Humanize the Earth!

Uganda in Chicago

I met with Harish Patel this morning.  He’s one of the organizers of Project FOCUS, which has a photography exhibit on now at UIC in Chicago.  Harish and friends (he’s a 21 year old college student) were inspired by Invisible Children, a documentary by other young people, about the child soldiers in Uganda.  Harish and his group then went to Uganda and facilitated Ugandan children’s creation of art, photographs of some of their life experiences.  If you’re in Chicago, go see the exhibit.  Good stuff.

Illinois joins rail compact

Governor’s press release:

Governor Rod R. Blagojevich today signed legislation to add Illinois to the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Compact (MIPRC), a regional association that promotes the development of intercity rail. House Bill 4344 adds Illinois to the number of Midwestern states working to promote and advocate for passenger rail service on a federal, regional and local level. Last year, Gov. Blagojevich doubled funding for state sponsored passenger rail in Illinois’ partnership with Amtrak, more than doubling the number of daily round-trips on downstate routes.

RecentChangesCamp07 - Portland, OR - Feb 2-4

I will be co-facilitating this event and would love to see you there!Invitation - RCC 2007

You are reading this Invitation because someone (Ted Ernst, actually) wants to see you at RecentChangesCamp 2007. RecentChangesCamp is an un-conference (BarCamp) of, for, and by folks who want to ‘build communities worth having’ both online and off. This especially includes the OpenTechnology/OpenCulture movement. We are coming together to make connections, write code, have fun, revise the CyberneticRoadmap, do as much good work as each and every one of us can … and then go home more connected, more energized and more capable of building great communities and the tools they depend on. Bring your friends and join a good party that’s growing even better!”

The day before, also in Portland, Emerging Futures Network is having a one-day gathering: http://emergingfutures.net

water leaking from gas valve of my furnace

My furnace hasn’t been working.  The blower would just blow and blow, but no gas was being burned.  My HVAC guy came today, and discovered that there was a whole lot of water leaking from the gas line valve.  I noticed the water in there, but didn’t know how significant it was.  He dried it out and pressed the reset button for the safety that shut it down, and it started up, and eventually dried itself out and now seems to be working.  He was baffled about where the water was coming from and we’re just keeping our fingers crossed at this point.  No idea what caused it.  Strange.