You Are Viewing The Hump Dump

This week’s Hump Dump is all about transportation. I got to see the first light rail car cruise (read: barely move) through Downtown Phoenix last week, had a meeting with the Joseph Perez with the City of Phoenix (read: Bicycle Coordinator), and spent some money on gas. A lot of it. So, it’s up there in my thought cycle right now. Transportation, that is.

MPG vs GPM

Hank Green from EcoGeek thinks that the “Miles Per Gallon” measurement is stupid. Instead, we should calculate how many “Gallons Per Mile” a vehicle gets. He makes a pretty good argument, but pretty much says my Yaris isn’t helping out much…

Saudi Arabia To Hate Mercedes-Benz

Jaymi Heimbuch from EcoGeek reports that Mercedes-Benz will cut petroleum-based engines completely out of its production by 2015. Instead, it will focus on electric, fuel cell, and biofuel technology. Here locally, Mercedes-Benz of Arrowhead recently opened a LEED-certified building. Now, if their prices could be a little less green…

Obama Just Got Cooler | Part I | Part II | Part III |

Ok, ok. I feel like I need to clarify. When I say, “Obama Just Got Cooler,” I really think he did. Like, I thought about it after reading about his stance on the issues. Then I asked Jesus if I could worship Barack instead. I’m only joking. My friend John says that if “you are inspired by three simple words then perhaps you are too easily inspired,” and I think he makes a great point. It’s ridiculous to think that one man can change the fate of a nation (but maybe not so crazy to think that one man can ruin it). If Obama can inspire an entire generation to change a nation, though, I’m all for it… The three articles linked above talk about Obama’s plan for increased spending on bicycle and mass transit related programs. Worth a gander.

Bike Maps For Phoenicians

I had a fantastic meeting with the Bicycle Coordinator for the City of Phoenix last week. We talked about complete streets, bike lanes, bike routes, the Diamondbacks current slump, and how we can work together to make Phoenix a more rideable city. This bike map is a good start. Available at a bike shop near you. For free. Or download it. Get one.

That’ll do it for this edition of The Hump Dump. Looking forward to your thoughts…

Cheers,
Sam
“I am easily satisfied with the very best.”
Winston Churchill

I was raised as a huge fan of Garrison Keillor. Both my parents are teachers (read: ample time off), and we would spend the summers driving up, down, and across the country all the while listening to tapes of Keillor’s monologues about life in Lake Wobegon. I know all about the Norwegian bachelor farmers who stand outside of Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery. Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility strikes a vivid picture in my head, and I clearly remember laughing uncontrollably when I heard a customer’s reaction to eating a piece of rhubarb pie from the Chatterbox Cafe:

Customer: Damn! This is good!
Waitress: There’ll be no swearing in my restaurant.
Customer: No ma’am. That’s a new support group here in town. DAM – Mothers Against Dyslexia.

I did then, and I still do know, feel at home with his voice on the radio. And it’s not just the deep tenor that radiates from the speakers, either. I’ve been lucky enough to see him live three (3) times, once here in Phoenix and twice at the Minnesota State Fair, so it’s not that. What he says has always just plain resonated with me. A few years ago, at the State Fair, I picked up a book he had recently written titled Homegrown Democrat, and it pretty much encapsulated every part of why what he says sits well with my soul. I wish I had the copyright power to share the book with you over the Internet, but I don’t, so I’ll strongly encourage you to travel to your local library and check it out. I’d lend you mine, but a friend in Denver is still holding on to it…

In the meantime, I want to share with you a portion of a column Keillor wrote for Salon yesterday titled, “For the Sake of the Girl With the Beautiful Swing.” The entire article is here, and I can honestly say it’s worth the three (3) minutes it will take you to read it. But those of you (us) that have no attention span, here’s a little snippet…

Have a fantastic Fourth of July weekend. And remember that the cornerstones of democracy are discourse, disagreement, and dissent.

This marks my one hundredth (100th) post. That’s a lot of rambling. To celebrate, I’m going to throw myself a party. Just kidding. Why would I do that? Someone else is going to do all the work. Or I’m not really going to celebrate it. Haven’t decided yet.

One thing I have decided though, is that I’m going to catch up. My friend Adam says he’s about four (4) days ahead in posts. I’m about eight (8) days behind that. I haven’t even finished up writing about my DC trip, I have a really cool idea brewing about Doctors Without Borders, and then there’s all these current events. One way bloggers catch-up a bit is to do something called a “link dump.” This is where, instead of lengthy post of stuff they came up with themselves, they will just post a conglomeration of links they have stumbled across and are collecting dust on their bookmark bookshelf. Some of you might argue that most of my posts integrate this technique with my gratuitous linking. To you, I say, “::silence::.”

I have some dumping to do. And it’s Wednesday, also known as (aka) “hump day”, so I concocted a clever title.

The Hump Dump

Animated street art by Blu. It’s about a seven (7) minute video, but worth every second. Sent to me by my cousin Matt. Pretty fun stuff.

The big-cactus-bloom-in-the-sky has already won awards. Boston area artist Janet Echelman designed the thirty-eight (38) foot tall sculpture that will be part of the new Downtown Civic Space, which is part of the Downtown Phoenix Campus of Arizona State University. Authorities are already on the lookout for David Ortiz jerseys…

The Phoenix Suns Charity gave over $1 million last year to the community, including a $100,000 grant to Valley of the Sun YMCA to continue a $4.3 million renovation of its Chris-Town facility. Oh yeah, and we have a new coach, too.

Last year, the IRS received over 85,000 applications for new nonprofit organizations. I’m a big fan of minimalizing duplication, so that wasn’t a very exciting number for me. The good news, however, is that the ASU Lodestar Center is partnering with the Lodestar Foundation to offer a $250,000 Collaboration Prize. If you know of any two organization like have like-minded interests and could serve their communities better by joining forces, here is a great opportunity to fund that conversation.

The Morrison Institute will be holding another edition of Forum 411: Engaging Arizona’s Leaders today. The topic is Immigration: From Global to Local to Kids, and is produced in collaboration with Community Outreach & Advocacy for Refugees (COAR). The event is today at 4PM.

I’ve talked about it before, but I am a big fan of the responsible use of technology in the Nonprofit Sector. Things like embracing Web 2.0, using New Media to be more effective message-bearers, and exploring Open Source programs and operating systems to cut down on administrative costs and increase efficiency. Well, check this out. Oxford Archeology has recently switched all of its servers over to Ubuntu, and transitioned into using the Open Office software package. The effect? A 20% decrease in IT costs over the last two years…

Cheers,
Sam
“I am who I am because of who we all are.”
Meaning of the Zulu word, Ubuntu