My thoughts are with the people living through the worst wildfires in the history of California. I have family in the area and they have been fortunate enough to at least temporarily escape the smoke and debris. I can’t imagine what the other families are going through. Many have lost their homes. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land have been burned. Remarkably, only a few people have been injured.
The LA Times has created a map of the fires here. Someone on YouTube posted a NASA video of the view of the smoke from space here. You can see a YouTube video of the fires from the San Diego coast line here and here.
As an outsider looking in what I find interesting is how often the News compares this disaster to Hurricane Katrina. Last night on 20/20 the reference came up numerous times. They mentioned how much smoother the FEMA response to this wildfire disaster has been compared to the hurricane Katrina disaster. How much more organized temporary shelters in places like Qualcomm stadium has been. They also kept mentioning all the celebrities who have lost homes in the area (who I’m assuming all have property insurance).
As I understand it, the wildfires were caused by a power line that sparked as it fell and that spark was fanned by the extreme Santa Ana winds. What devastation a spark can bring! In Louisiana (where they just elected a new governor) the devastation and chaos was brought on by water.
There are so many mixed thoughts and emotions that come up when comparing these two disasters one hardly knows where to begin. Two different elements (fire and water) in two different US cultures (West and South) having two dramatically different results. Since I can’t begin to analyze with sophistication the two happenings in time, here is a little poem (simple I know) I just came up with that I thought I’d share:
Wildfires rage through the night
Filling people, animals, and trees with fright
The ocean water is nearby
But useless in the current fight
When water spurns up in a rage
All we are left with is a wet history page
Of life searching for the light
But the bright red fire is useless in our watery cage
— (c) Aruni Gunasegaram, October 24, 2007 4:30 p.m. CST
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: environment,
random stuff |
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What a day! It started out with a potty training disaster and an overflowing toilet and ended (well not quite ended yet) with me playing Power Rangers with my son before putting him to bed. In between, there was a plumber, a photographer, many business related calls/emails/documents, a trip to Jiffy Lube for an overdue oil change, a trip to Bed Bath & Beyond for an overpriced plunger, telling my 5 year old son repeatedly that he cannot play on a football team right now, dinner, and a few scenes of the Jungle Book. Phew!
In the middle of my interesting day, history was made and that was the election of Piyush “Bobby” Jindal as the governor of Louisiana. Now normally someone being elected as the governor of any state is news but NOT history making news. Bobby is the first Indian American to be elected Governor of a US state. Why is this interesting to me? Well because I am South Asian. I remember when I was a teenager in West Texas I would joke with my friends about the fact that since I was born in another country, I could never be the president of the United States. Back then, the fact that I was a woman didn’t enter into my analysis of whether or not I could be President some day. The only loophole we found was that I could become the Speaker of the House and if something (God forbid) happened to the President and Vice President, I could for a few seconds actually be President until they realized I was a naturalized US citizen and not a native born one.
As I’m sure you can tell, I did not end up pursuing a political career (thank goodness!). I am pretty sure that the political world would have driven me nuts!
If you’d like to read about what other South Asians are saying about Bobby winning the election, look no further than Sepia Mutiny. Sepia Mutiny is an irreverent blog for South Asians about South Asian stuff. I happened upon it a few months ago and have been fascinated by the dialogue that goes on there. The October 21, 2007 post on Bobby Jindal by Anna already has close to 500 comments! Many of their posts draw hundreds of comments.
Personally, I do not have the same political leanings as Bobby. He is a very strict conservative, and I am moderate in my political philosophy. However, I have to say a hearty ‘congrats’ to him for making history. Plus if he accomplishes what he says he wants to which is to get rid of corruption in Louisiana politics and bring in more aid for Katrina victims then more power to him! He along with people like Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo, and all the high-tech entrepreneurs of South Asian descent have made it a bit easier for the rest of us brown immigrants to contribute to the glorious US of A. 🙂
OK, now I’m going to go watch Heroes before ending my interesting day. I wonder what tomorrow will bring…
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: diversity,
random stuff |
Tags: bobby jindal,
diversity,
governor of louisiana,
louisiana,
political elections,
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I wasn’t planning to do a post today, but I couldn’t help myself after seeing what I saw today. After I picked up the kids from school, I took them to a nearby fire station because our son had been asking me to take him there for the last week or so. So the three of us went to the fire station, got out of the car, and walked toward the fire truck that was parked inside the station. As we approached, I saw a person (just their legs and feet) sitting on a chair at the opening of the station door and a few wisps of smoke coming from the area that I assumed would have been his/her face. As he became visible, I noticed that he quickly put out a cigarette and attempted to discreetly slip an unused one inside the Larry McMurtry book he was reading.
I think I was visibly taken aback and half expected my son to say something like “Look Mom, he’s smoking! That’s bad for you” as he has done on a few embarrassing occasions before. After the fireman began opening the fire truck doors so the kids could crawl inside, I got over my initial shock and wondered to myself “Are firemen or women allowed to smoke on the job? Especially given that many fires are started by lit cigarettes?” I then thought “Well if a fire broke out in the station, they would be well-equipped to put it out!” 🙂
Has anyone else seen such a thing as a fireman smoking? Doesn’t that seem like an oxymoron or some other such ironic thing?
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: random stuff |
Tags: cigarette smoke,
fire station,
fireman,
random stuff,
smoking |
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I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the amount of paper we use and come in contact with from newspapers, magazines, bank/credit card/mutual fund statements, printed paper, kids crafts, etc. I’ve been meaning to write this post for quite some time but either didn’t have the time or wasn’t sure how to approach the topic but after writing a first draft down on October 5, 2007, I happened upon a post called What Have You Done Lately? by Lorelle on WordPress the very next day! Her post led me to Blog Action Day, and I though ‘Holy Trees Batman,’ this is why I am supposed to write this post despite my Bloggo Fears that people will think I’m nuts or possibly a Tree Hugger! And now because of Blog Action Day I have found the reason to do this post today, October 15, 2007.
I was motivated to write this post because I have been attempting to clean up my home office and the paper shuffling has been at an all time maximum. I like to make space and get a sense of openness before embarking on a strategic thinking endeavor…which I am in the process of doing regarding the future direction of Babble Soft. Boy do I wish we lived near a beach…because something about sitting under a huge umbrella, staring at the ocean, and listening to the waves with a margarita in my hand would really help get my thinking juices flowing! 🙂
I have seen some things written about reducing the amount of paper used in office environments such as:
But I haven’t seen much written about how each of us as individuals can help reduce the amount of paper products we come in contact with on a daily basis. I did see a post made by Tim Sanders called Redesign your reading life where he discusses ideas on how to reduce the amount of paper by changing how you read.
But what I’m proposing is slightly different. I have been looking at the things we don’t necessarily read and/or need to have a hard copy of. So here’s what I’ve decided to do, and I took action on the day I wrote the first draft of this post back on October 5.
I finally called Pottery Barn and told them to take me OFF their catalogue mailing list for their pottery barn baby and PB teen catalogues. I think I ordered one thing from them a few years ago and then somehow got on their catalogue mailing list. Every time I would get them I thought to myself I really ought to tell them to quit sending these to me, but I was always in the middle of something or I said to myself ‘oh, I’ll do it later’ and immediately put them into our recycle bin.
Now it’s great to recycle but what if I hadn’t even gotten those catalogues to begin with for the last few years? Would some trees have been allowed to continue growing? Would the additional oxygen they breathed into the environment have had an affect on our heated discussions on global warming? Would we have Cooler Heads?
Since I’m not a scientist and don’t play one on TV, I really have no proof indicating that this tree saving would happen but my gut tells me that reducing the amount of paper we receive can’t hurt. Also common sense tells me that record amounts of rain and 100 degree temperatures being more common than not here in Texas this past year are probably an indicator of something.
It took me literally less than 2 minutes to call Pottery Barn, give them the codes on the catalogues and they removed me. And you know what? She actually THANKED me for calling them to let her know! I have to say I was pleasantly surprised because I was half expecting her to ask me why I wanted to be removed, try to convince me to continue receiving them, and/or convince me to order something. Isn’t it funny how our assumptions of how we think something will happen might actually subconsciously dissuade us from taking immediate action?
So I’d like to challenge all of you to do something to reduce the amount of paper in your lives. If you share in the comments what you did that might give others more reason to examine their paper-filled life. If you are a blogger, I encourage you to post about this on your blog (please don’t feel like you have to link back to this post – I’m not writing about this for links) and let’s see if each of us making one small step to reduce the paper in our home lives can make a difference over time.
Canceling the catalogues to Pottery Barn was just the beginning, I still have a long way to go, and I’ll either update this blog or post about my progress in future posts. Here are some other ideas:
- Change statements (financial, bank, etc.) to e-statements if possible
- Cancel subscriptions to magazines you no longer read
- Encourage places like pre-schools and private schools to send you receipts by email if they can
- Ask people who want to fax you something to scan and email it to you instead and then save it instead of printing it if possible
- Ask the post office if they can quit sending those coupon pages, fliers, etc. that you never use. I have no idea if it’s possible to have them quit sending bulk mail, but I guess it can’t hurt to ask.
If anyone has any other ideas, please share them! If any of you have already posted on this topic, please let me know and I’ll update this post to refer to it.
One small action could quite possibly lead to a phenomenal reaction! How will we ever know if we don’t try….
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: environment,
random stuff,
success |
Tags: blog action day,
environment,
global warming,
make a difference,
oxygen,
paper reduction,
recycling,
reducing paper usage,
saving trees,
the environment,
trees |
14 Comments »
Above image is from AllPosters.com.
The kids and I just got back from visiting my best friend and her family in a town 2 ½ hours drive Southeast (I think) of Austin. Those who know me probably know that I’m directionally challenged. 🙂
For the first time in the history of driving to her house, my 5 year old son did not take even the briefest of naps. He is a non-stop talker. If you’ve ever seen that car commercial where the girl is talking when her dad puts her in his seat and is still talking after he closes the door and opens his door and starts putting on his seatbelt…that’s our son.
However, on this trip he did spend some time observing the landscape and listening to songs on my new iPod nano (via the car stereo) that I got because Erin recently purchased a new Mac and it came with it. Consequently, I only heard the phrases “Are we there yet?” and “When will we get there?” and “Man, that’s a long time!” oh maybe a dozen or so times. My younger daughter slept through most of the trip. I eventually told him if he asked me one more time that I wouldn’t let him do XXX. I can’t even remember what it was that I told him that he couldn’t do. That helped him bite his tongue for the last say 30 minutes of the ride. Overall, however, I enjoyed the relative pleasantness of the drive.
It got me to wondering why we are all so impatient about getting to where it is we are going. As adults we don’t usually freak out about how long it will take to get to a physical destination because we have a better sense of time than a 5 year old does. But often we say things like:
- When will my company be profitable?
- When will my daughter be potty trained?
- When will I close my first big sale?
- When will I be able to hire someone to help me with this task?
- When will I get an uninterrupted night of sleep? (a.k.a., when will my son sleep through the night without waking up and/or stay in his own bed?)
- Are we there (at goal x, y, or z) yet? Why aren’t we there yet?
The big difference I’ve seen between kids and adults is that when kids do get there they are genuinely excited to have gotten there. When we arrived at my friend’s house my kids jumped out of the car and immediately wanted to play, swim, swing, etc. with my friend’s son. Many adults and business people I’ve seen (including myself) get to where they were going, don’t spend enough time excited about getting there, and then start the list of questions over and this time they might be:
- When will my company be more profitable than Company X?
- When will my daughter quit talking back to me?
- When will I close a multi-million dollar sale?
- When can I fire this person who really can’t help me with any tasks?
- When will I get an uninterrupted night of sleep? (a.k.a., when will my son return from that party so I can quit worrying that he’s lying dead in some ditch somewhere?)
- Are we going to make it to retirement? Why aren’t we able to retire yet? Should we retire yet?
Then I think about National Geographic documentaries that show native, aboriginal tribes in certain places around the world. I always feel that those people seem truly content and if I look into their eyes through the TV glass, I’m 100% sure they don’t have similar questions going through their minds. Of course they might wonder where they will find their next meal, but they just don’t look stressed about it. Funny, isn’t it? 💡
p.s. My son was so worn out with all the fun he had that he ended up sleeping about 3/4 of the way on the drive back home!
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: parenting,
random stuff |
11 Comments »
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