February 19th, 2007
There is something about music that can communicate on a level deeper than any words. A couple of Sundays ago, there was a Violin/Piano duet at church that created for me an experience that moved me on a level beyond words. The emotion in the piece went straight to my heart, and it’s beauty and sadness brought me to tears just listening.
The piece is called Romance, by Amy Beach (1867-1944) who was the first successful female American composer. I learned that she, like women in other fields, despite her obvious talent, fought a tough uphill battle to be recognized in an arena dominated by men.
Anyway, I thought I would bless you by posting the mp3 recording here. Have a listen. The musicians are David Southorn on violin and John Walko on piano. David is studying music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and John is our church’s organist and choir accompanist for our church, First Presbyterian of Berkeley. Both are exceptional musicians, David being one of the few people that I’ve heard who can take the violin through the upper registers and stay spot on pitch. As you listen, the melodies seem to drip from the strings like honey.
romance.mp3
(8.6 MB)
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February 2nd, 2007
So I have been known to harbor cynicism towards mega-corporations, and I’d like to think sometimes its with good reason. But I recently came across something that made me proud of my mega-corporation employer. The EPA published a list of the top 25 buyers of green energy, and guess who topped the list? Yep, Wells Fargo. So I did some digging into what this actually means, and I’m quite impressed.
Apparently you can buy “green power”, which is energy generated from renewable sources such as water, air, or solar. Now there’s no special wires that you can install at your house or office that will ensure that the electricity you receive is only green. But you can buy what are called Renewable Energy Certificates (REC’s), that represents renewable electricity generated and delivered somewhere on the power grid. Wells Fargo gave me a link to the green energy provider they partner with, 3 Phases Energy. They have a handy Carbon Footprint Calculator where you can figure out how much fossil fuel you personally use on a monthly basis, and they offer the opportunity to purchase for a reasonable price enough REC’s to offset that with clean renewable energy. Because of the current higher cost to generate green energy, the money you spend goes directly to developing more of these earth-friendly power plants.
With scientific warnings about global warming getting ever more serious, it’s important to find everyday things that we can do to play a part in reversing the trend. And investing in green energy seems to be a great idea.
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