BIG IDEAS for 2008

Give Peace a Chance




"Fanatic ethnic or religious or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our planet as a fragile, blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars."
—Carl Sagan

Everything working out...

No pun intended


Ironman Louisville is August 31st next year. I have been telling all my family and friends that I would love to take my little girl and Brittany up to Chicago afterwards to catch a game at Wrigley field and check out the option pits.

The Cubs just posted their 2008 schedule and they will be at home Monday through Wednesday after Sunday's Ironman in Kentucky.

bike parking, Copenhagen on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

bike parking, Copenhagen on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I could only hope and pray that this will be Chattanooga, TN in a couple of years!

Yogurt vs. Gasoline

Yogurt vs. Gasoline

Click here to see the movie.

I thought since Christmas Day was the busiest time of year for theatres, I would post some short films here, so you wouldn't have to fight the crowds.

Merry Christmas Everyone

Transportation Ethics

Clarence Eckerson at StreetFilms presents this provocative conversation between Mark Gorton, executive director of the Open Planning Project, and Randy Cohen, author of The Ethicist column in the New York Times Magazine and occasional commentator for NPR. As shown in this interview, Cohen is also an intelligent and articulate voice for Livable Streets.

Fun Holiday Pics

I love this headline

Higher Fuel Prices Bring CARTA More Riders
from the chattanoogan.com


"a total of 164,662 people rode CARTA buses - more than 10,000 more than the 154,327 who rode buses during November 2006."

Goals !

I'm really excited!

Tonight I'm meeting up with my best friend and we are going to talk about our goals for the next year.

I will post about all of my goals for next year in the next week or two, but one thing I have already decided is to learn more about marketing - and yes for you witty people out there - I am going to focus on some specific parts of marketing. I have been doing an enormous amount of reading lately on marketing, success, history, etc... and one of the major trends is:

Successful people know a lot people (they network)
Unsuccessful people don't know a lot of people (they keep to themselves)

So this morning I came across this great post and thought I should share it with everyone, if you want to create more buzz out there.

Another thing I'm really excited about for next year is a men's bible study I just started.

Lastly, I guess a congratulations is in-order. My friend Chris's goal was to get the same google page rank as me and he recently accomplished this as mine has been on a slippery downslope and his has been accelerate ting. But just so everyone knows, I'm really not that impressed since there are a heck of a lot of more people out there who care about internet marketing than my ironman training and my daily commute by bike!

A Tale of Two Countries

Congressman Earl Blumenauer introducing the
Bike Commuter Act on Capitol Hill last March.
(Photo © Jonathan Maus)

Bike commuter benefit does not survive Senate vote on Energy Bill

The bike commuter tax benefit — which was introduced to Congress by Earl Blumenauer last March and passed a House vote last week — has been stripped out of the Energy Bill by the Senate.

The U.S. Senate passed the Energy Bill yesterday, but not before removing several “green initiatives” included in the bill by the Blumenauer-led Ways and Means Committee.

Along with removing Blumenauer’s effort to close the “Hummer tax loophole” (which sought to end the additional tax incentive for business purchases of luxury SUVs weighing over 6,000 lbs), the Senate removed the part of the bill that would have expanded the existing transportation fringe benefit to include bike commuters.

The bike commuter provision was based on The Bike Commuter Act and would have given a benefit of $20 per month to employees who biked to work “for the purchase, storage, or repair” of their bicycles. It would have brought bike commuters in line with existing tax benefits for transit users and car drivers.

Addressing National Bike Summit attendees on Capitol Hill last March, Blumenauer said the bike commuter benefit was simply a matter of equity and it would have stopped, “The discrimination against people who burn calories instead of fuel.”

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Danish cities go high-tech for bike safety

Posted by Jonathan Maus (Editor) on December 14th, 2007 at 2:45 pm

Flashing lights when
a bike is present.
(Photo: Zakkaliciousness)

From Cycleliciousness (the “Copenhagen Bicycle Culture Blog”), comes word of two interesting bike safety measures.

Given that we are in the midst of making some major bike safety improvements at dangerous intersections, I thought it might be useful to take a look at new technology being considered by the Danes.

The first is being tested in Copenhagen to reduce the number of right-hook collisions between bikes and trucks. It’s what the blog’s author calls, “a new system of diode lights” (similar the one in their photo at right) that would potentially reduce bike/car conflicts at dangerous intersections.

All of this is from bikeportland.org

It's officially winter in Chattanooga, TN. At the end of my bike ride into work was a sign that said it was 28 degrees outside - which means it was around 25 degrees when I started.

The wind wasn't alive so it really only felt like it was in the mid-to-high 30s.

For all of you who prefer cycling to running - Now there are no more excuses

http://www.bikeforest.com/tread/index.php

Americans are broad-minded people. They'll accept the fact that a person can be an alcoholic, a dope fiend, a wife beater, and even a newspaperman, but if a man doesn't drive, there is something wrong with him.

Art Buchwald, "How Un-American Can You Get?," Have I Ever Lied to You?, 1966

INTERESTING...

Al Gore just accepted the Nobel Peace Price for his work on Global Warming and here in Chattanooga, TN the temperature is around the high 70's.

Other interesting environmental news from Chattanooga's American Hiking Society:

Today, Wilbur Smith Associates released a long awaited Economic Development and Transportation Summary related to the Corridor K project. While I have not yet had time to review this report in detail, I am making it available for concerned citizens to look at here.

Corridor K in a Global Economy: A Summary of the Economic Development and Transportation Study. (113 KB)

Stay tuned for more information about Corridor K as studies related to the project, including the development of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) are completed. This process will take several years to unfold, but we will follow along closely until our concerns are resolved.

Bill McKibben speaks about Chattanooga, TN's environment and community, touring the city and speaking about its green efforts.

"It always seems impossible until it's done" Nelson Mandela

I had to tell my friends over at commutebybike that I have officially switched to running. This morning I actually thought I was going to bike in because of the lack of water and the excessive amount of brownies I ate last night. I even hit the snooze button. But the second I felt the brisk 30 degree weather with a nice morning breeze, I grabbed my mp3 player and me and Bono went for a run.

Goals

I have been doing some serious thinking about my goals for 2008. Next year will be a pivotal year for me personally and professionally. I will elaborate on this issue later, but one of my goals will definitely pertain to educating others and myself on alternative energy.

It all comes back to the simplicity of biking to work. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you are a nature-lover, health fanatic, or just plain cheap-skate - the bottom line is the bottom line, and that is = you have more money in your back pocket if you bike to work as opposed to if you drive your car to work.

In the next couple of years I believe this movement will transgress into our aging power grid and companies and individuals will be more creative when thinking of their home power, rather than just paying your local power company whatever they tell you to pay.

I will be the first to admit that I'm not the smartest knife in the drawer. However, neither are many of the individuals on the Forbes 400. The difference is they are hard-working individuals that were very perceptive in looking at long-term growth trends.

So today we have google, the most progressive corporation in the world investing heavily in alternative energy to get off the power grid, because they think they can generate it cheaper themselves and Kleiner Perkins, arguably the most successful venture capitalist firm in the world investing very heavily in alternative energy.

Additionally, another individual I highly respect, Vinod Khosla is solely focused on alternative energy. Other individuals that are more controversial that have publicly stated alternative energy is the next big thing is Sir Richard Branson and Bill Clinton. Regardless of your personal feelings towards these individuals, it would be hard to argue that these individuals are not successful.

Alas, I challenge all of you to take a step back and think about your impact on the world. I am very blessed to have a handful of really great friends in my life. One characteristic they all share, is that they all want to be VERY successful, but perhaps more importantly, they all want to make a difference in the world, AND this is the reason they are my best friends.

What is your impact on the world?

Weekend Recap

I had a great weekend hanging out with a good friend on Friday and then watching the Ironman World Championships Saturday night. The good news is if you missed it ironman.com is telling everyone it will be on today at 4:30. If this is the result of the writers strike I wouldn't mind if they didn't come back!

Also, Ironman Australia is up on ironman.com for all who are interested.

The lottery is also open. Although I have heard from other bloggers that the passport club really improves your odds, I'm not ready to pony up the extra coin for it this year.