A friend of mine and talented journalist Rob Walker has an excellent column called “Consumed” in the New York Times– if you haven’t ever checked it out you’re missing out, you can find it in the Sunday Magazine section. He has an interesting little side project he was telling me about called MLK Boulevard. Sometime in the mid ’90’s he became interested in ‘how many cities have a street named for Martin Luther King Jr., and how many of these MLK Blvds seem to have an awful lot of abandoned property, scary-looking bars, and small groceries that accept food stamps. He started a collaborative project on Flickr where people can upload their photos of MLK Blvds around the world. The pictures are powerful and quite introspective.

I was a little bit suspect when I started hearing a new mint water called ‘Metromint‘, but I gave it a try last week and i’m now glad I did– It’s great! Metromint is simply natural spring water mixed with pesticide-free mint grown in Washington’s Yakima Valley. It’s very refreshing. I found it at the local Wild Oats, and my ‘fridge is now stocked!

My apologies for the lack of posting last week. I was in NYC for a meeting, and then was able to attend the last few hours of Reinier Evers Trendwatching.com seminar. I was thoroughly impressed with both the content of Reinier’s presentation, and all the excellent feedback and discussions brought up from members of the audience. I was also in good company, and had a chance to catch up with Josh Rubin, a long time blogger friend. If you ever get the chance to attend one of the Trendwatching sessions, I highly recommend it.