From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere… If you never did, you should. These things are fun and fun is good. – Dr. Seuss, One Fish two fish red fish blue fish, 1960

For me this quote touches base with something the Dalai Lama said yesterday in his speech at Colgate University. Everything can be viewed from different perspectives. In some of these perspectives the situation or object is good and others it is bad. If you take the time and practice to release yourself from the fears and preconceptions you have about all the time and carefully examine everything from all possible angles, you will be able to enjoy more things.

This past year I have been conscious of everything that I do and its effect on my surroundings. As such I have take the following actions and I encourage you to take similar ones for yourself.

I purchased a new car. This car, while not a hybrid, is a compact Chevy Cobalt that averages 32 miles per gallon. In my mind, this still isn’t very efficient, but it did replace a 10 year old Ford Explorer that averaged 16 mpg so I have doubled my efficiency.

I began using reusable shopping bags. I purchased some bags from Trader Joe’s for $0.99 each and have continued to use them for over 8 months now. I have eliminated the the 8 plastic bags per week on average that I used at the grocery store. In addition I purchased some smaller canvas totes that I now use at stores like Target and Walmart eliminating those bags as well.

I am reusing all plastic and glass containers that I purchase from the grocery store. Instead of throwing out that salsa jar or hummus container, I wash it and will use it later instead of purchasing Tupperware. In addition I began buying in bulk. I no longer purchase boxes of cereal or cans of beans, but will purchase them from the bulk containers at the local Whole Foods store. I store these items in my reused containers.

I no longer eat meat and now opt for organic vegetables. By choosing locally grown organic veggies, I am reducing the use of fuels in production and transport as well as the chemicals that are used for growth and pest control. This results in better food for my family and a lower impact on our surroundings. By not eating meat, we are again removing chemicals from our bodies, but also we help reduce the demand for feed crops. these feed crops are often heavily treated to control pests and growth which get into the livestock. The livestock themselves have a large impact on the environment. I am not condoning eradicating cows, but by growing them in large herds in confined spaces is not natural.

I am purchasing natural cleaners that don’t use lab created chemicals and have a low impact on the environment in their creation.

My family has reduced computers down to one from three. This saved on the energy vampires and we recycled the computers and donated the ones that still work to Goodwill.

Some additional small steps to take on a daily basis that I have included: turning the dishwasher to air dry instead of heat dry. Turning the thermostat to only turn the heat on when it gets below 66 degrees and turn the air conditioner on above 75. Air dry as much laundry as possible (this tends to be tough due to the volume we seem to have in my house). Eating as much raw food as possible (this is not only healthier for you, but reduces energy used in cooking). And of course recycling as many plastics, papers, and metals as possible.

This tool should allow me to no longer manually sync work to Google, but it has two major drawbacks:

1. It only syncs Outlook events I schedule, so all the meetings that people set up that I need to attend I still have to manually sync.
2. It only syncs the primary Google calendar. I have 11 calendars I use. One for home events, like kids activities. One each for bills, birthdays, weekly menus, paydays (I can separate income from expense this way), work (now), work sync, and several public calendars including Christian, Jewish and US holidays. While I wouldn’t mind if the public calendars don’t get synced, I should at least be able to sync calendars I make like my Home one.

I am rather disappointed with this first release as it really doesn’t achieve much in the way of getting things done and staying organized. I still don’t know how the Google accepting other calendar invitations piece works which of course could alleviate this whole mess as well.

To make it even better, my brother had his third child (second son), Oriole Matthew, this morning at 1:02 AM. Yes, they share the same birthday.

When I was born my father said he gave all his future birthdays to me, and my brother has done likewise for his son. This makes me a bout to become the oldest male in my family. My dad was 32 when I was born and this year marks my 33rd birthday. Matthew is 29 today, so I want to know, as the new patriarch….can I retire?

Recently we moved and I hadn’t set up the computer for a few weeks. Mostly I wanted to do a better job of locking down my system before letting the kids on it. I ended up going online and downloading avast! free edition and loading it up. Now I really keep my system pretty clean, but it was nice to see that upon my first scan there wasn’t anything it picked up. I also loaded up and locked down the computer with my favorite firewall Zone Alarm. But it still wasn’t enough.

I could keep the viruses, spyware, and malware from spreading, but there was still the possibility my children could log onto a site I don’t approve of. Now I trust them, but the internet is funny. You could be looking up a subject and get a result that isn’t related and is adult oriented. I have spoken with my kids and they know what they can and can’t do, but why should I tell them they can’t go to Google and search what they want? I have been looking around for a solution, but had yet to find anything worthwhile. However this weekend I was introduced to K9 Web Protection from Blue Coast. This is a free version of an enterprise edition they sell. I installed it and ran it though a few tests to see if really blocked out the sites it claims to. Not only did that happen, but they blocked a few sites I approved for the kids to view. The blocking screen allows you to permit the site right there, but if you don’t have the password then you can’t do a thing.

In addition to blocking websites that have questionable content, you can lock out the internet during certain hours using a simple screen where you highlight the hours to block in a similar fashion to Microsoft’s Server restriction settings. Further administration details focus on the categories to block. It has a list of commonly blocked subjects such as adult themed, chat, shopping, etc. However you can select the custom level and add other categories like government, hacking, blogs, business, and many more. You can go further and approve and block specific sites. You can force search to use Google Safe Search. You can block keywords too. There is also a monitor level if you don’t want to block things, but see where people have been.

There are a couple things that I think are missing. I would like to add new categories to the blocking screen and not just keywords. I would also like to see some other search options like Yahooligans! I have been using this as their home page for a while now and have learned to really like the results and the various areas and activities for the kids. I would also like to see support for other operating systems than Windows XP. I personally am a Mac man.

Overall this is a good product and I definitely recommend any parent use this on their systems to keep their kids safe.