Yes Really: Trash can be minimized December 29, 2007
Posted by onemouthband in : Inspiries, Randomnimity , add a comment
As consumers, we all have say-so about what gets made. We tend to wield this power poorly, but strikingly simple choices can have astonishing results. Here’s and example:
In my 2-person household, we generate only about one small cereal bag worth of landfill trash per week. How? I do most of the shopping, and I just don’t buy stuff that can’t be recycled or composted if I can help it. It’s that simple. We canceled our trash pickup and simply dispose of this meager refuse on our way in to the supermarket where most of it comes from.
What is left? Thin plastic packaging mostly, and that is truly hard to avoid. Usually dental floss and cotton swabs, bent staples and paperclips, broken rubber bands and any other small detritus not built for consistent reuse. Occasionally a spent lightbulb or toothpaste tube…
What’s not trash at our house?
- Glass, aluminum, paper, cardboard, etc. - This is all called recycling. Since we don’t have curbside in our neck of the woods, we sort it and drive it into town as needed while running other errands.
- Hard plastic - If it comes in plastic, we avoid it. If there are no available alternatives (yogurt, cottage cheese, etc.), look for brands that use either #1 or #2 plastic which is easiest to recycle. You don’t need to deprive yourself of essentials, there are almost always other packaging choices (i.e. roll-on deodorant instead of stick).
- Food - That’s compost, for the most part. Of course dead flowers and plants go this way too. We’re not vegetarians though, and any meaty/oily scraps go outside for the neighborhood cats and our resident raven to cart away.
- Batteries, broken electronics, etc. - These should not be trash at your house either because they are toxic. It’s actually illegal to put such things in your trash in California, so there are specific free recycling days for this stuff and facilities you can pay to take it off your hands anytime. Yes there are plenty of scandals and dirty secrets about what happens after that, but your local landfill is obviously not the solution.
- Used clothes & stupid stuff - Goodwill, Salvation Army, Hospice Rummage Shop, etc. are all great places to unload these.
- Styrofoam - Now this one is only for the hardcore. It used to be that it was accepted at recycling centers, but now it’s not because it seems nobody really knows what to do with the stuff. We don’t let it in the door if we can help it, but for the stuff that finds its way in, we have taken the intentionally drastic step of mailing it back to the president of the company that it came from. Yes, it costs some postage (not much, it’s light after all!), but that is offset from what we get from turning in our bottles and cans, and remember our trash pickup bill is $0. The ecological statement may never make it to the intended recipient, but at least there’s some justice in styrofoam again being the property of it’s creator.
So what is in your trash? Take a look at what’s there and ask yourself:
- What did it take to make this?
- Do I really need bring this in my home?
- What happens to this when it breaks / breaks down?
- Where will this be in the period between 50 and 50-million years from now?
Singing For Your Life - 2007 December 28, 2007
Posted by onemouthband in : Music, SoVoSo , add a commentJoin me, SoVoSo, and special guests in a 12-hour Circlesong, as we close 2007 with much to remember, and much to look forward to! Sing the Old Year out with us - or just relax and listen to the continuous, spontaneous song of closure and renewal. Sing & meditate, gather & reflect, become inspired by the spirit of peace in music and transformation.
Singers from all over the Bay Area and beyond participate in this revived tradition! Originated by Bobby McFerrin and Voicestra, this popular ritual was held at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral until 1999. In 2002, Arts First Oakland brought Singing For Your Life to Oakland, where it has taken root as a 12-hour event with an East Bay flavor. Plan to join us at the First Congregational Church at 2501 Harrison Street (at 27th), Oakland, CA. Suggested Donation $10 and up, sliding scale, no-one turned away for lack of funds.
Loss of Wisdom December 20, 2007
Posted by onemouthband in : Notes to Self, Randomnimity , add a comment
This morning I had my wisdom teeth removed. Well, technically, just my third molars (#1 and #16), but for me it meant more.
Dentists have been telling me for half my life that these teeth would need to be removed because I only had them on the top, and with nothing to oppose them they would eventually dig into my jaw. Being the skeptic I am, I preferred to wait until this was within 1mm of happening. By this time the teeth in question were about an inch long, and with such long roots that they required an oral surgeon to remove. Dr. Tolstunov (who looks to me like a kinder, gentler Vladimir Putin, though I doubt he’d appreciate the comparison) managed to remove them in about 5-minutes without an incision, stitch, or anything more than novacaine and what looked like fancy pliers. Aside from some disconcerting crackling that reverberated through my skull, I wouldn’t have even known what was up. Nice work, Doc!
The brevity rather disoriented me from my symbolic intent. I wanted to focus my time in the chair on giving up my wisdom, letting go of my sense of deep knowing. As long I as I can remember, I’ve always been consoled, grounded, saddened and satisfied by this inner sense of place and purpose. It’s not something I generally know how to make manifest in the world or interpret with reliability, but it does pull me through the world and always has. It’s gotten me in a bit of trouble in some regards lately, and part of me wants to be able to let it go. I have ignored my innate wisdom before, and always at my peril, but I’ve never really tried letting go of my need for it. Seems like a good thing to try.
Easier said than done. The teeth came out fine, and I’m recovering nicely. My need for wisdom has yet to be extracted…
It doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be done. December 19, 2007
Posted by onemouthband in : Inspiries, Notes to Self, Productivity , add a comment
So many projects are started with the idea, “I’ll complete this piece, then this piece, then the next…” and go through the subsequent agony of incompleteness. The problem is that you can’t usually finish the first part until you have a sense of the whole. Revisions are an inevitability of a job well done.
Take my recent instructional design work, I could “finish” module one, then work on module two, or any modules in any sequence — but a linear fashion. Or I could work the overall course first, parse it down to modules, and focus in and clean up or flesh out whatever parts look like they need work on any given day. Non-linear productivity!
I had temporarily forgotten my trademark “it doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be done” approach until just yesterday. This is not a cop-out or compromise on quality for me. What it means is that if I can give myself permission to produce something that merely meets the deadline (preferably before the delivery date), I can then spend the remaining time focusing and refinishing the product until it is actually good. Better in fact, than I could have produced given the same timeline and a loftier goal.
New mixes from The Irrationals December 13, 2007
Posted by onemouthband in : Music, The Irrationals , add a comment
Just in time for the holidays, we finished mixes of four new songs for our upcoming CD “Done Waiting” last weekend. The title track is written and funkily lead by yours truly, but this pre-release also features Gwen McElwee’s epic “Everything and Nothing”, and Linda and Renee on “Trouble Now” and “Livin’ on the Edge” (both written by a good friend of The Irrationals, Susan Anders).
Samples will be posted at The-Irrationals.com soon. And we’ll be using this CD to help raise funds for finishing the rest of the album. Stay tuned for details!
Cutting through bureaucracy on the phone December 9, 2007
Posted by onemouthband in : Productivity, Recommendations , add a comment
By the time I have to resort to actually calling a company on the phone, I have done my homework. I’ve tried their website, I’ve tried the chat or email support (if available), I’ve usually done a general search on the net to see if there are any posts from folks who’ve had the same issue. I don’t want to spend any time navigating the voicemail options serve simply to delay me from my end result: a person.
As in my last post, there are ways around this. Check out GetHuman.com for great ways to reach a real person at any of hundreds of companies, quickly. It won’t help you through the hold music, but it will get you in line for a person right away.
Skipping excessive voicemail greetings December 3, 2007
Posted by onemouthband in : Notes to Self, Productivity , 1 comment so far
I recently added Stever Robbins’ Get It Done Guy podcast to my regular listening. Here’s a timesaving tip that’s so useful I just had to share!
Most voice-mail systems, the corporate ones, will let you skip the prompt by pressing pound (#), one (1), or star key (*). You may have to experiment to know which one works on a given person’s voice-mail system, but for people you call a lot, just record it in a note in their address book entry.
For cell phones, the major carriers are easy…
• For T-Mobile, press the pound button (#)
• For Sprint, press the number one (1)
• For Cingular/AT&T, press the star button (*)
• For Verizon, also press the star button (*)
On Backups
Posted by onemouthband in : Mac, Recommendations, Tech , add a comment
I am tired of dealing with problems from clients/friends/family who didn’t bother to figure out how to backup their stuff, or just forget to do so…for a few years. Listen people, by not backing up data you are essentially declaring to the universe “This information is not important to me, take it away whenever you wish.” Hard drives fail, viruses disable, software conflicts, updates stall, drinks spill. You know, stuff happens! The good news is that it doesn’t have to be a big deal.
If you are your own IT department too, here’s my suggestion. Archive annually, backup weekly. On my MacBook Pro, I’m running SuperDuper that automatically backs up to my external hard drive Wednesdays at 1AM. This program has all sorts of great features, but it is my favorite because it actually creates a bootable copy of your computer hard drive. Very handy for when something breaks and you’re still needing to get work out the door.
It would be better if I backed up to an offsite storage service so I could backup when on the road. It would be better if I backed stuff up more often. It would be better if I went through and archived everything I could off to disc more than once a year. I’ve played with those things and more, but hey, at any given moment I’ve got a backup I can take to any Kinko’s and go. Can you say that? If not, do us both a favor and do something about it now, before the inevitable happens to your beloved machine.
