Hi Everyone,
This summer I popped into a movie expecting a regular movie and was blown away by what I saw.
The movie was The Cove and it was described as a spy thriller. It turned out to be an extremely well made and moving documentary about the true story of a bunch of environmental activists who risk their lives to film the annual slaughter of over 20,000 dolphins in a small town in Japan.
The story has so many levels from the star Ric O'Barry who captured and trained Flipper and who has since dedicated his life to fight the industry of captive dolphins he helped create to the fact that the dolphin meat is highly toxic due to the levels of mercury in it yet the group slaughtering the dolphins were having it served in school lunches. There is also amazing footage of the most graceful human swimmers swimming with whales and dolphins, lots of humor, suspense, it is a great movie.
It is also a landmark use of media to expose an injustice (the murder of 20,000 self aware intelligent beings). It is an emotional roller coaster but it is worth the watch!
If you do not want to see it you can at least check out the trailer HERE and do your part to help stop the slaughter.
In the movie they also discuss the wonders of dolphins, the politics behind the international Whaling Commission, and the dispel the myth that this is a cultural practice in Japan.
Check out another clip about mercury in meat and meat in Japan from the movie: mercury clip
check out the website for the movie
danny
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
The Playa Privides
Wow, some of you are going to the playa in less than a week, holy shit, it is just hitting me, seems unreal to me really since I am not planning my own trip.
A quick story:
My new job and home are incredible and more on that soon but while I am working here I will not be able to make it to the Playa, grounded.
But of course the burner spirit permeates the Bay Area so be sure to let me know when things are happening locally.
So the process of moving sucked and after it was all over the absolute last thing I had to deal with (after looking for places to live, sorting, packing, cleaning) was getting rid of a couch I had once picked up off the street in San Fran. A guy on craigslist had promised to come and get it, I trusted him, he flaked and I was stuck with this thing.
I tied it on top of my car and began driving to the dump where I would have to go out of my way to pay to have it become landfil. On my way I stopped to drop off extra boxes to our moving company. When I arrived there was another guy trying to figure out where to pick up boxes for a move so I emptied my car into his. The owner of the moving company came out and after emptying my car of boxes I pointed to the couch strapped to the roof of my car. "Need a couch?"
"Sure" the owner repied, "we'll take it to Playa!"
Fuck yeah, after a long day of cleaning I was saved a trip to the dump, 25 bucks, the couch was saved from the landfil (if only for one last adventure) and I now have a part of me going to the playa. Something going in my place. And think of all the ass I will get going as a couch!
So remember the Playa Provides, so give what you have, seek what you want, and celebrate the process...
Danny
A quick story:
My new job and home are incredible and more on that soon but while I am working here I will not be able to make it to the Playa, grounded.
But of course the burner spirit permeates the Bay Area so be sure to let me know when things are happening locally.
So the process of moving sucked and after it was all over the absolute last thing I had to deal with (after looking for places to live, sorting, packing, cleaning) was getting rid of a couch I had once picked up off the street in San Fran. A guy on craigslist had promised to come and get it, I trusted him, he flaked and I was stuck with this thing.
I tied it on top of my car and began driving to the dump where I would have to go out of my way to pay to have it become landfil. On my way I stopped to drop off extra boxes to our moving company. When I arrived there was another guy trying to figure out where to pick up boxes for a move so I emptied my car into his. The owner of the moving company came out and after emptying my car of boxes I pointed to the couch strapped to the roof of my car. "Need a couch?"
"Sure" the owner repied, "we'll take it to Playa!"
Fuck yeah, after a long day of cleaning I was saved a trip to the dump, 25 bucks, the couch was saved from the landfil (if only for one last adventure) and I now have a part of me going to the playa. Something going in my place. And think of all the ass I will get going as a couch!
So remember the Playa Provides, so give what you have, seek what you want, and celebrate the process...
Danny
Saturday, June 6, 2009
a website to save the world
Hey there,
Well this is the coolest website I have ever seen, hands down, everyone has to check it out! It is called the GoodGuide and it is in an experimental phase but it can save the world!
Of course I know the world will always be here and does not need "saving" but as far as saving the life that is on it now, this guide can perhaps do more than anything else.
A brief justification of the claim:
First what is and how does it work?:
Well the Goodguide is a website made by a professor in Berkeley of course, where lots of good things start. It has over 70,000 products listed and each one is analyzed for it's effects on your health, on the environmental impact of the product and its manufacturing, and on the corporate practices of the company that manufacturers it such as labor issues, transparency, philanthropy, and environmental actions such as energy efficiency.
Let's say you want to buy shampoo. It will list the products in order from best to worst, or if you prefer you can flip that to see them listed with the product with the worst rating first. They all have a score from 1 to 10 and this score is broken down into separate categories such as health performance, environmental performance, and social performance. You can read further to find out what independent organizations provided information which was used in determining the performance. You can filter your search for things like "unscented", "organic", "low in sugar", obviously things that make sense for the product type you are researching. For food they post the nutritional information, which of course plays into its health rating.
They rate food, personal care products, toys, and household chemicals.
You can type in any brand you usually buy and see how they rate.
You can also compare prices, create a list of things to buy or not to buy, and learn about various issues as the website has a wealth of information.
And one of the coolest features is that you can send a message to the company via the website. So you can send a message saying you are impressed with a company's efforts to be energy efficient and because of that you are switching to their product or you can tell a company you are no longer buying their product as long as they treat their workers poorly. This kind of feedback of course will help drive changes on the corporate level. Companies want to sell shit and if the public is informed and tells the company so then they will likely change their actions.
And that is how this website can save the world. Our consumption of the world's resources, production of pollution and toxic chemicals, and our exploitation of people around the world are obvious downsides to our modern capitalistic system. I am enough of a realist to know that people will not be willing to give up much of what they are used to having so the only solution is to produce the things we want to buy in a way that is as friendly to our bodies, the earth, and to those who make them for us as possible.
Only as educated consumers can we make the best choices and tools like the Good Guide (which you can get as an ap. for your Ipod) are just what we need to be well informed.
So check it out and change the world when you shop!!!!!
here's the link: go to the GoodGuide!!
Well this is the coolest website I have ever seen, hands down, everyone has to check it out! It is called the GoodGuide and it is in an experimental phase but it can save the world!
Of course I know the world will always be here and does not need "saving" but as far as saving the life that is on it now, this guide can perhaps do more than anything else.
A brief justification of the claim:
First what is and how does it work?:
Well the Goodguide is a website made by a professor in Berkeley of course, where lots of good things start. It has over 70,000 products listed and each one is analyzed for it's effects on your health, on the environmental impact of the product and its manufacturing, and on the corporate practices of the company that manufacturers it such as labor issues, transparency, philanthropy, and environmental actions such as energy efficiency.
Let's say you want to buy shampoo. It will list the products in order from best to worst, or if you prefer you can flip that to see them listed with the product with the worst rating first. They all have a score from 1 to 10 and this score is broken down into separate categories such as health performance, environmental performance, and social performance. You can read further to find out what independent organizations provided information which was used in determining the performance. You can filter your search for things like "unscented", "organic", "low in sugar", obviously things that make sense for the product type you are researching. For food they post the nutritional information, which of course plays into its health rating.
They rate food, personal care products, toys, and household chemicals.
You can type in any brand you usually buy and see how they rate.
You can also compare prices, create a list of things to buy or not to buy, and learn about various issues as the website has a wealth of information.
And one of the coolest features is that you can send a message to the company via the website. So you can send a message saying you are impressed with a company's efforts to be energy efficient and because of that you are switching to their product or you can tell a company you are no longer buying their product as long as they treat their workers poorly. This kind of feedback of course will help drive changes on the corporate level. Companies want to sell shit and if the public is informed and tells the company so then they will likely change their actions.
And that is how this website can save the world. Our consumption of the world's resources, production of pollution and toxic chemicals, and our exploitation of people around the world are obvious downsides to our modern capitalistic system. I am enough of a realist to know that people will not be willing to give up much of what they are used to having so the only solution is to produce the things we want to buy in a way that is as friendly to our bodies, the earth, and to those who make them for us as possible.
Only as educated consumers can we make the best choices and tools like the Good Guide (which you can get as an ap. for your Ipod) are just what we need to be well informed.
So check it out and change the world when you shop!!!!!
here's the link: go to the GoodGuide!!
Saturday, March 7, 2009
How I Saved My School $25,000 a Year
Hey there,
So I thought I would share this story in the hopes that some of you may motivate to look into how your business/school/home can save money by becoming "greener".
Maybe it is not a coincidence that green is the color of money. It is at my school for sure.
The short answer of how my school is now saving $25,000 a year is this: we reduced our garbage bill. That's it.
The longer answer:
When I came to the school a year and half ago they had just started composting in the dining hall. This was organized by the San Francisco Department of the Environment. It was pretty easy since everyone at school eats the school lunch and we use washable plates, silverware, and glasses. So pretty much all the waste in there is compostable. (The only exceptions are things like aluminum foil when we have baked potatoes). The city of San Francisco collects compost just like recycling and trash so that makes it super easy.
Of course I quickly moved to suggest we start composting everywhere else - the bathrooms (all paper towels), the classrooms (mostly tissues and food scraps from snack), etc. Not surprisingly the brakes were put on me by the powers to be who had the big picture in mind and are weary of fast change happening without proper thought to who would be effected. I too, had all that in mind, but I quickly realized I needed to be patient. First we decided we should be at least composting in the staff lounge so we did, but I decided to take on emptying it and sorting through it myself so the custodial staff did not feel like they were given extra work.
I forget how long I did this, nearly a year I guess. When we first began composting in the staff lounge I had to really educate and remind people what can be composted. ( I still pick out a piece of plastic wrap each and every day and often find plastic creamer cups and other stuff in there.) My boss told me one day, when the subject came up, "you know people laugh at you behind your back because of the compost thing!" She said it in a totally frank way (her style) not meaning anything bad by it at all. She was just telling it like it is.
Signs explaining what goes where were key as were funny emails to remind people what can and can't be composted and recycled. Some teachers began composting in their classrooms and making 'compost monitor' a classroom job for the kids. I tried to help devise a system for composting the snack waste.
I continued to discuss behind the scenes the idea of composting in all classrooms and bathrooms. Everyone was basically behind it, a system just had to be put in place so the custodians did not have extra work.
The final factor that gave the final push from the top was when I made the case that we could save a lot of money.
I had called the trash service and asked them how much money we can save by reducing the trash we create. I was interested in how much money we had saved so far by composting and how much money we could save if we really went for it. I actually know the guy at the company from when I greened festivals. Anyway he had a formula on his computer that calculates our bill. Our current bill said we payed for 7 large black trash bins a day which was 60% of our waste. The other 40% was divided by green (compost) and blue(recycling). I jotted down how much we would pay for different scenarios and then calculated that for each of the 7 black bins we can switch to blue or green we would save about $500 a month. Sure we could knock two or three of them off I told the administration we could save at least a $1000 a month.
This helped grease the wheels and soon with everyone involved we got a system so the custodians can empty both green and black campus wide. We then ordered compost bins for all the classrooms and began composting in each class. The last push was to include the bathrooms. The bathroom trash consists of mainly paper towels so this is a no-brainer. We just put up signs and switched the liners in the trash cans from black to green. (the adult bathrooms have both trash and compost, both of which, despite the signs, end up with paper towels in them).
I then actually had to push to get rid of the unused black trash cans which was the step we had to take to save the money. I began noticing that there were cardboard boxes and bags of compost being thrown away into the trash cans. It seemed someone did not get it and that someone was the person deciding how many black cans to keep. Talking with everyone I finally got our number of black cans down to 3. This means we cut out 4 cans! Our official diversion away from the landfill is now something like 84% and we are saving $2,100 every month on our bill that was about $4,000 buck a month.
Finally when this was all said and done I looked at our garbage bill to see our savings and it turned out the company forgot to change our billing rate. So I called and then told the administration we were being over billed, which no one noticed.
One shocking secret to this whole thing is that we did not need to add as many green and blue bins as we reduced our black bins by. Which means we were paying for more black bins than we needed, probably for years. I figure even without the composting we probably could have cut out one or two black bins. Especially if we used them more efficiently by not throwing whole cardboard boxes away or filling them up with odd sized items that could be broken down to take up less space.
So even if you do not have the ability to compost, check out your trash dumpsters at work, school, or home, and see if you are using them wisely, you may be able to save some money for your self or your employer.
And of course all the waste you divert from the landfill towards recycling or compost saves energy and resources and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
save money and save the world at the same time!
peace, Danny
So I thought I would share this story in the hopes that some of you may motivate to look into how your business/school/home can save money by becoming "greener".
Maybe it is not a coincidence that green is the color of money. It is at my school for sure.
The short answer of how my school is now saving $25,000 a year is this: we reduced our garbage bill. That's it.
The longer answer:
When I came to the school a year and half ago they had just started composting in the dining hall. This was organized by the San Francisco Department of the Environment. It was pretty easy since everyone at school eats the school lunch and we use washable plates, silverware, and glasses. So pretty much all the waste in there is compostable. (The only exceptions are things like aluminum foil when we have baked potatoes). The city of San Francisco collects compost just like recycling and trash so that makes it super easy.
Of course I quickly moved to suggest we start composting everywhere else - the bathrooms (all paper towels), the classrooms (mostly tissues and food scraps from snack), etc. Not surprisingly the brakes were put on me by the powers to be who had the big picture in mind and are weary of fast change happening without proper thought to who would be effected. I too, had all that in mind, but I quickly realized I needed to be patient. First we decided we should be at least composting in the staff lounge so we did, but I decided to take on emptying it and sorting through it myself so the custodial staff did not feel like they were given extra work.
I forget how long I did this, nearly a year I guess. When we first began composting in the staff lounge I had to really educate and remind people what can be composted. ( I still pick out a piece of plastic wrap each and every day and often find plastic creamer cups and other stuff in there.) My boss told me one day, when the subject came up, "you know people laugh at you behind your back because of the compost thing!" She said it in a totally frank way (her style) not meaning anything bad by it at all. She was just telling it like it is.
Signs explaining what goes where were key as were funny emails to remind people what can and can't be composted and recycled. Some teachers began composting in their classrooms and making 'compost monitor' a classroom job for the kids. I tried to help devise a system for composting the snack waste.
I continued to discuss behind the scenes the idea of composting in all classrooms and bathrooms. Everyone was basically behind it, a system just had to be put in place so the custodians did not have extra work.
The final factor that gave the final push from the top was when I made the case that we could save a lot of money.
I had called the trash service and asked them how much money we can save by reducing the trash we create. I was interested in how much money we had saved so far by composting and how much money we could save if we really went for it. I actually know the guy at the company from when I greened festivals. Anyway he had a formula on his computer that calculates our bill. Our current bill said we payed for 7 large black trash bins a day which was 60% of our waste. The other 40% was divided by green (compost) and blue(recycling). I jotted down how much we would pay for different scenarios and then calculated that for each of the 7 black bins we can switch to blue or green we would save about $500 a month. Sure we could knock two or three of them off I told the administration we could save at least a $1000 a month.
This helped grease the wheels and soon with everyone involved we got a system so the custodians can empty both green and black campus wide. We then ordered compost bins for all the classrooms and began composting in each class. The last push was to include the bathrooms. The bathroom trash consists of mainly paper towels so this is a no-brainer. We just put up signs and switched the liners in the trash cans from black to green. (the adult bathrooms have both trash and compost, both of which, despite the signs, end up with paper towels in them).
I then actually had to push to get rid of the unused black trash cans which was the step we had to take to save the money. I began noticing that there were cardboard boxes and bags of compost being thrown away into the trash cans. It seemed someone did not get it and that someone was the person deciding how many black cans to keep. Talking with everyone I finally got our number of black cans down to 3. This means we cut out 4 cans! Our official diversion away from the landfill is now something like 84% and we are saving $2,100 every month on our bill that was about $4,000 buck a month.
Finally when this was all said and done I looked at our garbage bill to see our savings and it turned out the company forgot to change our billing rate. So I called and then told the administration we were being over billed, which no one noticed.
One shocking secret to this whole thing is that we did not need to add as many green and blue bins as we reduced our black bins by. Which means we were paying for more black bins than we needed, probably for years. I figure even without the composting we probably could have cut out one or two black bins. Especially if we used them more efficiently by not throwing whole cardboard boxes away or filling them up with odd sized items that could be broken down to take up less space.
So even if you do not have the ability to compost, check out your trash dumpsters at work, school, or home, and see if you are using them wisely, you may be able to save some money for your self or your employer.
And of course all the waste you divert from the landfill towards recycling or compost saves energy and resources and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
save money and save the world at the same time!
peace, Danny
Sunday, January 4, 2009
pictures of Noah (and Hendrik)
Happy New Year!
Noah was such a cute model today I had to share the pictures. He is quite a character. My Mom knit the sweater he is wearing. We went on a hike on Ring Mountain in Tiburon - gorgeous view of the city, beautiful day. It was a boys hike as Anke was home sick resting. Bummer since it was our fifth anniversary. At least we remembered this year - last year be both forgot (luckily we BOTH forgot)
Noah is a goofball as you can see from these pix.
This morning he was cutting papers from our recycling with scissors. I left the room and came back and he had cut out a picture perfectly. "Wow", I said " You spent a lot of time and cut that out very carefully!" (I try to praise the process and effort not the end product).
He said "yeah" and then proudly said: "I cut my hair too!" I looked down on the table to see a big golden lock of hair and said "Oh Shit Noah! Mama's gonna be bummed!"
I asked later at the cafe in front of all our friends (I figured they would get a kick out of the story) if he wanted to tell everyone what mistake he made that morning, and he smiled bashfully and said no he didn't want to say. Mama still doesn't know so I guess he didn't cut too much.
We were eating lunch and I asked Anke, "Do you know where Noah is?" "No" she replied. Neither of us were too worried but we began to look around the outside mall area where we sat. Anke spotted him, he had climbed up inside the lath that the plants were growing up. I had to stop him or he would have gone all the way up (it was a perfect little place for him to climb. So perfect that when Anke saw him she said matter of factly "he's in the climbing structure".)
He is such a proud big brother. At the cafe when friends were looking at our other friend's baby, Noah spoke up: "Look at MY baby!"
Noah was such a cute model today I had to share the pictures. He is quite a character. My Mom knit the sweater he is wearing. We went on a hike on Ring Mountain in Tiburon - gorgeous view of the city, beautiful day. It was a boys hike as Anke was home sick resting. Bummer since it was our fifth anniversary. At least we remembered this year - last year be both forgot (luckily we BOTH forgot)
Noah is a goofball as you can see from these pix.This morning he was cutting papers from our recycling with scissors. I left the room and came back and he had cut out a picture perfectly. "Wow", I said " You spent a lot of time and cut that out very carefully!" (I try to praise the process and effort not the end product).
He said "yeah" and then proudly said: "I cut my hair too!" I looked down on the table to see a big golden lock of hair and said "Oh Shit Noah! Mama's gonna be bummed!"
I asked later at the cafe in front of all our friends (I figured they would get a kick out of the story) if he wanted to tell everyone what mistake he made that morning, and he smiled bashfully and said no he didn't want to say. Mama still doesn't know so I guess he didn't cut too much.
We were eating lunch and I asked Anke, "Do you know where Noah is?" "No" she replied. Neither of us were too worried but we began to look around the outside mall area where we sat. Anke spotted him, he had climbed up inside the lath that the plants were growing up. I had to stop him or he would have gone all the way up (it was a perfect little place for him to climb. So perfect that when Anke saw him she said matter of factly "he's in the climbing structure".)
He is such a proud big brother. At the cafe when friends were looking at our other friend's baby, Noah spoke up: "Look at MY baby!"
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Rebuilding (The Holiday Spirit) Together
Hi Everyone,
Happy Holidays!
The Holidays at the end of the year mean many different things to many different people. I grew up in a family that celebrated Christmas and am raising my children with the same tradition. But what does it mean to celebrate Christmas? The ultimate answer I suppose is to enjoy quality family time (with plenty of food and gifts to catalyze the enjoyment). The gift part of it can be such an issue that it often is enough to turn people off of the holiday completely.
We tell Noah the story of Baby Jesus and how the tradition of gift giving started with those three wise men. Now the true spirit of the gift exchange is in the GIVING. However too often people get caught up in the receiving part of it all. As an environmentalist, I have problems with the consumption and materialism that run rampant this time of year. Too often the gift giving is nothing more than a forced waste of resources - both form the Earth and our wallets. Being a conscious consumer makes Xmas shopping extra hard. Yesterday I was in a store with $1 stocking stuffers. My first reaction was "great, I can get this knocked off in one stop". But as my hands filled with things I wouldn't normally be buying - all of which were certainly made in China with every corner possible cut to make sure I got the lowest price possible, I realized this did not feel right. I put back most of the things and decided I would go buy some fair trade chocolate bars instead.
Now the best gifts of course are from the heart. Homemade gifts rule! Or if you find just the thing you know someone would really enjoy. Many people put a lot of thought into the gifts they give and I know it is from the heart, so I am not knocking people who like to give on Christmas. I love the act of giving. I often find myself picking something up that I know someone would love and I give it to them as soon as I can - I am not the one to save it for x-mas, as smart as that would be. So that leaves me empty handed before x-mas. Stuck with the dilemma - do I just go out and get random shit for people. No. Most people will not get presents from me. The few people who do will get home made ________s that Noah will help make. I feel this is super important - to teach him that GIVING is important. For at five years old he is all about RECEIVING. He has absolutely no qualms with getting tons of shit. That worries me but of course he is only five...
So what I wanted to tell you about was an experience I had that epitomizes the spirit of the Holidays for me. It is something I had hoped to blog about long ago but did not get around to it. It happened last April. Christmas in April, sort of.
I had the great privilege of being involved in an extremely inspirational day of volunteer work with a most extraordinary organization: Rebuilding Together.
The staff at the school where I work (Town School For Boys) had been talking about integrating more service learning into our curriculum and one of the things we felt was important was that the staff take part in some community service to both inspire us and to act as models for our students.
So Ana, a teacher at our school who is active in this area, organized for us to take part in the National Rebuilding Day, put on by the organization Rebuilding Together .
The idea is to get a team of people to gather on one day and completely rebuild something. This something may be an apartment of an elderly person, a church, a school, etc. So a team from our school including faculty, parents, students, siblings and friends (I dragged my buddy Dave along) joined forces with a bunch of other people - some from a church, some from a law firm - to rebuild a nursery school which provides preschool and day care to very poor working families.
And it was incredible what we did. We built fences, water tables, and benches; repaired roofs; redid the garden; painted bikes and furniture; sanded, spackled, and painted the entire building inside and out. It was amazing. The most inspiring part of it is that you get to see the transformation in one day. In so much of the work we do when volunteering that is not the case. You just have to have faith that you are making a difference. But the way this project is run you see the change in ONE day.
The smiles that the volunteers had that day, despite the hard work they were doing, that was the spirit of Christmas - or whatever holiday you celebrate. The true spirit of GIVING, without wanting anything in return. Giving just to give because we can and because we know that it will make someone else's life better.
So I just wanted to share that with you and to wish you all a very happy holiday season. And instead of getting me a present this year, wanna join me in April for the National Rebuilding Day? Oh, you weren't getting me anything? (cheap @$%#&^$) Wanna join me anyway?
Happy Holidays!
The Holidays at the end of the year mean many different things to many different people. I grew up in a family that celebrated Christmas and am raising my children with the same tradition. But what does it mean to celebrate Christmas? The ultimate answer I suppose is to enjoy quality family time (with plenty of food and gifts to catalyze the enjoyment). The gift part of it can be such an issue that it often is enough to turn people off of the holiday completely.
We tell Noah the story of Baby Jesus and how the tradition of gift giving started with those three wise men. Now the true spirit of the gift exchange is in the GIVING. However too often people get caught up in the receiving part of it all. As an environmentalist, I have problems with the consumption and materialism that run rampant this time of year. Too often the gift giving is nothing more than a forced waste of resources - both form the Earth and our wallets. Being a conscious consumer makes Xmas shopping extra hard. Yesterday I was in a store with $1 stocking stuffers. My first reaction was "great, I can get this knocked off in one stop". But as my hands filled with things I wouldn't normally be buying - all of which were certainly made in China with every corner possible cut to make sure I got the lowest price possible, I realized this did not feel right. I put back most of the things and decided I would go buy some fair trade chocolate bars instead.
Now the best gifts of course are from the heart. Homemade gifts rule! Or if you find just the thing you know someone would really enjoy. Many people put a lot of thought into the gifts they give and I know it is from the heart, so I am not knocking people who like to give on Christmas. I love the act of giving. I often find myself picking something up that I know someone would love and I give it to them as soon as I can - I am not the one to save it for x-mas, as smart as that would be. So that leaves me empty handed before x-mas. Stuck with the dilemma - do I just go out and get random shit for people. No. Most people will not get presents from me. The few people who do will get home made ________s that Noah will help make. I feel this is super important - to teach him that GIVING is important. For at five years old he is all about RECEIVING. He has absolutely no qualms with getting tons of shit. That worries me but of course he is only five...
So what I wanted to tell you about was an experience I had that epitomizes the spirit of the Holidays for me. It is something I had hoped to blog about long ago but did not get around to it. It happened last April. Christmas in April, sort of.
I had the great privilege of being involved in an extremely inspirational day of volunteer work with a most extraordinary organization: Rebuilding Together.
The staff at the school where I work (Town School For Boys) had been talking about integrating more service learning into our curriculum and one of the things we felt was important was that the staff take part in some community service to both inspire us and to act as models for our students.
So Ana, a teacher at our school who is active in this area, organized for us to take part in the National Rebuilding Day, put on by the organization Rebuilding Together .
The idea is to get a team of people to gather on one day and completely rebuild something. This something may be an apartment of an elderly person, a church, a school, etc. So a team from our school including faculty, parents, students, siblings and friends (I dragged my buddy Dave along) joined forces with a bunch of other people - some from a church, some from a law firm - to rebuild a nursery school which provides preschool and day care to very poor working families.
And it was incredible what we did. We built fences, water tables, and benches; repaired roofs; redid the garden; painted bikes and furniture; sanded, spackled, and painted the entire building inside and out. It was amazing. The most inspiring part of it is that you get to see the transformation in one day. In so much of the work we do when volunteering that is not the case. You just have to have faith that you are making a difference. But the way this project is run you see the change in ONE day.
The smiles that the volunteers had that day, despite the hard work they were doing, that was the spirit of Christmas - or whatever holiday you celebrate. The true spirit of GIVING, without wanting anything in return. Giving just to give because we can and because we know that it will make someone else's life better.
So I just wanted to share that with you and to wish you all a very happy holiday season. And instead of getting me a present this year, wanna join me in April for the National Rebuilding Day? Oh, you weren't getting me anything? (cheap @$%#&^$) Wanna join me anyway?
Sunday, November 9, 2008
The Miracle of Life: Hendrik is Born
Hi Everyone,
Well once again we were touched by the miracle of life. Our second son Hendrik Jonah Boyer was born November 6 at 1:15 AM. Mom and Hendrik are perfectly healthy, and the entire family is enjoying the cute new addition to the family.
We are especially enjoying being new parents the second time around now that we are practiced and adjusted to family life.
The whole story will come soon but for now here are some pictures.
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