NERD

I remember being called a nerd in elementary school and the come-back of the time was, "thanks, I'm a 'Never Ending Radical Dude'". Oh, I know it's childish, but that's OK, I was a child. At the time, I don't think I had a clue what the word radical meant, except that it was 'rad' which was good.

More recently I have been called radical for some of the ideas I express on this blog. Now I have a better understanding of the word radical. I think people are implying that I am 'making a considerable departure from the usual or traditional'. I find this to be an interesting accusation because I feel that I'm advocating going back to the traditional or usual. I think that many of the modern conveniences that we rely so heavily on are detrimental to people and to society as a whole.

Now I want to make a point because I think some of the 'hate mail' that I recieve is from people who have misunderstood me. I'm not completely against technology or modern conveniences, I'm against the tendency to rely heavily upon them. Do I think people that drive cars are bad people? Of course not... or at least not all of them. I simply believe that people and society would benefit if more people were to take a step back to the traditional. Take a step toward transportation that requires physical exertion. Take a step toward understanding and a step away from relying on technology that we don't understand.

Another point made by my 'hate mail' fans is that I don't understand individual circumstances. I suppose that is true. There are a couple of points to be made here. First of all, sure there are reasons to drive a car and even to rely heavily on a car. My last job required me to drive a considerable amount. On the flip side of that, I made that choice. I also made the choice to change my situation so that I no longer had to rely on my car, because that was important to me. I understand that people live 50 miles away from work and have to drive. I understand that they can't afford housing any closer... I take that back, I don't understand. I think it's a matter of choice. If you can afford a home away from work and to pay for gas, insurance, a car, etc., then can't you afford a small place nearer to work that would allow you to commute by bike (as you say you want to)? I do understand that it is a difficult choice to sacrifice a large house that you are buying to move to a rental that is significantly smaller. I understand choosing to live further from work in order to have some of the conveniences provided by that choice. What I don't understand is people thinking that life is predetermined. We always have choices and options. Sometimes they aren't all that attractive, but if you really look at the situation, you can see options.

And then there's the question of what I am supposed to do about it. Am I supposed to change my views? Well, I suppose you could change my views if you provided a convincing argument, but name calling is generally insufficient. Or I could start writing to please everyone. Not a chance. Everyone is afraid of offending others. I'll be honest in saying that I hold back some of my opinions because I know they could be offensive to those I know who read this blog. I wish I didn't do that. I understand that some people close to me don't want to hear what I truly believe just because it isn't the same as what they believe. You are allowed to hold your own opinion. You are even allowed to have opinions that are as strong or stronger than my own. I'll still be nice to you when we meet in person. I won't call you names or otherwise insult you. I may try to persuade you if it seems like that conversation can occur productively and without contention, but you are absolutely entitled to your own opinions.

Evidently I needed to get that off my chest. I'll return to writing about simplicity shortly.

Conspiracies

Yesterday we talked about money. A couple commenters, who also happen to be a couple, suggested investing as a means of 'making your money work for you' so that you can have more to help people without buying stuff. I agree with them to a certain extent. Investing in companies is a way to get a good return on investment. But is it better than buying stuff? You have to remember that when we 'invest' we are really buying a small part of a company (it looks like when I say 'invest' I am talking stocks, I realize there are other forms of investment). We own that part of a company because we have hopes of it growing, getting bigger and therefore the value of that piece of the company that we own increases. So how do companies grow and get bigger? In large part by making more stuff, that you may not be buying, but someone is buying. I do still think that investing is good, but I think it's important to know what you are investing in and promoting with the dollars you are spending.

Lets give some examples. Have you ever heard of national city lines? It was a cute little cooperative between Firestone, Standard oil of California, Philips petroleum and General Motors. They took interest in trolleys and other electric powered street cars in the 1930s-1950s. I am pretty sure they were trying to build public transportation infrastructure. Oh wait, they may have been a little upset over the transportation system that carried lots of people without using petroleum, or tires and it was efficient enough to make it so people didn't need cars. Right, so this cute little coop (remember that these were all publicly owned companies, making this a little on the illegal side) bought up transit systems and converted the environmentally friendly light rail systems to oil burning, tire using GM buses, maybe that is why they call it the GM streetcar conspiracy. Unfortunately they had STELLAR success. They essentially dismanteled the public transportation so that people had to use their products.

Lets look at Salt Lake City as an example. A few years back the Federal Government put a whole lot of money into upgrading public transportation and highways in the area in preparation for the olympics. There is currently a pretty good system in SLC that is growing and expanding as fast as it can, but is struggling with all of the development in the area that makes it difficult to lay down rails in downtown. 50 years ago SLC had a streetcar system that had rail lines every block or two and the entire thing was powered by hydroelectric power from the mountain streams. Now people can only dream of having TRAX every couple of blocks. So what happened? GM purchased it and essentially shut it down. Also, for the locals, there used to be a railed transit line running from Utah Valley up to SLC. We can expect that service to return in another 5-10 years. Along with more than 100 other cities, GM came in and purchased the streetcar systems and the cities are trying to rebuild and get back to what could have been.

I don't know that I would call it a conspiracy, but I see the same thing happening in nutrition. The government is sending huge subsidies to farmers to grow corn to make high fructose corn syrup. The corn syrup is used to make junk food that make people fat and are highly profitable for companies. The companies then make HUGE contributions to political candidates campaign funds so that the subsidies will continue. It's really a cute cycle that works well for all involved. Well, all except for the 66% of Americans that are overweight or obese. And I suppose it doesn't work so well for anyone who pays insurance for the people who are getting sicker. And it doesn't work well for the next generation who have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. But remember it works well for big business and politicians, so what else really matters? Oh, it also works well for pharmaceutical companies that make big money treating the new diseases caused by the increasing obesity rates.

So how do we get out of this? I think the first thing that needs to be done is to get rid of the advertising for these things that are so devastating to our society. So get rid of car, junk food and pharmaceutical advertisement from the radio, television and magazines. Well, that wouldn't work because there wouldn't be any advertisements left. Actually, in my opinion, that would work quite well for EVERYONE, but it will never happen and I know that. Do you see the problem? It's all about money, it's not about the wellfare of the people. So be careful where you invest.

Sorry, I got a little off task there. here's a good youtube video that you should watch on food industry and obesity.

P.S. Heather and Earl, that was not so much a bash on investments, although I do think you have to be thoughtful with them, as it was a transition to a topic I had been thinking of for some time.

Where do the people live?

Yesterday someone asked me to look at simplicity vs. environmentalism on a topic other than cell phones. I saw a slide at a presentation that I went to that was a little better than this one. It was a photo of a typical suburban neighborhood and all you could see were garages. you couldn't see the front doors to the homes. The presenter made the comment, "I see where the cars live, but where do the people live?"

Take a moment and imagine the morning routine of a typical American. Get up, eat breakfast, blah, blah blah... Then you go out into your garage, hit the garage door opener, back your car out of the garage and hit the garage door opener again. You drive to work, park in the parking garage or designated parking lot for your business and go into the office. In between your home and office, how many interactions do you have with others? We are going to exclude the guy who you flipped off because he cut you off and the lady that honked at you because you were drifting into her lane. Now think again, how many positive interactions did you have on the way to work... or on the way home? Cars destroy social interactions.

I suppose it's similar to the cell phone, it's not the fault of the inanimate object, it's the fault of the users (us). The point still remains, cell phones tend to promote inconsiderate behavior and cars make it more difficult to interact positively with others on the road. I'll be honest, I haven't had any positive interaction on my 5:30 am commute to work in the snow lately. In the spring and summer, on the other hand, I will frequently cross the path of other cyclists and talk with them for quite some time. That's just a part of commuting by bike, it promotes interaction and camaraderie with other cyclists. Unless you cross paths with a "roadie" who will most likely pass you going as fast as he can without acknowledging your existence to prove that he is somehow superior to you.

Back in the day homes had a front door that people used and that was located front and center on the house. There was usually a patio or similar sitting area near the front door where people would relax in the evenings. Oddly enough people would talk to their neighbors and otherwise interact with one another. Nowadays the front porch has virtually disappeared, but the back yard keeps getting bigger, as does the fence that surrounds it. We want our privacy. I suppose privacy isn't bad, but when it is at the expense of relationships with those around us, I don't think it's positive.

I've ventured a ways from the auto v. bike comparison, but there is so much that goes with that. Streets used to have sidewalks because people walked on them. Now people drive so sidewalks lost popularity. With the increased use of the auto, people wanted a garage in which they could park it and since they were already in the garage, why would they leave the garage to go in the front door of the house. We have therefore decreased informal interactions with those around us. And what has this provided us? We spend more time in a car (to get to work so we can afford the house with a big garage), we have more time to watch television and we are overall less happy then we used to be.

I do care about the environment, but what I am more interested in is happiness. Call me greedy, but I just want to be happy and I am generally happier when those around me are happy. Happiness doesn't come with more stuff and more free time to sit in front of a TV and watch other peoples' reality. Happiness comes from human interaction. more on the TV tomorrow.

Being wrong... or unsure.

Do you know what I hate? Being wrong. Do you know what I hate even more than being wrong? Having others know that I'm wrong or having it pointed out to me. Some people seem to be OK with this. Some people have this ability to even admit that they have made mistakes and to tell others about them. My wife does this. I admire her (and anyone else who is able to openly admit mistakes) for being open and confident enough to admit mistakes. I wish I were more like that.

The other day I was doing something in the driveway and a neighbor from down the street approached me. We really don't know this particular neighbor all that well, so as he approached I was sort of excited to talk with him. Well he came to tell me that my chestnut trees were dying because I wasn't watering them. Then he left. As far as conversations go and getting to know neighbors, it was an utter disappointment. In fact, it sort of made me mad.

This is the point where I want to defend myself and say that I wasn't wrong... but I don't know that would be totally truthful. We have three chestnut trees in our yard that have always turned brown (and quite sickly looking) well before fall arrives (like June). I was of the impression that this was due to a tree disease, but I could be wrong. It could also be due to a tree disease that could be virtually eliminated by adequate water. In the end, I am pretty sure that watering the trees more regularly (or at least a couple of times) could have helped the trees.

So I was wrong, but I had some reasoning behind it. Unfortunately it is reasoning that I'm not completely sure about. For starters, the chestnut trees are horse chestnut trees, so the nuts are poisonous. What good is a poisonous nut? Then when the nuts fall, they fall in a spiky shell that stays in our yard leaving it quite inhospitable. As my wife and I talk about fixing up our house, we talk frequently about the yard. We are currently working on killing weeds so we can put in a front lawn. While I don't especially want to waste water on a front lawn, it will make the house look better, and the odds of us moving within a few years is pretty high. So I'm going against what I truly believe in order to improve resale value. I'm a sell-out and I hate it when I do that. If I were to really want to have grass somewhere, it would be in the back yard where my boys would be more likely to play in it. We haven't started that process because of the spiky things that make the back yard extremely painful to walk in. Since there is no grass in the back yard, we certainly haven't been watering it. And we haven't been going out of our way to water the trees (whose roots are under the "lawn" in the back yard) because they are the problem with the back yard. So the trees are dying.

Here's another issue that I have. Trees are essential for consuming carbon dioxide and cleaning pollution out of the air. I am all for trees and not depleting forests in order to maintain the air quality in our environment. I am also aware that imported trees often consume far more water than their native counterparts, which contributes to the drought conditions we are experiencing and plummeting water tables. So what is worse, wasting water to keep the trees healthy, or letting the trees die and wasting big carbon dioxide consumers that are needed in the area? Frankly, I think that I should be conserving the water and that people should drive less and use less electricity so that we didn't have the air pollution problems, but that's not our current situation, is it?

Earlier this week, my wife asked about my ultimate life, where we would be and what we would be doing. I told her I didn't know... and I still don't. Here's the thing. I am studying how the built environment influences transportation habits and health of a community and the members of that community. Sprawl is destroying the fabric of America and I know that it needs to change. But then when I think of my dream life, I think of living sustainably off the land. I want to live off the grid with a big enough garden and other resources (a pond?) to provide for all of life's essentials. I am also a realist, so I want my sustainable farm to be close enough to a city that I could haul my goods to a nearby city in a trailer pulled by my bike. If I needed to have a job, I would be able to ride my bike to it. This is the definition of the sprawl that I am battling to prevent. Does it make it OK for me to want to sprawl because I want to ride a bike and sell produce to the city, but it's wrong for my neighbor because he wants to drive a car and have a big lawn? I don't know the answer to that, but it doesn't feel right. Ideally, cities would all be relatively small and compact, yet surrounded by small farms providing local food to all the members of the city. That's just not how things are.

I think that being unsure may even be worse than being wrong. I try to live according to my conscience, and I know I make mistakes. Sure I'm ashamed of those, but even worse is not knowing the path I should take because of the imperfect world in which we live.

Generations

I was thinking the other day about how different generations are known for different things. For example the generation that grew up during the depression were known to be frugal. For good reason, they grew up in a hard time. It seems to be that today's generation is exactly the opposite. This is the disposable generation (no pun intended). It seems that everything that we buy is designed to be disposed of so we can get a new one. I don't think that the generation is totally to blame, marketing and manufacturing play a HUGE role in that. Either way, it's not good.

How many times have you had a computer printer break on you? Have you ever tried to get it fixed? Don't get me wrong, they'll fix it for you, but it will generally cost more to fix the printer than it would to buy a new one. Do you think they expect you to get it fixed? I don't think so, they want to sell you a new one.

I'll be fair, that isn't always the case. Cars, for example, although expensive to fix, are cheaper to fix than replace. Unfortunately with cars, in order to be "cool" you have to have the newest (or put the most money into fixing up an old one... which is cooler than the new cars). Marketing has made it popular to have the new design. Is the new design that much better than the old? Of course, who could possibly live without a DVD player in the back of every headrest? Even if the new design isn't that much better, it is still a status symbol to have the latest and greatest.

Don't think I say that just because I don't especially like cars. Bikes do the same thing. I still have an 8-speed cassette on my road bike. Last year my derailleur hit the skids so I had to replace it. I couldn't find a 9 speed, let alone an 8 speed. So now I have a 10 speed derailleur with an 8 speed cassette. So my bike doesn't shift the best, but I really feel that I have all the gears I need. Most of the time I have the gear I need on my fixie.

Back to the original topic, what was the generation before the depression like? What were they known for? My wife suggested survival. I don't think so. I'm guessing that they didn't know what they didn't have. I bet they could even look back and wonder how previous generations had survived without the convenience of trains and the cotton gin. I don't know. So if you are over 80 years old and remember what your grandparents were known for, please let me know. I wonder if they were known for their prosperity and not taking advantage of it? Or maybe they were also known for their frugality, but they may not have even known what it means to be frugal in the way we are frugal today.