2011 Homeless Memorial Events

I was actually looking forward to this days events. Besides the basic reason that the whole community comes together to physically be united, other than "helping", "fixing", or "organizing." Although, there is some of that here, to be sure. It also serves as a reminder that all of us are mortal. That death puts all of us at the same level, which is good. Probably the best way to put us all at the same level.

I will be adding photos and video soon.
Video: www.youtube.com/csrminnesota
Photo's: www.flickr.com/csrmpls

*Notice the vocals drops off when the drumming gets louder, then picks up when the drumming softens.  A function of the audio feature of the camera.

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These are human lives that can help us re-evaluate our own lives. Some of us already have, deeply. Some have in a limited way, some have yet to do so at all.

I do not pity those that we memorialize. I ask who were they, what did they do? Ultimately, what can I learn from their life, their successes, and their mistakes.

I don't think I knew any of them, but believe they'd want to be remembered.

Just like I would.

2011 Project Homeless Connect (#2)

Normally, I would be doing what could before hand to prepare for PHC. I'd be, most importantly, doing final edits to the flier for the project, and finding a way get them printed. These are the kinds of events where I can find the most enthusiastic kind of support. Yet, it's still not as strong as one might think.

However, this year I had already volunteered to help Open Access Connections with there service, providing voice mail numbers to the unemployed, poor, and homeless. OAC is still helping people in spite of having their main financial support cut during the recent Minnesota government shut down and spending cuts.

This time I was actually on the line helping fill out the forms for people. It was nice to be more productive, instead of half helping and half going around to promote my project. It's never a wasted experience, and especially good for making connections.

Journal: Music for the Soul

Sometimes, I just have to listen to inspiring music.  Musician's, Icons I've grown up with, singing the classics.  Here some favorites, for no particular reason except that I thought of them and/or found them.  Much more to come...

ENJOY!!!

Journal: Faith Communities & Homelessness

Lead by Congressman Keith Ellison, 5th District
More about it, click here...

I need to write more about this later, but this was a very good gathering of people of different faiths, and communities coming together to have more discussion about homelessness.

I don't have time right now to write all I want, but I learned one thing: I need to speak up more in meetings like this.

Journal: Mobile Blog / Threats

An encounter with Mike/Sam this am. Several weeks ago, said to me "I want you dead."

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p.s. This morning I ran into a person who's been threatening, on a regular basis, for a good ten months.  Meaning, this person (goes by 2 names, Mike and/or Sam, waiting to get his full name for legal reasons) was in a bloody fight, in which I was involved in breaking up.  There's much much more to this story, or situation than I'm saying, or want to say here.  Suffice it to say, this person tried to apologize and act friendly this morning in front of a person we both know.  It was completely inadequate given the nature and seriousness of his threatening behavior over the past months and the rage he has directed towards me.

I've kept myself from engaging him to avoid drama, and worse (I do have 6-7 years of martial arts training), and still not act like anything was okay.  I certainly did not accept his attempt at an apology, because it was essentially a lie, convenient, manipulative.

I'm blogging this for a couple of reasons:

1. This kind of stuff is part the process of building CSR Direct Services, and the CSR web development projects.  It's part my story, my experience doing this work.
2. It's also fertile ground for social discussion.  What kinds of situations do you find yourself in, how did you get there, were there ways to avoid it?  But also, do you stand up when the situation warrants it.  Do you know how to stand up or speak up in a difficult situation?  Do you know what to say, but not confident enough to you liking?

These are all very good questions that each of us needs to ask.  Because life is.... life.  Unpredictable, even for the most safety conscious.

This was certainly another opportunity to see how I handle situations like this.  And, for the most part, I feel good about what I've been doing.  It's fairly difficult to know how to handle situations like this until one is in it.  There are too many unforeseen feelings and memories that can and will be triggered, even for the most healthy.  Especially for men.  Yet, society in general does a very poor job of preparing both Men and Women to handle difficult situations.

For me, I'm very glad for the decades of personal work and experience that's prepared me for stuff like this.  I remember deliberately facing my demons and weaknesses, decades ago.  So, I pull from many aspects of my life experiences and skills.

That's all for now, but stay tuned!

*p.s. means that this is an additional entry after posting from my phone, an experience or subject on which I need or want to write more.

Journal: Mobile Post / MOA

Down at the MOA this am. Cold out on this bright Saturday morning. Have yet to break out my winter parka, gonna need it.
Walkers down at the mall.

Journal: Mobile blogging

This is a test cell phone post  (my first)

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As of today, I now have the ability to post short messages on this blog via my cell phone.  It's a simple Sprint Sanyo cell phone, that is actually an older style, but it works just fine.

As I see it now, the best use of this feature is to immediately report or post regarding a current event, and then expand on that topic later.  This will be especially helpful when learning of a new service organization I've not heard of before.

I also foresee posting a note on something that needs to, or would be better researched further before posting a short, cryptic note with no background, or clarity.  Please take this into consideration when

Journal: Priority is Design

Right now, it's still the design that's my priority, my focus, not so much the content.  The purpose of the content to this point has been to help develop the design, which I've been happy with so far.  Although, it has been slow and sometimes arduous.  It seems I get to a certain place where I like how it looks, start going over all the current pages to get them cleaned up and looking right, and I change something on the current page.  Tweak it just a bit more, make it just a bit better.  Then, I have to go back to all the previous pages and tweak them the same way.  As it stands now, I have so many different tweaks on different pages, I need to go over all the pages to match them all up.  So, at this point, I need to pick one page (and not the home page, since it is a bit different) standardize it, maybe even draw out all the different elements in a graph book I have, and us it as a template for the rest of the pages.  It will be very good to be methodical and disciplined about this process.  My creativity needs to be on a leash, otherwise I wind up in the same boat I'm in now.

Currently, the main tweak change or modification has been making the horizontal navigation bar (7 buttons) a lite blue.  And then, the mouse over color would reflect the current subject matter. And, moving the 'bookmark and share' buttons to the middle of the navy blue vertical navigation bar.

Yes, this is a static (a word I don't like using) website, where every page is custom, or can be customized.  That's the nature of this software I'm using and works just fine for my purposes.

• www.csrmpls.info

Now that I've started this blog, I need to prioritize and block my time even more.  At some point I need to create a spreadsheet to keep track of all the pages, and the work or updates that's been done on each of them.

Journal: Landscape & Expecations

I've been realizing for weeks now that this is a huge project, a very large undertaking.  Yet, that's also why I'm taking longer to move forward, or get things done.  I do not want, nor will it be just another information website or web presence.  I also, don't want to take up a bunch of time trying to explain what it is, or organizing in words what it is, when I can show everyone what I mean by doing it.  But, then again that takes time too, and I end up hoping to get paid for the work after the fact, which is not good business practice, from what I understand.  Suffice it to say, I can not donate my work on this project, and I can not not do it either.

Over the decades, I've trusted my gut or intuition, for the most part, and it's served me well.  Especially, in regards to where I come from.  Yet, I still find myself needing to be more organized about the work itself.  There are so many parts and priorities.  That's the other reason for not being very organized right now, things are happening now.  Things in government, like the balancing of the Minnesota state budget, unfortunately on the backs of the poor and homeless.  Events that are important and relevant to this project, or just interesting to me.  But, I think it's okay to be right where I'm at, in regards to this project.  My vision and momentum can set my expectations a bit too high, try to do too much too soon.

I'm at the library, downtown Minneapolis, and it's closing in 10 minutes, so I need to wrap it up here.  I'll just end here with noticing that this is a good start at blogging about this project, and hope to continue.  One more thing on the list of things to do for this project.

Another very important aspect to this project... enjoy the process... don't stress about it.  At least, not more than what's normal or healthy.