1. Visit public Twitter feeds in a web browser. This may seem fairly obvious, but you can view anything that anyone posts to Twitter just by visiting their Twitter profile page (as long as they haven’t marked their updates as “private”).  So, to view all of my Tweets, just visit http://twitter.com/ChrisHardie – no account required.
2. Subscribe to Twitter feed updates via RSS. Even if you don’t have a Twitter account, you can subscribe to receive new status updates from any Twitter user (again, assuming their updates are public) via RSS.  By putting the feed in a feed reader like Google Reader, you can be aware of new status updates without even visiting the site in a web browser.  So, on my twitter.com/ChrisHardie page, just look for the link that says “RSS Feed of ChrisHardie’s tweets”
3. Use Twitter’s real-time search. You can visit http://search.twitter.com/ and enter a few keywords to see recent Tweets that relate to those words.  This can be useful to find mentions of you, your product/service/company, or just news and events in the world.  It’s also a fun way to see what conversations are happening right now.  (If you like that, you might enjoy TweetGrid or Twistori.)  You might also consider using the Greasemonkey plug-in that will show you relevant tweets as a part of a Google search on any topic.
4. Find people in your community using Twitter. Using Google, you can look for people in your geographical area who are using Twitter, and see if there are any individuals or organizations you want to follow.  For example, I can use the search terms ‘site:twitter.com location (“richmond, indiana” OR “richmond, in”)‘ to find Twitter users in Richmond, IN (as long as they’ve identified themselves as such in their Twitter profiles).  Services like NearbyTweets.com make this search even more fun and interesting, and if you want to expand beyond your local area, TwitterVision shows a neat visualization of Tweets coming in from all over the world.
5. Monitor Twitter for mentions of topics of interest. If you’d like to be notified when someone on Twitter mentions you or your organization, you can set up a Google Alert.  For example, I can decide to be e-mailed by Google Alerts every time they index a tweet mentioning Richmond, using this search: ‘site:twitter.com Richmond, IN’.  Services like TweetBeep.com also provide this kind of feature with additional options.

I hope that’s helpful.  If you have other ways to use Twitter without being a Twitter user, please post them in the comments.  You can also follow along with my Twitter-related bookmarks on Delicious.com.

Many people refer to this act as “cutting the grass.”

Over the last few years I’ve tried quite a wide variety of approaches to and implements for “cutting the grass,” and I’d like to share them with you now, because imparting unsolicited and only moderately useful information to a halfway-interested audience is what blogging is all about, no?

1. Not mowing the grass at all.
   This is the approach I always try first when I move into a new space.  As the warm season comes around and the grass gets taller and taller, you can see the land start to return to its natural state, and it’s exciting!  Unfortunately, I’m often not the only one watching this growth with anticipation, and the neighbors on either side of me are often not as excited as I about the prospect of a rewilded yard.  Some have even given me subtle hints about their concern by, oh, say, mowing my yard for me without asking.  I do suppose there is  utility in being able to walk across some parts of the yard without encountering snakes, dead mice, abandoned vehicles, warning flags placed by the City, etc.  So, as a matter of neighborly politeness and practical landscape planning, I’ve usually been compelled to take on some sort of mowing activity.  (A blog post for another time is why we put ourselves in that position in the first place.)
2. A neighbor’s gas powered mower.
   It seems kind of silly that in most every garage or tool shed up and down most every street in this country, there sits a mowing device that is used an average of twice a month, and otherwise collects dust and rust.  Having been exposed to the clever practice that some people refer to as “sharing,” for a while I decided to try “sharing” a neighbor’s gas powered mower with them.  It was generally successful – I would just call and make sure it was okay to pick up, pick it up and gas it up, and use it, and return it.  I won’t go into the details of why this “sharing” system became insufficient for my needs, but eventually I did decide that I had to break down and get my own mowing device.
3. My own gas powered mower.
   Oh, wow, there’s nothing like it is there?  Pour a little dinosaur juice in a hole, crank that puppy up, and you’re wreaking havoc on that grass left and right.  Let me show you exactly how tall you’re going to be, little plants!  Oh, and the smell! – oh, wait, no, that’s kind of gross since it’s that gas smell.  But the sounds!  Oh, wait, no, it’s actually kind of annoying and loud, and especially if you’re a neighbor trying to enjoy your back porch or have dinner or sleep in or meditate.  But the energy efficiency!  All we have to do is drill deeply enough in the Earth to convert ancient sunlight from millions of years ago into a highly flammable substance, truck it across thousands of miles, and sell it to each other all so that we don’t have to put too much physical effort into carving up the plant life that we voluntarily arranged around our living spaces.

   Oh wait, maybe there’s a better way.

4. The scythe.
   I asked myself, “how did people mow their yards before there were lawn mowers?”  The answer (when it wasn’t, “they didn’t”) was “with a scythe.”  I read about the amazing, almost meditative practice of standing in the grass, quietly whisking a scythe blade back and forth around you, falling the grass quickly and peacefully.  It sounded great, and I decided I wanted to try using a scythe to mow my yard.  I had one custom-built for me by the amazing craftsman at Scythe Supply, located in Maine.  I was giddy with excitement when it came and while I put it together, and then I realized, I have absolutely no idea how to use this thing. I read up on scythe usage on the Internet, and I read the book that came with it, and that was definitely helpful.  I tried my best to put it into practice, and did quite a number on my yard in the process.  Somehow “Figure 4-1″ wasn’t happening.  I tried it a few more times, doing my best to keep from turning red as the neighbors looked on at the crazy guy with the death blade next door, but the rhythmic cutting motion didn’t come to me.  I realized that this simple but useful knowledge – how to cut grass with a scythe – was something I would need to learn in person from someone who already knew how to do it.  And then I realized that the number of people with that knowledge in my area is probably minimal, and the psychological barriers to using my scythe built up from there.  I still want to learn how to use it for real, but after a long week and a unruly yard staring me down, I haven’t found the patience for that yet.
5. A human powered push mower.
   Ding ding ding – we have a winner.  This is the technology that I guess emerged post-scythe and pre-gas mower.  You know what I’m talking about, right – it’s the cylindrical blades that rotate around as you push the mower device, trapping the grass between the blade and another plate, slicing it off.  They’re quiet, mostly effective, and (for my yard anyway) a good balance of appropriate physical effort and time efficiency. They should generally last many years without maintenance or sharpening, and they don’t take up much space at all.  I settled on the Scotts 2000 Classic model, which has a 20″ deck on it.  You know this last size detail is a big deal because it is written in italics on the box AND on the mower itself.  It’s taken me around 45 minutes to mow my current yard with a gas mower, and tonight it took me 50 minutes to put the Scotts 2000 together AND mow.  (“Ah,” you say, “we’re being subjected to this blog post because you happened to mow your yard tonight?  Get a life!”)

   Anyway, I know that not everyone can take the time to use a push mower, but if you can at least see all of your yard from one place without needing to walk for a mile, or even if you can’t and just want some more quiet outdoors time, I recommend it.

Okay, that’s my mowing history.  I welcome your comments, suggestions, alternate realities, etc.  If you want to try out any of these implements or strategies (remember, “sharing”) just let me know.  And remember, ask about someone’s mowing history before you get too close to them (and especially before you mow together) – it could save you a lot of heartache later.

Our culture likes to take the old and repackage it as the new so it’s more exciting and engaging. I don’t have any problem with that per se – there can be something creative and innovative in finding different ways to present ideas, world-views, ways of living so that they’re more accessible to more people. We all go through different kinds of personal discovery about what we’re capable of, so why not have a “new movement” that helps support and nurture that for folks who are in that place right now?

This is what I thought I was being pitched when I got an invitation to subscribe to Ready Made magazine, which presents itself as “the only do-it-yourself (DIY)/lifestyle magazine for young people. It entertains and informs through DIY projects for fast-evolving lifestyles.” It sounded like a good support resource for learning more about self-sufficient living. I showed the invite to Anna Lisa and we both agreed that it looked like it would be useful, AND that we were excited such a publication existed at all. But when the first issue arrived, it only took me a few hours before I knew we’d be canceling the subscription. Here’s why:

Despite a couple of useful articles, the issue of Ready Made that we received (Oct/Nov 2008) seemed to be a thinly veiled handbook for excelling in the consumerist, image-obsessed culture of which the DIY movement (as I understand it) is inherently critical.

The publication itself is very glossy and polished, full of flashy ads and artwork, airbrushed models, and beautiful photos that set the bar super high for even the most dedicated do-it-yourselfer. It feels like an issue of “Teen Better Homes and Gardens,” not a rag that is all about making the most of sufficiency in resources. I can see how this style would engage a younger audience used to the glitz, and I won’t begrudge them their success if indeed the approach works, but I found it to be an unfortunate mental disconnect between the message and the presentation.

The DIY projects that they cover range from the somewhat practical (various pumpkin recipes, how to give an effective presentation, building a loft bed, storing your bicycle on the ceiling) to fun and quirky (various pet furniture, bamboo drum brushes) to the outright gratuitous (designer miniaturist models?). And in the end, many articles were just an introduction to more products you can buy…a $54 cushion to hold your produce on your kitchen counter-top, a $179 work table, a $200 gadget holder. And that’s in addition to the various free-standing ads for cars, beauty products, alcohol and bottled water.

Again, I’m not saying this kind of publication won’t be interesting or useful to someone out there…it’s just about expectations. If I’d picked up a standard home improvement magazine and seen some of this stuff I would have been thrilled about it, but when I was expecting a publication to capture the DIY ethic and got Ready Made instead, I was disappointed. I have enough troubling or misleading marketing images hitting me every day that I don’t need to pay for a subscription to a magazine that unnecessarily glamorizes the otherwise moderately useful bits of information.

Ready Made magazine might be a great introduction to the concept and practice of DIY for a high-school or college-aged person who is otherwise thoroughly engrossed in the culture of “when you need something or something breaks, you go shopping.” But for someone who’s already used to doing it themselves, I’d suggest you skip the magazine subscription, use their online project archive as needed, and move on to other, more authentic DIY resources instead.

Before I tell you more about how it works, let me first assure you that I’ve tried the alternatives:

Past Solutions

• I have carried a Franklin Covey Day Planner around, and it wasn’t too bad. Plenty of space to keep track of events and to look into the future. But it felt like a waste of paper, and I felt silly buying filler replacement kits every year. I also noted that as my todo lists grew more complex and with varying priorities and deadlines, it was much harder to get the big picture of what to be working on.
• I have carried around a Palm Pilot PDA, and it’s probably the closest I’ve come to finding a solution that involves an electronic device. Manage calendar items and todo lists on my desktop computer, sync it with my Palm, manage them there, sync them back, and presto. But I didn’t like the awkward geek factor I felt in busting it out at meetings and in public places – especially since I used the optional portable unfolding keyboard – despite (or maybe because of) the fact that I geek out in plenty of other ways. I also found that even though it was pretty small and convenient to transport, it was still an expensive thing that I had to remember to carry around with me all the time, and I felt a bit tethered by it. Subconsciously, I think I want to know that at any minute I can jump in a lake and not have not to worry about what devices I’m ruining.
• The sense of tethering was probably why I thought the Timex Ironman Data Link Watch would be such a good solution. This puppy was straight out of a James Bond movie or something like that, at least back in 1999 when I had it. You could manage your events, contacts and todo items on a computer, and then synchronize it to this wristwatch just by holding the watch up to your computer screen! Yeah, I know. You could even add some stuff to the watch while you were away from the computer and then sync it back later, though the interface for typing was limited to the four or five buttons it had. I *thought* it was cool and it was a conversation starter at parties, but somehow those conversations never went very far, and looking back, I think people were just humoring me while they planned the most direct route to the punchbowl. Stupid parties.
• I have tried Getting Things Done (GTD), mostly in the form of various software packages for the Mac, and so far, I can’t say that I like it. I probably started out with a predisposition to dislike it because of all of the hype it received, but even so I just didn’t find it to be that revolutionary, and in some cases, found the structure it imposed to be too much. I’m glad it’s working so well for so many, but it didn’t stick for me, at least not in the form of a software tool.
• I’ve tried using my cell phone as a PDA, and it worked okay for a while. It was a lot harder in the days when the synchronizing involved manual copying and/or fumbling with cables, but now that Bluetooth is pretty standard, I can get my calendar, contacts and notes synced up pretty quickly. The problem is that I just hate having to type anything using a cell phone keypad…some people have that down, but I am NOT a fast texter. I also notice that the screens on most cell phones are too small for meaningful interfacing with, say, a week or month calendar view.
• I use a Powerbook laptop for most all of my computing needs, and it’s a logical choice to have as a single organizational gadget. It’s where I maintain my primary calendar and addressbook, and there are myriad todo-list managers out there. But I come back to the same distaste for having to carry a computer with me just to be on top of all the stuff I want to be doing. It works sometimes, but there are still meetings, trips, walks, etc. where lugging a laptop along is too much.

FAIL

Okay, so you see that I’ve experimented quite a bit…this hasn’t been cheap, either. Between the gadget prices (only part of which were ever recovered on eBay) and the significant time spent, this has certainly been an exercise in poor return on investment. I’ll also take a moment to say that I fully recognize that a life and culture requiring such ridiculous mechanisms just to have a smooth daily existence is probably in need of some serious examination.

But, I hope you’ll believe me when I say that this isn’t the result of some dysfunctional lack of self-discipline or self-created artificial busyness just so I can feel important. I take on a lot of stuff, and I like to leave as much of my brain as possible available for creative fun stuff instead of “administrivia.” So I like to have stuff written down, externalized, discretely managed.

The Envelope System

And so it’s writing down that I do. On plain white 9 1/2″ by 4 1/8″ envelopes that have been sent to me and opened, their contents long gone but their utility still very much intact.

My main envelope is usually divided into four quadrants, denoted by folding the envelope in half the long way and then orienting it vertically, one column of items in each quadrant. Each quadrant is devoted to a major part of how I spend my time…for some time now, three of them have been devoted to Summersault and one of them to personal projects.

Until recently, I was using that last column for both personal items (“pick up some soy milk”) and organizational items (“review the minutes from the board meeting”), but organizations now have their own envelope, also in quadrants.

If a quadrant has so many items in it that they don’t fit in the single column, then I know I have laid out too many things to do in the near future; tasks that won’t REALLY require my immediate attention then go into other organizational structures for later retrieval (whiteboards, software ticketing systems, etc.)

The main envelope usually only lasts about 1-2 weeks before it needs to be replaced. Fortunately, used plain white envelopes are plentiful and free.

The benefits are clear:

• I can pretty much take the envelopes with me wherever I go, and I can update their contents at any time without being self-conscious of using an electronic device inappropriately.
• The system doesn’t require any financial investment beyond being the recipient of postal mail.
• Depending on what kind of ink I use, I can probably jump into a lake and be okay.
• Re-using existing resources!

Some drawbacks:

• I still can’t schedule future events in real time unless I have my laptop with me too.
• I tend not to make backups of the envelopes, so if I lose them (which happens rarely), I’ll have to count on things being important enough to make their way back to my mental list so that I can then re-record them on paper.
• People who have been using paper to manage their todo lists forever can laugh at me for thinking this system is anything new.

So, that’s what I’ve got. I put it out there in part to see if anyone wants to improve upon it (please, resist the urge to tell me to get an iPhone), but for now the simplicity and reliability is hard to beat.

Completely unrelated, I’m now trying out Twitter myself. I could tell you that I’m not doing it for the fame or the money or the inevitable product endorsement requests I’ll get. I could tell you that it’s purely a professional endeavor as I continue to try to keep my finger on the pulse of Internet culture. I could tell you about how I’m trying out different Twitter interfaces, APIs, applications, and related tools as a part of research for various projects.

All of these things might be true to some degree, but really, at some base level, I don’t know why I’m doing it, and I reserve the right to pull the eject handle at any time. But for now – cringe – I’m there.

I had a moment of awakening about this a number of years ago when I was sitting in a local hair stylist’s chair having my hair cut. On my recent visits I had been observing the process more closely than prior haircuts in my life, and partly out of resentment for the $15 I was paying per 10-minute haircut, partly out of an engineer’s curiosity, I starting asking questions about where her equipment came from. Together we concluded that she was using a trimmer I could get at a local store for about $20, and therefore that the main value she brought to the process was the ability to see the whole of my head to trim it when I could not. Ah-ha.

So, I went out and bought my trimming set, and then went home to design a mirror rigging system that would allow me to see all of my hair at once, and a guide system that would prevent me from making my rear neck hairline too short or uneven. I started cutting my hair at home after that, and apart from a few special cases, haven’t paid for a haircut since. This has been a good thing, but for some reason, it was a difficult leap to decide that I could do it myself. After all, I’d always had my hair cut by someone else – why would it work any other way?

I think we are pretty heavily conditioned to avoid such leaps. Our consumerist-driven world loves that we’ve outsourced so many basic functions of day-to-day life to its storefronts, and it doesn’t want us to go back to the “do it yourself” mentality that drove so much innovation and self-sufficiency in past versions of humanity. In fact, the modern world requires that things break frequently, and that we pick up the phone and the credit card at the first sign that they might be breaking. It requires that we know little to nothing about where our food comes from, and that we pay outrageous prices for produce that can be grown for significantly less on our own. This culture requires that we forget how to make or repair or even operate the basic tools we use every day, because then we are dependent on the people and power structures that do have control over that knowledge, and we pay them to make the world right again. It doesn’t mind reinforcing our fears, either: what if we try to do it ourselves and it doesn’t work? What if we get lost? What if we can’t defend ourselves or our family against a terrorist? Surely we’re not qualified? Surely we don’t have the right tools? What if we don’t have the right standard of living? What if…?

The haircut example is perhaps a pretty benign one. (For those patrons who required more than the uniform trimming, the stylist did provide a needed sense of style and, because that took longer than 10 minutes, a kind of relationship that is probably pretty far from exploitative.) But with that milestone of self-cutting independence under my belt, I was set on a course toward some other kinds of self-sufficiency that I perhaps hadn’t imagined possible before.

For a time shortly thereafter, I lived on a small organic farm and had a daily participation in planting, growing and harvesting much more of the food that I ate. I made contact with the land that helped to feed me, and listened to what it had to say, and tried to do what it asked. I learned to cook, and to cook with the harvest that was available, instead of just what was convenient or cheap. I learned to store food, to make it last. In time, I felt much less clueless about how to sustain myself, less dependent on a grocery store for this basic daily need of food.

Every time I’ve had to hire someone to do some repair work for me, I’ve watched closely, asked them about what they were doing, and then gone out to read about it and learn more. The result has been that I’m much more bold about taking on home improvement projects that I would have previously been too intimidated to even think about. I’ve now installed light fixtures, replaced kitchen faucets, repaired walls, hung shelves, painted entire rooms, installed a trailer hitch on my car, flown a small plane, wired up telephone and Internet networks, run coaxial cable, and so many other things that I wish I’d learned about a long time ago.

Of course, doing it yourself doesn’t always mean doing it alone. All of my above adventures were accelerated greatly (and sometimes enabled entirely) by the knowledge of others, not to mention by some social and economic privilege. None of us can be specialists or knowledgeable in every area needed for survival or comfort, so there are great benefits that come from living in community where we distribute those responsibilities, and from being able to learn from others. If Alice is the community metal-smith, then maybe she doesn’t have to worry about being a good cook because Jake has dinner taken care of (as long as Alice sharpens his good kitchen knife when it dulls).

Recently a friend began teaching me a bit about forging metal, and while it may not be a calling for me to be the community metal-smith, it was one of those experiences that showed me what was possible for the first time, and I went home and looked at my kitchen knives with a whole new sense of awe. Running coax cable is great to know, but it’s these more base skills that interest me now; forging tools, learning more about four-season gardening, finding out how not just to survive in the “elements,” but to thrive in them. These skills feel real, globally applicable, like they’ll be useful no matter what.

There are still plenty of things that I don’t take on myself. I don’t change the oil in my car. I don’t perform surgery on myself, even with my mirror rigging system. I don’t make soy milk (though I do have a tofu-maker raring to go in the basement). This week alone, I’ve paid a substantial amount of money to have someone else tell me how much I still owe the IRS for the Iraq war effort, and I’m about to pay an only slightly less substantial amount to someone who knows how to repair a refrigerator that’s got all sorts of problems. I hope it doesn’t sound too strange that I have zero interest in being able to do my taxes (made immensely complex by my ownership of businesses, “thanks!” says the global economy), but I was watching that appliance repairman like a hawk as he put on the bullet piercing valves so he could attach his pressure gauge, wondering where I could get one of those myself for next time.

What are the things you want to better learn to do for yourself? What are the things you can’t imagine doing yourself? What parts of your life depend on complexity that is beyond your reach? What parts of your life would benefit from a community that fills in the gaps?