Mike Rowe celebrates dirty jobs | Video on TED.com

What a great time to see to this talk.
In the dawn of The Fair Trade Cleaning Company, I must say I completely get this theory.
I have been trying to figure out a way to raise the profile of the modern cleaner, and Mike Rowe just gave me the best theory for making that happen.

Makes me think about equality between salaries in the different industries.
It is the eternally discussed minimum living wage problem, that is still unresolved... for dirty jobs.
It is the old values of healthy manual work that we have forgotten and we breed human beings that have no idea what hard work truly means.
I worked hard as a child -I volunteered to work and to help my parents. I know what hard work is - that is why I run a cleaning business not an internet company.

But I just wished society got it right too. Respect for the hard working people. Due Respect for everyone.

Mike Rowe celebrates dirty jobs | Video on TED.com

Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom Speech

Just to remind us, how lucky we are!

Jeremy Rifkin | The Empathic Civilization @Google

Empathy ... makes so much sense!

California Dreamin

My dream of California is leading me to a great thinker. To someone who has already greatly influenced me in my youth with his stories and intriguing characters in novels like ...
Burning Daylight
Call of the Wild
Martin Eden
Michael, Brother of Jerry
Smoke Bellew
The Iron Heel
The Little Lady of the Big House
The Valley of the Moon
White Fang

My greatest inspiration for visiting California has been and will always be the Valley of the Moon. London is great at describing the beauty of nature and the joys of simple life into the wild!

"I am the sailor on horseback! Watch my dust! Oh, I shall make mistakes a-many; but watch my dreams come true...Try to dream with me my dreams of fruitful acres. Do not be a slave to an old conception. Try to realize what I am after."
– Jack London
circa 1913

Jack London the Visionary

London once said, "I believe the soil is our greatest asset." These words are truer, in our current world, than ever before! On his ranch he pioneered in soil conservation, using tillage and terracing to make fruitful again the worn-out hillside lands. He raised vegetables, grains, alphalfa, grapes, fruit trees, prunes, potatoes, spineless cactus, eucalyptus trees, horses, goats, chickens, hogs, beef, dairy cattle, prize-winning livestock and cut the biggest and best hay crops in Sonoma County. Whatever London attempted, he attempted in an all-or-nothing way, and his experimental farming methods were no different.

This actually - extremely interesting and I shall research it further but on my Ultimately eco Blog - His stepsister and Ranch Superintendent, Eliza Shepard, said it best:

. . . ."Jack's ambition was to develop a model farm; one of the best all-round ranches in the state, combining a stock ranch, fruit, grain, vegetables, vineyard and the like. He would have accomplished his plan had he lived, for his enthusiasm was unquenchable. His intense energy simply rioted in work. Success seemed only to stimulate him to greater and wider efforts."

– Eliza Shepard, 1917

I am so much going to California next year.... And I will go to find Jack London, my 100 older soul brother, my Napa valley, my pinot noir, to check my Brain, my heart and expand my mind and may be my Moon valley too, but may be I need to find someone who would fight for me, you know....! aaaand my Jack London Museum

How Did Obama's inaugural speech shape up?

No inaugural address has so thoroughly rejected the political philosophy and legislative record of the previous administration. Jonathan Raban takes a close look at Barack Obama's speech...

Obama's popularity is like a curve on the stock market - but in the situation he is - you only hope he will manage to sustain good personal health and strong principles.
If I believed in god, I would have prayed for him - unfortunately, even if I did - that wouldn't help!

Some Great skiing articles in the Escape supplement of the Observer

Skiing trips that won't break the bank

Skiing's cheap and cheerful alternative to the Alps

Ski clinic: which resort is best for us?

Celebrity Face Match

I went to see Alice in Chains on Tuesday night - amazing!
Their new album is just stunning. I have yet to discover what a talent Jerry Cantrell is! I also managed to develop a fetish for his fingers - they just are really nice to look at...

But this is not about fingers - this is about faces.

Alice in Chain's drummer - Sean Kinney - well, he is suppose to be a really nice guy - very positive and playful (he showed it on the concert too) and easy going. But he also looks like Trent Reznor - another very much favourite music person of mine!

Here's the proof:
Sean Kinney

Trent Reznor

What do you think?
It's not important, but I couldn't help myself!

Happy Bycicle

Someone

is getting some super wanted birthday presents:

Yay!

My love of Pearl Jam has no end...

Ok I have been talking to a lot of people about my love of Pearl Jam and I love talking, explaining, sharing about my love of this. Pearl jam has had the biggest influence on me as a person and of course on my music tastes, though I have always had preference to heavy guitary drummy vocally lyrically stuff - I started on rock music from the tender age of 4. At 4 I was into a band called Signal.

Many people say they see Ten and Vs as the real Pearl Jam and after that they haven’t found they really like anything. Well everything that Pearl Jam have created after Ten sounds very very different. I argue that Ten is really not Pearl Jam, not yet. Ten is a lot of Mother Love Bone.

Pearl jam are not just music, voice and sound. If you are a music person as not a music with lyrics person – don’t expect to ever like it the things that followed after Ten and Vs – about 7 other albums. If you are a music, lyric and existential philosophy person with some awareness of personal growth and self actualisation – you are so going to get Pear Jam, but then you have to like rock music!

So it’s not about music only – hope you get this. I call this phenomenon – modern time poetry…
I wouldn’t be able to explain the philosophy behind every song but you can learn that directly from the band themselves – they did the Storytellers.

You can see the storytellers on You tube – everything has a meaning – and that meaning changes…

That’s my favourite story by Eddie Vedder:
VIDEO
I am sorry embed mode was desabled for this video.


The new album – Backspacer is the happiest album I have ever listened to. If you are following Pearl Jam – you would understand why and you will embrace it with equal joy!

If you haven’t followed Pearl Jam I would recommend you to watch Iconoclasts on the Sundance channel, Series 2. Eddie Vedder is paired with Laird Hamilton. You can hear some really good stories about Lairds passion of surfing and Eddie’s passion of music.

There is a moment when Laird talks about creativity and how we do things – as younger people from a not that positive place – fuelled with a lot of anger and then there is this transition (or people usually die) when the source of creativity changes – it comes from a different place and the more you have grown and evolved the more creative you can be, happy and creative, not angry and creative!

Hence I totally disagree with the concept of the tortured artist…There is a really good article by David Lynch on that – I hope I can find a link to it. I accept that tortured artist happen, they do and I have been inspired and influenced by many such, but I know that there will be a time, once we create our sustainable lives, when creativity will come from a good place, happy place. The tortured artist happens because we don’t grow up happy, we grow angry. We can change all that… it’s what we believe that really has to change.