Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Eco Adventure's "After A While, Crocodile: Alexa's Diary" Book Launch

It's not your typical Friday night when you can get all of this in one fell swoop:

  • Book signings
  • Bonfires warming
  • Face Paintings
  • Gator Holdings
  • Reticulated Python sightings
  • Reptile handling
  • Arts, and crafts galore, and more
But it is what you get when you go to EcoAdventures on a book launch eve of the book After A While Crocodile: Alexa's Diary by Dr. Brady Barr & Jennifer Keats Curtis.

The book follows Alexa in her school in Costa Rica, where she and her classmates are raising American Crocodiles.  She notes her crocodile's growth in her diary, and before you know it, it's time to return her guy Jefe back to the wild.

The two co-authors are infamous in their own rights. Dr. Brady Barr is known as a reptile expert (that's a "herpetologist" to you and me) and host to over 100 wildlife documentaries for National Geographic Television. He's a regular contributor to National Geographic Kids Magazine. Jennifer Keats Curtis is an environmental author of 18 children's books, many of which are on wildlife rescue. In addition to being passionate about animals and conservation, Jennifer is an amazing environmental educator (and Marylander) who also was a regular addition to our Eagle Cove Earth Week as an author in residence each year.  

EcoAdventures is the perfect place for this type of evening...especially when the Executive Director is Mei Len Sanchez-Barr...who is married to EcoAdventures' Public Relations guy and Animal Expert, Dr. Brady Barr!

Brady and Jennifer were on hand for autographs... as was Alexa! For me, meeting them was the highlight. However for the under-10 crowd that night, it could have been more about being around some really cool reptiles, getting faces painted, and a slew of other hands-on, memorable events.

After A While Crocodile: Alexa's Diary is a great book to round out your reptilian study.  Likewise, these are just a click away:





Eco Adventure logo from http://www.ecoadventures.org; all other pictures from my camera from the Book Launching event Novemenber 18, 2016.

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Post-Feathered Feasting: Chef Ann Thanks Michelle Obama: Gratitude #4

Coming off the Thanksgiving holiday, many of us are still enmeshed in leftovers of the day: turkey sandwiches, leftover potatoes (mashed, sweet, or otherwise), and pie slices for breakfast.  (Unless it's my house, where the pie plate deceptively was left out, yet erroneously empty! Curses you felonious children of mine!)

Food is still on many of our minds.

Given that, and the fact that I'm still chuckling over President Obama's puns and pardons of both Tater and Tot, the flight to freedom of the White House Turkeys, I'm struck by another moment of gratitude this Thanksgiving season. That is the one from Chef Ann Cooper's toast to Michelle Obama and all of the strides the current First Lady has made these 8 years on behalf of health and wellness for our children.

In case you don't know who Chef Ann is, she's become the National Renegade Lunch Lady, on a mission to get healthy foods in our schools, for our kids.



Making enormous leaps in school lunches since 1999, Chef Ann certainly pays some of the tributes to Michelle Obama and her legacy.  Some of the things she highlights that we should all be thankful to our First Lady include:
From that toast, in Chef Ann's own words:
"None of this could have been accomplished without Michelle Obama's tireless dedication to childhood health. She's one of my heroes – she's a truly amazing advocate, a strong voice with true leadership and, as we've seen on numerous occasions, a powerful speaker. I'd like us all to raise a glass and toast the first lady. May we all support and grow the work that she began and forge partnerships with the new administration to further the health of our nation's children."
Cheers indeed!


#Wrong photo from my camera, using the LiPix app; Let's Move! logo from http://www.letsmove.gov; Video from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN0Rs14YJws

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Giving & Thanking This Thanksgiving: Gratitude Part 3

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. A time for family, friends, feasts, gratitude and giving... and a day off of work (if not a few) for a little rest and relaxation. A myriad of things to make people happy.

Here's a lovely list of things to be thankful for and ways to give back to all
    1. Give food to shelters
    2. Compost
    3. Minimize your transportation costs if possible
    4. Reduce, reuse, recycle
    5. Go organic when possible 
  • Remember the homeless and do what you can to help. That might mean donating to a shelter, or even serving food at a soup kitchen. 
  • Remember that holidays are not always happy times for all.  Remember those who have family far away or who have passed. Remember our military who are fighting overseas, separated from their loved ones. Send them a note, an email, drop by a meal, or share some times with them. A simple hug goes a long way.
  • Donate time where you can or make charitable donations for a cause you believe in.
For some past thoughts on this heartfelt holiday, visit some of my GTG posts from Tgiving past.


Header created using Canva. Rhanksgiving Blessing image created using PicCollage.

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Out in Nature & Being Sure To #OptOutside This Black Friday: Gratitude Part 2

A weekend or 2 ago, one of the things I most wanted to do was go hiking with my family. So we did. And there is photographic proof of it. One of my favorite things about this picture is that the background of the collage is an another photo from the day--the amazingly brilliant oranges and golden hues of the season.

Walking meditations while outside, soaking in the beauty of autumn, is something to totally be thankful for.

Another thing to be thankful for: REI and their second annual invitation to #OptOutside. The gist of the campaign: REI is purposely, pointedly closing (both in stores and online) on the day after Thanksgiving (traditionally known as Black Friday--shopping, sales galore and more). Their philosophy (not to mention the whole brand of their store) is to get people outside, embracing nature, and bringing out everyone's best. So, all 149 stores are closed Black Friday, and their 12,287 employees get a paid day off.


Last year, 170 companies did the same.  This year... 475 companies are on board to do the same thing, so REI isn't going it alone.  Add in, National Parks from 22 states are offering free admission to further encourage people to get out there and enjoy nature.

Added bonus in opting outdoors... time unplugged. If you are outside, you can't get sucked into the vortex of social media and the likes of Facebook. It's a total escape from the media blitz and bad news of present day politics. If you are out and about, moving and grooving and in the moment, you can't be reading from the phone in the palm of your hand or from the screen upon your lap. Plus, sitting and being sedentary is the new smoking & peril of our time. Being out, and really one with nature and viewing is a beautiful, wonderful thing.
"As a nation we're still spending over 90 percent of our lives indoors and it's a trend we need to tackle," said REI CEO Jerry Stritzke in a statement. "The moment we announced our decision last year, people who build their lives around the outdoors really embraced the idea of reclaiming Black Friday. It took on a life of its own and became about much more than REI."
At this writing, more than 2 million people have opted in to #OptOutside.  Will you? For an activity finder, check out their website. For some inspiration, check out their gallery.


Video from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMsxrJeJ8lU
"Will You Go Out With Me" pic http://blog.rei.com/news/optoutside-will-you-go-out-with-us/; other photos from our outdoor adventures.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Amidst the Noise: Embracing an Attitude of Gratitude

As I post this, we are 8 days past the United States election.  As we have already examined, the United States is knee-deep in a myriad of emotions.

By the time I got to the election, I was so eager for it to be D-O-N-E, Done!
And as time marches on, so it is ...done.

In the wake and aftermath of the extremist numskulls who are showing up, we are soooo no where near done.  There is still a lot of work that needs to be done: to build, to reunite, to go forward, to continue making strides where we last were (as in with the environment).

But for now, I want and need to put that aside! I need a break.
I think many of us do.

So I give you a gift. The gift of reflection. View this as Part 1 of a 3-part series, here in the week between now and Thanksgiving. (You know the one...where we show "thanks" and "giving" to anyone we've encountered along the way.)  In much of what I read, listen to, and gravitate toward, gratitude is the answer to our ills. Moreso, with Thanksgiving right here around the corner: it's a season of changing our attitudes.

A very good place to start would be here, with the DatingDivas.com blog post about Thanksgiving Random Acts of kindness.  For a great printable list from them, click here.

My personal favorites:
  • Send a "just because" card or email to someone you care about.
  • Pick up litter when you see it.
  • Drop a $5 bill in the store for some lucky person to find
  • Use your connections to help someone out.
Paying kindness forward, especially in the post-election noise, could end up helping a lot of us out, spreading a wildfire of love and grace to all.
Image result for indexed jessica hagy love


Thank you to Jessica Hagy's art for serving as the visual inspiration for this blog post.  Her art can be found at her website Indexed, her 2013 book How To Be Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps), and several of her other books.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Entering The Bumpy Transition Post-Election And The Casualties of Democracy

It's been a rocky ride this week, post-election, here in the United States.

At 5 days after "The Big Vote," Hillary Clinton's popular vote count exceeds Donald Trump's by 600,000 votes (as the counts keep coming).  But, it doesn't matter, because of the Electoral College. We have a President-Elect in Donald Trump.
60 Minutes even shared him with us.

But we have more than that. We have 60 million people who are thrilled by their win & the hope for change, and another 60 million folks who are afraid we just fell backwards by miles with our attitudes and acceptance of others. Don't forget the 5-6 million people who voted "none of the above," as well as 46-47% of people who didn't even bother to take the trip to the polls to cast their vote.

In just 5 days, we have over 200 episodes of hate crimes (including KKK parades) in the name of Trump. We have violent riots and peaceful protests by the Clinton crew. We have speculations as to who is going to be on Trump's Transition Team, and some of them are less-than-unifying choices.
There are people who feel true fear after 18 months of ugly, slanderous campaigns filled with outwardly-prejudicial remarks by one of the candidates.

There's both-sided over-generalization of "us" versus "them." No, ALL Trump supporters are NOT bigots--economic reasons ruled some voters. No, ALL Clinton supporters are NOT baby killers. But we have friends "unfriending" each other on social media, with people finding many emotional similarities between 9-11 (2001) and 11-9 (Election Day 2016).

So far, America is far from feeling "great again."  

Yet these aren't the only casualties of the election. There's another biggie:
Planet Earth, herself. My long-time friend Jason Hawke has a thing or two to say on the subject. I've known Jason for decades now, since Parsons Elementary School. Playground politics for Jason are a thing of the past these days as he is both Associate Professor & History Chair at Roanoke College. Jason knows a bit about history and government. Likewise, he has a thing or two to say about President-Elect Trump and where in the world our world stands in this bumpy new place--and how exactly we got here. Jason--a master of satire, data, details, & insights--has been kind enough to allow me to share it here. You can also find him at Medium to read, respond, react to, and share this piece.


How 131,000 People May Have Just Doomed the Planet

Regardless of how or why one voted in the 2016 US presidential election, or how one interprets the results and what they say about our national mood or culture, there was one clear loser on November 8: Planet Earth.

Rather infamously at this point, elected Republicans and their backers in the fossil-fuel industry have made a science of denying the science on climate change. Despite an overwhelming consensus among professional climate scientists — and upwards of 95% of academics agreeing on any subject is otherwise unheard of — the American Right insists that there isn’t any evidence of a warming planet. Or maybe it is warming, but human industrial activity isn’t responsible. The pseudo-scientific logical fallacies that undergird this nonsense are legion, but perhaps none so absurd as the display several years ago by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK). The greatest mind of the tenth century beheld a snowball he had brought to the floor of the United States Senate, like some community-theater Hamlet lamenting poor Yorick, and declared global warming not to be. As Stephen Colbert would mock at the time, he had had lunch that day, so thus world hunger could not exist.

Insofar as there exists any science, or more properly, “science” that calls into question the trend toward catastrophic, man-made climate change, it comes almost entirely from think tanks (or “think tanks”). Such “think tanks” often have cuddly Orwellian names that create the impression they are impartially working in the public interest. In fact, if one follows the money to the sugar daddies of such “institutes” and “centers,” the trail ends at Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, and the like. One imagines the profit motive of such organizations plays no role in the sort of research they encourage. That research, in turn, is the thin reed on which rests any Republican pretense that science informs their opposition to climate-change mitigation.

Other appeals to logic, such as they are, may resort to the idea that the ancient paternalistic sky god would never allow puny humans to destroy his creation (never mind that Scripture is pretty clear that he expects us to take care of it; man, will he be pissed when he gets back). Or that Earth’s climate has changed many times during its long geological history; because if you want to deny climate change, the planet is billions of years old based on science, but apparently and conveniently quite a bit younger when you want to force Creationism down the throats of public school children. Or that we could never through our actions destroy the planet. The purveyors of this last bit of casuistry presumably intend “disintegrate” or “pulverize” when they say destroy, and in that sense they are correct. But of course that isn’t the question. The question is whether we can make the prevailing climate inhospitable for agriculturally based civilization. If you’re at all a fan of iPhones, indoor plumbing, or Klungar the Warlord not using the skulls of your loved ones as drinking vessels, you’re also a fan of agriculturally based civilization, whether you realized it or not.

Most Americans are aware of all this, at least intuitively. An overwhelming majority of Americans think climate change is real, a problem, and driven by human activity. Mother Earth is bleeding out in the conservatory, we’re Colonel Mustard, and fossil-fuel consumption is the wrench. We get it.

One recently important person who does not get it is the man elected president thanks to losing to his opponent by a projected two million votes. (Fun fact: when the Electoral College was designed, only white men with property had the franchise and leeches were a legitimate, mainstream medical treatment…I digress). President-elect Donald Trump has called climate change a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. He is reportedly considering a climate skeptic to head his administration’s global warming efforts (one imagines that will be a sweet-ass, do-nothing job!). He has threatened to end American financial contributions to combat climate change and withdraw from the global accords engineered and signed by President Obama. And he has promised to unleash America’s fossil fuel resources including clean coal which, much like Santa and the Easter Bunny, is a mythical beast no serious person over the age of eight should believe in.

On the other hand, those of us who still think things like reality and evidence ought to matter know that time is running out if it hasn’t already. Four years of inaction would be bad enough. Four years of actively and intentionally making things worse will be cataclysmic. We get it.

And no one gets it more than the Green Party. First, there’s the name: that’s not an accident, you know. The single most important issue for them is the environment. The American manifestation of the Green Party describes itself as “eco-socialist” (not to be confused with ecosexual, which I refuse to believe is a thing because the alternative is just horrifyingly ridiculous). You show me a folk-music festival with attendees wearing hemp clothing and smelling of patchouli, and I’ll show you a de facto Green Party committee meeting. But seriously, unlike Chardonnay liberals who go to 40-megawatt, self-congratulatory U2 concerts and annually stroke a $40 check to the World Wildlife Fund but can’t be bothered to sort the recycling because Misty has soccer practice in ten minutes and Jesus who has the time for all that shit, the Greens don’t just talk the talk. They’re serious. I admire them for that.

Which is why I’m super pissed off at them for helping to elect Donald Trump president.

(rabblerabblerabblerabble…)

No, wait: hear me out before you hoist me on that 100% recyclable petard or boil me alive in organic soy milk. They are not solely responsible for electing him, and not even all Greens are at fault to the extent that others are. First, there’s the 60 million people who voted for him, ignoring the dire warnings of people who have not forgotten the lessons of history but are condemned to watch others repeat them. Cable news channels and the Republican Party are responsible for getting and allowing him on the general election ballot in the first place (hell, $2 billion in free media and even I might amount to something). The roughly six million voters who participated in the 2012 election but couldn’t be bothered this time around are culpable, too. Republican state governments share in some of that blame, as does the Roberts Court that aided and abetted voter suppression by invalidating key portions of the Voting Rights Act. Russian hackers as well as everyone’s favorite “transparency” zealot and second-favorite alleged sexual offender didn’t help, nor did FBI Director and prop comic Jim Comey.

And finally, sigh, Hillary Clinton herself. Yes, she is the victim of a 25-year-long smear campaign. Yes, the media blew the email story out of proportion in its quest to appear objective. Yes, as the first woman to be a major-party nominee she had to execute a high wire political act, while down below her opponent emceed the political equivalent of a $1-Bud-Light-25-cent-wings-mud-wrestling-tournament night at Buttslappers! Bar and Grill (that isn’t trademarked, so far as I know; all I ask is some acknowledgment). And she had to try to energize a party that’s already bereft at the thought of their popular and charismatic president riding off into the sunset. Much of it was unfair.

But she also didn’t run a particularly good campaign. In my nightmares for years to come I will hear the voice of Donald Trump saying “and you can tell them…” You know the rest. Thanks to that ad running on an endless loop, you know the next line, its parsing and inflection. It’s now like the Brady Bunch theme for people of a certain age, a cultural artifact etched on my gray matter. In mass media she made a very effective case why Trump should never be president. With all those gobs of campaign money, she never made a very good case why she should be. Yes, yes: brilliant and detailed white papers at her website that actually spelled out how her policies would make a meaningful difference in the lives of people who might otherwise wrap their hopes up in a loud but hollow Trumpian primal scream. Great. Did I mention Misty has soccer practice? In SIX MINUTES?! AND STILL CAN’T FIND HER GODDAM SHIN GUARDS?!?! And, let’s face it, much like the last Democrat who won the popular vote only to lose the election thanks to an arcane system the rest of the world rightly regards as bonkers, she’s wooden, a highly competent wonk who’s not very good at articulating that whole vision thing.

And, in retrospect this outcome was foreseeable to anyone paying attention. Trumpism, like Brexit, is a terribly wrong answer to perfectly legitimate questions the elites on both sides have ignored for too long. The current neoliberal-globalist consensus has created enormous wealth, but in developed countries those gains went mostly to the elites themselves, while regular folks of all persuasions (get over yourselves, white people) got crushed by the system. Hillary basically promised to be a more equitable caretaker of that system: inspiring! Trump — himself no less elite than Clinton — promised to blow the system up, however unrealistically and dishonestly. His cabinet is largely shaping up as a collection of oil barons, Wall Street bankers, D.C. lobbyists and other insiders, save for Yosemite Sam impersonator Sarah Palin. There remains the distinct possibility that the people calling the con man a con man may be proven correct, and those who ignored such warnings and voted for him anyway did so at their peril. But I’m sure Mexicans are somehow at fault for that, too.

So plenty of blame to go around.

And I get why Greens don’t like or trust Clinton. She is in her bones a DLC centrist; too close to Wall Street; late to the game on certain social justice issues; too much of an interventionist on foreign policy. Sure. Fine. But you’re the Green Party, right? You care first and foremost about the Earth, and understand that, unlike with other types of policy consequences, if we ruin the planet there are no do-overs? You knew that on that issue she’s actually pretty good, and certainly better than the only other person with any realistic chance of winning this election? I know: one day the Great Third-Party Pumpkin will return to the pumpkin patch, and the enlightened masses will defy all polling data and deliver a stunning plurality to the Greens (see above re: clean coal).

This was not that day. And now a climate denier is the most powerful person on a planet in peril.

Instead of “Jill not Hill,” the Greens might have understood in a close election that the real choice for environmentalists was “Hill not Hell.” It can be enormously satisfying to extend a middle finger to “the system” and vote for someone obviously unqualified for the presidency based on some misguided sense of principle. I know; I’ve done it. Problem is, in 2016 people had the opportunity to do that, but for a major-party candidate with an actual chance of winning. And this election was always going to be close.

How close? In Wisconsin, Trump prevailed by about 27,000 votes; 31,000 Wisconsinites — Wisconsinians? Wiscondominiums? — voted for Jill Stein. In Michigan, Trump’s margin appears to be less than 12,000 ballots; in that state, 51,000 voters picked Stein. And in Pennsylvania they’re still winding up the tallies, but the only outstanding precincts are in Philly and its vicinity, with up to another 80,000 provisional ballots in Philadelphia proper. Once all of these are counted, Clinton is sure to end up well within 49,000 votes, the number of Pennsylvanians who cast Stein as their choice.

That’s 46 electoral votes. Had they gone to Clinton, she would be the next president. 278 Clinton, 260 Trump. Ballgame.

Greens probably detest when people tell them they’re throwing their vote away. I detest that, too. It’s their right as citizens, and they can vote how they want. Plus, about 130,000 Green Party voters didn’t throw their vote away: they inadvertently helped elect Donald Trump, and thus may have thrown away not their votes, but the planet.




Clinton/Trump divide image from http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/election-day-near-americans-weigh-divide-look-for-healing/article_580635ac-b92c-5251-aa19-6e5ca5245b92.html; Twitter Boxing photo from http://core0.staticworld.net/images/article/2016/10/hillary-trump-twitter-100688409-carousel.idge.jpgJason Hawke's sinking city image from inhabitat.com

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Post-Election Conversation: A Play in 3 Acts

It's Wednesday, November 9th.

It's been a long 16-18 months, and we are finally on the flip side. Some of us are happy, some of us: not so much. So controversial. That's us, here in America. We're in that "fresh after the election" trying to settle in with the outcome. The extended noise-power of candidates has been going on and on and on....encompassing divisions, vitriol, animosity, positivity-negativity-and-tweets: oh my! Whether you've been #WithHer or hoping to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain, this election has taken away some of your lifeblood.


We.
Are.
Exhausted!

It certainly has it all:
The good. The bad. The ugly.

And it definitely feels worse here in the post-Daylight Saving Time darkness!

Truthfully: it's a dramatic presentation in three scenes. Bigger question: is it a classic comedy or a tried-and-true tragedy?


Act 1: Pre-Election: The Long Ride to Land

On the 50-year anniversary of the Great Pumpkin, Linus perhaps said it well (way back when):

"There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin." ~Linus Van Pelt

Discussing those politics: it just never ends well. Just ask buddies and pals with different visions/versions on social media. But the irony is that my my notice of Linus' provocative commentary predated this election by 6 years.  When we re-watch: it's always going to be there, and it's always going to be up to Linus, his politics, and his Great Pumpkin.

Articles have also  been posted about the enormous stress, pressure and fervor about the election.  The election certainly has many "seeing red and feeling blue." Over time, all this is is debilitating! And it's been a long time.  We are more than wiped out. It's hitting people hard--especially when some start chiming in on their candidate versus the others... when lying is definitely off the table at this point with emails or just multiple general statements.


Act 2: Present: Voting Day

Nailbiting! Times 7! or 10!

There was a lot going on this Election!  There was all the music and media of  the "night before election" events. Then there was the #Pantsuit Nation (the overnight growing secret invite-only Clinton follower FB page. It more than doubled between the time I was invited in and it became viral). Add in today the pilgrimage and addition of the "I voted" stickers menagerie to Susan B. Anthony's grave. With all of that,  this election was certainly "huge."

As an aside, this projection map of voters by demographics was certainly interesting!

It was a historic vote. #PantsuitNation aside, you have the potential for the first woman president. It's a 1-2 punch follow-up to the first African American 2-Term President of 2008 and 2012. Yes!

Likewise, you have the potential with Trump as the first non-politician-person, and the first person who's not a military personnel.  Some people flock to that, while there have been others who have been die-hardedly-opposed to Trump and his demeanor.

Leaving us on Election day chiming: "CNN for hours on end. Amen." [Which feels like a church prayer I grew up on!]

I found myself praying "please please please!"


Act 3:  Post-Election: Houston, We Have A Winner.


It took a lot to get us here, but we have landed. Thank God! Houston, we have a winner: President-Elect Donald Trump, having lost the popular vote by a margin of a mere 200,000 (when you consider that 59 million people voted for each candidate).  He won, however, due to winning the electoral vote with over 270 electoral votes.

But a "win" is shortsighted. Emotions are high. For some, so is disbelief and sadness. The bigger job is going to be going farther. In the last few days prior to the election, Hillary Clinton has addressed this more than Donald Trump did, but it's where we are at. We are one country. Our new president will need to be here for all. He needs to lead us forward...and forward together.  The mystery is: can it be done?

I saw a handful of people who posted prayers on Election Day today, going into the election. A unification. That's what we needed. Our job, here on out, is to go forward.  It's part of the voting, the division, the healing, the process.

Where do we need to go for the path of unity and reunion?

We need to go here:



And here:
Shawn Stevenson (author of Sleep Smarterand his voting experience here on 11-8-2016.

Let's go here indeed! It may be hard, but it's what we need to do.



Photos:
Donald & Hillary from http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36202424
Susan B Anthony: from http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/08/501167896/hours-of-susan-b-anthonys-gravesite-extended-to-accommodate-election-day-visits; Prince EA video https://youtu.be/YE27SgMEXHo

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Water Out of Thin Air

"Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!"  The proverbial catch phrase of a magician. Making something happen when it is seemingly impossibly, out of thin air.

Making water out of thin air feels just as magical, but it's not. It's innovation at it's finest as this movie illustrates.

Not to mention, quite necessary when you consider that 1 in 3 people globally don't have access to clean drinking water.










This turbine, or the WaterSeer (as it is called) condenses water from the atmosphere in a low tech, low cost way that is a win for all. Best part: no added chemicals or power, making maintenance cheap and easy.

To learn more about the specifics of how it works, check out this article and watch the video below.



Video from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPjoNNhTh1o, image of WaterSeer from http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/innovation-wind-powered-device-produce-37-litres-clean-drinking-water-every-day/1/785837.html, Infographic from https://www.canva.com/design/DACCXuzey54/6OdtizxY6UEYjzvvX2YXjA/view?utm_content=DACCXuzey54&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=sharebutton and created by GTG.


Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Fully Charged: The Movie

I ran across a book, which had me investigating an app, which then led me to the Internet, which led me to a movie... All of these seem significantly tied to the podcasts I'm listening to these days and the observations of our over crowded lives and the pursuit of happiness.

That's my li'l trail of serendipitous breadcrumbs... and my profound thoughts for the day!

"Fully Charged" is a movie based on the conversations in Tom Rath's book: "Eat Move Sleep."  Those 3 golden nuggets, and doing them well, are the key to longevity, happiness, and good health. Interestingly enough, it's also about letting go of the technology, getting yourself outdoors, and making connections and choices that leave you feeling good and restored.

It's a good book and a quick read that I highly recommend.

 Here's the trailer, and I can't wait to see the full meal deal!



Video trailer from http://www.fullychargedmovie.com/,
photo from http://www.eatmovesleep.org/