December 2011
1 post
October 2011
1 post
3 tags
September 2011
2 posts
3 tags
TEDx Brisbane
I’ve been invited to speak at TEDx Brisbane (Australia) on October 15th and unlike past invitations, this one I’ve accepted. Normally I hesitate to promote things that are not sealed in stone and in the case of this, my ticket has yet to be purchased by their budget committee, but they sound confident that it’s happening and I’m excited at the prospect, so for once...
August 2011
5 posts
Shooting video with DSLRs
I was talking with my Dad the other day about our Canon 5D and 7D setup for filming and realized that he wasn’t aware that the film industry has embraced DSLRs in a big way and that they’ve done amazing things for aspiring film makers. So I sent him the email below— the second half of which is why I’m posting it here: Some beautiful videos shot on DSLRS that I find...
1 tag
June 2011
1 post
6 tags
Swings: Los Angeles Swings: Bolivia
To those that haven’t been following what I’ve been up to lately, here is a break down:
Edit: Here’s a nice local news piece by the CBS affiliate.
Last year friends and I hung swings across San Francisco and the reception was incredible. I went on to install more in the Marshall Islands, friends hung them in Panama and a dozen other people wrote to say how they were...
May 2011
2 posts
1 tag
There hasn’t been a lot but we’ve been getting a little coverage on the Mother’s Day cards. It matters since the reason we wanted to mount these was the propagation of motives like this and to inspire similar projects. Sewing seeds of altruism in that warm spring sun. The last place that picked it up stumbled across the empty box— the letters all having been mailed—...
1 tag
March 2011
1 post
1 tag
February 2011
1 post
1 tag
December 2010
8 posts
1 tag
1 tag
October 2010
3 posts
Oops. Apparently not everyone got the message. In case you missed it, I came back home to San Francisco a little early to pursue a really cool job opportunity. I was originally slated to come back today. Not the case though.
Phone number is the same. And all those wonderful plans we made before I left are now back on the docket. No trying to weasel out of them either. I’m excited to be home...
September 2010
4 posts
Yesterday we said farewell to be best guy on my crew, Albert. He’s been here ten years, worked for my company for nearly nine of them. But his Marshallese wife, her family, and his daughter, are in Hawaii. He had to go there at some point but had been putting it off. With his daughter’s kemmen (1st birthday— it’s a big deal) coming up he finally pulled the trigger.
They...
Whatever Happened to Labor? →
Not Labor with a capital L, as in organized labor unions. I mean labor as in skilled workers solving interesting problems. I mean craftspeople who use their hands, their backs and their heads to do important work.
Labor was a key part of the manufacturing revolution. Industrialists needed smart, dedicated, trained laborers to solve interesting problems. Putting things together took more than...
When I shower I strategically place a bucket near my feet to catch the runoff. This I use to fill the tank of my toilet so I can flush it. It’s not some fancy gray-water recycling program or new age hippie initiative— it’s just how I flush my toilet. The fact that my plumber believes in black magic and that positive thoughts can affect the rain gives me little hope that this will...
August 2010
12 posts
2 tags
I’ve said before that there isn’t a lot of crime here. I mean, they have a drinking problem at the jail. Every night the prisoners escape and go out to the bar. They come back. The island is four miles square. Where are they going to go? But they come back drunk and hauling more booze to keep the party going. When the jailer was asked about this he just said “I try, but they just...
Best quote from yesterday while we were out looking for sharks:
Him: So my mate was bit in the ass by this reef shark while spear-fishing, but he didn’t handle it the way most people would.
Me: How did he handle it?
Him: He walked out of the hospital right back to the spot, grabbed his spear, and started hunting the shark.
Emon.
It means “Good” in Marshallese, but its use extends beyond that rudimentary definition. They use it like Americans might say “okay” or give a thumbs up. As a tossed off thanks like “cheers,” or as an affirmation— a universal acknowledgment of understanding. It was the second bit of Marshallese I learned after “thank you,” the first...
In 2005 the Majuro Atoll hospital caught on fire and had to be extinguished with hand buckets because the battery on the fire truck, which hadn’t been run in months, was dead and a suitable jump-start could not be located.
And in 2010 it happened again.
Only this time there weren’t enough buckets so the apartment that had caught on fire burned all the way to the dirt. The fire...
Saturday I cut my guys early. Pretty common thing. Not long after lunch they headed home. Danny left to go home as well and ready our dive gear. I got the boat warmed up so I could pick Danny and the gear up at the beach next to his house before we motored toward Enemanit— the closest respectable island to ours. We’ve dived it before. You’ve seen pictures of the plane we found...
“Do you have an erection?”
It’s a strange question. Stranger when it’s coming from a fifty year old Fijian you just met. His three friends, each his peer or a decade older, let out a collective laugh. The one across from me ribs his friend, “He wouldn’t feel it anyway.”
He’s probably right. My legs don’t feel like they’re my own and my...
1 tag
July 2010
20 posts
I went on my first ever night dive yesterday. I’d gone once before, but three beers and ten feet of water off the back porch is hardly a qualifying experience— more just a combination of sensations and a lesson in what the signal of spinning your dive light clockwise means.
Last night Danny and I joined up with an aging marine biologist, who looked to be built purely from tendons, an...
Fear.
It’s been pointed out to me by several people that my boating off to tiny islands and jet skiing across the atoll doesn’t exactly jive with my fear of oceans, boats, and most of all, boats in oceans.
Valid point.
But, I’ve yet to head into open water and this 30hp aluminum dinghy in the lagoon is a far cry from a sailboat at sea. I’ve had baths more turbulent. (I lost my...
3 tags
Jamaican Dogsled Team! →
The largest project on my plate right now is the completion of a building that was only sort of started when I arrived. It was expected that in short order I’d have a plan, some deadlines and a roof on it’s way to the top of the existing uprights. I have, at this moment, about half of that.
Today was supposed to be the big day where I’d bring in the largest crane on the island...
