Blog Envy

The photo is of yesterday's Save Darfur Rally in Washington; credit Jonathan Ernst, Reuters.

Last night I was feeling a little guilty, pretty much par for the course there are always too many things I should have done left on my list. I didn't go to the Save Darfur Rally, and I didn't sleep in downtown Pittsburgh to join the Global Night Commute. I thought I could still blog about them and went looking for news articles about the Save Darfur Rally. George Clooney, how is it that thousands attend a rally and the news is George Clooney?

I live with my elderly father. Recently my old pick-up truck gave up the ghost and two vehicles seems a ridiculous excess for the two of us. Nonetheless, I'm quite accustomed to having a willing vehicle at my beck and call, so I'm having trouble adjusting to the new arrangements. My father had plans for the car both Saturday and Sunday. I figured that if I were to attend the Global Night Commute, I'd actually have to walk to Pittsburgh. I live about 25 miles outside of town, so I wasn't seriously contemplating it. Nevertheless I tried to picture a route in my mind. It was harder than I thought; there are hills to climb and a river to cross. What stymied me was the highways, routes barred from pedestrian traffic.

It turned out that my father was home from his activities early enough so that I could have dinner with friends to celebrate a long-time friend's birthday. I took a bunch of Party Hats For Potash as well a some of my tri-fold brochures. The consensus was that from a marketing perspective the tri-fold brochure falls short. I also discovered that my friendly Flickr URL to see pictures of the hats doesn't work. I'm embarrassed about that because if I'd check my links here I would have known that.

I'd been dog sitting last week and when my friend arrived to collect his dog he brought news of a distant reader of my blog. Oh joy! It turns out she would read this blog, except it's too hard to. Notwithstanding my terrible spelling and rambling prose, I've been surprised to see how the blog shows up on different computers. Pingting reads the blog, but when I saw it come up on his computer, I marveled that he is able to because it looks so bad--it looks fine on my computer. I don't know where to begin to correct those issues.

Related, my techno--oh heck, general-- lack of savvy was brought to my attention this weekend when I finally up-graded from my dial-up Internet to DSL. I'm online and it's much faster; lots of stuff works now that never used to. But, there are still some glitches in my set-up. The tech support at Earthlink have had me make so many changes to no avail, I can't remember where I started.

It would be easiest to chuck this whole blogging enterprise. Still today I received a very niche email requesting tri-fold brochures about Party Hats for Potash:

Sometimes an idea takes time to take off. Keep on keeping on.

Ah, that's what need, some encouragement. Thanks Rose!

Some blogs really get it right. I've got too many favorites. Sokari at black looks is indispensable. Recently black looks moved to a new address. I've updated the link on the sidebar, but click through if you've got it bookmarked or are subscribed and haven't up-dated to the new address.

Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah's Koranteng Toli is sui generis; not only one of a kind, I love to say sui generis whenever it's appropriate. Yesterday's post, Huhudious (or Silly Season) made me laugh so hard today, all the while wondering how I could be laughing about such serious matters. Here's a tip: go there the post is worthwhile. Previously I'd bookmarked his post Angola thinking to blog about it. Just go there, Koranteng Toli is a treasure!

Christian Long at think:lab is an inspiration. I wonder where he finds the energy to post so much about important education and design topics. This post has the coolest links to Invisible Children and the Global Night Commute project. He points out there are some good videos here; before my DSL connection I would have simply taken his word for it.

He and a group of others in the Ft. Worth area are launching a great new initiative that ought to catch on like wildfire all over !2GT (12 Great Things):

The group comes together once a month to throw ideas on the table (of potential projects), discuss pros/cons, discuss schedule/calendar for the optimal time to do the each month's "one great thing", and then to begin to assemble teams/strategies to bring all of our resources/networks/ideas/energies/funds together to "push" (Greg's apt word) on this "one great thing". The goal is not to sustain the project, but to give it some momentum, inspire others, and then to move on...

I'm sure I'll blog more about this as they copyright the name and get the Web site up and running.

When I look around at my little circle of friends, I see so much talent and experience and hear their desire to reach out to share, but not quite knowing how to begin. My general incompetence isn't much of a model. The upside is that it gives them many opportunities for pointing out: "There are better ways..." !2GT might be just thing to get the ball rolling with some of them.

My special interest is to encourage people to pay attention to African issues and invent ways to be involved. My main intention is to encourage all of us to create something good. Local or far away we all can do our part.

The sixteen year-old son of my friend whose birthday we celebrated on Saturday is a percussionist with Mount Lebanon Percussion. There's lots to experience at their Web site, the performance videos are especially worthwhile. His enthusiasm and passion about percussion filled me with joy. When I came home I looked around for some Web sites I wanted to share with him. Among them was the Kodo the incomperable Japanese drumming society. While there, I read:

In ancient Japan the taiko was a symbol of the rural community and it is said that the limits of the village were defined not by geography but by the furthest distance at which the taiko could be heard. It is Kodo's hope with the One Earth Tour to bring the sound of the taiko to people around the globe, so that we may all be reminded of our membership in that much larger community: the world.

There are quite a few blogs far more worthwhile than this one. Still, I take heart in being "a member of a much larger community" and my blog envy subsides.