Our family volunteered last Sunday at our very first Permablitz and it was amazing. If you have never heard of Permablitz check out: blitzbrisbane.org. I think nearly 100 people turned up to volunteer their time to help build gardens for the school children of Seven Hills state school. At a guess more than half of them were not parents from the school, they were just passionate permaculturists that desire to see as many people as possible growing their own food.

In simplest terms, once you volunteer at 3 Permablitz events you are then eligible for the the Permablitz team to come out to your house and build your professionally designed garden. It was amazing to see how many people just turned up with all their tools and got busy.

So if you have been talking about having a vege garden one day but didn’t know where to start then consider signing up to volunteer at a Permablitz or 3. You get to learn as you go and eventually you get your own garden. And it’s seriously great, family friendly, feel good fun.

Surprise! by Improv Everywhere. Well worth the read.

But the hot topic at the moment is Cap & Trade or some variation of that. At first I thought it was a very good idea or at least a good place to start. Now I am pretty sure it is not a good idea and fear that it might in fact be a very bad idea. I would love to hear your thoughts but first please watch the video Cap & Trade, made by the same guys that made The Story of Stuff.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This film made me smile a lot and was so touching that I couldn’t help but shed a few happy tears. I know you will love it because you are awesome! And when I say awesome I mean it with a Rhino style emphasis… click here for the full effect of that statement.

Thanks to Operation Nice for the heads up on this one.

Shoes can be pretty mean things from the products they use or don’t reuse to the workers that don’t get paid properly but we are all lucky these days to have some alternatives and dare I say it fashionable alternatives. I know of at least 4 good shoe stories.

Simple Shoes
These guys top my list as they are by far the most fashionable with the biggest range I think. Their big focus is on the sustainablity of their shoes in regards to products used. The pair I own have soles made from old car tyres, the laces from soda bottles, organic cotton, hemp and the list goes on. I am not sure if they are certified ‘fair trade’ but they do have a page on Ethical Supply Chain Guidelines which must be a positive thing. The only problem I have with these shoes is that they are so hard to get in Australia. Either you have to order them from online or choose from the very small range that Kathmandu carries.

Tom’s Shoes – One for One
(Taken from the site). TOMS Shoes was founded on a simple premise: For every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for One. Using the purchasing power of individuals to benefit the greater good is what we’re all about.

Please, at least watch the quick intro video and for a better insight into the man behind Tom’s Shoes watch this short talk between Blake Mycoskie and Bill Clinton where Blake talks about his dream to eradicate a disease with shoes.

Etiko
I make coffee in a pair of Etiko shoes. These guys are based in Australia and the big thing here is about Fair Trade products in particular the Etiko Sneakers. Made in Pakistan by a certified fairtrade manufacturer they also feature a rubber sole which has been certified sustainable by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), making the sneakers ethically and environmentally sound. And now they seem to be organic also. While you are at their online shop be sure to pick up a fair trade soccer ball to kick around with your new shoes.

Terra Planna
This one I have only just heard about. Turns out we have a pair of these in our household too. Rachel bought a pair when she was last in New York some time ago. They are striving for sustainable shoes too and I am still reading through their website myself so for more info head on over there. But again here is an example of very fashionable shoes that are trying to step lighter on the planet. Looks like they have a particularly good women’s range too.

So make sure you bookmark these and next time you need a new pair of shoes go shopping online and get a unique and sustainable pair. I love showing of my simple shoes. It’s even cooler when the other person lifts up their foot and says, “Me Too!”

Took my son down to the local hardware today to get a few small things and upon reaching the counter I turned to Oscar, my son and exclaimed “Oh no I forgot my wallet!”. Instantly the guy in front of us said don’t worry I will pay for it. I didn’t hesitate and said thanks because the best advice ever given to me was to “Never deny someone the opportunity to give.” – Nigel Reed. David, the generous man in line told me how he had once filled his car with petrol, then at the counter realised he had no money only to be surprised by a women willing to pay the whole bill. He said that he is now always on the look out to keep paying such a kind act forward. It reminded me that when you do a good thing for a person or a bad thing against a person it gets multiplied which is why you should do good things. A random act of kindness really wakes something up in people I think and it will be a feeling they will want others to experience. If you have never seen the movie Pay it Forward I highly recommend it.

Earlier in the day I had another wonderful encounter with a customer that had returned to pay her bill after what must have been at least six weeks. I have a personal policy of trusting that if people don’t have the cash on them or they only have card I trust them and ask them to simply fix us up when it is next convenient for them. So far everyone has returned as far as I know as I don’t keep a record each time and I usually forget moments later that this person still ‘owes’ us. It’s a nice place to be in cause it kind of means for me that I get to live in a world where everyone is trust worthy and my personal theory goes that you can’t trust people if you never give them the opportunity to be trustworthy. I know some have abused this but that’s ok cause the percentage is so low that I could probably only name one person in nearly 8 years of Urban Grind. Anyway… six weeks ago I declared to my awesome (just as her she will tell you herself) assistant that this particular women has obviously scammed us and is never coming back. But such is life yadda yadda. She had been so vague the first time that she came into the shop and we just couldn’t work her out and I guess the experience made us wonder a bit as to what was going on and we started to get sus. Then she came up to pay and only had card, no cash and while I said sure just fix us up later I honestly thought that she was never coming back. I didn’t trust her. Today she walks in and I pretend I don’t remember her, but I do and she asks for a coffee and would like to fix up her bill from last time she was in Brisbane. How is that the first time I am so sure I couldn’t trust someone I am wrong. So I get talking to her cause now she’s cool you know, I trust her and I can treat her like everyone else (I just called myself a tosser so you don’t need to) and she mentions that she doesn’t come into the cities much or something like that and now I am getting the sense that maybe her being a bit vague was actually her way of just finding her way around slowly. She has actually been so patient the first time that she waited like 20 minutes for the line to die down before ordering. Maybe I can go easy on myself for thinking that is strange as so many people these days are impatient and pressed for time.

This is not the first time that I have found that it only takes about a maximum of 2 questions to start to get to know someone. If you think you know someone on sight, inquire, you will be so wrong unless you are gifted. I once thought one of my customers once was an obvious bum until I asked he once what he does and it turns out he was a retired physics professor in a field that I had never heard of and these days he just likes to tent to his garden. Speak to people, they have stories that will out do your assumptions.

I found this on a day when I really needed it.

This is exciting. I hope I can find the time. As you know I am a massive advocate of TED and if have managed to convince you to check out TED and you have fallen in love with it like so many of my friends then you don’t want to miss the Ideas Festival cause it is the closest thing to TED that we get. I usually only make it to a couple of talks each time but the ideas and speakers are always stimulating. I have only had a quick look at the program and there looks to be quite a focus on climate change which grabs my interest. If you have never been to an ideas festival I suggest you check it out. Heaps of the sessions are free so if you still think that climate change is a myth it won’t cost you a cent to challenge that idea. Check out the Ideas Festival Program 09 for more info.

Thanks to map magazine I came across this awesome story about bringing sight to the worlds poor. The full article explains the project better than I can but I like the way this project solves the problem of a lack of experts. This is why good design is so important. From the article:

Silver calls his flash of insight a “tremendous glimpse of the obvious” – namely that opticians weren’t necessary to provide glasses. This is a crucial factor in the developing world where trained specialists are desperately in demand: in Britain there is one optometrist for every 4,500 people, in sub-Saharan Africa the ratio is 1:1,000,000.

Read the full article: Inventor’s 2020 vision: to help 1bn of the world’s poorest see better