tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154279622024-03-21T03:56:18.700-07:00GlowpluggerPlugging away at his own thoughts since 1971Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-42532070472323680872009-03-30T11:32:00.000-07:002009-03-30T11:38:09.188-07:00visit me on ideafirehose and campbellenergy!I had to put Glowplugger to sleep. Please visit my idea page at http://ideafirehose.blogspot.com and my company blog at http://campbellenergy.blogspot.com/<br /><br />I will love you long time.<br /><br />respectfully,<br />AaronAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-17219220048490192052008-11-06T14:19:00.000-08:002008-11-06T14:35:40.008-08:00Obama opens the gatesFor eight years, I have felt like I was crazy. Not just your normal wackiness kind of crazy, but "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" kind of crazy. It often seemed like I was running around telling people that 2+2=4 but the people shook their heads, patted me on the head and said "silly Aaron, we all know the answer is 5". ARGH. <br /><br />After the election this past Tuesday, I had a hard time putting into words the feelings I was having. Then it hit me. I am in fact not crazy.<br /><br />I am trying to let that feeling penetrate the deepest reaches of my mind, soul, and body. I am not crazy, and neither are my friends and family. I am not alone in thinking that the "trickle-down" economic system is fatally flawed. I am not alone in thinking that intelligent people would govern us better. I am not alone in thinking that science is important to learn and teach. I am not alone in thinking that diplomacy is the first action, not the last, when dealing with other countries. I am not alone in thinking that religious fundamentalism is dangerous and not an effective antidote to other people's religious fundamentalism. <br /><br />I am not alone in thinking that the environment is to be protected and conserved rather than pillaged and plundered for profit. I am not alone in thinking that the color of your skin does not indicate the kind of person you are inside. I am not alone in thinking that public humiliation and baseless character assassination is a poor political tactic. I am not alone in thinking that we really can get along, and that the USA can once again innovate and change itself, if dedicated people truly apply themselves.<br /><br />I feel like Obama's election has opened up the gates of reality long closed. I am currently blinking at this blinding light, breathing in this new fresh air, wondering what's next. Again, like I've been unjustly locked up in an asylum for eight years and have finally been let out of the gates to freedom. Thanks Barack. I owe you one.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-85654689689590012032008-10-15T10:12:00.001-07:002008-10-15T10:12:56.551-07:00FREE ENERGY SEMINAR: October 25th<br />Friends, Colleagues, Family and Community,<br /><br />Campbell Energy LLC is officially open for business! <br /><br />As some of you already know, I had previously spent 2 years as a sales consultant at University VW/Audi. After realizing that although University has a good reputation for being eco-friendly, I needed to pursue my right livelihood in the energy conservation world. Promoting high-mileage biodiesel-compatible Volkswagens put me in contact with a number of excellent people in the alt-energy world. More importantly, for three years now, Elise and I have been performance-upgrading our own home. We were always thinking, “We wish there was a person or a company that could help us make prioritized decisions on which energy-efficiency upgrades to do”. A half-dozen single-skill contractors gave me conflicting advice, leading to the epiphany that my calling was being a Residential Energy Consultant. Thanks to everyone who supported me in that decision.<br /><br />I think what separated me from other sales consultants at the dealership was my dogged honesty with clients. I told people what was going on behind the scenes, gave people space and time to make decisions, and gave them more information with less pressure. This kept me sane, knowing I was truly helping people make good decisions in the short and long term. <br /><br />As an EPA Energy Star certified energy consultant, I will continue my policy of honesty and integrity, showing people how they can reduce their utility bills, make their homes healthier and more comfortable while directly saving the planet.<br /><br />Another great benefit from working at University VW/Audi was meeting Dylan Chalk of Orca Inspection Services. (He runs a carbon-neutral business and was down-sizing his truck to a VW Jetta TDI.) He nearly single-handedly pushed me into the energy conservation field, telling Elise and I heartbreaking stories of energy and resource wasting that he sees every single day as a home inspector. He, in turn, pointed me towards Brent Foster of Northwest Infrared. Brent is haltingly straightforward in his work as a Level II thermographer, telling people right then and there what he sees with his thermal camera and how you can fix most residential energy-wasting issues with "a bucket of mastic and some backer rod". Dylan and Brent are my boots-on-the-ground energy mentors, and I recommend them both without hesitation.<br /><br />As for my own work at Campbell Energy, it's pretty simple: I take a deep look at your home and show you how to make step-by-step prioritized energy upgrades. With my three years' personal experience analyzing and upgrading my own home combined with my Energy Star and NAHB training, I can pinpoint your home's energy issues. It's essential to do a full in-home analysis to get a thorough picture of what needs to be upgraded, repaired, or replaced. Just as important, I show you how to operate your home in the most energy-efficient way possible. You might be surprised how much energy (and money!) can be saved simply by tweaking your behavior just a little bit, in targeted ways.<br /><br />Finally, I can help you make some big-picture decisions that will dramatically lower your carbon footprint in ways you may not have previously imagined. I sum all of my in-depth analysis up in my report and give you a blueprint of steps to take to put you on a path to energy efficiency not just in the short term, but throughout your and your home's life. Dylan Chalk calls it giving people HOPE: Homes On a Path to Efficiency.<br /><br />On that note, I invite you all to RSVP to my first seminar where I will be detailing who, what, where, why and how people can get incredible value, savings, and actual happiness from my energy inspections. It's going to be a fun and information-packed two hours showcasing the nitty-gritty of my work, with time for people to ask specific energy conservation-related questions at the end. Want to know what to do with that 10-year-old 80% efficient gas furnace? Concerned about how to cool your home during our global-warming summers? Wonder how to discover where you have missing insulation that can rob your home of heat this winter? Want to find out why your gorgeous recessed lights might be vacuuming out your wallet this Spring? Come to the seminar. It's free, and I guarantee you will learn something you can take home and use to reduce your wattage, lower your carbon footprint, and be happier at home.<br /><br />My official website should be up soon, but nearly all the basic information you might want to know about Campbell Energy is contained in this email. Please RSVP to the event so we can plan for comfortable seating and eating:<br /><br />Campbell Energy Seminar<br /><br />Saturday, October 25th<br />1:00pm to 3:30pm<br />Duwamish Co-housing Common House<br />6000 17th Ave. SW<br />Seattle, Washington 98106<br /><br />If you are planning on bringing a friend or interested colleague, remember to let me know in your RSVP email. I look forward to being of service and appreciate your continued support.<br /><br />Respectfully,<br /><br />Aaron Campbell, Energy Consultant<br />Campbell Energy, LLC<br /><br />glowplug@gmail.comAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-22400130077793366202008-04-12T21:01:00.000-07:002008-04-12T21:06:15.915-07:00Blogger vs Bloggerit's been on my mind recently, so I'll share it:<br /> I have two blogs, this one and my IdeaFirehose. The Firehose was supposed to be just for ideas. This was supposed to be my thoughts. Ideas, it turns out, are also thoughts.<br />What's a Gen-X'er to do?<br /><br />I think I'm going to merge the blogs. Since I was able to prove I can pull off 4+ ideas per day for 60 days, I think that experiment has run its course.<br /><br />I do like the Firehose more than I like the name "Glowplugger" so I'm pretty sure that's where I'm going to keep blogging. I will look into the concept of putting all the posts from Glowplugger into Firehose, but until then, I will be simply posting my thoughts AND my ideas there.<br /><br />A fond farewell to Glowplugger, long live Glowplugger!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-37442857714365215662008-04-11T21:46:00.000-07:002008-04-11T21:50:42.739-07:00World Peace UpdateWorld Peace is coming along nicely. Looks like my 3 step process is holding water. For those who missed it on my IdeaFirehose Blog, here it is:<br /><br />#1. Really like and respect yourself.<br />#2. In doing #1, you'll likely discover your Right Livelihood, that's #2. Figure out what you love to do best and make that your Service.<br />#3. Do that service for yourself, your family and friends, your own neighborhood.<br /><br />Yup, that's it. If we get cracking on the above plan, and enough of us do it (and gather together somehow), World Peace will flourish.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-63382985398392257772008-03-16T10:14:00.000-07:002008-03-16T14:58:50.188-07:00World Peace IncorporatedUp all night last night, thinking my favorite thought: We really could have world peace, in my lifetime. But how can I help?<br /><br />I thought some thinks and thinked some thoughts and realized that "World Peace" suffers from very bad PR and less than effective management. Since nobody in particular is running the World Peace Campaign, it also has a pretty lackluster business plan. Seriously. Mission, Vision, Values are pretty well in hand, but what about economic projections on the 1, 2, 5 and 10 year marks? What about logos, branding and marketing? What about target audiences and demographics? What about organizational health and management effectiveness based on good implementation of a great game plan? SYNERGISTIC OFFICE MEETINGS FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE! Okay, we can cut the corp-speak, but the rest of it is serious.<br /><br />As a member of the steering committee for world peace incorporated, I think we really need a few good top level planning meetings and some tangible deliverables by Q4 of 2009. Let's do some brainstorming in the meantime, shall we?<br /><br />So, the BHAG is pretty clear, world peace by 2020. That's more than doable, but it does require that we get our acts together before then. One of the keys will be to prove with some serious statistics and research that Peace is Profitable. That's one major marketing thrust this year. Economic woes are deeper than most can remember right now; with a huge trade deficit, massive jumps in home foreclosures, $110/barrel oil, major layoffs and underemployment, we've got to really make our case that we can provide financial results in short order.<br /><br />Taking a page out of Barack Obama's playbook for a moment, we should really focus on the hope and dream of peace while making sure people get the picture about how much work needs to be done by every single person on the planet. That's our target audience, really, every living person on Earth. They need to hope again, they need to have faith again, they need to realize they are not alone in struggle and that when they join together they can accomplish seemingly impossible things. When Obama announced the millionth donor to his campaign, I thought, "people sure will put their money where their hopes are if they really believe". That's where we need to be, folks. Lots of subscribers with a lot of hope.<br /><br />The marketing campaign is a tricky one. Now that we've incorporated World Peace, given it a position as umbrella support for all the other peace organizations, we do need to make sure we've got a solid brand that won't turn people off. "Give Peace a Chance" was a great marketing strategy, but it's a bit passive in this day and age. We need a campaign with more bite, a solid foundation of success, and results-driven action. I've toyed with some motto ideas that I'm not sure would fly: "PEACE OR DIE" says what I mean, but has a sort of threat implication. "PEACE SELLS BUT WHO'S BUYING?" was used during our last campaign by a small group of Tibetan Monks called "Megadeth" so we can't use that if we want to stay fresh. I'm leaning towards "PEACE WILL MAKE US ALL UNIMAGINABLY WEALTHY", but it needs some cleaning up. Anybody can chime in here, okay people?<br /><br />On to logos and street-cred branding: FUBU already has a lock on the concept of collective (albeit somewhat reflexive) action, so we need something like that but stronger. Visually, the original Peace Logo that we thought worked so well in the 60's turned out not to be that motivational to the working class. The Hammer and Sickle was certainly working class-0riented, but we know where that went... Perhaps we need a nice new elliptical logo or a Helvetica-level font. I'm partial to Star Trek font myself, but the Roddenberry estate won't let me use their kerning. I'll need some suggestions by next Monday at noon. The printers are waiting for the proofs.<br /><br />Our online presence is all over the map. Buddhists and B'hai' websites aside, we've got to get some top-level domain action going. A solid website will be essential to the corporation's visibility, so let's get our best people on this. We'll need innovative design, interactive localized content, some cool Web 2.0 social networking tools (natch!), and I'm really excited to have some mobile app interaction as well. Let's make sure we've got the language people cracking on the localization, and whoever is in charge of the cyrillic stuff should come and see me about ideal font sizes. Listen to your project managers and we'll get this thing up by Q1. If World Peace is to launch on time, we'll definitely need a global contact setup, anyone familiar with the so-called "series of tubes"?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-75594986809021050472008-01-30T10:30:00.000-08:002008-01-30T10:39:34.845-08:00Things I don't like doing<ul><li>detailed management oversight</li><li>organizing people who don't know what they're doing to get a project done</li><li>repetitive tasks that require no creative input</li><li>being dishonest<br /></li><li>jogging in the rain</li><li>losing soccer matches in inclement weather</li><li>being bored</li><li>disappointing other people, letting people down who rely on me</li><li>watching inefficiency</li><li>watching people throw stuff away that could be recycled</li><li>being misunderstood</li><li>being called a hypocrite (even if I am sometimes)</li><li>being responsible for my plants dying due to underwatering them</li><li>starting a project that I don't finish</li><li>breaking people's hearts</li><li>watching my new baby cry</li><li>not having my technology work as it should (calendar in my iphone!)</li><li>getting tachychardia (panic attacks)</li><li>having a messy desk/house/car</li><li>getting traffic tickets</li><li>underperforming</li><li>....<br /></li></ul>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-12720516962386634792008-01-27T16:21:00.000-08:002008-01-27T22:05:05.040-08:00Doing what I loveThis is a purely introspective entry, inspired by BrianKim.net. Here goes the lists>>><br /><br />THINGS I LIKE DOING<br /><ul><li>making people laugh</li><li>helping people find out what their calling could be</li><li>raw innovation: coming up with ideas to improve things, either forcing it by staring at a blank blogger entry/notepad, or spontaneously when I'm living my life and spot a problem to be solved.</li><li>making people feel heard and listened to</li><li>connecting people to other people they might like/grow from knowing.</li><li>reducing my carbon footprint and/or energy drain</li><li>playing co-rec soccer on Monday nights</li><li>playing Scrabble with Elise</li><li>staring at Piper Grace (new daughter)</li><li>making predictions about things</li><li>listening to music, esp downtempo/electronic<br /></li><li>watching movies</li><li>streamlining tasks</li><li>eating good dinner out/ potluck dinners with friends</li><li>improving my house</li><li>fixing my Mercedes</li><li>talking with friends on the phone/video teleconference (Yay iMac!)</li><li>Inspiring people</li><li>talking about renewable energy/sustainability/alt fuels</li><li>altering my consciousness/meditation</li><li>microprinting</li><li>blogging</li><li>Stumbling Upon Websites/Videos<br /></li><li>starting little plants from cuttings</li><li>talking about the positive future</li><li>finding common ground with people</li><li>thinking about being President (seriously)</li><li>rebounding to Daft Punk or Blackalicious</li><li>reflect on solutions to global problems</li><li>discovering new energy saving innovations</li><li>Recycling/Reusing stuff I don't need anymore</li><li>Attending Junto Gatherings</li><li>Problem solving around community issues</li><li>cleaning the house</li><li>playing my 5 guitar noodles</li><li>lip-syncing to iTunes</li><li>discovering deeper overlaps with my Grand Unified Theory and other people's systems for how the Universe works</li><li>thinking about new businesses to run</li><li>sledding, sliding, careening in snow<br /></li><li>driving my biodiesel cars</li><li>thinking about the connections between my father and I, my great grandfather and I, my brother and I.</li><li>visiting and bonding with my family, esp. my siblings</li><li>mind-melding with my wife on esoteric topics</li><li>making wooden toys</li><li>going to parties with friends and family</li><li>speculating on other people's relationships, how they could improve, what motivates them to be together</li><li>blogging...<br /></li></ul>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-30952635676656010772008-01-18T12:05:00.000-08:002008-01-18T12:29:55.507-08:00Fatherhood #5, or, Get Your Skill OnAs I type, my baby Piper is fast asleep at my side. Literally, she is on my hip in a cool contraption called the Ergo Baby Carrier. It's a gift from the Gods. It lets me walk around and do things, while being able to care for, see and cuddle my child anytime. She's warm against my body (and I'm warm against hers, keeping us both cozy), and she almost always falls asleep in the carrier. This is a device that lends a very important helping hand, making 3 people happy at the same time. But this device is not enough.<br /><br />Our new incredible (Insert-Calming-Device-Here) can be a great tool for keeping your baby happy, but when that doesn't do the trick, what else have you got in your bag? Better be able to answer this question, and have a few extra tricks on top of that one. My personal favorite is the <a href="http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/518059/baby_calming_plus_excercise.html">Rebounder Method</a>. Basically, anything that you can personally do to keep the baby happy for 30 minutes at a time is what you're looking for. <br /><br />I can't stress the point enough, you HAVE to find a way to get your baby happy without milk. Feeding is great, but you (if you're a father) don't have breasts and you never will. I know that hurts to hear and may be surprising to discover. If you don't have breasts, then you can't pump milk either, so that's another method you can't control. You must find a way that works for everyone (throwing baby in the air works for about 5 minutes, but doesn't make mom happy and can't be sustained for 30 minutes, so it's not a viable option). Do you have a rocking chair? A yoga ball? Strong arms? Figure something out, man. Ask your parents what worked for them to keep you happy/calm. Ask your wife's parents too. Get 5 techniques, minimum. I don't know how long the Ergo carrier or Rebounder Method are going to work, so I have a few more as backup. (The car idea is also not sustainable, just in case you're wondering. It works when it works, but you can't in good conscience drive your kid around whenever they are upset.)<br /><br />Frankly, in addition to you as the father taking on new role as diaper changer (which I highly recommend you consider as, again, you cannot breastfeed), the Calming Technique Guy is pretty much your main new identity. Clearly, supporting your wife/partner in their calming methods is a good idea (getting them the tools they need when they need them), but your own worth as a father may be at stake here in the early stages of parenting. If I'm coming off sounding urgent or even desperate, it's because this is a very important understanding to come to. <br /><br />If you have some favorite techniques for calming your baby, please post a comment, I will check this entry often.<br /><br />--ABCAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-35122359849201137672008-01-02T15:51:00.000-08:002008-01-11T23:01:32.442-08:00Blogstorming: The Idea FirehoseOkay, here's the inevitable bifurcation of my online identity: A second blog:<br /><a href="http://www.ideafirehose.blogspot.com/">www.ideafirehose.blogspot.com</a>.<br /><br />It's a place where I will be posting my ideas as an exercise in free thought dispersion.<br />It's high time I put my brain in a jar, right Bender?<br /><br />I will continue to post my thoughts/feelings on this glowplugger site, but my innovative/creative stuff needs to be in a particular place with a goal attached to it.<br /><br />My goal is 3 per day.<br /><br />Special thanks to Michael Lefevre for the idea!<br /><br />-ABCAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-13641500888381039692007-12-30T11:13:00.000-08:002007-12-30T12:00:35.816-08:00Gyros, Hiros, Heroes<span style="font-family: lucida grande;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hello peeps. It's Sunday and I'm-a-blogging my brain and I think you'll like this one...<br />The topic is hidden in the title, "heroes". I'm talking about all things in the genre; Superfriends-in-tights, personal heroes in your life, tasty Greek sandwiches.<br /><br />Much more to the point, after watching the DVD TV series "Heroes" while taking care of my brand new Piper Grace Campbell, I realized something. There's a character, Nathan Petrelli, that is labelled by another character Hiro Nakamura as a "villain". That got me thinking. Okay, I was already in the throes of thinking, but it got me thinking about one idea in particular: we should get rid of our villains and become our own heroes.<br /><br />You already know that I'm no fan of our current president (or his father) George Bush. I think he might not be evil per se, but he seems to be acting in many intentionally and unintentionally "bad" ways. Bad meaning greedy, bad meaning ignorant, bad meaning hypocritical, bad meaning harmful. Again, could be that he's a "good person inside", but he's acting like a bad one. A villain. While watching Nathan-Hiro interaction on "Heroes" I discovered a huge problem with TV/DVD/Movies:<br /><br />The stuff we see in movies and on TV is almost immediately dismissed as fantastical. The ideas generated are way too kooky to be possible in the "real world". Reality TV aside, the great ideas that the "Heroes" series comes up with are bittersweet to me. Sure, people are not going to be injecting themselves with serums in order to fly or read minds (at the moment...), but they certainly can do HUGE things with their current real-world gifts in their own lifetimes.<br /><br />When we see characters like Hiro reciting the code of the Bushido, we are excited, but in the end we are often stopped from the very act of actually discovering what the Bushido code might mean if we applied it to our real lives. We often see things on the screens we watch and immediately tag it, bag it and forget it as "unreal". Even things we know damn well to be real. <br /><br />People really do amazing, nay, heroic, things all the time. We are currently splitting atoms down to their basic components, looking deep into the history of the Universe, building medical nanorobots that get their power from the pressure of the flow of blood in our veins, jumping off mountains and floating gently to the ground. Sure, they do some of these things with the aid of technology, but so did a great number of SuperHeroes. That's the lesson of comic books: that in reality you can actually do many awesome feats all by yourself (or with some help) if you'd just believe in your abilities. Even better, once your find and believe in your abilities, you practice them day and night and apply them to your life and the lives of others.<br /><br />Specifically regarding present-day events, the "villain" in the show was the President, and he's been sub-ethical in most of his dealings. The crew in Heroes might or might not be plotting to depose the fellow (only on the first season right now), but it's clear that the planet in the show would be better of with a different POTUS. Who's going to save the planet from this bad president? It's up to the Heroes, not the general population, not the voters (they've been disenfranchised by a villain's plot), not an activist or dedicated citizen.<br /><br />This is my point: it's essential that we watchers of stuff on screens realize that we can do astonishing things if we have faith in ourselves. No joke. We've got huge untapped skills and networks and power that we don't use yet. We've all got it, and we rarely tap it. It's not just a metaphor to read about in comic books and watch as fantasy films. Obviously, we don't have real dragons around to slay, but we do have a Vice President who's a real life villain and we should impeach him as well as the President. We should get together and reduce our global environmental footprint far beyond (currently unsigned by the USA) the Kyoto Protocol. <br /><br />I challenge anyone who reads this to think about the fantastical superheroes in their lives, and to put together a plan to do some of your own heroics. Do it! Seriously, DO IT NOW.<br /><br /></span></span><br />----------------<br />Now playing: <a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/chris+whitley/track/big+sky+country" title="'Chris Whitley - Big Sky Country' - open on FoxyTunes Planet">Chris Whitley - Big Sky Country</a><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-style: italic; font-size: 10px;">via <a style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);" href="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/" title="FoxyTunes - Web of music at your fingertips">FoxyTunes</a></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-12367346416832922032007-12-13T15:03:00.000-08:002007-12-27T13:47:25.009-08:00Piper Grace Campbell, Plush Pippen<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh7wIKC6Oc6ea3YskM9zprtVh86pE4A6Y87kSZEs6fxxQSVkS77obeiU10UkZHXyUz_mntq0m4xAhYEJiEVWYCXiyZsGBKYzvEcr6PcHjV76OEjeuQXthUHF6-zWFSwFFtxHY/s1600-h/DSC03939.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh7wIKC6Oc6ea3YskM9zprtVh86pE4A6Y87kSZEs6fxxQSVkS77obeiU10UkZHXyUz_mntq0m4xAhYEJiEVWYCXiyZsGBKYzvEcr6PcHjV76OEjeuQXthUHF6-zWFSwFFtxHY/s320/DSC03939.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5148772604132407682" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><pre style="white-space: normal;">I got the call while on my Junto retreat...<br /><br />Elise had some kind of fluid leaking early in the morning, and was feeling a bit woozy. I was immediately sure we were having a baby, so I installed the baby seat (!), packed my bag (repacked...) and we drove off at 1:30.<br /><br />We went to Group Health on Cap Hill, and they told us it was a false alarm. (??) they didn't think it was amniotic fluid, and sent us home with a "see you in a couple weeks!".<br /><br />We drove back North and decided we'd catch a matinee of Darjeeling Express. Great Movie, very touching and funny and very Wes Anderson. Outside Metro Theatre, E mentioned that she was feeling MUCH more damp.... We went back home and called the doula and our midwife.<br /><br />We dashed back to GHC and sorta checked in (it turned out we didn't really check in at all, the nurse had to take E's temp just before we left 3 days later to officially check us in!). In the triage room, cell phones were going off (contrary to policy!) and there were way too many people. En route to GHC the second time, E had 4 contractions, so we were already progressing by the time we left triage.<br /><br />We haggled for a room of our own and succeeded in wrangling a spare post-partum room. For an hour, we had increasingly painful and closer together contractions, pretty convinced now that we're having a real baby, real soon. She labored mostly while sitting down on the bed, with me standing between her legs. She hugged me hard while contractions occurred, snuggling against my trunk.<br /><br />We tried a few different labor methods, but we both liked the sitting/standing thing we discovered (having missed our birthing classes as E was on bed rest). It turned out that nearly all our natural instincts on birth were spot on. <a href="http://www.sunbirth.org/">Alissa the doula</a> showed up after an hour and was very helpful and gentle as contractions got, um, contractier. She would touch E's back and gently speak little ideas to help E like "melt around the baby", "make your body soft", "take a deep breath and really take a break between contractions".<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sunbirth.org/">Alissa</a> was pretty sure things were moving along, so we decided to make a run for the official birthing room. E was contracting every 3 minutes, so we had a few contractions in the hallway. Very weird. People in the hallway could see us laboring, kinda odd for all. As an aside, clearly people who are pregnant look kind of "sick", but not in an illness way. It's like passing a kidney stone, it's a condition rather than an illness, but it comes with a lot of the illness trappings like hospitals and sympathy...That's how it felt for me, at least.<br /><br />Once in the birthing room (super plush, with a soaking tub, TV/DVD/CD, dim lights, hardwood floors, sleeping chair for me, rocking chair, our own bathroom), we were on our inevitable path to parenthood. Contractions getting closer together and stronger. We noticed only after the birth that the classic "dilation of 7 centimeters!" chatter that you hear in movies was totally missing. That's because in 5 hours we'd be giving birth.<br /><br />She pushed on all fours and finally squatting while holding a bar after the transition between contraction and labor pushing began. The transition was in the tub, and was the only time during all of her pregnancy when she really felt like throwing up. The nurses were all nodding knowingly to each other and saying "it's glove time!" to each other on speakerphone.<br /><br />All through the birth, E had come up with various noises and chantings to get through each contraction, which totally made me and the doula laugh out loud. It was a combination of tribal African chants, Tuvan throat singing, and "Mom mom mom mom". Super funny, you had to be there. Literally.<br /><br />Piper was really easy in coming, 7 real pushes and she was out. No drugs, no needles, no birthing balls, no relatives. Very calm and loving process. GHC was totally incredible, the parade of knowledgeable midwives and nurses was a godsend. I watched and participated in everything, touching Piper's head as E rocked/pushed her out. E was an absolute Amazon woman in there. Strong like bull. Piper came out textbook-style, I caught her and placed her on E's chest, sobbing. (Me, I was sobbing) A minute later I was cutting the cord (like a pearlescent old school spiral phone cord).<br /><br />That night as we recovered (E had some stitches required, freaking ouchy! as bad as the birth pain itself!) That night I had a dream that Piper got up out of the basinette and walked across the room. It felt so real I started awake and had to pinch myself. For the next two days we'd be crying and sleeping and learning and eating. Piper was born with a FULL head of hair, and a full set of lungs to go along with it. Man, where'd she learn to chatter and yell so much? So precious, though. For real, it's just like they say about newborns. They are all banana monsters and plush pippens. At least Piper is.<br /><br />At the moment, she's pretty small and needs some non-germ-time while she grows stronger. We'll set up some viewings in the near future... She's very much a monkey baby, and I am the happiest monkey dad on the monkey planet.<br /><br />--Aaron the Father of Piper<br /><br /><br /></pre>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-70157884635511517562007-11-29T11:11:00.001-08:002007-11-29T11:31:31.613-08:00Fatherhood #4How on Earth can single moms do it??? I work an average of 65 hrs a week, come home pretty well spent, and praise the heavens that I am married, housed and employed. With my wife on bed-rest for the last 2 weeks or so, it's come to my attention that people who take care of children single-handedly are superhuman at the least.<br /><br /><br /><br />The work that my wife does is absolutely invaluable. This is, of course, BEFORE the baby arrives. Imagine the work when the baby is here! I can barely imagine doing what I do with a healthy, intelligent, hard-working partner to help me survive. Doing a super-full-time job AND raising a kid AND taking care of a home???? How do they do it? Seriously. Superhuman.<br /><br /><br /><br />With her on bed=rest, I'm doing a fair amount of work after work, but I can certainly manage it at the moment. But what happens if my wife gets sick? I'd have to work, work, care-take, and care-take. That's insane. I guess I'm just realizing what millions of people have to do every day, with much less support than I have.<br /><br /><br /><br />It's a barrage of blessings I am contending with, and I appreciate every single moment I have here on earth. I'm not even close to being done, that's the weird thing. More challenges, more blessings, more puzzles, more solutions on their way.<br /><br /><br /><br />My suspicion is that I'm just scratching the surface of revelations en route in terms of fatherhood, so I fully expect to add more to the Fatherhood Series on my blog. If I slack, rest assured it's because I haven't checked my mail, returned my messages or had a moment to think... kick ass.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-90930089809410022792007-10-22T10:58:00.000-07:002007-10-22T12:17:53.356-07:00Progressives: Wake up and Lead!This one's aimed squarely in the mirror...<br /><br />I gotta vent a bit for the sake of the world and one group of people who can play a large part in world-changing.<br /><br />Progressives: Get your house in order. I used to think it was just the "Democrats", and then just the "liberals" who needed a kick in the ass, but now it's my own tribe of progressives that need a wake-up call.<br /><br />In fact, I might as well lump us all into the same group for this exercise, because it seems a great many of us think we've got it all together when clearly we don't. Yes, it's a generalization, and sure there are people who are truly progressive without flaw, but most of us have a long way to go.<br /><br />So, here's what we have GOT to do if we're going to lead:<br /><br />1. Stop dissing religious people out of hand. Stop saying that all Christians are one thing or another. Stop saying that all religions are inherently violent. Stop saying that all religious men are misogynist. You may certainly condemn misogyny and bigotry, but you gotta quit with the broad over generalization crap.<br /><br />2. Start spending more money on helping the planet rather than on telling other people to help the planet. I know we all want to get the word out, but the best way to do that is to simply do the things we think need to be done. Less bumper stickers, more scholarships. Less latex GWB masks, more solar panels. Just get back to work.<br /><br />3. Stop contradicting yourself regarding violence. If you think you are a progressive, then you simply cannot condone violence. You must resist it in all its forms and quit trying to placate people who think otherwise. Capital Punishment in all cases is verboten. The answer to "what if you could kill one person to save the whole of humanity?" is <span style="font-weight: bold;">not to kill that person</span> because the question is ridiculous. We can solve these problems we face without violence. In fact, we cannot solve violence with violence, ever. I mean, duh!<br /><br />4. Walk your environmental talk. This is essential. It must be done within reason, and you are not required to be perfect all the time, but you must give it your best effort all the time. Drive the greenest car you can afford, insulate your house before you resubscribe to cable. Recycle at work and start a recycling program (and keep it honest) if you don't already have one. Don't shy away from looking like an obsessive compulsive in this regard. It's shameful how many hip coffee houses don't recycle everything and compost what all they can.<br /><br />5. Stop watching so much TV. You know who you are. I'm not saying you can't look at any screen ever again, but you don't have to watch 3 hours every night. My wife and I watch movies every so often, and sometimes an HBO series on DVD, but we try to keep it sane. It's not a crime to watch 24, but it shouldn't be watched 24/7, you know?<br /><br />6. Be more responsible with your money. It's an overarching line item here. Spend your money more wisely. If that means drinking one less beer at dinner, so be it. If that means not buying a new iPod, fine. If you must buy a new iPod, find a way to balance that consumption back out... Whether the balancing includes carbon offsets or avoiding buying entire albums when only one song is cool, okay. Just realize that your money is a great tool in the fight for world peace and saving the planet. When you waste it on escapism with a pound of pot instead of an ounce, you do your tribe and the planet a disservice. I'm not kidding about the pot. Having wasted a lot of time wasting, I can tell you that I wish I had spent a bit more money on art supplies or trips to the countryside.<br /><br />7. Care about children, and all the children in your life. It's really your only responsibility. All these other line items are really about showing future (and current) generations what to do if you want to be a loving and productive citizen. You are modeling progressive behavior to the kids that are watching you. Especially, your own children and the children in your immediate community/family. Show them love, give them tools to navigate in this wacky world. Our culture must shift this way or perish.<br /><br />8. Get your mental health straight. If you've got a mental health issue or a deep relationship problem, take care of that right freakin now. I have met a lot of true progressives that frankly give us all a bad name when they lose their shit. Obviously, there are medical issues that need to be accounted for, but please, if you can, get your mind together before you show up at the next rally. Shouting "Governor Gregoire is a fascist!" while she's trying to get the biofuels bill pushed through Congress is totally counter-productive. I was at a forum discussing the Downing Street Memo where some guy in the 4th row stood up and yelled at Jay Inslee (a real progressive) to prosecute Maria Cantwell as a war criminal. Stay on topic, progressives! Seriously, I know we all mean well, but the message is being muddied. <br /><br />There are clearly more line items to add to this list. Please add your own in a comment, I know you've got something to add here....Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-61732795946155840682007-10-22T10:57:00.000-07:002007-10-22T10:58:33.356-07:00Science AND Religion 2I think it's ridiculous to think that one group of people are inherently not as worthy as another. With all the bickering and name calling, we're not going to work our stuff out. Seriously. If you believe that Jesus is Love, that's cool. If you believe that Far Side comics are the new Bible, that's cool. Just leave each other alone, and quit spending so much money, time, effort and carbon to prove your points to me.<br /><br />There's no "side" to take in this fake argument of Science vs Religion...but there's certainly a third way here. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is still a pretty good idea. Certainly not the only one, but it's a good basic concept no matter whose sacred text is comes from. Treat everyone with as much respect as you possibly can. At our cores, we're all worthy of love. I don't care who you are, you are worthy of love.<br /><br />That last line can really piss people off, so I encourage comments on it. I know a lot of cynical contrarian types who hear that "worthy of love" stuff and immediately bring up Pol Pot or Hitler or whoever they think is clearly unworthy of any kind of love due to their murderous behavior. Those people are themselves worthy of love, and a heap of understanding... Which brings me again to George Bush...<br /><br />My fellow progressives will someday recognize the creeping violence in their discussion of what they would like to do if they could have a moment alone with George Bush or Dick Cheney. It churns my stomach to say so, but I have myself had those same dark thoughts. "Think of how many lives would be saved!", the same arguments used in the silly hypothetical "what if you saw Hitler on the streets of Seattle, unarmed?" I have thought those violent thoughts and I have also double-checked them with what I would *actually* do in that situation.<br /><br />I would not kill anyone. I wouldn't have killed Hitler. I would not punch Bush or Cheney in the nose. I would swell up with anger, certainly, but I would not act that anger out violently. It sounds weird to have to blog this confessional mixed in with my peace-and-love-for-all rhetoric, but it's just what's going on in my head.<br /><br />I do truly think that we'd be better off without this current administration, but there's no way that violence against them will come to anything good or true in the end. I wish I didn't have to even write this stuff, but I hear that kind of thing all the time from my supposed progressive/liberal/democrat pals. This is why I feel like an outsider even in my own world... it sickens me, frankly. I sickened me when I did it, and it feels the same again when others do it.<br /><br />Tragically, their (my) arguments about Science and Religion usually come up around that same time. The same people who espouse peace and love can be the same people who say they would like to ship off all the NeoConservatives to an island without food. It's not funny anymore, I think that's what I'm trying to say. It's tragic and fruitless.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-66897004126398768032007-10-22T10:13:00.000-07:002007-10-22T10:56:59.794-07:00Science AND ReligionGreetings Citizens,<br />I've just been reading (gasp!) a book called "Ishmael", and although I think it's a bit hard to get into the rhetorical style, it's triggered some thoughts I'll share witchoo.<br /><br />Okay, it's pretty much just one thought. For us humans to work our stuff out, we've got to quit the false premise of Science vs Religion. In particular, they are so different in terms of what each is at their cores that it creates this crazy non-existant dichotomy.<br /><br />More specific still, I think the Science-Only folks have got to spend more energy working their own stuff out. There's a new resurgence of atheism, but it has to be tempered with sensitivity and wisdom.<br /><br />By way of analogy, I have a co-worker that is a hard worker, but he spends all kinds of time and energy telling me how this other co-worker or that administrator sucks. It sours me against him, sours the co-workers against him, and makes no lick of difference in his quality of work life.<br /><br />Science people might very well have a few things worked out about humanity and its need to get right with the laws of nature, but they have got to quit the petty bickering. All the damn bumper stickers! The $2.50 (each) spent on sticky vinyl advertisements for their pet witty put-downs would be better spent on a fund to add more science to school curriculum in their local elementary, no?<br /><br />More specifically still, whose hearts and minds will you be winning with a bumper sticker saying "come the rapture, can I have your car?" ? Very few, methinks. It's witty, but it only serves to make fun of the very people who you'd like to convince that living for today here on earth is a good idea. What it really does is say to rapture-believers is that you think you're better than they are.<br /><br />We've just got to get together and work this all out. We have to see each other as humans on a fragile planet full of other animals that need our help to survive. Science people (for lack of a better term) are complex, just like Religious people. We've all got our shit to work out, and it's going to take all hands on deck.<br /><br />Science people: I implore you, be nicer and focus on making the world a better place rather than telling people to beware of Jesus and his followers.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-26656200017591798202007-09-15T00:55:00.000-07:002007-09-15T00:58:06.906-07:00An actual Plan for World PeaceIt starts with a challenge, and then the recipe for overcoming and incorporating it.<br /><br /><br />The Challenge:<br /><br />Retrieve your freedom! I never thought I’d have to write that. As an American citizen, I have never feared for my freedoms this much. I thought we had written them down, that we had agreed upon them. We wrote a Constitution, what we want to be and how we want to govern ourselves. I never thought I’d have to write about being afraid of my government. And they seem not to be doing enough about Peace. I am here to offer my services if needed.<br /><br />I never thought I would have to rouse souls, rarely thinking what I thought mattered in a global sense. That’s the tragedy of this system, this machine that ignores the weirdos, the brainiacs, the geeks and nerds (inside and outside). There’s hope, and I have enough to share.<br /><br />I never thought I would be talking to you today, that I would need to ask for collaboration on a global scale. I need your help with something important.<br /><br />I said peace; it’s the only thing. That’s all I’ve ever said. All led up to that, and it’s been a rough road explaining this to others and myself.<br /><br />How do I explain this dream I have to people?<br /><br />How do I tell people what’s inside my heart without making it trite or boring? Especially when what I have to say is so so so simple: Let’s do this World Peace Project, right now.<br /><br />That’s what I’ve been wondering, are we ready to literally make Peace happen? I know we are.<br /><br />To that end, I have a plan (and I’d love to hear yours).<br /><br />We’re getting together. Can you see that? We are right now, you and I, getting together. You are reading this, you are thinking some of my thoughts! We’re connecting, we’re already connected.<br /><br />Why am I so optimistic? Because you can do it. If you can do this, for even a moment, a minute, then we can all do this.<br /><br />If you thought only one of my thoughts, if I had one thing to share it would be that we can do this. We can make peace ourselves. I am optimistic about it, and it freaking matters. I know you can all join me here in utopia, the land of “it’s all actually going to be okay”. It’s right around the corner… Ready?<br /><br /><br />The Recipe:<br /><br />Reach inside right now for one quiet, solid, intentional minute. Close your eyes for one minute. That’s it. Inside that one minute, anything could have (and still could) happen. What actually happened in that minute is Peace filled it up. You found a minute (or a moment) to yourself. That’s called perspective. That moment is all you need to build peace upon.<br /><br />I offer only the one thought of peace. That’s all that was offered me. Peace is the Kingdom. Whatever you think that Kingdom is, Peace is what comprises its walls. The LEGOs of that World Peace are built single person by single person, connecting. That’s all we have to do.<br /><br />That’s all we have to do, connect. Your only job is connecting. You can do this by giving birth, by making friends, by marrying, by marrying again, by calling your mother, son, daughter, sister, brother. You can do this by writing an email, a letter, leaving a voicemail, text messaging, smoke-signaling. You can Join Me, you can go bowling, you can play soccer in the dirt, you can eat a meal with a stranger.<br /><br />You can do this in the next 30 seconds, maybe even right after giving yourself that moment or minute of peace to yourself. Take your moment, then pass that moment on to the next person you want to connect to.<br /><br />These connections, the bulk of them, make peace. In fact, it’s the only way to do this. Peace only comes person by person. Bush and Putin. Moore and Knight. Pelosi and Boehner. Individual people connecting to individual people. Leaders should show the way, but we can all be leaders in this regard. <br /><br />This is the courageous thing: To step through the fog with your hands out and connect. Connect to someone you should already be connected to. Reconnect. Strengthen connections. Move from unhealthy connections to healthy ones. Just connect. That’s peace. That’s peace on earth. Just connecting.<br /><br />I know we can do this, because we were each children. You were once absolutely innocent, un-violent, un-vengeful. You were born good, you were absolutely born good in your Creator’s eyes. If you don’t believe in a universal creator, then perhaps you believe in yourself at your core. Believe that you don’t need any outside source whatsoever to discover your truth: that you are intrinsically good.<br /><br />That’s honestly what I see as a difference between people: That there are people who believe in immutable interpretations of good and bad. Then there are people who do not believe that there is an intrinsic good or bad, that there is only an intrinsic good at the core. That people at their core are only good. Other forces might come in to play: culture, learning, rearing, physicality. These things may affect a person negatively, but their core never changes. This is the “soul”. The soul is the unchangeable good you at the center of yourself. The very center has no room for bad, it is only good. In fact, the “bad” or “evil” is possibly just the absence of good, i.e. the background radiation that proves the existence of good. <br /><br />In the beginning, there was nothing (un-goodness as opposed to badness). All the essence of the Universe, all the mass and the stuff that makes the Universe up is the goodness. It’s all goodness, laid upon a wavefield. Pretty much, it’s all goodness then. Waves of it.<br /><br />Wave upon wave of connections. That’s it, that’s all that life is. Connecting, reconnecting. Only Connect. That’s the internet, that’s the town hall, that’s the dinner table, that’s the teleconference. Connecting.<br /><br />At the very smallest building block, the very essential unit 1, it’s about connection. The smallest particle, the very smallest thing is spinning, hovering over itself in space. The particle spins next to another particle and their fields attract. That’s how we get mass. In the Higgs-Boson field, mass is given when the smallest thing attracts another smallest thing. Connections. You could call that connection Love if you’d prefer. Peace is made of connections. One at a time or all together. <br /><br />I further believe we can make world peace in a few days’ time, because we can pretty much send any message across the planet within a few days if it’s urgent enough.<br /><br />It’s not that tough. Check out how fast we found out about 9/11, or MLK or JFK’s assassinations. That’s pretty clear proof that we can connect, and that connections are painful when they are broken. <br /><br />It’s really urgent, of course. We are in need of a very clear message of goodness. The Universal Great Spirit sent us all here to broadcast that message. Do it with good intentions, make that connection with the recently reset clean heart and soul that you recharged with that moment or minute to yourself. That’s it, that’s your only responsibility. Anything above and beyond that is just frosting on the peace cake.<br /><br />It’s urgent, because the secret message is already so clearly understood. Why wait? Why wait?<br /><br />You don’t even have to be successful, that’s the secret. You only need to TRY to connect, honestly and deeply. You are the only one you have to hold accountable for this act of revolution. Just connect.<br /><br />That’s the beauty of it. It’s so simple. Just connect more, or at least more truly. That’s all.<br /><br />I’m a bit sad that it had to be written so damn didactically. Sorry it is hard to understand sometimes. I have a hard time with simplicity, as you can tell.<br /><br />On a cosmic note, what was the beginning of life, the beginning of the universe? It was a super-connection that exploded outward into the connecting field. It was the wave at it’s trough, and the next phase is to connect. After the Big Bang, the things that survived were connecting. Pulses of connecting and reconnecting, that’s the essence of mass in the universe. Chaotically disconnecting and beautifully reconnecting.<br /><br />That’s another piece of the beautiful puzzle: It’s so simple. Get a moment of peace for yourself, then try to spread that to someone else. It’s the only responsibility you have on the planet. You were born of connection, and your destiny is to further that miracle.<br /><br />That’s it. A recap: Connect to yourself for a moment, then connect or reconnect to someone else.<br /><br />That’s how peace will happen.<br /><br />Peace.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-21978585019260314022007-09-08T10:52:00.000-07:002007-09-08T11:22:17.114-07:00QuestionsBlogs are all about telling, advising, describing. I am guilty of same. It's important, the sharing of accumulated wisdom, but it's only one small part of a progressive society and its use of technology.<br /><br />I'm excited about the future and I have lots of ideas about it, but I look around and see plenty of people that have their own ideas that they don't think are worth sharing. It's tragic.<br /><br />To that end, I want to know what you're thinking and feeling, what's on <strong>your</strong> mind. Perhaps the response/post style blog is a sub-optimal way to solicit thoughts, but if you're reading this : I want to actually hear what you think.<br /><br />What do you think needs to be done most urgently?<br />What do you think needs to be planted for future generations?<br />What can we do to ensure an inhabitable environment for our kids?<br />What are you currently doing to personally care for the planet you temporarily occupy?<br />What would you like to see happen in your community?<br />What have you seen that works that you'd do if you had support?<br /><br />Hook a brutha up with some knowledge! Share your visions! I'll put them in my blender and try to leverage the ideas as much as I am able. I'll brainstorm any and all responses and post some of the solutions.<br /><br />--AaronatorAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-41954211540060195292007-08-07T12:01:00.000-07:002007-08-07T12:54:43.649-07:00What I'm thinking about: EverythingVery funny, Campbell.<br />What I do on a nearly minute-to-minute basis is think about Grand Unification. Not just the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Everything">Grand Unification Theory</a> in physics, but also how to get everyone Grandly Unified.<br /><br />This is tough, as you might imagine. It melts my brain most of the time, and previous to meeting my wife and finding the path to my Right Livelihood, I thought I had to drug myself to stay sane. (The drugging turned out to work against the very idea of staying sane, but that's another blog, dawg.)<br /><br />On one hand, I think about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love">Love</a>. How it is possible that we can all have access to it, but how little we focus on it. It's the very basis of peace, and it comes from the spark inside that says "good". It connects you to yourself and deems yourself "good", but it also connects you to everyone else and everything else. It also is what many people believe {∞} to be made of. Love is at its essence pure good connection. I think it's possible to discover world peace pretty quickly after realizing that every single human (and of course all other animals) can give, get and be Loved. Until that realization, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace">peace</a> is pretty much an uphill battle.<br /><br />On the other hand, I think about {∞}. That is, the entire universe and the forces (force) that created it, govern it, and allow it to exist. I usually focus my thoughts on the smallest bits of the Universe. I think about how to connect all the theoretical models of the Universe. I think about better models and better analogies for describing how the Universe simply Is. This is ridiculous most of the time since I have a very limited knowledge of particle physics, QED, or frankly of anything that requires Calculus.<br /><br />I think about Quantum Physics and Love. I have my <a href="http://glowplugger.blogspot.com/2007/07/single-idea.html">Ultimate Theory of The Universe</a>, and I try hard to put the two big topics of my thoughts into one breath. I try to get them to help me forge the foundations of my dream for world peace.<br />I try to throw in something concrete and present when I do this. Like the feeling of my hand on my wife's pregnant tummy, the sight of a new head of broccoli in our garden, the ingenious ways we've devised to use recycled paper.<br /><br />It's a tough juggle for a very distracted person like me, but I'm getting better at it. My wife suggested it was like a mantra, but it's not a repeated phrase commonly associated with mantras. It's more of a feeling of "this is right, too". I smile when I do it right. It often requires some sort of combined distance and hyper-proximity. On one hand, I'm deep in it, on the other hand, I am standing back and observing it.<br /><br />The proximity/distance of that big thought is analogous to my desire to link the micro good with the macro good. It has to make sense all the way through, from the death of the universe to the birth (if there was either...). If the smallest thing makes sense, and the largest things make sense, then it must be okay in some way for me to get cut off on the I5 South on-ramp by a person distracted by their cellphone conversation. The beginning is good, the end is good, the middle must be good. Past, Future, Present.<br /><br />Once I've lit on a good vibe during this vein of thought, I try to find a way to share the goods. It's why I blog now, I want to share this experience and hear other's reaction to it. If you've got a Grand Unified Theory of some sort, it's essential that you put it out there to be scrutinized, corrected, and shared. Having one that includes spiritual and scientific ingredients is kinda heady at times, but I have Faith in it and myself. I haven't seen a better one that works for me, and I figure that it might be of use to somebody else.<br /><br />If you've got any comments on my Unification effort, please post a reply. If you've got one yourself and you feel confident enough to describe it, please do so. I'm all mouth, but I'm also all ears...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-72483167785644915562007-08-03T12:44:00.000-07:002007-08-03T14:29:26.750-07:00Unsolicited Advice : Fatherhood #3(From others, and from myself, all advice should be considered <em>unsolicited</em>.)<br /><br />1. If you are remotely considering parenting, get your advice directly from people. Humans, that is. Books are not humans, neither is the interweb.<br /><br />2. If at all possible, get advice from your own parents. Take it with a bag of salt, but take it nonetheless. <br /><br />3. If you are reading "books" to learn about parenting/birth, try hard to keep a conversation with your partner going about "reality" vs what is being warned about in the book. Statistics are not reality, they are (often) scientific snapshots of possible outcomes, not what's actually <u>going</u> to happen with your pregnancy/birth.<br /><br />4. Get many positive conversations going about <u>when</u> the baby comes. Although some might call this "magical thinking", I call it positive survivalism. Obviously, there are hundreds of resources for the negative stuff, if you focus on that, you will stress yourself and your potential baby out. Prepare for the good stuff! Baby names, nesting options, parenting methods, baby clothing, new and old traditions you are going to use. It's not pollyanna. It's more likely that it's all going to be alright, so be as prepared (or moreso) for that positive outcome as the negative. I'm not saying don't be ready for potential bad news, I'm saying don't focus on it.<br /><br />5. Go back through your own childhood. Look at pictures of you in your mother, birth photos, childhood photos. Get your parents to talk about your own birth and how it went, what they would change. Damn, I just came up with that idea and I haven't even done it myself! I'm calling my mom in Bellevue right now. Left a message...<br /><br />6. Talk to your partner. Keep talking. They need support and you do to. Do fun things together. Go out to a nice dinner. Arrange things that allow for more chatting. It's essential, and it's part of the nesting procedure. This belongs as advice number 1. <br /><br />7. Borrow everything you can. People are dying to let you take stuff out of their homes. Have a borrow-shower. (Good idea #2 on the spot!). Make lists of things you need, tell all your peeps. Have a baby-borrowing registry! Just quit thinking that you need to buy every damn thing new. NOTABLE EXCEPTION: BUY A BRAND NEW BABY SEAT! and get a <strong>good</strong> one.<br /><br />8. Have a professional install your baby seat, a month in advance. Seriously. I am a Certified Sit-Safe Installer myself, and I can do it or find someone who can do it. In the last year with 200+ installs, only 5 got it done right. Engineers, pediatricians, geniuses, everybody gets it wrong somehow. Have a pro install and/or check it for you.<br /><br />9. Get the tests, but don't stress the testing. It's important, but it's not REALITY. The can give you ideas about what <em>might</em> happen, but not what <em>will </em>happen. Again, stay positive. You get these tests sometimes just to rule stuff out, but in the end it's probabilities, just numbers.<br /><br />10. Surround yourself with supporters. If you have friends who get it, they will be behind you no matter what. If your "friends" tell you horror stories the first time they hear about your pending parenthood, kindly tell them to stuff it. If necessary, keep stuff to yourselves. Don't tell everybody on the planet you are pregnant the moment you find out (like I did...). Let the idea kinda simmer inside while you get yourself ready. Don't tell the name too early, and don't listen to people who say "what kind of name is Tycho?? It rhymes with Psycho!". Get new peeps if you must, but don't let people get you down. Family members might say some stupid stuff to you, just ignore it. Our worst advice, "Don't get divorced!" came from a family member. No offense meant, but that's not the first thing a new parent wants to get as "advice" on parenthood.<br /><br />11. Document stuff, but don't obsess about it. Be in the moment as much as you can. Don't waste real-time interaction for posterity reminiscence. Take photos and movies, but keep it sane.<br /><br />12. Be yourself. There is no need to be any damn body else. You're a parent, but you are also a sovereign human being. Nobody gets to tell you what you have to do, and you don't have to pretend to be anybody else to be a good parent. Do your thing. It gets you ready to parent! Don't be fooled, the stuff you plan on telling the kid is peanuts in comparison to the stuff you SHOW the kid by just being yourself. Do that better, and you'll be the best parent you can be.<br /><br />13. Don't forget to LOVE. Seriously. Love a lot. Get it an give it. You'll understand what I mean, if you don't already. Love, Love, Love.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-39959501345454675322007-07-30T11:48:00.000-07:002007-07-30T12:00:43.600-07:00Fatherhood #2Citizens,<br />I'm happy to say, the cult of Father is a warm and friendly place. People are coming out of the woodwork to lend a hand, give advice, offer support. The funniest thing is that it comes from strangers as often as from family/friends. <br /><br />The most recent phenomenon of spontaneous support comes from my Child Seat Safety Check people. I volunteered last year to help parents safely install their baby/child seats in their cars. Since then, I've done around 250 installs total (including my training installs). Of the 170 live installs, guess how many parents did it right on their own? Yup, 5. Five parents installed their baby seats correctly.<br /><br />Anyhow, I strike up conversations with them during the process (takes about an hour, includes training as well as installation). Typically, I sound like I have children myself. They were so shocked to hear I didn't actually have my own children that when they heard it they quite often became crestfallen. Since then, of course, my wife and I have become pregnant with our potential first child. The difference in their camaraderie is night and day!<br /><br />Not that they disliked me before, but they really get jacked up when they know I'm in their parent cult. It's again like getting a new lens, but more like I know the lensmakers themselves!<br /><br />They give me a great deal of advice, but the best advice I have received from them so far came from a new father who effectively said "there's no real preparation, no book you can read that will really tell you how it's going to be with your particular situation. Live in the moment and do everything you can to stay positive."<br /><br />That's my motto already, but it's totally cool to know that I can apply to this new situation... no matter what comes....Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-53443214314979130812007-07-23T14:02:00.000-07:002007-07-23T14:51:42.000-07:00Ideas about IdeasLet's just say I am addicted. Addicted to it all, of course, but specifically to ideas.<br />I think it could also be said that I have pretty dodgy organization of those ideas. Couple that with my apparent perennial difficulty with following through on those ideas and you get some pretty serious insanity built up....<br /><br />ENTER THE INTERNETS!<br /><br />I have more than a few ideas posted on the <a href="http://globalideasbank.org/">Global Ideas Bank</a> but I got a bit frustrated with the format and the fact that a great deal of the contributors were in England and nowhere that I could meet them personally. That's a weak excuse now that I think about it, but that's what happened. <a href="http://globalideasbank.org/site/bank/userIdeas.php?memberId=438&username=Aaron%20Campbell">Here are the ideas I came up with.</a><br /><br />I worked for a bit with a company called <a href="http://www.solutionpeople.com/">SolutionPeople</a> and they were trying to help people generate, collect, and choose good ideas in a more corporate setting. That was <span class="on" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_CreateLink" title="Link" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);FormatbarButton('richeditorframe', this, 8);ButtonMouseDown(this);"></span> cool but I was grossly underpaid and underutilized. Plus, I want to focus my ideas in a particular direction now, the Progressive Party and Alternative Energy. Simply coming up with ideas is like eating candy for dinner. Yummy but empty and slightly unhealthy.<br /><br />I've bumped into a few other people with this bend, but in the end because I had a hard time CAPITALizing on idea$, the idea of getting paid for idea$ kind of flopped on me. I've seen the concept of ideas for sale work at the <a href="http://brainstore.com/">BrainStore</a> and <a href="http://www.idea-sandbox.com/">Idea-Sandbox</a> people, but why must these people not actually have a couch to meet on in North Seattle?<br /><br />The concept of coming up with a company that got paid to come up with ideas isn't new, but it's been pretty hard to do. The company I tried to start in 1999, Anythink, which eventually changed to RocketForge and then stopped doing the idea thing altogether was frustrating as well.<br /><br />Now that I have more of a focus, I think it can be done again, but perhaps in a different way. I confess I do not know that way yet. Alternative Thinking about Alternative Energy, something like that. I don't want to dive back into small business ownership right now anyway, but it's something that I cannot seem to shake, the idea of selling ideas.<br /><br />Perhaps that's the issue, the selling part. If I just continue to post my ideas, maybe the idea itself will arise, or people who like one or another idea will come out of the woodwork and help with the capitalization. Perhaps it should be free...freeeee!<br /><br />I know I want to brainstorm for a living, but I need to find an outlet and a place to pour the ideas into it. I have literally hundreds of unexplored ideas written down, with no real place to arrange them (some have already been realized, too).<br /><br />I did some good informal versions of the idea idea in a very social format: two friends of mine went out to a bar and we talked about ideas, calling the weekly event "ThinkTanked".<br /><br />Perhaps the internet is just one place to do this. I know it also has to happen in person, though, and it has to be a part of my Right Livelihood. I know enough just to come up with the question, but the answer is just out of reach right now. Weird, I have an idea to come up with ideas, but I don't yet have the idea launching idea fleshed out concretely. Grrr!<br /><br />Any thoughts on the thought thinking and leveraging concept welcome... Please go ahead and leave a comment if you think you might have a strand to add to the rope...<br /><a href="http://www.idea-sandbox.com/"></a><a href="http://www.idea-sandbox.com/"><span class="down" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_CreateLink" title="Link" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);FormatbarButton('richeditorframe', this, 8);ButtonMouseDown(this);"></span></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-52834888098606983292007-07-19T11:26:00.000-07:002007-07-19T12:24:55.784-07:00FatherhoodPart 1: Aaron realizes the lens that he's been seeing with is now different. I can't re-frame my experiences with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">pre</span>-fatherhood eyes. I must move forward with this new vision.<br /><br />I'm half responsible for a brand new <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">lifeform</span> on this Earth. An animal is now growing inside my loving and wise wife, and soon it will be thinking, breathing, growing on its own. Damn, yo.<br /><br />Taking stock is something I have been doing nearly every day now. What have I got? What do I need to purge? What more do I need? What does my wife have? What will the baby need? How much does my community have that I can share, and to what extent do I need to continuously re-evaluate this entire stock again?<br /><br />What I came to is that I have way too much, and/or exactly the right amount of everything. I am over-blessed if that's possible. Was it my previous provable Karmic additions to my community that made it possible to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">receive</span> so much in return? Probably. Blessed.<br /><br />I have love. I have a house. I have my family close by. I have a right livelihood, I can bike or walk to work. I have my health. I frankly deserve no more than I have.<br /><br />But there it is, a newborn baby growing inside my loving wife and I have a hard time grokking my blessing overflow. Was it my father's early death? My efforts at being a good person? Biodiesel advocacy? What makes it possible for me to deserve it, and feel like it's the right thing for the Universe to bless me with?<br /><br />It kinda makes me nervous. What would it mean if the baby didn't survive? What would it mean if it was born, but had a tragically short life filled with pain? What, exactly, does it mean?<br /><br />I have to get my head around it, and it is growing all the while, ever-evading my intellectualizing of it. I'm thinking that this is yet another nod at my tendency to take things as they come, to accept the whole package, and to assume that ALL of the meaning is inherently good in the end. The Universe filled with chaotic beautiful particles interacting in rhythm isn't thinking particularly about little ol ABC, but it's not completely ignoring me it seems.<br /><br />Fatherhood (in utero at least) also makes me ponder my particular particles...<br /><br />My DNA is not my own anymore. Although my father has passed, I have his actual DNA in all my cells. He's actually inside me, and by that token all the things I do have been also done by him and my mother in equal parts. Accordingly, my wife and I have equal gifts of DNA combined to make this new little individual. It's an awesome responsibility.<br /><br />I am as ready as I can be for all this, but I still haven't a clue what's really happening yet...<br /><br />Send us some good vibes if you can spare them!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-27297117606208558202007-07-04T14:59:00.000-07:002007-07-04T16:18:28.729-07:00A single ideaIt's all you need to start with. Then you add the aforementioned healthy obsession, and watch the idea grow and flourish.<br /><br />I was around 20. I was writing frantically in my journal, when something happened to my pen and hand. They seemed to work on their own, without "me". The ink seemed to flow out of the tip of the pen, drag across the paper fibers and create words, seemingly without my input.<br /><br />It was getting more and more feverish, and "I" realized that something pretty big was building up. I engaged as the pen continued to write, battling with it a bit, questioning the thing that was happening, wondering out loud about who was in charge, how silly it was that I was acting like someone or something was in charge of my pen other than my very self.<br /><br />My heart got to pounding as I wrote, more and more I realized that Peace was coming up through my subconscious into my pen and out of the inky socket, rolling out onto the fibers of the journal. <br /><br />The spirit of Peace, the idea itself, was acting. Obviously, it wasn't a mythical beast or a white-haired man in the clouds, but it was a spirit nevertheless. The spirit inside me of the dream of peace. Not theoretical, not illusionary. It was inside me and I had been cooking it for years. In a moment of openness, in a moment of mental and spiritual glasnost, I was about to let it out of its earthly human cage and into another, my journal.<br /><br />As I wrote, the phrase that was yearning to burst forth was "Peace is the Kingdom".<br /><br />I had never thought that thought before, never written it out, never contemplated beforehand what the "Kingdom" was. The moment I wrote it, however, I realized immediately what it meant. It meant the Kingdom of what people refer to as God.<br /><br />Now, I am an avowed non-anthropomorphic unifying presence believer, but I shy away from using the phrase "God". It's way too sticky, and it violates my neo-athiesm ethic among other things.<br /><br />As you might know already, I believe in God- but not the only one you are currently thinking of, chances are good. I believe in the pervasive scientific idea that all things are fundamentally built of identical packet-pulses of energy. All space and everything inside and outside space is made up of these tiny mass/energy packets. The packets are obviously the smallest possible things in the Universe, and I believe that they make up everything in it.<br /><br />Fortunately, there is no way to see that smallest thing to prove my theory, but its evidence of existence is all around. Quantum Physics practitioners (if you will) have been looking for the final piece of the quantum puzzle, and this is my personal theory that fits that empty puzzle-gap. The Higgs-Boson might be that very piece, or it might be still smaller than that. <br /><br />In any case, that smallest particle/energy packet moves in a particular way. I believe it moves in a modified figure eight ∞ path around its own center of mass. It cannot be said to "be" in the center nor the outer curves of the figure, it's in that general vicinity all-at-once. We can point toward it, but not directly at it. Heisenberg.<br /><br />That's it. There's a smallest thing, it makes up everything, and it's impossible to see.<br />From there I came to the conclusion that it was, in fact, Faith that I was using and no longer the raw repeatable science that led me to that final point. Science opens the door, and you yourself must go through it. At that threshold, at that gate, at that either-or space, you are standing on science, and the final reach above your outstretched arms is Faith.<br /><br />Faith is that same thing that gives me Hope. Faith, the internal system that allows what isn't yet to become in the future without fail. I have Faith that this is the solution, this is the way to Peace, and that gives me Hope. I can continue to hack seemingly fruitlessly on a theory that is too simplistic and un-provable, because I have hope that the idea is itself not needing me to push it forward. It has its own power.<br /><br />I am simply telling you about my experience of things, not telling you that you have to have the same faith I have. The smallest thing already exists, it's already doing what it needs to do. I am not required to "promote" it or myself per se, but I am required to tell the truth about what has been going on in my head all these years.<br /><br />Back to the moment....I wrote "Peace is the Kingdom" with my heart racing and my hand now trembling uncontrollably. I had to fling the journal across the room in order to breathe properly again. This was my enlightenment. It happened in the past, and I have been struggling for years to find my way back to it. This is yet another post that tries to get that idea out, putting it in a tangible format that hopefully everyone can understand. This is it.<br /><br />Here I am, July 4, 2007 in a house I own with my wife in north Seattle, Washington, USA. I am typing on my G5 PowerMac into a window of Blogger in the Firefox browser. I'm listening to Alexi Murdoch's Orange Sky on repeat. I'm sober and happy, reveling in my manifold blessings. I have to share this with you, I have no choice, and I require nothing from you but contemplation of the single idea of Peace.<br /><br />I ask that you consider this one idea: that "all religions have the same god that is created by and creates everything in the universe, and that all science points to the same one invisible particle/wave that makes up everything in that universe in the same way god does, and that idea makes us all fundamentally equal."<br /><br />It requires the exact same faith that religious people have in their god to come to the idea that there is a "smallest thing" and that the entire universe is made of those smallest things. The order of the universe is clear, so is the chaos. It's all due to the mysterious interaction between these smallest things, working in perfect chaos and harmony. That order/disorder is how the universe continues to "be". Flux between order and disorder is itself order. And, obviously, disorder. But within those is the space, the sacred space between.<br /><br />This space between particle/waves of the smallest things is not void, it is absolutely filled, but then instantly and simultaneously emptied. This space is the attraction between any two of these smallest particle waves, this is the space that both propels the particle waves toward each other, and also repels them.<br /><br />This space, this theoretical full-emptiness attraction can easily be called something else:<br /><br />LOVE.<br /><br />Literally, love is the space between two things that both attracts and repels it. Magnetically, lovingly playing the two things with each other. Mass is also energy, and all things with mass have this spiritual force that both brings them together and at the smallest level also pushes them away. <br /><br />In the end, there is no such thing as apart-ness as these smallest things are exactly the same, they are built of the exact same material/energy, have the same potential, are built in the own god's image, if you will. Exactly in god's image. In its own image as well, therefore. Therefore, being of the same original thing, having come from the one singularity at the beginning of time, they are One but they are dispersed.<br /><br />At the same time they are the same thing just busted into infinite pieces (think Kaballah), they are also individual pieces of that original piece. Like humans, we are all the exact same spieces, all humans, but we are all individuals with our own particular sovereignty. People like to call that original sovereignty the "soul". It's an unkillable piece of you that bonds you in a collective to the original soul that bore you during the Big Bang.<br /><br />It's hard sometimes to keep the thoughts straight, I know. It has made lesser men crazy, for sure. I am not sure I am not crazy in that cosmic sense either, but I keep seeing this stuff happening and thinking that it all must make sense somehow. This theory, that Peace is the Kingdom and it's born out of the realization that we're all made of the same stuff at a sub-quantum level, is not at all new. It's just the way it's coming out for me in particular.<br /><br />Notice that it plays on all other forms of this same idea: That there's a Big Force out there that created us, and that we all deserve the life we are given by that Force. We need to realize the inherent equality in all people, that we're one animal of many on this planet, and we have to take care of each other rather than kill each other to get what we want or to "protect" ourselves.<br /><br />I thought previously that my biggest trouble was finding a way to make money from the idea, honestly. I'm ashamed of that, but there it is. I thought, maybe I needed to use this big idea to make a religion of my own! Talk about super-hubris. I knew I was eventually going to share the idea, but I thought since it's my one big idea that I should somehow make my right livlihood from the idea. I was blind, but now I see...<br /><br />So, to sum again: The symbol I have tatooed on my hand is an infinity "∞" surrounded by a set of brackets. In math, it's the set of infinity. It's the shape of the path that I believe the smallest particle/wave traces in space. It represents the faith of the religious that there is one unknowable mysterious force that rules the entire universe, and the faith that sciencists have that things can be understood in terms of micro-macro rules that can be proven over and over again. Those groups, the religious and the non-religious can be brought together under the idea that at the final moment things are not perfectly provable, even this theory itself. It's the mystery that brings us together, the faith and the love of each other that can bring Heaven to Earth.<br />This is the Kingdom. <br /><br />Peace is the Kingdom of god, on the real earth in real time, while you are still alive, even as you read this or hear this read.<br /><br />Pray on this, meditate on it, skeptically discard it, do what you think you have to do with the idea. It's not mine anymore, and it frankly wasn't mine in the first place. It was Yours.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15427962.post-71159450577179340402007-07-04T14:56:00.000-07:002007-07-04T14:59:50.694-07:00Independence DayPeople keep calling it the 4th of July. It's much more than that, and we best never forget. It's the day that the country became itself, declare itself independent of the King George and the British Monarchy. That's huge. Would that we remember that a country, its people sovereign, can "declare independence". Think it over for a bit, toss the word "King George" around in your head, and remember that it only took a few dedicated people and a single idea to create an entirely new nation, flawed and beautiful as it is.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16663798879843841918noreply@blogger.com1