Jessica is a member of Mt. View’s Cross Country and Track teams, and she has placed 3rd in the State Cross Country competition and 26th in Nationals for Jr. Olympics. When asked why she decided to run to raise money, she replied that, “In this economy I didn’t want to go door to door asking for money, I wanted to do something I know I do well.”

Her mother described her as “a kid with real mental toughness. She doesn’t even realize what she’s doing! She’s running ultra marathon distances. She wants to run 100 miles at some point!”

Here’s to Jessica and kids like her who set their sights high, help others along the way, and accomplish what they set out to do!

She doesn’t work behind the bar at thump, but she is always behind the scenes, keeping our thumpistas happy with special treats and making sure the performance on stage is beautiful and tastey! Janet has been a member of thump’s family since the beginning, brainstorming with me (Hazel) on a regular basis about seasonal baked goods to fill our case, and providing amazing spreads of cakes, cookies, cupcakes and chocolates for various Art Hops and private parties here at thump. (See images.)

A talented specialty cake baker by day, Janet’s The Bittersweet Kitchen also provides thump’s cupcakes, bars, coffeecakes, sweet breads, and specialty cookies. We’re so fortunate to have this exclusive relationship with The Bittersweet Kitchen!

Janet remembers baking in grade school, before learning how to cook anything else. “Nothing was hard,” she said. “You know how they say making a pie crust is hard? I didn’t know that.” She grew up eating very seasonally, as her grandmother’s farm was bountiful with varieties of apples, plums, cherries, pears, loganberries, raspberries, blackberries, filberts, and walnuts.

“A lot was going on in the kitchen, canning fruit, feeding and nurturing people.” And she continues to do that! Last week, she brought a berry tart baked in a shortbread crust for our thumpistas. Juicy, tart, in a delicious crust!

The Bittersweet Kitchen’s chocolate cake with praline espresso buttercream, draped in ganache with sugar tile accents, won “Best Use of Unique Ingredients” in the 2009 Tour de Chocolat at the Tour Theater. For the 2010 Tour de Chocolat, look for the Bittersweet Kitchen’s “Love of Oregon” cake, using ingredients originating from Oregon. The “Love of Oregon” is a chocolate fudge cake, dressed in ganache with Swiss meringue vanilla buttercream, and chocolate French buttercream. Janet shared, “I love the decoration of cakes. But it’s all about how it tastes first; it’s not just about the appearance. The taste and the beauty meet each other.”

Though The Bittersweet Kitchen specializes in truly gourmet — and sometimes whimsical — cakes for weddings, special events and parties, Janet loves the relationship she has developed at thump, as do we. “I want to work where it feels good and I’m treated well. You guys take care of my baked goods. To me it’s not just a banana bread I’ve baked 200 times. It’s REALLY good! And I appreciate the certain niche of quality that exists at thump.” And from our point of view, though we’ve served hundreds of slices of her banana bread, we appreciate that they have been made by hand, with the finest ingredients, only for thump customers.

Desserts from the Bittersweet Kitchen will be offered at thump during the Spring Art Hop, Fri. 4/2. Come join us and meet Janet! To learn more about the Bittersweet Kitchen, visit the website, or search “The Bittersweet Kitchen” on Facebook.

Poet House & CADA/CASA (next door to Thump, above the Wine Shop): Slam poetry and the art of hip-hop, stencil graffiti, silk screening and t- shirt design, art movements and technique, and more are being offered to high school students across Central Oregon by CADA/CASA, a community education project. Currently, they have students interested in taking these classes who do not have the financial means. Please visit the CADA/CASA website to learn how you can become a sponsor.

Dudley’s Bookshop Café & The Nature of Words (135 NW Minnesota Ave.): The Storefront Project is a new program that provides free drop-in creative writing workshops and one-on-one writing and language arts tutoring for middle- and high-school students. It aims to appeal to all segments of young writers, including traditional and alternative school students, home schoolers, homeless students, and everyone who is interested in developing creative writing skills. Students can drop in any time and participate in a workshop on Mondays or Thursdays between 3:30 and 4:30 p.m. Individual tutoring is available after the workshops.

For details and to make a donation, please visit the Nature of Words website.

The Bend Bulletin recently reported on the Storefront Project. (Note: You will need an online Bulletin subscription to read the full article).

Here’s the insider’s view, written by Scotty Carlile:

DAMIAN AND SCOTTY’S SUPER FUN CYCLOCROSS TEAM

Just as you deal with the constant changes in weather, conditions, mental and physical challenges throughout a cyclocross race, we, Damian Schmitt and Scotty Carlile (of Damian and Scotty’s Super-Fun Cyclocross Team) have faced our own challenges throughout the 2009 cyclocross season. It seems as though every year there is this carrot dangling out in front of you, this almost dream-like vision of how your season will go, and you believe it, you live it, you train for it, and then . . . life happens.

The 2009 cyclocross season has started off just as any other ‘cross season usually starts for us, mentally mapping out how we won’t procrastinate this year, how we’ll be super-fit come October-December, and how we will give ourselves enough time to train, rest, and recover. Why is it that you can convince yourself of just about anything?

This season has brought us, and myself specifically, all throughout the Northwest covering all of the major cyclocross races with my part-time job, working for Visit Bend. I work as an independent contractor with them, hired out to travel to the pertinent ‘cross races and help promote, market, and simply be a smiling face representing the 2009/2010 Cyclocross Nationals, to be hosted here in beautiful Bend, OR.

This job has me either leaving most Friday nights (after I get off a full-time week at Jackson’s Corner) or up well before the sun to make it to whichever city is hosting the ‘cross race of the week. I set-up a 10′x10′ booth, talk to friendly folks and racers-alike about lodging, the venue, local restaurants and coffee spots (thump!) and field the inevitable question, “What will the weather be like in December?” I usually answer, “Well, it could be snowing and 5 degrees out, or it could be perfectly sunny and 45, but I can tell you one thing for certain . . . it won’t be raining.”

Although I always view life as being a glass half-full, we have definitely faced our fair share of challenges this season. Myself, I’ve had my cherished limited-edition Oakley’s stolen from my booth, then two-weeks later my almost $8000 race bike ripped off at the Single-Speed World Championships, then just this last week it took me over 11-hours to make it from Portland back to Bend, with the last 65-miles of that trip sitting inside of a tow-truck.

Damian has had numerous flats, mechanical issues, his own car troubles, being broken down in the middle of I-5, and traveling out to the East Coast last minute, only to have his legs not comply with his ambitions. I think it’s safe to say that we’re both almost completely broke every week, truly living paycheck-to-paycheck, fighting colds, almost two-and-a-half months without a single day off, and trying to manage happy and successful relationships with our friends, families, and girlfriends, and, oh yeah . . . we still try to find time in the day to ride our bikes (which most of the time means us getting in our interval workouts on the trainer at 11 o’clock at night). We also decided to undertake putting on several different events during the week of ‘cross nationals, one being hosted at Thump Coffee, the rest you can find on bendcyclingevents.com.

Why on earth would anyone want to put themselves through all of this for one hour in mud, rain, muck, pain, mechanical, physical, and mental obstacles, not to mention the actual obstacles in the form of “barriers” that we have to overtake each week?

Because we’re absolutely in love with the feeling we get when we’re connected to our bicycles. It keeps our blood-flowing, our minds active and alert, our lungs contracting and expanding, and most importantly, our dreams alive.  See, I realize personally that I’m only Scotty Carlile, but in my mind, I’m up there with the ranks of Sven Nys, Niels Albert, and Lars Boom. My body might be in Bend, OR, but my heart and soul reside somewhere in Belgium, I’m pretty sure.

We want to thank Thump Coffee for keeping the dream-alive. Another season almost completed, and guess what, we’re not giving up the fight that easy. Remember to check out the Cyclocross Nationals here in Bend (December 10-13), and witness firsthand all of the hard work, time, money, determination, motivation, pain, sweat, mud and tears all burned-up in one-hour of racing, which some call an hour in hell. Whatever you call it, this is why we do what we do, we love cyclocross.

Conversation 1: Ashley & Briana Volunteer with Earthship Biotecture, Alternative, Sustainable Home Building

Following is Ashley’s recollections about her journey with Briana:

A couple of years back on a beautiful summer evening, Briana and I lazed about in a puddle of ideas of how we could bring about positive and active change to our community and earth. Upon this eve, the concept of earthships was brought to our attention.

The title for these remarkable structures in itself was enough to draw in our interest and leave us with a hunger to know more. For those that are not familiar, an earthship is a completely independent and globally oriented dwelling unit, composed of materials that are indigenous to the entire planet; using byproducts of our modern society such as cans, bottles, and tires. The model of an earthship has been designed over the past 40 years to reduce planetary impact and increase our connection to it. The design of these homes is to be mostly self sustainable, heating and cooling themselves using thermal and solar dynamics, collecting there own power from the sun and wind, containing and treating their own sewage on site, producing food with a front end south facing greenhouse, and harvesting their own water from rain and snow melt.

When I returned from India in 2008, I decided to apply for an internship with the company Earthship Biotecture (as well as did hundreds of other people), but instead I was presented with a beautiful volunteer opportunity in Montana.

Fast forward to the summer of 2009, and Briana and I were Earthship bound. We started our trip to Miles City, Montana filled with renewed purpose and a strong desire to soak up as much knowledge as possible about these beautiful structures. Three states later we arrived in Miles City a tad bit delirious and just in time for the sun to disappear, and our bodies to rest among the grass and soothing sounds of crickets chirping. The next morning we set out for the job site and got to work.

The earthship team (a gaggle of amazing and inspiring people) had been in Miles city for two months and were in the final stages of the structures completion. To be able to learn about the ins and outs of one option of sustainable building, and to get our hands dirty while putting in some sweat and laugh time, was a dream come true for Briana and I. While we were sanding and carefully crafting mud walls, a pilot for a proposed series to air on Discovery channel was being filmed, providing us with the opportunity of a three-on-one interview with the brains behind the operation, Mike Reynolds.

Like kids in a candy store we were sure to ask question upon question, solidifying our belief in these structures as a personally empowering way to change one’s life and reduce personal effect on global warming. A week of hard work was not nearly enough for the both of us, but given life timing it was all we had, and our gratitude for the experience holds strong to this day.

The goal for this adventure was to expose ourselves to an out-of-the-box concept and to further our knowledge and awareness, while acquiring a new skill set that can be applied directly in our personal lives and  towards the positive growth of our community. With the understanding that we had only just begun to learn about and experience the benefits of these dwellings, we parted ways with the earthship team and headed out for a homestead in North Dakota to enjoy the simplicity of farm life before making our way home to beautiful  Oregon.

What we will do with our newly gained experience still remains to be determined. Nonetheless, we move forward inspired, having added to our tool belts, further feeding into our desire to cultivate ways to live a sustainable life, that not only is minimal impact but can also give back to a world that provides us with so many amazing blessings.

To learn more about earthships you can visit their website www.earthship.net or look them up on facebook.

These two are particularly psyched to be involved in the upcoming National Cyclocross Championships that will be held here in Bend from Dec. 10-13.  Damian describes cyclocross as “… the Steeplechase of mountain bike racing… with a course consisting of dirt, pavement, natural and manmade barriers and run ups too steep to ride, requiring the cyclists to get off their bikes to run up and over.”  Since the course is a ½ – 2 mile loop, it’s a great spectator sport.   Damian added, “If you thought the summer Cascade Classic downtown criterion was fun to watch, you’ll be blown away by cyclocross! Dress for the weather, bring a cow bell, eat fries and Belgian waffles, drink a beer and watch the race!”

Scotty is working for Visit Bend to promote the National Cyclocross Championships and is planning related events for visiting cyclists and the Bend community the week of the races.  Tune in next month for an update on these events, including a bike themed art walk in downtown Bend in which Thump is participating.

The National Cyclocross Championships will be held in the Old Mill District Dec. 10-13.  Go to: www.visitbend.com for event details. To learn more about the adventures of “Damian and Scotty’s Super Fun Cyclocross Team”,  search for their site on Facebook and look for their upcoming website, www.bendcyclingevents.com (soon to be live).

ceramic travel cup - thump it up!

We looked high, low, near and far to find the perfect thump commuter cup. Not only does it look just like our paper to-go cups, but the double-walled porcelain also provides great insulation so the coffee flavor isn’t affected by quick cooling. Plus, porcelain doesn’t leave a taste like plastic or stainless steel. The silicone lid contains no petroleum and withstands high temperatures from dishwashers without degrading.