The pile is taking shape

The Glennon family’s next home looks like a stack of shipping containers of all different colors from the outside.

That’s because it is a pile of shipping containers.  Once it’s complete, it will be a sprawling, 5,000-square-foot, four-storey building – two levels above ground, a walkout basement and another level below – with four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a games and media room, garage and workshop, and two enclosed decks.

It will cost about $150 per square foot –  well below the price for conventional  building but still $750,000 by the time all is said and done.

The family hopes to live “off the grid completely” and has installed energy efficient windows, a wind generator, a 4.8-kilowatt solar panel system. A solar hot water heater, which will be their main source of heat, will come later, owner Bill Glennon said.

The wooden interior walls will be insulated for extra warmth, though the fact that much of the home is underground means it will be fairly easy to heat in the winter, he added.

A massive garden with a potato crop, chickens, and a trout pond, will surround the residence on the eight-hectare property just outside Rimbey, about 140 kilometres southwest of Edmonton.

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And the shipping containers won’t be visible forever – the plan is to cover the exterior with stucco.

“It’s just going to look like a regular home,” said homeowner Bill Glennon.

Except most homes aren’t made of Sea-Can shipping containers – and the Glennon’s might be the only one in North America built with the containers from the footings all the way up to the roof, he said.

After years of touring show homes, checking out homes on the market, and attending home and design shows, Glennon said he never found anything he liked under $1 million.

By chance, his wife Roseann spotted a newspaper article about a shipping container home several years ago, which sparked their interest.

Putting his construction abilities to work, the former scaffolder and carpenter started drawing up plans to build his own home out of 30 shipping containers, each weighing about 5,000 kilograms with a load capacity of about 30,390 kilograms.

Besides being “really tough,” the containers are economically sound and structurally practical, Glennon said, though it can be a challenge to cut and grind materials, he added.

The couple, in their late 50s, started excavation in September 2009.

A month later, 30 containers were shipped from Calgary to their property for a cost of about $3,000 per container.

Ever since, the couple and their 19-yearold daughter Kala, with help from Glennon’s brother Bruce and sister Colleen, have been hard at work welding, putting in the insulation and roof truss system, painting, installing weeping tile, lighting, and tending to the garden.

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“Right now, we’re trying to insulate the outside, and we’re still waiting for the concrete to be poured on the roof, backfill the garage, and get some plumbing in,” Glennon said. “We’ve got a long ways to go.”

(This is the first in a series of Canadian Off-Grid homes we will be featuring – please write to nick@off-grid.net if you want your home featured.)

The way to avoid them is go off the grid

As long ago as 1999, Scott McNealy, the CEO of Sun Microsystems, told reporters: “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” Others, including the top executives of Google, LinkedIn and Facebook, have since said much the same thing.

They are right.

Privacy in 2011 is a matter of nostalgia. In the past two months, Facebook introduced “frictionless sharing,” Verizon told customers it could share their location and search strings with advertisers, and two members of Congress have called for the FTC to investigate “supercookies,” which track your activity across multiple websites and are difficult to detect and remove. These developments signal an accelerating rush to compile, index and disseminate personal data in the digital age.

There are several reasons for this, but the most important is corporate profit. Many people freely surrender personal details on social media sites or in exchange for a discount. Government agencies monitor and catalog a dizzying array of personal information, from biometrics to travel history.And a huge reason is what security expert Bruce Schneider calls “the rise of Big Data.” This is the emergence of huge data brokers such as Axciom, Reed Elsevier and Eloqua, and more familiar suspects such as Google and Facebook. Such companies make a business of packaging and reselling information about you to marketers.

Even if you live alone in an isolated situation, you leave a trail of information every day. Consider a typical routine in contemporary America:

Morning

You make your first cellphone call of the day: Your service provider knows who you called and for how long. At the same time, your phone regularly pings cell towers so that somebody can tell almost exactly where you are. Although this can be handy in search-and-rescue situations, companies such as Retina X Studios sell software that lets anybody snoop on your location and message traffic.

Further, carriers such as Verizon are increasingly brazen. This month, Verizon notified customers it intends to monitor customers’ location, websites they visit via their phones and apps they use. And it may share that information. Though it’s possible to opt out, the default setting for Verizon and other carriers is to share.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., by the way, is sponsoring a bill that would set boundaries on the GPS information agencies and companies can collect from wireless phones.

You turn on TV to catch the news. Thanks to a growing reliance on Internet Protocols for distributing signals, your cable or satellite provider knows exactly what you watched and for how long. Read your provider’s privacy policy to see all the ways this information may find its way into the hands of others.

You go to the doctor’s office, where your weight, prescription data and diagnosis are entered into an electronic database. Though safeguards aim to protect this intimate information, data breaches occur. In 2006, Providence Health & Services in Oregon said personal medical data on 365,000 patients were lost when a car prowler stole disks and tapes from an employee’s van.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lists 345 cases of medical records breaches over the past two years that affected at least 500 people each. Some exposed records of hundreds of thousands of patients. Reasons range from theft of laptops to digital intrusions.

As you drive to work, your OnStar device tracks your location. Until late last month, the company quietly continued to track even after you canceled its service, a policy the company dropped in the face of a political uproar.

You also may pass a smart billboard by NEC, IBM, Research in Motion or one that uses Immersive Labs software. These billboards can target you with specific ads. Depending on the technology, the billboards may track age, gender, length of time you look at the board, or the speed of your vehicle.

Along the way, your car’s license plate may have been scanned and collected by the police or a private surveillance service, revealing where your car has been. Law enforcement agencies use the systems across the country, from Maine to California.

On the other side of the world, somebody looks at a picture of your house on Google Street View. Perhaps he even sees you in a bathrobe, retrieving The Oregonian. Though some countries, such as Germany, have limited Google‘s efforts to photograph its people and buildings, most have not. But in Portland and other American cities, you can see cars parked in driveways, people leaving shops and trash piled in yards, without leaving your desk.

Midday

You check Facebook and you’ve been tagged in someone’s photo, adding to Facebook‘s treasure trove of facial recognition information. Facebook is the largest collection of digital photos in the world –90 billion. It’s pitched as a fun way to share your activities with friends: It’s also a fun way to share your appearance with a voracious commercial company and anyone else who accesses the data. Given Facebook‘s continuing refinements that tend to compromise personal privacy, this is not reassuring. Recently, an Australian technologist noted that Facebook can track online activity even after you’ve logged out of Facebook.

Back at work, you use a computer connected to an internal network and the Internet. Your browsing history is logged by members of your employer’s IT department. (Seventy percent of companies acknowledge monitoring browsing.) Your phone records are logged and kept.

You use an online search engine to check a fact. If you used Google, your query is added to the world’s largest collection of crowdsourced data. Distracted by a pop-up window, you agree to take an online survey. Unwittingly, you have just handed over an extensive list of personal detail for companies to pitch products to you.

For a single example of how your personal information is indexed, sorted and reused, take a look at one major data broker, infoUSA.com. A few keystrokes will deliver a list of consumers by geography –all the way down to a single mail carrier’s route –by household income, marital status, number of credit cards, second mortgages, hobbies, veteran’s status, ethnicity or religion. (“Choose from 10 major religions.”) Of course, by buying such a list, you have offered another layer of information that will help marketers sell to you.

Finally, in the course of your computing session, you jump to a website such as Hulu or MSN, where you unwittingly download a “supercookie” that can’t easily be removed from your computer. It collects information about your activity across multiple sites, while resisting efforts to delete it.

You take a Starbucks break. If you open your laptop, another customer may be running Firesheep on his laptop, enabling him to watch your activities and, potentially, steal your identity.

On your way back to work, you pass two surveillance cameras: a public one installed on a light pole, and another that focuses on the entrance to a bank. The one on the bank has facial recognition technology.

It’s almost impossible to go anywhere in public without being recorded. A much-cited study by the New York Civil Liberties Union found more than 4,400 surveillance cameras in a few concentrated areas in lower Manhattan and Harlem. “Cameras lined nearly every block in . . . the Financial District, Tribeca, SoHo, Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side, Chinatown and Central Harlem,” the study said. That was in 2005. the same is true in London, Frankfurt, Beijing, and most other major cities as well as many minor ones.

You use a security badge to exit your workplace. Some employers acknowledge using badges to track their workers, saying it improves efficiency.

Evening

You go to the store, where you are videotaped and your purchases logged and added to the accumulating picture of your preferences. This information may find its way to third parties by legal means, such as when the data are aggregated and resold, or by illegal means, such as theft. One of the most notorious thefts was the “wardriving” case that compromised more than 40 million debit and credit cards from retailers such as Marshall’s, Barnes & Noble, OfficeMax and others.

Law enforcement may take an interest in your purchases, too. A much-cited Salt Lake Tribune story reported that the Drug Enforcement Administration sought discount-card data from Smith’s Foods in an effort to find customers buying large quantities of plastic baggies, on the presumption that they might use them to hold meth.

On the way home, you stop at the library, where you check out a book. Your borrowing history gets sent into a central database. If you use a library computer, your activity is recorded. Though librarians have a good record of protecting user data, note one of the disclaimers in Multnomah County’s library privacy policy: The library can electronically monitor public computers and external access to its network and reserves the right to do so when a violation of law or library policy is suspected.

But much of the alleged threat to our liberty is an urban myth.  You order a pizza from Domino’s and your call is routed through a central office to your local outlet, where the clerk already knows you prefer anchovies to olives. According to private investigator Steve Rambam, the U.S. Marshal’s Service, the New York Police Department, debt collectors and others have used such pizza-ordering information to find people. Domino’s denies sharing “entire lists” of customer information.  But noted garbagologist AJ Weberman, in a comment on this story (below), refutes that claim and is certain Rambam made it up. (Story changed Octo 31st).

You download a song from Apple’s iTunes. The company has responded to complaints that it stores geolocation data and timestamps on mobile devices (iPads, computers and iPhones) by slowing the frequency of its collections.

You stream a movie from Netflix. Be advised the company is lobbying against restrictions on disclosing your rental history because it wants to make a deal with Facebook to share. That restriction was ordered by Congress after the 1987 fight over the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, when the Washington City Paper published a list of the judge’s video rental history.

Further, even when a company like Netflix thinks it has kept its consumer data anonymous, a clever analyst can combine it with data from, say, the Internet Movie Database to de-anonymize portions of it. That’s exactly what happened in 2006, when Netflix sought to improve its recommendation system.

You buy a DVD online. The vendor, such as eBay, the eBay seller or Macy’s knows about your purchase, as do your credit card issuer and your bank. Depending on the payment systems used, your transaction may also become known to third-party payment companies such as PayPal, fraud-detection providers such as iOvation, processors such as FirstData, fulfillment services such as Monsoon and any warranty providers, such as SquareTrade. That’s a lot of opportunities for others to capitalize on your impulsive purchase of “The Simpsons Season 24.”

And, of course, any curious person may simply use your username to follow your buying, selling and commenting on sites such as Amazon and eBay.

Your Facebook page includes pictures of you quaffing a glass of beer. You also post that you’re looking forward to a night of “Crazy Bitch Bingo,” as a local restaurant calls it. Your employer takes note. The next day, you are fired. That’s exactly what happened to a Georgia schoolteacher named Ashley Payne.

And once a photo is online, it’s permanent. Even Rep. Anthony Weiner, who acted quickly, couldn’t stop the spread of the indecent photo he sent via Twitter.

Overnight

Even as you sleep, your household is part of a smart grid of energy supply and demand. At a minimum, this information is conveyed between your smart meter and the utility, and may be shared with third-party energy management companies. California passed a law that limits utilities sharing consumption data with third parties.

Also, as you sleep, your computer restarts because Microsoft has detected that you haven’t installed the latest critical security update.

Sleep well.

Thanks to the Oregonian

“A storm is coming,” says a new documentary featuring  84-year-old Congressman Roscoe Bartlett.  the movie takes a “common sense” view of the problems city-dwellers will face if there is a event such as economic collapse or a natural disaster.

“”There are a number of events that could create a situation in our cities where civil unrest could be a very high probability,” Bartlett says in the film. “And I think that those who can and those who understand need to take advantage of this opportunity when the winds of strife are not blowing to move their families out of the city.”
“It’s just plain fun when you’re looking at the challenge of what do I have to do so that I’m independent of the system,” he added.

Before becoming a member of Congress, Bartlett worked as a research scientist at the University of Maryland. He was awarded 19 patents for his inventions of life support equipment.

“As a member of Congress, I’m concerned, I would like everybody to do this,” he continued. “I would like everybody to have a year’s supply a food. I’d like everybody to have some plans so that they can make do if any one of these emergencies occurred. It’s going to be easier to do that and you avoid the problems of civil unrest if you are out of the cities and in the country.”

Story by Amber Woods in Baltimore

Originally published on havredegrace.patch.com

Who would you want on your team?

The conventional wisdom is that if the system breaks down for reasons of economic collapse, or some sudden natural disaster, then the best place to be is the countryside, in a rural community with provisions and the means to grow more.

However a few folks on different discussion boards have been questioning that – wondering whether actually the city might be a better bet…..I have opened a discussion about that over in our forum.

Here are two views from the off-grid Facebook page:

Noreene Bailey-Treece says: I am in the country and would prefer to be there (in an Emergency. I have medical training. am used to going without so called vital services. i feel i would fare better at home in the country. As for shelters.. as a parent i would not take my children to one. there is too much risk and danger there for them. ie the superdome in New Orleans.
There needs to be a national system for placing a wrist band ID on all persons in the shelter. scannable. ability to preregisters your families information to speed up inprocessing at a shelter. that system would enable children to be tracked as also offenders, and allow red cross to verify for families trying to locate a loved one.
Large shelters need to have a system for sectioning people within the shelters, families with children, those requiring medical care, single men, into different sections with a color coded bracelet. the key is this all has to be set up ahead of time including the computer programs and familiarizing the public and emergency response personnel.

WRETHA: I would say wherever you are, city or country, you need to be prepared for short and long term disasters, have a supply of food and water, it doesn’t have to be a lot, most disasters are short term, if you are able to get by for at least 2 weeks without having to leave your home, then you are far ahead of the masses. Get foods that don’t require cooking or heating, canned foods, there are lots of rice and noodle dishes that are pre-made in packages that can be eaten right out of the package. It doesn’t cost much to buy up a few extra packages of food like this each week or each payday, shop at dollar stores to get good buys. Canned meats, chicken, turkey, ham, tuna… you can even get these in foil packs so they will not take up too much space.

Buy cheap bottled water and store these, if you can’t afford it, then recycle plastic soda bottles, just be sure you clean them well and add a few drops of plain chlorine bleach, honestly if you can afford to buy soda, you can afford to buy cheap bottled water, it doesn’t need to be the uber expensive water, look for store brands. These tend to take up more space, you can get creative where you store them, line them up in the back of your closet, under your bed…

Shop at the dollar stores to make your money go even farther, save your money for important things, do you really need to eat out at lunch? Bring your lunch to work and you will save lots of money. Cut down on your frivolous expenditures, do you really need every channel on cable or satellite? How much money can you save by getting a cheaper package, or perhaps cutting it off altogether? I know I’m asking tough things of you, but in a SHTF situation, when you are standing there with your world falling apart, will you be wishing you had watched another soap opera or will you be glad you purchased some food and water to get you though whatever problem you are facing…

But one person wrote on a survivalist chat room that the City might be where the best aid is:
…….. I’ve lived all of my life in major cities both East and West Coasts. I’ve lived through various disasters (winter storms, floods, power outages, hurricanes, large scale fires, earthquakes & riots). Life goes on. City living does not frighten me in the least.

One book that many recommend is John Wesley Rawles: The Ultimate Suburban Survivalist Guide: The Smartest Money Moves to Prepare for Any Crisis

Another contributer said the following: The scenarios that many people envision about the cities are what they see on the TV (always exaggerated by the 24 hr. news cycle) and hyperbolic disaster movies. Urban dwellers pull together to help one another in disasters just as rural dwellers do. Running for the hills or the countryside in disasters would be the last reseort, because we know there would be major gridlock and more than likely safer to stay put as long as our home is habitable. We hunker down and help one another.

I do believe that those is rural areas are more prepared to sustain themselves, because that is their way of life (hunting, gardening, farming, raising live stock canning & preserving food for the winter). City living is limited by the space available for such activities, but we do a little of those things. However LOTS of urban dwellers do prepare and store food and water. There needs to be more, of course, but it’s growing.

Truth is that services in city infrastructures do get restored as first priority because that is where the population, businesses & hospitals are centered for the most part. Of course it would greatly depend upon the nature and duration of the event, but I think the main thing that may draw people into the city would be the need for medical services…..”

So this guy is farily even handed, and probably just favords rural over urban to wait out a crisis. Another poster, argues convincingly that the city is a better bet:

“Well, let’s do a quick and dirty review one of the common scenarios discussed here–which is an EMP attack. The power goes out on the entire East coast and circuits are fried — so we’ll use New York City as an example. The common wisdom here states that within a week or two, panicked city residents will flee the city by the millions once the heat and water goes out. In the process of doing so, they will degrade from human beings into sadistic, self-centered beasts ready to murder and steal to survive. In addition, all police, military and emergency responders will abandon their posts to join in on the fun.

Now let’s examine how I think this scenario could really play out. The power goes out and most people stay right where they are since public transportation and most modern automobiles are inoperable anyway. I think there is a good chance that the grocery stores will remain open despite the fact there is no power (cash only though). (Most were open during the temporary outage 3 years ago–by candlelight). However, they would be faced with some serious problems which I think they have a good chance of mitigating. Food in those grocery stores will run out soon.

Within hours of such an event, other unaffected areas, realize what has occurred and what the crisis means to the millions that are affected. However, they can’t help everyone immediately and must prioritize their aid. The President calls in some favors and massive shipments of emergency food, water and medical supplies makes their way to the major eastern port cities–preventing food riots and large scale disorder. These supplies won’t make it to rural areas –but cities like New York, Boston and Philly. Included with these shipments will be communication devices and generators so that local law enforcement/military can communicate. Now, they may also send troops in with all that stuff but that may or not be a bad thing. In subsequent shipments, these cities will begin receiving replacement infrastructure and slowly very limited grid power will begin to return.

In other words, if they are still standing, big cities will be the first areas to receive aid in certain scenarios. On the other hand, I think that for a good while rural areas and small towns will be on their own–perhaps for months. Food and other resources will run out and ironically–I think people will make their way to where they can eat….the city.

Now, there are other disasters scenarios where getting out of the city may still be the best shot at survival – or not being in one to begin with. However, I think that *always* assuming that cities are the absolute worst places to be during a crisis is flawed.

What do you think?”

Nice...but not real nice

An Australian design company has won a local eco-building award for its huge Convertible House, which looks like an upmarket Nissen hut, with a curved, corrugated iron exterior; the wrinkly tin is ubiquitous in Australia — think water tanks and sheds.
Perched on hilltops, the off-grid home has a balcony extending around the front and sides, allowing the owners to take full advantage of their surrounds. The design brief was extensive — to create an alternative, environmentally sustainable, durable, semi-prefabricated, low embodied energy, highly secure and fire-resistant family home.
The three-bedroom property by Designology won best energy efficiency at the Victoria State Building Designers Association (BDAV) Awards.
The company created the original design five years ago, having aimed “to come up with a better way of building — a way that tackles climate change” and that could withstand extreme climate as well as bushfires. But did it need to be quite so large?
The building is ugly and battled visually with hits surroundings – and it is unnecessarily big – which increases its carbon footprint as well as maintenance and building costs.
Upstairs measures 140 square metres and incoudes the living room, kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms, while the ground floor has an office, guest bedroom, bathroom and rumpus room. Orientation was key to the design and all windows and sliding doors face north in all the communal rooms. The heat entering through these windows in the colder months is absorbed by the compressed cement sheet floors. In combination with the floor and wall insulation, this heat is stored and re-radiated into the building. The
A solar conservatory over the stairwell and entry area acts as a heat bank during the day in winter by maximising solar gain — warm air is trapped, filtered and redistributed to other rooms using heat recovery ventilation. In summer, this acts as a thermal chimney, drawing in cooler air from vents on the lower level and expelling it through vents at both ends of the building. This thermo-suction effect is also employed in other areas of the house. South-facing roof windows open to allow cross-flow ventilation in the main living areas.
Building materials were chosen for their durability, recycling potential, aesthetics, ease of transportation (ideally locally sourced) and overall cost effectiveness. The steel Colorbond roof and wall cladding, for example, has been specified for these inherent properties, as well as being low maintenance, fire and storm resistant and low cost; it is also ideal for rain harvesting.
Designer/builder Designology Pty Ltd

JP and daughter- homespun

There are not many books about learning the humble art of sewing that set up the problem with a few chapters on the world’s religions plus a visit to Prince Charles’s Savile Row tailor.  But John-Paul Flintoff’s personal memoir,Through the Eye of a Needle: The True Story of a Man Who Went Searching for Meaning – and Ended Up Making His Y-fronts
UK version, (currently available in the US via Amazon UK)  is about learning to sew in a Post-Modern way, and so it is stuffed full of influences from Christianity and  Zen Buddhism to personal shoppers and Indian call-centers.

Flintoff’s starting point is the vanity of our current clothes purchasing habits plus the way that we have all been disempowered by Western consumer society, so we no longer know how to

do any of the things that got our grandparents through the last Depression.

He finds a copy of “Make do and Mend: Keeping Family and Home Afloat on War Rations,” a collection of war-time DIY pamphlets. This immediately inspires him to mend his wife’s hand-made and very expensive bra, as well as some socks and jeans of his own.    His stitching looks like the work of a blind man, but no matter because “I nervously predict that home-darned clothing will soon be considered chic,”  he confides to the reader.
He meets some people who have made it their nosey business to change the world by changing the rest of us – unlike  Flintoff, who hopes to change the rest of us by changing himself, Alexis Rowell is a green busybody who proudly tells the author that he only used his car twice in the previous year, and one of those was to pick up a sewing machine. Emboldened by this, Flintoff drives a hundred miles to buy himself a second-hand, pedal-powered sewing machine for five pounds sterling, and finds he now embarks on a phase of obsessively darning scraps and mending perfectly good, or else completely horrible,  items of clothing.  He then wears these garments out, until his wife stops him, at which point he retreats to making outfits for his daughter’s teddy bears.
Perhaps Flintoff, a journalist for the London Sunday Times,  needs a bumper sticker or a badge saying “I fixed this myself,” to wear with every home –mended shirt.  Otherwise he will spend his dinner parties attempting to bring the conversation around to his own dishevelled appearance.
The only part of the book that does not quite ring true is the cover blurb, repeated on Amazon, that the author was previously “the archetypal mindless consumer until one day he set out to find a purpose in life.” There is nothing mindless about Flintoff, although paying 35 pounds sterling for a pair of Merino underpants comes pretty close (to be fair, he does say he “thought about it for quite some time”).   No, Flintoff is a bellwether for the post-consumer society – a thoughtful, highly ethical character who could give us all lessons in integrity and good humor, and is making the transition to another way. Whether he can give anyone lessons in fashionable clothing, I rather doubt, but that does not stop him from trying.

Making a very good "dying"

Which would you choose? Earning money or having a meaningful, engaging life?

Suddenly people are talking about
Your Money or Your Life

- funny how it goes like that. The book was first published 17 years ago – but there is something very contemporary about its injunction to start living and stop being a wage slave – the authors call it “making a dying.”

We hope to run a diary soon from a young investment banker in Toronto who is about to start living in his car (a Porsche presumably) partly as a result of reading this book. It was him that first mentioned it to the Off-Grid editor.

The full name of the book is <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143115766?ie=UTF8&tag=offgrid-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0143115766″>Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century</a><img src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=offgrid-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0143115766″ width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”" style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;” />.

The authors say that you need to free yourself from dedicated consumerism and although there is some self-help manual hokum, millions haved responded to its message. There is a 9-step life-changing process you can go through. Step two is the central one – Since money is something we choose to trade our life energy for (central idea of the book), determine how much money you truly get for doing your job, including the fact that you have to spend money in commuting, clothing, meals at work, etc. and start to keep track of every penny that you earn and spend.

One comment on Amazon.com said “Just to illustrate the power of this step, I found myself making 25% (hourly rate) less than I thought I was by doing this exercise, and that takes into account the fact that I live 20 minutes away from my work and I half the time I bring my food from home.”

Another review on Amazon is worth quoting in full.

This slim paperback changed my life as no other book has, financially. The most important things I learned from this book are (1) Avoid consumerism and (b) Cut your expenses, easily. I agree with readers earning $30,000 a year that it is difficult to become financially independent on that kind of salary – I also know it’s difficult to live on $200k/year in NYC. (I mean it!)

I spent about $13 on the book. At the time I was technically bankrupt – unemployed, and living off a rapidly diminishing overfdraft. A month later, I got my wits together and – in one day- cancelled Call Waiting and 3-Way-Conferencing and a bunch of other options on my home phone; zapped the cell phone; cancelled my order for cable TV; joined the local library; un-subscribed to every mail-order catalog I was on; fired the maid and cleaned the place myself (quite satisfying; I mean, the latter); and lost all interest in Prada, Gucci, and keeping up with the neighbors. Immediate savings: $200 a month or more, before you get into the Prada stuff. That’s the best return on investment I’ve ever had. And I felt nothing but satisfaction – there was no sense of loss. It was as though I had been told by someone, you must have these things, these Palm Pilots, these gadgets in the catalogs; and I learned: Wrong! Didn’t need them at all. In fact, I felt quite smug about not having them.

This is not a bible for everyone. It did enable me to retire at 40. Thank you, Joe and Vicki. But whether you want to retire or just feel less owned by your job, you cannot read this book without yearning for FI and taking a cold, hard look at the ridiculous ways you are spending money today. There is so much pressure from ads to buy things you don’t need. Read this and wise up. Stop driving the Beemer to the gym. Buy a pair of sneakers and walk for an hour. Do your own gardening. Stop thinking “I am what I spend”. Start thinking, what would it feel like to be free?

A: Wonderful.

I am adding to this 5 years into freedom. I’m not rich. I’m not insecure, which is the best gift this book has given me. My car is worth abt $5,000 – in my dreams- and I live in a place full of Bentleys and Mercs. My car gets me around, which is what a car is supposed to do. If someone totals it, I can live with that. I do the occasional splurge – but I do it because I can. I don’t track expenses. If something is expensive, I genuinely don’t want it.

This book is brilliant. It has some shortcomings, but they are so few in relation to the knock on the head I got from reading it. You don’t need half the stuff you have in your life. You probably don’t need three-quarters of it. And, in response to the liberal-bashers on this site, you don’t have to hug a tree to give the finger to the materialistic society that we live in.

Excuse the cliche but no one ever died wishing they had spent more time at the office. This little book has given me five years off to just enjoy the things I want to do. I was blessed to encounter it.

And, no, you don’t have to follow a 9-step program. Heck, I think I only followed one – I was wasting money wholesale w/o even thinking abt it, and I was a slave to consumerism. Read this book.

"I don't want anything"

Vincent Kartheiser likes living off the grid. He doesnt have a car, a toilet, a TV or a mirror. Its a far cry from his Mad Men role as an ambitious 1960s ad man.

The TV series portrays the ad men as archetypes, always selling versions of themselves to anyone who will listen. And Kartheiser, on the screen, is able to convey that sense perfectly.

So, among all the riddling personas, does he have a stable sense of who he is? One thing is for sure – he is not defined by his possessions.He considers for a moment. “I know there is someone in there,” he says. “I guess we are all on a big search to figure out who we are.”

Some of the ways that Kartheiser has chosen to do this are unconventional. He has, for example, in the city of freeways, given up on a car.

“I go on the bus. I walk. A friend left his car recently at my house and I took it out one day just for 15 minutes and it was terrible. You know why? I felt like I was back in LA again.

“Now I feel off the grid. I feel that I am not part of the culture. And because I dont have a car I dont really go anywhere to buy things. In fact, I have been in a slow process of selling and giving away everything I own.” Like what? “Like, I dont have a toilet at the moment. My house is just a wooden box. I mean I am planning to get a toilet at some point. But for now I have to go to the neighbours. I threw it all out.”

To prove the point he later takes the interviewer back to his house, which really is an empty box a small one room bungalow on a nondescript Hollywood street and, indeed, it has no toilet. Is it a Buddhist thing, or an early midlife crisis thing?

“It started a couple of years ago,” he says. “It was in response to going to these Golden Globe type events and they just give you stuff. You dont want it. You dont use it.

“And then Mad Men started to become a success on a popular level and people started sending me stuff, just boxes of s***. Gifts for every holiday, clothes. One day, I looked around and thought I dont want this stuff, I didnt ask for it. So I started giving it to friends or charity stores, or if it is still in its box I might sell it for a hundred bucks. I liked it so I didnt stop.”

Does he have a bed?

“I do,” he concedes, “but that might go”

A TV?

“Actually, that was the big discussion today, when a friend came over. I was wondering, should I have a screen in my home? It seems like the next step. I havent had a mirror for six or seven years, though I admit that causes a lot of problems when I have to tie a bow tie. Or if I have to, you know, comb my hair for something. Im forever looking in the mirrors of parked cars.”

It sounds a bit like an extreme reaction to the venal material desire of Mad Men.

He laughs. “I probably should be worried. Sometimes, I look around my house and think, Is this normal, Vinny? I mean, its a bit more than just a remodel.”

So what does he do with all his money?

“I dont have a lot of money. I get some from Mad Men. But I dont think Im rich.”

Surely he should be by now? Mad Men sells across the world. Or is his agent very rich?

“I dont really use an agent,” he says though he is signed to ICM. “Maybe thats where I am going wrong. TV is very different from where it was 10 years ago. There are so many more channels, so much less ad money. Contracts have gone through the floor. At least mine have.

“Someone is no doubt making a ton of money. But it doesnt go to the actors or the writers or the journalists or whoever. We are way, way down the food chain.

Does Kartheiser, single, possessionless, doing brilliant make believe for a living, have anxieties in this regard by any chance?

“I dont think anyone feels like a grown up,” he says. “Grown up is just a word that kids use to describe someone who is not having any fun.

The great strength of period pieces such as Mad Men is that they hold a mirror up to our own times. What lessons does he take from it?

“Mad Men is about that whole idea of corporate money as we understand it and how it was really built by America,” he says. “We are seeing the fallout of some of that now.”

Though series creator Matthew Weiner is in overall charge of the nuance of the story, nearly all his writing team are women. Does Kartheiser think that is one reason that men vain, unfaithful, treacherous dont come out of it too well?

“Well, men are assholes at some level, arent they?” he says. “The powerful white male in history is like the most evil entity, isnt he? Mad Men is a portrait of white men doing their stuff, just as their power is coming under a bit of threat

Kartheiser, meanwhile, hints at a complicated private life. “Ive never been monogamous,” he says. “It might happen, but it never has yet. I dont understand women Im off that kick.”

He wears a wedding ring “just so I can flash it to warn people off if I need to,” he laughs, in a stagey demonic way, “or at least put it on in the morning”.

Does he fear that fame will get in the way of any relationship or, at least, Pete will?

“Im just not that grounded,” he says. “I just think LA is a very tough place in that respect. Since Mad Men got popular, I spend more time with my family. I like going back there.”

Sometimes, Kartheiser says, fame isnt all it might be. He’s sitting telling stories on an old car seat on the porch of a house in West Hollywood in the sun. For instance, he says, hed met a woman the previous night and theyd talked for 10 minutes before she had asked him the inevitable question: “How do I know your face?” Kartheiser had no option but to own up. “I said Im that guy Pete Campbell in the TV show Mad Men.”

And then it started. Kartheiser shrugs, resigned: “She said Oh my God, I f***ing hate you. And I go, Well, you mean you hate my character.

“She said No, its more than that. When you come on the screen, I dont want to be in the room. Its a completely physical thing. You make my flesh creep. I loathe you.”

If youve seen even a single episode of Mad Men you will know exactly what the woman meant and exactly why, off screen, Vincent Kartheiser seems at pains to be everything Pete Campbell is not: scruffy, charming, relaxed, witty, unshaven, likable

Mad Men follows the Madison Avenue, New York, advertising men in the 1960s, in a fabled, sharp suited, scotch drinking, skirt chasing, unreconstructed male paradise at the dawn of the consumer age. Pete Campbell is the serpent in its garden, the repressed, preppy malcontent in the offices of Sterling Cooper, forever in the shadow of Don Draper Jon Hamm, the square jawed genius of the sales pitch.

Kartheiser is fascinated by and touchingly loyal to the weak willed and neurotic monster he has created. “You know at the end of series two,” he says, with some surprise and pride, “Pete sits cradling a gun on his lap due to his failing marriage and a doomed affair .?.?. well, apparently most of the audience was desperate for him to shoot himself.”

In person, Kartheiser has none of Campbells oiliness, but a good deal of his complex compulsion. Hes 30, but has been acting for 25 years and even off screen it seems hard for him to stop. He is the youngest son of six. His father was a tools salesman; his mother ran a nursery.

“I was,” he suggests, “aged nine, the go to kid in Minneapolis for a commercial voice over.

He is now the go to guy for a certain kind of smooth and boyish psychosis. Directors seem to see a duplicity in him, a useful doubleness. Where does that come from? He looks askance, or mock askance. “Well, I think certain roles are chosen for us. The moment I read Pete Campbell I thought, I can do this this is mine.

“The truth is I turn down a lot of projects. If a character doesnt have some kind of internal struggle, its no good for me. I think to live in the unnatural world we live in and not have some kind of unresolved issue going on would be naive in the extreme.”

Kartheiser is clever and manic in the hour or two that we talk, sometimes vulnerable, but never quite in earnest, antic and boyish, shouting occasional funny obscenities at the photographer and his assistant as they set up.

Like his characters, he seems to invite psychoanalysis, partly because he rarely stops analysing himself. Hes given up on therapy, he says, “because though I like generally to be healthy in my life, I sometimes like to be unhealthy in my thoughts and my actions”.

A Vanity Fair profile recently followed him on to the set of Mad Men where he was, unsurprisingly, the noisiest of presences: “Between shots, Kartheiser pinwheels around the set, teasing the crew and other actors or loudly psyching himself up for the next shot. Its a funny kind of psyching up. Whats wrong with me? F*** life in the ass, he shouts after one take. Im off today I know it! I know it! Dont bulls*** me, he yells after another. I wish I could be anyone on earth but me! As a colleague says, Its kind of unusual, but it works for him. Its what Vincent needs to do to lose his self consciousness.”

Does he use those John McEnroe ish techniques for a purpose?

“I might scream something to wake up the nerves in my nose and my lips and my eyes, you know” he says. “Thats where I do my work.”

Unlike his alter ego, Kartheiser could sell you any idea, but on this particular pitch Im not quite convinced. Even when, for a photograph, he stands in an empty swimming pool, with a noose around his neck, he never for a moment forgets who he is: a natural born actor and one who never stops auditioning for the fleeting, engaging role of himself.

The Australian Men’s Shed Association (AMSA), has been beavering away for some years now, trying to help depressed, lonely males. They call themselves Shed Men and they aim to provide men with sheds, so they can become Shedders. I know, I know.

This year AMSA will benefit to the tune of $3million from Austraia (And the world’s) first ever National Male Health Policy.

Its success is based on the observation that “men find it much easier to talk to one another when they are shoulder to shoulder rather than face to face”, said a spokesman.

The stereotypical Australian male is a swaggeringly macho XXXX-drinker, which is fine until Bruce grows old or retires or is bereaved or otherwise vulnerable. The stereotype fails and they become isolated. So the Shed Men provide community sheds, where there are bits and bobs of tools and machinery lying about. There’s the wherewithal to make yourself a cuppa.
There is comfortable enough seating and a sense of people being about, whether or not you care to address them. the woman on Woman’s Hour.
EN’S sheds will benefit to the tune of $3million from the first ever National Male Health Policy.

The new policy and particularly the support for men’s sheds have been welcomed by depression initiative beyondblue and its chief executive officer Leonie Young.

“It is well known that men tend to be less vigilant about their health than women,” Ms Young said.

“Men are less likely to talk about their health or seek help for health problems. This is particularly true of mental health; with a long culture of stoicism, toughing it out and a ‘she’ll be right’ attitude.

“We know from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and beyondblue’s community research that one in eight Australian men will experience depression and one in five will experience an anxiety disorder, yet few seek help.

“Depression and anxiety are illnesses, not a weakness and help is available. With the right treatment, most people recover.

“Community-based men’s sheds are social venues where men can gather in a safe and supported environment that encourages discussion and the sharing of information.

“By providing a beyondblue men’s shed kit and depression awareness training programs, beyondblue and AMSA have provided an effective means to promote healthy living, access information and reduce isolation and loneliness – key risk factors for depression.”

AMSA’s Arana Hills co-ordinator Don Scott said their Men’s Shed was a casual place for men to confide in other men.

“It’s about men chewing the fat, just talking and supporting each other with conversation,” he said.

“Men tend to keep things in a little because they’re a little introverted about talking about issues that affect them personally.

“When they get in to a group and discover someone else has got the same problems they’ve got, they open up a little bit more and become not so guarded.”

Mr Scott said the majority of men who attended were retirees missing the companionship they got from their former workplaces.

“Once you finish work and go into retirement or are made redundant you lose the camaraderie from that side of life which you get working alongside of people and having a chat.”

Our man in Poland

Dear readers of Off-Grid.net,

My name is Krzysztof Lis, I live in Poland, and since 2005 I am interested in off-grid living. My off-grid journey started in 2006 when I bought my volkswagen T3 (vanagon) camper (RV) and equipped it with small flexible solar panel and solar charge controller.

Since January 2009 I am running a blog about off-grid living. Last month I was invited by Nick Rosen to write my articles here instead of running my own blog, and that’s how I ended up writing this. :)

During the following weeks I will be moving all my old articles to be published here, and when those articles are all moved, I will start posting new ones.

I hope that by writing here I will learn a lot and meet new people with similar goals. :)

At the moment I live in a grid-connected apartment, but I started preparing my lot for an off-grid home. In the next two or three years I plan to build there a house, connected to the grid, but with off-grid capabilities, what Nick calls “off-grid-ready.” If I have enough money, it will be completely self-sufficient in terms of electricity, water and sewage, and heat for heating and domestic hot water. The lot has easy access to electrical grid, but no water nor natural gas supply. Because of that I want to drill my own well, probably harvest rainwater, and heat my home with wood, with a lot of help from Sun. I will try fulfill the passive house standard requirements, to be able to use passive solar heating. I don’t have much off-grid experience, but I already know it’s easier to save than to produce energy.

This year I plan to work on my permaculture garden. Almost half of my lot is an old plum orchard, I will cut down some of those trees to make place for my house, and the rest I will try to transform to forest garden. I would also like to build a small shack with straw bale walls this year so I have a base for all my future operations. When the house is ready I want to move there, quit my daytime job, and reduce my costs of living so that I won’t have to work again at all!

This winter I started recording my efforts to build this house (or, to be more specific, my small autonomous farm) on video, and publish on my videoblog. When I prepare english subtitles for those videos, they will be also added here.

I also started publishing on Twitter recently, but didn’t have much opportunities to write anything there. I plan to update my Twitter account with cool stuff I find on the internet, as well as with links to my articles.

COOK A MEAL IN YOUR DISHWASHER
If your oven is broken, you can cook a meal in your dishwasher. For a tasty dinner which will be ready in just over an hour, season four salmon steaks and wrap them with dill and lemon in a foil parcel with tightly crimped edges.
Place on the dishwasher’s top shelf and set it to its longest, highest setting. A 2-3cm thick steak will cook perfectly on a 70-minute hot cycle.
BE A HOTEL ROOM CHEF
When the hotel restaurant is closed, remember that all around you are gadgets which, with a little foresight, can be turned into makeshift ovens. you just need some ingredients from the local corner shop and a roll of foil.
Iron-Pressed Toasties: Make a cheese sandwich and wrap it in foil. Next look for an iron, and set it to a high temperature. Press down on each side for a few minutes for the perfect snack. grilled aubergine: slice some aubergine, cover it with a glug of olive oil and then wrap it tightly in foil. Clamp in a trouser press for a 45-minute cycle.
WHAT IF YOU CAN’T WASH?
Here’s a neat way to counteract body odour when the deodorant’s out of reach – a packet of fizzy sweets. Just slipping crushed Love Hearts under your armpits averts a crisis for you (and anyone sitting nearby).
It works because the main ingredient of fizzy sweets and sherbet is bicarbonate of soda, a crystalline grain that’s mildly alkaline and neutralisesthe armpit’s acidic scent molecules.
MAKE A COFFEE BAROMETER
If you’ve dashed into a coffee shop to shelter from the rain, this will help you decide whether to run for the bus before it gets worse, or relax and order another drink until the skies clear.
Take a cup of black coffee made from beans and drop a lump of sugar into the cup. Without stirring, observe where the tiny air bubbles released by the dissolving sugar gather at the surface.
Bubbles collected in the middle indicate high air pressure which is pushing down on the centre of the coffee’s surface and causing the bubbles to gather there. expect fair weather.
Bubbles around the rim are caused by low air pressure which acts like a vacuum, pulling up the centre of the surface so the bubbles are forced out to the edges. expect rain or snow.
The behaviour of the bubbles is caused by surface tension resulting from the slight oiliness of the beans, so it won’t work with instant coffee or tea.
EMPLOY SLUGS AS YOUR SKIVVIES
When your dishwasher can’t shift burned-on food, pop your pans in the garden overnight and let the slugs go to work. Sounds disgusting, but it works.
These slimy scullery-maids have 27,000 tiny teeth spaced along a rasping tongue-like appendage called a radula. It’s custom-made to get into small gaps and crevices and scrape off caked-on gunk.
Slugs follow habitual trails, so find a ‘slime line’ and place your pots on it upside down, leaving a gap for slug access. Wash before re-use.
USE A CAR AS A BOTTLE OPENER
Ever driven into the countryside for a picnic and realised you’ve got no way of opening those bottles of cold beer?
Most car-door mechanisms have a handy built-in bottle-opener on the door frame. Look for the D-shaped loop of metal that keeps the door shut.
SCREEN CALLS WITH A MICROWAVE
When your mobile phone rings and you suspect it’s someone you’d rather avoid, here’s what to do.
1. edge towards your microwave (which should be switched off). open its door.
2. Answer brightly: ‘hello . . .’
3. Gradually move your phone in and out of the microwave and watch the signal fall and rise. The appliance is fitted with something called a faraday cage, a fine mesh which stops the microwaves that heat your dinner from escaping.
Happily, the faraday cage will also block the microwaves on which your phone depends for its reception.
Place the phone inside, close the door and then dial your mobile number from your landline.
Your call should go straight to voicemail because the microwaves can’t reach the phone. If it rings you have a problem, because if the waves can get in, they can get out, too.
The SAS’ anti-interrogation techniques can help you telephone a customer services call centre
PICK THE CLEANEST LOO
Psychological studies suggest that people tend to choose the cubicle farthest from the door when entering a public lavatory.
This means the cubicle nearest the door is usually the cleanest and least used, so head for that one.
BREAK A LOCK WITH A SOCK
If you’ve forgotten the combination number of a lock, pass a sock through the horseshoe-shaped part, grab one end in each hand and give both a sharp tug, away from the lock barrel. The lock should give way.
A less brutal alternative to this is to crack the combination, which is usually pretty easy on a cheap lock.
To do this, you just have to pull up the horseshoe bar as far as it will go, and turn each number in turn until you feel a small click on the bar, or until the wheel becomes harder to turn.
The satisfaction you feel will ease your shame at having relied on such an easily cracked lock in the first place.
NAVIGATE BY SAT- DISH
Navigators of old used the stars to steer a course but, in modern cities, a convenient and reliable indicator of direction is the sky TV satellite dish.
Wherever you go, you’re sure to spot one and all you need to know is that all sky dishes point at a spot some 29 degrees east of due south.
If you imagine the compass as a clock face with north at 12 o’clock, that is pointing to approximately 5 o’clock. Due south is, of course, at six o’clock.
MEASURE TIME BY A NAIL’S PACE
Our thumbnails are the fastest growing nails on our bodies. A thumbnail’s daily growth rate is a constant 0.123mm with no seasonal variation.
The predictability of this growth enables us to use our thumbnails as a reminder of approaching events.
If your tax return is due in eight weeks (or 56 days), that’s equivalent to 6.88 mm of growth (56 x 0.123). scratch a line across your nail 6.88mm from the top and, when it reaches the tip, it’s time to panic.
LIGHT A FIRE WITH A SOAP PAD
Forget firelighters and matches. All you need for effortless fire lighting is a pre-impregnated soap pad, a toilet roll and a 9v battery.
Hold the pad at one end and dab the other onto the battery’s terminals. this completes the circuit between them and the electricity flowing through the tiny strands of wire wool makes them start to burn.
Now touch a few sheets of loo roll onto the pad and blow to encourage the flames.

Time is slipping away...

So, just what does that mean? I can tell you from personal experience and from the responses I have received from people over the years that it definitely has different meanings to different people. From living completely without any utilities, no electricity, water or gas (think hunter’s cabin, wood stove, candles or kerosene lamps, no running water…), to generating one or more of these items on site yourself (think solar panels, wind power, methane digester…), I even had one person say that for him, living “off the grid” meant living so remotely that the government couldn’t find you, essentially hiding from the world. For some people it brings up a picture of a hermit living in a shack on a remote location, others envision a state of the art home that independently takes care of the needs of all occupants from food and water to electricity.

Dictionary.com says:

Main Entry:      off the grid
Part of Speech:      adj
Definition:      not requiring utilities such as electricity, water, etc.; also written off-the-grid, also called off grid, off-grid
Etymology:      referring to grid, electrical interlocking system of transmission lines and power stations

Wikipedia.com says:

The term off-the-grid (OTG) or off-grid refers to living in a self-sufficient manner without reliance on one or more public utilities.

Off-the-grid homes are autonomous —they do not rely on municipal water supply, sewer, natural gas, electrical power grid or similar utility services. A true “off the grid” or “off-grid” house is able to operate completely independently of all traditional public utility services. The idea has been recently popularized by certain celebrities including Ed Begley, Jr. who stars in Living With Ed television show on the Home & Garden Television network. Actress Darryl Hannah also promotes “off-grid” living and constructed her home in Colorado according to those principles.

As for myself, and I believe most people out there, generally living off grid means not being hooked up to the electric grid, that can also include not being hooked up to city water supplies, sewer, or gas. For us, my hubby and I, we are not hooked up to ANY utility, we don’t even have utility poles on our property, it came that way, we didn’t do anything special about it one way or the other.

I also hear words and phrases like ROI (Return On Investment), people want to know how much it would cost to convert their existing homes to alternative power like solar and such. Well, for most people, to convert their existing homes, especially those who are grid tied now, with all the energy hogs inside, it would cost more than they have to spend. That’s not to say that it can’t be done, it just can’t be done cheaply.

Now if you are willing to make some changes, perhaps some hard changes, it’s quite possible to live comfortably with a lot less, it’s just a matter of your mindset. You have to lose the “I have to have everything, every toy, every appliance, every energy sucking gadget” mindset. Do you really have to have that huge refrigerator and freezer? Really? Do you have to have a huge home theater system, TV, stereo, receivers, mega speakers…? Really? Do you have to have that big computer system with the huge monitor and all the energy sucking accessories? Really? Do you have to have __________? You fill in the blank. Really? What about your washer and dryer, all your electric kitchen gadgets? Really?

I’m not saying you should throw all of these appliances and electronics away, maybe it’s time to think about some backups that don’t rely on electricity. It can be as simple as a good set of knives with a sharpening tool to keep them in tip top shape, how about a charcoal hibachi or grill? How would you do laundry if you had no power?

What would you do, right now, if the power went off in your house, neighborhood, city, town, state? What would you do if it didn’t come back on? What good are all your toys now? All of your expensive foods in your giant freezer is thawing, you probably can’t even cook what you are losing because your electric range doesn’t work, your gas stove will not work either if you have the kind with an electric ignition, forget about the microwave. You can’t turn on your TV or stereo to find out what is going on, what’s worse is eventually your water will stop flowing, what do you think runs the pumping stations? Yes, electricity… As you sit in your now quiet house or apartment, or wander out into your quiet neighborhood, you see your neighbors walking around, chatting with each other, for many of you, it may be the first time you have met…  how sad.

Now what, do you wait for the government to save you? Do you wait for the Red Cross, or some other agency to come in and hand out bottled water, flashlights, food, blankets if it’s in the winter, hand held fans if it’s summer… or maybe it’s the military, coming in to make sure none of you get out of hand, how long do you think it will be before people start rioting and looting when they are hungry, thirsty, scared, mad… think it can’t happen?

We are just one disaster, either man made or an act of God (as the insurance companies call it) away from a major catastrophe. With so many people crammed into cities, urban, suburban and even some rural areas, we would quickly run out of resources, food, water, fuel and the like.

Now what would happen if you were prepared for an emergency, whether it be local or global? What if you had some food put back, food that didn’t need to be refrigerated or heated to consume? What if you had some water put aside? How hard is that to do? Not hard at all. You don’t need to go all commando or live like some hermit in animal skins, eating worms.

What you do need to do is start now, don’t wait, start buying a few extra cans of food, start buying a few extra gallon jugs of water, have a source of lighting that isn’t dependent on the grid, get a regular, plug in phone, not a cordless one, get one that doesn’t rely on the electric grid to work, this way if the electricity goes off, as long as the phone service is still working, you can use your phone.

If, each week or payday, you put up just a little extra each time, you will be surprised at how much you will end up with. Be sure to rotate your food and water,  after you have a good deal put aside, start using what you first put up, just be sure to continue adding to it.

You can also do this to eventually get off grid, start slowly, you don’t have to buy everything at once. You can purchase one component at a time, buy 1 solar panel, buy 1 inverter, buy some wire, do it a little at a time. If you run across a good deal on deep cycle batteries, buy what you can, just remember with the batteries, they need to be exercised, they don’t like sitting idle. You can purchase a trickle charger to keep them charged from the grid until you need it later.

Start small, consider taking one room or even a shed outside off grid, this will teach you a lot about how a larger system will work. A friend of mine added an extra circuit to his garage, one original set is for the regular grid tied system, the other system is a different color (outlets and such) and sit side by side with his on grid system, the secondary system is his off grid system, solar panels, deep cycle batteries and such. This way he has a choice to which one he wants to use, and he still has power if and when the electricity goes off.  He is starting small, adding one component at a time. This is not expensive at all.

I can already hear the murmuring, what about those who live on a shoestring now? How can they do this? Well, I answer, how can you not? Who do you think is going to take care of you? Who will come to your rescue? Ok, maybe you can’t go out and buy solar panels and such, but you CAN buy a few extra cans of food, an extra bag of rice, beans and things like this. Go to the dollar stores, you can find cheap canned food, cheap rice, cheap beans, powdered milk, cheap seasonings and the like. Buy foods that don’t need to be refrigerated, one hint though, anything that runs the risk of being infested with bugs (weevils, beetles…), place in your freezer for a few days, then package it well so that it will not be re-infested. Unfortunately many of the things we buy from the store already has insect eggs in it, all they are waiting for is an opportunity to hatch and ruin your hard earned food. Freeze them when you first get them and they will not have the chance to decimate your food.

This will be your insurance against hunger, this isn’t just for the SHTF scenarios, perhaps you lose your job, or maybe you encounter an unexpected bill, how nice would it be to have one less worry, how you will eat… Unfortunately we live in a society that is becoming more and more socialistic in our thinking, we believe that there is always going to be a safety net to catch us if things go bad. Well, think about those countries that have recently had natural disasters, namely the earthquakes, think about how long it took for them to receive assistance from the wealthier countries, their own governments in shambles and unable to help. Now if one of those so called wealthy countries had a major disaster, who would come to our rescue? How long would it take if it happened at all? Would you be prepared to survive for a few days, a few weeks, how about months?

Instead of thinking about what you can’t do, start working on what you can do, the time to prepare is before it’s needed, don’t wait, do it now, for you family, for yourself, before it’s too late. Hope and pray for the best, prepare for the worst and you’ll survive nearly anything that might be thrown at you.

Read more by Wretha: http://www.off-grid.net/section/wretha/

cuddly and inclusive

For decades the residents of elite Grosvenor Square in London’s Mayfair had to contend with overbearing security along the entire side of the square occupied by the American Embassy.  Now, much to their relief,  the Embassy is moving to the less rarified area of Wandsworth, and in environmental terms, the new building will be everything America aspires to but rarely achieves.

US Embassy in London to be off-grid readyFor decades the residents of elite Grosvenor Square in London’s Mayfair have had to contend with overbearing security along an entire side of the square from the American Embassy.  Now the Embassy is moving to the less rarified area of Wandsworth, but  in environmental terms, it will be everything America aspires to but rarely achieves:It will be nearly self-sufficient in energy production and even capable of operating off-grid “for an extended period,” according to officials. Unlike most glass office buildings, which appear slick and hard-edged, this one will look soft and pillowy thanks to the lightweight plastic attached to the façade “like boat sails.”Essentially vertical fins, the plastic will do triple duty. Made from the same Etfe fabric that was quilted onto the Beijing Watercube for the Olympics, they will be embedded with photovoltaic cells that can convert sunlight into energy, even in foggy, soggy London. They will also act as sunscreens to keep interiors from overheating. And because the fins are pinched at regular intervals, they create a rippling, sculptural effect on the glass surface.In the hope of ending its reputation for Fortress America-style embassies, the State Department selected a Philadelphia architecture firm known for its thoughtful and environmentally rigorous work to design the new, more welcoming U.S. Embassy in London.The firm, KieranTimberlake, beat out three better-known finalists in a lengthy competition whose jury included top design-world figures, the State Department announced. This is only the fourth time the foreign service has held such a competition to select an embassy architect. This one was organized with the intention of making a statement about America’s democratic and environmental aspirations, even while it struggles to accommodate the intense security demands of a post-9/11 world.Embassy officials in London held a special presentation to unveil the design. The $500 million embassy, to be situated on an industrial site a mile downriver on the Thames from the Houses of Parliament, will be by far the greenest the United States has ever built.James Timberlake, who founded his Spring Garden-area office with Stephen Kieran, said in a telephone interview from London that their entry was intended to be a transparent building, surrounded by green space where the public can relax. Their design is a perfect glass cube set in a circular park. Although portions of the park are raised for security reasons, the block is approachable compared with other American embassies.”You don’t see bollards because they’re integrated in landscape,” Timberlake said. “You don’t see walls. There are no fences.”Visitors, however, will still have to pass through a screening pavilion before entering the embassy lobby. There is another entrance for staff, and separate lobby corridors.KieranTimberlake teamed with the Philadelphia landscape architects Olin to create the park around the building. A half-moon pond will camouflage the ground-level security buffers. Even so, it’s hard to see that pond as anything other than a castle moat. The official staff entrance that floats over the water feature is the symbolic drawbridge.For serious, urban-minded architects, designing an American embassy in these tense times is almost sure to lead to regret. Federal law requires a whopping 100-foot setback from the street. Security consultants often wind up calling the shots.That said, KieranTimberlake has come up with light, shimmering cube that is a vast improvement over the recently opened embassy in Berlin, with its prison-like windows. This embassy rises on tapered legs to allow passersby clear views into the lobby, which will be adorned with a wall-size work by a yet-unnamed American artist.It is also highly responsible environmentally. “We wanted to create a building that would be an environment for diplomacy, but also serve as diplomacy for the environment,” Timberlake explained.KieranTimberlake, which designed the award-winning Sidwell Friends middle school in Washington – where Malia Obama attends classes – is known for developing original ideas for saving energy. Levine Hall, at the University of Pennsylvania, was one of the first to use a glass skin that incorporated the building’s ventilation systems.Over the years, the State Department has been harshly criticized at home and abroad for its dreary embassies. During a U.S. Senate hearing last year, Sen. John Kerry said he “cringed” at the sight of some recent embassies. “We’re building fortresses around the world,” Kerry complained. “We’re separating ourselves from people in these countries.”With the London embassy, the State Department first consulted with officials from Wandsworth, to make sure they were happy with the plan for the five-acre site. Wandsworth officials hope that the project will kick-start the redevelopment of the former industrial area.It remains to be seen whether KieranTimberlake’s design receives a warmer welcome than the old embassy. Prince Charles has been crusading for years against the incursion of modern high-rises in low-rise London.

There's worse places to live

Architecturally, the dwellings run the gamut — railroad cars, travel trailers, plywood shacks, doublewides and two-story ranch-style homes.

Here in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, residents are beyond the reach of power lines and piped water. A few have solar panels or small wind turbines. For others, like a shanty built by  Liz Owens, 57, the cost of renewable power sources and drilling a water well is prohibitive. Generators and plastic water tanks are common yard features.

The local County is concerned about the proliferation of informal development. The area consists of nearly 50,000 acre and half-acre lots platted decades ago by Amrep Southwest.

Lots have been selling for less than $5,000 this year, said Tracy Venturi, a Realtor familiar with the area. “Some buyers are drawn by low land prices, some just want to live off the grid,” she said.

Lack of running water prompted some Rio Rancho Estates residents to find innovative ways to fill their tanks. Paul Bearce, battalion chief of the Rio Rancho Fire Rescue Department, said the city had to change fittings on some fire hydrants to prevent them from being used as a water source.

Hauling water is a big part of Owens’ lifestyle. On days off from her 32-hour-a-week call center job, she crams plastic jugs into her Ford Focus and drives into Rio Rancho for a water and battery run. A friend lets her fill the jugs and charge a couple of batteries; the generator she had is broken.

Using a five-gallon solar shower for bathing, Owens said, she can make 50 gallons last a week. If the batteries are new, a charge will last 12 hours.

“I love it out here,” she said. “Nobody bothers me. Nobody minds my dogs.”

Her electricity comes from a couple of boat batteries, water from a collection of onegallon plastic jugs, and her home is a travel trailer covered in frayed blue tarpaulins.

Her face lit up as she talked about the unimpeded mountain views, the sunsets and the wild birds. A couple of dozen quail and a few blue jays regularly stop by for the tidbits she throws out for them. Animal visitors also include coyotes, rabbits, stray cattle and rattlesnakes.

She has encountered up to 40 rattlers over a summer season. Once, she found four lurking together in the plywood shed she built onto her trailer. Another time, a bull snake dropped from the shed ceiling, nearly landing on her.

“It scared the crap out of me,” Owens said.

The snakes prompted her to buy a shotgun. Guns are common on the sparsely inhabited mesa, Owens said. She frequently hears shots during the night and the occasional bullet whizzing past her trailer.

Minimum dwelling standards the county is trying to enforce in Rio Rancho Estates require the equivalent of a doublewide trailer with two-car garage. Owens received a notice this summer informing her that she had to clean accumulated trash from her lot and upgrade her dwelling. Owens removed the trash but said she can’t afford a bigger trailer.

Owens said she recently received a letter from the county giving her a deadline to upgrade or face a $300 fine.

“I just can’t get my head wrapped around this. I can’t decide what to do,” Owens said.

Sandoval County Attorney David Mathews said the county has about 40 cases similar to Owens but has not levied any fines and is prepared to work with the people involved.

“We are not in the business of evicting people,” Mathews said.