For the past ten years, I’ve lived in your typical suburban, 3/2 brick ranch neighborhood. It has everything you could want for a family: Good schools, nice roads, pleasant landscaping, and even a golf course in the middle of it. The lawns are manicured, the azaleas neatly trimmed, and the children are all above average.

My neighbors and I have carbon footprints the size of an overgrown Sasquatch.

I want to live some place else.

I want to live differently.

I want to live in a shipping container home.

Seriously.

They are made of steel. They are bug-proof, low maintenance, and easily to assembly. They are also highly hurricane resistant, a huge bonus for where I live.  They are also relatively cheap, and the port a few miles from my little brick neighborhood has thousands of them on hand. Did I mention that they are the ultimate recyclable home?  combine it with a no-maintenance yard away from the city, and my carbon footprint shrinks to a least a size 10.5 Teva recycled rubber shoe.

Here are some examples of shipping container homes:

Yes, Shipping Container is the life for me. Now, all I have to do is convince my wife.

It’s my 1st First Amendment Friday, a day to celebrate intellectual freedom, the most important Amendment to the Constitution, and teens’ right to read. What better way to kick it off than by sharing this message from our firends at Random House:

Banned Books Week is September 27 through October 4

It’s time to celebrate the freedom to read and help increase awareness of censorship issues.   And you can do it all with the attached graphic and by linking to our First Amendment Web site:http://www.randomhouse.com/banned/

We’re asking you to forward this email to five people you know — authors, artists, bloggers, industry contacts, friends, or family —  and ask them to post the graphic to their blog or Web site in support of Banned Books Week. They can also embed this graphic onto their web page, using the code below. For more detailed instructions, visit: http://www.randomhouse.com/teens/firstamendment/resources.html

We also encourage you to check out the newly updated First Amendment site — it’s full of valuable information and interesting thoughts on censorship from some of our authors.

We’re hoping everyone will make this year’s Banned Books Week a time to celebrate the freedom to read — and to remember and remind others never to take that freedom for granted.

The Random House First Amendment Committee
Firstamendment [at] randomhouse [dot] com