Michael Janzen

Back in 2005 I launched a website that was part car blog and free classifieds; but it never went anywhere. A few years ago I completely lost interest in cars because I came to the realization that they were one of the key elements leading to the potential demise of our civilization.

OK, OK, I know that sounds a little crazy… OK, OK, a lot crazy… but here’s my thinking:

1. Cars burn gas.
2. Cars are becoming more common place around the globe.
3. More gas is being burned everyday as more people drive cars.
4. Gas is a fossil fuel.
5. Fossil fuels are a non-renewable natural resource.
6. We will run out of oil.
7. Oil is the life blood of the global economy.
8. People naturally change slowly.
9. When we run out of oil most people will be taken by surprise.
10. The forced sudden change will cause a major disruption across the globe.

Fossil fuels are such an enormous part of our world today that when it finally becomes scarce it is only logical that big change will be a reality. I think it will be sudden because the people that own the oil will want to continue to keep profits high until they run out of gas. There is no business justificaiton to give us warning. There is a business justification to put more profits into alternatives to oil.

For example we’ve seen an enormous increase in coal mining and America has one of the largest coal reserves in the world. Today 50% of our electricity comes from burning coal. It’s too bad the energy companies and our government didn’t choose to put more effort into renewable resources. Now we can look forward to peak oil and peak coal.

When all this peaking comes down I don’t think will not be the end of civilization, but i do think it will bring about some very tough times. Our lifestyles will be forced to change. Where we get our food, how we live, where we live, and how we get around will all need to adjust during this period of time between running out of fossil fuels and inventing new renewable energy sources.

The length of this gap will be determined by combination of things like human ingenuity, global conflicts, corporate and government policies, and our own personal choices. Since we have the most influence over our own choices it seems like that’s a great place to start to prepare. We can begin making lifestyle changes now and become more self-sufficient and learn live more sustainability. We can also choose to change how we travel and how often.

This is the kind of thinking that recently inspired me to begin blogging about post-peak oil transportation options. I’ll cover thing like electric cars, air-powered cars, plug-in hybrids, and human-powered machines.

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A small group of us small house bloggers & advocates launched a bi-weekly webzine on the small home movement. It’s called the Small Living Journal. Every two weeks we’ll all write on the same topic from our various perspectives. The first issue is out today and is simply introductons! The next issue will be on downsizing. Take a look at the Small Living Journalмебели софия.

Just for fun I made this little t-shirt at zazzle.com. As you can see it’s a relevant tiny house living quote from Henry David Thoreau. One of the cool features at zazzle.com is that you can change the color and style of garment. So if black isn’t your color you can pick another item to put the quote. The proceeds help fund my tiny house blogging. Oh have you seen my first set of free tiny house plans? See the t-shirt.

Katie and I did a quick pallet run this morning before work and picked up a good load of pallets for the tiny free house. Here’s Katie patiently waiting for her crazy daddy.

I made some good progress on the tiny free house this weekend (actually Friday and Saturday). It’s been a real struggle making time to go up to the farm to work on it. Here are some photos of Katie helping out her dad

More more about this project see the Tiny Free House Blog.

I also post updates on Tiny House Forum.

This is a pretty cool day for me; I’ve never been in the New York Times before. A few months ago I started a little project, actually a tiny free house project, in an attempt to better understand my own values. I had also been admiring the people behind the tiny house movement for the freedom they have achieved. I wanted to built a tiny house too but do it with a different spin. My first tiny house would be free and made from reclaimed and recycled stuff. In fact I’m building it from mostly trashed wood pallets. You can follow my progress on my Tiny Free House blog.

If you’re interested in tiny house design I’ve got a blog on that too, tinyhousedesign.com. But by all means read the article in the New York Times. Photo credit, New York Times.

Right after I started my tiny house project, The Tiny Free House, a reporter named Steven Kurutz contacted me curious about the project. In the following weeks the Times sent out a couple photographers and Steven interviewed me by phone a couple of times.

Steven just called me to check some facts about the story and told me it’s scheduled to run tomorrow as the lead story in the Home & Garden section (I think that’s the right section). I have to say… I’m very excited.

I recently decided to try an experiment for publishing my first book, Do It Yourself Freedom. Instead of seeking a publishe, I’m going to post the book as a blog one section per post. It’s broken into almost 100 different small pieces so it’s perfect for publishing in a blog format. Once the entire book is complete, edited and online I’ll publish a print version and offer it for sale on Lulu.com.

From a business perspective I’m giving up some book sales by making the full text available online. But I’ll also monetize the blog with ads. I suspect that some people will like the content enough to buy the paper version which I’ll make at least $2 from each sale. Other readers will be happy to read the book online and might also find the relevant ads valuable too, generating another income stream.

The experiment will test is the ad revenue will generate as the sale of printed books? If I were a popular author I’d guess that I’d make less money doing it this way. But since this is my first book I figure it’s a good way to get my name out there faster while still providing myself a potential ad revenue stream.

The other benefit is I’ll get it done. I back burnered it a few months ago. It needs a final edit and by posting it one piece at a time as a blog it’s taken the pressure off me to get it perfect for print. I’ll also get some feedback from readers which should help fuel my creativity. I hope you enjoy reading Do It Yourself Freedom.

Since last summer, as the value in my house evaporated, I’ve been spending a lot of time noodling over issues like the real value of our homes. I’ve come to a simple conclusion, which should be fairly obvious and should go without saying, the value of our house is completely market driven. In other words the price of a house is completely dependent on what someone else is willing to pay for it. Normally I would choose to avoid a word like completely but in this case I think it’s 100% accurate.

According to Zillow.com my house is worth 35% less than about a year ago. Yeah YIKES! The house didn’t change. The number of rooms and square feet have stayed the same. Mortgage rates are about the same. The only thing that changed was the demand for homes in my area. Anyway as you can imagine this little fact got me thinking about the true value of a home.

At this point I’m certain that the true value of a home should be measured in security and usefulness, not square feet, number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Yeah sure a home has to be big enough to meet the needs of the people living there but avoiding a big mortgage (or any mortgage) seems like it should higher on our list of priorities. But I digress…

Recently two movements came into my awareness, mostly thanks to my wife Julia and Oprah. Julia doesn’t watch Oprah very much anymore with Katie’s nap time often overlapping with Oprah but on two occasions she called me into the living room, (I work from home 100% of the time for a giant bank), to show me a story on tiny houses and a separate story on freegans.

More recently, after much baking in my brain, I become a bit obsessed with building two tiny houses, NINE TINY FEET and TINY FREE HOUSE. I’ve started blogs on both to capture the progress and help drive me along. Both house projects are inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond, freegans, the tiny house movement, and the evaporation of my home’s equity.

NINE TINY FEET is all about building the smallest house possible while still being useful and meeting the requirements of one person. I’ll keep the budget low on this one but I expect to spend a little money.

TINY FREE HOUSE is about building a free house with reclaimed building materials and wood from old discarded pallets. For the few items I’ll need to buy (screws, nails, hinges, etc), I’ll make the money to buy them by selling free stuff I find on craigslist.

The other day a reporter, (Steven Kurtz), from the New York Times contacted me interested in doing a story on the TINY FREE HOUSE. I’m guessing I’m not alone in my ponderings and maybe not as crazy as I might appear. OR… I am as crazy as I appear and the New York Times thinks people will enjoy reading about a crazy guy. In any event I’m crazy enough not to really care [LOL]. I’m happy to share my story, point of view, and projects with them.Maybe someone will get something valuable out the story.

I’ll post updates here about my continuing conversations with the Times and if anything comes from them. I’d also love to hear any feedback, stories, or ideas you might have about my tiny house projects, the economy, home values, etc. Comments?

So here’s an idea for my domain definitely.com, if I keep it. How about a web2.0 review site that lets people post reviews on anything? It would be a simple post and search site with a detail page for each thing reviewed. I could also build a couple little code snippets to make it easier for people to add reviews to their website, their score, etc. Ideally I’d like to start with a big database of reviews. I’ll have to see if someone offers mashable review data. What do you think?