I haven't been able to come up with a thought provoking blog post in a while. My mind is just too busy to come up with a good session to write a great blog. It's funny because I don't have twitter and don't follow anyone on twitter, but my thoughts for blog posts would be excellent twitter fodder. Whatevs.
I love Dallas. It was a really cool place and I had no idea. I admit that I had some preconceived notions even though I had been there as a child, but its a place I could live in if I had to and enjoy it. The difference between LA/Dallas in regards to personal interactions with strangers was night and day. It was the same way when I went to Houston. Basically, people in LA have manners but don't show them. People walk around with tunnel vision and a must protect myself attitude, from others. In Dallas its easy to express yourself and people are naturally friendly. It was so refreshing.
And my friends there are just so fun. In a weekend we have like 20 stories, a few new nicknames. I got a lot of insight into married life which was great for me. I know a little bit more about what to expect when that day comes. I can't wait to go back...
Over the years the inner circle of friends that I've kept has grown and shrunk and changed drastically. It's part of life, nothing to overthink. But there's a few people that I've lost contact with that I'd like to get an update on. I'd like to get an update from them if I can have it my way. It's not just for my own curiosity. It's hard to stop caring about someone just because they are no longer part of your life. It doesn't really matter if they don't care about me. It's not about what's happened or who did what to whom.
The Startling Effects of Going Vegetarian for Just One Day
By Kathy Freston, Huffington Post. Posted April 2, 2009.
Sometimes, solutions to the world's biggest problems are right in front of us. The following statistics are eye-opening, to say the least.
I've written extensively on the consequences of eating meat -- on our health, our sense of "right living", and on the environment. It is one of those daily practices that has such a broad and deep effect that I think it merits looking at over and over again, from all the different perspectives. Sometimes, solutions to the world's biggest problems are right in front of us. The following statistics are eye-opening, to say the least
.
If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save:
● 100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months;
● 1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year;
● 70 million gallons of gas -- enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare;
● 3 million acres of land, an area more than twice the size of Delaware;
● 33 tons of antibiotics.
If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would prevent:
● Greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.2 million tons of CO2, as much as produced by all of France;
● 3 million tons of soil erosion and $70 million in resulting economic damages;
● 4.5 million tons of animal excrement;
● Almost 7 tons of ammonia emissions, a major air pollutant.
My favorite statistic is this: According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads. See how easy it is to make an impact?
Other points:
Globally, we feed 756 million tons of grain to farmed animals. As Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer notes in his new book, if we fed that grain to the 1.4 billion people who are living in abject poverty, each of them would be provided more than half a ton of grain, or about 3 pounds of grain/day -- that's twice the grain they would need to survive. And that doesn't even include the 225 million tons of soy that are produced every year, almost all of which is fed to farmed animals. He writes, "The world is not running out of food. The problem is that we -- the relatively affluent -- have found a way to consume four or five times as much food as would be possible, if we were to eat the crops we grow directly."
A recent United Nations report titled Livestock's Long Shadow concluded that the meat industry causes almost 40% more greenhouse gas emissions than all the world's transportation systems -- that's all the cars, trucks, SUVs, planes and ships in the world combined. The report also concluded that factory farming is one of the biggest contributors to the most serious environmental problems at every level -- local and global.
Researchers at the University of Chicago concluded that switching from standard American diet to a vegan diet is more effective in the fight against global warming than switching from a standard American car to a hybrid.
In its report, the U.N. found that the meat industry causes local and global environmental problems even beyond global warming. It said that the meat industry should be a main focus in every discussion of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortages and pollution, and loss of biodiversity.
Unattributed statistics were calculated from scientific reports by Noam Mohr, a physicist with the New York University Polytechnic Institute.
Vikas Marwaha would normally be considered a good catch by Indian parents seeking a husband for their daughter. The 27-year-old software engineer earns $80,000 to $100,000 a year and comes from a family "of doctors and engineers," according to his profile on a matrimonial Web site.
But Mr. Marwaha works for a start-up Internet phone company in San Francisco. And because the U.S. economy is wobbly, that's a problem. Many Indian parents now are balking at sending their daughters to the U.S. to marry.
During a two-week wife-hunting trip to India in December, Mr. Marwaha interviewed 20 potential brides in 10 days. He says several parents asked him, "How has the recession impacted your job?" Mr. Marwaha says he assured them he hadn't been affected at all, but still he returned to the U.S. brideless.
View Interactive
A Match Made in India
See matrimonial ads for Indians seeking a bride or groom.
Indian parents used to think it a plus to marry off their daughters to Indian men living in wealthier countries, including the U.S. and Britain. But as India has grown more affluent in recent years, the demand for overseas Indian grooms has been fading. While India's economy is also slowing down, it is still growing, and layoffs aren't as widespread as in the West.
"Even if something happens, in India there's a comfort" that the woman's parents are around to help, says Murugavel Janakiraman, founder of the matrimonial Web site Bharatmatrimony.com. Favorable responses to overseas grooms registered on his site have declined by 20% in the past nine months, he says.
Rahul Tamrakar, 32, a full-time consultant for International Business Machines Corp. in Chicago, has been looking for a bride back home in India. But he says prospective in-laws were worried that "consultant" was a euphemism for "unemployed." One parent asked to see his tax returns. He refused, and the talks fell through. Now, "I'm trying to meet up [with] girls who are in the U.S. already," he says.
Some brides simply see India as more livable these days. As salaries have gone up there, Indian married couples are able to afford houses, and young women with jobs have money of their own. In contrast, in the U.S., "people have to even clean their own toilets," says Hasit Dave, 55, who runs the Klassic Match Marriage Bureau in Ahmedabad, a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
To be sure, some Indian brides, particularly those from modest backgrounds, still welcome foreign bridegrooms. But it's become a harder sale for women who see better prospects for themselves in India.
Anisha Seth, 26, has been looking for a groom for two years now. But she feels "jittery" about considering nonresident Indians as possible options.
Ms. Seth grew up in Lucknow, a medium-size town southeast of Delhi, but now works as a financial executive in Mumbai and lives alone in an apartment. Ms. Seth is part of a wave of Indian women who have, in recent years, started working and living away from their parents before marriage.
Ms. Seth says that if she were to move to the U.S. or to another developed country, she might not get a job quickly and would have to be dependent on her husband for a while. While she's open to the idea of giving up her independence, she worries that given the state of the U.S. economy, a groom based in America might not be earning enough to support her. For instance, Ms. Seth says she likes nice clothes and would like to have a flat-screen TV. "Is he really prepared to provide the kind of lifestyle that I have right now?" She expects a husband to earn more than she does.
[Sandeep Gohad]
Sandeep Gohad
Career-oriented Indian women, meanwhile, have grown concerned about their job prospects in the U.S. Sandeep Gohad, a Manchester, Conn., software consultant who's between jobs, got such questions during a two-month-long visit to his hometown of Pune, near Mumbai. He told bride candidates they would have a hard time getting a work visa in the U.S. And even if they did, finding jobs would be tough. He, too, came home single. An engineer or doctor "has absolutely no reason to go to the U.S.A. and work as a housewife," he says.
Even today, many Indian marriages are orchestrated by parents who plan everything from finding the spouse to the wedding ceremony. They often start by signing up with a marriage bureau or placing classified ads in Indian newspapers.
A recent ad listed under the heading Nonresident Indians read: Brahmin boy, very handsome, 27 years old and 178 centimeters tall (5 feet 10 inches), who has done his MBA and a bachelor's in computer science, working in New York, on an H-1B work visa, seeks a professionally qualified, very beautiful, tall girl.
Based on responses to the matrimonial ads and matches from marriage bureaus, parents of would-be grooms living in America -- sometimes in consultation with their sons -- short list the women. The prospective groom then visits India for one to three weeks, and if he chooses a woman -- and she agrees -- the marriage is set. He then returns to India after a few months for the wedding.
Until recently, overseas candidates would quickly elicit 10 to 15 responses from young women, says Smita Seth, 55, owner of Manpasand Marriage Bureau in Ahmedabad. But in the past few months, she has had to coax parents to even consider overseas grooms; they prefer men from their own towns instead.
Mr. Marwaha, the San Francisco software engineer, learned that the hard way. All meetings with potential brides were in the presence of the women's parents. The typical meeting started with the parents briefly interviewing Mr. Marwaha, primarily about his finances. Among the 20 or so women he met, the parents of half of them were reluctant to send their daughter to the U.S., either because they were worried Mr. Marwaha would lose his job or because they felt they couldn't verify his credentials. The other women just "didn't click" with him, he says.
Given the difficulty in finding matches for Indians abroad, some matchmakers are now charging them more. Mr. Dave of Klassic Match charges a minimum fee of $100, versus $50 for candidates living in India. He charges more for specific requirements. For instance, he says some overseas Indians want a bride who is smart, fluent in English, and "simultaneously, docile in the house." He says such women are now harder to find, so he bumps up his fees for some searches.
Some overseas Indians are throwing in the towel. Software engineer Abhishek Khaitan, 30, moved back to India in January after living in the U.S. since 2004. Mr. Khaitan, who is divorced, had been looking for a wife since the summer of 2008, to no avail. Mr. Khaitan has found a job in the south Indian city of Hyderabad and has been in touch with potential brides. "Things are working out, being here," he says.
Vikas Marwaha would normally be considered a good catch by Indian parents seeking a husband for their daughter. The 27-year-old software engineer earns $80,000 to $100,000 a year and comes from a family "of doctors and engineers," according to his profile on a matrimonial Web site.
But Mr. Marwaha works for a start-up Internet phone company in San Francisco. And because the U.S. economy is wobbly, that's a problem. Many Indian parents now are balking at sending their daughters to the U.S. to marry.
During a two-week wife-hunting trip to India in December, Mr. Marwaha interviewed 20 potential brides in 10 days. He says several parents asked him, "How has the recession impacted your job?" Mr. Marwaha says he assured them he hadn't been affected at all, but still he returned to the U.S. brideless.
View Interactive
A Match Made in India
See matrimonial ads for Indians seeking a bride or groom.
Indian parents used to think it a plus to marry off their daughters to Indian men living in wealthier countries, including the U.S. and Britain. But as India has grown more affluent in recent years, the demand for overseas Indian grooms has been fading. While India's economy is also slowing down, it is still growing, and layoffs aren't as widespread as in the West.
"Even if something happens, in India there's a comfort" that the woman's parents are around to help, says Murugavel Janakiraman, founder of the matrimonial Web site Bharatmatrimony.com. Favorable responses to overseas grooms registered on his site have declined by 20% in the past nine months, he says.
Rahul Tamrakar, 32, a full-time consultant for International Business Machines Corp. in Chicago, has been looking for a bride back home in India. But he says prospective in-laws were worried that "consultant" was a euphemism for "unemployed." One parent asked to see his tax returns. He refused, and the talks fell through. Now, "I'm trying to meet up [with] girls who are in the U.S. already," he says.
Some brides simply see India as more livable these days. As salaries have gone up there, Indian married couples are able to afford houses, and young women with jobs have money of their own. In contrast, in the U.S., "people have to even clean their own toilets," says Hasit Dave, 55, who runs the Klassic Match Marriage Bureau in Ahmedabad, a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
To be sure, some Indian brides, particularly those from modest backgrounds, still welcome foreign bridegrooms. But it's become a harder sale for women who see better prospects for themselves in India.
Anisha Seth, 26, has been looking for a groom for two years now. But she feels "jittery" about considering nonresident Indians as possible options.
Ms. Seth grew up in Lucknow, a medium-size town southeast of Delhi, but now works as a financial executive in Mumbai and lives alone in an apartment. Ms. Seth is part of a wave of Indian women who have, in recent years, started working and living away from their parents before marriage.
Ms. Seth says that if she were to move to the U.S. or to another developed country, she might not get a job quickly and would have to be dependent on her husband for a while. While she's open to the idea of giving up her independence, she worries that given the state of the U.S. economy, a groom based in America might not be earning enough to support her. For instance, Ms. Seth says she likes nice clothes and would like to have a flat-screen TV. "Is he really prepared to provide the kind of lifestyle that I have right now?" She expects a husband to earn more than she does.
[Sandeep Gohad]
Sandeep Gohad
Career-oriented Indian women, meanwhile, have grown concerned about their job prospects in the U.S. Sandeep Gohad, a Manchester, Conn., software consultant who's between jobs, got such questions during a two-month-long visit to his hometown of Pune, near Mumbai. He told bride candidates they would have a hard time getting a work visa in the U.S. And even if they did, finding jobs would be tough. He, too, came home single. An engineer or doctor "has absolutely no reason to go to the U.S.A. and work as a housewife," he says.
Even today, many Indian marriages are orchestrated by parents who plan everything from finding the spouse to the wedding ceremony. They often start by signing up with a marriage bureau or placing classified ads in Indian newspapers.
A recent ad listed under the heading Nonresident Indians read: Brahmin boy, very handsome, 27 years old and 178 centimeters tall (5 feet 10 inches), who has done his MBA and a bachelor's in computer science, working in New York, on an H-1B work visa, seeks a professionally qualified, very beautiful, tall girl.
Based on responses to the matrimonial ads and matches from marriage bureaus, parents of would-be grooms living in America -- sometimes in consultation with their sons -- short list the women. The prospective groom then visits India for one to three weeks, and if he chooses a woman -- and she agrees -- the marriage is set. He then returns to India after a few months for the wedding.
Until recently, overseas candidates would quickly elicit 10 to 15 responses from young women, says Smita Seth, 55, owner of Manpasand Marriage Bureau in Ahmedabad. But in the past few months, she has had to coax parents to even consider overseas grooms; they prefer men from their own towns instead.
Mr. Marwaha, the San Francisco software engineer, learned that the hard way. All meetings with potential brides were in the presence of the women's parents. The typical meeting started with the parents briefly interviewing Mr. Marwaha, primarily about his finances. Among the 20 or so women he met, the parents of half of them were reluctant to send their daughter to the U.S., either because they were worried Mr. Marwaha would lose his job or because they felt they couldn't verify his credentials. The other women just "didn't click" with him, he says.
Given the difficulty in finding matches for Indians abroad, some matchmakers are now charging them more. Mr. Dave of Klassic Match charges a minimum fee of $100, versus $50 for candidates living in India. He charges more for specific requirements. For instance, he says some overseas Indians want a bride who is smart, fluent in English, and "simultaneously, docile in the house." He says such women are now harder to find, so he bumps up his fees for some searches.
Some overseas Indians are throwing in the towel. Software engineer Abhishek Khaitan, 30, moved back to India in January after living in the U.S. since 2004. Mr. Khaitan, who is divorced, had been looking for a wife since the summer of 2008, to no avail. Mr. Khaitan has found a job in the south Indian city of Hyderabad and has been in touch with potential brides. "Things are working out, being here," he says.
From driving a hybrid car to installing solar panels on his home, Steve Nash always strives to be energy conscious.
The Phoenix Suns guard hopes his friends around the NBA community can learn some ways to do their part in the coming days.
The NBA announced plans Wednesday for its first “green week,” a number of activities to raise awareness and funding for environmental protection. Green week officially begins today and runs through April 10.
Nash, who started a recycling program when he played in Dallas, hopes the initiative helps others throughout the league to “just learn more and spread the word and the message, and get people more active in conserving and reusing and recycling.”
“I think it’s great that we’re taking the first steps to changing the culture and to moving in the right direction,” he said.
Teams will be outfitted with shooting shirts made of 100 percent organic cotton and take part in community events such as tree plantings and recycling drives. Autographed Spalding basketballs, made from 40 percent recycled materials, will be auctioned on nba.com, with proceeds benefiting the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The league will launch a Web site (nba.com/green) that will offer greening tips, including some its own teams are already using to modify their arenas to minimize energy consumption.
Nash sees plenty of waste during the season, from too much paper products in the arenas to too many hotel rooms that inevitably have all the lights on when he checks in. He said something as simple as not letting the water run too long in the shower can make a difference.
“If you just make one change like that, before you know it you’ll open your eyes how we overuse energy,” Nash said. “I think that will be a great goal for people to come in contact with NBA green week, to come away from it with one new lesson and one new goal.”
chronicle news services
There's about 50 types of these guys. But this guy is me. Only difference is I forget about the losses the second I step out of the gym. And I remember the great plays I made ALWAYS. I was born to compete, born to win, and born to play basketball. I'm proud of being pickupbbal guy.
“Serious pick up player”! Every run has one. When the guy he’s guarding tosses him the ball to check it, “serious guy” turns around to survey all four of his teammates to make sure they’re ready to D-Up! Then he’ll wipe his hands on the bottom of his shoes…slap the ball…and roll it on the ground back to his man.
And if he’s not the guy checking the ball, he’s D’ing up like crazy on the wing trying to deny his man the ball. And he already knows all his man’s tendencies, because while he was waiting to get on, he was actually scouting everyone else. “Serious guy” was born to compete. And he can always tell you his stats at any time during a game; “I’m 2-8, with 1 dime, and 3 turnover…feed me the rock.”
And don’t forget “the jerk”! With “the jerk”…everything is a foul. I mean everything!!! But he doesn’t say “foul”…he’ll say, “my ball” or “stay here” or “I got it”. Or worst of all “and 1” which he says even when the ball is nowhere near going in. And it works on both ends of the floor…you blow right behind him…you travelled. And if you disagree with him, he’ll go. Literally! Ten he’s likes to fight the guy and the jerk all rolled into one.
So, when you finish watching the Final Four and you’re all “geeked” for your local run, be on the lookout for all these guys. Then again, you probably are one of these guys and just don’t know it. Or to quote my boys Koppleman and Levine from “Rounders”…“if can’t spot the sucker in the first twenty minutes…you are the sucker!”
