Rowing for Fitness and Picking up Trash!

Today I went out and rowed for 40 minutes and the water was beautiful with no ripples. A little rain. While the cardio and health benefits of rowing are profound one might also consider cleaning up trash as well. Get in shape and pick up trash at the same time. Nice!

My collection of trash 
to throw away

An analysis of 160 Studies found 56 Benefits of Rowing. A few key points below I found interesting.

-Decrease in cholesterol. 

-Improvement in cardio health.

-Impacted other areas such as vertical jump height. 

-Body fat reduction.

-Improvement in information retention in the brain. 

-Reduces joint pain and stiffness. 

Back to the trash! For those of us who enjoy the outdoors it can be extremely frustrating to see garbage such as cigarettes butts, plastic containers and the like not only damaging the view but also damaging our environment. It is one of the most selfish acts I have seen people do. Just throw it away in the right place! There are better ways to manage trash by blocking all water to rivers before it is cleaned and filtered. Likely the next step in city management. EPA Trash in Waterways

Source

Structure Fire Collapse: A few key points for firefighters (Grants, Donations and Jobs)

Structure collapse while firefighting can be dangerous for those in and outside the building. There are methods that firefighters can use to minimize fire deaths from structure incidents. As a volunteer (pt) fire fighter I spend a lot of time looking for grants but also finding some good information to share. I'm not always around due to competing obligations but I do like to learn from training and help where I can. Being knowledgeable of how to minimize deaths is 1 part book learning and 1 part hands on practice. 

The video below is from Pottsville and you can see the building go down and everyone scatter. Thank goodness no one was inside and everyone was safe. We should be thankful for teams like this who help their communities. 

A few key points from the CDC in Preventing Injuries from Building Collapse, 18% of deaths at structure fires were caused by the actual collapse. 

-Size up and risk assessment by incident commander. 

-Maintain awareness of all firefighter locations. 

-4 people should be present. 2 inside and 2 outside.

-Have rapid intervention teams or capacity nearby. 

-Ensure proper equipment for hazardous areas.

-Operating procedures, radio control

-All firefighters should have PASS

-Conduct preplanning fire inspections.

-Inform everyone when situation becomes unsafe. 

-Establish collapse zone and parapet walls. 

If your interested a few Firefighter Jobs in Michigan Indeed and Firefighter Jobs in CA Indeed

*I'm looking for grants and other resources for an awesome fire department in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan so if you have some corporate or personal dollars you would like to donate get a hold of me via the Contact Form and I will point you in the right direction. 

5 Ways to Develop Team Effectiveness

 In today's business no person can be expected to know everything so learning to manage teams is vitally important for long term business success. Maximizing each unique person's contributions can go a long way in sustained organizational success.

One can think of team process and their importance to achieving performance driven outcomes. To do this one, according to the research below, might focus on team processes that include shared understanding of goals, team member roles, ability to work together, and learning how to handle conflict.

1. Make sure you define your team's purpose.

2. Select the members based on skill and personality.

3. Define team member roles.

4. Create a decision making process.

5. Define conflict resolution methods.

Overview of Team Effectiveness

The Sails of India Photo-San Diego

One of the things I enjoy and I believe is good for people is hobbies. I do a little side stuff on photos, wood working, and painting. You may be interested in this picture in my Wooded Pathway Gallery

This was taken downtown in San Diego. It is the Start of India and a great place to visit. 

What are the Costs of Corruption?

 I came across this interesting video and I will say that corruption costs every society a lot and that includes our own. While we know corruption is not a good thing and it damages institutions we also know that institutions are slow in tackling their own corruption. There are many things we can do that might help fight misuse of public resources. Awareness is one but also better mechanisms to catch and deal with embedded corruption.

Sometimes studying corruption can go a long way in creating solutions because one comes to understand how it works, who is involved, whey there are lack of checks n balances. That can lead to prevention. While the video discusses bribery there may be many other forms of corruption that are not discussed fully.

A word of advice. Don't do corruption. Our eyes might light up when people are flashing money or power but be mindful of your duties to society. While you can make some gains off of it, and we are often very lax on some types of corruption (I been using a hypothetical example of people exploiting race and religion to enrich.) we as an American people suffer the most. 

Encourage leadership to take a bigger stance against corruption and design policies to better catch and correct serious misbehaviors. Work truthfully, willfully, with integrity and honor. 

Have Americans Not Been Satisfied in 20 Years?

This poll is interesting and provides insight into areas of improvement. Most of the problems we have experienced here others have experienced as well so they are not all unique to only one place but the survey subject pool is specific to the US.

When I see this article I think of opportunities through broad based capitalism and universalization of our institutions to ensure engagement from as many societal members as possible. 

People can go through a lot of negative stuff and feel happy about it because they are working for something bigger-America's future! That includes their children and grandchildren.

 The study doesn't go that far in analysis but what takes away from happiness might be toxic partisanship, self interested leadership, low opportunities, financial distress/inflation, too much wealth consolidation, geopolitical conflict, etc. 

Environmental factors might include environmental health, climate, pollution, crime, housing affordability, etc. Work is still needed here to be fair to the average person. 

Of course one can improve their own lives by being engaged with others, fitness, recreation, setting goals, etc...

Has American's Not Been Satisfied in 20 Years?

Encouraging Institutional Integrity For National Health (A Lesson on Justice)

The strength of our institutions in any nation determine the long-term health of that nation. While there are many different types of people working within institutions and lots of different perspectives the institution itself should always align around their stated purpose and the long term needs of society. If there are instances where that doesn't happen it does provide room for improvement. When it does happen we should applaud its outcomes.

Let me give you a hypothetical example for learning purposes only. A group coordinated clan members and associated officials began to target a family (race and religion are not important but only that they are out-group members). Violence and threats of violence with open displays for hate toward the victim's religion were stated and acted upon and enriched off. Due to their unique association with officials, who were entrusted with power, they were able to manipulate that trust to further the clan's goals. A review found that there were other victims and a lack of accountability spanning years. Checks and balances were weak or non existent.

Its actually not about punishment in so much as it is about correction and ensuring systems are managed for all of society and not for specific races, religions or politics. Certainly a lack of correction would reflect negatively on the institution and that would indicate that for one reason or another there is misalignment of members internal values with the institution's purpose. Thus integrity is important because a decline in institutional trust has many paths and outcomes if experienced on a collective level.

Because it is an example one cannot say whether justice or lack of justice will prevail and that isn't the point. You may already know what the likely outcome is going to be based on history of such systems and collective conscious and moral conscious but there is nothing in life that is absolutely definitive. No matter what the outcome it will have a positive or negative influence on society through "proof in pudding" actualization. Systems run well will contribute to society while those that don't will begin to break down society. 

If you were the target the best thing you can do, whether positive or negative outcomes are realized (highly subjective of what is positive and negative) occur, is shrug your shoulders, smile and say "thank you". While to most involved in creating the situation it is about winning or loosing but that isn't the essential goal over everyone. People who seek knowledge so they can help society learn from such situations and their outcomes so as to improve the prospects of the next generation. All leaders within and outside institutions have a responsibility to make these institutions the best functioning systems they can and use society's resources wisely and with integrity.

The end result isn't the proof. No need to pick a side or be upset. Its not about you. Embrace higher concept called Charis (The Greek version).

"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all" and "I cannot teach anybody anything I can only make them think". Socrates

You may want to read this piece on Institutions and Strength in the Economics & Philosophy Journal