Sheara Wilensky . com

I’ve already blogged my opinions on coffee retailers. While I am not a crazed fan of the overpriced, made-to-order coffee that Starbucks offers, I was surprised to hear that the coffee giant is planning to close 600 under-performing locations nationwide. I don’t really care one way or another, it doesn’t bother me one bit that there are 3 Starbucks locations within a 10 block radius of my apartment. I could understand that in a weakening economy, many people across the nation are trying to cut down on a $100 a month or more coffee-drinking habit.

I was reading some responses to the Starbucks closings online at ireprot.com, and it seemed more often than not people were happy about this. One person commented “It’s about time. Their coffee tastes like charcoal.” Another person said “I already spend $4 a gallon on gas. Why would I spend another $4 for a 12oz coffee?” Point taken.

However, along with these Starbucks closings come thousands of store managers and baristas out of jobs. Empty buildings with landlords losing rent. Coffee machine manufacturers and paper-goods manufacturers losing income. Clearly there is not going to be a good economical after-effect of all the closings. So, all the people out there that think corporate Starbucks is evil, well, they were actually stimulating the economy. Wow look at me now defending them!

My friends at Pocket Change have just discovered the most expensive Hamburger in New York at the Wall Street Burger Shoppe, on Water Street in the Financial District. For $175, you too can enjoy this juicy Kobe beef burger, topped with foie gras, black truffles and eatable gold flakes. Just wanted to say thanks to Pocket Change. We don’t know what we’d do if we hadn’t found out about the delectable piece of meat.

Check out some coverage at the Daily News and The Street.

I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal this morning entitled “Big Tech Firms to Invest In Wireless” about how major telecom firms will be joining forces to create a new $14.55 billion communications company. Called Clearwire, the company will set out to develop a mobile network based on a technology called WiMax, promising to offer faster speeds for mobile and other data services. Sprint would be the front-runner on the deal, with a $1.05 billion investment from Comcast, $1 billion from Intel, $500 million from Google, $550 million from Time Warner and $100 million from Bright House. Google is promised to be the default search engine on the mobile devices employing the new technology.

So what is this “WiMax”, anyway? WiMax is an acronym that stands for the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. It is a technology aimed at providing wireless data over long distances in a variety of ways. It can support fixed and mobile broadband usage and is a powerful alternative to DSL and Cable.

WiMax is a wonderful technology because it essentially eliminates the need for running wires through walls. It works similar to WiFi, but at higher speeds, over greater distances and for a greater number of users. WiMax provides two forms of wireless service. In one way, a small antenna on your computer transmits to a tower station using a low frequency range similar to WiFi. Lower wavelength transmissions are not easily disrupted by physical obstructions and can diffract or bend around obstacles. In the other form of WiMax service, a fixed dish antenna, say on the roof of your building, points to the WiMax tower. This is a stronger, more stable connection using higher frequencies to send great amounts of data via high bandwidth.

Since WiMax equipment is minimal, installing and maintaining the service is more cost efficient than more traditional methods of obtaining internet access. A solution that makes sense in more rural areas due to its greater coverage areas, WiMax is starting to be seen more in cities, especially in older commercial buildings which are not pre-wired for high-speed internet access.

I first learned about WiMax a few months ago doing research for a client. I thought the product was great and the wireless solution logical. In fact I was surprised that more companies were not offering this option. And as it turns out, my office now utilizes WiMax to access the internet (we are in an older building)! I imagined it would only be a matter of time before the bigwigs started to catch on.

The poem 8 Roses was written by my good friend Liza Saniefard, who is a beautiful writer. It was written after last week’s massacre at the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem Israel, in memory of the eight young boys who were senselessly murdered. The third line in the poem, “They are the roses that have been picked”, is a line from Shir Hashirim which was quoted by one of their Rabbis after the attack. Our hearts and our Tefilot go out to all of the family and friends.

Full details can be found at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

//

8 Roses

Buried with their books
Stained by their innocent blood
“They are the roses that have been picked”
Eight little boys
Young men
With nothing but love
For their country
And their Yehadoot

These boys didn’t
Don’t
Initiate attacks
They shouldn’t have to be watching their backs
After centuries of oppression
Years upon years of religious suppression
They should be free to examine every digression
Of Jewish thought
Especially in the holy land
That 6,000,000 lives bought

They sit peacefully in their Yeshiva’s
Even after the government cut their funding
They don’t care about the money
They just care about one thing
Yehadoot
And the freedom to live it
To recite it
To give it
To their own
To the Ethiopians that love it
Yes, Doron
They have a version
They want more of it
Another side of their coin
Another Jewish community
Another place to call home
Something called unity
Yehadoot
That intimate tie that binds
That IDENTITY truth
That beauty that waltzes with the soul
That lives in hearts and minds
That brings the weary into the warmth
That teaches men to be kind
That marries
Links
Connects
Finds
The lost
Accepts
The rejects
For
They
Have too long been tossed
By the winds of prejudice

Now they have freedom to find a place to fit in
All those children of Israel
Crawling in their own skin
They shouldn’t have to in their homeland
A place to begin
//

You catch Liza’s poetry live this Tuesday night, March 18th when she will be reading at the Bowery Poetry Club.

Bye-bye metal trees. Roxy Paine’s three stainless steel sculptures were taken down today after nearly 11 months on display at Madison Square Park.

The two 40-foot metal trees - Conjoined and Defunct - and a 7-foot high metal boulder - Erratic - have been up since last May as part of the Park’s ongoing modern art displays. They were supposed to have been taken down in December. I guess the public responded well to the display, or the Park department got lazy to take them down. I’m interested in seeing what crazy sculptures will be featured next.

New Yorker Roxy Paine is an internationally recognized conceptual artist who’s sculptures are on display in public parks across the nation. For more information on the three sculptures check out the Madison Square Park website.

I like to read www.1010wins.com a couple of times a day because it’s a great site for local NYC news and events. Yesterday they posted a poll “Who has the best coffee?”, and the choices were Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, the Coffee Cart Guy, Other, and I Don’t Drink Coffee. Dunkin’ Donuts took first place with 34%, slightly ahead of Starbucks’ 26%. Only 13% of those who voted don’t drink coffee. For New Yorkers, is that surprisingly high, or surprisingly low? It seems to me that a big part of the fast-paced lifestyle of New Yorkers is coffee consumption, giving them that extra oomph in the morning, you know, that oomph to cram into the subway car or knock you over on the street on the way to the office. During the morning rush, it is rare to see someone without a cup of coffee in hand.

This morning I grabbed a free Metro paper at the subway entrance. The front page article was about how Starbucks closed 7,100 locations yesterday for three and a half hours of barista training. Front page. A lot of people felt upset and inconvenienced. One person quoted in the article stated “I don’t know what we are going to do now. I guess we’ll have to go somewhere else”. I haven’t yet decided if this statement is utterly ridiculous, or if I sympathize with the guy!

Now, I myself am a coffee drinker. I usually have one cup a day, though I can go without. My coffee of choice is Dunkin’ Donuts, though if I don’t pass by one, the coffee carts are fine. I go to Starbucks so infrequently that I never remember the difference in sizes between the Venti and the Grande. In fact, I think I may hate Starbucks. It’s not just the too-strong coffees. Once last year, a colleague from another office was visiting, and the two of us went to Starbucks, as I offered to treat him to a cup of coffee. He ordered some crazy mocha double soy latte something or other. The bill was 13 bucks for 2 coffees. But it’s not just the fact that I can get 2 slices of pizza and a coke for the same price as a Grande Latte. Who the hell has the time in the morning to stand on a Starbucks line for 15+ minutes? Apparently Starbucks enthusiasts do. I just don’t get it.

A friend of mine was a barista in a Starbucks in a NJ suburb several years ago. She would tell me how days would go by without the coffee machines and filters being cleaned out. But that’s another story. I am getting off topic, this post isn’t meant to bash Starbucks, but rather to discuss how we New Yorkers need our caffeine!

According to a newsletter called Nutrition Action, here are some things caffeine may be good for:

• Parkinson’s Disease
• Gallstones
• Mental Performance (duh)
• Mood
• Physical Performance
• Headaches (note caffeine as an ingredient in many over-the-counter pain relievers)

Here are some things caffeine may not be good for:

• Sleep
• Fertility
• Miscarriage
• Birth Defects
• Counteracting Alcohol - Interesting, as most people treat hangovers with black coffee! According to the magazine, caffeine is more likely to reverse the subjective effects of alcohol than performance effects. People who are drunk and caffeinated will think they are ok but their reaction time and judgment will still be impaired.
• Migraines

Now migraines and coffee is interesting to me. As a long-time migraine sufferer and avid reader of any migraine-related article, study, or publication, I can tell you that coffee can both cause and cure migraines! Drinking too much coffee can give you a headache, yet if you don’t drink coffee on a regular basis, than a cup of black can help to alleviate the pain when a migraine does occur. It’s all about finding the balance.

Caffeine roughly works like this:

Adenosine is created in the brain to help prepare the body for sleep. When adenosine binds to receptors, it causes drowsiness by slowing down nerve cell activity and increasing the flow of oxygen by causing blood vessels to dilate. To a nerve cell, caffeine looks like adenosine. So when the caffeine binds to the receptors, it doesn’t have the effect of slowing down nerve cell activity, and the adenosine are blocked. Instead of slowing down, the cells speed up, and you are more alert. The caffeine also causes the blood vessels to constrict rather then dilate, because they block the adenosine which serves the function of opening them up. The constricting of blood vessels helps to relieve headaches as well.

Here are some things that caffeine has no positive or negative effects on:

• Heart Disease
• Cancer
• Diabetes
• High Blood Pressure
• Dehydration (caffeine is not a diuretic, contrary to popular belief, at least not in the average consumed amounts)
• PMS
• Weight Loss
• Growth (there is no good research to support that caffeine may stunt a child’s growth)

So, how much caffeine are you consuming?

Cup of Starbucks coffee (grande) - 330 mg

Dunkin’ Donuts medium regular coffee - 145 mg

Starbucks Frappuccino - 130-145 mg

16 oz cup of black or green tea - 60-100 mg

Cup of instant coffee, Maxwell House or Folgers - 5-15mg

Bottle of Arizona, Snapple, or Lipton Tea - 30-60 mg

11 oz cup, Starbucks Iced Coffee - 200 mg

Can of Red Bull - 80 mg

Bottle of SoBe - 150 mg

20 oz bottle of Vitamin Water (energy) - 50 mg

10 oz can of Bud Extra beer - 55 mg

Here’s a good tip for all you coffee-lovers: next time you go to Dunkin’ Donuts, ask for a coffee card. Buy 5 cups, get one free. They don’t advertise this.