Our fearless leader Shawn was part of a recent small feature in the local newspaper The Union, for her work as Area Governor for Toastmasters Area 64. Here is the news clip:

The feature is currently up on their website as well, but I don’t know how long it will remain there.

(posted by Lance)

I have added some new testimonials from treasured clients and colleagues. Thank you to Max Schwanekamp, Courtney Ferguson, Leah Wilson, Jason Rainey, and Suzie Daggett for their kind praise and reflections. They brightened several of my days! Their words are now up with the others on our Testimonials page.

The specifics of Permaculture are laid out in detail in Permaculture Pioneer, Bill Mollison’s, textbook style book, PERMACULTURE: A Designers’ Manual. A lot of it has to do with homesteading–working with wind and water patterns, tree planting layouts for windbreaks, working with different types of earth, etc.

At this point in my life, I’m mostly interested in the principles of Permaculture. The Introduction to Permaculture, also by Mollison, is shorter, and for me, a great source of inspiration. You can get your own copy of this great book by clicking on the book image below. (Note that Amazon reports this book as being out of print so I don’t know how easy it will be to find in the future.)

I took advantage of the break in rain last week to go shooting. Photos that is. I posted 15 new ones in the Simplicity in Nature gallery. Enjoy!

“Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til its gone”

This was originally from Joni Mitchell’s song Big Yellow Taxi (that I always thought of as the Paved Paradise song). I take it to be an observation that often we don’t know how good something is until it’s replaced by something not so good. There is a flip side to this.

Sometimes we don’t realize how unhealthy something is until we are in a better condition.

This concept has been articulated in conversation by two different people in completely different conversations recently.

Our very own Lance “the tech guy” was telling me about the trials and tribulations he’s been experiencing with his flock of peacocks. He said that once the flock was back together, he felt a huge relief, much larger than seemed warranted for. What he realized was that through the whole ordeal, he hadn’t realized how stressed out he was and how much the situation was effecting the rest of his life.

Then today, I was talking with a delightful woman who expressed, basically, the same sentiment. We were talking about living situations and she said that she hadn’t realized how much a past living situation was effecting her outlook on life until she moved into a better situation.

These examples are so common! On the one hand, it’s truly remarkable how adaptable we humans are to be able to deal with such a variety of situations. On the other hand, it indicates how important it is to “take stock” on a regular basis of all facets of our life. When we ask ourselves if a situation is good for us, do we answer, “YES!” or is it, “well, better than before,” or “well, better than what she has over there.”

One of my driving forces during the ’90’s was that I didn’t want to wake up when I was 55 with regret that I hadn’t lived a full life. The positive side of this statement:

throughout my entire life, I want to be able to look back with a smile when observing how all of my decisions led me to where I am today.

My plan for achieving this? Going for the “Yes!” and passing by “well, maybe…”

At the MacWorld conference in SF this past January I met the people who created iListen, a voice dictation and command program. Since I write a lot and am beginning to feel the minor symptoms of repetitive use effects in my thumbs, I thought I’d give it a go.

The program, combined with a microphone (I’m using the Parrot TalkPro), learns the nuances of your voice. It uses a combination of sound (phonemes) and context recognition. I’m still in the process of “training” it by reading texts in its training database. Since it knows what I am reading, it is gathering data on the way I speak. After 2 (out of about 10) training sections I tried reading some random passages from Covey’s 7 Habits and got about 75% accuracy.

Charles Moore wrote a very comprehensive review of iListen. He’s been using iListen for several years and several versions and had positive (but not blind) praise for the product. He actually mentions several features that I was unaware of (the documentation from MacSpeech is not super user friendly. There are 4 different pdf manuals that I’m learning to sort through to find answers to my questions.)

Seeing what errors iListen made provided an interesting look into what other people might hear when I speak. Reminds me to not speak too quickly and to enunciate, especially with people who don’t speak English as a first language.

…compliments of Starbucks, that is.

Not once, but twice this month I’ve run across people sharing words of wisdom found on Starbucks paper cups. Blogger Jeff Hester passed on a quote about innovation and collaboration. And a few weeks ago, our Club’s Toastmasters President brought in a paper cup to read from for some inspiration.

This is a long cry from the days of drinking coffee out of white Styrofoam cups–back in the days when a cup was merely a container. Who would’ve thought that simple shape would evolve into an instrument of change? Because really, that which encourages our mind to move beyond the details of the present, to think outside ourselves, and encourages us into the sphere of community is, in fact, promoting change.

I personally only hit Starbucks when travelling, and I take in my own mug — no words of wisdom for me.

Which leads me to ponder how much more change could be made if more people traveled with their own mug. Starbucks’ Winter 2006 Social Responsibility Newsletter reports that

You know they’ve been growing by leaps and bounds so that number can only be higher now.

Take your own mug! Ask to be served with glass or ceramic! We can inspire them to more community minded practices. Then they can put the words of wisdom on the napkins :)