If you follow me on Twitter (twitter.com/r), you may have caught me mentioning I’m planning to go “Neo-Amish” for a few days. I hadn’t heard the term until earlier this week when Kevin Kelly, who coined the term many years ago, wrote about bloggers, blackberry addicts or the kind of people who stand in the line at an Apple Store, who decide to abandon the devices they use to stay plugged in. No way am I going to do that permanently, but if I wanted to, hey, no problem, I could do it — no, really.. I could quit using this stuff anytime I wanted to. Cold turkey. Really.

In reality, I’m going to be spending the next several days involved in a project that involves cutting up wood. If all goes as planned, I’ll be making a looped-back windsor chair that looks (if I’m lucky) like the one pictured. It’s going to be a full-time focus for several days during which I’ll be spending time with a very talented guy who enjoys teaching people how to keep from cutting off their fingers while making things like windsor chairs. One way to keep from cutting off ones fingers, I’ve been informed, is to avoid text-message while using a lathe. The same goes for using any power tool while Twittering, blogging, or being obsessed with loading apps onto a new iPhone 3G.

Making a windsor chair, I’ve determined, is very 18th century. So I’ll be “offline” entirely during the project.

For the record, I won’t be gadget free. I’m documenting the experience for a magazine and video project. In other words, I’ll still be digital, just not conversationally.

See you back here on July 21.

Okay, I’ve had enough. I’m sick of reading how the “energy crisis” can’t be solved — as if CO2 usage and our dependency on crude oil is somehow unique among every challenge faced and overcome in the history of humankind. (Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?) Nearly everyday, I read about some creative response or promising idea that can lessen our dependency on oil — and always, the article includes an “on-the-other-hand” response from a nay-sayer who points out why the idea won’t work — or won’t work enough to make a dent in the situation. (If it matters, for disclosure purposes, I’ll admit to being more of a “geo-green” than a “global warming green” but I view it as a positive thing that there are reasons people from all parts of the political spectrum can agree that it’s crazy for us to continue our addiction to crude oil — no matter where it comes from.)

For example, there’s an article in today’s Wall Street Journal that suggests the laws of economics actually DO work with oil. High prices DO cause demand to shrink. But I’m sure that by the end of the day, such reality will be countered by economists (or speculators who need to see oil prices rise) with some “on the other hand” factoid that suggests people in China are lining up to purchase SUVs. In a nutshell, here are the standard “however” responses I read every day, no matter what any “solution” or positive development (conservation may be working) is floated:

1. It won’t have any impact for a decade.

2. it may cut down on U.S. consumption, but it won’t cut down on the world’s demand for oil.

3. It will only supply X% (usually less than 3) of the U.S. energy needs.

4. It will cost as much as oil.

5. It will harm the environment.

I’m so tired of reading these fill-in-the-blank “nay-saying” responses, that I’ve decided to list my fill-in-the-blank responses. Here they are:

1. When you’re my age and you’ve gone through at least three “energy crises,” ten years doesn’t seem like that long. (Indeed, I remember one of those AT&T science films from the 1960s that said we’d be at this spot about 20 years ago.)

2. It may not work, but what we are doing now doesn’t work either.

3. The solutions that we find for cutting our demand for oil will also work for other countries’ demand. Do the people in those other countries want to depend on foreign oil? Are they going to repeat all the mistakes we’ve made during the past 50 years?

4. Depending so much on ONE source of energy is what got us into this fix. We shouldn’t be seeking ONE source that will supply 100% of the needs — we need to find 20 different sources that supply 5% each.

5. We should do everything to protect the environment, but what we’re doing to it now is horrific. Every day of debate over hypothetical harm to the environment extends the length of time we’ll be actually harming it.

Okay, I’ve got that rant off my chest. Back to regular programming.