Earn Free Rice To Feed The Starving !

Hey!

I belong to Free Rice dot com....Its a 'free to join' group that features free EASY games to play that advertisers have said they were willing to pay to provide rice to the poor and starving of the world with each correct answer. They get to display their banners below each game and are willing to pay towards the 10 grains of rice per answer. Ive earned over 30,000 grains so far by playing a little bit every day. They say it takes about 240 grains to give one person nutrition for one day.

I've set my time management plan to include listening to my Audible.com NY Times being read for an hour every day and click through the answers while I listen...but it takes about 8 mins or less to answer 24 "questions" , thus earning enough to actually feed one person for a day....and a child dies every 5 seconds from starvation....Think about it >>>>

You can play this game alone or join a group that others can join....there are many groups there, and I have started a group called "Be The Change" there...The groups name is merely a title to invite people to and create a sense of "Team Work"...many groups have earned over 4 million grains...!!!!!!

There are many games to choose from, but I play the English Vocabulary game..and the Spanish game .its just picking a synonym for each word like "simple = easy"....It proceeds through levels of difficulty and I usually make it though the 40th level of difficulty before I start getting wrong answers, but they just repeat soon after they tell you the right answer and you can learn more vocabulary, or you can click to start over easy again...

The idea is to feed the starving of the world...

OK...so this is where the rubber meets the road...this is where its better to take action than to just talk about it....I like knowing that Ive earned enough grains to feed a lot of people, and it was fun actually....Lets all join this free site, and make it a small part of our day right after we check our email...I KNOW we do that every day,




Directions For Joining The group "Be The Change" at Free Rice:

(Copy & Paste This To Invite others!)

* Go To: http://freerice.com

* Join For Free and create a small profile

* Look for the "Group" button and Do A Search 
and find "Be The Change"

* Join The group and click "play" on the right and have 
some fun helping a real cause...The English Vocabulary Game is, 
I think, the easiest, but there are many games to choose from.

* Read the FAQ to learn how this program works so that you 
wont falter in your belief that this program is the Real Deal! 
You will stop "working" unless you believe in the results, 
that you are actually filling a starving, gnawing" stomach 
with each click...

* Don't forget to always go through the Group to start 
playing if you LOG OUT, but if you just "X" out the site, 
you will continue where you left off as far as totals
and group participation.

* You can also go to each persons profile in the group and 
click the "Follow This User" button, and "Friend Them"
 ..and their totals will show up on your friend list....

* If you start getting a lot of wrong answers, you can click 
"Re-Start" and start over in the easy beginning again....
or you can choose another Game....There are Sixty Levels of 
Difficulty in the Vocabulary Game...See how far you can get!

* Don't forget to "Duplicate yourself by spreading the word 
about this....It's a Great Way to feed the starving of this world 
where you can make a difference without spending money! 
Stay in touch with recruits and create consistency of momentum
and build habit.....ask for a simple daily commitment after they 
check their email, like 15 minutes a day....

Thank You For Taking Compassionate Action!

Thanks 

with Love 

Smilinsteve

My New Cause....End World Hunger

Hey everybody! It's been a while since
I posted on my blog, but I feel as though
I have an important enough issue to
merit the time and effort to do it,
so here it is....

I belong to a Ning group on the net that
is called "Musically...One"

This group is a bunch of people from
all over the world that share their Love for one thing together..Music.

One can also create a group within that group, and one dear
friend of mine did just that and called it,..."Be The Change".
This group name is based on the saying of Ghandis...If you want
see change in the world, First Be That Change, or something
to that effect....

I joined that group, and it has been heart warming and
inspirational to read what people have said about what they do
to help others, and what they think about that subject.

One discussion question asked by the group creator "Nicole" was
"What Is Your Dream For The World Today?' My response was...
at first , well, its one thing to have a dreamy wish that sounds
good, but it probably isnt really possible to actually see it done
in real life....but after some thought I realized that my Dream
for the world would be to see hunger in the world eradicated,
completely....or at least put in check by the cooperation of those
nations that can feed themselves, and afford to help.

Since then Ive seen various videos from the World Food Programme,
and learned soooo much about world hunger, especially how it affects
children. There are ONE POINT SIX BILLION starving people on the
earth today, more then there ever was in history, and from that group
a child dies every 5 seconds or so....Youve seen all the heart wrenching
pictures, videos, and ads that try to cause an emotional response out
of you the viewer, and get a donation out of you to help...

Ive been quite impressed enough to make a few donations myself, from
my small funds; being unemployed for 9 months and disabled at home
as you know from this blog. I realize from my own suffering, that
there are no guarantees in life, and that mankind is suffering daily
in ways that far outstretch anything Ive ever known...

Untold suffering Usually Remains So....

As a matter of fact, I'm alive today because I live in a pretty good
area of the USA, and if I lived anywhere 'poorer' my chances of
survival would have been pretty slim. I was devastated by the severe
interruption of my American Dream Lifestyle....Ive spent thousands on
myself to live well, being well fed multiple times a day....warmed by my
furnace, well educated, & playing in bands with my friends since '71.

Ive had medical help for all my little aches and pains, dental help
for my toothaches, expert hospitals nearby to save my life in case
I need emergency surgery....

Ive spent much money on pot, drink, porno, and entertainment of
all kinds, movies, clubs, sports, cable, TV, cell phones and
clothing for all seasons just in case my little fingers get cold !!

No wonder I've never responded with even $10 to help the Truly
Suffering people of this world....I might need my precious needs
filled, and my flesh is hopelessly selfish and blind to the world
around me....Ive used the excuse "Oh...charities are keeping such a
large percentage of the money, that no one really sees aid anyway...."
or "Govts in those countries are so corrupt that aid never makes
it to the poor..."



Shame on me! especially in the age of the internet, where, if I really
CARED about my fellow man, I could easily do a few minutes of research
and find endless lists of charity ratings, and which ones are really
making a difference, and which ones are transparent and willing to
open their books to scrutiny!

Its so easy to whip out a credit card for a book at Amazon, and spend
$10+ dollars without a second thought, or to buy a bunch of songs for my
mp3 player that already has over 600 songs on it....

 

Please fill the cup! Im on a fixed income from SSI, and I gave $30, and
if I can you can too....If you want you can give $250 or even $10 to
the Smile Train and actually get a childs cleft palate fixed..You CAN..
or if youre one of those that want to feed the starving in the US, and
there are millions, you can easily research that like I did, and for
$22 a month you can help a child get meds, schooling, and food through
Children International...

And if you don't want to donate $$$, you can play the fun and educational
synonym game at Free Rice and earn 10 grains of rice for every correct
response....Ive earned over 20,000 grains of rice by playing a bit every day and it takes about 240 grains to provide nutrition to one person per day...

Now you really don't have an excuse!

(Please know that if you click any of these linked words above, you will
not go to a separate website, but you will have to use the Back Button
to return to this blog....Let me know if you've donated by leaving a
Comment below and make my day and save the life of a child in this world....)

Feel completely awesome about yourself in rich and deep ways, especially
in this world of complaining, fighting, and struggling to survive...






Blessings Will Abound from Your Creator..Its Better To Give Than To Receive

Thanks for reading   With Love, Smilinsteve

Another Obituary Moment.....Or It's Time To Really Live !

As I was growing up, my parents would remark 
to each other about someone famous either in 
music or film, or a relative, who had passed away. 
Depending on how far or close they were to 
my parents lives, and how much they identified 
with them...they would exhibit that amount of 
sorrow. It always fascinated me and 
I would take interest in listening to them, 
with a mix of new sorrow for whoever it was 
to a neutral learning about that person...


It seemed to me that my parents were quite 
taken by some peoples passing....and that's 
usually when I learned of that person...because 
of their obituary. I remember learning the word 
"obituary", and realized that all the recent deaths 
in the local area were printed in the newspaper. 
That was quite a read for a while....

The most famous person I didn't know about 
until he died was Martin Luther King. I remember 
sitting in the den and watching a show on television, 
and all of a sudden the announcement interrupted
my show, saying that Martin Luther King was shot, and he was dead.
I was briefly upset that my show was interrupted, but I also knew 
that I was going to tell my Mother the news, and maybe she would
be interested or not....


To my surprise she was devastated. She began to cry and 
was so smitten by it that she was completely taken with the news. 
I had no idea who this man was, or that she even knew his name..
but in the ensuing few days I saw the national funeral and non stop 
news coverage about his legacy and what he stood for. 


Mr. King (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was shot in 1968, 
and I was born on July 25, 1956, so I was 11 years old. That 
time was also filled with the deaths of John and Bobby Kennedy, 
Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jack Ruby, and many many 
others including our own relatives.


We watch the procession of births and deaths on a daily basis....
but I for one felt like I would live to a ripe old age, and I could 
live and act in any manner I wanted. Time keeps marching forward... 
See the world clock here:  and see the world birth and death rate here   

(Right Click the links and click "Open In A new website or use your 
Back button to return to the Blog)


This is the most amazing site Ive ever seen on the net  
You click the little icon to launch it, and then you are taken 
to the most sobering info you'll ever see. If you hover your 
cursor over any country, you will see the birth and death rate 
of that country in real time, and you will see the amount of CO2 
being released by that country and per person!

In the US someone is born every 7.4 seconds, and dies 
every 12.1 seconds. We have a population of 311,000,000+ 
and climbing, and we release CO2 into our air at the rate of 
1000 tonnes every 5.3 seconds!! Thats 19.22 tonnes per 
person per year....and thats only the US...


This website is absolutely staggering...a stunning real time 
WAKE UP CALL to the citizens of the Earth to stop "Living a 
Death march", and to start pulling together and conserve, and 
stop populating at such an alarming rate! We might even be at 
a tipping point already! We simply cannot keep going at the 
rate we are and maintain the same quality of life that we are 
barely enjoying now!

It's definitely time for me to start Living, in every way I can 
to Love and be Loved, To Fulfill My Dreams, and more than 
that, to do what I can to help my world and my fellow man! 


Watch The Girl Who Silenced The World For Five Minutes

Its time my friends....what happened to me showed me 
that Death is right around the corner.. it can and does happen 
every second.....life is precious and fleeting, and the consequences 
of our actions will no longer be local, but Global! 


You can believe I'm drawing, practicing my music, and 
Following My Bliss. 

To hell with wasting time! 

To Love and be Loved.....To make sure Im 
doing my part at the voting booth and beyond!


Like 9/11 banded us all together for a short while, I 
believe that world disasters will bring mankind together to 
aid each other....We will be "scared straight" from being 
pushed to the precipice of Eternity....To Hell with 
partisan politics ! To hell with greed and corruption...
To hell with waste and pollution!  If mankind doesnt act 
and act quickly, there wont be a world 
to gloat over in riches and authority! 

OK! I can get off my soap box now...but I really have 
new eyes....I have a third aneurysm and it could burst 
at any time...Ive had two aorta surgeries this year, and I 
wish I had a dollar for every time I was told how lucky I was
to still be alive! 


We dont take our belongings to the afterlife. We dont 
garner an award for how much we earn, but we sure will 
still have our relationships with each other I believe, and 
the quality of our judgments and actions both personal and 
to our fellow man. 


What am doing to help? What do I conserve? What cause 
am I interested in? Who do I love, and how do I really treat 
my peers? Why am I or arent I religious, or political, and how 
does it really affect anything but to create an argument?
What strengths do I have that can benefit people, or improve 
the quality of life?


Please leave Comments: I Love it! Thanks for reading this far....
I get to pour my heart out here and Im grateful to you for reading. 


“Death is more universal than life. Everyone dies but not everyone 
lives.” -Alan Sachs




Thanks


Stephen Stavropoulos
Dec 17 2010

So I Woke Up In The ICU......

 

There I am....faux painting in a stair well in a house near Boston, 

using ladders, and daubing the wall with multiple layers of color

to make a beautiful finish....I'd been painting for 35.5 years, 

since Sept. 19, 1976 actually, starting in Skowhegan Maine.

At the time of my first attack, I was staining a house by hand
in vertical drops with a 32' ladder for a month...Good thing I wasn't
on the ladder when it happened, 'cause thats where I was headed !
I also have been playing bass & guitar since around '71, in   various             garage bands in and around Natick MA where I grew up. 

Music was and is my life, and most of my thought life in the hospital was 
imagining playing music in the current band I am in called Nexus, 
after the lyrics in a Jackson Browne tune...We play what I call 
"White Classic Rock"....I'd been in Blues bands, Zydeco Bands, 
you know, I date myself among the younger players who play 
Alternative and Punk, but I still love it, and cant imagine life without it!

Thats me in "Heaven", realizing one of my Dreams...to actually be playing with the Blues 
band I was in called the Wildcats, warming up for Johnny 
Winter! I had idolized Johnny's playing, and for 2.5 years I 
played his stuff quite a bit, loving every minute of it, never 
realizing that one  day I'd actually be on the same venue 
with him ! We played at  The Stadium Theater in Woonsocket
Rhode Island, next to the legendary Chans Restaurant, 
which also had many great Blues artists jam there. We 
played there as well....

So you see, Dreams Do Come True, 
sometimes by chance, sometimes by dint of hard labor and 
pushing with all your might and all you have to do is "Be There".  


Keep pursuing what you Love, and were born for, and good things can and do come !

So...

My surgeon told me that my operation took 14 hours, that my aorta had "split" in multiple 
45% angles, and that he had to close each and every one of them, taking my heart out, 
putting it back in, and looking for leaks, taking it out, and fixing it again...he replaced my Aortic
Arch with some kind of ribbed plastic pipe, and connected my Descending Aorta to it....
he also repaired my Mitral Valve Prolapse while they were in there,a major operation in and of itself!

Amazing what they can do these days in medicine, ain't it?  He saved my life. I was told 
that they even had to use the paddles on me at one point, and that altogether I was in the 
top 5% of people who live with what happened to me...

Apparently they put me in a coma, and I woke up 2 weeks or so later in the ICU with pipes
going down my throat, and my first memories was using a pen and paper to communicate
with the nurses and my Brother Nick, My Girlfriend Belinda, and My friend Lisa...who had 
traveled an hour each way from where we lived to keep me company and wait for me to
come around! The Love they showed me was uplifting and comforting, and I am eternally 
grateful for it....It's good to have people who care in ones' life, and the healing power of it
cannot be measured, but only appreciated with Thanks.

I also realized I had various complications that I woke up to, including strong hand tremors
from a lack of oxygen to the brain....I couldn't get a spoon of soup up to my mouth when 
they finally took the pipes out of my throat....this was one of the darkest moments of my life..
wondering if I'd ever be able to play bass and guitar again! My lifes' pleasure, and my painting
that I had taken so much pride in were suddenly gone....and I was looking at a totally 
unknown future....

I also was told that I had pneumonia, and was made to gag my lungs clear on a daily basis...
multiple times a day...and given an "Incentive Sirometer" I had to suck air through to make sure
my lungs were clearing to the bottom....That completely "sucked"....in more ways than one!
To add insult to injury, I was the told I had a super parasite in my blood from the surgical 
field called "Serratia", and that I had to stay in the hospital for 30 more days to receive
transfusions twice a day of an antibiotic called Vancomycin (sp) to make sure it was dead!
Altogether I was in the hospital for 47 days that first time, and since I hadn't moved around 
too much, or eaten very much, I'd lost over 45 lbs! Then, they discovered Thrombosis (clots) in
both my calves, and they put me on a course of Heparin, and told me I would have to get 
the INR of my blood measured by a visiting nurse at my home and that I had to take Cumadin 
for 3 to 6 weeks.....

To say the least I was depressed, even though I didn't complain about my stay in the hospital. 
I was told that I was a good patient, and that made me feel better...but my life was so completely
interrupted that considering a life as an invalid was so awful and scary to me....I cried at the drop 
of a hat.....patients came and went in my room in the bed next to me, and I was in for the long haul.

I learned to walk with a walker up and down the hall...and finally without a walker, and then 
up and down a flight of stairs.....nevermind a ladder! They told me to figure on a year or more
of reconditioning at home....

Gosh! Would I ever play music again???? Would I ever be able to paint, or even earn a living at all?
Would I have to get a lawyer and fight the system to get SSI for the rest of my life?
Would I ever be able to do anything without totally losing my breathe? Would the pain subside to 
the point that I didn't need those dizzying pain pills? Would I ever have any fun with friends like 
I used to? So many questions.....So much time to think of 'em....

The story gets even worse before it gets better.....but this blog is about facing lifes challenges, 
seeing things that I never saw before....and realizing the amazing Power of Love through it all...
Please stay with me , and share your comments, lets get through this together ! 


Love, Smilinsteve 


P.S. I gotta live up to my "nickname", don't I?