Diamond-Cut Life

I returned late Tuesday from a transportation conference on the Oregon coast. Extrovert that I am, I had a great time between doing a presentation, attending other presentations, chatting it up with keynote speakers, receiving an award, playing pool after hours with friends and going running on the beach. I even got my workaholic [...]

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I respect the Oregonian for running a large front-page story this Sunday morning on the prevalence of military personnel who get raped — by fellow military personnel. In particular, I respect Jeff Elizalde for going public with the fact that this happened to him 30 years ago. He has guts.
Why am I covering this topic [...]

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I have just a short post today letting people know about an exciting job opening in the growing general job-market of sustainability. Oregon Department of Transportation is recruiting to hire a new Sustainability Program Manager. Click on this link to see the full job description and details. As I am writing on Friday October 10, [...]

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I’m snuggled in a cabin with my husband, looking out at Opal Creek Ancient Forest as torrents of rain come down.  Perfect writing weather, and in fact the writing workshop I’m enrolled in will start in an hour or so.
My topic today is optimism, inspired by fellow blogger Sara at On Simplicity. While her post [...]

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We’ve got lots of blame, anger and flat-out fear flying around in reaction to the collapse of giants like Merrill Lynch — and also the government/taxpayers bailing them out.  I’m feeling calm this morning, myself, which makes it a good time to write.  What does it mean that all these profitable companies, these diamonds, are [...]

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Earlier this week I noted that sustainability needs a lot of entrepreneurs, and supplied the first half of my best tips for them, gleaned from twelve years of owning and operating my own business. Here’s the second half. Feel free to add your own suggestions and experience!
Be willing to [...]

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Sustainability needs lots of entrepreneurs. It needs outside-the-box thinkers and doers to help us find new ways of producing, consuming and being of service to each other. I’ll bet that you, yourself, have a talent or idea you’ve fantasized about making a living at.
I spent 1992 to 2004 as a small business owner, designing and [...]

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I was delighted to find this morning that Andrew Brown, the Oakland Athletics pitcher who was the subject of my recent post on cool commuting, wrote me in response. When he says some of his fellow A’s are now also using BART,  I’m impressed as always by how much we influence those around us with [...]

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My carpool-pals don’t just help me save gas money and carbon emissions, they also pass good information on to me. Thanks to my baseball-loving ‘pool, I’ve learned about Andrew Brown, the relief pitcher for the Oakland Athletics who uses his bicycle and BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) to get to the ballpark for [...]

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