Ah, the internet, where a million crazy ideas are launched everyday. Only a few particles in this vast sea of randomness, however, ever surfaces to garner real world buzz and media attention.

With over 2 million hits, the One Red Paperclip blog is one such phenomena.

On July 12, 2005, Kyle MacDonald of Montreal, Canada, made a single post on Blogger offering to trade a red paperclip for anything of greater value. One thing led to another, and the paperclip has thus far been traded up to an afternoon with rock legend Alice Cooper. Huh?, you may be thinking to yourself. Yup, Kyle is trying to turn a red paperclip into a house. He’s certainly on his way and has left many of us scratching our heads.

Here’s the summation of trades since July:

July 12 – one red paperclip (Montreal)
July 14 – traded paperclip for fish pen (Vancouver, BC)
July 14 – traded fish pen for funky looking door knob (Seattle, WA)
July 25 – traded door knob for portable Coleman brand gas stove (Amherst, MA)
September 24 – gas stove traded for a Honda gas generator (San Clemente, CA)
November 16 – generator for neon Budweiser sign (Queens, NYC)
November 25 – Bud for snowmobile (Quebec)
December 5 – snowmobile for outdoor adventure trip to Yahk, BC
January 9 – Cintas company donates 16 ft. box van to help get snowmobile to Yahk
February 22 – Cintas truck for recording contract (Toronto)
April 11 – Record deal for one-year free rent in a house in downtown Phoenix, AZ
April 26 – free rent traded up for an offer to spend an afternoon with Alice Cooper
Present – current offers for an afternoon with Alice Cooper are pretty scant at this point, but stay tuned…

NICE doesn’t see the red paperclip as an exercise in philanthropy or even niceness. What is intriguing, however, is the concept of making something out of nothing. If Kyle realizes his goal of trading up to a house, it proves that our world is one of many and vast resources just waiting to be tapped. Just think if all of this energy being poured into Kyle’s venture were diverted to the countless issues and causes out there. We could turn a dusty plain into an irrigated cornfield. We could make low-income housing out of a penny and a dream. We could save millions from war and tyranny with the stroke of a pen. It’s amazing what we’re capable of achieving with persistence and vision. This is the lesson to be learned from this paperclip project.

By now you know that an explosive thoroughbred has hit the big time. Barbaro, the Kentucky bred brown beauty won the Race for the Roses this past Saturday at the Churchill Downs racetrack by seven lengths over Bluegrass Cat. Barbaro, undefeated so far this year, could be the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed completed the feat in 1978.

But the story isn’t in this amazing horse. The real NICE story is found in the stables with Barbaro’s trainer, Michael Matz.

Matz is a three-time Olympic equestrian rider and arguably one of the best Americans to have ever competed in the sport. He can now add Kentucky Derby winning trainer to his resume.

But Matz is most notably the man who saved two little children and an infant from the fiery wreckage of United Flight 232 in an Iowa cornfield on July 19, 1989. Bumped to the flight in Denver, on his way back from Hawai’i, Matz could not have been prepared for the tragic set of events he was to face later that day.

The plane was trying to make an emergency landing in Iowa after one of four engines exploded mid-flight. As soon as it made touchdown, the plane skidded then flipped over and caught fire. Matz, along with many of the passengers (182 of the 296 people onboard survived), were able to get out of the plane relatively unscathed. He led the two children sitting next to him to safety immediately after the crash. Then came the real hero part: Noticing that his then fiancée, D.D. Alexander, was missing, Matz went back into the fiery fuselage to save her. Unable to find her, he and another heroic man heard a baby crying and ended up saving it from the trappings of an overhead compartment. Matz brought the baby to the safety of the tarmac where he found his fiancée alive and in one piece.

Pretty crazy stuff (I think I saw something like it in a 1990s Dustin Hoffman movie). Some of us really do live charmed lives and Matz would certainly belong to this club. And although it’s at times hard to cheer for the front runner in sports, Barbaro and Matz will certainly have my bets come May 20 at Pimlico Race Course and the 131st running of the Preakness Stakes. I’d love to see the Triple Crown awarded once again and the Matz factor just makes it so much more interesting. Besides, it’s always fun to follow a story of when the good guy wins.

Read this L.A. Times article for an interview with Matz reflecting on his Flight 232 experience.

This story from The Daily Yomiuri (Osaka, Japan) tells about how random acts of kind Japanese citizens helped a South Korean student complete her university studies by paying her tuition.

Roh Ju Yong had been studying Japanese painting at a Tokyo fine arts university when her father became ill with stomach cancer. This unfortunate incident made it impossible for her family to make the tuition payments, putting Roh at risk for expulsion. As often happens with these kinds of stories, a piece ran in a local Japanese newspaper outlining Roh’s plight and the people came to her rescue.

Her landlord pitched in, anonymous elderly couples gave what they could along with kind notes of encouragement. In all some 960,000 yen (roughly $9,600) came flooding in, allowing Roh to continue her studies and remain in Japan. Naturally, Roh is overwhelmed by the response and is forever grateful for the kindness of the Japanese people. Arigato gozaimasu (thank you very much).

From The Whitehaven News in the U.K., this short bit about six-year old Brandon O’Connor who freed an injured swan at his favorite pond from an errant kite string, therefore saving the swan’s life.

Operation Hero Miles is a project of Congressman C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland. It’s a very simple idea that has very large impact on the lives of our soldiers serving overseas. Moreover, as of last falls legislative session, it’s also a law, written into the latest Defense Appropriations Bill.

Originally set-up in 2003 to help soldiers with airfare for R&R activities after the first offensive in Iraq, the program has recently switched its focus on providing tickets for family emergency situations. Not that R&R isn’t important, but the Bill mentioned above set money aside to handle this portion of the Operation Hero Miles program.

Current participating airlines include Alaska Airlines, America West Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines and United Air Lines. If you maintain a frequent flier account with any of these carriers, and you think that you may not be using it for some time, you may consider turning it over to this effort. You don’t get a tax deduction, but you get to help military families in need and receive a lifetime of knowing you did good.

From the BBC News, read this story about Lyndon Elsey from Wales and his go get ‘em work ethic at his cemetery services worker.

The U.K.’s Local Government Association’s employee of the year prize is coming up, and when residents of Elsey’s home district caught wind of the news, they wrote in with piles of notes commending him for his outstanding work.

Elsey has been known to burn the candle and go the extra mile when helping mourning families deal with the often times painful end-of-life logistics of the burial. He also helps families with requests of their already buried family members. Once, he even helped a family member find a lost grave site.

It’s great that the people of Wales and the U.K. do not overlook some of their more marginalized workers. Out on a cemetery, it would be quite understandable if no one ever paid attention to the great works of a committed employee. But don’t ever leave the British out of the being grateful for others group. Hats off to Elsey and his unsung heroics at the graveyard.