Category Archives: Stories

More Used Syringes Littering My Community, This Time at Penn Station and Moynihan Hall

on June 11, 2021 in Stories

I posted last year about finding syringes in Washington Square Park. I still find them. Wednesday, I met my dad at Penn Station as he was passing through Manhattan and had some time. The weather was warm but not too hot, so we chose to sit outside. We went to the steps of Moynihan Hall, the new train station across Eighth Avenue that used to be a post office. Here’s[…] Keep reading →

Clawing back: 4,951 meters in 20 minutes. 49 to go.

on June 5, 2021 in Awareness, Fitness, Habits, Stories

I exercise on a five-day rotation between lifting, resting, and cardio so months with 31 days give me an extra rest day to experiment. This time I decided to try to recapture my nearly five-year-old achievement of 5,000 meters in 20 minutes on the rowing machine, which means averaging 2:00/500m for 20 minutes. A well-trained man in his 20s or 30s could do it easily. A serious competitor might not[…] Keep reading →

Memorial Day Glory in Greenwich Village

on May 31, 2021 in Fitness, Stories

Yesterday, walking south along the Hudson River, I saw a guy running sprints on a pier. The temperature hovered around 50F (10C). It had rained on and off all day and was raining then. He was alone, running sprints in the rain. I call that commitment where no one would know if you didn’t glorious. I was out on my daily walk to pick up litter. I was taking a[…] Keep reading →

Dominion, the documentary

on May 23, 2021 in Art, Freedom, Nature, Stories

I watched the documentary Dominion on how the factory farm system treats animals. It’s brutal but important. It shows many graphic scenes so I know the link below won’t play inline, but the producers made it freely available. Click through to watch it online. I recommend watching Dominion when you’re ready for a sobering gut-punch you’ll wish you had watched earlier. Why I recommend it I last ate meat in[…] Keep reading →

The Benefits of Staying Local

on April 23, 2021 in Fitness, Nature, Stories

I would have viewed avoiding flying as missing out until I experienced what happens when I don’t fly. I don’t sit in the corner crying, feeling sorry for myself. I develop the skills to create what I used to pay for. I’ll give a few examples how avoiding flying, or as I put it now, staying local, enriched my life. Wondering how I’d get off North America, I took sailing[…] Keep reading →

Progressing From DJs to Dirt

on April 15, 2021 in Art, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Stories

My first business was based on an invention of mine that looked amazing—an optical device that animated still images to people in motion. For the business, we installed them on subway tunnel walls to show ads to riders between stations, sharing revenue with the subway system, before everyone had animation devices in their pockets. Outside the business, I also explored the medium as an art with properties unlike any other,[…] Keep reading →

20 years ago, my first media coverage: The Wall Street Journal

on January 9, 2021 in Stories, Visualization

On January 9, 2001 the Wall Street Journal published New Motion-Picture Advertising May Enhance London Subway Rides by Sarah Ellison, on the technology I conceived of. We launched later that year in Atlanta, then soon after New York City, Philadelphia, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Budapest, Athens, Mexico City, Chicago, and more, eventually reaching the Heathrow Express. News coverage of our launches Our launches got a lot of press. The technology was[…] Keep reading →

America’s bullsh*t stories about the environment

on December 14, 2020 in Nature, Stories

Most of us tell and believe similar stories on the environment, something like the three below. Do they sound familiar? A while ago some scientists figured out that we’re destroying the planet. Everything I do is bad and I have to stop or they say I’m killing future generations. Every now and then they tell me it’s worse than they said before. There have been some big storms and droughts,[…] Keep reading →

Special invitation to sneak preview I Am Greta

on November 11, 2020 in Leadership, Nature, Stories

As a proud member of Flight Free USA, where I’ve pledged another joyful year of not flying, I’m extending to you the invitation they extended to me. I just watched it. It’s touching and honest as a documentary and she is honest, genuine, and authentic as a leader and person. After years of people asking me, confused, why I would act in service of the environment, asking me why I’m[…] Keep reading →

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