Oatmeal for Breakfast

When I (Jonathan) first moved to Seattle, I had almost no furniture. The moving men had trouble keeping a straight face when they arrived at my place in California.  I think you could have counted the number of boxes shipped to Washington on one hand.

This handsome media cabinet with tinted glass was one of my first purchases. It stored one of the most important pieces of equipment owned by young, economically disadvantged men: the thrift store stereo.

The stereo was, and is, a gem. I had this idea to hook up an old Linux computer to it so that visualizations and numbers would scroll by in an impressive fashion as music played, responding to the beat and generally looking cool. My idea was that people would see this feat of technological prowess and instantly realize how cool I was and want to be my friend.

You can see here how impressive the Linux computer is, and if you weren’t already my friend before reading this blog post, you probably want to be my friend now.

The stereo system was finicky, though, and it was soon disconnected and the computer abandoned. The media cabinet was displaced in the great furniture shuffle that took place when we rearranged the house so we’d have a room for the baby.

I listed it on Craigslist at a variety of prices, starting at $50 and working my way down to $20, with a brief second entry at $50 just because I didn’t want people to think it was a piece of junk. When it didn’t move, I bit the bullet and listed it as free.

Have you ever listed something for free on Craigslist? Free listings create bedlam. I’ve rarely had fewer than five emails in the first 20 minutes the listing is online. People don’t just tell you that they will take your unwanted things. They tell you why they need those unwanted things, knowing full well that you are about to get twenty more e-mails from people who want the thing that you, yourself, no longer want.

So: The media cabinet has gone to a good home, the computer system has been dismantled, and the stereo system is currently serving unobtrusively as a second pair of speakers for the television.  There’s probably a good metaphor in here about things going on to find new meaning in a different stage of life.

We generally try to keep things light here at the McPherson house. That, combined with the busy business of preparing for baby McPherson, lack of cable television and my overwhelmingly emotional response to things of late, have kept me from blogging about the situation in Haiti. However, yesterday morning we stayed home a bit longer than usual and I was able to indulge in viewing the Today Show for a few minutes and I was able to see my first video footage of the situation in Haiti. Total destruction. I’ll admit that Haiti’s economic situation is a mystery to me. How can a country be so close to the United States and such a stark contrast? In Haiti, the average person lives on $2 a day, 80% of the population lives in poverty and there is a 50% literacy rate.  This wouldn’t be considered acceptable anywhere in the United States. If nothing else, perhaps this tragedy will bring to light situations that have existed for decades and now cannot, will not, be ignored by the world. God has not forgotten the people of Haiti, no matter what you may hear in the media.

I know that traveling to Haiti right now is an outright stupid idea and it wouldn’t help anything but my conscience. However, there are several organizations that are already in Haiti who could use our help. Yep, open up the wallets folks, I’m sure there’s something you can skip this week to free up some cash to donate.

If you’re not sure where to start, here’s a list of organizations that will take your money if you’re looking for a place to start (I recommend noting Haiti somewhere so your money goes directly to help Haitians; not that there isn’t good work being done other places, but that’s another blog post):

Compassion International
American Red Cross
Samaritan’s Purse
World Concern (based in Seattle)

Want to get a little something while you give? Buy a Help Haiti T-Shirt here. 100% of the proceeds will be donated and divided between Real Hope for Haiti and Heartline Ministries.

UPDATE: The U.S. Senate approved tax deductions on your 2009 tax filings for Haiti relief donations! Click here for more info!

Project 365

Project 365 is… well, here’s where it started. The idea was to take one photo every day–boring day, interesting day, weekend, weekday, doesn’t matter. It was an exercise for photographers, mostly, who could use the motivation and daily deadline to force themselves to practice and to get creative.

A lot of my friends did the project in 2008, not with the goal of becoming creative photographers but with the goal of documenting one thing that happened each day, a sort of visual journal. In 2009, without a lot of forethought, I started my own Project 365. You can see all the finished photos here or read the photoblog here; I took them with my cell phone, and there are fewer than 365 because I did not post any photos while we were in England or while I was in South Africa.

It’s kind of funny to scroll over the photos and watch an entire year go by. It’s like flipping through pages in a calendar, except I am, very literally, watching a year of our lives flash before my eyes. A year doesn’t look like a long time when you can flick through it in two seconds

The best thing about Project 365? You can’t pick what you remember each day. But you can pick your Picture of the Day, and many days it’s what you will wind up remembering from that day, because so many days seem unremarkable until you look for something remarkable in them. Events and memories just seem to happen to us. It’s good to have a reminder, even once a day, that we have some voice in the matter.

I’m going to do the exercise again in 2010. And you’re welcome to join!