#so theyre glad their children actually grow up with their siblings in the way they never got to)

[justaz]

omg i gave them a daughter first too LMAO i went w the idea that from the spell that gave arthur life, he looks exactly like his mother so when he has his first kid, she looks exactly like him which means she looks exactly like ygraine. i didn’t name them after important people in their lives but i did like research meaning/origins of their names so they all have like specific meanings. her name emeline is french (bc du bois is french so i imagine ygraine came to albion from france so boom culture) and means vigorous, brave, hardworking since she is the eldest which makes her the heir to the throne and future queen of camelot. then they had a set of twins, a dragonlord son and a sorceress daughter and while dragonlord son is a knight, he wants more to focus on the dragons and bring them back which will eventually end in his renouncing his knighthood and leaving camelot to travel and find lost or hidden dragon eggs. then sorceress daughter wanted to be queen and has a lil rivalry w emeline and bonds with morgana (current court sorceress) over the envy but ultimately will become the next court sorceress. so on and so forth.

i made a post a while back about how i imagine merlin found out about this but growing up, he was more in tune with his magic before he fully understood his mother’s warnings and the threat of just what he could do so his magic was more free reign and just did whatever he wanted or reacted to his emotions. idk what caused it, maybe he saw one of the other village girls with pretty hair or someone made fun of him for not being like the other boys and being too girly, but merlin was just like “it would be cool to look like a girl” and then boom hunith came inside to find a daughter instead of a son. merlin was ecstatic but hunith had to ban the spell from their house bc it would be mighty suspicious if she just had a daughter some days and a son other days so merlin had to Not Do That anymore. once magic was made legal in camelot, i feel like he was hesitant to use the spell again or maybe forgot all about it until arthur brought up the issue and merlin was like “oh yeah why not” and boom babies

for the genderfluid aspect (as i said in my tags, i project my own gender identity onto him so like to me he doesn’t particularly care how he’s referred to or if he looks masculine or feminine, he just looks how he is. maybe some days he looks more masculine or more feminine but thats a result of his magic being free again and responding to his emotions and what he wants), arthur switches up the compliments and terms so he’ll be like “and my handsome wife” or “my beautiful husband” etc etc and it always makes merlin laugh with the different combinations he makes. though more accurately its probably something like “and my idiotic husband/wife” but let me imagine them as soft as possible its for my own sanity thank you

Every time I read a Merthur fic where the need for Arthur to have an heir comes up as a complication for them being together I'm just like "Merlin is magic. If there's an aging spell surely there's a spell to change your sex. Why can't he change himself into a woman for 9 months?"

Of course, I'm aware that not everyone is into mpreg, which I guess this would technically be, but the idea not even passing the character's minds is what gets me. Include a scene where the question is asked and give an answer for why they don't go for it cause there are a few you could do. Arthur might be scared of losing Merlin if they try a pregnancy that involves magic, even if it's not what's creating the life, because of what happened to his mother. Or maybe the only way for them to conceive even with Merlin as a woman is to use the same magic that made Arthur and neither of them are willing to give up a life for them to have a child. Or maybe they don't find a spell that can turn Merlin into a woman at all despite trying and the search adds more strain to the relationship (perfect opportunity for angst with this setup). Or Merlin could just straight up not be comfortable with the idea which is valid, I may see him as genderfluid and happily using this kind of spell even without the intention of getting pregnant but not everyone does.

My point is that when you're in a magic setting with a magic user as part of the main pairing and one of their obstacles is "I can't give you heirs" why do they not even question if there is a way to overcome that obstacle with magic?

[lady-ika]

long vent sorry ik it's bed oclock but

my sister is moving out tomorrow to college while im at work.

and it's nice to know that she's going

i wont be so vain as to say that i raised her but it sure is . a feeling that she's finally out

i say this fully aware that this is the last night we'll spend in this house as we are, i would almost say as children but im 26. but it's the feeling of her taking a step away from being a child

im likely only thinking this way bc im watching little women bc i needed something comforting but perhaps this was not the best idea. but of course im only writing and sitting in a vc and not spending the time with my siblings

ive never really been a good sister to her i suppose. my brother has been a better sibling than i have in the past several years.

but still i have this strange notion that my siblings have managed to keep growing up and i've ended up stuck in some bullshit faux childhood because i can't face reality and can't manage on my own.

both of my siblings have moved out and i've never tried and i feel like such a child, such a failure, because i can't stomach dealing with stress.

of course no one would want to be with someone like me. the type of person im hoping for wouldnt give me the light of day

because they'd see my siblings and wonder how they had such a failure for an eldest sister

i wont be vain and say that i did anything for them other than torment them. it was the only way i knew how to act with them because now that theyre both adults, i dont know how to process it because i still feel like a ten year old

all i do is complain and lose my temper and be uselss and sit in my room of course no one wants to hear these things because people have actual problems

i always said id stay at home for my sister to protect her from our parents but i knew that was a lie for myself and others because frankly i was too afraid to do anything else

it's bittersweet knowing that i will not see my sister regularly probably from now on

im glad shes out

now if only i could just stop existing in everyones' minds so i can finish being here

and ofc i turn my sisters happy milestone into a vent about myself bc im so selfish and self centered granted i never said it out loud but i feel every word of it

[its5amandimstillawake]

Ok so this may seem random but I just binge watched bobs burger, all 10 seasons of it. And I had always heard it was like American Dad or family guy, hell when I googled "what to watch if you liked Bob's burgers" or looked for shows similar American Dad and family guy came up. Now I hated family guy and American Dad growing up, my dad watched it and I just never enjoyed it. But I watched a compilation on YouTube of Bob's burgers and it seemed decent so I decided to give it a shot and im glad I did. Unlike American Dad or family guy, two shows that have the goal to offend people, and who's humor heavily relies on steriotype or references, Bob's burgers doesn't feel dated, doesn't rely on steriotype, it bases it's humor on putting these likeable character that you love into different scenarios and having them reacting to the world around them. And unlike a lot of shows, like I said watched all 10 seasons and it never really got repetitive or boring or annoying I honestly enjoyed every episode, every episode felt new and fresh, even if the idea has been done before. Now there are several things I enjoy about Bob's burgers and I just kind of felt like talking about it so

First, they all, not only love eachother, but also actually like eachother. Now I feel like a lot of people don't quite get what I mean by that. I personally love my mom, I do not like her, I don't like the way she thinks or acts, I always say that If I had met her at school or at work or something and was not related to her I wouldn't like her. I've seen many siblings who love eachother, they'll defend eachother and take care of eachother but for the most part avoid eachother especially if they're at the same school, they don't go out of their way to talk or hang out with eachother. This family all seem to actually like eachother though.

Which leads me to my next point. The Belcher siblings are personally my favorite part of the show, I was actually confused when I first started seeing them all together, because most shows seem to have that sibling relationship of love but not like, and while that's fine and can be realistic, I don't very often see a show that shows a good healthy sibling relationship of siblings actually liking eachother which can also be realistic and is a good thing to teach kids. The Belcher siblings are great, they of course defend eachother and take care of eachother but they're also friends. They walk together in between classes, theyre all in the same friend group, they go out of their way to hang out with eachother and play togetherand have fun together, they eat lunch together and scheme together. Of course they also spend time by themselves and will hang out with their mutual friends without their siblings and have friends outside of the mutual friend group, and of course they get into arguments and disagree with eachother a lot, what siblings don't? But for the most part they get along very well. You won't see any of them embarrassed to be seen with their younger siblings in or out of school, even Tina, the teenager of the group who's going through a lot for the typical teen problems including being embarrassed often and caring a lot about what others in her grade think, will hang out with her little brother and sister, and take part in their mischief, and eat lunch with them and doesn't have a problem with it.

The kids aren't the only one with a uniquely healthy relationship when it comes to these types of shows, we also have their parents, Bob and Linda. Bob isn't the steriotypicaltypical husband that's often portrayed in these types of shows, Bob isn't the husband that complains about how his wife is always nagging or jokes about how being married is awful. Linda isn't the steriotypicaltypical wife, Linda doesn't complain about how her husband can't take care of himself, or seem disgusted by her husband or seem exasperated by the kind of person her husband is. Strangely enough they seem to actually love eachother, and support and encourage eachother and care about eachother and enjoy spending time together and enjoy working together. They enjoy making small fun competitions with eachother and having fun and laughing together. They seem to bring out the best of eachother. And yes they aren't exactly in their honeymoon phase, and may not have that "spark" they first had when they first got together, and they're not exactly the pinnacle of romance, they are however a good representation of a happily married couple who genuinely love and like eachother and have been married for years. And of course they each have their flaws and they have their disagreements and arguments but who doesn't?

And the Belcher kids love and like their parents as well and enjoy being with them and involve them in their antics as well.

And they love and like their kids as well. And given each of the children it would be expected in a show like this for one or two of the children to be considered "disappointments" or "not as good as the favorite child" there's usually a kid who's clearly the favorite and one or more kids who's looked down upon by the parents and everyone else in shows like these, however Bob and Linda genuinely love and are very proud of each of their kids and they both have good relationships with all of their kids. Even in the episode where they spent the entire time showing just how much of a screw up gene was, Bob took gene aside and said that while gene could get distracted and could mess up at times that he was still very proud of him and loved him.

Bob and Linda support their kids in everything they do, even in the episode where gene got interested in "table setting" and got into a competition and his parents didn't quite understand it or understood why someone would enjoy it they still helped and encouraged him and expressed how proud they were that he found something he enjoyed doing.

It's a very healthy family and it's enjoyable to watch.

The show itself, although it has 10 seasons, doesn't ever get annoying or repetitive, every episode seems fresh, like I said binge watched the entire show and was actually pretty sad when I got the final episode and realized I was done and couldn't watch anymore, although the first season was great it got better over time, and personally I thought each season was better then the last.

I like that all the characters seem realistic, their was several episodes with the Belcher kids where I could imagine my younger self and my friends and brother doing similar things. And like I said the parents though loving also seemed like a realistic couple that have been married for years.

I also liked the consitancy. A lot of characters over time will become an exaggerated version of their former selves. For example a character like Patrick star or homer Simpson or Cosmo from fairly odd parents, who start off the show kind of dumb and clueless but not annoyingly so and are still enjoyable, over time will become so damn moronic that you wonder how they've managed to go this long without accidentally killing themselves and it becomes annoying and frustrating and they're no longer likeable.

None of the characters in this show have a character flaw that becomes so extreme they become unlikable, in fact all of the characters in the belcher family are likeable, and stay consistent, thats the point, you want to see them go through these things and want to see them win and come out on top because of how likeable they are. Louise is mischief, she's a prankster, but it's never to the point where she's unlikeable, she's still a good kid who usually doesn't go to far and when she does shes quick to see her mistake, apologize, and try to make it right, if anything a lot of times her pranks are to help defend other people or "bring justice" to people who have been wronged.

She may be a bit extreme but she's still a good kid and you want to see her come out on top. Gene can be loud and extreme and not really get hints, but he wants to befriend people and wants to help people, even though he can be gullible and a bit clueless and as a result can easily get roped into stuff, he tries to help people and make things right when he sees things going south, he's a sweet kid.

And Tina can be innapropriate, and can be selfish at times and not always see the big picture, but like gene and Louise when she sees that she's messed up she immediately tries to fix it and make things right, she has a stronger moral compass then either of her siblings and usually the voice of reason and helps people out whatever situation they're in, including her siblings who can often end up in some pretty bad situations, and is willing to take the fall for the sake of others.

Bob can by cynical, and a bit extreme about things he cares about (work, turkeys, Thanksgiving in general) and when he gets extreme he won't think things all the way through he'll just react, but he means well, he cares about his family and will put aside his obsessions for his family and is willing to sacrifice those things for his family. Hell one of the things hes obsessed with is Thanksgiving, he will make sure everything goes PERFECTLY and will get very upset if they're not perfect and will go crazy trying to make it perfect, but the reason Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday and the reason he cares so much is because of his love for his family and because Thanksgiving to him is being with your family. And even he is willing to sacrifice his Thanksgiving to be there for his friend, teddy, who's alone and without his family.

Linda can also be extreme and not think things all the way through but like bob, she means well, the times she gets extreme is typically when it involves her family and trying to do everything in her power to make them happy, and to do what she considers the morally right thing to do, even if it means going a little crazy and taking things a bit to far while doing so. I think a good example of this was when Louise got in trouble at school for causing problems, she was causing problems because a couple of kids were picking on a smaller kid and she was attempting to defend the kid, Linda thinks it's morally wrong to punish Louise for defending a kid and breaks Louis out of detention from the window (also breaking the school's AC in the process) to get her some ice cream all while having to avoid mr.frond, the school counselor who's around the same area. It's a good example of how it makes for a funny episode and flawed characters because of how extreme they can get but how they're motivation and reasonings makes them likeable and makes you root for them.

Anyway. I know this is kind of random it just kind of bothered me that I don't really see bobs burgers being talked about very often and I see it being compared to American Dad and family guy when, from what I've seen of the two shows, it's not really similar at all

[tumblunni]

Okay..uhh..man i dont even know what pronouns to use for this character

Like the few posts in their tag call them nonbinary? But it seems thats just because of that one line saying "gender is stupid" which was literally in response to someone saying "stop dressing like a girl, youre a boy". And like every single artwork of this character everywhere forever shows her dressed incredibly feminine and like.. Calling herself a girl. And the series just treats it as "quirky gay man who's lol sooooo gay that he crossdresses all the time" and seriously everyone else seems to call her a man and she calls herslf a girl? Like this really doenst seem like a nonbinary character this seems like an old manga with a poor understanding of trans people that was using kind of offensive language to refer to a trans woman and like.. Now just looking back on it through a a modern lens we'd say it seems like how we talk about nonbinary people.

Cos i mean seriously man this is just a girl who always dresses as a girl and calls herself a girl and loves girly stuff and its just meant to be somehow 'comical' because she's uhh..well..clearly flat chested and the manga makes it clear she was "born a man". And seriously wtf is up with this "comical" slant to all of it?? Like im glad to see trans rep and i understand that its so flawed because its a really ahead of its time bit of representation that was made in a time when bigotry was a lot more overwhelming and LGBT equality had made less strides. But still it seems so weird that even if they think of this character as "a gay man who likes to crossdress" then they'd be portraying "him" as a joke when they'd had other positive gay characters before. And like its not even outright "eww trans women" or anythingits just like they draw her SO exaggerated when she shows her crush on Toya and then he's drawn all..comically disgusted? And everyone is all shocked? And it was really confusing for the first chapter before they had a character staye that she was DMAB cos seriousky it just looked like everyone being weird to this girl for no reason.

And then just.. THERE'S A REALLY WEIRD UNDERTONE HERE

Like i wondered why on earth Toya's crush on Yukito was played so understated and never allowed to be outright confirmed even though its clearly canon and they were able to show Syaoran having a crush on literally the same guy before.

But seriously its starting to become WEIRD in regards to that! Like Ruby Moon is telling Yukito "i'll steal him away if you dont want him" so hey yes confirmation that it IS fuckin canon and they JUST WONT SAY IT. and then they have this really weird dance around conversation where toya is all "ugh gasp you're a-" and like he's...uncomfortabke with her being "a man" (SHE'S NOT A MAN DAMMIT) and she's like "but yukito is also" [suspicious gap in dialogue] "and you" [suspicious gap in dialogue] "him". Its all fuckin weird how much theyre dancing around saying the word gay or even saying a man loves a man yet they SAID IT BEFORE FOR SYAORAN! And then the dancibg around LGBT terms was actually used kinda cleverly here cos it could also mean "yes i'm a clow card and yukito is also not human". And probably the writers could point to that as reasonable denial if anyone accused them of writing a trans woman, i guess...

And uhh.. Yeah.. I think i get why these two situations are considered "different" by the writers.there was just a whole fuckin chapter about Syaoran realizing that her REALLY loves sakura and he only mistook his feelings for a crush on another boy because something something sensing subconciously that yukito had magic in him. And now its presented as CHARACTER GROWTH that he gives up on yukito and goes and has a straight relationship instead. And at the same time in the same chapter Tomoyo also decides to give up on her crush on Sakura WITHOUT EVER EVEN TELLING HER OR TRYING TO SEE IF SHE FEELS THE SAME WAY because she just thinks sakura will be happier witj syaoran. And this is meant to be noble and again be character development. And then looking back we had that whole plot of tomoyo's mom having a crush on sakura's mom and it being played all comical?? And her accusing sakura's dad of being a cradle robber and horrid for LITERALLY FUCKING HIS UNDERAGE STUDENT AND SHE DROPPED OUT OF SCHOOL TO MARRY HIM was again played for 'comedy' and she 'learns her lessonc that he's really a good guy and everything is fine.

So..yeah. It seems like a bit of an undercurrent of "gay crushes are a thing for children that you grow out of". Cos seriously the way they play the "comedy" on these older characters is like.. Infantalizing them? Tomoyo's mom is meant to be seen as immature and overreacting. And sakura's mom of course 'grew up' and got a 'real relationship'...

Or like i dunno maybe this was all an accidental implication caused by writers who just didnt realize what itd look like when they make EVERY SINGLE QUEER CHARACTER LOSE THE LOVE TRIANGLE and also refuse to actually confirm the one singular potential actually happy, healthy and recipricated gay pairing.

Also calling a trans woman a man and making everyone act grossed out by her expressing interest in her and making it all so confusing that even actual LGBT people dont really know what to make of it...

And then like there's also some bit where they say "oh well clow card guardians dont actually have gender", by which they mean "biological sex" cos i mean clearly they have genders! And why would "having no biological sex" give them ALL THE BODIES OF MEN??? Like seriously why would "cannot reproduce" mean "male by default"? Why would one of these "genderless" creatures make fun of one of the others for choosing to be female if none of them were born aligned to either of the human reproductive categories in the first place? Like its not "ha why are you being female, we dont have genders" its "why are you NOT BEING A MAN, we dont have genders". That makes no sense!! Also double wtf cos like 90% of all the clow cards look feminine and even half of the ones who don't still use female pronouns and get listed as female in the profiles. Like yes, all of them are drawn flat chested or with barbie doll anatomy but that doesnt make them "men by default"! And nobody's ever mentioned this before, we havent had kero-chan being all "ugh this is the DEVIANT Windy card that PRETENDS to be a girl" or anything. Seriously i cant get over the fact that its her straight up sibling guardian who's the one who makes fun of her for wearing a girls uniform. You are a goddamn talking panther!! What do you care about human cissexism!!

I dunno man the whole thing's got me a bit grumpled.

Also they continue dojng the damn nasty "romance" between a 35 year old teacher and a ten year old girl IN A MANGA AIMED AT TEN YEAR OLD GIRLS, and its presented all wholesome and life goalsy with no criticism whatsoever. Its been getting even creepier and it fuckin STARTED with him giving her a wedding ring! Now theyre really drawing attention to how young she is cos she sews a makeshift teddy bear for him and gives it to him as a good luck charm thatll make their love last. Gahhhhhh

[himbowelsh]

headcanons for various ships meeting the parents/family (and/or kids)?

oh my god lol i just wrote this for luztoye this is perfect

WINNIX

nixon sr is almost a carbon copy of nixon jr, except with a little less chill and a little more infidelity.

nixon and his dad are both sharp as tacks, bitingly intelligent, incredibly charming, kind of unstable, and raging alcoholics.

at first nix is a little freaked out. like??? “is this what i’m in for ten years down the line? is nix going to grow a handlebar moustache, play with guns, and chug vodka like it’s water?”

(at least he doesn’t have to worry about nix screwing the secretary)

nixon, however, has a strained relationship with his father (dick thinks its because theyre too alike) and is very adamant that he is never going to be the type of man he is. dick believes him – nix’s heart is too good for him to end up like stanhope nixon.

nix’s dad, as it turns out, likes dick a lot. so does nix’s sister blanche, who is just as charming as her father and brother, though a bit more grounded. she couldn’t approve of dick more, and she tells her brother that straight out.

nix’s mother left his father awhile back, but nix says she was distant even before that. she never meets dick; dick hopes she would have liked him, but hearing about how she ignored nix as a kid, he doubts he’d have liked her back.

he, nix, and blanche wind up becoming good friends, however! (because blanche is wonderful and i love her)

nix is VERY WORRIED that dick’s parents wont like him

he seems like everything good mennonite parents wouldn’t want their kid getting involved with. he’s certain they’re going to take one look at him and hate him.

he’s wrong.

dick’s mother possesses the same warmth as him, except she doesn’t bother to keep it hidden. she has one conversation with nix, somehow deduces everything about him in five minutes, and declares she likes him immediately. 

dick’s sister ann is a rambunctious sweetheart who is genial to nix at first. when they discover they share a sense of humor, however, she decides she adores him, and he adores her back. they have a blast teasing dick together.

his father is the hardest to win over. at first, dick’s father doesn’t seem to like him at all, and nix is nervous around the man because he doesn’t know how to act around fathers. should he be polite? should he declare how much he loves his son? what should he do dick hELP –

after a while, however, dick’s father takes him aside for a long talk. they discuss where they both stand personally and nix discovers dick’s father is a very down-to-earth, sober man, with the same level head and wry humor as dick. he realizes he likes him, and is glad when dick’s father gives his approval of him too.

WEBGOTT

okay, you gotta understand – web loves his family a lot.

this does not mean he likes them.

they’re conservative where he is liberal. they’re practical where he’s artistic. they’re down-to-earth where he’s a dreamer. they don’t like to debate, they view arguments as strictly negative things, and they don’t enjoy theorizing about what could be. web is the odd man out in a family of realists.

still, he loves his parents and brothers. in particular he adores his little sister annie, who’s still young enough that she views her big brother as a hero (and web still sees her as a kid, even though she’s well into her teens)

he wants his family to approve of joe. the problem is his family isnt… sure how to handle david being gay. they’re THAT family, who loudly proclaims how supportive they are and take pride in that fact, but when they’re actually faced with their son’s sexuality things get awkward.

joe is NOT big on meeting the parents. he says that if david cares about him, it doesn’t matter what his homophobic parents think.

“they’re NOT HOMOPHOBIC, joe, and they matter to me, they’re my FAMILY –”

it turns into a fight.

it’s webster and liebgott, what do you expect?

eventually joe caves and meets web’s family. 

it’s an awkward family dinner. no one really knows what to say. joe makes more than one inappropriate comment without meaning to, and clams up afterwards. by the time the night ends web is sure it’s a disaster.

he’s surprised when his mother calls him the next day to tell him how much they all liked joe – and he almost tears up when she tells him that she’s proud of him.

what web is really thrilled about is that his sister says she approves.

meanwhile, as much as joe says he doesn’t care what web thinks about his family?? he also says he doesn’t care what his family thinks of web

“its not the end of the world if they don’t like you.”

“you think they wont like me? wait, whoa, wHY wouldn’t they like me? joe???”

mama liebgott has raised four kids all on her own, and joe is her baby boy. she wants the best for him and is very critical of all the boys all of her kids have brought home. with four daughters and a son, she’s interviewed a lot of boys.

of all the potential boyfriends she’s interviewed, david is one of her favorites.

she interrogates him for about two hours (after sending joe to the store so he wont complain) and even though david is so nervous he can barely keep his words straight, he manages to win her over

(his baby blue eyes have nothing to do with it)

joe’s four older sisters are absolutely merciless. they love david too, but they have a blast teasing him and joe at every chance they get.

it also doesn’t help that the entire liebgott family likes to argue with each other as much as joe argues with web. there’s rarely a moment of peace in that house.

web likes joe’s family, but he’s more than satisfied with just one liebgott.

SPEIRTON

speirs does not have a good relationship with his father, and he’s estranged from his mother, so his parents aren’t really in the picture. 

lipton would like to meet ron’s family, but he understands when he says he doesn’t want anything to do with them, and respects his decision.

“i’m sure they’d like you. you’re a very hard person to dislike,” ron says, and even if it’s just to make him feel better, lip appreciates it.

lip, on the other hand, is very close with his family.

he lost his father in a car accident when he was ten. this accident also paralyzed his mother and put her in a wheelchair for life. lip was so affected by this that he took over being the man of the house early, and as such has a strong sense of responsibility towards his mother and brother.

ron visits the boarding house for the first time pretty early on in their relationship, so he gets to know mama lipton without a lot of stress.

mama is a lot like her son – she’s thoughtful, level-headed, and a thorough judge of character. she has a way of seeing through people and getting a read on their character.

she makes ron a little nervous at first tbh, and this man is a career soldier.

mama lipton grows to feel very warmly for ron, especially when she sees how much ron adores her son and her son loves him back.

in turn, ron gets close to mama lipton. they both understand her son and his consummate need to help others, so they sometimes tag-team lip to take care of himself.

lip’s brother, on the other hand, takes a long time to warm up to ron. it’s not that he doesn’t like that his brother is gay – he just thinks ron’s a scary son of a bitch and is worried about his brother’s taste in men.

he tries to threaten ron a few times. it backfires. ron is definitely a scary son of a bitch.

eventually ron manages to get on civil terms with lip’s brother too, and it’s a relief to everyone, especially lip.

“you’re a hard person to dislike too,” he tells ron – and ron knows that’s a lie, but it’s so typical lip that he doesn’t care.

BABEROE

babe and gene both have pretty similar family situations – they’re both the third of five children, and both used to be troublemakers as kids, so they decide they’re probably going to like each others’ families immediately.

gene’s family is very, very cajun, and his dad speaks with such a thick accent that babe struggles to understand him. gene has to translate pretty often, and babe is surprised to find that gene’s father isn’t much like him at all. he’s rowdy, loud, and loves to tease his kids.

babe loves him.

the two of them are terrors together. gene doesn’t get a moment of peace.

gene’s sisters winnie and minnie are two years apart, but they’re practically twins. it takes babe awhile to learn to tell them apart, and they exploit his weakness to their own delight.

gene’s youngest brother is most like him – quiet, thoughtful, and a little more shy than gene. it takes him awhile to open up to babe, but gene has a close relationship with him and encourages him to get to know babe.

gene’s grandmother has been dead for years, but after gene tells babe about her healing abilities he talks about her so frequently that babe feels like he knows her already. he likes to think that she’d have liked him.

gene is overwhelmed by babe’s family.

it’s an entire pack of loud, outspoken redheads all screaming over each other in shrill philly accents. they’re nothing but welcoming to gene, and they’re very nice, but gene just… doesn’t know how to handle them.

babe thinks it’s hilarious.

he tries his best to make his boyfriend comfortable, but gene needs to get used to the heffron clan all on his own. it takes gene a while, but eventually he gets used to them.

babe’s brothers all rib gene, and his sister annie is so spunky that she’d determined to become gene’s best friend. it’s kind of wild to gene, but in a way it reminds him of his own family.

LUZTOYE

joe has a very low key family. he’s the baby of the family, with two older sisters. his dad died when he was fourteen, so his mom took over the duties of both parents, and operates with an executive functionality that’s almost terrifying.

joe was never doted on during his childhood. he learned to stick up for himself. he has a close relationship with his mom and is on good terms with his siblings, but he’s definitely not used to being the apple of their eyes

george

is

ADORED

by joes family

they all love him, his sisters think he’s the greatest thing theyve ever seen, and the love how effortlessly he manages to juggle joe’s nieces and nephews

(he’s a lot better with joe’s nieces and nephews than joe is, actually)

joe’s mother takes longer to warm up to him, but as soon as he wins her approval he automatically becomes her favorite son.

a part of joe is jealous that his family seems to like george even more than they like him, but he’s also so thrilled that they love him – and that george loves them back.

george’s family, meanwhile, is absolutely freaking insane.

joe meets all of george’s siblings on the same day. one of his sisters is in love with him, one of his brothers is taller than him, one of his sisters could probably beat him in an arm wrestling match, and his mother basically adopts him on site.

everyone loves joe.

joe is thrilled, george is thrilled, and george’s family is just waiting for the wedding.

[samanthasroberts]

Kimbal Musk takes the tech entrepreneur ethos and applies it to food

The younger brother of Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, shares his same entrepreneurial spirit, but with a family of restaurants and a nonprofit to bring learning gardens to schools around the country

It can be tricky for anyone being the younger sibling, but imagine what it must be like to be the younger brother of Elon Musk, a businessman habitually referred to as a real life Tony Stark.

His reputation seems to get more outsized with each fresh headline. Just this week, the elder Musks company SpaceX filed paperwork asking for permission to use satellites to beam down Internet service from space. Meanwhile, his other high-profile company, Tesla, continues to make advances toward its ambition to make electric cars more ubiquitous. Then there is the fascination with colonizing Mars.

Kimbal Musk, 42, is a year younger than Elon and a very successful businessman and entrepreneur in his own right. But he admits the pair, who grew up in Pretoria, South Africa before moving to Canada to study and then the US, have a slightly different take on the world of business: We have similar views [though] his are stratospheric, while mine are more in the ground.

Food is a dominant theme in Kimbal Musks personal and business interests. He is a health-conscious chef, restaurant owner with his own sense of mission about subjects close to his heart: linking peoples food to their communities and tackling childhood obesity.

In an interview with the Guardian he speaks about his hopes for his food projects ��� and the inspiration he gets from his brother. The younger Musk, in addition to his work as a philanthropist, investor and entrepreneur, is a board member at Tesla, SpaceX, the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center and Chipotle Mexican Grill.

Ive always loved food, said Kimbal Musk, a co-founder of The Kitchen family of restaurants in Colorado and elsewhere, which make a point of sourcing from local farmers. Growing up, I cooked in the house, and when I cooked everyone would sit down and eat, and it was just kind of the way I connected with my family. I used to throw cooking parties in university. Everyone would come over sometimes youd just do a mac and cheese, but if you do that better than everyone else you can get people to come to you.

Kimbal Musk is gregarious and charming; his brother is intense and technical. Kimbal made millions working at a startup with Elon, and invested in his brothers biggest dreams along the way – and he is no less dogged about chasing a few of his own.

The differences between the things that give the brothers purpose are striking one Musk works to change the world through high-tech inventions, the other is most passionate about food, about teaching people to grow things and preparing meals that help people find a sense of community. Still, the younger Musk turns to a sports metaphor to explain how, different as they are, hes still learned plenty from his brother, whose business interests at times read like the pursuit of turning science fiction into reality.

When you think about basketball, and you watch someone like Michael Jordan play basketball even if youre a baseball player, theres still a lot to learn from there, Musk said. I really think about him more as my brother, to be quite honest. Its kind of a tough question to answer, because hes been so core to my life that its hard to describe specific things.

Elon clearly trusts his instincts, though, in light of the fact that, should he ever become incapacitated in some way, Kimbal is the SpaceX and Tesla trustee whod lead the task of figuring out what should happen with both companies.

Meanwhile, Kimbal has plenty of his own interests to keep him busy. He co-founded The Kitchen family of restaurants in Boulder in 2004, along with Jen Lewin and Hugo Matheson. It has eight restaurant locations today in Colorado as well as an out-of-town location, in Chicago. In addition to plans to expand in Chicago and Colorado, three new locations are on the drawing board for Memphis over the next couple of years.

The Kitchen actually refers to three related restaurant concepts. Theres The Kitchen, the organizations flagship community bistro, and The Kitchen Upstairs, a cocktail lounge with food prepared in a wood oven and artisan cocktails. Rounding out the list is The Kitchen Next Door, a community pub that serves things like burgers, salads, sandwiches, margaritas and beer.

For its Colorado-area restaurants, The Kitchen claims to source $1 million worth of product from local providers. In the Greater Denver area, The Kitchen serves 17,000 guests per week on average.

In 2011, Musk co-founded The Kitchen Community, a nonprofit that works to bring outdoor gardens Learning Gardens, as theyre called to schools around the country. Three years after its founding, the nonprofit had already built 200 such gardens in Chicago, Los Angeles and Colorado schools, reaching more than 120,000 children.

Its a different world entirely from the more fast-paced tech scene in which he once worked with Elon.

Their early partnership followed the younger Musks graduation from high school in Pretoria and decamping to Toronto to reconnect with his brother. Kimbal graduated from Queens College in 1995, the same year the brothers started the Web-based city guide platform Zip2, a venture which Compaq bought in 1999 for $307m. From there, the younger Musk began investing in tech companies, including Elons X.com, a payments venture eventually renamed as PayPal that eBay would snatch up for $1.5bn.

The brothers worlds diverged when Elon decided after some of his early successes to stay in the Golden State, while Kimbal moved to New York City and enrolled at the French Culinary Institute. He was there in 2001 during the terrorist attacks of September 11 and spent six weeks cooking for firefighters at Ground Zero, a formative moment for him.

My intent had been to go back to tech at some point, Musk said. Cooking for the firefighters, it was this just overwhelming sense of community that was created. Its impossible to describe how intense and awesome it was to see everyone doing that. It was simultaneously the best and worst thing that had ever happened to me to see 9/11 and be part of helping bring people together.

Doing that every day for 10-12 hours a day, six days a week, my brain couldnt go back to tech. I determined right there and then to open a restaurant.

He decided that it wouldnt be in New York, turned off somewhat by the intensity of the city. He instead traveled the country with his wife at the time and settled on Boulder, Colorado.

After Musk co-founded The Kitchen, the organization hummed along steadily for a few years. Then came a ski accident in 2010 that Musk calls a near death experience, one that left him hospitalized for months and helped crystallize his thinking about what would come next for him.

A restaurant, hed decided, could indeed be a positive force in its small corner of the world in things like the customers it touches, in the quality of ingredients it uses and in the care of preparation. But it couldnt really scale the ambition that drives so many entrepreneurs like the Musks, who crave big challenges, big wins.

After the accident, Musk said, I sort of got a new lease on life. I said I now have every excuse in the world to do what I want. And you know what? Im going to work on food culture and help food become fun and part of peoples lives again. The traditional restaurant is more commercial-oriented. But I want community through food.

That gave birth to his garden-focused nonprofit, which, when it comes to a new community, looks to plant 100 gardens at a time. The gardens are a combination play space and outdoor classroom that connect children to the process of growing food and give teachers an outlet for hands-on instruction. And The Kitchen Community raises $35,000 for each garden, a cost that includes everything from landscape design to site prep, while the finished garden can include things like internal irrigation, bench seating and curvilinear plant beds.

A mix of foundations and individual donors funds The Kitchen Communitys efforts across the states where its placed gardens. Today The Kitchen Community has more than 225 Learning Gardens in schools across Colorado, Chicago, Los Angeles and Memphis.

Tackling childhood obesity is a big motivation behind the gardens in schools.

When I look at the problem of obesity, its a depressing problem. So how do you create a solution that delights people? We came up with this design – my ex-wife, who Im still friends with, she knows how to create something where you go, Im so glad this is here. I really want to have this in my school. I want to learn here. The gardens, this is a product that really delights people.

In deciding where to take his garden concept next, geographically, Musk says the organization looks for cities that have foundations that can support a concept like this one. His team also looks at schools with districts amenable to the concept.

Not surprisingly, the level of support from one city to the next varies. If youre in a town like Boulder, he points out, theres not much foundation support from a problem like childhood obesity because its not a place where the problem of obesity is especially acute.

Meanwhile, gardens where children grow food while also learning about science, supporting local farmers and vendors, building operations that transform communities through food these are the among the things that occupy Musks mind, the things he wants to spend his money and time on. Innovation and purpose, to entrepreneurs like him, dont always have to involve gadgets and leaps in science sometimes it starts with a thing as mundane as the food we eat.

For me, I like to think in terms of three months out and 50 years out, Musk said. Three months out is what to do now, 50 years out is what Id like to do before Im dead.

If I look back and see specific communities where I made a difference using food, I will pass very peacefully.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/06/23/kimbal-musk-takes-the-tech-entrepreneur-ethos-and-applies-it-to-food/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/06/23/kimbal-musk-takes-the-tech-entrepreneur-ethos-and-applies-it-to-food/

[jimdsmith34]

Kimbal Musk takes the tech entrepreneur ethos and applies it to food

The younger brother of Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, shares his same entrepreneurial spirit, but with a family of restaurants and a nonprofit to bring learning gardens to schools around the country

It can be tricky for anyone being the younger sibling, but imagine what it must be like to be the younger brother of Elon Musk, a businessman habitually referred to as a real life Tony Stark.

His reputation seems to get more outsized with each fresh headline. Just this week, the elder Musks company SpaceX filed paperwork asking for permission to use satellites to beam down Internet service from space. Meanwhile, his other high-profile company, Tesla, continues to make advances toward its ambition to make electric cars more ubiquitous. Then there is the fascination with colonizing Mars.

Kimbal Musk, 42, is a year younger than Elon and a very successful businessman and entrepreneur in his own right. But he admits the pair, who grew up in Pretoria, South Africa before moving to Canada to study and then the US, have a slightly different take on the world of business: We have similar views [though] his are stratospheric, while mine are more in the ground.

Food is a dominant theme in Kimbal Musks personal and business interests. He is a health-conscious chef, restaurant owner with his own sense of mission about subjects close to his heart: linking peoples food to their communities and tackling childhood obesity.

In an interview with the Guardian he speaks about his hopes for his food projects – and the inspiration he gets from his brother. The younger Musk, in addition to his work as a philanthropist, investor and entrepreneur, is a board member at Tesla, SpaceX, the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center and Chipotle Mexican Grill.

Ive always loved food, said Kimbal Musk, a co-founder of The Kitchen family of restaurants in Colorado and elsewhere, which make a point of sourcing from local farmers. Growing up, I cooked in the house, and when I cooked everyone would sit down and eat, and it was just kind of the way I connected with my family. I used to throw cooking parties in university. Everyone would come over sometimes youd just do a mac and cheese, but if you do that better than everyone else you can get people to come to you.

Kimbal Musk is gregarious and charming; his brother is intense and technical. Kimbal made millions working at a startup with Elon, and invested in his brothers biggest dreams along the way – and he is no less dogged about chasing a few of his own.

The differences between the things that give the brothers purpose are striking one Musk works to change the world through high-tech inventions, the other is most passionate about food, about teaching people to grow things and preparing meals that help people find a sense of community. Still, the younger Musk turns to a sports metaphor to explain how, different as they are, hes still learned plenty from his brother, whose business interests at times read like the pursuit of turning science fiction into reality.

When you think about basketball, and you watch someone like Michael Jordan play basketball even if youre a baseball player, theres still a lot to learn from there, Musk said. I really think about him more as my brother, to be quite honest. Its kind of a tough question to answer, because hes been so core to my life that its hard to describe specific things.

Elon clearly trusts his instincts, though, in light of the fact that, should he ever become incapacitated in some way, Kimbal is the SpaceX and Tesla trustee whod lead the task of figuring out what should happen with both companies.

Meanwhile, Kimbal has plenty of his own interests to keep him busy. He co-founded The Kitchen family of restaurants in Boulder in 2004, along with Jen Lewin and Hugo Matheson. It has eight restaurant locations today in Colorado as well as an out-of-town location, in Chicago. In addition to plans to expand in Chicago and Colorado, three new locations are on the drawing board for Memphis over the next couple of years.

The Kitchen actually refers to three related restaurant concepts. Theres The Kitchen, the organizations flagship community bistro, and The Kitchen Upstairs, a cocktail lounge with food prepared in a wood oven and artisan cocktails. Rounding out the list is The Kitchen Next Door, a community pub that serves things like burgers, salads, sandwiches, margaritas and beer.

For its Colorado-area restaurants, The Kitchen claims to source $1 million worth of product from local providers. In the Greater Denver area, The Kitchen serves 17,000 guests per week on average.

In 2011, Musk co-founded The Kitchen Community, a nonprofit that works to bring outdoor gardens Learning Gardens, as theyre called to schools around the country. Three years after its founding, the nonprofit had already built 200 such gardens in Chicago, Los Angeles and Colorado schools, reaching more than 120,000 children.

Its a different world entirely from the more fast-paced tech scene in which he once worked with Elon.

Their early partnership followed the younger Musks graduation from high school in Pretoria and decamping to Toronto to reconnect with his brother. Kimbal graduated from Queens College in 1995, the same year the brothers started the Web-based city guide platform Zip2, a venture which Compaq bought in 1999 for $307m. From there, the younger Musk began investing in tech companies, including Elons X.com, a payments venture eventually renamed as PayPal that eBay would snatch up for $1.5bn.

The brothers worlds diverged when Elon decided after some of his early successes to stay in the Golden State, while Kimbal moved to New York City and enrolled at the French Culinary Institute. He was there in 2001 during the terrorist attacks of September 11 and spent six weeks cooking for firefighters at Ground Zero, a formative moment for him.

My intent had been to go back to tech at some point, Musk said. Cooking for the firefighters, it was this just overwhelming sense of community that was created. Its impossible to describe how intense and awesome it was to see everyone doing that. It was simultaneously the best and worst thing that had ever happened to me to see 9/11 and be part of helping bring people together.

Doing that every day for 10-12 hours a day, six days a week, my brain couldnt go back to tech. I determined right there and then to open a restaurant.

He decided that it wouldnt be in New York, turned off somewhat by the intensity of the city. He instead traveled the country with his wife at the time and settled on Boulder, Colorado.

After Musk co-founded The Kitchen, the organization hummed along steadily for a few years. Then came a ski accident in 2010 that Musk calls a near death experience, one that left him hospitalized for months and helped crystallize his thinking about what would come next for him.

A restaurant, hed decided, could indeed be a positive force in its small corner of the world in things like the customers it touches, in the quality of ingredients it uses and in the care of preparation. But it couldnt really scale the ambition that drives so many entrepreneurs like the Musks, who crave big challenges, big wins.

After the accident, Musk said, I sort of got a new lease on life. I said I now have every excuse in the world to do what I want. And you know what? Im going to work on food culture and help food become fun and part of peoples lives again. The traditional restaurant is more commercial-oriented. But I want community through food.

That gave birth to his garden-focused nonprofit, which, when it comes to a new community, looks to plant 100 gardens at a time. The gardens are a combination play space and outdoor classroom that connect children to the process of growing food and give teachers an outlet for hands-on instruction. And The Kitchen Community raises $35,000 for each garden, a cost that includes everything from landscape design to site prep, while the finished garden can include things like internal irrigation, bench seating and curvilinear plant beds.

A mix of foundations and individual donors funds The Kitchen Communitys efforts across the states where its placed gardens. Today The Kitchen Community has more than 225 Learning Gardens in schools across Colorado, Chicago, Los Angeles and Memphis.

Tackling childhood obesity is a big motivation behind the gardens in schools.

When I look at the problem of obesity, its a depressing problem. So how do you create a solution that delights people? We came up with this design – my ex-wife, who Im still friends with, she knows how to create something where you go, Im so glad this is here. I really want to have this in my school. I want to learn here. The gardens, this is a product that really delights people.

In deciding where to take his garden concept next, geographically, Musk says the organization looks for cities that have foundations that can support a concept like this one. His team also looks at schools with districts amenable to the concept.

Not surprisingly, the level of support from one city to the next varies. If youre in a town like Boulder, he points out, theres not much foundation support from a problem like childhood obesity because its not a place where the problem of obesity is especially acute.

Meanwhile, gardens where children grow food while also learning about science, supporting local farmers and vendors, building operations that transform communities through food these are the among the things that occupy Musks mind, the things he wants to spend his money and time on. Innovation and purpose, to entrepreneurs like him, dont always have to involve gadgets and leaps in science sometimes it starts with a thing as mundane as the food we eat.

For me, I like to think in terms of three months out and 50 years out, Musk said. Three months out is what to do now, 50 years out is what Id like to do before Im dead.

If I look back and see specific communities where I made a difference using food, I will pass very peacefully.

source http://allofbeer.com/2017/06/23/kimbal-musk-takes-the-tech-entrepreneur-ethos-and-applies-it-to-food/ from All of Beer http://allofbeer.blogspot.com/2017/06/kimbal-musk-takes-tech-entrepreneur.html

[allofbeercom]

Kimbal Musk takes the tech entrepreneur ethos and applies it to food

The younger brother of Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, shares his same entrepreneurial spirit, but with a family of restaurants and a nonprofit to bring learning gardens to schools around the country

It can be tricky for anyone being the younger sibling, but imagine what it must be like to be the younger brother of Elon Musk, a businessman habitually referred to as a real life Tony Stark.

His reputation seems to get more outsized with each fresh headline. Just this week, the elder Musks company SpaceX filed paperwork asking for permission to use satellites to beam down Internet service from space. Meanwhile, his other high-profile company, Tesla, continues to make advances toward its ambition to make electric cars more ubiquitous. Then there is the fascination with colonizing Mars.

Kimbal Musk, 42, is a year younger than Elon and a very successful businessman and entrepreneur in his own right. But he admits the pair, who grew up in Pretoria, South Africa before moving to Canada to study and then the US, have a slightly different take on the world of business: We have similar views [though] his are stratospheric, while mine are more in the ground.

Food is a dominant theme in Kimbal Musks personal and business interests. He is a health-conscious chef, restaurant owner with his own sense of mission about subjects close to his heart: linking peoples food to their communities and tackling childhood obesity.

In an interview with the Guardian he speaks about his hopes for his food projects – and the inspiration he gets from his brother. The younger Musk, in addition to his work as a philanthropist, investor and entrepreneur, is a board member at Tesla, SpaceX, the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center and Chipotle Mexican Grill.

Ive always loved food, said Kimbal Musk, a co-founder of The Kitchen family of restaurants in Colorado and elsewhere, which make a point of sourcing from local farmers. Growing up, I cooked in the house, and when I cooked everyone would sit down and eat, and it was just kind of the way I connected with my family. I used to throw cooking parties in university. Everyone would come over sometimes youd just do a mac and cheese, but if you do that better than everyone else you can get people to come to you.

Kimbal Musk is gregarious and charming; his brother is intense and technical. Kimbal made millions working at a startup with Elon, and invested in his brothers biggest dreams along the way – and he is no less dogged about chasing a few of his own.

The differences between the things that give the brothers purpose are striking one Musk works to change the world through high-tech inventions, the other is most passionate about food, about teaching people to grow things and preparing meals that help people find a sense of community. Still, the younger Musk turns to a sports metaphor to explain how, different as they are, hes still learned plenty from his brother, whose business interests at times read like the pursuit of turning science fiction into reality.

When you think about basketball, and you watch someone like Michael Jordan play basketball even if youre a baseball player, theres still a lot to learn from there, Musk said. I really think about him more as my brother, to be quite honest. Its kind of a tough question to answer, because hes been so core to my life that its hard to describe specific things.

Elon clearly trusts his instincts, though, in light of the fact that, should he ever become incapacitated in some way, Kimbal is the SpaceX and Tesla trustee whod lead the task of figuring out what should happen with both companies.

Meanwhile, Kimbal has plenty of his own interests to keep him busy. He co-founded The Kitchen family of restaurants in Boulder in 2004, along with Jen Lewin and Hugo Matheson. It has eight restaurant locations today in Colorado as well as an out-of-town location, in Chicago. In addition to plans to expand in Chicago and Colorado, three new locations are on the drawing board for Memphis over the next couple of years.

The Kitchen actually refers to three related restaurant concepts. Theres The Kitchen, the organizations flagship community bistro, and The Kitchen Upstairs, a cocktail lounge with food prepared in a wood oven and artisan cocktails. Rounding out the list is The Kitchen Next Door, a community pub that serves things like burgers, salads, sandwiches, margaritas and beer.

For its Colorado-area restaurants, The Kitchen claims to source $1 million worth of product from local providers. In the Greater Denver area, The Kitchen serves 17,000 guests per week on average.

In 2011, Musk co-founded The Kitchen Community, a nonprofit that works to bring outdoor gardens Learning Gardens, as theyre called to schools around the country. Three years after its founding, the nonprofit had already built 200 such gardens in Chicago, Los Angeles and Colorado schools, reaching more than 120,000 children.

Its a different world entirely from the more fast-paced tech scene in which he once worked with Elon.

Their early partnership followed the younger Musks graduation from high school in Pretoria and decamping to Toronto to reconnect with his brother. Kimbal graduated from Queens College in 1995, the same year the brothers started the Web-based city guide platform Zip2, a venture which Compaq bought in 1999 for $307m. From there, the younger Musk began investing in tech companies, including Elons X.com, a payments venture eventually renamed as PayPal that eBay would snatch up for $1.5bn.

The brothers worlds diverged when Elon decided after some of his early successes to stay in the Golden State, while Kimbal moved to New York City and enrolled at the French Culinary Institute. He was there in 2001 during the terrorist attacks of September 11 and spent six weeks cooking for firefighters at Ground Zero, a formative moment for him.

My intent had been to go back to tech at some point, Musk said. Cooking for the firefighters, it was this just overwhelming sense of community that was created. Its impossible to describe how intense and awesome it was to see everyone doing that. It was simultaneously the best and worst thing that had ever happened to me to see 9/11 and be part of helping bring people together.

Doing that every day for 10-12 hours a day, six days a week, my brain couldnt go back to tech. I determined right there and then to open a restaurant.

He decided that it wouldnt be in New York, turned off somewhat by the intensity of the city. He instead traveled the country with his wife at the time and settled on Boulder, Colorado.

After Musk co-founded The Kitchen, the organization hummed along steadily for a few years. Then came a ski accident in 2010 that Musk calls a near death experience, one that left him hospitalized for months and helped crystallize his thinking about what would come next for him.

A restaurant, hed decided, could indeed be a positive force in its small corner of the world in things like the customers it touches, in the quality of ingredients it uses and in the care of preparation. But it couldnt really scale the ambition that drives so many entrepreneurs like the Musks, who crave big challenges, big wins.

After the accident, Musk said, I sort of got a new lease on life. I said I now have every excuse in the world to do what I want. And you know what? Im going to work on food culture and help food become fun and part of peoples lives again. The traditional restaurant is more commercial-oriented. But I want community through food.

That gave birth to his garden-focused nonprofit, which, when it comes to a new community, looks to plant 100 gardens at a time. The gardens are a combination play space and outdoor classroom that connect children to the process of growing food and give teachers an outlet for hands-on instruction. And The Kitchen Community raises $35,000 for each garden, a cost that includes everything from landscape design to site prep, while the finished garden can include things like internal irrigation, bench seating and curvilinear plant beds.

A mix of foundations and individual donors funds The Kitchen Communitys efforts across the states where its placed gardens. Today The Kitchen Community has more than 225 Learning Gardens in schools across Colorado, Chicago, Los Angeles and Memphis.

Tackling childhood obesity is a big motivation behind the gardens in schools.

When I look at the problem of obesity, its a depressing problem. So how do you create a solution that delights people? We came up with this design – my ex-wife, who Im still friends with, she knows how to create something where you go, Im so glad this is here. I really want to have this in my school. I want to learn here. The gardens, this is a product that really delights people.

In deciding where to take his garden concept next, geographically, Musk says the organization looks for cities that have foundations that can support a concept like this one. His team also looks at schools with districts amenable to the concept.

Not surprisingly, the level of support from one city to the next varies. If youre in a town like Boulder, he points out, theres not much foundation support from a problem like childhood obesity because its not a place where the problem of obesity is especially acute.

Meanwhile, gardens where children grow food while also learning about science, supporting local farmers and vendors, building operations that transform communities through food these are the among the things that occupy Musks mind, the things he wants to spend his money and time on. Innovation and purpose, to entrepreneurs like him, dont always have to involve gadgets and leaps in science sometimes it starts with a thing as mundane as the food we eat.

For me, I like to think in terms of three months out and 50 years out, Musk said. Three months out is what to do now, 50 years out is what Id like to do before Im dead.

If I look back and see specific communities where I made a difference using food, I will pass very peacefully.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/06/23/kimbal-musk-takes-the-tech-entrepreneur-ethos-and-applies-it-to-food/