The Hippies were right!

A quote from the Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda says," Life is a chain. All things are related. When any link is harmed, the other links are affected." Kelli and I have been trying to lessen our "Ecological Footprint", which basically means our affect on the environment through the way we live. We soon realized that we needed to make some changes. Before you call me a tree hugger, think about how much you enjoy the outdoors. whether it's camping, hunting, or just walking through a park. It seems like an oxymoron to enjoy something so much and not give back at all. We started by locating our local recycling agency.
Most cities provide recycling pick up w/ the trash pick up, but since we live in an apartment, we have to take our recycling directly to the plant. But it was something simple we could do to get a start on things. We have been walking/riding our bikes to destinations close to our house, which not only helps the environment but saves on gas! when we go to the grocery store, we started taking our own permanent shopping bag (the bags you get at IKEA). You can also do the basics, remembering to turn off the lights you're not using, turn your air conditioner off when you leave the house, using low energy light bulbs, etc.
Las Vegas is one of the lowest cities when it comes to the amount of people that recycle here, so we have been raising awareness in our community and at public events so people can learn more about taking care of the environment.
For those of you who enjoy Jack Johnson's music (who doesn't? seriously...) you should check out his website by clicking here. Before Jack started doing music, he was a professional surfer. So he has been raising awareness and helping people learn how to help out mother nature. you can watch videos about different environmental organizations, and for each video you watch, Jack will donate $1 to that organization. the best part is if you sign up for the newsletter you get opportunities to take short quizzes about the environment and for each one you take you get a free Jack Johnson music download of a unreleased rare track!
So contact your local recycling plant and check out some of these websites below:

• Calculate your Ecological footprint
• Earth 911
• Jack Johnson's All At Once website
• Episode of 30 Days (from the guy that did supersize me) "going off the grid"

Don't forget to check out this video below of Jack Johnson's green studio! (here's the direct link if it's not playing below)

First Friday

Every Month on the first Friday, Las Vegas has a art and music festival down town. It is part of an effort to clean up the area between the strip and Fremont st. if any of you are familiar w/ that area it's pretty ghetto. but now most of it is art museums and music venues. We were trying to keep it cheap for the fourth so we decided to go there since it's only $2. T

There was a lot of interesting artwork, everything from political to spiritual. everything, including the music, is local. in the different art rooms, the artists are there to talk about there work, it was fun to meet them and see if you were really understanding the message they were trying to send with each painting. Then as we drove home, we could see fireworks all over the valley, it was pretty cool to see them coming from so many different places.

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