tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303652122011-07-28T15:29:12.567-07:00It is my conviction that, despite the turbulence of our times, the great majority of all people share a common set of key values upon which a fairly safe and tolerant coexistence can be built. Can we join together and collaborate to overcome the few? This blog is my vehicle on the journey to find out.Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.comBlogger461100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-61257729489627130692010-05-20T11:20:00.001-07:002010-05-20T11:47:19.989-07:00

This past weekend I found Joy and Power. Turns out that they were already within me. I actually even "knew" this at an intellectual level. But despite knowing that they were inside me, I still usually struggled to access them. I have a wonderful life, yet was most often not experiencing the joy that seemed appropriate for my experience. Also, although I know that I have a lot of valuable

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-58508963985758726012009-01-09T05:18:00.000-08:002009-01-11T07:19:06.705-08:00

After my visit to Togo as part of LeapingStone.org, I crossed from Lome back in to Ghana at the border town of Aflao on January 7th. The officials were watching the swearing in of the new Ghana vice-president while they stamped my passport. I'm not sure they even looked at me :-).I walked on into Aflao, and as a white man was immediately approached and offered a ride into Accra, about 3 hours

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-14315939915798513902008-10-07T06:36:00.000-07:002008-10-07T06:50:50.388-07:00

I've just read "True Enough" by Farhad Manjoo, an extremely enlightening and yet disturbing book.  What's disturbing is captured in the subtitle: "Learning to Love In A Post-Fact Society".   On a related note, I'm about halfway through "Ethics for the Real World" by Ron Howard and Clinton Korver (full disclosure: Clint is a friend of mine), and it is a very useful book, providing motivation and

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-55482626776422599812008-09-04T20:12:00.000-07:002008-09-04T21:01:58.068-07:00

I just listened to the end of John McCain's RNC acceptance speech.  I've liked him for a long time, though not so much recently.  Tonight he sounded just a bit more like the "old McCain."  But there a few times where he said something that was inspiring, but contradicted either his own policies, or my views.He said "think of something larger than yourself."  I'm game.  I'm on three nonprofit

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-12785301066683022242008-03-14T20:54:00.001-07:002008-03-14T21:33:38.890-07:00

I woke up one morning a few days ago. Right away it's clear: something's wrong. Throat's a little sore. Aw, no! Did I shout last night? No, that's not it. Well, bummer, I've got a cold. Blame it on the kid in preschool.Then I start to move. Urg. Achy ache. Yeah. "Flu-like symptoms." Joy of joys. Man, there's so much to do. Heck, I can put the patio furniture together next weekend.

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-32727447342967417402007-08-19T16:54:00.000-07:002007-08-19T17:26:51.760-07:00

Yep, I'm back. Yep, bin bizzy. Nuff sed. (Well, prob'ly I'll share some fun bits in future posts.)Many topics have been churning through my head as really good blog topics. This topic broke through the threshold first, mostly because I wrote the core of it for another purpose and figured, hey, it's all about leverage.A few weeks back I enrolled in an online certificate program with Colorado

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-57229548281779057582007-02-24T08:26:00.000-08:002007-02-24T09:38:44.430-08:00

Several events lately have gotten me thinking about Unintended Consequences. I'm thinking that the world needs a good popular book helping to elucidate the concepts behind unintended consequences. I'm thinking it should be written by either Bill Bryson or Jared Diamond. Maybe we could use two books, since these guys have really different styles.We see examples of this all the time. The

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-6107225581384523792007-02-08T12:24:00.000-08:002007-02-08T13:09:09.462-08:00

Long time. But worth the wait :-)About 3 weeks back I read LeftVegDrunk's post, A disjointed feeling, wherein he describes the weird feeling of sitting fat, dumb and "way too rich" in Australia, on a break from aid work in Indonesia. His post prompted a comment from me (you can read it there), wherein I wonder out loud whether a nation or culture can achieve the "good kind of rich" without also

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-78951322544146651052007-01-12T14:47:00.000-08:002007-01-12T15:30:08.812-08:00

I missed an opportunity to post...but never late than never! Right? Right!I recently listed several of my favorite international blogs in a seriously-overdue Feeds Favorites list here at Resolution. I read most of them frequently. Since posting those, I've gone on and found several more blogs --I happened to be in a Kenya mood... Once I've had a chance to find some more favorites, I'm sure

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-78525671818071657332007-01-12T14:12:00.000-08:002007-01-12T14:46:58.535-08:00

Been away. I'll spare you the excuses. The good news is that I've got great news, and that has compelled me to return and post! Be patient, the "Borg" thing comes toward the end...From September through December, my favorite pastime has been working at Appropedia. During that time, the site has grown, and I can see my own impact in helping that happen. The three core activists at Appropedia

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-31031182766150009792006-12-20T07:08:00.000-08:002006-12-20T07:25:33.848-08:00

I had breakfast with a friend of mine yesterday. It turns out we have both recently purchased hybrids. She moved from a Yukon to a Highlander hybrid. I went from a 3-series BMW to a Prius.I drove away thinking about our hybrids. She was a bit disappointed with her Highlander's mileage, but it occurred to me that by moving from the Yukon to the Highlander, she reduced carbon emissions by twice

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-17648425404296846202006-12-14T17:04:00.000-08:002007-01-12T15:29:02.691-08:00

I've been spending my active time working on scaling up my favorite project, as you all know. But my less active energy (i.e. thinking, pondering, puzzling) is spent on two topics: Trust and Corruption.Corruption came up at the tail end of reading William Easterly's "The Elusive Quest for Growth". Sure, we all know about it, but the impact on development is so big that it should dominate any

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-26164084872491865682006-12-03T21:14:00.000-08:002006-12-03T22:11:06.860-08:00

Wow, that was fast.I kinda new it had been a while since I posted. No shortage of things to say, just... Well, y'know... Time.But still staggering to look at the date of the last post and find that over two weeks have passed.Anyway, just a temporary lapse. One of many, sure, but anyway I'm back. Once again a busy week at Lake Wobegon. There was Thanksgiving, of course, and it was one of the

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-68248014706883205922006-11-18T19:14:00.000-08:002006-11-18T19:58:28.917-08:00

If you're hopeful about the world's prospects, are you a positivist? Or naive? If you're negative, are you a cynic? Or does that perspective come from the wisdom of experience? I've been asking myself these questions, because I'm not a spring chicken, but still tend to see the world in terms of what can happen, what can be achieved, what things could be like. I tend to see the rest of

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-64671562638969552092006-11-11T18:29:00.000-08:002006-11-11T19:13:57.814-08:00

I have once again disappeared into the Vortex, this time spending most of my web moments porting an excellent document by Elizabeth Brink of IRN (and AR?) called "Beyond Dams" to (yep) Appropedia. Beyond Dams talks briefly about the various undesirable impacts of dams, especially large ones, on the ecosystems (including humans) related to rivers. (Tracy Kidder repeatedly mentions such a "bad dam"

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1766531475487628362006-11-05T14:23:00.000-08:002006-11-05T14:51:54.033-08:00

I've gotten so involved with Appropedia that I sometimes lose track of the bigger picture, why I got engaged in the first place. I'll take this opportunity to remind myself.My first humanitarian passion, world peace, is not so purely humanitarian as it might seem. It's pretty easy to see the self-interest in world peace; I want to help build a better world for my kids. Sure, I want it for

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-123179887155285972006-10-26T06:40:00.000-07:002006-10-26T07:09:46.058-07:00

Almost 4 years ago, my new wife and I spent our honeymoon in East Africa. As a part of that excellent trip, we stayed a few nights at a resort on the southern shore of Lamu island, off the northern coast of Kenya. The resort has changed names (now Kizingo) and hands, now being owned by the folks that were managing it when we stayed: Mary Jo and Louis Van Aardt. It's a gorgeous and primitive

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-87137034609555775422006-10-18T21:35:00.000-07:002006-10-18T21:37:21.188-07:00

AUSTRALIANS NOTE: you can see see An Inconvenient Truth for free. Intrepid Travel's CEO explains why he's picking up the tab: This year Intrepid will carry 50,000 travellers and on average each will fly about 17,000 kilometres to and from their destination. That’s about 850 million kilometres. If you go to the Climatecare website it also works out to about 135,000 tons of CO2. Youch... As happens

Chris Watkinsnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-85528143837002148162006-10-17T20:20:00.000-07:002006-10-18T06:25:56.756-07:00

I just spent several minutes reading the Mission and Vision of EWB-USA. What a remarkable group! Now, I have to acknowledge that there are tons of remarkable groups out there. Still, I'm struck by their approach, captured in this sentence:EWB-USA promotes a new way of thinking for the engineering profession and provides unique opportunities for engineers to work in partnership with a wide

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-6903749812723049612006-10-15T21:31:00.000-07:002006-10-15T21:33:03.450-07:00

"It makes me proud to be a Bangladeshi" said an SMS that a friend received from Bangladesh. In case you missed it, Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank have been awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Microfinance, as pioneered by Yunus and the Grameen Bank, treats the poor as competent people who can make use of the same services as anyone else, (including credit and savings accounts) and with hard

Chris Watkinsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-15631353496024390262006-10-15T21:06:00.001-07:002006-10-15T21:38:05.792-07:00

I'm excited to see the level of activity at Appropedia at the moment - every day when I check the recent changes, there's new pages and more maintenance being done to improve the site.I'm not able to spend all the time I'd like to, but I also keep coming across stuff I want to put on Appropedia. So I've been trying to focus, and avoid getting into the discussions too much, only contributing where

Chris Watkinsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-41897995586209516082006-10-10T06:40:00.000-07:002006-10-10T07:24:40.122-07:00

Well, we've been busy over at Appropedia. So busy (most visibly, we just went live with our new Main Page) that I haven't been doing my homework! So, of course, I'll take it out on you.Here's my assignment: answer 5 questions as a part of developing a new mission statement for Appropedia. This came up on a discussion page a couple weeks back, and Lonny recruited a friend who knows how to do

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-46698386211528936012006-10-09T08:04:00.000-07:002006-10-09T08:12:57.961-07:00

At the moment, I'm trying to think about key strategic ways to advance the aims of Appropedia, i.e. promoting sustainable development and providing and developing ways to beat poverty. The ultimate aim is not to promote Appropedia, but rather the good things that Appropedia stands for.One of my concerns is that there's a lot of small groups working on these issues, and they could really benefit

Chris Watkinsnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-35265445552089627692006-10-09T07:48:00.000-07:002006-10-09T08:04:03.148-07:00

Glad to be on board here. I'm fairly new to blogging, and currently pre-occupied with personal stuff, but will post from time to time. Thanks for the welcome - I think you have overstated my language skills, but it's true I am fascinated with language. The only foreign language I speak fluently is Indonesian, but I plan to learn others (and currently learning Tetum, as I'm applying for a

Chris Watkinsnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-24862078782994551102006-10-07T14:18:00.000-07:002006-10-07T15:12:23.872-07:00

Exciting news! Chris Watkins (aka Singkong, aka Singkong2005) has agreed to join the Resolution blog as a co-author!Woohoo! Let's do the wave!I've introduced you to Chris before; he is the wiki-savvy water and sanitation engineer from Australia, with serious experience in Indonesia (check out his Wikipedia user profile), who introduced me to Appropedia. We've decided that, despite some

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-49637435645924037152006-10-03T06:35:00.000-07:002006-10-03T07:07:52.661-07:00

It's (not) been a quiet week in Appropedia, my home town. (What the heck? Okay, Garrison Keillor says something like that about Lake Wobegon.)We've been pretty active over there, and it's starting to bear fruit. Even without aggressive promotion (fear not, it'll come!), we've gotten some notice in several great spots. Engineers Without Borders International has recognized Appropedia as a

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-9967091740494179852006-09-28T06:16:00.000-07:002006-09-28T07:04:54.153-07:00

Several interesting things have been going on the last two weeks. Appropedia has been moved to a much faster server, due to tremendous efforts of Lonny and others in the community. This has given rise to a fun emotional lift, because of the visible improvement. I've also joined the San Francisco Professionals chapter of Engineers Without Borders, though I have not had a chance to attend a

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-29028610320227011422006-09-19T18:50:00.000-07:002006-09-19T19:48:37.263-07:00

Well, you know the answer to this one, of course. There's a quiz coming, but you're gonna ace it.The answer is: it's your mom's job. You were right. That's the answer. Just like when we were kids and there was some problem, the clothes weren't clean or the fridge was empty. "Mom! Fix the problem!" Yep, it's Mom's job. For some folks it might be Dad's job. But between the two of them,

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-58091603015543020162006-09-16T09:08:00.000-07:002006-09-15T07:20:03.810-07:00

I had another great meeting with Della this week. Her efforts at the Institute of Infinite Peace are making good progress, and it was great to learn more about where it's headed and what she and the others involved want to accomplish. I won't steal their thunder by mentioning their plans here, except to say that I believe their first event will be in November.As I spoke to Della about my

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1158071703300784262006-09-12T06:47:00.000-07:002006-09-12T07:35:06.516-07:00

I have just escaped (perhaps only temporarily) from a hybrid wiki / social networking vortex! Many exciting things are going on. Working closely with Chris Watkins, and just met Lonny, both of whom are Wiki-types extraordinaire, working diligently on Appropedia! (Side note: I had begun to refer to Chris and Lonny as "wikians", then learned that "Wikians" is specific to Wikia. That's where I

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1157841936752125162006-09-09T14:34:00.000-07:002006-09-09T15:45:36.853-07:00

Wow! Another busy week, and again in a very positive way. First (yeah?), there's the whole real life thing: my much-better half was on a much-needed retreat, so little Drew (yeah, that's him in the picture at right from Father's Day) and I were minding the store. And then there's the day job that expects a certain level of attention. But passion space is where the real action has been. In

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1157466175174929772006-09-05T07:08:00.000-07:002006-09-05T07:22:55.296-07:00

In scouring the web, I finally discovered Engineers Without Borders recently. Not surprisingly, this is a very project "build it" sort of organization, with national and regional organizations (including, of course, EWB-USA). Again, why does it take so long to find these? Anyway, that discovery was very cool... But while reviewing EWB, I came across Appropedia, which is a wiki for many kinds

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1157424713475389702006-09-04T19:42:00.000-07:002006-09-04T19:51:53.500-07:00

I've been digging around the web fairly diligently for several months, and only just found World Changing. Great stuff! But why does it take so long to tumble to these resources?If you can't tell that this is going to work its way back to WinWinWiki, then you don't know me very well!My thinking is that, World Changing, while very broad, is angled a bit more toward sustainability than toward my

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1157088263677447892006-08-31T20:50:00.000-07:002006-08-31T22:24:23.736-07:00

Wow! It's great when stuff just clicks.First, a bit of background. As you can see on my profile, running is one of my interests. I'm not as passionate about it as some; nevertheless, in the last two and half years I've run 3 marathons and 2 half marathons, and I'm currently signed up for one of each. I run more as a tool for fitness (blood pressure, cholesterol, weight, all that) than for

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1156910100452256142006-08-29T20:25:00.000-07:002006-08-29T20:55:00.516-07:00

No, this isn't a remake of Godzilla v. Mothra or the latest Grisham novel. This is a glance at two huge initiatives, both now under the auspices of the UN, though they got there by different paths. The Culture of Peace (there are several apparently authoritative sites, and I've just chosen one) was spawned within UNESCO (though I'm sure the initiative had deeper origins). The Millenium

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1156741038616027872006-08-27T21:53:00.000-07:002006-08-27T21:57:18.626-07:00

I'm in the middle of reading Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach to my 3-year-old son. That peach gets big really fast! And that's also what's happening with WinWinWiki! The one page wiki has become a 20 or 30 pager. Give it a look and add an idea! If it's easier for you to post a comment here, by all means choose that.

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1156255920092008942006-08-22T07:04:00.000-07:002006-08-23T06:16:54.563-07:00

Well, even though my posting has not been as daily as I'd like, it's likely to get even more spotty. Why? Cuz I'm going to be baby sitting a new baby! I've just started WinWinWiki as a mini wiki at the Wikia scratchpad. As you will see, the wiki is not even a full single page yet, but all journeys begin with a single step, and I did not want to delay in getting the community involved.So, please

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1155701539038185372006-08-15T20:21:00.000-07:002006-08-21T23:48:46.930-07:00

Recently, in my Elevator Pitch, I talked about creating a webified version of "Building a Better World for Dummies" (again with apologies to Wiley & Sons), a book which does not (yet) exist. More recently I wrote about foundations for peace. How do those tie together? Glad you asked!As I mention in my profile, I've reached a point where I'm ready to start working hands-on (in addition to

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1155314135336778582006-08-11T09:34:00.000-07:002006-08-11T09:46:08.483-07:00

In my recently posted Elevator Pitch, I mentioned the idea of a wiki to build a framework of articulated thoughts that I believe would be useful in aligning and motivating interested parties, and helping to lead toward coordinated action. To give you a taste of what I had in mind, I've captured the following 8 foundations for peace. These come from David Adams' site, Toward a Global Culture of

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1155313867524701822006-08-11T08:57:00.000-07:002006-08-21T23:51:23.610-07:00

My daughter gave me Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains, which is mostly about the early work and life of Paul Farmer. (I say "early" because Dr Farmer is slightly younger than I am, which means, of course, that he's still just a young man with lots left to do.) I finally picked the book up about a week ago and could hardly put it down. I've seen references to Paul Farmer in other blogs,

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1154392410605368112006-07-31T16:26:00.000-07:002006-08-22T00:00:13.286-07:00

It's (past?) time I worked out my elevator pitch for this project. The blog description above (essentially the blog's subtitle: "It is my conviction...") is close, but really just tells you (the "venture capitalist" in our story) where I'm coming from, and not what I'm asking you to invest in. You may have read that I favor prototypes. Here is my prototype for an elevator pitch (understand that

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1153643030210121842006-07-23T00:50:00.000-07:002006-07-25T20:09:04.716-07:00

After a couple of posts that took a bit of thinking, I want to turn the tables. Here are a set of links to a sampling of books that got me thinking when I read them; if you want to do some thinking, take a swing at these. I've got a ton more on my shelf; some I've read, some are still waiting in line.[All the links are to Amazon. Yes, I own some Amazon shares; Amazon's tools for looking at

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1153280758548409432006-07-18T19:56:00.000-07:002006-07-22T19:20:04.520-07:00

I believe in prototypes: quick bailing-wire-and-chewing-gum models to play with in order to clarify thinking. If the prototyping process isn't too expensive, go ahead and throw something together, then iterate as needed to zero in on a viable result. It's just not a good idea to try to build an Apollo rocket without some stepping stones along the way. After all, premature optimization is

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1152798357423284892006-07-13T06:11:00.000-07:002006-07-13T06:46:03.603-07:00

As I suggest in my profile, my mom was kind of a pinko hippie. Berkeley educated, lived in Laguna Beach before it was rich. She co-founded World Repair, Inc (or "WRI", which also stood for "we recycle it"), a 3-person recycling firm in the 70's that focused on newspaper. At the time, recycling was something of a fringe notion, as I recall. That's curious in a way, because recycling in various

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1151588990231062212006-06-29T06:46:00.000-07:002006-07-06T14:12:53.626-07:00

If the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, a blog of a thousand thoughts begins with a single post. But it's heck of a lot easier to figure out which step comes first than which thought.Well, I'll begin at the beginning. Or at least, a beginning. And at the bottom I'll answer the (easy?) trivia question: who are those folks in the profile photo?I've wanted for years to

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30365212.post-1151458603265752222006-06-27T18:33:00.000-07:002006-07-07T19:52:55.340-07:00

Hello, world.A glimpse of my techie heritage in that first sentence... Despite (because of?) that, I'm a late adopter with respect to the blogging community. And today is the big step. Walking on stage with the footlights impairing the view. Anybody out there?Ah, those opening night jitters. Best to get it done, break the ice and move on. Next post will bring the challenge of actual content.

Curt Beckmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132324784058285613noreply@blogger.com1