For anyone interested in meeting in the real world, I invite you to a campout June 12th through the 15th at Branched Oak Lake near Lincoln, Nebraska. For more info post a question or send me a PM or email at Ishmaellincoln@hotmail.com. This can be as eventful as you'd like. Your participation would be appreciated.

For anyone interested in meeting in the real world, I invite you to a campout June 12th through the 15th at Branched Oak Lake near Lincoln, Nebraska. For more info post a question or send me a PM or email at Ishmaellincoln@hotmail.com. This can be as eventful as you'd like. Your participation would be appreciated.

I had a lot things in mind when I decided to embark on an adventure to open a sustainable tribal business. One of my main goals during the construction phase was to limit waste and use recycled materials for building the bar, bathrooms, and ceilings. Our handyman Joe drug out a bunch of old wood that had been in his garage atop joices. This was extremely useful in framing the walls. Bill our second carpenter had cabinet wood that he had salvaged during a home renovation some 5 years ago that we used to build the bar with. We got a lot of help from the Eco store here in Lincoln that help us with finishing touches. So that was step one in my head. I crossed it off my list, and we opened after 9 months of a long labor intensive gestation. My main struggle with managing a tribal business was the lack of support I had from my friend, and co-owner at the time. Management was management, and employees were employees with huge degrees in between. The words who cares about them we are the owners, were used on several occasions. There was a lack of respect and I had to make my stance VERY clear before I could continue.

BY LARRY KUBERT/For the Journal Star
Monday, Feb 25, 2008 - 12:18:38 am CSTBefore Anne Hintz and Lovena Glantz opened their bakery last May, each of the two young business people had dreams.

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In September some fellow business owners, local crafts-folk and I started a small arts and crafts market on South Street, three blocks down from Meadowlark.

The whole idea behind this is to support the arts and crafts community and connect the community at large. With the new plaza built this summer it was a perfect commons area for us to come together.

Book changed life, pointed the way

When he was just out of high school, Adam Hintz read a book called “Ishmael” by Omaha-born author Daniel Quinn.

It’s a novel about a gorilla who has profound observations about  evolution  and the future of humanity.

As almost anyone who reads this site knows, we are at a critical point in human history, and I truly don’t think its hyperbole to write that we are utterly screwed if we don’t make some seriously smart choices regarding our environment in the next few years.

This conceit is the same tack that 11th Hour, the doc produced and narrated by Leo DiCaprio takes, and makes no bones about the destruction that humanity has wrought on the planet. The film looks at the whys and the wherefores, and I have to say, for the first 1/3 of the movie, I was sad and uncomfortable to be human, not that I haven't felt that way before, BUT I can’t say I ‘enjoyed’ it, it was a comprehensive look at exactly the kinds of issues we've been facing. Going beyond global warming, the film documents and explains species’ extinction, the oceans crisis, deforestation and rainforest destruction, and how these are all connected to not just saving the planet, but ultimately saving us.

The second part of the movie is the search for how we are going to solve these problems, and it actually brought tears to my eyes (OK, I cried a bit during the first part too, out of frustration and sadness), but these tears were those of hope. Showcasing what humanity needs to do, how we need to do it, and how we need to change the way we think about, well, everything, the latter part of the film was nothing short of incredibly hopeful and forward-looking. Changes in our thinking, our awareness, and more wholistic views of design, architecture, and business were highlighted of course (and readers of this blog or any of the other ‘green’ blogs will know about most of it and more already), but even better was the discussion, by all the amazing folks that got together to lend their perspectives to the film, about how we have to change the way we think about our relationship to our home planet. I won’t say much more, because even if you’re an enviro-head and think you know all this stuff you should definitely go see this movie. It’s nothing short of a call to humanity to save itself.

On September 11th, Sophie and I attended a Dead-in at the University of Nebraska. I just happened to bring my video camera along.

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On September 9th my daughers and I went to a Pow Wow held in Lincoln. Unfortunatly, we weren't able to attend until the very end. When we arrived, an elder was acknowleging all of the people who participated in the event. Iris, being as social as she is, immediatly made friends with a boy her age and they ran around playing tag and such running in and out to tipis.