There are two schools of thought when it comes to finding a backpack full of almost $42,000. One, take it and RUN! Lock yourself in your house and figure out how you’re going to launder the money. Two, you take the backpack and turn it in to the police without taking any of the cash. Both options are tempting for sure. On the one hand you’re up $42,000. On the other hand, you play the good guy and keep your morals in tact. Now to make it even more difficult of a choice, let’s change the scenario a bit. Let’s say you’re broke and homeless when you find this knapsack of dough. With that information a lot of people would walk off with the backpack and start a new life for themselves, no contemplation necessary. This was not the case for Glen James, a homeless man in the Boston area. Glen was outside of a shopping mall when he noticed a large backpack someone had left behind. He snatched it up, looked inside and found $42,000 in cash and travelers checks, along with some passports and other personal belongings. Good ol’ Glen, promptly takes the bag to a near by police officer and explains the story. That’s it, as simple as that, a man with unwavering morals. No reward money, not anything. He later was recognized for his actions by the police department, but nothing more than an “atta-boy.” That was fine with Glen, he wasn’t even looking for that much.
The news is filled with stories of tragedy, crime, and disaster. It is a breath of fresh air to see stories like this pop up from time to time. Not just to break up the other dismal stories we see each day, but rather to remind us of something. To remind us that there are always good people out there. People who aren’t afraid to do the right thing. People who put others before themselves. People, who through their actions, make this world a better place to live.
Green buildings are all the rage these days, all the cool kids are doing it. They help to save the environment by harnessing things like solar power. Architect Rafael Vinoly may not be designing green buildings per se, but he sure is harnessing the power of the sun. He designed a thirty-seven story skyscraper that stands on Fenchurch Street in London. The building sports mirrored glass windows, and a concave tapered shape. Thanks to the concave design, and the relative positioning of the sun, this building creates a beam of light that rivals the Man of Steel’s heat vision. The concaved mirrored windows focus the sun’s rays into a beam of light that has been measured at more than 230 degrees Fahrenheit! To put it in perspective, water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. The building has been responsible for starting a small fire in front of a barbershop across the street, and melting the mirror and badge off of a nearby parked Jaguar sports car. The city has erected scaffolding covered in a black screen to protect nearby businesses from this virtual death ray of a building.
What’s the moral of the story? There isn’t one, except that solar power is awesome. Well, that and don’t park your car across from 20 Fenchurch Street in London.
What’s this? This looks new. That’s because it is! We decided to start a weekly blog here at Rideshare, something fun to share with you each week. A blogshare if you will. I’ll be your friendly neighborhood Spiderman…I mean, blogger, friendly neighborhood blogger, Kolbe Fitzgerald. You may recognize me from such posts as weekly updates on Facebook, or random other Facebook and twitter posts. This blog aims to give you something fun each week, something topical, possibly something green, but it won’t be all businessy and boring. Come check it out each week! We hope you’ll come here and enjoy this little corner of the Internet. Consider this the introduction; come back next week for our first real post. Until then, drive safe, be green and don’t drive alone.
