Why We Travel By Train

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Thoughtstylings
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Amtrak ain’t this grand, but it’s a lot better than flying! Photo via the Library of Congress.

We’re headed up to Northern California, Oregon and Washington to promote our new book Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World. And, with the exception of the San Francisco to Seattle leg, we’re traveling by train. Why do this when it’s more expensive, time consuming and probably makes our dear publisher Rodale think we’re crazy?

One word: dignity. With train travel:

  • No porno-scanners or groping, i.e., no unconstitutional searches.
  • I can carry my multi-tool.
  • Leg room.
  • If I don’t like where I’m sitting I can move.
  • I can relax, sit at a table, read, work and write.

I could rant about the superiority of rail travel at length but Archdruid John Michal Greer sums it up better than I can in a blog post, “Too Much Energy?” No more flightmares for the Root Simple team!

See a list of our appearances here. 

Contest Winners!

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Miscellaneous
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An excuse for another kitten photograph

It’s the release day for Making It, and we’re celebrating by giving away two copies of the book.

First, we want to say again how much we enjoyed reading all of your tips. They are excellent, without exception, and should be compiled into a book or something. We’re pondering on some way to highlight that post so that future readers can find the tips.

Second, we’re glad we don’t have to choose among them–because that would be impossible.

So we went to an online random generator and asked it to generate 2 numbers between 1 and 203.

It came up with 42 and 119.

(Yes, 42! This delights Kelly’s inner geek. Erik doesn’t know why it delights her.)

Then we counted the comments, grumbling over the fact they are not numbered. Twice.

And the winners are:

42:

Rachel said…
Birds will not peck at the same fruit/vegetable they pecked yesterday. They’ll go for a new piece every time!

119:

Tina said…
I like making stock out of veges that are not going to get eaten and then freezing them. I make it concentrated so that the stock doesnt take up much room in freezer.

So Tina and Rachel, congrats! If you’ll both email [email protected] with your shipping addresses, we’ll send you a book. Please write soon, or you’ll have to wait for your books until we get back from our tour.

And for the rest of you, thanks for entering, and don’t worry! We’ll be doing more giveaways in the months to come.

Making It

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Publications
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Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World, by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen (Rodale Books, 2011)

ISBN-13: 978-1605294629

Buy it at:  Amazon • Abe Books • Barnes & Nobel • Powell’s

Making It provides you with all of the tools you need to become a producer instead of a consumer and transform your home from the ground up. Projects range from the simple to the ambitious, and include activities done in the home, in the garden and out on the streets. Provides step-by-step instructions for a wide range of projects, from building a 99-cent solar oven to making your own laundry soap to instructions for brewing beer. Making It is the go-to source for post-consumer living activities that are fun, inexpensive and eminently doable.

Our goal in this book was to provide really stripped down, simple projects that use only inexpensive, easy to source materials. We also tried to use the same materials and ingredients over and over again, to save you time, money and storage space. The moral of this book is that it doesn’t take much more than creativity to live well.

This book, written by a husband-and-wife team of die-hard DIYers, will leave you thinking you can take on the world and win. —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

My favorite of all these recent books by far… — Kirkus Reviews

Gathering in Portland: Looking for ideas

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Miscellaneous
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Hey all,

We’re visiting in Portland on Tuesday, May 3rd and Wednesday, May 4th as part of our book tour. On the Tuesday we arrive, we’re going to be on KGW’s “Live at 7” program. We’ll be done by 7:15 and have nothing to do afterward. Would anybody like to meet us downtown?

Our idea is that we could settle ourselves at a pub or cafe, and anybody who feels like it could come and hang out with us. We’ll talk about manure the whole night. It’ll be fun!!!

One thing we really need to make this happen is a suggestion for somewhere to meet–otherwise we’re at the mercy of Yelp. We’ll be at Pioneer Courthouse Square, so somewhere within walking distance (or do-able by public transport) would be preferred. It should be quiet enough that we can hear each other speak, and casual enough that we can take up tables whilst nursing a beer or coffee.

So Portlandites(?) Portlanders(?), tell us what you think. We’ll let you make the call.