We do it every day and most of the western people do not even think about it.
We are used to the fact that it comes right to us and out of the wall.
We consume loads of it. We use it to clean, to flush the toilet, and to grow our food and feed our animals.
And we also drink it. Everybody can guess what I am talking about: it is Water

But there are people on this planet — and there are a lot of which — who do not have that freedom. Who need to walk miles / kilometers to get to some kind of fountain. Who need to save as much water as they can. And we kind of waste it.

I will not write a lot about this because I think today there are so many people raising the voice about the topic of water since it is the 2010 Blog Action Day, I just want to point you in their direction. There is a problem and that problem is going to get many times greater over time. Get to know a little about it. Maybe adjust your life-style or tell others about it. You can start small!

To End: Some Facts

• Water as a Human Right: In July, the United Nations declared access to clean water and sanitation a human right over objection from the United States. Today, nearly one billion people lack basic access to safe drinking water. More Info »
• Women: In Africa, women are predominantly responsible for collecting water. They walk over 40 billion hours each year carrying cisterns weighing up to 40 pounds to gather water for their community, which is usually still not safe to drink.More Info »
• Children: Every week, nearly 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions. More Info »
• Polluted Oceans: Not only is pollution bad for the environment, it’s also expensive! Death and disease caused by polluted coastal waters costs the global economy $12.8 billion a year. More Info »
• Uninhabitable Rivers: Today, 40% of America’s rivers and 46% of America’s lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life. That’s not surprising considering the fact that 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, storm water, and industrial waste are discharged into US waters annually. More Info »
• Food Footprint: Do you know the water footprint of your food? For example, 75 liters of water are required to make a glass of beer and 15,500 liters to make a kilogram of beef. More Info »
• Water Wars: Many scholar, researchers and political analysts attribute the conflict in Darfur at least in part to lack of access to water. In fact, a report commissioned by the UN Development Program found that in the 21st century, water scarcity will become one of the leading causes of conflict in Africa. More Info »
• Water & Poverty: A lack of water contributes to poverty, with parents and children too ill or too busy collecting water to go to school and work. Water poverty also undermines progress poor countries are making on health – with half of hospital beds taken by people suffering with diarrhoea and dysentery. More Info »
• Technology Footprint: On an average day, 500 billion liters of water travel through US power plants to power all the technology that we use every day. For example, that shiny new iPhone in your pocket requires half a liter of water to charge. That may not seem like much, but with approximately 6.4 million active iPhones in the US, that’s 3.2 million liters to charge those alone. More Info »
• Bottled Water: Even though people in the US have access to clean water from their taps, they drink an average of 200 bottles of water per person each year. Over 17 million barrels of oil are needed to manufacture those water bottles, 86 percent of which will never be recycled. More Info »
• Farmers vs. Animals: As water becomes scarcer in Africa, farmers not only compete with each other but also with other animals, including elephants. Forced into close contact with farmers, elephants destroy crops and wreak havoc on agriculture, causing farmers in turn to resort to violence in order to protect their crops and water sources. More Info »
• Fashion Footprint: That cotton t-shirt you’re wearing right now took 400 gallons of water to produce, and your jeans required an extra 1800 gallons. Not wearing cotton? The dyes and synthetic fibers used to make your clothes create waste that’s among the many contributors to water pollution. More Info »
• Water Celebrities: A number of celebrities have taken up the cause of water and water rights, including Matt Damon , Adrian Grenier , Leonardo DiCaprio , and Will & Jada Smith .

This facts have been compiled by the team of Change.org / Blog Action Day 2010

Tomorrow it is Blog Action Day 2010. The topic is all about water! Make sure you join if you have a website or Blog!

Some years ago I wondert which date writing format would be the best. Some time later I discovered the ISO standard (which I use since). It is like the following:

The ISO date format

The international format defined by ISO (ISO 8601) tries to address all these problems by defining a numerical date system as follows: YYYY-MM-DD where

YYYY is the year [all the digits, i.e. 2012]
MM is the month [01 (January) to 12 (December)]
DD is the day [01 to 31]
For example, “3rd of April 2002″, in this international format is written: 2002-04-03.

~ W3.org

I think that makes it very easy. And one more benefit is: that you can sort folders and files this way very easily!

This time I will post a post which I wrote over a year ago. I wrote it, saved it in a text file and did not edit anything since. I am publishing it the way it was written in 2008.

In this post I’m going to write about ‘Being who you are, and not being somebody else’.
The idea to this post came through the movie ‘Step up 2 the Streets’.

Being who you are sometimes is not easy. But if you do so, the chance that you get your wishes / your dreams to happen like you dreamed them is the most.
When you hear this sentence as a child you maybe would think: ‘How can i be someone else, cause live is to short to be someone else?’ (sad in the movie by Amy)
But when you look at the people – maybe your self – most or at least many of them are trying to be somebody else than they are, many of them are not doing what they want to do.

Often i hear this as an anther: ‘What?, I’m my self even if i try to be somebody else, I’m staying in my body and just do what i want to do, in this case be like or at least be like a part of this other person.’

The thing is, it’s not about this ‘being somebody else’ thing, it’s about doing what you want to do and not doing what people are saying you should do or you have to do.

Sometimes you must do something another person is telling you to do, or example as a child you should do what your parents are telling you, well at least the most of what they are telling you to do, but sometimes you should do what you think is right, especially if its about your live or like in some cases about your love, because in most cases if you didn’t did what you thought is right you wound be happy again or you passed by a rely big chance.

Most of the time it’s about the love or job you want to do. Parents of friends are telling you thats / this person is not the right one for you, but deep in side of you you think ‘Oh yes, this is rely right, thats what i want to do, that is the person i will be together with for the rest of my live. And you are not going for it, you miss a big chance to get the most out of your live.

OK, sometimes you get the chance twice, maybe you learned a job you didn’t want to learn and later you think, ‘OK, now I’m going to get my dream done’ and just make it. But in most cases you wouldn’t get this chance.

Final words:

I just say it again: ‘Be who you are, cause live is to short to be someone else’, and i think thats pretty clear and simple.

Let me know what you think about that thing, being someone else, or being your self, I’m interested in your opinions.

Finally it is over. My first 365.

The first 365 I started was the one with my iPhone the rules had been:

• One Photo per Day
• With the iPhone (no other Way)
• Not edited in any Way
• Uploaded as soon as possible to flickr

That is now over. On September the 30th 2009 I started — September the 30th 2010 it ended.

My thoughts about it are: it was somewhat fun, stress and interesting all at the same time. The stress was to remember, the fun was to think of photos and the interesting part was how I did it all. In the end I missed some days but my rule was to shoot those photos the day after i missed them or later. So there are 365 photos (not yet completed on flickr because I missed the uploading of some too).

Over all I resume:

It was messy! It was not complete and not all the time beautiful but a experience. I did stop now with the iPhone 365 and just finish my self-portrait 365 (which will be finished on January the first 2011.

Overall I do not want to do it again soon. I am happy that it is finished and I can chill out a little. Maybe I will start something similar someday, who knows.

The meaning of this heading is: reduce your belongings to 100 things or less. The first time I read about it I thought it would be impossible. But now I wrote down a list of all the things I own and noticed that I actually am living with less than 100 things.

It is not 100 percent true what I just wrote. Actually I have many more items. But if I would have to get my essentials and through out the other stuff, I would easily be able to get to less than 100.

For me the 3 areas of things I still would take with me are: Computer stuff, Camera stuff and Clothing. Those are for me the most important things. I am still improving on getting out some more to actually get to less than 100 but for now I am astounded that I am—nearly—already there.

Try it your self, write down the things you would think are essential and do not count while writing! When you think you are ready, count everything you put on that list and check if you are over or under 100 items. I would be happy if you send me your results via email, if I get enough responses I’ll publish a post with the statistics. Get counting.

This is the second part of a post about my current dilemma with school, freelance-work and photography. About my passions and my duties. The first post was posted Friday the 24th of September.

Now I would like to write about an idea I got while balancing on my slackline:

I was standing on the rope and wanted to start walking over to the other side. The other side is approximately 5m(~16.4feet) away! I looked down: I was standing about 40cm(~16″) above the earth. I am not scared by that but something happened: I was no longer able to hold the balance and fell from the slackline. I started again and tried it the way I normally walk the line: by looking straight to the other side and it worked perfectly, one foot in front of the other and again.

What I think this told me and how I interpret this: is that you have to have a main long-term goal (in my case the life as a traveling-freelance-photographer and web-worker) on which you set your focus. Over the course you go step by step. Some steps are brining you nearer to the goal, some you need to take to not get out of balance. But you still have to go step by step one foot in front of the other, and those steps are not all just to get to the main goal, some are to achieve just the goal to keep you in balance.

Right now I think the balance steps I take are the procrastination. They keep me balanced and hold me back from going crazy and just skipping school, just throw all down and try get in business tomorrow.

The steps I take to the main goal are the school. It is a kinda weird interpretation because I personally do not believe that I will need the school, I just do it as an insurance for later in life(if I ever want to go to university or some contractor/employer wants to see the graduation certificate) and because I am able to do it. Still for me it is the stuff that needs to get done to achieve the goal. To go through all this with as much happiness as possible and as many achievements as possible.

That means I need a mixture of fun, work and school. While I would count school is equivalent to work and the term work I use for my fun / hobbies. I want to work, I want to do those things, but I do not ‘want’ to go to school.

Still I am going to finish this year of school, I am going to do it the way I think it is best. I am going to keep doing my own stuff. I am going to keep improving non school-taught skills and I am going to have fun doing so!

All in all it is about what I make of it. And still get to my duties and finish what I started. Looking at the next few month:

• We only have three month left in 2010
• That means just 95 days till the first of January 2011
• And just 6 month till June 2011
• In June 2011 I will be done with this school thing!
• That is only 248 days from Today (I am counting days now)!
• I also created a site for my self which is now default start site in all my browsers, counting down the days till my last final exam!

This is to get done and finished! Take step by step and make the time in between as nice and fun as possible!

It was April the 23rd this year that I posted about the topic of focus the first time and it was not the last time. This time I am going to get to the topic again but with a different approach. But still I am not close to perfection in this!

So do not believe me on anything I write here. I currently should be writing my term paper which I have to hand in Friday the 1st of October and that is just in one and a half week from now. But I just took a break from the paper and went out and there are some thoughts I have to get down and out there.

I am currently—again—at school. This year is year #13 which is the last class I will be attending. I could have quit after #12 but I did not and I do not know how to feel about it. I am not happy with my current situation and my future plan does not involve the graduation I am going to get by doing year #13.

I have plans for the future, I want to try things, I want to expand my freelance web-work and my photography. I want to go out there and work, have a routine and a daily interesting and changing life. But what I am at right now is basically the same all day: learn at school, study at home and write test or exams. All I learn in the school I am currently at, I will probably never need in life again. And it is definitely not what I have my passions in.

I would like to get out there doing what I love and that I do already! I am developing a freelance business—have been doing that for years now. I am developing my photography skills and putting some photography out there. I am studying what is going on in social-media to consult other businesses. But what happens through that is that my focus is really off the school! The result is that I get bad—or at least not so good—marks.

The second problem I see is: that I tend to procrastinate a lot in the areas I would like to work. For example with my photography: I am most of the time surfing the net to get to know technics, skills or to search new gear to buy, that does not make me a better photographer—I would need to shoot more—but to shoot is a lot of time and that I do not have—at least I think that way. I would actually have the time if I would stop procrastinating all day long!

By the way: I think the main reason for procrastination is that you do not like the other work or you are scared by the amount of work you have to do. That is exactly why I do not like to get to school stuff. I do not like it and it takes way to long!

This is the first half. The overall post was too long to put it up in one. And I do not have the time to write two posts of this kind this week. The second part gets/got posted Tuesday the 28th of September!

This post is part of the series of posts about Minimalism

In the last post I mentioned the minimalism in Social-Networking, this time I want to get deeper in minimalism at twitter.

I have different uses of Twitter, one is my personal account @cspiegl and than there is my @CHRISSPPhotos for my photography portfolio. Those are my personal accounts but than there are some other accounts I maintain which are for my projects solely (for example @AIDvertisement).

There I have different approaches:

The Personal Account @cspiegl

The personal account is the one I read all what gets written by the people I follow. There I just follow something around 20 people, that is because I do not want to read just tweets all day! But it also is the main account I tweet from about most of the things I am doing or which are inspiring me.

The Project Accounts

There I am not able to read everything what gets written by the people the Project follows. The following at that accounts is mostly to get traffic and gain more followers. But also to brand the account with the right niche.

The tweets sent from those are mainly about the projects itself or about the niche in which the project is in.

Conclusion

Twitter is all about what you make it. I use it in different ways and think they different accounts and usages suite the purpose the best.

If you like follow my personal tweets @cspiegl or take a look at what is happening around @AIDvertisement

This was post number one of the series of posts about Minimalism. Go check out the others

This post is part of the series of posts about Minimalism

Is it even possible to get minimalistic about Social-Networking? I think it is. In my case, the story began with over 50 social-networking-sites I was registered to. Now I am using currently using 3 actively.

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Flickr

That is it! Formally I used friendfeed, plurk, facebook, schuerlervz, studivz, schueler.cc, linkedin, xing, twitter, deviantart, flickr, myspace and may others.

But why did I downsize: the main point about social-networking is that it need a lot of time to maintain. I started getting rid of social-networks I did not have many friends at and which I thought are not that useful. Now I only have the once left where I actually have friends or followers and where I think the information I see mostly is relevant.

While I was closing down many social-networks, I sent all my friends on those networks a note that I am moving on to an other network and send them a link to friend me there or just go to my website. That way I lost just a few along the way.

One thing to note about Social-Networks and communication: if you sent me a message in a social-network, I have to visit the website of the network to answer. Please just sent emails instead, it is easier for both sites! There are no ads in emails and it is much easier to answer to an email than to visit a extra website and answer there.

So here is my email cspiegl@cspiegl.com if you want write me there. You still can follow me at Twitter or friend me on Facebook but if you want to communicate, please use my email-address.

This was post number one of the series of posts about Minimalism. Go check out the others