Wednesday, August 23, 2006

I Will Sing... Sing a New Song...

Today is my birthday. It's one of the big ones and the title of this post is a hint. Leslie did a really cool gift thing this year in anticipation of our trip to Vegas. It was a "good karma" birthday where she bought my next year's carbon usage in advance and a gift certificate to Kiva.

The Carbon Counter site is nice, it estimates how much carbon you emit during the year based on your home, how much you drive and how much you travel. Then you can become carbon neutral by donating money to offset that carbon usage.

Kiva is even cooler. It is a micro-loan website where you create an account and loan that money to an entrepreneur in a third world country. It isn't big money but it makes a big difference to people's lives. They need money to expand their little shop, or buy more chickens, or buy a new taxi -- somewhere in the $500 to $1000 range. You loan then what you feel right about, maybe $25, and then when everyone has put in their part and it hits the total, they get the money and pay it back over time. Once the loan is paid back, you get your initial investment back to put into the next business. You don't get interest in the financial sense but I bet some nice karmic interest is even better :)

Thanks Leslie!

1 comment:

Leslie Irish Evans said...

Sure thing, baby! Now let's go to Vegas and balance out all this nice with some naughty. Happy Birthday!