I am in the unfortunate situation of having to commute to work. Ideally, I would walk, bike, run or skateboard to Nau, but my current mortgage in a different zip code from work does not allow the luxury. Given my combustion-engine dependent situation, I wanted to re-evaluate as my old Volkswagen GTi moved its way into retirement. I needed a new (”new-to-meâ€?) car and I was hoping to minimize my impact, both environmentally and financially.

After hours on Yahoo Green Autos, fueleconomy.gov, greasecar.com and a host of other sites, I found a unique combination of features in the VW Golf TDI. (At the risk of sounding like Ron Popeil in a late night Ronco infomercial…) It gets 44 mpg, can run on biodiesel and is extremely fun to drive. Plus, once the warranty rolls off, you can convert it to run on fryer grease.

After even more hours of searching Craigslist and calling dealers, I managed to find one and only one used VW Golf TDI in a town three hours away. I bought the car from the owner’s parents because he had moved to NYC. They put him on the phone as they handed over the keys and he was nearly in tears to see the thing go. I promised to be a good new owner.

While driving is not the best route to work, I feel somewhat better knowing that my individual impact has been slightly mitigated. I’m not convinced biodiesel is the ultimate solution going forward, but it was something I could do now, while technology continues to progress.

“Fireside chats with Charlie” is what we called our Friday afternoon Social Entrepreneurship lectures with Charles Leadbeater. I was unaware at the time that Charlie was council to Tony Blair, a writer for the Financial Times, and ranked by Accenture, a management consultancy, as one of the top management thinkers in the world. What struck me about this utterly understated man was that, unlike most other lecturers, he spent the entire 3.5 hour lecture periods asking questions. While he was “leading” the class, he barely spoke.

It came as no surprise that before printing his newest book, “We Think,” Charlie posted it online in a Wiki format for everyone to view, edit, and correct. In the four months the book has been online, the eleven draft chapters were downloaded, on average, 35 times a day. He received 91 emails from people with detailed comments and suggestions and about 150 comments were posted on the site. As a rough estimate, by the time the book is formally published in the summer of 2007 the rough draft will have been downloaded about 12,000 times.

In a profession where individual creativity and ownership have dominated for centuries, it is incredible to see an entirely collaborative writing process. As a close friend of Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s founder, Charlie has been a leader in pushing collaborative creation and “user-led design.” “We Think,” the book, has turned traditional writing on its head and further affirmed TIME magazine’s “Person of the Year” selection as “YOU.” In his reflection on his publishing “experiment” and the feedback he’s received Charlie states, “It is a much better book as a result of this process and I now cannot imagine writing a book in another way.”

While sitting through my final lectures of the week, I hardly realized that we were another part of Charile’s collaboration experiment. We found it interesting that our lecturer spoke less than any individual in the class, but I now understand that his aim was for the content to come from within the class, not from the front of it.

You can find out more about “We Think” and post your own comments here.

Springtime popped in Oregon last weekend and with it, the double down reemerged. The double down, by the way, is participating in two different outdoor activities in one day. Having just landed a job at Nau, following a brief stint of post-grad-school job searching, I have rejoined the ranks of weekend warriors. Given my new employment-driven time constraints, I have developed a renewed sense of urgency regarding weekend free time.

Faced with beautiful weather and endless Gorge activities, I set my weekend goal on back-to-back double downs. Happily, I encountered an entire town with the same idea. Saturday, I dusted off my bike (literally) for a shuttle run ride and capped the day with this season’s first kiteboarding session. To my surprise 50 other people were kiting out in the 49-degree water and many of them had been snowboarding that morning. That night, at a bar opening, I heard numerous permutations of double downs, road bike/run, mountain bike/windsurf, and on and on…. I knew it was official: The double down was back in bloom.

Sunday morning, staring down the rest of the weekend, I felt extra motivated and bagged the elusive “triple downâ€? of snowboarding/mountain bike ride/soccer game”not to be outdone by my wife who got her own triple down of trail run/road ride/soccer game. Despite being outscored and generally showed up by my wife in our soccer game, I felt great about the weekend. Thanks to fantastic weather and willing friends I packed in five fun activities. And, following three cups of tea and a couple Advil, I managed to make my way back to work Monday morning.