Things are kind of dead around here, so I thought I would post a link to a super short story that reminded me of Jeremiah.

http://b3ta.com/questions/darwin/post367250

Now would be a great time to start a bank. Old banks are going under because of the bad loans they made, opening potential market share to new entries, while, at the same time, money is super cheap from the Fed.

All we need is ~10 million in seed money. Any rich investors out there?

Starting a local community bank would be a great way to support our local communities. We would be able to partner with those individuals who have the best ideas for new restaurants, shops, schools, etc. And, in a time when more credit is needed to stabilize our economy, we would be doing very important work for the public good.

My previous neighbor is a young banker for a local community bank north of KC. He would be an ideal manager. The rest of us could sit on the board. Any takers?

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for more info see this link.

1. I’ve really been enjoying the act of listening to vinyl records on a vintage equipment. The sounds are warm and comforting. The records and equipment are beautiful and substantial. But best of all, there is no “shuffle” option or “skip” button and every 20min or so you have to get up and turn the record over or put a new one it. Listening to music in this way is a much more intentional experience. Something I now look forward to far more than a run with my iPod or an internet MuxTape playing through my monitor speakers.

2. Speaking of MuxTapes, this one is very good: http://wordcore.muxtape.com/

3. Mid-Century modern furniture can be very beautiful. It can also be very ugly but I’ll ignore that for now. We recently purchased a coffee table built circa 1960 that is really great. Found it for a song on Craigslist and picked it from this really cool couple that lives 15min down the road. It’s amazing the people you meet through Craigslist.

4. I started my MBA classes yesterday. “Effective Communication for Leaders” is my first course. It’s a Jesuit school and I am already surprised at how much morality is taught from the get go. Yes, even in a communication class.

5. Henry now gives High Fives.

This picture made me laugh and I thought I would share it.  Inside the bus is the olympic torch and some chinese delegates.  They were forced into the bus due to protesters.  But don’t worry, they are well guarded by the police on …rollerblades?  

So I just felt my very first earthquake. Despite it being a 6.3 the fact that I was about 80 miles from the center and our office building is probably built on mainly fill material… It wasn’t too exciting. Almost dissapointing for a 6.3 earthquake.

For the past three weekends, Michael Tonarely and I have enjoyed spending time with my family: hunting. Deer hunting, to be exact. We would drive two hours north to the Lake of the Ozarks, drink beer and smoke in my dad’s taxidermy shop long after we should’ve gone to bed, and then get up a few hours later–before the sun–and get ready for the day.

Hunting is a serious tradition in my family. My dad took my brothers and me hunting as soon as we were of legal age. It was like a rite of passage. It was also an extremely bonding-type experience. In fact, masculinity, in the forms of learned skills and behavior, were passed on and picked up from my father to us. Everything from little tricks of how to stay warm to proper and safe ways to hold a gun.

The many hours spent in the woods as a child has made a large impact on me. It was there I learned a love for nature. Conservation was instilled in me by the very culture of hunting I was exposed to. High ethical standards were preached, ones I took serious enough to follow: never litter, leave no trace, never point a gun at another person, never leave an animal wounded, never kill one needlessly.  

And just as my dad taught us, his dad taught him; my grandpa learned from his dad, and, no doubt, he from his. All the way back to who-knows-when. And since I’ll be having a son soon, I expect to pass on the family heritage.

I want my son to love the outdoors, to see conservationism and environmetalism as comfortable bedfellows. Too often they are seen as opponents. I mean, how many hunters do you know consider themselves environmetalists? They’ll usually embrace the term conservation, but that “e” word is for fruits. But I learned from Wendell Berry that the best of the one is the best of the other.

So there are a plethora of ethical issues when hunting comes up. Is it right to kill animals for sport? Of course, in most cases we are killing animals we eat. Does that make it better? The only time I’ve advocated not eating animals is when it supports cruelty to those creatures, as in the case of buying meat raised on factory farms. Hunting seems far superior to that, of course when done ethically.

But for some folks that’s not good enough. For instance, some (http://www.all-creatures.org/ca/ark-192-hunting.html & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Hunting) attempt to make the case that hunting is morally wrong across the board. And then throw in the subject that hits close to home (at least my parent’s home)–taxidermy. That’s pretty much just plain, old trophy hunting. Not to say one who hunts such animals doesn’t utilize their meat.

Anyway, what do you all think?

… on the off chance that it might reach someone who needs it.

This is Chimay Triple, an authentic Trappist brewed Belgian Ale.

The larger size, on the left, has a cork rather than a bottle cap. When opening the cork top, treat it like a champagne bottle. Open it away from your body and any breakables.

“Acorn Gal”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPsZZ87Djpc

“Dedicated to my future boyfriend, Tyler”

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BEND, Ore. – Last weekend, Kent Couch settled down in his lawn chair with some snacks – and a parachute. Attached to his lawn chair were 105 large helium balloons.

Destination: Idaho.

With instruments to measure his altitude and speed, a global positioning system device in his pocket, and about four plastic bags holding five gallons of water each to act as ballast – he could turn a spigot, release water and rise – Couch headed into the Oregon sky.

Nearly nine hours later, the 47-year-old gas station owner came back to earth in a farmer’s field near Union, short of Idaho but about 193 miles from home.

“When you’re a little kid and you’re holding a helium balloon, it has to cross your mind,” Couch told the Bend Bulletin.

“When you’re laying in the grass on a summer day, and you see the clouds, you wish you could jump on them,” he said. “This is as close as you can come to jumping on them. It’s just like that.”

Couch is the latest American to emulate Larry Walters – who in 1982 rose three miles above Los Angeles in a lawn chair lifted by balloons. Walters had surprised an airline pilot, who radioed the control tower that he had just passed a guy in a lawn chair. Walters paid a $1,500 penalty for violating air traffic rules.

It was Couch’s second flight.

this link is dedicated to sage and jeremiah.
Baby Got Book

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,259264,00.html