Earth Hour is almost here and Greece has surprised the lights out (yes, pun intended) of everybody around the world with its participation.

MAKE YOUR VOTE COUNT
Turn off your lights for Earth Hour, record your vote and share it with the world! Here's how:

• PHOTO || Take a photo on the night, upload it to flickr and add it to Earth Hour's flickr group and tag it with your city and country.
• VIDEO || Make a video of your event, upload it to YouTube and add it to our YouTube group.
• BLOG || Write a live blog post during the event and tag it with earthhour or voteearth, and your location.
• TWITTER || Update your Twitter on the night and write #earthhour or #voteearth and your #location in your update to tag it.

ΚΑΤΑΧΩΡΗΣΕ ΤΗ ΨΗΦΟ ΣΟΥ
Σβήσε τα φώτα για τουλάχιστον μια ώρα, καταχώρισε τη ψήφο σου μαζί με όλο τον κόσμο. Μάθε εδώ τον τρόπο:

• ΦΩΤΟΓΡΑΦΙΑ || Βγάλτε φωτογραφίες το βράδυ του Σαββάτου και ανέβασέ τις στο flickr στο group του Earth Hour πρόσθεσε tags με την πόλη και χώρα σου
• BINTEO || Τράβηξε βίντεο από το βράδυ του Σαββάτου και ανέβασέ το στο YouTube στο group του Earth Hour
• ΒLOG || Γράψε ένα post στο blog σου με tag earthhour ή voteearth.
• TWITTER || Ενημέρωσε(update) τον λογαριασμό σου στο Twitter το Σάββατο βράδυ και πρόσθεσε hashtags #earthhour ή #voteearth και #location στην καταχώρησή σου

The bucket list. 5 things to check off my list before I die.

Pet a dolphin.
Dolphins, in my mind, are the Gandalfs (all knowing) & Sams (loyal friends) of life form on this planet and making contact with one of them will fill my heart with completeness.
Stand on the Scottish Highlands.
Whenever people ask me where I would like to visit, I almost catch myself saying 'home' when I want to answer Scotland. Perhaps I lived there in a former life, or maybe watched one too many episodes of Highlander...
Stay in a castle/cottage/pub in luscious green Ireland.
Land of leprechauns and U2, need I say more?

Write a novel.
Hopefully one that becomes a best-seller after my demise which is then turned into a(n Oscar nominated) movie. The royalty rights will -of course- have gone to my daughters who will -in turn- become filthy rich and forgive me for having sat so many hours in front of a computer when I was alive.
Make things better for people here and now.
To live my life so that when the time comes I will look back with a smile and hopefully be remembered with one.

"I'm sorry I wasn't a donor"

My friend, Helen has aggressive Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (diagnosed last February) and several days ago finished her 14th round of chemotherapy and needed several blood transfusions (again) to get her red blood cell count up. Helen has blood type A-, which is hard to come by and much needed.

Helen's family, of course, brings in people to donate blood -regardless of blood type- in my friend's name so the hospital can keep supplying Helen with blood transfusions. The day before yesterday, the hospital gave her one bag of A- (she needed at least 3) and informed the family that they were out of her blood type and nothing they could do.

Helen's family had a niece with the same blood type on hold in case of an emergency like this, but luckily I was able to round up two bags of her blood type and they were sent to in Helen's name to the hospital she is being treated.

I went by yesterday to see how my friend was doing and if the blood had arrived because I had been warned by a blood donation worker that because Greek hospitals are in dire need of blood they may try to "cheat" us of our second incoming bag if we don't press them.

True enough, Helen was informed that a bag of blood would be transfused after noon but they had only one bag. I insisted that that there were two incoming bags and when Helen's sister, who had many times battled with the hospital's blood donation center, gave them a piece of her mind, the second bag of type A- magically appeared.

As I sat with my friend, Helen looked at the blood bag dripping life in her veins and said "May God bless the person who donated this blood. I'm sorry I wasn't a donor".

-"I wish you hadn't had to live this to change your mind", I replied.

I reminded her that two years before she got sick our workplace (we work at the same organization) had organized two blood donation drives at our offices.

-"You know how many people showed up the first time? 16! Out of 150 people only 16. The second time, six months later was even more tragic, only 2."

Helen and Zoe were among the many colleagues that hadn't even bothered to show up. Turned out that when Helen had been first admitted to hospital, 13 months ago, with what (then) seemed ovarian cancer, Zoe needed an operation and which required blood and went to our director asking for help.

Because our workplace's blood donation drive had not been a success and the blood collectors were from a hospital and disgusted with our turnout, they gave us a hard time about distributing our small blood collection to colleagues who needed it. (I can't blame them… because if you knew where I worked you'd be upset too.) Hospital teamed blood drives require some bags of blood to be handed over for hospital needs, so I had to officially authorize my donation to be transferred to Zoe, who was desperately looking for blood.

My colleague got her operation, is healthy and is still not a blood donor.

Today is World Water Day

Reusing water in the bathroom, originally uploaded by flubberwinkle.

Here's an idea for homes in developed countries: Place a plastic basin/bowl in your bathroom sinks to gather the water used to wash hands and brush teeth as toilet flushing water.
It may be a drop in the ocean, but every drop helps.

43

43, originally uploaded by ponyintheair.

...the year after 42 (aka birthday post)
Was 42 "The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything"? Yes, Mr.Adams, although it was just a number you randomly chose for the ending of your book, 42 turned out to be a milestone, a breaking point during my time on Earth with a lot of esoteric conflicts and purgings.
Older? Yes, I feel like I'm 60 instead of 43.
Wiser? I've sucked a lot in and have learned to breathe with it all inside, without exploding. Yeah, maybe, wiser.

(photo credit to co-flickr user: ponyintheair)

International Women's Day 2009 - Gender facts

Networking ...

• Women use 20,000 words a day while men only use 7,000

Global Issues ...

• Females in developing countries on average carry 20 litres of water per day over 6 km
• Globally women account for the majority of people aged over 60 and over 80
• Pregnant women in Africa are 180 times more likely to die than in Western Europe
• 530,000 women die in pregnancy or childbirth each year
• World population hit 6,872,741,131 on 1 January 2009
• Of 1.2 billion people living in poverty worldwide, 70% are women
• 80% of the world's 27 million refugees are women
• Women own around only 1% of the world's land
• AIDS sees women's life expectancy of 43 in Uganda and Zambia
• 5 people are added to the world's population every 2 seconds
• Women are 2/3 of the 1 billion+ illiterate adults who have no access to basic education

Innovation ...

• Globally women comprise 42% internet users (Italy 37% ... US & Canada 51%)
• In OECD countries women comrpise only 30 per cent of degrees in science and technology
• Women's representation in computer and information sciences workforce is around 30% globally
• Female inventors still only account for around 10% of the US inventor population

Business / Finance ...

• Women control $14 trillion in assets and this should grow to $22 trillion over next 10 years
• Women comprise 21 of the 37 million people living below the poverty line in the US
• Only in Japan and Peru are women more active in starting a business than men
• Women spend more time researching before they invest than men do

Media / Arts ...

• Only 21% of all news subjects (people interviewed or whom the news is about) are female
• Women less than 1% department heads, editors, media owners but third of working journalists
• 80% of UK purchasing decisions are made by women but 83% of 'creatives' are men

Work ...

• Women do two-thirds of the world's work but receive only 10% of the world's income
• Women's education is the most powerful predictor of lower fertility rates
• One year out of college women earn 20% less than men and 10 years later 31% less
• Women on average are away from workforce for 14.7 years compared to 1.6 years for men
• The biggest EU gender pay gap is in Cyprus and Estonia at 25% then Slovakia at 24%

Government ...

• 56% of women who voted supported Obama compared to only 49% of men voted for Obama
• Until 20 years ago there had never been more than 5% women MPs globally
• Benazir Bhutto was the first woman prime minister of a muslim country (assassinated 27/12/07)
• From the 27 EU member states, UK ranks 15 for women's representation in national Parliaments
• From 1945 to 1995 the percentage of women MPs worldwide increased four-fold

Wishing Robin Williams a speedy recovery after his "tune up"

Robin Williams' appearance at "We Are Most Amused,
comedy gala for Prince Charles's 60th birthday", Nov.2008

Ouch. How'd you get that?

Plinky asked me to share my scar(s). I did:

I have a 4 stitch-scar under my bottom lip from falling on bottle cap (age 3). It was the first time my mom left me alone with dad...

I have a lumpy scar on my right thumb from a piece of glass that stabbed me while I was washing the dishes on a Mothers' Day (age12). The darn hole took forever to heal and I'm guessing I needed stitches but didn't want to make my mother worry on Mother's Day so I bit the bullet and wrapped my thumb in piles of Band-Aids.

I have a burn scar on the inside of right ankle from touching the exhaust pipe on a motorbike (age 18). I still shudder when I remember the burning sensation and I avoided motorcycle rides ever since.

I have a C-section scar from Daughter#2's birth (age 28). This one serves as my own personal weather vane, itching when there's a temperature change...

I have 4 tiny button hole scars scattered on my belly are from my laparoscopic cholecystectomy (age 40). The one on my belly button gives me the shivers.

Don't say 'vyzia (greek word for boobs) ' around me

What words do you hate? [via plinky]

vyzia (greek word for boobs)
Although, not the most vulgar word in the Greek language, it makes breasts sound so... unrefined, so coarse. The word "vyzia" reminds me of cow udders.

boobs
The same reason as above only for the English language.

A two year old getting into character

A two year old getting into character, originally uploaded by flubberwinkle.

My sister in law chose a Charlie Chaplin costume for my two year old nephew this Mardi Gras (Apokries).