Diamond-Cut Life

Living here in Portland, Oregon, I’ve become aware that we have the highest percentage of hybrid cars of any city in the nation. I’ve also observed that Portland General Electric (PGE) has the largest renewable power program in the country. (Disclosure: I’m married to Thor Hinckley, the manager of that renewables program.)
The new piece is [...]

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A major predictor of a person’s happiness is the number and quality of relationships in that person’s life. And money can be a make or break in any type of relationship — marital, parent-child, friend-to-friend, dating and courtship, roommates and housemates.
I believe that when we put relationships and integrity first, money and healthy finances [...]

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Having noticed unusually high readership of my last post How To Save Money On Gas, I’m going to soon write a sequel with more tips on that topic, including from readers, via comments.
But man does not live by gas alone. We need our spirits to be fed, too. Enter poetry. This poem of mine, a [...]

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The way we drive has a huge impact on our fuel consumption. The cool thing about saving money on gas by using less of it, from the diamond-cut perspective, is that we reduce our carbon emissions at the same time. And all of us would prefer to subsidize our own bank accounts rather than the [...]

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I’m looking today at a confluence of one of my favorite sports — running — and a worthy pursuit that I have done in the past — fundraising. An energetic woman named Linda Quirk at Run 7 On 7 is leading 300 others in running seven marathons on seven continents and raising pledges to [...]

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Future posts will be back to diamond-cut, wholesome fare on building relationships and community and saving money and carbon emissions via energy and gas conservation. But today the addict in me has to come forward and be known. The blogger addict, the one who craves hits.
I jones for blog hits. I check my blog stats [...]

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I got up before dawn this morning and went running at first light in Mount Tabor Park, near our house. Near a 100-foot tall Douglas Fir tree, I heard unusual scrabbling noises, so I stopped in my tracks to investigate.
I saw an adult raccoon spreadeagled on the tree at about waist height, looking over its [...]

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I am blessed to be in a happy marriage. My husband Thor and I share delight and trust in each other. But my life has certainly not always been this way: I’m a survivor of two divorces, many more break-ups, and staggering amounts of emotional pain.
My, how things can change. Specifically, people can change. [...]

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Guest post by award-winning journalist Colleen Kaleda:
My husband and I recently bought a 96 year old house in a close-in neighborhood of Northeast Portland. If our land could talk — oh what would it say? Perhaps that it wants to shed its excess pavement.

Our sidewalk still has hand-forged steel rings where horses used [...]

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Ewan O’Leary, the founder of the carbon offset company Little Carbon Feet, wrote the below (in italics) in response to my and Brandt Smith’s dialogue on Rethinking the Entitlement of Travel. I agree with Ewan that we’re in a lifeboat (emergency) situation with needing to reduce our carbon emissions — hence the title “Paddling the [...]

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