Jimspeak

Yesterday was a pretty amazing day. The morning was filled with a leadership training class, led by a guy who reminded me of Steve Martin back in his SNL days. Loud, a little crazy, flailing arms...funny stuff. And I learned some stuff too. Developmental stages as an employee, different managerial styles and how the various stages don't mesh well especially if the participants are unaware of the differing stages.

Pause (of a couple of days). Just had what had to be an earthquake. The house did a little rhumba but now it seems to have stopped. That was entertaining. It's been raining all day, and looks to continue all week. Flooding has been ensuing, the rivers are supposed to be high....what the hey?

Back to the tale at hand, the amazing day (which was last Thursday. Today is Sunday. Oops) last week.

The best part of the day came in a Baptist Church that evening. I felt quite odd being in a church and half expected some variety of divine intervention to intercede and punish me for my transgression upon holy ground. This did not happen. Instead, I was treated to one of the most powerful discussions I've heard in a long time. The speaker's name was Van Jones. He is one of the founders and the executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. As you can probably tell from its name, this organization is focused around human rights, with a heavy slant towards poor minority neighborhoods in California (they are based in the Bay area). Check out their website, they are awesome. To pique your interest here are the names of some of their ongoing projects: Books not Bars; Reclaim the Future; Silence the Violence; Bay Area Police Watch. Some good stuff.

This talk was sponsored in part by the Oregon Natural Step, whose main priority is sustainability. They are a rad organization. So why did an enviro group invite a guy from a human rights organization to come speak? Well, aside from the humanity aspect (equality is good), it may also in part because of some ideas he's formulating. Such as, the enviro and human rights groups should not have strict lines drawn between them, working for on their own agendas without much of a glance over across the way. Van's talk was all about how these groups should most definitely be working together. That there is a huge benefit in collaboration.

He threw out phrases such as "eco-apocalypse", "eco-apartheid" and "eco-equity".

If I had the energy I had the other night I'd go on and on (as I have to several people already), but I don't have the brain power right now to do so coherently. Instead I will post links and highly encourage you to check them out. There is some amazing stuff to be found on these sights. I've only skimmed the surface and I'm rarin' to go.

To go and do what, I'm not yet sure. That will come in time. Let's just say that after the....oh yeah. I forgot the other exciting news of the day! An email came in from a huge project my company has, and this email contained a request from the PM to me and Jennifer (in a roundabout way. More directly to her, less so for me) to put together a Sustainability section as part of the Scope of Work. Yeah! This was exactly the opportunity for which we had been hoping! The talk by Van Jones added even more fuel (ideas) to the fire and I can't wait to find some time this week to do some brainstorming and see what we can come up with for this SOW. Very exciting. Very very exciting.

All I need to do in the meantime is get some blood taken out of me tomorrow morning (cross your fingers my stupid cholesterol has gone down) and get a lot of work done before Tuesday afternoon. And go to classes, study and work on 2 as of yet untouched projects. Ach. It's going to be a busy week. Again.

But it's good. My busyness is primarily due to things that are energizing me.

Here are some great websites:

The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Sustainlane
Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability