Speech text from Miraverse Power & Light Solar Double-Cropping Ribbon-cutting

North Carolina is a great place to grow.  Our family moved here when the growing company I started in Silicon Valley back in 1989 was bought by a faster-growing company here in North Carolina, Red Hat.  North Carolina is home to a great community of innovators, and today we are proud to stand with many of them as we unveil what has truly been a community effort.

When I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma in 2006, I realized that the question “what should we eat for dinner?” had life-changing implications.  We are what we eat.  But as a society, we also decide what we grow, how we grow it, how it comes to market, and at what price.  In 1903, commercial seed houses offered 288 varieties of beets; by 1983 the choice is down to 17.  From 544 types of cabbage, we’re down to 28.  From 307 types of sweet corn, we’re down to 12.  Our dinner-time choices are a function of many choices made before we were even born.  The Omnivore’s Dilemma teaches that when the question “what can we do?” becomes too limiting, the question of what should we do becomes all the more urgent.  And not just when it comes to food.

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Speech text from the grand opening of Manifold Recording and The Miraverse

He set his mind to work on unknown arts and thereby changes the laws of nature – Ovid, Metamorphoses

Welcome, and thank you for coming to the grand opening of Manifold Recording and The Miraverse!  Some years ago Amy posted a little quote on my side of the mirror we share in our bathroom that reads “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished; that will be the beginning.”  After five years of planning and construction, we have realized a dream, a dream that is now so real you can see it, you can touch it, you can enter it. You are welcome to do so-once we cut the ribbon.

Today we want to share with you an even bigger dream, the one that begins today.  This dream cannot be built with concrete and steel, but it can be realized the old-fashioned way: with magic.

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