Jameson Detweiler

A few weeks ago, Brad Ludden, a fellow Summit Series guy, emailed me about First Descents. I had learned a little bit about First Descents at the Summit Series, and became even more intrigued after talking about it with some other Summiters.

First Descents connects young adults with cancer to each other through whitewater kayaking and other challenging adventure sports.

How awesome is that?

I’m a big believer in the transformative power of physical activity. Since making a personal commitment to regular physical activity 18 months ago, I’ve discovered that physical activity and the outdoors are the best drugs ever created. I firmly believe in their healing power, both mentally and physically.

Brad was also responsible for setting up the amazing white water kayaking trip I took at the Summit Series. How could I not help out?

It just so happens that around this same time my good friend Blake Jennelle was launching his new startup, MyDunkTank. “MyDunkTank helps you raise money by asking your supporters to create dares for you and vote with their donations.”

Long story short, I’m getting dunked for First Descents, and you have a chance to dare me to “do one extreme physical challenge” while supporting an amazing organization.

Right now, “Jameson should run the Rocky steps wearing only sneakers, a diaper and boxing gloves for a full hour on a Saturday afternoon” is in the lead, and I hope it stays that way. Some of the other dares might just be the end of the little dignity I still have.

Dunk me at http://mydunktank.com/jameson.

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Let me start by saying that I’m a fat kid at heart. I was chubby until seventh grade when I got really sick and didn’t eat much for a week. After recovering, I had lost quite a bit of weight, and it finally hit me that eating less was the only way to actually lose weight. Since then, I’ve been very conscious of what I eat and generally lead a healthy lifestyle consisting of regular exercise and a controlled, typically healthy diet. But eating healthy still does not come naturally for me.

I’ve been reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (almost done and review forthcoming). One of the major points of the book is to demonstrate how are culture and conditioning are very difficult to break. This got me thinking about my eating habits.

You see, I grew up in a home where I was surrounded by way too much food. I had three younger brothers, so my mother was always scared that we’d run out of food. Unfortunately, we grew up in Lancaster County, and food around here is not exactly of the healthiest variety. We always had all kinds of food available, and dinner was high carb, high calorie and often included dessert. If I wanted it, it was there.

When I moved away from home, it became much easier. I simply didn’t buy and keep food at home that was unhealthy. If I want dessert, if I want soda, if I want coffee, if I want potato chips, I have to go out and buy them and typically spend a premium on it. This has been very effective, but I still struggle to eat healthy sometimes.

I went to the gym tonight for about an hour and a half. Today was cardio and abs. I spent 45 minutes on the stationary bike and 15 minutes in the pool. (I’m planning to do the Philadelphia Triathlon next summer.) While I was on the bike, I checked Twitter and saw @kessler’s tweet, a picture of his Double Double Animal Style from In-N-Out Burger. All of a sudden I wanted a burger. I’d already planned out a healthy dinner at home, but even getting hopping off the bike, doing abs for 20 minutes and hopping in the pool for 15 minutes, I still wanted that burger. I wound up at Five Guys and undid all my work in the gym tonight.

Now, I’m not such a health nut, I’m not so obsessive with my health that I’ll never eat a burger, but I was disappointed tonight because I had already planned a healthy meal, and I’ve been on a bit of an unhealthy kick recently. I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that, but I still did.

No matter how hard I try to not be a fat kid, I just can’t seem to stop it. I guess I’ll just have to continue to keep crappy food out of my pantry and just realize that sometimes, I’m just going to give in. If I do figure out how to decondition my habit, I’ll let you know.

(Disclaimer: I don’t blame my mother for any of my habits. Frankly, she was just making sure that we were well fed and able to grow, and two of my brothers are the exact opposite of me when it comes to food. The other one is just like me. The problem is that people in the US are conditioned to think that the traditional American diet is actually healthy. It is not, and more importantly, we don’t understand portion control.)

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I was originally going to write a post titled “Entrepreneurs Need Friends that Will Smack Them” today, but I’m tired, and I’m going to write that tomorrow. Instead, I’m going to dump some thoughts I’ve been having about the lack of transparency in the building industry. One of my goals with this blog is to develop and refine rough thoughts and ideas that have to do with my professional life. This is the first post to that end, and you’ll likely see these thoughts pop up on the GreenKonnect blog in the not too distant future.

On to the point, the industrialization of the world has done some amazing things. To me, one of the most amazing things is the advances in materials. (Disclaimer: My background is in Materials Science & Engineering, so I’m a little biased.) The ability to actually synthesize and manufacture new materials has allowed us to transform the world virtually overnight. (The invention of plastics was especially important in this transformation.)

Part of me loves the advances that we have made. Part of me is bothered that we’ve been irresponsible about the way we’ve used resources that cannot be replenished any time soon. The part of me that I want to address now is the my concern that these advances have also created significant health problems.

Today, if you say asbestos, people freak out. No one will step foot in a building that has it and for good reason. What many people fail to realize is that there are many other materials which are dangerous to our health. The list of hazardous materials is continuously growing.

PVC, which is widely used and previously believed to be safe, is definitely not safe. New carpet can aggravate allergies. Old carpets can harbor allergens. Many paints release unhealthy levels of VOCs. It is estimated that as many as 30% of the buildings we live and work in are “sick”. (The study is from 1982, but there is no reason to think it is better today.) Sick buildings are due to two things: bad materials and poor maintenance.

We spend the majority of our time indoors, yet, we know hardly anything about what we’re being exposed to in these buildings. You wouldn’t move to a new city without researching crime statistics. You wouldn’t take a prescription drug without knowing the potential side effects. (At least I hope you wouldn’t do any of these things.) We like to know what we’re getting into. Why shouldn’t we know what we’re stepping inside of?

LEED is a fantastic label, but it does not adequately addresses this issue. If you expect me to step into a building, I ought to be able to find out how it was built, how it is maintained and what it was built with. Building labels have been talked about for the past decade, but those will not be useful until building owners and operators are willing to share this info. Even if they were willing to share it, most of them would not be able to find it. This needs to change. This info should be available for every building we live and work in.

Today, the only thing transparent about buildings are the windows.

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