I’ve been writing about volunteering. Then last month I found this certificate for distinguished service in college in 1993 cleaning out my father’s basement and had to share the story behind it. A church near Columbia on 114th Street and Broadway served a soup kitchen. I volunteered there every Friday. I just went on my own. Partly I consider activities like it as civic duty. Also I find it rewarding.[…] Keep reading →

I wanted to follow up yesterday’s post. It missed some of the more important experiences and lessons of spending so many years as a minority, or at least not in the majority. Since starting college at Columbia and mostly living in Manhattan, I’ve spent a lot of time with well-educated liberals. I’ve found them full of preconceptions about me, generally based on my skin color and sex. People who know[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written about Robert Carter III a bunch here. He figures in my book a lot, as someone who could have remained corrupted by slavery, as everyone around him did in Virginia after the American Revolution, but he freed his slaves. Thomas Jefferson didn’t, despite his brilliant words on freedom. Sustainability today is overloaded with Jeffersons: people who talk big on sustainability but act the opposite, undermining their credibility and[…] Keep reading →

I haven’t filled a load of trash in my apartment since 2019. This week I cleaned out my stuff from my father’s basement. It turns out he put stuff there after I went to college. He didn’t tell me and I forgot about it. I wish I’d known about it between then and now, but didn’t. I’m saving some and giving some away through Craigslist (putting it back in circulation,[…] Keep reading →

I value learning from people who think differently. A lot of people seem to value cultural exchange. Probably the most different place from the United States I’ve visited is North Korea, twice. I grew up equating flying with travel and the only way to explore other cultures. Now that I’ve stopped flying, I see how I had made myself dependent and ignorant by a practice (flying) that is destroying cultures,[…] Keep reading →

Following up my last two posts, on my recent sailing lesson, we ended up in Newport, Rhode Island. The others wanted to go to a boat show held there that week. Our skipper/teacher had hosted a booth there for years, though not this year. I was open to going but didn’t want to do something big and commercial that much. One of the other crew members told me about Newport’s[…] Keep reading →

Long-term readers know I took sailing lessons after extending my year avoiding flying to more and more years, even before realizing I’d never fly again (also before Greta got a ride across the Atlantic, which somehow no one has offered me yet, though I’ve worked at it for years). My Sailing 101 lessons were in New York harbor, which I followed up by joining a club that allowed me to[…] Keep reading →

I’ve posted about my September 11, 2001: We called the company I co-founded Submedia. We filed the patent in 1998. Our first investment came in 1999, enabling us to pay ourselves salaries and hire people to develop prototypes and create partnerships with subway systems. Atlanta’s system signed first, followed by the PATH system connecting New York City and New Jersey. Coca-Cola signed in 2001 as our debut advertiser, beating Nike[…] Keep reading →

Insouciance, colonialism, and sustainability