I wish I could write something poetic and inspirational that would make a difference in how our leaders think about the environment, but I don’t think I have that power or ability.  I do, however, have a voice, a blog and an ability to do little things every day that may make our stay on this little planet we call earth last a few years longer.  I know that if we don’t take action, if we don’t raise our voices, if we don’t do all we can each and every day, it will never change.  So tonight, I lend my voice to thousands of others as part of Blog Action Day – knowing that alone I can make a small difference and together we can make a big impact.

A few thoughts that have arisen today as I thought about this post:

• Carbon offsets are a great way to buy a cleaner conscience, but not a great way to reduce carbon emissions – while it is probably from some very well meaning people, I am afraid it has been exploited by marketing people to simply separate people from their money.  That said, it does raise awareness, so it has some really good impact, but I am unsure why everyone is so excited about it…
• I saw this artist Chris Jordan on the Colbert Report who does some amazing things helping people visualize the sheer size of our waste problem.  He creates art that demonstrates how much trash we really generate in a given period of time.  BIG ART.  His images actually include the real number of ‘things’ we use or throw away in a given period of time (such as a massive image with two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes).
• Forget the global warming or global cooling debate – let’s talk about the fact that the earth is a living system – an ecosystem, in some ways very much like our own bodies.  Plain common sense says that if we keep putting poisons into the system, or taking out huge numbers of natural resources, we are bound to be damaging it somehow.  So let’s just all be considerate of our mother earth as we go about our day, and be a little more conscious of how we treat her….

Well, it’s been a tough couple of weeks, so this is going to be pretty good to get away for a couple of days with my best friend and a few other buddies (unsure who to invite really, so if you don’t hear from me on this don’t be offended). In fact, I will be heading to Vegas shortly after facilitating a workshop with FAST Search down in Los Angeles on the Future of Media June 14 (you should come to the conversation if you are in LA for Digital Hollywood, details will be posted again shortly after they are updated).

I was really pushing back on my buddies about not doing a bachelor party since it is near the wedding date, and I am getting worried about money etc… but seeing that we can have a fun time in Las Vegas with a few friends that is not all centered around gambling and sinning makes it much more interesting for me. In fact, seeing Roger Waters was playing there the weekend we spoke about going down was the real clincher for me, and for my buddy Scott. I last saw Waters play when I lived in DC back in 1999, with Scott, my big brother Zez and our buddy Beeber. That was one crazy night after a great day of golf, a BBQ and a limo to and from the show. If you are going to be in Vegas and want to see the show, I recommend you get some tickets from StubHub right away (though he is playing Oakland right afterwards if you aren’t in Vegas).

Of course, we can still go out afterwards and have a great time running around the city. I don’t gamble much, though do enjoy it occasionally – I am really looking forward to getting some golf in though as I have not had much chance to golf this past year as I would like – maybe do dinner at Joe’s Stone Crabs or Mortons. One thing is sure, it won’t be as crazy as that night we went to the MGM after Community 2.0 with Carfi, LeFever and Jake… Wish I could get my grandfather to come to Vegas or the Wedding to join us, but he won’t travel any more, just plain stubborn about it really… so instead it will be me and my best friend Scott and hopefully a few other good friends who can afford to travel and want to get away for a guy’s weekend.

For a while, I was thinking about doing something bigger like a BachelorCamp, but quickly realized I had no time or energy to put something together like that – no matter how much fun it would be – better off being with a handful of good close friends and making some new memories to last a lifetime…

Just received our 3rd marketing call from Pitney Bowes today – rather than letting me tell her to take us off their list, she just hung up. Could barely hear any of them, and they could not really hear me because the bullpen they are all in is crazy noisy. If they call again, maybe I can sell her some email software…