My Monthly Charity for the final month of 2009 will be the Network for Good. The Network for Good has made it very easy for me to give to charities with it’s one stop place to make donations securely. This is extremely helpful to me, especially for My Monthly Charity selections.

“Imagine what the world would be like if every time you were inspired to help someone or something, you could — with just a few clicks of a mouse, anywhere online. That’s the mission of Network for Good. We make it as easy to donate and volunteer online as it is to shop online, and we make it simple and affordable for all nonprofits, of any size, to recruit donors and volunteers via the Internet.” – Network for Good Mission

Some of their accomplishments:

• Have created a secure, convenient donation system that makes it possible to give to any charity, anywhere, anytime online
• Returned $25 to the sector for every $1 invested in Network for Good
• Raised over $300 million in online donations to more than 50,000 different nonprofit organizations
• Built a Volunteer Network that connects users across the country with more than 200,000 local, international and virtual volunteer opportunities
• Taken fundraising viral and raised well over $2.7 million via fundraising widgets
• source: Network for Good About Us Page – http://www1.networkforgood.org/about-us

The Network for Good works great for giving and charitable organizations. They give you research of over 1 million charities, track your donation history, volunteer opportunities, and much more. For charities they give them more exposure and an easy way for people to give to give to them. It really is a one stop donation location with everything you’ll need to make a quality donation decision.

Thank you to the Network for Good for making it easy to donate and help charitable organizations. Check it out for yourself at http://www.NetworkforGood.org.

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This post is a little bit late but I finally got around to it. SEMA was an amazing experience. The SEMA show was HUGE. It was a little overwhelming how big the show was, but fortunately we entered the Convention Center right in the car care section. That worked out well because we got see a lot of our vendors without searching too hard through the massive show. To sum it up SEMA is anything and everything that has to deal with cars.

After seeing some of our vendors we wandered a bit and did a ton of walking through the rest of the show. That’s pretty much it, I’ll let the pictures do the talking now.

SEMA 2009 Las Vegas Convention Center.

Amazing piece of art depicting major US wars in a timeline.

Giant wheel that’s got to be 24 inch plus in my opinion.

Check out the car model.

All blue car in the West Coast Customs area.

Remember Mad Mike from Pimp My Ride.

The new 4 door Porsche Panamera in all black.

For more pictures check out my Flickr section.

In closing SEMA was one heck of an experience. Good times, maybe I’ll be back next year.

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Vevo is a great new site dedicated to music videos. Powered by YouTube and created in partnership by major music companies like Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment they have created a robust music video website and community.

Features:

• Create your own music video playlists
• Video premieres and exclusives
• Browse videos by artist and genre
• Watch videos by channels or playlists from yourself, the staff, Vevo charts, or other users
• Set and save your favorite videos, artists and playlists
• Embed, share or link to the videos
• Link to itunes right from the video
• Lyrics subtitle options in video

For your viewing pleasures here is the premiere of 50 Cent’s new video of “Do you think about me” and check out the Vevo player.

Vevo looks to be another ad driven revenue model that many others have struggled with. If they get the ad revenue model working right they got the right idea for a music video website. The only thing I see missing is that there are no rss feeds available for new videos or for your personal playlists and favorites.

Great high quality music videos available to your liking at Vevo and they got the right partnerships to grow and succeed. Check out Vevo today.

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Ditch the bottled water to save money and the environment. According to MSLK’s Watershed art piece that raises awareness about the consumption of bottled water, the US consumes 1,500 water bottles every second. Yes that’s every second. That comes out to 64,800,000 (~65 million) water bottles a day and 23,652,000,000 (~23.65 trillion) a year. The Watershed also states that 80% of those water bottles end up in landfills even though there are recycling programs available. Those are some very sobering facts about the waste the the US is creating just from bottled water.

Personally I’ve been bringing a water bottle with tap water to work everyday instead of drinking bottled water. It makes even more sense to use a water bottle now since New York implemented the 5 cent deposit on bottled water. I did a little basic math to figure how much money I’m saving using a water bottle.

32 bottle case of Poland Springs from BJ’s Wholesale Club
$4.99 per case = $0.15 per bottle
$0.15 per bottle + $0.05 deposit = $0.20 final cost per bottle
Estimate consumption per week at work
5 bottles per week = 260 bottles per year
My Annual Cost of Bottled Water at Work
260 bottles X $0.20 = $52.00

Minus the cost of purchasing a water bottle, that roughly cost about $5.00, the grand total comes out to be around $47.00 per year. Not a huge number in savings, but that’s money in the bank for me. On top of that I think my estimated bottled water consumption would also be on the lower end of those who drink bottled water on the regular.

Ditching the bottled water not only saves you money and the environment, it’s probably safer too. Tap water is highly regulated from local, state, and federal levels for quality compared to bottled water which has no real governing body. There hasn’t been enough evidence yet but there have been concerns that the chemicals used in the plastic of bottled water could seep into the water itself. The simple answer is tap water which relieves all of those concerns. You may actually be drinking tap water – Bottled water isn’t always pure – It’s not clear where the plastic container ends and the drink begins – Our country’s high demand for oil isn’t just due to long commutes, learn The Truth About Bottled Water.

Other Sobering Facts

• Out of the 50 billion bottles of water being bought each year, 80% end up in a landfill, even though recycling programs exist.
• 17 million barrels of oil are used in producing bottled water each year.
• Bottled water costs 1,000 times more than tap water. Drinking 2 Litres of tap water a day only costs 50 cents per year.
• Plastic leaches toxins into the water, which have been linked to health problems such as reproductive issues and cancer.
• New York City tap water surpasses all federal and state health standards.

- via Treehugger via MSLK

If you think about it you’re buying expensive water that’s available from your tap at a higher quality. A simple easy change that saves you money and the environment, what more could you ask for.

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