citizen philanthropist

For me giving decisions have become more considered because there is less bandwidth for cash contributions when not employed. Giving of time and talent actually puts you more in touch with the needs, and more likely to be asked, to give dollars. I did not factor this in satisfactorily in my early retire plan which is one reason why I want an encore position (a.k.a. post retirement career) or real job again; if the stars align.

But until that eventuality, I am being a citizen philanthropist through crowd sourced fundraising. My favorite project to date with a fundraising goal of $10,000 which reached $51,854 is a true story of light.

Last year much of my contributions were local via GiveGreater.org . This initiative out of CFGNH enabled me to get matched dollars for my chosen organizations -- ones I had historically supported like MastersManna and WPAA-TV.  I also helped local artists with a performance initiative via IndieGOGO and today I signed into DonorsChoose.org and found a local teacher whose garden project connects nicely to other volunteer efforts I am involved in - betterfood4all. And they tempted me with a matching contribution. If I became a monthly supporter for as little as $10 a month there would be another $50 given. I did enroll because I believe in the idea and hope to inform local teachers so that eventually my monthly support could be even more local than the next town over.

So this week I must thank Garry Trudeau and Jane Pauley whose passions have given mine more potential today and into the future.

Required to look for work - TBD

I work every day ... but currently not for pay. It has been enjoyable getting to learn new tools and handle the randomness that the world offers.

But I have been looking for a potential match of my experience and interests in the world of work; because it is a requirement and opportunity when you collect unemployment. I signed up today for a keyboarding class. As I tap these keys without skill I wonder if that can change. In 6th grade I was certain that typing was part of a larger plot to dehumanize us. And since we still were experiencing Cold War Civil Preparedness -- I assumed it had Cold War influences. Today preparedness has a different dimension ...and I just feel it is a personal inadequacy to connect my brain to my fingers that is at play. Anyway ... the no cost opportunity presented itself and I signed up. Now I must survive basic calendar skills and remember to go and become acquanted with moodle as well.

I also reconnected with the idea of tying all this new media experience and business analysis together to be an e-learning developer. Ironically, as I thought that this was indeed the path I was setting upon I reviewed a BA position referred to me but found a lower paying but much more interesting opportunity to apply to called Instructional Technologist at the same non-profit organization. For me this is conceptually a match -- but I must still be found by them and processed. I am excited about the prospect; but oddly even more excited about the potential of position to do work similar to what I have done in healthcare.  But in all these cases others must agree that there is a match. 

I am using this life requirement as an opportunity...which I think is my nature. The Instructional technologies position, lead me to reviewing the companies employees on LinkedIN which connected me to an e-learning Guild Group.  While it does require sifting thru all the self-promotion, it is exposure to a community of developers, their tools, where open courseware is being developed etc.  It reminded me that there is a world of good free distance learning available at MIT  
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I have been getting nearly daily emails or calls(sometimes multiple inquiries per day) from my publically posted Resume. Very few are located within a distance I feel it is safe for me to drive. 4 years telecommuting has had its effects. I am generally less comfortable driving. In a few weeks I will post again and maybe then I will actually be typing, or at least learning to. TBD 2.1.12
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The Typing Tutorial software and Forms Design both arrived.  I installed the forms design software, a choice not surprising to me.  Anyway, another opportunity was discovered today which ties into the randomness of yesterday's best momments.  In addition to proudly watching the MiddleSchool Video Speeches I was very gratified to see the top 2 videos in the High School Broadcast Journalism Project (HSBJ) REALLY PSA contest. (winners here)  2.7.12

Too many MEs

When the cloud world merges you -- it can be so confusing. Originally my silos were to help process different types of tasks and associations and to stay safe (There is a backstory with guns, and deaths and threats currently locked away).  Now my multiple identities trip me up more than they help. But the web is there figuratively and literally with its need for keys  (passwords that insist on caps, letters & characters...when i prefer to use all lower case). Ugh. 


I have not kept up with the wonders of the random distractions of each day.  The discussion of conspicuous consumption (a.k.a. Prius effect), the betterthinking video that really just needed audio, the tweets of Colbert or the walks that farting dogs give notice about -- missing.

I tried to make something of this distraction -- pictures of the Amistad statue in New Haven - but I really did not transform it in any way. 

Here are the letters that my fingers are slowly building a relation ship with.
fasde  jkl;i  ddddd this finger is most challenged.  I quess it has not had enough reason to be used to have a natural flow form brain to hand. Anyway i am looking forward to the mavis Beacon typing lessons software.  Hopefully $15 well spent.

Serendipity 2012

So at the back of my mind there was a unspoken intent to do some VideoPoem work in 2012. I really do want to do HEMAN, A Man from Vermont a poem I wrote in 1999 for family  (also called What Makes America Work).  Here is how it begins:

"What makes America work?'
Grandpa slipped his soul into conversation
like a late night visit to the cookie jar - clandestine
spirit, satisfaction, hmmnn - sweet energy.
His eyes twinkled with exclamation: "It's people!"

I suspect this old Democrat who fettered party fundraising letters
with the lavishness of a nesting Oriole - took a vital life step, the day
this question "What makes America work?" infested his psyche.

At a recent gathering for the passing of his eldest daughter, I met some of his great-grand children who had their firmest recall of the man from pictures and this poem. One greatgrandaughter was intently working on geneology and scrapbooking of the family story ... she had some pictures.  I promised to connect -- but wanted to be firmly ready for the journey. I am yet to be.

As my last post suggests I am a believer in collaboration ... even in the arts, maybe, most especially.  Here the reflective nature of evolving in connection with others can be powerful. 

As I make this post I remember my 1st encounter with the book Transforming Vision: Writers on Art (the Art Institute of Chicago).  Within that collection of art and words Stuart Dybek reflects upon finding light at the Institute in the essay Killing Time. He was jobless. His experience of the Public Library was juxtaposed with the Institute -- as a place for the displaced and dispossessed drowsing over enormous tomes or reading. This was 1990. Today it echoes with enormous ripples. In a recent  reintroduction to my expanded welcoming suburban hometown library as a person whose job was terminated I had similar reflections about its inhabitants.

So on the 1st Monday of 2012 I set upon a task to find collaborators for my Community TV Station:  Potential content developers and Board Members. 

Within this effort which involves searches & hyperlink  following I stumble into another opportunity for collaboration with CT  artists as I get wowed by  a photographer that has a way with capturing light and a sound designer that I had the pleasure of being LinkedIN with whose share brought me to this enchanting composition and I think to myself herein is a video poem in search of words. Then I get a call from a decade done life that connects me with a poet whose words appear to connect both

Let's start turnin' the pages and viewing these urban cages as places to grow up sages and setiin' the stages ... for a revolution. A Light Revolution. Cementing futures in liberation and resolution of the knife to our neighbor and the knife to ourselves. Twelve is the number of daisies coming up through the sidewalk. Talk to me about your dreams and all the places in between the snow falling slow.

So I seek permission to collaborate to make a video poem. 

So it appears that in March my toils will be enchanting... but I am not wishing  my days away 'til then... as they are full of civic collaborations of which I am as eager to get underway, well.  BetterFood4all is being launched as initially outlined in this post.