National Novel Writing Month 2007

Dude. You so need to do this. You need to write 50,000 words in the month of November. I did it before. In 2004. Never mind the quality of those 50K words. (No, really. Don't ask -- all I can tell you is that there were technical incompatibilities between Pump-In-Style and Dragon Naturally Speaking.) You too can write a novel! All you need to do is write 1,666.66666 words per day! It is easy! I am going to do this. Are you?

I am planning to write a cyberpunk novel. You?

"Googley Famous"

"Googley Famous" is a term I coined tonight. Googley famous is an adjective. It means that someone is famous according to the top 10 matches in a Google Search. Here is an example, if you Google the name "William Hertling", you come up with 9 hits for the specific person I was trying to Google and 1 hit for the person's father. It can also be a differentiator between hits on a Google search. So using the example above, the person I was trying to Google is more googley famous than his father. When I first started Googling my own name (hey, I know it is narcissistic but who hasn't done it? especially if you are reading a blog?), I was not the most googley famous person with my name. Over the years, as I have gotten more and more press, more of the top 10 Google hits are attributed to me. Now, I am the most googley famous person with my name.

Book Review: Ysabel

Once in a while W and I will got to Powell's Books to browse the stacks and look for interesting books which we text message to ourselves. Back at home, we order them from our awesome library. There are certain authors that I always check (primarily in the Sci-Fi section) and I am very happy to find new books. On our last trip, a few months ago, we found many new books to read. One book I came across is by an author that I really like to read named Guy Gavriel Kay. I especially enjoyed "The Fionavar Tapestry" which was a series of books involving both travel to distant planets and Celtic myth. When I saw that he had a new book, Ysabel, I got very excited. I eagerly awaited receiving it from the library and I was not disappointed. The book pulled me in form the first few pages. It is the story of two teenagers in modern day France who stumble on to a mystery. In some ways it reminded me of The Da Vinci Code but in others it resembled Kay's previous work, "The Fionavar Tapestry", with a weaving of Celtic myth.

I could not put this book down and I kept waiting for it to go all wrong the way books do sometimes. But it never did. It captured me and kept me intrigued until the very last page. I loved it and consider it the best book I have read all year. Check it out!

Blog Action Day 2007

Blogging has not been my top priority for the past few weeks. My mom was in town (Hi Mom!) and so extra time was spent sewing my 4 year old daughter a gold lame dress (don't ask) and playing lots and lots of scrabble. I apologize if you have come to my blog and not seen anything new. I am back!

Today's blog post has a special topic. The topic is the environment. As part of Blog Action Day 2007, I am making it a priority to talk about the environment today. I have been working in the area of the environment for over 7 years. I have seen it change dramatically in that time. When I first started working to green printers in my high tech company, the environment was a sideshow. And I don't mean that in a nice way. It was the ugly duckling, the kid on the playground no one wanted to talk to. It was filled with fiery-eyed yuppie environmentalists and old school hippies. It was so not cool.

But the past 7 years have wrought a change on the world that I am surprised and happy to witness. Instead of being the ugly duckling, the environmental movement is just showing signs of transforming into a swan. It isn't there yet and amongst it's graceful steps there are still trips and falls. But the change is dramatic. Could you have imagined 7 years ago that Al Gore would win the Nobel Peace Prize? Could you have imagined giant Wal-Mart creating their own sustainability program for their employees?
Could you have imagined Arnold Schwarzenegger saying OK to a ban on phthalates in children's products ? Could you have imagined environmental heroes like Leonardo DiCaprio or Brad Pitt ?

The world is changing. Are you changing with it? Do you even know what you need to do to live more sustainably? There are many, many, many "top things you can do to green your life" kinds of lists out there. You can also get daily green tips or daily green news here or here. A fun thing you can do with friends or in your workplace or place of worship is to take a Northwest Earth Institute class. These are discussion courses that gently educate you on how to be more earth friendly.

What step are you going to take today? I challenge you to do one thing today to make the world a better place or to reduce your impact on the world. What you do is up to you.