Oh dear me.  A floating patch of plastic garbage acting as a vector for herbacides and pesticides - turning into a toxic soup, that floats all around the pacific ocean carrying various marine life with it and intermingling species that have never intermingled. 

Here is a 2 part video on created about one of the research teams that has been attmpting to quantify the ammount of plastic in the ocean.





Here is a great article about the soup:

http://st4tic.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/pacific-garbage-island-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan/

More cause to work for change.  NExt time you select a plastic container keep it in mind.  I know I will.

Peace and Good Things,

Andrei Hedstrom

The thought has come into my mind so regularly lately – the connection of a dirty dish to personal responsibility. I had the thought a few weeks ago that a single dirty dish left in a sink leads to another, then a spoon, then a pan and next thing you know there is a sink full of dirty dishes that no one seems to feel responsible for or everyone does and no one does... Everyone ends up thinking what pigs other people are and at the same time not positive that they didn’t drop a spoon or cup into the mix.

Now, I have a baby girl and everyone knows babies triple the amount of dishes in your sink just by having them in the house with you. I also work at a company with a common sink and a small kitchen. This really is a perfect condition to be surrounded by dirty dishes, and let me tell you that I am pretty regularly doing dishes that I don’t think I made but can’t be certain.

So the idea each time I make a dish dirty to immediately wash it began to feel like an essential connection to my responsibility where the dishes are concerned. I am not sure why but I began to consider the utility of washing your dishes immediately after dirtying them. I thought the following things relevant in that consideration:

• If I wash a dish immediately it takes less water to clean it
• It also takes less elbow grease
• It also takes less soap and possibly less thorough or obsessive cleaning – i.e. if I had a few almonds in a bowl obviously it is a different cleaning event than if I ate chicken (not that I eat chicken as a vegan)
• I feel better about myself and am not creating yet another item that I must come back to later
• I are not putting the responsibility on someone else.
• Dishes are less likely to be broken when they are washed as they are dirtied and not as a massive sink full of dishes
• And my favorite – I am not creating a giant gyre of all the meals, germs and moments of a kitchen’s comings and goings in a sink for some poor sap to clean up. This means someone’s pan from cooking up some sausage isn’t set on top of all the dirty cereal bowls and then cups of coffee poured out on top of them, etc.

A while back I found a really cool large bowl in a pottery shop and for a while I was eating all of my meals out of it. I thought it was cool at the time to be developing a regular relationship with this cool art object / dish. It felt very Zen whatever that means – kill the Buddha etc. Seriously though, it felt more intentional and deliberate. It felt slow. It felt sustainable. It felt like I was taking responsibility for that small corner of my life that is the dishes. I also found I was more likely to wash it immediately. Then of course I started traveling and got busy and got out of the habit but I think these thoughts are reminders that in every corner of life there is something fine to be discovered when you set yourself responsibly in the act.

There is a bowl on the corner of my desk that I just finished using. I am going to wash my dish.

I am grateful for:

• the little excited "OMG" shape my daughter made with her mouth when she saw me coming down the stairs this morning.
• fog in summer
• the taste of de la paz fair trade, shade grown coffee made in a French press that i am drinking right now!!!
• a messy workspace to clean
• the little note my cousin wrote me that says "my best friend forever" and then and arrow pointing to "ever" with the word "true" written by it.
• my wife who gives me pity when i have to work until 2am
  
• my laundress (live in mother in law) even if she wrinkles my t-shirts
• milk thistles and weeds of all kinds that colonize areas on the side of the road - their resilience is an inspiration
• my cabinets of curiosity
  

Gratitude Latitude inspired by classes with Lori Del Mar - thanks Lori!  Thanks class!

I am incredibly grateful for:

• my girls
• being part of a company of people who make me so happy i want to dance
• my mom who is hip and cool and reading a book i really wanted her to read - Blessed Unrest
• joshua who recommended On Garbage By John Scanlan
• heidi who is in from the portland office - we miss you heidi
• freddy mercury - miss you dude - thanks for "give, love, give love, give love..."
• the high road
• the lion sound Raine tried to make this morning - totally cute
• the freckles on sherry's nose that get superpowered in the summer

special thanks to muir for inspiring the number 9 for my gratitude latitude list.  i love working with you and blogging with you muir - you are so cool

Hi everyone - a link to a video snippet from a news story.  It is about USDA certified (by third parties hired by Whole Foods) foods from China.  Shocking stuff.  Sounds like there is a wave of this sort of stuff moving through our supermarkets even ones that are leaning towards organics.  I suppose this is what we can expect from industrial organics.

http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0508/521743_video.html?ref=newsstory
pay attention to where your food is coming from.  if you don't know... 

Gratitude - yeah I got some of that!

• My lovely, patient, understanding hard working wife
• Raine's changing and ever beautiful face!
• an office that has more plants than people
• the office macquarium
• fig nuttons
• atlas cafe - love their beet loaf sandwich!!!!  http://www.atlascafe.net/
• brian and ben at Piccino http://www.piccinocafe.com/  - who know how to make coffee drink "the big groovy" (that's my name for my cup of blue bottle coffee with 4 shots of blue bottle espresso) just the way i like it.
• my mac with google apps - glad to be off of the MS UI
• strong legs

I am overflowing with gratitude for:

• my little Raine drop for playing chase with me in our house
• my lovely bride who dressed up cute for my birthday dinner (about two months past) at Atlas Cafe - yes I had the beetloaf sandwich again.
• Bohemia beer
• Resilience thinking
• Dogeared books on Valencia Street http://www.dogearedbooks.com/dogeared/index.php
• Alemany Farmers Market!!!  White Peaches, strawberries, dates and Armenian cucumbers
• Arturo - my business partner who never stops, even sometimes when I want him to :)
• Amy who is taking on a project everyone else is scared of
• Clean water to drink