Chris Hardie's Weblog

Anna Lisa will begin a journey home today from her delegation trip to Hebron, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and at-Tuwani, where she's been for the last several weeks. You can read her latest post on the delegation blog about what it means to say goodbye. This as the news headlines are still filled with stories [...]

Earlier tonight I had the honor of being a guest speaker at the monthly meeting for the Economic Development Corporation of Wayne County's board of directors, presenting a version of my talk on how we can build a more self-reliant Richmond, Indiana in the face of peaking availability of natural energy resources, global climate change, [...]

Today marked the last day of the 2008 Earlham College Senior Disorientation event, which helps soon-to-graduate college seniors to transition to the "real world" more smoothly. I've been participating in the event as a speaker/workshop facilitator since it began, and it's always an interesting experience to interact with "the Earlham kids" with an ever-increasing [...]

To be a creature of habit as I am is to check for the chapstick in your Left pocket where it always is and should be, to not find it there, and to then proceed up and down stairs, in and out of various rooms, checking the left pocket of every other pair of pants [...]

As I mentioned when I came back from the energy conference in October, I was going to give a talk in November called "Going Local: Building a Self-Reliant Richmond, Indiana". I had agreed to speak earlier in the year and didn't really know what I was going to talk about beyond the expectation that [...]

I love Flickr, which shows off the world we live in through the eyes and camera lenses of everyday folks. In the last week I've had a few of my photos posted there (most of which are released under the Creative Commons license) appear in some interesting spots:

Schmap Nashville Travel Guide: a couple of [...]

I just returned from the Fourth Annual U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions, my third year in a row attending. As in years past, it was informative, inspiring and very practical. I've come away with another list of 50 things I want to do in my life and in Richmond [...]

Rest in peace, Rachel Burrell: friend, encourager, piano teacher, visionary, comfort to grieving children everywhere, and an amazing woman.
Seven principles of community building: don't try to control the message, transparency is a must, participation is marketing, concept of audiences is outdated, build value, inspire with real information, manage distribution media to grow.
A new episode of [...]

Join us at Live-Richmond.com for a live blog of the Richmond Mayoral Debate.
Update: My transcript of the mayoral debate is now available.

I've generally been content not having a physical phone line at home and using my cell phone instead. I'm not much of a phone person anyway, my back yard looked a lot nicer when Verizon cut down the unsightly cable, and it's certainly a cost savings. But sometimes, I still long to have [...]