Here’s a brilliant solution to clean water collection; Requires no electricity – just gravity!

In places around the world where water is scarce, people can build a Warka water tower that produces 26 gallons of water per day. Yup!  Clean water you can drink. 

The bamboo, hemp and mesh structure can be constructed in 10 days by 10 people for only $1000. 

It uses a basic fog-harvesting technique: gravity, condensation, and evaporation, and doesn’t require electricity or other power. Hmm. 

Looks one of my students who is looking to do ProjectMERIT may take this on!

Learn more about the Warka Water organization.

Germany joins France in banning fracking, a process that involves blasting chemicals and water into rocks to release trapped gas. 

So where are we on fracking? Oil companies are drilling thousands of wells all over America.  There are more than 35,000 wells that are being fracked (hydraulically fractured) today, and since the 1940s, there have been over 2 million wells that have been fracked.

It’s time to stop oil companies, and politicians bought out by them, from poisoning our drinking water with known carcinogens!

I hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July!

I’m glad to be an American, even with all of our country’s imperfections and weirdness!

Quite the opposite of America’s helicopter parenting, psychologist Angela Duckworth argues that a combination of passion and perseverance is the key predictor of success.  In her New York Times best-selling book, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,” she suggests that kids do one “hard thing” each summer.  This, of course, is just another way of saying “practice makes perfect” and “if you don’t shoot, you don’t score”.

Kids today – more than ever – need to put down their phones and games, and do something real to make the world a better place.  While this might sound daunting, it is exactly what they need so they become an active part of their communities.

By working hard at something – anything – they get the sense that they are contributing in a meaningful way. This engagement keeps them out of trouble and sharpens their minds.

I wrote the book, “Beat the College Admissions Game: Do a Project!” to help kids start their very own projects like Duckworth recommends above.

Give each of your children the opportunity to expand their minds by doing a project this summer.  Besides, it’ll also help them get into college, and earn scholarship dollars! 

Eighty two years ago, my Tatsui grandparents married here in the US.  Their uncles arranged the marriage, a common practice back then, and their marriage was one of the most successful I’ve seen. 

Maybe it was because they made a commitment to one another and worked through any difficulties they encountered.  Divorce was never an option.

They loved and respected one another – and it showed in their daily communication and the way they kept the family together. They survived incarceration for 3 years during WWII when Japanese Americans were interned. 

As soon as they returned from Manzanar after the war, my grandfather worked as a gardener and my grandmother ran a business of housing Japanese immigrants.  They worked hard and saved money to buy the Rose Hotel and apartment buildings in Santa Monica. 

My grandfather was like a father to me and I enjoyed discussing his legacy at our family reunion last weekend. Although both of my grandparents have passed away, their memories will live on in our family.

The family reunion lasted for 2 days, so it’s only fitting that I blog about it twice.

We had activities for everyone!  The treasure hunt and the Boardwalk were the highlight for the kids, while the adults enjoyed Rob’s cooking and telling stories for the oral histories. 

It’s always fun to get together with the family!

I just hosted another Tatsui Family Reunion last weekend. 

As the elders get older, I feel compelled to create opportunities to reunite all of the many family members. 

By using programs such as Family Tree Maker to enter data about each aunt, uncle, cousin, and extended family member, we keep finding new connections. 

We took individual oral histories that we place in Family Tree Maker, and then we had a group oral history video session where we told stories that we may have heard from our grandparents and hashed out as many details as we could while the camera was rolling. 

Even though we may not have all of the answers to our many questions, documenting what we do know and remember will be vital to future generations.  In the process of gathering info and playing games, we all got to know one another better – and we created new memories, and stories.

I look forward to getting together with my family every year. 

I’m really excited that Merit Academy has expanded to include international students!

Our one-on-one classes offer an ideal academic environment for each student, which is especially important for international students, who often end up at the back of a typical classroom.

We are currently looking to place students for the Fall.  By sharing a home with a student, American families can help reinforce English language acquisition and integration into American culture, with the added benefit of learning about the culture of the student!

Merit provides a $1,200 per month stipend to cover expenses throughout the school year.  If you’re interested in hosting an international student this Fall, please contact me at 831.462.5655.

Logan is on a roll! Tomorrow, June 25^th, is another NO DRIVING DAY!

Run your errands and do you shopping today so you can relax at home on Saturday. 

Join Logan as he rallies Californians to not drive for one day a month to reduce the CO2 that enters the atmosphere.  Then, simply go to his website – WhenNotIf.org to enter your data so he can tally up how much CO2 was diverted by our joint efforts. 

If you need to get somewhere tomorrow, carpool, take public transportation, or ride your bike! 

Thanks for supporting Logan and doing your part to offset Climate Change.