Randomn3ss

Yippee yay, it’s earth day!

Earth day was created in 1970 as a global environmental awareness initiative. It is now observed in 175 countries and supported by progressive action organizations such as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and the Earth Day Network. (Thank you Wikipedia.)

Some great, green + fun websites for earth day and beyond:

1. Buy local foods, support local farms. Visit Local Harvest to find local farms and farmers markets. Go out and pet a goat.
2. Carpool. Check out eRideShare to find local peeps that are looking to share rides. You can even search for someone to carpool across the country with.
3. Remove yourself from junk mail lists. Check out GreenDimes, sign up to be removed from junk mailings and in turn they’ll send you a dollar, plant a tree on your behalf, or send you a free green ‘zine. Everybody wins! (FYI: When you sign up for this they will ask for credit card information to verify your identity. Sort of like what paypal does. It’s been a few months since I signed up and so far no funny business.)
4. Once you go black, you never go back… take a walk on the dark side: Blackle is Google powered and eco-friendly.
5. Recycle your goods and get new ones at freecycle. This site will hook you up with a local group that supports the reuse of anything and everything. Although the site is a little difficult to navigate, once you’re in there seems to be a lot of activity going on in each of the different areas. There’s a slightly loved television stand in York, PA with your name on it.
6. Go zero! The Conservation Fund will help you measure your very own carbon emissions and tell you how many trees you need to plant to offset your consumption. I’ve got 16 trees to plant this year to outweigh my emission consumptions. Damn. I had better get started. You can do it yourself or they allow you to make a donation for whatever the cost comes out to be to plant your trees.
7. Get free stuff (by paying for it) at the Sierra Club. Right now, $15 will get you a membership (usually around $35), and a handy backpack for a thank you gift.
8. Be a green person/dog/baby. I bought my dog these organic treats in the shape of little cupcakes that he refuses to eat from a store I found on Green People. They also have eco friendly and holistic business listings for people too. And their travel section has some really neat stuff.
9. Save on gas. With gas prices expected to hit $4 this summer, be sure to get your daily feul economy tips for some serious advice on saving money at the gas tank and saving the environment.
10. Read up. Eco Chick’s blog is as sassy as it is green. And I don’t use the word *sassy* often. Starre Vartan’s website is funny, smart and earth friendly. And how could a girl named Starre not be cool? Be sure to read her list of what not to do for Earth Day. As she says, because mother earth is a woman. Yeah!

It is true, we all need to be a little greener. Without the earth we won’t be here.

April 22 also happens to be the democratic primary in PA, so get out and vote all you registered Pennsylvanians. Polls are open 7am – 8pm, your local polling place is usually within walking distance to your house. Brody and I will be on our way to our designated voting center bright and early wearing our Obama buttons. See you there.

Happy Birthday to everyone celebrating their birthday today.

Yes, that’s me, I admit it!

And, along with unknowns like me, a number of pretty cool and/or famous people share this birth date:

Paul Newman (love him!), Wayne Gretzky, Ellen DeGeneres, Douglas MacArthur, Roger Vadim, Bob Uecker, Scott Glenn, Anita Baker, Eddie Van Halen, and Eartha Kitt (love her!).

In looking for information on January birthdays, I ran across a website that listed January observances. Here are some of the more unusual ones that caught my eye.

Did you know that January is:

- Bath Safety Month
- Careers in Cosmetology Month
- Clown Month
- Oatmeal Month
- Poverty in America Month
- Thyroid Disease Awareness Month

I didn’t.

The first week of January is Diet Resolution Week. Of course.

The second week of January is, among others, School Guard Crossing week.

The third week of January is Cuckoo Dancing Week, celebrating Laurel and Hardy movies; Oliver Hardy’s birthday is January 18.

And the fourth week of January is:
- Catholic Schools Week (Aww… I was a Catholic school girl. Was. I’m recovered now, and I never wear plaid.)
- National Meat Week (Agh! I don’t eat meat, as anyone who read this blog knows.)
- Healthy Weight Week (I guess this is the follow up to Diet Resolution Week.)

Enough with all that, back to birthdays. Are you a January (26th or otherwise) birthday baby? What do you do to celebrate? I’m being taken out to lunch and then have a dinner party with friends.

Once I learned I had the same birthday as Paul Newman, I always wanted to call him up and ask him (and his wife, Joanne Woodward, whom I also adore) to lunch. Maybe this is the year. I think I’ll go look for his number, after being careful in the bath, learning more about my thyroid, and donating some oatmeal or something to the needy.

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) campaign aims to give a laptop to every school-aged child in a developing country. After more than a year of talking, they are finally getting shipped. When the idea was launched and prototypes were made, they were going to be powered by a hand crank and cost $100 to produce. Today they have a swivel screen, powered by AC and cost $200 to produce.

To help fund this cause, they are giving everyone a laptop that they themselves give to a developing country,

Between November 12 and November 26, OLPC is offering a Give One Get One program in the United States and Canada. This is the first time the revolutionary XO laptop has been made available to the general public. For a donation of $399, one XO laptop will be sent to empower a child in a developing nation and one will be sent to the child in your life in recognition of your contribution. $200 of your donation is tax-deductible (your $399 donation minus the fair market value of the XO laptop you will be receiving).

For all U.S. donors who participate in the Give One Get One program, T-Mobile is offering one year of complimentary HotSpot access.

Now, you could donate the laptop you yourself receive to charity and write-off all $399, or you could use it as a teaching aide to your own children. There was a lot of hype when these were first announced at $100 that everyone would want them, not just those in third world countries. This is your chance to not only own one, but help someone else out as well.

Give one get one program details
OLPC official site

I found a site the other day totally by accident that has such a simple and great concept, it’s amazing that no one told me about it before. FreeRice.com asks you simple questions, for each question you answer correctly they will donate 10 grains of rice. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but there is no catch! No junk mail showing up at your house, nothing to buy, simply answer some questions and help feed some hungry people. Since the site launched on October 7th, 2007, more than 1.7 billion grains of rice have been allocated for the hungry. The running totals are really amazing. FreeRice has two goals:

1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

So put on your thinking cap, answer some questions, help feed some hungry people. Please use whatever social bookmarking site you are a part of (StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, etc.) to help move this site forward and get some more traffic to it.

Celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D recently did a collaboration with legendary Dogtown skater, surfer and skateboard designer Wes “Bulldog” Humpston on a deck with the intention of selling it and giving all the money to charity. This just aired on Von D’s TV show, LA Ink, YouTube clips are below. 100% of the sale will go to the Tony Hawk Foundation, a nice twist to see that all the money will be going to charity, not just some of it. The auction can be seen here on eBay, it is already over $3,000 and still has 6 days to go.

Kat Meets Wes

They start to draw the deck

The Los Angeles art gallery, Art Bridges Gallery has announced that it will be providing a special selection of contemporary and traditional artworks from November 2, 2007 to January 31, 2008. Sixty percent (60%) of the proceeds will be designated for the fire victims of Southern California through the American Red Cross.

Art can be viewed on their site, or contact them to make in person if you are local.

Contact:
Joan deBruin
Creative Art Bridges
Telephone: 877-278-7829 or 626-355-6189
Email: joan@artbridgesgallery.com
Web site address: http://www.artbridgesgallery.com

Here is another great story about artists helping out other artists. Coming up on October 25th, 2007 in Manhattan, nAscent New York will be hosting Art On The Block art event and auction for the emerging artists. This is the first foray into the popular art destination of the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan. Nearly 30 artists will be showcased, including paintings, sculptures, mixed media, and photography, will be sold, with 20% of the profits going to the Fountain Gallery.

Fountain Gallery is a not-for-profit organization that provides an environment for artists living and working with mental illness. These gifted artists are members of Fountain House, an internationally renowned organization dedicated for more than 50 years to improving the lives of individual with mental illness.

Art On The Block will take place Thursday, October 25th, at 508 West 26th Street #9E in Chelsea. The event and auction will take place from 5:30-9:00pm. A preview of the art will be available on Wednesday October 24th from 6:00-8:00pm. Art On The Block will feature live jazz, food, wine, and beer. Sponsors include Wine Cellar Sorbet, Chatham Imports, Singha Beer, Nook Restaurant, Tagine Restaurant, and Clifford Henderson III Interior Design. Limited complementary tickets are available, please visit http://nascentartny.com or email info@nascentartny.com.

Source: nAscent Art New York

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and pink is the color associated with the entire month. Many blogs are changing their skins to pink, a lot of retail outlets change their ads to pink, all in an effort to help bring more awareness. There are hundreds of ways you can help, the link above will give you tons of resources, for my part I donating my time / talent to shoot the Women’s 5K Classic tomorrow morning, the photos will be available to be purchased as prints and those proceeds will go to the charity. Some of the photos may be used in a charity calendar sold next year as well. Everyone can give a little, time, talent and money to bring more awareness to the cause.

And courtesy of Nicole, here is a playful graphic on a serious topic.

AutoblogGreen is reporting that Black Eyed Peas front woman Fergie is getting rid of her Humer

maybe the Live Earth concerts actually opened her mind to the nonsense that is driving a HUMMER. We’ve heard that Fergie auctioned her HUMMER and donated the money a carbon-neutral group (although wouldn’t you think this sort of thing would be mentioned on something like Ecorazzi or TMZ, don’t you? No dice). But auctioning off your HUMMER is not exactly the greenest thing Fergie could do.

I’m going to have to agree here, I don’t see the how this is making her green. Someone is going to win this thing and drive it around, so there is no real green anything going on. If she agreed to crush it or something, then I’d be impressed. The top bid is a little more than $64,000 right now with 2 days left. At least some charity is going to get a check for some cash, but I’m not sold on this concept, pardon the pun.

Flipping through channels the other night I found myself watching an interview with Kevin Bacon, don’t know what made me stop at that channel, perhaps because I couldn’t get over how old he looks. In any event, he was talking about his new project, Sixdegrees.org, a site listing more than a million different charities along with a full listing of celebrities who associate with each one. In a portion of the interview, Kevin went on to explain that this was done for a few reasons, one of which was to show how involved a lot of celebrities really are in giving back, even if the press doesn’t always publish it. The site itself states,

You’ve probably heard of the Six Degrees concept. Any one person (including me, Kevin Bacon) is connected to any other person through six or fewer relationships, because it’s a small world. SixDegrees.org is about using this idea to accomplish something good. It’s social networking with a social conscience. Through this web site, you can support your favorite charities by donating or creating fundraising badges — as well as check out the favorite causes of other people, including celebrities.

This is a great concept; Kevin Bacon is the perfect person for this, especially after the game 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon got well known more than a decade ago, and to raise awareness for the millions of different charities out there. It also includes the social networking element, which is the new buzz of the moment on the net. I’m not a fan of a celebrity starting a charity for the sake of starting one, I personally belive there are entirely too many out there and they should be consolidated down, however this site starts to bridge the gap and shows similar charities inside the six degrees concept.

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