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green collar jobs

Green collar jobs are blue collar jobs in green businesses – that is, manual labor jobs in businesses whose products and services directly improve environmental quality (Pinderhughes, 2006). Green collar jobs are located in large and small for-profit businesses, non-profit organizations, social enterprises, and public sector institutions. What unites these jobs is that all of them are associated with manual labor work that directly improves environmental quality.

Here's more info:

We've been hearing about Green Collar jobs in Oakland for quite some time — because of Van Jones and the Ella Baker Center which is on 40th Street, a little over a mile from where we live.  The rest of the country is going to hear more about it so might as well link to the source of the Green Collar job concepts.

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my Xbox avatar

This is my Xbox avatar – rebron2000.  The hair, glasses, blue polo, cargo shorts, and Keen's are about right; and sadly, this *still* may be my signature look.  I have upgraded my wardrobe in real life but thought this was fairly amusing.

In any case, if you happen to stumble on rebron2000 on Xbox live and he's kicking your butt at Halo or whatever other games I have, it's not me, it's a 10 year old or one of several 10 year olds.  Ha!

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general update

home

  • We only got to snowboard twice this season but awesome snow both times.  Hopefully can get in 2 or 3 more visits.
  • We've got a bathroom remodel that we're trying to target for June/Summer.  After that, we're about done as we can't really do much else to the house.
  • Here are those videos with George Carlin and kids 1, 2, 3, or Parenting 101

work

travel

  • nothing planned but considering a cruise or trip to Alaska sometime this Summer

volunteering

  • none, looking for opportunities

books

  • for Q1: The Intelligent Investor, Dreams from My Father, Truth about Money, (re-reading) The Joys of Motherhood

training/events

  • SF Marathon (registered); Marin Century
  • Pow wows: CAL in April, Stanford in May; others still tbd
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not a good start

This and the BART shooting at the Fruitvale BART station are not good ways to start off 2009.

I kind of wish we can come up with some web site, solvingbigproblems.org or something like that where we can list out the problems, solutions to those problems, get people who can act on those solutions to work on it, and then finally fixing it and moving on to the next thing.

We get stuck in these cycles and it just never ends.

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2008 time capsule

General Happenings

  • Year in song
  • Year in Pictures NY Times, Big Picture Blog
  • Beijing Olympics
  • Obama elected President of the United States of America
  • Bailouts for financial and auto industries.
  • Recession, Dow at 8500.

Tech

  • Mozilla Messaging forms.  Firefox 3 ships.  Chrome launches.
  • LCD tvs get cheap, SSD to mass production, Netbooks.
  • G1 Phone launched.  New aluminum MacBooks.  Facebook Connect launches.
  • Move towards green tech and energy.

Sports

  • Phelps and 8 Gold Medals
  • NY Giants win Super Bowl
  • Celtics beat Lakers, NBA Finals
  • ? win World Series

Obits

  • TD, George Carlin, Bernie Mac, Eartha Kitt, Randy Pausch, Paul Newman, Tim Russert

Personal

  • Kitchen remodel: BlueStar range, PaperStone, cork floors.
  • SF marathon
  • Travel: Kirkwood/NorthStar (good snow)/Whistler/Kailua
  • Instant Soccer Dad for GF III
  • Back at Mozilla.  Work for Mozilla Messaging
  • Three car accidents – X3, IS, Odyssey
  • Ad Hoc, Michael Mina, Rivoli, Rikyu, Brick Pig's House
  • Too many purchases.

An overall strange year.

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2008-2009 charities list

These are the groups we like to give money to and we'd love be able to give more.  Next few years will be tough for a lot of charitable organizations.

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Happy Holidays

Hope everyone has a safe and happy holidays!

—–

p.s. It's shaping up to be a nice snow season this year; lots more snow this year than last year by Christmas day.  Anyone interested in hanging out let us know, we like Kirkwood, North Star, and I want to try Alpine Meadows this year.  We may try the Bay Area ski bus too.

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Birdwell Beach Britches

303: Surfnyl, Navy Blue, 34"

Birdwell Beach Britches fascinates me.  The company has a great story, they make great products, have a cool logo, they have a super old school web site (which worked fine for me), and I won't buy any beach shorts from anywhere else.

I've got three pairs, and when I lose weight I'll probably get another two more pairs hopefully at size 32".  What makes them great shorts: they're fitted and comfortable, the Surfnyl material dries fast (like 5 minutes tops), they're lined, and they feel and look well made (in terms of the stitching and materials used).

What I've been finding is that there are many small companies like Birdwell Beach Britches that makes great products, at a high quality, at a great price, and with personality.  Getting emails back from the owners is normal and a web site only matters in that it's up and running and more/less functional.  Berkshire Hathaway's web site is a perfect example.

The other piece that interests me is the notion of maximizer and satisficer.  I'm a maximizer (unfortunately): I want the best of things, the best value, the best price, and products that last.  It's borderline obsessive/compulsive but really I'm just super cheap.  A satisficer (who's generally happier, less stressed, less compulsive) could go to Target or Walmart or anywhere and get a pair of swim trunks.

I had to go online, mostly because swim trunks at stores always have dumb prints on them and I wanted something basic.  I could have only found these shorts being a maximizer and being one is probably a good thing when buying a house, car, or other big ticket items.