The End of an Ice Age

Not to point out the obvious, but the big thaw has arrived.  Now get ready for the mud!

If you haven’t seen it yet, head over to the alley directly south of the court house and check out the massive ice dams in the process of calving off the top and sides of the two buildings on either side of the alley. Make sure you say behind the barricades!

Your Best of Fairfield Winners Receive Their Awards

Individuals who won our readers poll received their mugs last week. Each mug has enough capacity to keep these winners caffeinated (or hydrated) for a full day of continued greatness. Their name and award titles are printed on the mug for all to see at those water cooler gatherings. Pictured below is your biggest winner (with over 2,000 votes), Mayor Ed Malloy, receiving his mug from Mark Cohen at Revelations (your Best Restaurant Winner).

We’re still in the process of getting out our window stickers to the venues that won the readers poll. Congratulations to your Best of Fairfield Winners!

Francis Thicke Opens Campaign Office

Dan Walker offered to let Francis Thicke, candidate for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture use his front office space as his campaign headquarters. It’s an excellent site: in the Walker Group office on the square and with a lot of front window space. Francis explains that he’s, “trying to not clutter the front window too much right now because they are going to be starting some plants in that window space.”

Along with the new office space Francis has a new campaign manager. Rob Hubler, a 40-year veteran of managing political campaigns, started with the campaign about two weeks ago. Rob Hubler was the 2008 candidate for U.S. Congress in Iowa’s fifth district. This week the campaign team is growing with the addition of Keith Dinsmore, a veteran campaign media specialist. Keith has connections with press across Iowa and will be organizing Francis Thicke’s state-wide media work.

“In the next few weeks I will be traveling to a number of Democratic Party county conventions to speak to audiences about my campaign platform. I also have upcoming appearances at Grinnell College and Iowa State University. I do have one out-of-state event planned for next month, to speak at a national organic farming policy conference in Washington, D.C.”

“We have a local event planned for Fairfield on Saturday, March 27: Blues musician Bill Lupkin will be performing at Morning Star Studio as a fundraiser for our campaign.”

MUM students & staff enjoy all-organic, vegetarian, fresh-cooked meals everyday

If you want a healthy fresh-cooked meal, a college cafeteria isn’t the first place that comes to mind.

Anyone who’s subsisted on college cuisine for extended periods of time probably doesn’t consider those days a culinary high point. Heck, coupled with late-night pizza runs, a standard university diet is partly to blame for the infamous “freshman fifteen” (i.e. those extra 15 pounds that seemingly appear out of nowhere during your first year on campus).

Yet at MUM, students and staff enjoy all-organic, vegetarian, fresh-cooked meals daily. While many campuses are starting to offer healthier menu options, MUM is the first U.S. college to serve exclusively organic, vegetarian food in its dining hall (officially, Annapurna Dining Commons). It’s part of the university’s commitment to inner and outer sustainability (for the record, many students aren’t vegetarian).

Local ingredients are used whenever possible, including produce grown right on campus at MUM’s greenhouses and nearby organic farms. It’s not uncommon for food to be picked and served the same day. Milk, yogurt, and ice cream come from Radiance Dairy right here in Fairfield. Everything is made from scratch, and the kitchens participate in a composting program. Meals are also prepared according to Ayurvedic principles, an ancient science of health and natural medicine. Thanks to these efforts, the MUM dining hall was a finalist in the “Best Local Food” category of Iowa Source magazine’s annual restaurant contest.

As student enrollment has increased—MUM now serves over 1,600 meals per day—the university brought in Aladdin Food Management Services to handle operations. Aladdin has been so inspired by MUM’s program that the company decided to make organic food service its niche, leveraging its experience with MUM to extend organic offerings at other accounts. Food Management magazine wrote a good article about the collaboration.

“I’m happy this worked out, and frankly, MUM was the catalyst to make it happen,” said Jim McKee, Aladdin’s regional VP of operations. “MUM’s 100% organic program is 10 years ahead of where the rest of the world needs to be. It is the right thing to do, and I’m glad to be a part of it.”

Anyone is welcome to eat at the dining hall, and you’ll find people of all ages—not just students. It’s located upstairs in the new Argiro Student Center (the big building on 4th street that looks like a cruise ship). The walk-in price is $8 flat, though it’s less if you buy a multi-meal punch card. Lunch is served everyday from 11:45-1:30, and dinner from 6:30-8:00. There’s a pretty big line at lunch by about 12:15, so I recommend getting there at noon or after 12:30 (though you’re almost certain to be standing next to a nice, interesting person in the queue). You can also check the menu online before you come. Happy dining!

[Tech Tips is a new column I am introducing on Fairfield Voice. Please let me know if there are any specific tech topics you'd like to see covered.]

The problem: dozens of websites manage calendars listing Fairfield Iowa related events. There is a lot of duplication of efforts between these calendars, and an event organizer that needs to get an event published/updated needs to work with all this duplication of efforts in order to promote the event to the widest audience.

The solution: Google Calendar, a free service (requires a free gmail account) allows multiple websites to share a single calendar of events.

Let me give an example. Glen Keenan, owner of Chickadee, a local consignment store for women and kids, publishes a calendar of family activities using Google Calendar. He manages the calendar from his Google account by adding the time, location and description of family friendly activities in the Fairfield area. Nothing new here – he’s doing what dozens of other businesses and organizations in town are doing – creating and publishing events to a calendar.

However the difference here is that the calendar Glen created:

• Can be easily shared on any website.
• Users can add this calendar to their own calendars (Google, Outlook, iCal).
• Glenn can give permissions to other users to help manage (publish/edit) events on his calendar.
• Users can add reminders, so that they are emailed or text messaged as the event nears.
• Events can be assigned to a location in Google Maps – directions anyone?
• Attach files/documents to events.

Glen published his calendar to his store’s website, by simply copying a bit of html code, and pasting it into a page on Chickadee’s website. Visitors to his site can go to that calendar, browse family oriented events, add reminders for specific events they like, and/or click a button to add the entire calendar to their own online Calender. So for those using Gmail, they would have their Google Calendar updated in real time with all the events listed in Glen’s Family Activities Calendar.

Additionally, other website admins, like myself, can copy the same bit of html, and paste it into our websites, like I did here on FairfieldVoice. Each time Glen updates the Family Event Calendar in his Google account (publishing new, or editing existing events), the calendars on FairfieldVoice, Chickadee, and my personal Google Calendar (I am subscribing to the Family Activities Calendar) are all simultaneously updated with those new events. Publish once – update everywhere!

Imagine if the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center published their events in a Google Calendar. The Fairfield Voice, The Fairfield Ledger, The Iowa Source, and of course the FACC’s website, could all display a current version of the same event listing for the FACC. The creator of the FACC events calendar could promote others, like people who run organizations that run events at the FACC, to manage their events on the FACC calendar, and therefore spreading the workload of managing calendar updates. That calendar could then be easily added to any website interested in providing real time event listings for the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center.

In edition to a full event description, each event could include links to ticketing, files and documents, contact number and emails, show times, and directions (for those driving from out of town) powered by Google Maps.

What I would love to see is a ring of Fairfield calendars powered by Google and shared across websites and subscribed to by residents. Anyone can start a Google Calendar, just pick a theme – Chamber of Commerce, City Council, Music, FACC, Public Schools, Yoga, Sports, Workshops – and invite other people to help manage and promote, publish your events and ask to have the Calendar “hosted” on Fairfield Voice and other sites.

Got questions to help get you started? I’m happy to help, just post your question below.