plastic bags or furoshiki

One of the guys at work had an idea to market the use of reusable bags as furoshiki. The idea has caught on, not through our efforts, just because it's a good idea, though it seems to be a bit commercialized here; and they clearly own the web presence for furoshiki. At any rate I did some thinking about bags and re-use, which you can explore below. But I feel the best idea I came up with is for a retailer, or even better a group of retailers to add a club card type bar code to a bag. You only get the club discount if you bring and use your eco bag with the code. And like other discount cards at grocers it tracks the amount you have saved by using your own bag. So after the 78 visits to the grocery store in the first year you get to know you saved about $3.90 - $7.80 Not a lot, but it would cover the cost of the bag pretty quick. But that's why I would want multiple retailers to support it, it would add up much quicker if it worked at the grocer and clothing stores etc... Perhaps just one of those key chain type club cards, but that was only valid if attached to your own eco shopping bag. That's where I put my Stop and Shop card, so I know I need to remember the shopping bag.

There is Joy in Repetition

Or so says Prince, and clearly toddlers agree. I was just thinking about this love or repetition, which Bertram clearly shares. He loves his sign language video even though he has seen it numerous times, and now he know what part comes next. It occurs to me that it's probably enjoyable because repetition confirms their understanding of the world. And when you are just starting out that is your prime objective, to figure out the world enough that you can predict what would happen next. We model the universe (as we understand it)so that we can predict what will happen as a result of your actions. So something like a video, or the Animatronic singing snowmen that we borrowed from Milo and Lola, is that they are predictable. Safe and reassuring that you can depend on things to go the way you expect sometimes. And I imagine that for a toddler that is a feeling you don't get often enough in the confusing world. No conclusion to tack onto this, just an observation.