Ideas I Don't Have Time For Pt. 1

I continually have ideas for cool things to do that I don't have time to pursue. At least, *I* think they're cool. So, I thought I'd post a few recent ones here to see if anyone is interested.

1. International Cooking Group - This one isn't too complicated, just get a group of 4-6 people together who love to cook and who also love international foods of all types. Once a month, pick a country/region and have a dinner party with each person bringing a course/dish for the meal. I'd love to do something like this and go for belgian, romanian, egyptian, and other types of cuisine I haven't tried as much and are generally not represented in our local restaurants. I had this idea after looking at a post regarding Spaetzle makers at the Post Punk Kitchen Forums.

2. Budgeting/Money Planning Group - Even though I work in accounting, I have not had a good track record in managing my personal finances. This is something I want to work on, and even though I've read a few books on the subject and know about snowball debt reduction, envelope budgeting systems, etc., as Morpheus would say, "There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path." So again, a group of 4-6 people who are willing to open up their financial info and be accountable to each other for their bad spending habits, look for shared ways to eliminate unnecessary spending, build savings/investments, etc would be good. I prefer the systems outlined in Your Money or Your Life, but I'm willing to go along with the Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman stuff too.

3. Start a Food Not Bombs group in Greenville. Those of you who know me well know that I have a mix of conservative and liberal political leanings, and on those political radar quizzes I am all over the place depending on the weighted questions of the quiz in question. I've scored everywhere from Communist to Libertarian to Socialist to Populist, so I guess I just have too many divergent political ideals.

Anyway, I'm not a big fan of unnecessary war and I also care more about homeless issues than most charity events, so Food Not Bombs hits two ideals that are important to me. Basically the way the group operates is that they weekly pick up surplus food that would be discarded from grocers, restaurants, and other sources and make a communal vegetarian or vegan meal that is served for free to anyone who wants it.

The main ideas put forth politically by the collective is that is that myriad corporate and government priorities are skewed to allow hunger to persist in the midst of abundance. Here are the four First Principles:

1. If governments and corporations around the world spent as much time and energy on feeding people as they do on war, no one would go hungry.
2. There is enough food in the world to feed everyone, but so much of it goes to waste needlessly, as a direct result of capitalism and militarism.
3. Vegan food is both healthy and nonviolent.
4. Food Not Bombs works to call attention to poverty and homelessness in society by sharing food in public places and facilitating gatherings of poor and homeless people.
Anyone who wants to cook may cook, and anyone who wants to eat may eat. Food Not Bombs strives to include everyone.