Virtual house tour

To satisfy my nagging sister (I love you!) and others who have been asking for more pictures of our new house... I'll do you one better. I did a quick walk-through of our street and our house, and took a video.

Here's our street:


And here's our house.


Come visit!

Next video: My new weed-eater. (Yeah, I own a weed-eater... how cool is that!!)

Happy Opening Day!

Today is Opening Day... the most anticipated day of the year! (though I think Meg might argue with me on that...)

In appreciation of the new baseball season, here is my Yahoo Sports Fantasy Baseball roster (as of today):

C Geovany Soto (CHC)
1B Derrek Lee (CHC)
2B BJ Upton (TB)
3B Kevin Youkilis (BOS)
SS Jose Reyes (NYM)
OF Magglio Ordonez (DET)
OF Ken Griffey Jr. (CIN)
OF Billy Butler (KC)
Util Todd Helton (COL)
BN Aaron Rowand (SF)
BN Alex Gordon (KC)
BN Juan Pierre (LAD)

SP Daisuke Matsuzaka (BOS)
SP Oliver Perez (NYM)
RP Jonathan Papelbon (BOS)
RP Francisco Rodriguez (LAA)
P Kevin Gregg (FLA)
P Heath Bell (SD)
P Peter Moylan (ATL)
BN Ben Sheets (MIL)
BN Rich Hill (CHC)
DL Josh Beckett (BOS)

Cadiz Street, here we come!

So tomorrow is closing day for our new home on Cadiz Street in New Orleans. We're so excited to move in! As you can imagine, we're already picking out what we want to plant our (very small, yet to be established) garden, choosing paint colors for the kitchen, and mapping out our bike routes to and from work. I'm a little nervous, since I've never written this big of a check before (and we for sure are taking on a lot of debt) but the realization that we will soon OWN our OWN place is all worth it.

Everyone is welcome to come visit... the sooner the better! (We will even have a guest blow-up mattress to accompany our master blow-up mattress to help accomodate you!)

Also, you can read our previous post, which includes a picture of our new home.

Watch Jeff Sachs on the Daily Show

Jeff Sachs will appear on the Daily Show with John Stewart this Tuesday March 18th at 11pm.

His new book, "Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet" will also come out in stores the same day.

Here are a couple of reviews:

Al Gore, Winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and Former Vice President of the United States:

"Common Wealth explains the most basic economic reckoning that the world faces. We can address poverty, climate change, and environmental destruction at a very modest cost today with huge benefits for shared and sustainable prosperity and peace in the future, or we can duck the issues today and risk a potentially costly reckoning in later years. Despite the rearguard opposition of some vested interests, policies to help the world's poor and the global environment are in fact the very best economic bargains on the planet."


Kofi Annan, winner of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize and former secretary-general of the United Nations:

"Jeffrey Sachs never disappoints. With powerful illustrations and moving words, he describes what humanity must do if we are to share a common future on this planet. By making sense of economics as it affects the lives of people, this book is an excellent resource for all those who want to understand what changes the 21st century may bring."

"The Social Justice Lectionary"

While searching for the latent blog of our favorite priest on the upper-west-side (if you've been reading these posts any time over the last year, you'll know who we are talking about), I came across this website, which gives reflections and links for action relating to the current week's readings.

http://www.socialjusticelectionary.com/

It's awesome. Give it a shot. This week, among other things, it talks about eco-friendly palms for palm sunday. Nice.

Save poverty-fighting funding

Apparently, the Senate has decided to cut a significant portion from the international affairs budget for 2009. This is the program that funds all the international initiatives on AIDS, malaria, hunger, and poverty. This action will literally affect the lives of millions of people around the world who rely on US help to jumpstart their own efforts to pull themselves out of poverty.

Please sign the ONE.org petition below to send a message to your Senators to tell them to reinstate the funding.

In the great American tradition of helping others help themselves, we, the undersigned, ask that the U.S. Senate pass the Durbin-Smith amendment to restore $2.6 billion to the international affairs budget.

Sign the petition here:
http://www.one.org/2009budget/

Climate Change positions of the 3 major presidential candidates

Now that we're down to the final 3 contenders for President, here's a look at each of their policies relating to climate change - specifically on the proposed "cap and trade" mechanism to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions 80% by 2050.

It's very detailed, complete with references to major speeches on the topic. While it seems that not everyone has their favorite methods worked out yet - all 3 have made climate change a major priority for their administrations.

And we can all look forward to that.