Especially now that I am allergic to apples it feels very much like going to a low-budget amusement park. The horticulture is better at Disney World or Storyland anyway:

Apple picking is a cherished rite of fall, a wholesome and fun family outing, a throwback to a simpler time when people weren't so disconnected from the production of their sustenance. I look forward to it every year. It's also a wasteful scam.

via What pick-your-own-apple orchards teach about the American economy. – By Daniel Gross – Slate Magazine.

I received the following e-mail about a program from CJP. Working out in the suburbs, it’s not something I can attend, but I’d like to, as it’s on my favorite bit of wisdom:

The Genesis Forum, a free noontime adult learning program, features Rabbi Seth Farber at our next session on October 28. Rabbi Farber is a dynamic speaker whom the New York Times describes as a “pragmatic idealist.” Formerly of Boston, Rabbi Farber now directs Itim: The Jewish Life Information Center in Israel. Together we’ll explore the modern day ramifications of Rabbi Tarfon’s ancient teaching, “You are not required to finish the work, nor are you free to desist from it.”

All sessions held from 12:00 – 1:15 p.m.
9th floor of CJP
126 High Street, Boston

I’ve pretty much adopted “you are not required to finish the work, nor are you free to desist from it” as my philosophy of life, in secular matters even more than religious ones. I see it meaning “leave the world a bit better than you found it.” Or more specifically, as I wrote in my Facebook profile, “Repairing the world, one byte at a time.” Not just fixing software bugs, but “repairing the world” in a Lurianic sense. Get it?

Fortunately that won’t be too hard now that my mother has started a blog. If you know me well, you probably already know about her peanut allergy or accomplishments as a working mother. But now you can read them for yourself:

I am not by nature, a perpetually cheerful person. I kvetch, I complain, I argue, I yell. I try to see my life in melodramatic terms: after struggling to build a career in a male dominated firm, I am felled in my prime by chronic degenerative illness. But to be honest, it's not that bad.

via Perspectives of an Inadvertent Optimist: The Fragility of Life.

The original meaning of “web logging” was to post links–perhaps with comments–to pages you visited. Today, bloggers like Douglas Bowman (designer for Google and Twitter) have come up with elegant solutions mixing original content with links. I’ve tried sharing interesting things found elsewhere via Reddit, Facebook, and other Google services, but I really wanted to collect them here on my own blog, and with WordPress and Press This, now I can! It provides a “share on WordPress” type of button. I even created this post via Press This! (Ok, I actually just created this whole post to see how it works.)

Blogging is about more than sharing your ideas. It’s about sharing your discoveries: quotes, images, videos, announcements from awesome blogs like this one. And it’s about doing it quickly.

Collect and share bits of the web easier and faster than ever with Press This, the new WordPress bookmarklet.

via Press This Bookmarklet « Blog « WordPress.com.