Sunday, January 11, 2015

Friends are not always near but you can always meet interesting people

No matter where you are, you can always make a new friend.  Enjoying champagne at the bar?  Why not make a new friend?  Sitting bored out of your skull at traffic school?  Why not speak to your neighbor?  Of course there being close to your close friends and family is an irreplaceable experience but, if you cannot be close to the ones you love, then the next best option is to love those people who are around you.  

Many cultures reward young men and women who venture into the world and create a space for themselves.  I know that personally when I was eighteen years old, I chose a school that was just shy of eight hours away from my parents town.  Although the transition was difficult, I quickly learned to survive on my own and as a result, also learned to make friends on the fly.  Make friends quickly is an important skill for somebody who is interested in tasting the adventure and intrigue that fills the world around.  By living this lifestyle, I quickly learned that although my family and friends were not close, there were always people closeby with whom I can share some information and often an unforgettable moment.

Living far away from family can be a saddening experience.  At times, there felt like not a soul understood the melancholy that I was experiencing.  However, after experiencing a few moments of sorrow, I quickly understood that nobody was benefitting from my self pity.  The world belongs not to those of light-weight courage who become casualties of their own sadness but those with the strength to challenge those moments and transform them into a story worth telling.  

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Who is Stephen Chu?


The short answer is that he’s the United States Secretary of Energy, picked by president Obama and confirmed by the Senate on January 20, 2009.   So why is everybody in the energy community talking about this guy?  Because by picking Stephen Chu to head the U.S. Dept of Energy, President Obama is putting his money where his mouth is on topics like coal, renewable and nuclear energy. Click on the following link to find out more. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfLaQUD86Mw

Sunday, January 25, 2009

The Future of Building is Ancient History


If you are feeling queasy from the rabid feeding-frenzy of companies green washing everything from cars to coal, you are not alone! There is a lot of noise out there and it's easy to get lost in it all. While labels such as Cradle-to-Cradle, Energy Star, and LEED have been created to ensure the legitimacy of claims to greenness, they don't necessarily recognize size or scale of eco-improvements.
That's why it is so exciting to witness a product as deceptively simple as 'packaged earth' shaking up a giant like the worldwide construction industry ($5.6 Billion in the U.S. alone). This 'packaged earth' is manufactured by a company called Integrity Block based in Los Altos, CA, and is more commonly referred to as rammed earth, the same technology humans have used to build homes since the cradle of civilization. There is just one big catch. Integrity Block has invented a method to manufacture rammed earth into concrete block molds that meet the same compressive strength and performance standards required for standard concrete block. If that sounds like a foreign language to you, then please allow me to translate: Integrity Block discovered a way to make concrete blocks out of dirt. "So what?" you ask. Well, for starters concrete is second only to water as the most consumed substance on Earth, and produces 5-6% of all greenhouse gases worldwide. Imagine cutting that out by simply using all-natural earth for construction. Does that mean the next time we stop by a local Wall Mart we will be greeted by geodesic dome-shaped building with solar panels? Mmmm...probably not. However, it does mean that thanks to this new technology, big-box retailers, governments and just about anybody contemplating a building project, large or small, can choose to use rammed earth blocks instead of concrete, taking simple steps towards creating a carbon-neutral building.