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You tell me. I am still waiting for something to show up on the news Web sites or on TV. This morning, while walking my dog one block away from the east side of the park, I saw a coyote. It was on the other side of the street, heading our direction, and passed right by us like we weren’t there.

Then, tonight while walking my dog in the exact same place, I HEARD a group of them up in the park, howling. Now, it could have just as easily been a bunch of teenagers pulling a Halloween trick, but from the camping I’ve done in Central Oregon, I’m pretty sure I know a group of coyotes when I hear them.

All I can think about is the family that lives next to the park that has chickens - I hope they are safe!

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Originally uploaded by tb222

There are quite a few police officers and with their motorcycles lined up near the intersection of SE Madison and 3rd, under the Hawthorne bridge. The street is blocked off by a patrol car.

Either there’s a big raid getting ready to happen, or someone important died and they’re getting ready for a motorcade. Is there a presidential candidate in town?

Update: Event’s over; live player removed!

Debra Eschmeyer, of the National Farm to School Network, is in town for the Western Regional Assembly sponsored by Ecotrust. Cookingupastory.com interviewed her in a live broadcast at 12:15PM using Ustream.tv, and we embedded it in this post at Our PDX as well.

Before the broadcast, I’d like to get a discussion going about the Food to School concept. Personally, I think many of the worlds ills could be solved if people knew where their food came from and how it actually gets to the table. If we as a society could become more connected to the farms and farmers that grow our food, maybe we would make very different choices regarding our eating habits. And, if we REALLY knew how our food was produced, would we still eat it? Ok, don’t answer that.

These days, marketing executives know your eating habits, and they would rather you not know where your food comes from. This is precisely why I think the education that the Farm to School program provides is so extremely valuable.

So… to dare cross a line and bring up rearing children again on OurPDX, I ask: do you have children, and do they know where their food comes from, or do they think it comes ‘from the grocery store?’

If you could ask a question to Debra Eschmeyer for the broadcast, what would it be? Post your questions here, and they may just get asked!

Today, I went to one of my favorite sandwich spots near the waterfront. On the East side. I love this place, and I eat here a lot. Sometimes co-workers and I walk down for coffee and the free Wi-Fi for meetings. Sometimes our office orders many sandwiches for business meetings. All in all, I really like this place. BUT…

Today I was disappointed. The lunch rush was on, and I was hungry. I arrived at approximately 12:38. There was no line at the counter, so I ordered the special sandwich and an iced tea. The friendly person at the counter delivered my tea and receipt quickly, and then I began to wait. And wait. And wait.

While I was waiting, I noticed a few things. First, the person making sandwiches is the only one doing so, which I find odd for a place that gets a lot of orders during the lunch rush.

Secondly, this person’s hair was held by a round-the-head headband, yet the hair was not pushed back—it was pushed down on their face—precariously dangling directly above the sandwiches they were making.

Lastly, the friendly counter person, who was taking money from customers, would walk to the back to help the sandwich person package everything up. This would have been fine had I seen this person wash their hands—but that never happened.

12:59: my sandwich arrived. I walked to a nice sunny bench to eat. I opened the wrapper and found that the bacon was quite undercooked. Really? After 21 minutes?

You see, when you wait a while for food, you tend to notice things that you wouldn’t normally notice. This would probably be fine if it weren’t at least the third time this has happened. I wish my sandwich would have come out immediately, because now I’m not sure I’ll be going back.

Today I attended Lunch 2.0 for the first time, and I don’t think I can remember a more valuable experience in all of my networking past. You see, being on Twitter, I have started to follow many local Portlanders that care about the same things I do—whether it be technology, food, or sustainability—and today I met a lot of them face to face.

First, I rode with @betsywhim, @RobotAdam, @JEliseM, and @akfarrell, who I all know in person well. For those not using Twitter, a) you should start now and b) these are how people are known in Twitterland, by username.

Secondly, I noticed that others were not filling out name tags with the requisite “Name” and “Company”, oh no, it was “Name” then “Twitter Name.” I promptly wadded up my first name tag and threw it in the trash, then created another one and acted like I knew that was the protocol.

The first person I ran into was @LizzyCaston. I have to admit, I have been wanting to meet her for a while because she WRITES about food and I READ about food. What a great fit, I think we will be lifelong friends. We decided to tweetup for a cupcake one day.

I then ran into @verso, who I met recently waiting in line for hours to buy an iPhone. I asked her how the 3G is treating her, and she was just as excited as me about our purchases.

Next I ran into @cookingupastory, who I met about a month or two ago, basically when I asked her if she’d like to meet for coffee via yes, Twitter.

She and I decided to sit down at a table where the Back Fence Babes were—where I met both @mediaChick and @thisKat (one of my first followers, by the way, and another person I’ve wanted to meet).

As a side note, I should add that while I was kneeling to talk to @thisKat, @turoczy proceeded to turn and knock me in the back of the head with his backpack. Being the Nice Guy that he is, he finished his conversation with who he was speaking with then got my attention to apologize. Then I got to meet him for the first time, too!

By this time my ride was ready to go. In all of about 45 minutes I was able to put faces with names of people I already knew, and connect with them face to face outside of the Internets. There is one thing to be said for just walking up and talking to strangers at a networking event, but when you already know what goes on in their daily lives, it’s so much better.

@LizzyCaston said it perfectly when I first walked in—”If you’re not networking online, you’re not networking.”