Just a note to say that I survived the second day of inventory, which was far, far more grueling than day 1. There was only a quarter of the original work force, so even though 80% was counted yesterday (they said), the last 20% crawled by slowly and with much anguish.

Also, the stuff that got counted quickly and easily yesterday tended to be stuff that was easily counted (gasp! Who could have predicted this!). So, the parts that were left tended to be in the aisles with 20 million bins each containing 20 million doohickies.

so I didn't get to leave at 11 or noon, or even 1 or 2. I left a little after 3 and got home around 4, after battling much stupid traffic. Luckily, I had no worries about the safety or entertainment of the girls, because they were in the more-than-capable hands of eveofdstruction, who easily wrangled my two, plus her own girl, too.

Outnumbered three to one, and by living opponents charges, yet she carried the day. Sort of like us and inventory, only we were outnumbered  by inanimate objects, roughly 400 to 1. Or so.

Tomorrow I'll be back in the office, where I will not be expected to crawl on my belly, stick my arm and head into a grime-encrusted cardboard box, lift slabs of wood wrapped in shredded 4-year old newspapers from Korea, breathe in fumes from naturally tanned Malian leather, count hundreds of tiny, slippery pewter ornaments all tangled up in a box, or any of the other fun things I got to do today. 

So tired. Stayed up too late and then got up super early for our company's annual inventory count. This year, for the first time, I am "just another warm body," there to count and nothing more -- no responsibility for handing out assignments and collating results and spending 4 months typing figures into a giant Excel spreadsheet. Nope. None of that. And let me tell you -- not being "that person" is awesome, especially since my former functions have been replaced by generous amounts of custom-written technology and bar codes and stuff.

aawhitewood came over to bridge the gap of several hours between Andrew needing to leave for work and me getting home from the counting "fun." Thanks again!

I spent the day teamed with Rosemary Jones, our new PR person and also published author of D&D novels set in the Forgotten Realms world. I wish I could say we spent the day geeking out at each other over gaming, or writing, or something creative, but instead I have to tell the truth: We mostly just counted.

I feel really really good about this new Gift That Gives More™ I'm hoping to launch today: Supply Clean Water to a School in Tanzania. It helps provide a water catchment and filtration system for a middle-of-nowhere village in Tanzania or Uganda, one of those places were people die from waterborne diseases, many of them children dying from diarrhea.

As a mom, I can only imagine the anguish of watching a child die of diarrhea -- or anything, for that matter -- but diarrhea from nasties living in the water? That is a preventable death.

It's not practical to build elaborate, expensive, electricity-controlled water treatment plants in places like the outback of Tanzania. That's why it's so exciting for me to read about Save the Rain, which builds simple, burnt brick rainwater catchment systems and Slow Sand Filtration systems appropriate for places in the back of beyond.

If people can use the rain as a clean water source, it would prevent So. Much. Suffering.

This joins our other GTGM dealing with access to clean water:

• Supply Clean Water in Bangladesh ($40.00 for a SONO filter that removes the arsenic occurring naturally in Bangladeshi groundwater)
• Supply Clean Water to a Village ($28.00 funds one day of clean water for a village in Haiti through Partners in Health, one of my favorite partner charities)
• Water Mercy Kit (a generic "clean water" donation through Mercy Corps)

... until they are earning their keep as product models. :-)

lesserseattle graciously picked up the trunk from Deseret Industries today with no trouble, and it is now sitting at the foot of the bed waiting to be laden with linens.

The hypermuffin gave it a "baptism of fire" by climbing on top, sliding all over it, then grabbing ahold of the bed's footboard and jumping up and down on the trunk like crazy.

In other news, I took both girls to my office downtown this afternoon so that they could model some products for use as insets in the product photographs. They were both super-cute for the whole endeavor, despite being sleep-deprived and a little bit sick. As soon as I have links to pictures, I'll post 'em. Pictures here

We were even able to take half an hour and visit Andrew at his office. So now the hypermuffin can say "I want to go to work!" and have some concept of what she's actually asking for... :-/

While upstairs playing with the girls, I started flipping through some old school notebooks that I have up there in boxes. (Why I still need notes from my college classes is beyond me, although some of the doodles are very pretty.)

I found this list. Clearly, it was made when I was pondering what sort of job would be Right For Me.

• Company of smart people [check!]

• No or very minimal physical labor [also check!]

• Opportunities to create [weeeeell, sometimes, sort of. I have enjoyed writing creative copy.]

• Making a difference in the world [yes! yesyesyes!]

• No direct day-to-day dealings with the general public [check! And a good call on this one. The general public is horrid to deal with.]

• Respect from colleagues and people in general [from my colleagues, I think yes. From the general populace? Not really, but that's OK.]

• Money, but not very important -- enough to live on [I think that's covered. :-)  ]

• Security -- but I don't want to feel trapped [ah, the classic conundrum! Good luck with that!]

• The opportunity to travel [nope.]

• A job that would force me out of my ruts [this really isn't about the job so much, is it? It's about how I respond to the job, whatever it may be.]

There was lots of GTGM work for me at my job today.

• Today I updated copy on this Gift That Gives More™, which we launched Monday: Help Cyclone Victims in Burma. I feel good that we're able to get some aid to people who need it in the aftermath of this horrible disaster.
  

Sounds like the government there is being horrendous, not letting aid in... if this doesn't provide impetus for an uprising, I don't know what will. I've heard rumblings of neighboring nations forcing the junta to accept aid. What a world.

• I also launched two new Gifts That Give More™: Pay for Teacher Training in Zambia and Send an AIDS Orphan to School in Zambia.

• Worked on content for the "Help Fund Research" side tab on The Breast Cancer Site (pending some help from tech). The page points to our Endowed Fund for Breast Cancer Research at Mayo Clinic Gift That Gives More™.

We've established a fund for a research position at Mayo Clinic, and contributions are matched up to first $250,000 -- sadly, though, we've only funded 10% or so of it so far. So if breast cancer research is your thing, consider slinging a few bucks in that direction.

Personally, my heartstrings are more tugged by stuff to do with kids, like the Dolls for Refugee Children (for $20, buy dolls for two little kids living in a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border), Feed a Haitian Student for a Year (for only $50 -- very timely in light of the massive increase in food prices recently, especially on islands like Haiti).

I also like preventative-medicine ones, such as Bednets for Africa and Haiti ($20 funds six large, insecticide-treated bednets to combat malaria), and the Protect Africans from River Blindness ($20 funds pills for fifty people, killing any parasitic Onchocerca volvulus worms in their systems).

I just asked my millionaire, idealistic boss, Tim, what his favorite is, and he unhesitatingly said that it was High-Efficiency Stoves for Darfur Refugees. It's a stove that he would take camping and he says he usually tosses one into his shopping cart when he's shopping on our site. :-)

The buying team at work brought a new kind of product to my attention -- a decorative bean that has been laser-etched with a phrase. Upon germination, the bean swells up and then splits open as the plant continues to grow. It is one of the freakiest things I've seen for awhile.

In order to photograph these properly, we planted them, and now we have them on the windowsill near our desks. Our sample "Live, Laugh, Love" Bean Plant germinated just fine, but then died. I have to admit to some relief.

Our sample "Grow Peace" Bean Plant, on the other hand, is flourishing madly. The green stalks are about 3 feet high and seem to be scrabbling at the window to get out.

Every day I wonder whether it will snag me with a green tentacle as I walk by, or perhaps fruit out with new beans, inscribed with ominous warnings on them, warnings not placed there by any human hand... perhaps along the lines of:

Watch your step
I'm sorry
Green Power
The Bean Man Cometh
The Bean Times are Nigh
Beanpocalypse 2008

Ever wanted to know how to tell real amber from fake?

GreaterGood.org is now a real site.

I proofread it, so if you find anything wrong grammatically / punctuation-wise, just pretend it never happened. Forget! Forget! Thus I command you.

Haiti is really in trouble right now.

From this article by Jonathan M. Katz:

The problem is particularly dire in the Caribbean, where island nations depend on imports and food prices are up 40 percent in places.

I can't imagine eating dirt cookies. Or, more accurately, I can imagine it, but as a nursing mother, it depresses and outrages me to imagine another nursing mother trying to sustain both herself and her baby on them.

The woman in this article has a baby who weighed 6 lb. 3 oz. at birth; my two weighed 5 lb. 9 oz. (the hypermuffin) and 6 lb. 7 oz. (the wren).

Only, I have the benefit of as much healthy, yummy food as I can eat, and she doesn't.


We're doing something about it, though. One of my company's Gifts That Give More is "Feed a Haitian Student for a Year," 100% pass-through to Partners in Health. It costs $50 to feed a student in Haiti a hot lunch every school day for a year. (Is this a messed-up world, or what?)

Since we launched it in March 2007, we've raised almost $16,000 for this cause.

I'm happy to be part of a solution, even if it's just a small, limited program that's not going to solve all the world's problems. But it's certainly solving something for those 319 students in central Haiti.


 On the bright side -- cute pictures!!!!

Gah, getting together new Gifts That Give More at work depresses me so much sometimes. Here is something I never knew about, and it makes me so sad, and so angry. Why does God hate Africa this much?

My copy for this upcoming GTGM might sound a bit too emotional, I suppose. But HONESTLY. There is no way this is OK.

"Onchocerciasis, or river blindness, is a public health epidemic affecting millions of people worldwide. It is found in 36 African countries, and is the second leading infectious cause of blindness. The bite of the blackfly infects the unlucky victim with a parasitic worm, which lives on in the body and eventually causes blindness, among many other problems.

Imagine a once-a-year medication that would kill any parasitic Onchocerca volvulus worms in your system. Now, imagine that this medication cost 40 U.S. cents. And finally, imagine not being able to obtain that 40-cent, vision-preserving medication for yourself or your children.

You can help. Your $20.00 donation will protect 50 Africans from river blindness by providing a once-a-year pill that kills the parasite and preserves the precious gift of vision." ...

God? When you get back, you really need to take a look at Africa. Please.

Got my final paycheck of 2007 today. It's interesting to see all the numbers.

This year it worked out so that my total GROSS income was $ X1,435.02. (I'm not telling you the "X" number because apparently our salaries are supposed to be SUPER SECRET, but I can pretty much guarantee that the "X" is smaller than what you think it is.)

After the various flavors of taxes, the 401(k) plan withholding, the long-term care insurance withholding for both me and polytrypos, and the childcare Flex account withholding (which I have since discontinued but which I paid into for most of the year), my total NET income was exactly $ (X-1)1,812.41.

$10 K in various debits! Wow.

As I was walking out of One Union Square today, the little old security guard said "Leaving already?"

I explained that I now leave at noon on Mondays and Wednesdays so I can get home and take the girls by 1:00, but that I can now stay later on Thursdays and Fridays, polytrypos's new "weekend."

"I got something for ya!" he said, and ducked around to a side door. Inside were several unearthed flowers lying on their sides on the floor, dirt clinging to their exposed bulbs. Apparently they'd just changed the floral display, and the old flowers were no longer wanted. "You want one?" he asked. "You'll have to get a vase for it." I said that wouldn't be a problem -- I was excited! Fresh flowers! For me! Just because I'm nice and chat with him as I go by!

So, here's what my dining room table looks like now:

Lots and lots of fun the past two nights at various par-tays.

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This morning so far: Baked French Toast, bacon and eggs and coffee.

And now I hear the girls waking up, so it's time to put on my mom hat.

It says something that this article from Reuters chose to call us "The Animal Rescue Site." A year ago, it's probable that they would have called us "The Breast Cancer Site," but in the past year, our ARS traffic and revenue have soared.

We are, of course, both of those things. We are also The Hunger Site, The Rainforest Site, The Child Health Site, and The Child Literacy Site. Also, The GreaterGood Network, GreaterGood.com, EcologyFund.com, GreenRibbonPledge.com, CharityUSA.com, and also we have the non-profit wing GreaterGood.org.

No wonder when people ask where I work, I just tell them I work for an online catalog. It's all way too confusing.

Here's this year's "Holiday Gift Guide at Epicurious," a site for foodies. A couple wood platters from my online store are shown on slide 11 of the slideshow.

In a somewhat related note, there is such a thing as a Vegetable Orchestra. Here's a YouTube video of orchestra members choosing their fresh produce -- carrots, cabbages, eggplants, bell peppers, etc. -- turning the produce into (short-lived) musical instruments, and then playing something on them. They're playing something well-suited to a vegetable orchestra. It ain't classical music, which demands careful tuning and complicated fretwork. But still, it's impressive. I have not seen someone wailing on a carrot / bell pepper trumpet before.

Plumpy'nut is a shelf-stable food product that reverses famine in severely undernourished children without the need for hospitalization.

To clean up big oil spills, companies usually use petroleum-based products. Turns out there's a much better way: soaking it up with mats made of human hair, which is unusually suited to soaking up oil. The mats can then be composted and eaten by special, oily-hair-mat-eating mushrooms.

Really. I could not make this up if I tried.
http://www.matteroftrust.org/programs/natural.html
And it's a 501(c)3 charity, no less. Hooray for biological science!

Finally, this is a wrong thing to do to your coworkers. Or to anyone, really. I'm sure of it.
The ThinkGeek Annoy-A-Tron
Yep, wrong.

If you ever wondered about where I worked, and why it's so complicated that when I try to explain it everyone's eyes glaze over and they make excuses about needing to go clip their fingernails, then don't click on this link.

Someone wrote to us asking about our non-profit status (um, nope, we aren't one). Our COO replied with a letter that has now been posted for the entire interweb to see, explaining how we are a FOR-profit company that raises money for NON-profits.

This just proves, yet again, that whatever you write in an e-mail is basically public information.

Our for-profit status explains how they can pay me and all my coworkers and still be quite financially stable, without relying on grants from foundations. We make our money on e-commerce -- that is, selling stuff in our store. We also give away a lot of money. From the letter:

In FY ‘07, CharityUSA.com gave just over $1.7 million to charity. The total amount of contributions from the public was $498,735. 100% of these funds were given to charity through GreaterGood.org. An additional $1,225,295 was paid to charities in the form of royalties on product and advertising sales. That $1.7 million is nearly 7 times our after-tax profit.

Woo hoo! Doing good and making money at the same time.

Speaking of which, back to the do-good-ing. :-)

So, I work for CharityUSA.com, which runs the "click-to-give sites" The Hunger Site, The Breast Cancer Site, The Animal Rescue Site, etc.

And today was our annual Halloween company party, complete with pumpkin carving contest.

You might not take those two facts and put them together to come up with the logical conclusion of The Zombie Rescue Site.

But you, dear reader -- dear, sane reader -- are not our Tech Team.

Our Tech Team carved a pumpkin holding a sign to click on The Zombie Rescue Site. Hahahahaha. Funny.

Only then, they took it to the next level and actually made "www.thezombierescuesite.com" -- visible only within the company, of course. But I stole the image.

EDIT: OK, Geocities quickly exceeded my allowed bandwidth, and I can't link use my SmugMug service to embed the photo for some reason. Y'all are going to have to manually click on the below link. How 19th century of us!!! http://leukothea.smugmug.com/gallery/3726945#215532114-X2-LB

In the immediate aftermath of the 2007 Peru Earthquake, my company launched one of our 100% pass-through "Gifts That Give More" and raised over $20,000 for relief efforts through our nonprofit arm, GreaterGood.org.

Setting up and writing for these "Gifts That Give More" is one of my specializations in the company, and it almost always makes me feel really good, even though we don't get any profit from selling them. (In fact, we lose money on each one, because of credit card fees, not to mention because they pay me to set them up in the first place...)

Here's a report from Mariel, one of the people who handed out relief packages on the ground.

REPORT FROM LIMA EARTHQUAKE HELP



This week, I'm working on a "Gift That Gives More" called Help Rebuild from the Peru Earthquake, with the aid passing through to Mercy Corps. I hope to have that live by the end of the week.