A tribute to those who enable others

The wheelchair ladies' doubles final match

Photo by Hamish Blair/Getty Images

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We recently purchased a jogging stroller and this morning I took it and my baby for our first run. As I ran, I felt extremely grateful for the brains who invented our stroller. I could now continue to run and even race as a mother.

I am much grateful for all who invent and have invented devices, ideas, buildings, communities, groups and more for the benefit of the world. Thanks to creative minds, we have wheelchairs for those who can't walk, new medicines and healing techniques for those who are suffering, therapy groups for those who have addictions, schools to educate and liberate. The blind can read thanks to the Braille system; those with severe physical disabilities can participate in athletics and even the Olympics. These minds have helped to enable us.

As I run daily, I will be thinking of those many who contribute good to this world. I wish to send out this thank you to them and encourage bright ideas to continue on.

The first wheelchair was made in 1595 for Phillip II of Spain by an unknown inventor. Wheelchairs

The earliest washing "machine" the scrub board was invented in 1797.  Inventions

Today in History: September 2

• Congress Founds U.S. Treasury, 1789

• Ford introduces the compact, fuel-efficient Falcon, 1959

• First ATM opens for Business, 1969

Car Alarm- text me.

At our last apartment complex, there was one car with an alarm that would go off at the slightest of breezes. Unluckily for us, the alarm had at least five different high pitched tones all of which it would play in succession for a wonderfuly lengthly 60 seconds or so. Nobody EVER stopped the alarm or checked to see if the car had been stolen, sadly.

Unless you have such a unique alarm, however, what are the chances that each of us could recognize the exact tones of our car alarm and know that we, in fact, had some trouble afflicting the car? Not very good. We simply live with a symphony of car alarms and no great alerting is being done. I came up with a great solution, I think.

Wouldn't it be much more effective if the alarm was linked to your phone or internet and would send you a text or email message with an alert such as "Your car has been stolen - get to your car, p.d.q". It would be even more nifty if the car could take a quick panoramic snapshot and send it to your phone as well. This type of alerting would be much more effective, I think.

This futuristic car by www.evbeat.com would be a great candidate for a text and photo alert system.

Supposedly how Bill Gates cruises around town - he can have his driver text him.

Solar-powered racing car by Auburn University - just a cool concept.

 

 

Where does the disposal dispose?

Maybe it's because we just planted a flower and vegetable garden for the first time, but I have found myself thinking about plants and things. Tonight I was wondering where does the food disposal dispose of its goods?

Wouldn't it be cool if we could have the disposals deposit directly into a field of soil where all of those food remains could fertilize the ground? Then the city could sell the fertilized earth back to the citizens to help pay for its expenses. Or it could sell it to a local company who could treat the soil and professionally make it into fertilizer and provide more jobs!

Just a thought.

Conditioning Thought

My hair conditioner is running low again, but I still have plenty of shampoo left. It just seems that it takes more conditioner to do hydrate the hair than it takes shampoo to cleanse. Yet, both the bottles are exactly the same size. So, inevitably, I'm left scraping the insides of the conditioner bottle so that I can try to make it last until the shampoo is used up.

My thought is this: would some adventuresome hair cleansing company venture to make bottles of conditioner that contain maybe 1/4 more conditioner than the shampoo bottles contain shampoo? Maybe we need to conduct some studies to see if other people have this problem and if they do, exactly how much the conditioner should be enlarged.

Does anyone else suffer from this dilemma? Or do you have a better solution? I'm also wondering what your favorite shampoos and conditioners are? I always love trying new ones. My new favorite is John Frieda.

Onion Goggles

I was about to write this long post about how someone needs to invent attractive googles which will protect the eyes when one is cutting onions. I decided to do some research first and low and behold...RSVP International makes a fantastic array of ONION GOGGLES!

I have been using some old ski googles for the last 3 or 4 years and am getting some good laughs from anyone who sees me cutting onions. However, thanks to RSVP International, I think my days of being mocked could soon end. These stylish beauties are a great alternative to ski googles. No more crying in the kitchen, folks. 

Group Political Problem Solving

All this talk about the health care bill has made me think. We have more smart, talented people in the world than just politicians. And though we could all write more letters to our senators, why not try some new incentives? :)

I'm thinking we need to turn some political issues loose on the public - like give them problems to solve, e.g., how to provide health care for those who can't afford it. We could make it similar to a reality TV show - something like...American Political Idol. Groups of non-elected people could come up with their solution and the winners could become wildly popular.

Not to trivialize politics - I think we are dealing with genuinely tough issues and we have a wonderful government system. It would be neat if we were all more politically active. Perhaps allowing the public themselves to come up with some answers and not just create mass problems, would provide some good and interesting results.

Banks and Budgeting

I'm wondering if it would be too much trouble for my bank to help with my budgeting sheet. My friend and I were discussing how the most difficult part of budgeting is simply remembering to regularly track all our expenses in our budget sheets.

There are companies like Mint.com that will track and categorize your expenses for you if you are willing to give them your bank account number. It would be so much nicer if the actual bank would offer the same service since they already have your account number and your trust. I would think they could easily create a budget sheet, link it to anyone's personal account and then categorize all their expenses into a budget sheet that they could personalize themselves and possibly even export - as long as the security could be good enough.

The bank could benefit by the sheet by of course having more fiscally responsible clients. Hopefully these responsible people would make more money, put more of it in the bank and be timely in all their payments on loans/credit. The bank would also have advertising space on these budget sheets, learn more about their clients and such. I may write my bank a letter about this idea. What do you think?