EN/CZ
Dear All! I'm sending my first official newsletter. I hope that you are going to enjoy it. If you would like to stay in touch, please check my web pages from time to time and send a line, it would be nice.
I would like to thank a lot for your support. I've been able to collect more than $1500 since the beginning of December allowing me to do what I believe I should do and I look for “my way” of doing that. I'm finding the promotion of probiotic beverages and foods very interesting and I want seriously continue with it.
My next big target is to tour the Europe (I'm in the middle of it) and go for Japan (end of April).
For more info please check my web pages
especially my newsletter
http://frantisekapfelbeck.org/tiki_wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Newsletter+3%2F3...
I'm now on a food hacking tour around Europe so it may take me some time to respond, so please be patient with me.
http://frantisekapfelbeck.org/tiki_wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Hacker+Tour+2011
I wish you all the best,
Sincerely,
Frantisek
CZ
Zdravim ve spolek, Timto rozesilam svuj prvni oficialni “newsletter”, ktery si doufam uzijete. Pokud budete chtit zustat v kontaktu, prosim podivejte se cas od casu na me webove stranky a sem tam napiste, pokusim se zahy odpovedet.
Moc rad bych podekoval za vasi podporu. Od zacatku prosince se mi podarilo vybrat cca 27 000 Kc, coz mi umoznilo delat to co verim, ze bych mel a hledat cestu, ktera mi vyhovuje. Vyroba a distribuce probiotickych napoju a potravin me opravdu zaujala a rad bych se ji nadale profesionalne venoval.
Neblizsimi cily je tura kolem Evropy (na ktere jiz jsem, zitra vyrazim do Berlina) a dlouhoocekavana cesta do Japonska na konci dubna.
Pro dalsi info se prosim podivejte na me webove stranky
newsletter je zatim pouze v anglictine, pokusim se to brzy napravit
http://frantisekapfelbeck.org/tiki_wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Newsletter+3%2F3...
informace o ture kolem Evropy jsou v anglictine zde
http://frantisekapfelbeck.org/tiki_wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Hacker+Tour+2011
a jako bombonek pro prave cesky mluvici pridavam novy dopis z cest
http://frantisekapfelbeck.org/tiki_wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Den+Guy+Fawkese+...
Mejte se vsichni skvele,
S pozdravem,
Frantisek Apfelbeck
PS I've copied the newsletter without the functional links just below. PS Zde je kopie newsletteru bez funkcnich linek.
Greetings to All!
This is the first official newsletter which I'm sending to the people who fallow my activities, my life journey. I'm going to do this since now on on a regular basis once per quarter of the year.
Now lets start with a bit of retrospective. What happened in the last two years and why you do not know too much about it. The second first, well I was not systematic enough, short and simple. Now lets say the story.
Well first of all I've left fundamental research and my position at the department of Biochemistry at National University of Ireland, Galway at the end of 2008. Since than I've spend several months in Czech Republic in Ceske Budejovice and left for USA to enjoy some adventures! I've hitch hiked from Chicago by Interstate 90 in the direction of West coast and after few weeks I got to Vancouver which I liked very much. From there I've used the same mode of transport to get to Alaska through British Columbia and Yukon. I've spend a summer salmon fishing season in Cordova and Valdez sadly known as a place of one of the biggest oil spillage disasters in the history. However these months full of wonderful adventures spend in a pristine nature were just amazing, I'll always remembering these times and you will be able to get a glimpse of them in my photo gallery and letters from my travels. At the end of August I left for California stopping in Liard River Hot Springs which I've to recommend to everyone, crossing Washington and Oregon enjoying the wonderful sights of its costs, hitting California and it's Redwood Parks finally reaching "City of liberty" San Francisco.
In SF I've found Noisebridge first hackerspace which was the first hacker space where I've ever been in to. This community of people was amazing and I really liked the way how they live and work together. They helped me enormously with my project of Multimedia Center Build up at Cuba. I've left for Cuba at the end of October, and stayed until the mid of December and it was just amazing stay. Complicated but great, I loved the people in the Placetas, Matanzas and countryside in general and of course my friends in Habana.
I've left Cuba to travel hitch hiking around Central America starting with Yucatan, going to Belize, crossing to Guatemala where I've enjoyed a week of lovely pneumonia. I've walked by the Pacific Ocean to San Salvador, staying in the capital a bit and leaving on the New Years Eve to Honduras which mountains I liked very much. The final country which I've visited in the direction of South was Nicaragua where I've stayed for some three weeks visiting Managua where I've been robed by gang, Granada and San Juan del Sur which I liked very much. Unfortunately it is also starting to be more and more touristy loosing it's true spirit. During my stay in this town I've decided to come back to Chiapas especially to San Cristóbal de Las Casas and served there as a volunteer under Mexican non profit organization Nataté Voluntariado Internacional.
I've had a great time here, getting to know better the situation in the region and starting to have a closer ties with the local indigenous people through our volunteer projects like building houses, cooking, fermenting etc. I've stayed for four months leaving later on for Oaxaca, Zipolite which is an amazing Pacific nude beach, and hitch hiked by the coast towards USA through Acapulco, Lázaro Cárdenas, Manzanillo, Puerto Vallarta, Tepic etc. to Heroica Nogales, where I've crossed border to Arizona, USA.
I've managed with bit of troubles to cross the Central Valley where I got sun burn and I can say that it was probably the worst hitch hiking experience until now, basically no one would stop. However I got at the end a ride and joint by one cool guy and I hit finally San Francisco as it should be, hitch hiking and lightly stoned. I've entered Noisebridge and Three Stone Hearth Kitchen and began to enjoy my stay in the amazing atmosphere of the San Francisco Bay Area. I've been learning a lot as a apprentice and brewing master in Three Stone Hearths (TSH) enjoying their very progressive and unique business model and most of all amazing community. I've been also experimenting a lot at Noisebridge co-founding food hacking group called Tastebridge where we have had a brewing classes and cooking classes, we did a lots of experiments and also promoted our self on Underground markets which was really great opportunity to try in a fun way and with support of community what some would like to do for living. People therefore could learn how to produce their probiotic drinks, bottle them, label them and sell them, whole circle model for a minimum of expenses.
I've spend my time in San Francisco very actively, visiting also a course of Japanese at Soko Gakuen language school and enjoying my visited of Japan Town a lot, especially my favourite Japanese spa Kabuki Springs & Spa which I can recommend to everyone. Also my active involvement in nudism was great remembering visits of my friend Darius, enjoying the nudist dinners, my relaxation time at Baker Beach and certainly not forgetting my wonderful trip with Darius to visit his friends, very nice gay couple at Cobb Mountain and enjoying a short stay in a Harbin Hot Springs which I truly loved and I would like to recommend to everyone to visit!
The half year which I've spend in SF Bay Area was amazing but I can say that at the end I was ready to go. I've confirmed to myself that I'm not a city person and I will never be. It was important experience which has shown me many things through which I'll go later on. To finish this part of the story you could find me on 8th of December packed with the fly ticket in my hand to Narita, Japan. Well not having a newly required "transit visa" for Canada the trip did not happen in stead I had to come back to Europe. I've used this opportunity to join as a food hacker one of the biggest annual hacker conferences around the world at 27th Chaos Communication Congress where I've been actively promoting food hacking both by lightning talk, workshops and food preparation. I've returned home to relax a bit because I was still quite exhausted after the SF. Very soon I've started to work on a preparation of my [hacker tour|food hacking tour]] around Europe and Japan, starting at Progress Bar log of the event in Bratislava on a full moon of 18th of February. The next stop is Brmlab in Prague and after that hopefully Chaoskueste in Kiel and many others for more details please see the [Hacker tour 2011|hacker tour page]].
Now when we are up to date, what is next?
Well there are certainly many things which has to be done. The major tasks are now regular weekly updates of my activities on my news page and another one is the creation of the mailing list. I'm also starting to focus more on my finances, trying to fallow my financial plan for 2011, which I've set at least at $6000 and which I've still quite a way to finish.
However the major things which happen in the last year or two was the confirmation that the sustainable development (sd) as a field of interest is really suitable for me. The realization that food production and conservation with the use of fermentations is something what I really would like to do as my specialization was pivotal for me. It had a strong influence on my stay in Mexico learning with indigenous people their way of utilization of Indian corn, discovering the preparation of pineapple vinegar in Cuban countryside, learning a lot in a medium scale production facility of Three Stone Hearth Kitchen and of course preparing my stay in Japan.
I believe that this stay is going to be crucial for my future direction because the knowledge of probiotic foods in Japanese culture is one of the deepest on the world. I would like to study this art in Japan at least for a year. In the same time I've decided to work intensively on the improvement of my physical condition and my body posture especially, because it is absolutely crucial for my well being and I've deliberately omit it by a great deal for more than a decade. Anyone who would know some interesting life foods production facility in Japan and some lovely health spa, please let me know, I'm really ready for it!
If I make a small projection of years to come I would like to keep the course. Learning more about food and drink fermentations in rural indigenous areas, combining them with today's scientific knowledge and technology, food hacking is something what I feel is being very beneficial for me and the society. I would like to help to improve already existing businesses and their production processes hoping to obtain more experience, port folio and funds. This I would like to combine with presentation from my travels, workshops on probiotic foods and publications of "letters from my travels". If I summarise all this together I should be able to do what I want as I want and support myself. It may happen that I start my own business, cooperative or community some day when I settle down somewhere but I think it is still few years in the future because I want to keep moving and seeing new things for a bit more. Now there were recently some questions about my relations to girls, probably because of my close ties to many gay, lesbian and transsexual people. Well, if I meet a girl who would be willing to spend her life with me and I feel the "spark" being present, than I would go for it. Otherwise I rather walk alone.
Here I feel that it is time to wish you all the best and hope that more and more people will find their life more fulfilling. If I can help to spread this growth and prosperity around me by doing what I believe in, that would be great. If anyone would like to support me please get in touch or make a contribution by the donation, I do appreciate it.
Have a great time and please stay in touch!
Sincerely,
Frantisek
::PS Please note that the first two newsletters will be send to the people who's contact details I have, after that just to the ones who sign for the mailing list which is in preparation. All newsletters will be posted and archived on the web pages.
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Frantisek Apfelbeck