For the past couple years I’ve been trying to get my best time swimming a kilometre under 16:00. I’m still not there and obviously it’s not quite the same level as Casey’s three-hour marathon dream but the video definitely resonates in so many ways:
(via Waxy)
I wore green yesterday to honour the Logan Boulet Effect and to support donor awareness.
From the CBC:
Inspired by coach and mentor Ric Suggitt, Logan signed an organ donor card on his birthday, just weeks before his death. He also made his wishes known to his family.
Logan survived long enough for his organs and corneas to be gathered before he was taken off life support.
“Logan was able to make six people’s lives better,” Toby says. “He basically saved six lives.”
That decision has since inspired an estimated 300,000 Canadians to sign their donor cards in what has become to be known online as the #LoganBouletEffect.
Green Shirt Day on April 7 was created to honour, remember, and recognize the victims and families of that fatal crash and to continue Logan’s legacy by raising awareness for organ donation.
I’m a registered donor — have you thought about signing up?
I try not to pay too much attention to advertising in general but this shoe ad at Daring Fireball caught my eye tonight:
Hey Daring Fireball readers, many of you are familiar with Atoms, and a lot of you wear our shoes and the comfortable masks we make. We are currently sold out of almost all of our shoes because Humans of New York did an in depth story on our co-founder Sidra’s personal journey. So this week, instead of ordering with Atoms, we would encourage you to support relief efforts in Texas.
So I checked out the Humans of New York story and found it very inspiring. I think you should read it too.
Now I want to buy their sold out shoes.
Before the holidays, NASA put out an announcement for plans to go back to the moon. The plan is pretty extensive:
With the Artemis program, NASA will land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. We will collaborate with our commercial and international partners and establish sustainable exploration by 2028. Then, we will use what we learn on and around the Moon to take the next giant leap — sending astronauts to Mars.
Instead of the way previous missions were completed, with one rocket taking up a single lander, NASA plans to setup infrastructure in the form of a small space station orbiting the Moon which can dock with incoming ships and guide them a gentle landing just about anywhere on the surface. This will make travelling to the moon much cheaper and sets the stage for how it will be done if (when?) mankind starts going to Mars. More details about the Artemis Mission on NASA’s website.
I love this song by Tim Mitchin. I listen to it every Christmas.
It’s the end of an era as the the Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off for its last flight this morning. Watching Atlantis lift off gave me a great shot of nostalgia from the early days of the shuttle program when I was a kid. Here are some screen shots I took from NASA’s broadcast this morning.
I’ve been a reader of Roger Ebert’s blog since he started writing it. Most of his posts are about as profound as it gets. Reading his stories ranging in diversity from his own history and childhood to the loneliness of isolation he feels from those that leave comments on his blog, one is left with little doubt why the famous critic was drawn to journalism — he’s an amazing writer.
When he lost his lower jaw to cancer in 2006, he lost the ability to eat and speak. However, he certainly didn’t lose his voice. In this moving talk from TED2011, Ebert and his wife, Chaz, with friends Dean Ornish and John Hunter, come together to tell his remarkable story.
Hit play or watch Roger Ebert’s talk on TED.com.
Somewhat (but not really) related: Roger Ebert has been entering the New Yorker’s cartoon caption contest almost weekly since it began and this week, he is a finalist for the first time. (New Yorker link).
Do something nice for someone you don’t know very well. If you’re not sure what that is, try introducing them to someone else. I’m amazed at the unseen rewards that happen when you introduce someone. You get (at least some) credit for all the good that comes of that new relationship.
I love this:
Tom Brokaw Explains Canada to Americans – YouTube
P.S. Parliament has been prorogued during the Olympics so Harper’s little flag waving speech was actually given at the British Columbia legislature.
As a private with the 106th Infantry Division, Kurt Vonnegut, along with five other battalion scouts, wandered behind enemy lines for several days during the Rhineland Campaign and became cut off from their battalion. They were captured by Wehrmacht troops on December 14, 1944 and imprisoned in Dresden, Germany.
While a prisoner, he witnessed the controversial fire bombing of Dresden in February 1945 which destroyed most of the city. The Germans held Vonnegut in an an ad hoc detention facility that had originally been an underground slaughterhouse meat locker. This experience was the inspiration for his famous novel, Slaughterhouse-Five.
A month later he wrote his family from a repatriation camp informing them of his capture and survival:
See the rest of the letter at Letters of Note – Slaughterhouse Five.