Kiva – Giving something back…
Walking down Martin Place in Sydney every day it is easy to feel like a scrooge as I turn away a host of charity workers asking for money, or a credit card number to help them support their chosen cause.
In the mean time Seth Godin raved about a micro loan project where instead of donating money to a cause that is (at least to me) quite faceless, i loan money to an individual investor to help them achieve a particular goal.
And then they pay it back, which gives me the opportunity to give again later with the same money. So I am going to pledge here that I will invest USD$50 a month to this process.
While it doesn’t payback any interest there is a different kind of return. A human return. I will get to hear how the loan has effected the lives and the family who has less than me but is doing something about it. Now that I am a father, thinking about the future of the world and setting an example in it feels rather important.
I think that this is a great idea and the longer I contribute the more value I will be able to add over time.
Imagine what $700Billion might have done for these sort of people…
More on Writing..
It may be obvious but when it is hard to write, then writing can be very hard to do. Writing has it’s own momentum that can take a while to get rolling effectively.
The question that I need to aswer is not how to write more effectively, but how to start faster and then keep the focus on the target.
Start faster… I’ll ponder that as i finally sleep tonight.
Blackberry envy cured
I have been developing a love hate relationship with Apple. At the moment though I am firmly in the ‘love’ phase again though. My old phone had been gradually getting worse as the screen filled with static.
Adrienne got herself a blackberry and can now get emails anywhere. This is something that I have resisted while working for other companies, but now that we run our own business it is incredibly useful.
So with Adrienne getting email and being able to respond to it anywhere, I started to get more than a little envious. I had to at least consider an iPhone.
I am now continually surprised at just how much I can so with this device.
It covers the obvious basics. It makes and takes phone calls, and synchronizes with my calenders. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. After playing with some of the fun but pointless applications I have started to find some amazing tools.
This post is written entirely using my iPhone. Now that I have this I might actually make the excuse to write some new random stuff.
moving out
I have been able to postpone this day for over 12 years, but finally the time has come. We are moving out of our safe and cosy home in cammeray to set up for the next phase of our life in the heart of the city.
From our new apartment we will be able to amble into our office in the city in just 10 minutes. We have free parking in the city! As well a gym and a swimming pool. All this comes at a cost though so there will need to be some careful budgeting ahead.
Of course the catalyst for all of this is the news of little Jack. We need a nice safe place to bring him into the world. The initial plan had been to buy a 3 bedroom place that we could be comfortable in. Unfortunately there are a lot more adventures going on in our lives that just the arrival of our first baby. I had previously referred to our business as our baby if any one asked when we were planning to start a family. Well the business is approching it’s fourth year in operation and things are gaining momentum which is very exciting but it takes a hell of a lot of effort to keep everything running smoothly.
To help keep it running smoothly, when Jack arrives in October we will be nice and close to the office, such that it is effectively an additional office space. Either of us will be able to dash back and forth from home to office, which is something that we just couldn’t do from any other suburb in Sydney. Not even our beloved Cammeray.
So tomorrow will be our last full day here. I am now really excited to be on the move since everything in the place is all packed into boxes.
new baby – Jack Charles Coster
For anyone that we haven’t told yet and who is still reading this blog, I have a little bit of news….
Adrienne and I are expecting a new addition to the family. As I type here at just before midnight, Adrienne is all snuggled up with a little baby boy wriggling around in her belly. We have just started to feel a little bit of motion. Here is a tracking tool to describe where she is at right now.
Since it moves with time I’ll mark here what it says today.
‘twenty more weeks before Mommy can have a nice strong, margarita…or five. I’m 19 weeks & 4 days old, only 143 days to go!’
Wow. Only 143 day’s. To say the least it has been ‘exciting’ trying to make competely new plans to accomodate this new adventure.