is, that model of conservation has been found to have a small rate of success ( larger in fully industrialized nations like the US and Europe).

When it comes to other places, the absolutism of this type of conservation fails more often than not. Increasingly intelligent projects are occurring around the world and they are combining the conservation goals with business goals. It only makes sense to go with the flow and use money as your partner in conservation. Decrease negative environmental usage by increasing positive usage. Remove outdated methods of doing something and replace it with a more efficient way.

Example 1: The light bulb. How much conservation was done by simply inventing the fluorescent light bulb? Consumers buy it to save money, but the side effect was less energy used. There you have it, HUGE conservation success. (See:Cali Conservation

Example 2: Fish Preservation. Currently in areas where most of your fish is coming from (looking at you USA) A lot of the preservation techniques are rudimentary, mainly ice on the boats until passed on to industrialized ships or elsewhere. This works for the big fishers, but not for the little guy. Their preservation is left to the ice, and probably a heavy dose of antibiotics in said ice. Enter an efficient refrigeration method, and you have less loss of quality fish, less use of antibiotics, and other minor advantages ( such as higher success rates for fishermen, reducing the need to give more fishing effort.)

The list goes on. Business based decisions can lead to amazing conservation results. The consumer, once aware of this, can make intelligent decisions based on conservation results of the product. The only way to make all of this happen is by using money to guide big business to what you want.

Many car companies are making “hybrids” for the American consumer. Most of these cars don’t get much better mileage than regular commuter cars, but at the same time it is a step in the right direction. An educated consumer can force businesses to have real innovation instead of retrofitted half-*moon* attempts.

ramble.. ramble… Ramble…

CAKE!