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No man is an island

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No man is an island, in the case of those wanting to go off-grid, that must also remain true. So often, those who are looking to go off-grid, to become more self sufficient, tend to want to get away from society, and getting away from the big cities, the major population centers is a good idea. But don’t take it so far that you become isolated, that is usually not a good idea under any circumstances.

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Stops Along the Way: Part 2

Five o’clock quickly arrived at my desk on my first night as a full-time RVer.  I left my office and walked into the dark parking lot knowing I would be home in less than 30 seconds.  No one from work knew it.  Since I land acting and print gigs on occasion, they believe my camper is to go on jobs out of town.  Half-truths go a long way.  I also made it a point for them to know that owning an RV has always been a dream of mine.  I considered letting my co-workers know of my new lifestyle, but I’ve grown less trusting with age.  My managers may feel less compelled to give me higher raises since I have fewer expenses.  My supervisor may look at me with scorn if I come in late on a snowy day. Co-workers may think I’m just plain kooky… and they would be right!  Yes, none of these things would be fair, but life isn’t fair and neither are people’s judgments and actions.  If the folks at work ever did find out (and some may already suspect), I guess it wouldn’t be a big deal.  However, why put myself out there if I don’t have to?

As I approached close to my camper, I visually took it all in.  “This is my home!”.  Realizing this felt odd, good… and a little scary.  I got in the van and drove to my RV friendly parking spot.  Like a dog, I instinctively circled the lot twice before parking.  There were two big rig trucks settled in for the night, so I parked next to them under a light post.

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Green homes can help solve the housing crisis

Nick Rosen talks at Port Eliot Festival, Sunday 22nd July

*Author of HOW TO LIVE OFF-GRID launches plan to build homes for less than £50,000 ($80,000).

*They consume 25% of average energy and water

*Using the new Localism Act to create a proof of concept

Off-grid settlements – historically a fringe interest in the UK, although they have a long history in other countries, including the US – offer an important new alternative — important because they help solve three problems:

– Cheap housing – how to enable it
– Energy security – how to improve it
– Rural regeneration – how to kickstart it

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Christians Unplugged

Summer Lake, Oregon (CNN) Looking at this beautiful lake in the western U.S. state of Oregon is to understand the meaning of the phrase “God’s country.” And that’s exactly why Brother Gregory lives here.
He is part of a an off-grid movement of conservative Christians who are choosing to live their lives on the edge of society, unplugged from civilization as much as they can, living under basic biblical principles.
Brother Gregory — the “Brother” is more of a nickname than an occupational title — ministers from the Oregon desert where he lives with his wife, some of his grown children and grandchildren.

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Energy

Mini-Grids

Micro Grids represent the future of power in cities as well as rural communities

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Need Something To Do This Weekend?

Need something to do in Los Angeles, CA this weekend then we have a deal for you. In our mailbox we found a nice little surprise (unfortunately it’s a few days old) about the third annual Dwell on Design Event. This event is a combination of a conference and exhibition that will run June 5-8, 2008. The conference is scheduled for June 5-6 while the exhibit will follow on June 7-8. This event will be the largest design show in the West.

“With 41,500 subscribers in the Los Angeles area and 10,100 newsstand readers, we knew it was the time to bring a high quality, content-based conference to Los Angeles,” said Michela O’Connor Abrams, Dwell’s Publisher and President.

There will be conference sessions led by industry innovators along with hands-on exhibits for attendees to explore both products and lifestyle demonstrations. A unique part of the exhibition will be a “pop-up” community that is made up of prefab exhibitors that hope to be seen, touched and most of all to inspire. They have partnered with the LA Mayors Office, LA Forum, ASID, ASLA, AIA, LA MOCA, GOOD Magazine and too many others to name in hopes of ensuring a great success. The event is to be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Put on by Dwell Magazine and their editors it hope to provide an in-depth look at modern design, architecture and space. This is to be enhanced by perspectives of design professionals, legislators, international guest and activists. Some of the guest include award winning architect from Environa Studio (Australia), Tone Wheeler; Jenna Didler of Materials and Applications, a research center dedicated to pushing new and underused ideas for art, landscape and architecture into view; Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti will also be offering a keynote address. To keep everyone entertained they will also be offering nightly events downtown at various venues. Attendees are hoped to be 12-15,000 for the exhibition. It will feature over 200 exhibitors, who will be hoping to garner those attendees attention.

“Dwell’s brand has received accolades for the past three years in San Francisco in print, online, with homes, and live with Dwell on Design” said O’Connor Abrams. “We are excited to bring the brand to life in Los Angeles, an undisputed capital of modern design”

You can register for the event by clicking here and for a free ticket to the exhibition use the code : BDODEC; for $50 off the cost of the conference use the code : GRP22SP.

Our readers have also been offered a free month of the digital version of the magazine Dwell. So even if you can’t make the convention you can see what the magazine is all about without killing trees or losing any green.

Since we’re on the East Coast there is no way we …

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Singing in the Rain

This years Green Apple Festival celebrating Earth Day still went on despite the rain. At least for a few hours anyway. When the lightening started it was time to start shutting down. Now we can’t say for sure if it over or hoping to wait out the rain as we left when the downpour turned torrential and lightening was regular.

Though it was nice and even the children enjoyed the 3 plus hours we had down there. The speakers were varied and from around the world. Showing that the Earth is not just important to us here in the United States. We were able to visit about half of the exhibitors that were included in the Earth Day Celebration, the other half was a combination of weather and not seeing the rest of the booths across the street. If we hadn’t been huddling under the tents to keep out of the rain we probably would have noticed the second section. Of course we noticed after the heavy rain appeared and had to call the rest of the day a bust.

Also happenig at the Mall was an expo on sustainable living with exhibits put on by colleges. It was very interesting to walk through and see what ideas were being tried out to improve not only our environment but also awareness of the general public. That one we visited on the way in, meaning we were to early for all the booths to be manned and/or ready so not as much information from it was gotten. Though we did find some interesting things that will also be in upcoming posts.

We need to do some more research so we’re not just rehashing the spiel we got from the spokespeople at these great events. We found great ideas such as purifying water with a simple handheld device to running sport cars on solar panels, to playing games to raise awareness, to home improvement and construction companies who make green their only business. So much was available that we hope that others were able to join in on celebrations in their local areas.

Don’t forget that today is a day of noise! Let your elected officials (and hopefuls too!) know that not only do we care about the world we live in but that being able to live in a home that is healthy, self-sufficient is just as important to us. If we don’t tell them they’re not going to be knocking on your door to ask. It’s our responsibility to keep and demand programs that help the average joe to be informed and even give a helping hand so that legislation doesn’t disappear now that people are trying to improve their homes.

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Earth Day Celebrations

Don’t forget that the Earth Day Celebration near you is this Sunday. You can click on the countdown on the right or here to see what celebration you can walk, bike, skate, etc. to. You can then go to Green Apple Festivals and see your venue. You will get a list of bands, speakers and exhibitors so you can see who is out there to help us make a change.

Then Don’t Forget to follow the day of celebration and information with a day of action. Make some calls to your mayor, local council, governor, state congress, White House (202.456.1111) and Capitol Hill (202.224.3121). Join with others as we make so much noise that the powers that be stop and listen to what we’re telling them. Our voices have gotten stronger in the last couple of years but we need to keep getting louder. Until we’re heard over the money from big interest, that can be hurt by acting responsible for our environment.

Then on Tuesday, April 22, if you have a blog, website, or any other outlet let the world know what you’ve done. If you don’t have your own outlet then join a forum and let them know. Then wish everyone you see Happy Earth Day. The more people who are touched and reminded on Earth Day the more that can become new recruits for making a difference to our Earth.

If you are going to be writing this Earth Day leave a comment or go to the forum and respond to the Earth Day Blog thread and we’ll make sure to link to you in our Earth Day post.

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Updates on Previous Posts

Thought it was time to update some of our previous posts. Since we started this journey back in October we have run across some amazing movements, events, products, and people and we wanted to check in on them and see how things have gone.

Make It Right 9 of New Orleans has raised funds to build 81 of their proposed 150 homes. We are still waiting on word whether we can sponsor our own home. So check back or if you can’t wait please visit them and donate to a worthy cause. You can also visit them to find out more about the amazing people and organizations that are involved in this opportunity to not only give someone a helping hand but to help show that being self-sufficient in our resource needs can be done in today’s world community wide.

Our Hollywood Going Green? post back in November was about a convention being held in December. I know I said I would wait for the movie so guess what they have posted their presentations. Now to find the time watch them! If you do or attended let us know what you think. We will be starting a thread at the forum about them.

We Love It’s Not easy Being Green was about the BBC show on a family transforming an old farmhouse to their off-grid utopia. We haven’t seen anything about another season but the charity they started The Big Green Idea has continued on. Starting in summer 2008 they plan to have a green double decker bus touring the UK to let people have hands on experiences of products used to get off-grid, while also offering movie and documentary viewings. Even though these sites are geared for the UK they are a great source of ideas to bring across the “pond”.

Ava Solar from our $1 per watt of Soalr Energy post has been moving froward on mass production of their new panels. “ We are very happy with our initial pre-production runs and have decided to move up production plans on our existing manufacturing line,” said Pascal Noronha, President and CEO of AVA Solar. “Although this will be relatively limited production, we intend to accelerate our production learning curve and get our products into the market faster than we thought possible last year.” They have also announced that instead of building a new manufacturing plant in Fort Collins they will be using an existing physicality in Northern Colorado which helped speed up the production time-line.

In December we wanted you to Help Focus The Nation. The online web-cast had problems as many more than anticipated people, groups, and institutions logged on to be part of it. Though they then made it available to watch anytime. We admit that we were part of the unfortunate ones that had problems and were kicked out of the live cast. …

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Put A Little Green in Your Spring Reading

When we started our journey to get off the grid we did not even realize that there was so many wonderful books available to help inform and encourage us. So we would like to share some of those we started with as well as some recent ones we’re still enjoying with you.

Since so much of the lifestyle we relish has now become more of an accepted, if not “hip” thing, the amount of space in our local bookstore has not only grown but better organized. The nice thing about that is that there is more information then ever out there to encourage more and more people to chose this path for themselves. On the other hand we really do advise reading part if not all of a book before adding it to your library. Libraries are a great source of information and many of the books that now grace our ever growing library was first read on loan. Another source, if you are lucky enough to have one where you live, is a book swap. We are fortunate in Baltimore to have “The Book Thing” which is a great place to drop off old book so they can begin a new life and give some a new home.

So above we have listed a few we thought would make great spring/summer reading. As always we are always happy to hear comments from our readers so if you have enjoyed or even dislike one please fell free to post a comment. Also if you think we missed out on promoting a book that should be read also feel free to post that also.

Also reminder that the Great Energy Efficiency Day by the Alliance to Save Energy is still taking registration for April 16, 2008. Then on Sunday April 20, 2008 Earth Day Events will be happening around the globe. You can see whats happening near you here. Let’s make this April a month to remind all those politicians that want our votes come November that our Environment and Energy Usage/Needs are a concern we want taken seriously and worked on. So as the Earth Day Organization is encouraging make sure your registered to vote for the coming elections and then let the politicians know we will be voting for not only our future but those our children and that of future generations to come.

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