9.16.2009
9.03.2009
Worst Case Scenario
I recently read a paper published by the World Wildlife Fund, which discussed the current status and direction of the "green" movement. It was really disturbing. Basically, it said that the current approach of marketers of "small steps," like swapping out your incandescents for compact florescents, effectively adds up to not much.
1) Because most people will only go "green" if it doesn't inconvenience them too much
2) The small steps rarely progress to larger steps
3) There's a rebound effect, e.g. people leave thier lights on all the time since the bulb uses less energy. Or people buying more and disposing of more recycled products than they would have with non-recycled products
Fundamentally, the kinds of change that people are going to need to make in their lifestyles if there is to be any attempt at combat climate change, or to react to the collapse of life as we currently enjoy it, is so radical that we need a different mindset other than consumerism. We can't buy green ourselves out of this mess.
1) Because most people will only go "green" if it doesn't inconvenience them too much
2) The small steps rarely progress to larger steps
3) There's a rebound effect, e.g. people leave thier lights on all the time since the bulb uses less energy. Or people buying more and disposing of more recycled products than they would have with non-recycled products
Fundamentally, the kinds of change that people are going to need to make in their lifestyles if there is to be any attempt at combat climate change, or to react to the collapse of life as we currently enjoy it, is so radical that we need a different mindset other than consumerism. We can't buy green ourselves out of this mess.
8.27.2009
Hives, Guitars, Saori, Canalscape
Let's see.... what's been going on lately....
Hives: I had an odd outbreak of hives about two weeks ago. I'd never had hives before, so I had no idea what was wrong with me. When I woke up, I had big angry wheals on my legs and arms. No other symptoms to speak of. I'd eaten some prepared roe from Japan the night before, so that's what I assumed set me off, although with a food allergy, it seemed like it should have struck me immediately after eating, although I didn't really react until the next morning. At any rate, I went to a TakeHealth clinic at a Walgreens, was saw immediately by a PA who diagnosed it as an allergic reaction and sent me home with some perscription steroids and directed me to aisle 1 to pick up some Wal-Dryl. A bit surreal. Anyway, that cleared my hives up after about a week. However, my hives have returned a bit over the two weeks, more irritating than serious, but patches of red itchy skin and small clusters of bumps that form and dissimilar. I really really really hope I'm not developing an allergy to cats. Or an autoimmune disease. Anyway, I've scheduled another visit to the doc (an actual MD this time) to try to figure this out.
Guitars: Among Saori's other musical instruments, she had a guitar that she never played. Apparently she got the guitar from a friend of hers who went back to Japan and understandably didn't want to lug the thing along. He got the guitar because he was taking a class in Scottsdale on guitar making, and he apparently bought a guitar for the express purpose of disassembling and re-assembling it. Saori got the guitar and it hung in our closet for awhile until I started playing around with it, and in one misguided attempt to tune it, I snapped a string, which were pretty old by that point anyhow. Anyway, I was driving around one saturday, when almost on a whim, I stopped in at Ziggy's music, a old brick music store on 3rd st and Osborne. I wanted to get the guitar fixed/ restrung whatever, and I saw a sign for guitar lessons. My weekends have been painfully free (see Saori's item below) so I went in thinking, what the hell, I've always wanted to play guitar.
Ziggy's music is a great little shop with accordions everywhere and guitars on the wall. Apparently, its one of the last places in Arizona where they can fix accordians. The few customers browse instruments, but mostly chat with Dionne, the woman behind the counter. Under the counter, more accordians, dusty CDs of music, and few black cats which prowl around the store. There's an old rack with "Guitar for beginners" from 20-50 years ago, along with boxes of guitar magazines. In a small room in the back, I see a guy playing an accordian.
I ask about lessons, and Dionne directs me to another gentleman, Raul. Raul looks strikingly like a laid back version of William Shatner, but he takes me back to his tiny office where there is room for just himself, and an empty chair for me. We sit down and talk about what I want out of lessons (the basics, to start with), when's a good time (30 minutes on Saturday works for me), and the cost (pay a month's lessons in advance, and its $15 a session. Fantastic cut rate), and I go ahead and commit to come in later the day for my first lesson.
I return early, bringing the guitar. Dionne helps me pick some new strings, cleans, and restrings my guitar for me while I take my lesson. The basics, you know, this-is-how-you-hold-a-guitar, this-is-how-you-hold-a-pick, and a few chords to start. C, Dm, Am, Em, F, G7.
I also get to pick out a guitar pick, which makes me kind of excited. For some reason it hammers in the point, I'm going to be a guitar player. I ask what kind to get, and Dionne asks Raul if I should get the $300 pick or the $400 pick. Raul suggests a medium pick, which ends up $0.25.
After the lesson, Dionne prods him into tuning my newly restrung guitar for me, and he does so, admonishing me to practice at least 30 minutes a day. And I have been. Saori's gotten into it too and we take turns playing, (it helps that she's very musically gifted and knows a lot more chords). She can actually play recognizable songs. At this point, I'm still struggling to connect the chords, but the callouses forming on my left fingertips indicate I'm closer to my goal.
Saori's new job: Saori got a new job, which is fantastic. She really likes the people she works with, the long hours go by quickly, the amount of time she spends running around and lifting makes the time go by, but she's also noticed shes slowly losing weight and gaining more muscle. Best of all, the people she works with and her coworkers adore her. She was going to be nominated as a company wide award winner except she didn't qualify for the short amount of time she'd been working. The major bummer of the job is the hours. She works very early in the morning to very late at night on both Saturday and Sunday, so I've been really missing her on the weekends. It's been hard as the weekends don't really feel like weekends without her. I know what she must have felt, the long months where I was at work and she at home during her job search.
Canalscape:
I got involved in a valley-wide design competition called Canalscape through some co-workers. Saori was also invited to join, and we made up a team of five (technically six) designers. The competition was to design a development at the intersection of a canal and a street that would 1) attract developers and 2) celebrate the canals of Phoenix. The driving force behind Canalscape is Nan Ellin, a woman who has spent years working with ASU and city officials to make more of the canals of Phoenix. To be fair, Phoenix's canals are seen as ugly, stinking, filthy infrastructure and we should be doing more to celebrate the near miracle of the water that makes the city exist. However, Nan's track seems to be "lets make Phoenix Venice, or Amsterdam." Last time I checked, California had not fallen off the map and flooded everything west of Apache Junction. We are in the middle of a desert, and to tell you the truth, Venice's canals ARE as bad as streets. Filthy and also ignored as much as possible, the canals of phoenix should aspire to more. I'll post a photo of the board we entered to the competition sometime. We didn't win, although we'll be in the newspaper this sunday (I think).
Hives: I had an odd outbreak of hives about two weeks ago. I'd never had hives before, so I had no idea what was wrong with me. When I woke up, I had big angry wheals on my legs and arms. No other symptoms to speak of. I'd eaten some prepared roe from Japan the night before, so that's what I assumed set me off, although with a food allergy, it seemed like it should have struck me immediately after eating, although I didn't really react until the next morning. At any rate, I went to a TakeHealth clinic at a Walgreens, was saw immediately by a PA who diagnosed it as an allergic reaction and sent me home with some perscription steroids and directed me to aisle 1 to pick up some Wal-Dryl. A bit surreal. Anyway, that cleared my hives up after about a week. However, my hives have returned a bit over the two weeks, more irritating than serious, but patches of red itchy skin and small clusters of bumps that form and dissimilar. I really really really hope I'm not developing an allergy to cats. Or an autoimmune disease. Anyway, I've scheduled another visit to the doc (an actual MD this time) to try to figure this out.
Guitars: Among Saori's other musical instruments, she had a guitar that she never played. Apparently she got the guitar from a friend of hers who went back to Japan and understandably didn't want to lug the thing along. He got the guitar because he was taking a class in Scottsdale on guitar making, and he apparently bought a guitar for the express purpose of disassembling and re-assembling it. Saori got the guitar and it hung in our closet for awhile until I started playing around with it, and in one misguided attempt to tune it, I snapped a string, which were pretty old by that point anyhow. Anyway, I was driving around one saturday, when almost on a whim, I stopped in at Ziggy's music, a old brick music store on 3rd st and Osborne. I wanted to get the guitar fixed/ restrung whatever, and I saw a sign for guitar lessons. My weekends have been painfully free (see Saori's item below) so I went in thinking, what the hell, I've always wanted to play guitar.
Ziggy's music is a great little shop with accordions everywhere and guitars on the wall. Apparently, its one of the last places in Arizona where they can fix accordians. The few customers browse instruments, but mostly chat with Dionne, the woman behind the counter. Under the counter, more accordians, dusty CDs of music, and few black cats which prowl around the store. There's an old rack with "Guitar for beginners" from 20-50 years ago, along with boxes of guitar magazines. In a small room in the back, I see a guy playing an accordian.
I ask about lessons, and Dionne directs me to another gentleman, Raul. Raul looks strikingly like a laid back version of William Shatner, but he takes me back to his tiny office where there is room for just himself, and an empty chair for me. We sit down and talk about what I want out of lessons (the basics, to start with), when's a good time (30 minutes on Saturday works for me), and the cost (pay a month's lessons in advance, and its $15 a session. Fantastic cut rate), and I go ahead and commit to come in later the day for my first lesson.
I return early, bringing the guitar. Dionne helps me pick some new strings, cleans, and restrings my guitar for me while I take my lesson. The basics, you know, this-is-how-you-hold-a-guitar, this-is-how-you-hold-a-pick, and a few chords to start. C, Dm, Am, Em, F, G7.
I also get to pick out a guitar pick, which makes me kind of excited. For some reason it hammers in the point, I'm going to be a guitar player. I ask what kind to get, and Dionne asks Raul if I should get the $300 pick or the $400 pick. Raul suggests a medium pick, which ends up $0.25.
After the lesson, Dionne prods him into tuning my newly restrung guitar for me, and he does so, admonishing me to practice at least 30 minutes a day. And I have been. Saori's gotten into it too and we take turns playing, (it helps that she's very musically gifted and knows a lot more chords). She can actually play recognizable songs. At this point, I'm still struggling to connect the chords, but the callouses forming on my left fingertips indicate I'm closer to my goal.
Saori's new job: Saori got a new job, which is fantastic. She really likes the people she works with, the long hours go by quickly, the amount of time she spends running around and lifting makes the time go by, but she's also noticed shes slowly losing weight and gaining more muscle. Best of all, the people she works with and her coworkers adore her. She was going to be nominated as a company wide award winner except she didn't qualify for the short amount of time she'd been working. The major bummer of the job is the hours. She works very early in the morning to very late at night on both Saturday and Sunday, so I've been really missing her on the weekends. It's been hard as the weekends don't really feel like weekends without her. I know what she must have felt, the long months where I was at work and she at home during her job search.
Canalscape:
I got involved in a valley-wide design competition called Canalscape through some co-workers. Saori was also invited to join, and we made up a team of five (technically six) designers. The competition was to design a development at the intersection of a canal and a street that would 1) attract developers and 2) celebrate the canals of Phoenix. The driving force behind Canalscape is Nan Ellin, a woman who has spent years working with ASU and city officials to make more of the canals of Phoenix. To be fair, Phoenix's canals are seen as ugly, stinking, filthy infrastructure and we should be doing more to celebrate the near miracle of the water that makes the city exist. However, Nan's track seems to be "lets make Phoenix Venice, or Amsterdam." Last time I checked, California had not fallen off the map and flooded everything west of Apache Junction. We are in the middle of a desert, and to tell you the truth, Venice's canals ARE as bad as streets. Filthy and also ignored as much as possible, the canals of phoenix should aspire to more. I'll post a photo of the board we entered to the competition sometime. We didn't win, although we'll be in the newspaper this sunday (I think).
5.02.2009
LEED AP
It took awhile, but I passed the LEED AP test last thursday, so I can now officially call myself a LEED Accredited Professional. What does this mean?
1) I can add it to my business card, except for the fact that we just got issued new business cards with the company logo change, so it probably won't get changed unless I get title promotion or I run out of cards. Both a long way off.
2) I can work on LEED projects in the office, along with the other dozen or so LEED AP's already working in the firm.
3) It adds marketing appeal to my resume, and I can say I was officially working sustainably since I was 24.
4) With my LEED AP card, I get a 10% discount at Whole Foods. No, not really. There isn't even a LEED AP card. They mail you a certificate.
5) As a LEED AP, if I work on a LEED project, the project gets to add a point if there's no other LEED AP's already working on it.
6) One of my inital reasons to get accredited was to stay ahead of the curve of my peers, to keep myself abreast of the current trends in architecture. By the time I took the test, a large percentage of my graduating class were already LEED AP. I suppose, ultimately, that its a good thing.
That's about it. There were other advantages to the accrediation, such as it serves as a good course the relationships between client, architect, contractor, and consultant. Its also a general course in "sustainab;e" design for a variety of different fields- you have to study stormwater management (civil enginnering), lighting, building automation systems, landscaping, plumbing, finish materials, basically every aspect of designing and building a building.
I studied for about six weeks, a little bit at a time at first, steadily ramping up the intensity until the very end. I read the book, make a spreadsheet of all the credits, made flashcards, and took numerous practice exams. Saori helped me a lot in this as she was constantly studying as well, and we got to argue and quiz each other on LEED minutae, of which there are thousands. Incidently, Saori passed the test as well.
The other incentive to take the test is that they just changed over to LEED 3.0, which involves TWO tests to reach the LEED AP level, and is supposed to be a lot harder, so there was a big rush as the opportunity to take the test ends in May. At any rate, I'm glad to have it over with.
1) I can add it to my business card, except for the fact that we just got issued new business cards with the company logo change, so it probably won't get changed unless I get title promotion or I run out of cards. Both a long way off.
2) I can work on LEED projects in the office, along with the other dozen or so LEED AP's already working in the firm.
3) It adds marketing appeal to my resume, and I can say I was officially working sustainably since I was 24.
4) With my LEED AP card, I get a 10% discount at Whole Foods. No, not really. There isn't even a LEED AP card. They mail you a certificate.
5) As a LEED AP, if I work on a LEED project, the project gets to add a point if there's no other LEED AP's already working on it.
6) One of my inital reasons to get accredited was to stay ahead of the curve of my peers, to keep myself abreast of the current trends in architecture. By the time I took the test, a large percentage of my graduating class were already LEED AP. I suppose, ultimately, that its a good thing.
That's about it. There were other advantages to the accrediation, such as it serves as a good course the relationships between client, architect, contractor, and consultant. Its also a general course in "sustainab;e" design for a variety of different fields- you have to study stormwater management (civil enginnering), lighting, building automation systems, landscaping, plumbing, finish materials, basically every aspect of designing and building a building.
I studied for about six weeks, a little bit at a time at first, steadily ramping up the intensity until the very end. I read the book, make a spreadsheet of all the credits, made flashcards, and took numerous practice exams. Saori helped me a lot in this as she was constantly studying as well, and we got to argue and quiz each other on LEED minutae, of which there are thousands. Incidently, Saori passed the test as well.
The other incentive to take the test is that they just changed over to LEED 3.0, which involves TWO tests to reach the LEED AP level, and is supposed to be a lot harder, so there was a big rush as the opportunity to take the test ends in May. At any rate, I'm glad to have it over with.
3.27.2009
3.13.2009
Went to Build it Green convention and Expo today at the convention center downtown. A few good speakers, a lot of stuff I've already heard, mostly directed at developers. Didn't see too many architecture types out there. The first lecture was so-so. The second was interesting, more focused on green lab design, which is right up our alley. Its a shame we're really not incorporating any of the sustainable elements into this project. At least I'm getting better at understanding what we could do, and the technologies and techniques at the forefront of lab design.
Anyway, the third speaker was really good. A professor from Thunderbird School of Management, recently published in Harvard Business Journal, talking about the business side of sustainability. An odd lecture, he talked about the sweep of human history from hunter-gathers to agricultural societies to industrial, and the trade-offs we've made along the way. He used a stock portfolio analogy to describe the levels of productivity in these stages. Hunter-gathers, when the fish stocks are down, there are still deer to hunt = diversified. Agrarian states, which specialized in five grains, and three major animals to domesticate, specialized, and so stability was replaced by feasts followed by famine. Industrial societies specialized further, and so all the prehistoric knowledge of how to exist in the natural world diminished to practically nothing.
He made some other interesting points, but basically it came down to industry, in order to survive, must adopt the same rules which allowed the biosphere to exist since the advent of life on this planet. Namely, a radical simplification in the number of materials we use, which ties into his second rule, that everything must become cyclical, a value cycle instead of a value chain, where the consumer returns the product at the end of its commercial use to the producer who breaks it down and re-fabricates it. Lastly of course, is that these transformations must ultimately use solar power to do so. The lion dies and becomes food for the grass, the antelope eat the grass, the lions eat the antelope, etc. Circle of life as industrial model.
So that was fun. The expo was kind of slow. Mostly products for homeowners and developers. We got some silly putty, some recycled pencils and office supplies. And a green tote.
Anyway, the third speaker was really good. A professor from Thunderbird School of Management, recently published in Harvard Business Journal, talking about the business side of sustainability. An odd lecture, he talked about the sweep of human history from hunter-gathers to agricultural societies to industrial, and the trade-offs we've made along the way. He used a stock portfolio analogy to describe the levels of productivity in these stages. Hunter-gathers, when the fish stocks are down, there are still deer to hunt = diversified. Agrarian states, which specialized in five grains, and three major animals to domesticate, specialized, and so stability was replaced by feasts followed by famine. Industrial societies specialized further, and so all the prehistoric knowledge of how to exist in the natural world diminished to practically nothing.
He made some other interesting points, but basically it came down to industry, in order to survive, must adopt the same rules which allowed the biosphere to exist since the advent of life on this planet. Namely, a radical simplification in the number of materials we use, which ties into his second rule, that everything must become cyclical, a value cycle instead of a value chain, where the consumer returns the product at the end of its commercial use to the producer who breaks it down and re-fabricates it. Lastly of course, is that these transformations must ultimately use solar power to do so. The lion dies and becomes food for the grass, the antelope eat the grass, the lions eat the antelope, etc. Circle of life as industrial model.
So that was fun. The expo was kind of slow. Mostly products for homeowners and developers. We got some silly putty, some recycled pencils and office supplies. And a green tote.
3.03.2009
3.01.2009
Patios, Malls, and LEED
Here are a few of the things I've been up to lately:
Saori and I cleaned out the patio yesterday and went to world market where we picked up a bunch of small colored glass cubes for candles, and another hanging moroccan lantern to go with the lanterns I picked up in Abu Dhabi. At night, with all the candles, its very nice and relaxing, s we've been spending our evenings outside enjoying the light.
Today, we drove around, went to Buffalo exchange and PV mall. Paradise Valley Mall was pretty nice as I recall back ten years ago when I lived in Phoenix. Since I've been gone, its gone downhill, probably with Fashion Square and Kierland Commons taking the wind from its sails. It feels tired and weary, weakly fighting, even with a few higher end fashion stores. Fiesta Mall actually had more energy and vitality to it, and feels like its socially climbing. Metrocenter is hitting the bottom of the barrel with many storefronts vacant.
Work: a few bugs in the system. Basically our computer program makes work very easy and occationally very hard for us. Today and yesterday (saturday and sunday) I spent two hours a day working to fix a major glitch.
Revit is great but when things go bad things go real bad, especaially for our model. If you designed a cube in CAD software, you would draw a bunch of boxes on different sheets to show the different plans and sections. If you designed a cube in Revit, you create a 3D cube and the program slices and interprets it for you. If you screw up one drawing in CAD, you've only screwed up one sheet. If you screw up part of the cube, the error propegates itself through all the interpretations of the model on all the sheets.
The latest thing is that Revit lost all the dimentions between things and gridlines, which means we now have many hours of work ahead of us to make sure things tie back to the gridlines.
LEED accredation- I'm sure many of you have heard about "green" or "sustainable" buildings. In the United States, building construction and use is second only to industrial manufacturing in terms of energy and resource use. In an effort to set an industry standard of sustainability, the US Green Building Council (USGBC) set up a system of quantifying how green a building is based on a point system, called LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). There are four levels of LEED certification, Platinum, Gold, Silver, and certified, depending on how many points your building gets. Some points are very easy to get. If you are building on a site that used to have a building, you get a point because you're not despoiling new land, for example. LEED is actually pretty broadly encompasing- there are credits for making buildings that are easily accessible to bus or mass transportation routes, credits for improving air quality, efficiant water systems, etc etc. The tricky bit is where credits work against each other.
For example, there are a lot of credits based on reducing energy use, which is great. But there are also credits associated with indoor air quality. To improve air quality, you need to move more air around more frequently, which uses more energy. So you have find an appropriate balance.
Anyway, you also get a point if the project has a LEED accredited architect/designer associated with it. LEED accredited people can be anyone who passes the LEED test, a large portion of which is basic knowlege of how to use the LEED system. So it is a little self-serving. But with a lot of interest in green design and construction, individuals, universities, and municipalities have been pushed to mandate percentages of new buildings that have to be LEED certified. So, Saori and I are going to take the test and become certified to 1) increase our marketability, 2) so we can put LEED AP at the end of our buisness cards, 3) because sustainabilty and green design will become more of an issue in the future and not less so, and 4) because they're going to make the test harder later in the year.
Enough LEED for now.
Saori and I cleaned out the patio yesterday and went to world market where we picked up a bunch of small colored glass cubes for candles, and another hanging moroccan lantern to go with the lanterns I picked up in Abu Dhabi. At night, with all the candles, its very nice and relaxing, s we've been spending our evenings outside enjoying the light.
Today, we drove around, went to Buffalo exchange and PV mall. Paradise Valley Mall was pretty nice as I recall back ten years ago when I lived in Phoenix. Since I've been gone, its gone downhill, probably with Fashion Square and Kierland Commons taking the wind from its sails. It feels tired and weary, weakly fighting, even with a few higher end fashion stores. Fiesta Mall actually had more energy and vitality to it, and feels like its socially climbing. Metrocenter is hitting the bottom of the barrel with many storefronts vacant.
Work: a few bugs in the system. Basically our computer program makes work very easy and occationally very hard for us. Today and yesterday (saturday and sunday) I spent two hours a day working to fix a major glitch.
Revit is great but when things go bad things go real bad, especaially for our model. If you designed a cube in CAD software, you would draw a bunch of boxes on different sheets to show the different plans and sections. If you designed a cube in Revit, you create a 3D cube and the program slices and interprets it for you. If you screw up one drawing in CAD, you've only screwed up one sheet. If you screw up part of the cube, the error propegates itself through all the interpretations of the model on all the sheets.
The latest thing is that Revit lost all the dimentions between things and gridlines, which means we now have many hours of work ahead of us to make sure things tie back to the gridlines.
LEED accredation- I'm sure many of you have heard about "green" or "sustainable" buildings. In the United States, building construction and use is second only to industrial manufacturing in terms of energy and resource use. In an effort to set an industry standard of sustainability, the US Green Building Council (USGBC) set up a system of quantifying how green a building is based on a point system, called LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). There are four levels of LEED certification, Platinum, Gold, Silver, and certified, depending on how many points your building gets. Some points are very easy to get. If you are building on a site that used to have a building, you get a point because you're not despoiling new land, for example. LEED is actually pretty broadly encompasing- there are credits for making buildings that are easily accessible to bus or mass transportation routes, credits for improving air quality, efficiant water systems, etc etc. The tricky bit is where credits work against each other.
For example, there are a lot of credits based on reducing energy use, which is great. But there are also credits associated with indoor air quality. To improve air quality, you need to move more air around more frequently, which uses more energy. So you have find an appropriate balance.
Anyway, you also get a point if the project has a LEED accredited architect/designer associated with it. LEED accredited people can be anyone who passes the LEED test, a large portion of which is basic knowlege of how to use the LEED system. So it is a little self-serving. But with a lot of interest in green design and construction, individuals, universities, and municipalities have been pushed to mandate percentages of new buildings that have to be LEED certified. So, Saori and I are going to take the test and become certified to 1) increase our marketability, 2) so we can put LEED AP at the end of our buisness cards, 3) because sustainabilty and green design will become more of an issue in the future and not less so, and 4) because they're going to make the test harder later in the year.
Enough LEED for now.
2.19.2009
merged images
Merged images from personal photos along themes- Arizona, Green, Japan, Architecture, etc.
2.15.2009
Busy weekend
It's been a busy weekend. The rundown, counting back from
Thursday night, we met up with Mike and Ryan at the George and Dragon in central Phoenix. They were both classmates of mine and both working for the same small architecture firm. They both live downtown, which makes me start to wonder who else graduated from architecture school is living downtown. Ryan got married to a very nice woman, and it no longer feels strange to be hanging out with married couples my age. They've got enough work in their office to keep them employed at least for now, which is good to hear. We had a few drinks, and took the light rail home. George and Dragon is a nice place, a little expensive, long-standing British pub and a lot of the wait staff is either British or faking it well. Very good fish and chips.
Friday afternoon, we met a coworker of mine for lunch and he talked about working as an architect in his many years of working in AZ, which was mostly for Saori's benefit, but I enjoyed sitting in too. That evening, we went to mom's house to play bananagrams for a few hours, and left around 9 for Fiesta Mall.
For the past month, I've been part of a CANstruction committee at work. CANstruction was an event which is organized nationally by a design marking firm as raising awareness for local design, engineering, and construction firms and also to raise hunger awareness. Basically, firms compete to design large sculptures or scenes out of canned foods which are then donated to local food banks. This year, there were about a dozen firms participating in the valley, and ours raised about $5000 for cans. The committee, which was huge this year, voted to use Wall-E as a sculptural figure; not my first pick, but oh well, its for a good cause. We purchased a lot of cans and spent about a week working a few hours a day on a practice build, basically figuring out how we were going to lay it out and build it up. Last wednesday, we took it all down and loaded all the cases of cans into a truck and sent it to the food bank. The food bank, in turn, put all the cans on pallets, wrapped them, and shipped them to Fiesta Mall in Mesa for the event.
Friday, Saori and I arrived around 10 PM and jumped into canstruction. We worked for about four hours, stacking cans of butter beans, black beans, kidney beans, and baby potatoes. I was responsible for making the cubes of trash that Wall-E makes, so I make about five or six of them. Wall-E's body was created out of cans of spam ( rectangular AND yellow) so we had a spamular Wall-E. This entire project, the "Spam" song from monty python kept playing in my head. We taped together spagetti to form the treads and used coffee and large cans of beans for the wheels. The head was created from potted hams and two serendipitously black salmon cans. We piled random cans all around him to create a "trash" heap. It was pretty effective. While the entries from this year are better than last years, I think we still are in pretty good shape for most of the prizes. We went home extremely tired around 2:30 in the morning.
Saturday, I woke up late to discover Saori had already gotten me flowers, coffee, and made me breakfast. How have I deserved such a wonderful woman? She also prepared chocolate moouse and home made lava cake. After a liesurely breakfast, we went out shopping in Scottsdale, where we browsed American Apparel and laughed at the bleach blond, lamborgini lifestyles of the rich and tasteless who inhabit Skanksdale, sorry, Scottsdale.
I was white enough to walk to a nearby Urban Outfitters where I stumbled across a really cool jacket, marked way way down from $150, and Saori picked up a few nice things too.
We drove from Ghetto to ghetto, Scottsdale to Metrocenter, where we had great dinner at Fajitas. The last time I was there, if memory serves, I was 13 years old. After dinner, we spent the evening at Castles n' Coasters, playing a round of mini-golf and riding the rides. It was surprisingly fun, except for the numbly terrifying free-fall ride where its all you can do not to wet yourself as you drop twenty stories in about three seconds. But other than that, it was a blast.
Sunday, I made omeletes for breakfast and we hung out at home until we met Sal for coffee and he and Saori went to talk to a client. I wandered around downtown which was packed with pedestrians and sports fans who are all here for the NBA All-Star game tonight.
Now, I'm just relaxing on the couch with Saori and Suki, enjoying a warm and peaceful sunday night.
Thursday night, we met up with Mike and Ryan at the George and Dragon in central Phoenix. They were both classmates of mine and both working for the same small architecture firm. They both live downtown, which makes me start to wonder who else graduated from architecture school is living downtown. Ryan got married to a very nice woman, and it no longer feels strange to be hanging out with married couples my age. They've got enough work in their office to keep them employed at least for now, which is good to hear. We had a few drinks, and took the light rail home. George and Dragon is a nice place, a little expensive, long-standing British pub and a lot of the wait staff is either British or faking it well. Very good fish and chips.
Friday afternoon, we met a coworker of mine for lunch and he talked about working as an architect in his many years of working in AZ, which was mostly for Saori's benefit, but I enjoyed sitting in too. That evening, we went to mom's house to play bananagrams for a few hours, and left around 9 for Fiesta Mall.
For the past month, I've been part of a CANstruction committee at work. CANstruction was an event which is organized nationally by a design marking firm as raising awareness for local design, engineering, and construction firms and also to raise hunger awareness. Basically, firms compete to design large sculptures or scenes out of canned foods which are then donated to local food banks. This year, there were about a dozen firms participating in the valley, and ours raised about $5000 for cans. The committee, which was huge this year, voted to use Wall-E as a sculptural figure; not my first pick, but oh well, its for a good cause. We purchased a lot of cans and spent about a week working a few hours a day on a practice build, basically figuring out how we were going to lay it out and build it up. Last wednesday, we took it all down and loaded all the cases of cans into a truck and sent it to the food bank. The food bank, in turn, put all the cans on pallets, wrapped them, and shipped them to Fiesta Mall in Mesa for the event.
Friday, Saori and I arrived around 10 PM and jumped into canstruction. We worked for about four hours, stacking cans of butter beans, black beans, kidney beans, and baby potatoes. I was responsible for making the cubes of trash that Wall-E makes, so I make about five or six of them. Wall-E's body was created out of cans of spam ( rectangular AND yellow) so we had a spamular Wall-E. This entire project, the "Spam" song from monty python kept playing in my head. We taped together spagetti to form the treads and used coffee and large cans of beans for the wheels. The head was created from potted hams and two serendipitously black salmon cans. We piled random cans all around him to create a "trash" heap. It was pretty effective. While the entries from this year are better than last years, I think we still are in pretty good shape for most of the prizes. We went home extremely tired around 2:30 in the morning.
Saturday, I woke up late to discover Saori had already gotten me flowers, coffee, and made me breakfast. How have I deserved such a wonderful woman? She also prepared chocolate moouse and home made lava cake. After a liesurely breakfast, we went out shopping in Scottsdale, where we browsed American Apparel and laughed at the bleach blond, lamborgini lifestyles of the rich and tasteless who inhabit Skanksdale, sorry, Scottsdale.
I was white enough to walk to a nearby Urban Outfitters where I stumbled across a really cool jacket, marked way way down from $150, and Saori picked up a few nice things too.
We drove from Ghetto to ghetto, Scottsdale to Metrocenter, where we had great dinner at Fajitas. The last time I was there, if memory serves, I was 13 years old. After dinner, we spent the evening at Castles n' Coasters, playing a round of mini-golf and riding the rides. It was surprisingly fun, except for the numbly terrifying free-fall ride where its all you can do not to wet yourself as you drop twenty stories in about three seconds. But other than that, it was a blast.
Sunday, I made omeletes for breakfast and we hung out at home until we met Sal for coffee and he and Saori went to talk to a client. I wandered around downtown which was packed with pedestrians and sports fans who are all here for the NBA All-Star game tonight.
Now, I'm just relaxing on the couch with Saori and Suki, enjoying a warm and peaceful sunday night.
1.24.2009
Phoenix Street Rail
Looks like I need to do a bit more research... or does it say something about me when I'm quick to jump to certain conclusions.
The story about Phoenix Street rail is a bit more complicated, as it turns out. Apparently there were actually two fires which burned the old rail cars, and it apparently the rails and infrastructure for the system were falling apart. This was all taking place amidst a time when people were getting away from the rail as it was no longer affordable, or riding a private bus line which ran through the city. Business, politics, and economics. So the decision was made to switch to busses and several companies were bought out and created. Goodyear probably just saw a golden opportunity and jumped on it.
Given Arizona stingy past, I should be happy that this city has had public transportation at all.
Speaking of which, light rail was packed this morning, which is a very good sign, hopefully someone is paying attention.
The story about Phoenix Street rail is a bit more complicated, as it turns out. Apparently there were actually two fires which burned the old rail cars, and it apparently the rails and infrastructure for the system were falling apart. This was all taking place amidst a time when people were getting away from the rail as it was no longer affordable, or riding a private bus line which ran through the city. Business, politics, and economics. So the decision was made to switch to busses and several companies were bought out and created. Goodyear probably just saw a golden opportunity and jumped on it.
Given Arizona stingy past, I should be happy that this city has had public transportation at all.
Speaking of which, light rail was packed this morning, which is a very good sign, hopefully someone is paying attention.
1.18.2009
Light Rail, Again
Some people may be surprised to know that the light rail that opened at the end of 2008 was not the first in Phoenix, but the second. The phoenix street railway operated several extensive lines powered first by horses and then by electricity between the years 1887 and 1947. When a fire destroyed most of the trolly cars, the city decided to switch to busses. I have heard that the Goodyear Tire corporation, which was building up in the valley, approached the city and made a deal to supply tires to busses, which probably pushed the city to adopt a bus service instead of a rail line.
I don't know what a rail car cost, but I can't see it as being more expensive or requiring as much maintainence or energy (which may not have been a factor at the time) as a bus. If the rails and infrastructure, power lines, crossings, etc. were all intact, it would seem a better investment to simply buy new trollys instead of creating an entirely new public transportation system from scratch. Goodyear must have made them a hell of a deal on tires.
It makes me wonder what phoenix would have looked like if we had stayed with the light rail we had had.
I don't know what a rail car cost, but I can't see it as being more expensive or requiring as much maintainence or energy (which may not have been a factor at the time) as a bus. If the rails and infrastructure, power lines, crossings, etc. were all intact, it would seem a better investment to simply buy new trollys instead of creating an entirely new public transportation system from scratch. Goodyear must have made them a hell of a deal on tires.
It makes me wonder what phoenix would have looked like if we had stayed with the light rail we had had.
1.12.2009
12.14.2008
Who's buying?
Some observations on the state of north Tempe:
Six years ago, on the corner of Ash and University, there used to be a co-op grocery store called Gentle Strength Co-Op. To meet large outstanding debts, they sold their lot to a developer, and moved to a new location much farther from campus on Broadway. They failed less than a year later, after 36 years in the Mill ave location. The developer bought the rest of the block and planned a luxury high rise condominium. A Whole Foods, a national chain and competitor to Gentle Strength, will be located in the street level retail space.
But not anymore. University & Ash Llc, who are developing the lot, are attempting to file for bankruptcy. Who did they think was going to fill these condos, students? I've never understood any of it.
Le Meridian Hotel was going to go into the Hayden Ferry Lakeside development, but later pulled out. The mystery is the upscale appeal of Tempe. Mill avenue and the area have very nice pedestrian scale, good food, and a good dense mix of eateries, shops, and events. But its not Rodeo Drive by any stretch of the imagination. I don't lament the loss of public space on the caricature of a lake as much as I dislike the way they're shrouding Tempe Butte, a.k.a. A Mountain. City buttes are important landmarks, and surrounding it with high rises makes the city less distinctive, not more so.
Who is supposed to buy the luxury condos in Tempe? I'm not a real estate agent or even reasonably informed in the matter, I am genuinely curious. Is it a winter home for the upper middle class? Late 20s DINKs looking for an "authentic" small town downtown? LA Execs looking for a getaway? Saudi Prince cowboy wannabes?
Too bad Mill is at the front door of ASU, and there's all these poor ASU students hanging around.
What can be done with the masses of students who can't afford Abercrombie & Fitch or Urban Outfitters? First step, remove cheap entertainment.
The Harkins Theaters, which helped transition Mill from a college student street to a main street, closed its doors soon after the Harkins at Tempe Marketplace opened theirs, two miles from campus. The Borders bookstore (similar story, stifling a few independent booksellers when it opened) has followed suit, citing falling sales, and probably from increased competition from Barnes & Noble, also at Tempe Marketplace. The Tempe Orbit, ASU's unofficial transit system, conveniently reorganized and extended its routes to ferry students too and from there as soon as it opened.
Seizing all empty lots in Tempe and fencing them or turning them into paid parking also helps keep out the riff-raff.
Directly across the street from ASU, in a single story pedestrian complex called "the arches," most of the stores, which used to hold a subway and a pita pit, as well as a barber and an alphagraphics, is closed, with the buildings destroyed. The only tenant refusing to make a deal is the owner of Dave's Dog House, who claims he still has 5 years left on the lease and is refusing to budge. If not for Dave's, the site would be totally razed and construction could proceed on "University Square," which is a mid-rise complex consisting of a Westin hotel, offices, and of course, a condominium tower.
Another small complex on Terrace road which contained a laundromat, an Indian restaurant which serves the sizable Indian community in the neighborhood, and a few other small stores was bought by Avenue Communities Llc, a major developer in the Tempe area. They purchased the Mill which gave Mill ave it's name, a 100 year old structure, and are going to turn it into thier new corporate offices. I've seen the plans for the building, and while I applaud the fact they're going to build around it instead of demolishing it, the small Terrace complex owners are complaining that the company is letting the complex fall into decrepitude so it can be torn down to make room for a high rise. They have forbidden the sale of the tenant spaces to other vendors, told the tenants that the building was slated for destruction. The city of Tempe seems to be working towards that aim as well- Hungry Howie's Pizza was forced to take down a sale sign in the window as "graffiti" while the real graffiti scrawled on the walls of the sides of the complex go unchallenged and unchanged.
In this little rant/post I'm coming off as extremely anti-developer, which is more than a bit hypocritical given my chosen profession. I'm not against development- I'm against development which does not serve its community. I believe in architecture that benefits the people who use it, and who interact with it. I applaud the CVS pharmacy on the corner of University and Mill. If the Gateway project, currently dead in the water from lack of investor confidence, would rise, I think that would really be a big improvement as well. Turning everything in a mile radius of the ASU into high rise condos and luxury boutiques does NOT serve the best interest of the students. Even more fundamentally then that, it disgusts me to see this kind of quiet chicanery. People need to know what's going on in their communities, and it's wrong to take advantage of the four year collective memory of the students.
Six years ago, on the corner of Ash and University, there used to be a co-op grocery store called Gentle Strength Co-Op. To meet large outstanding debts, they sold their lot to a developer, and moved to a new location much farther from campus on Broadway. They failed less than a year later, after 36 years in the Mill ave location. The developer bought the rest of the block and planned a luxury high rise condominium. A Whole Foods, a national chain and competitor to Gentle Strength, will be located in the street level retail space.
But not anymore. University & Ash Llc, who are developing the lot, are attempting to file for bankruptcy. Who did they think was going to fill these condos, students? I've never understood any of it.
Le Meridian Hotel was going to go into the Hayden Ferry Lakeside development, but later pulled out. The mystery is the upscale appeal of Tempe. Mill avenue and the area have very nice pedestrian scale, good food, and a good dense mix of eateries, shops, and events. But its not Rodeo Drive by any stretch of the imagination. I don't lament the loss of public space on the caricature of a lake as much as I dislike the way they're shrouding Tempe Butte, a.k.a. A Mountain. City buttes are important landmarks, and surrounding it with high rises makes the city less distinctive, not more so.
Who is supposed to buy the luxury condos in Tempe? I'm not a real estate agent or even reasonably informed in the matter, I am genuinely curious. Is it a winter home for the upper middle class? Late 20s DINKs looking for an "authentic" small town downtown? LA Execs looking for a getaway? Saudi Prince cowboy wannabes?
Too bad Mill is at the front door of ASU, and there's all these poor ASU students hanging around.
What can be done with the masses of students who can't afford Abercrombie & Fitch or Urban Outfitters? First step, remove cheap entertainment.
The Harkins Theaters, which helped transition Mill from a college student street to a main street, closed its doors soon after the Harkins at Tempe Marketplace opened theirs, two miles from campus. The Borders bookstore (similar story, stifling a few independent booksellers when it opened) has followed suit, citing falling sales, and probably from increased competition from Barnes & Noble, also at Tempe Marketplace. The Tempe Orbit, ASU's unofficial transit system, conveniently reorganized and extended its routes to ferry students too and from there as soon as it opened.
Seizing all empty lots in Tempe and fencing them or turning them into paid parking also helps keep out the riff-raff.
Directly across the street from ASU, in a single story pedestrian complex called "the arches," most of the stores, which used to hold a subway and a pita pit, as well as a barber and an alphagraphics, is closed, with the buildings destroyed. The only tenant refusing to make a deal is the owner of Dave's Dog House, who claims he still has 5 years left on the lease and is refusing to budge. If not for Dave's, the site would be totally razed and construction could proceed on "University Square," which is a mid-rise complex consisting of a Westin hotel, offices, and of course, a condominium tower.
Another small complex on Terrace road which contained a laundromat, an Indian restaurant which serves the sizable Indian community in the neighborhood, and a few other small stores was bought by Avenue Communities Llc, a major developer in the Tempe area. They purchased the Mill which gave Mill ave it's name, a 100 year old structure, and are going to turn it into thier new corporate offices. I've seen the plans for the building, and while I applaud the fact they're going to build around it instead of demolishing it, the small Terrace complex owners are complaining that the company is letting the complex fall into decrepitude so it can be torn down to make room for a high rise. They have forbidden the sale of the tenant spaces to other vendors, told the tenants that the building was slated for destruction. The city of Tempe seems to be working towards that aim as well- Hungry Howie's Pizza was forced to take down a sale sign in the window as "graffiti" while the real graffiti scrawled on the walls of the sides of the complex go unchallenged and unchanged.
In this little rant/post I'm coming off as extremely anti-developer, which is more than a bit hypocritical given my chosen profession. I'm not against development- I'm against development which does not serve its community. I believe in architecture that benefits the people who use it, and who interact with it. I applaud the CVS pharmacy on the corner of University and Mill. If the Gateway project, currently dead in the water from lack of investor confidence, would rise, I think that would really be a big improvement as well. Turning everything in a mile radius of the ASU into high rise condos and luxury boutiques does NOT serve the best interest of the students. Even more fundamentally then that, it disgusts me to see this kind of quiet chicanery. People need to know what's going on in their communities, and it's wrong to take advantage of the four year collective memory of the students.
The Beaty's come to town
Saori's sister Ayumi and her husband Tim came to visit us for a few days while Tim inteviewed at one of the local hospitals.
We exchanged and opened presents on the first night; Tim and Ayumi got me a nice glass jar for tea, with a slate surface for writing in chalk. While they were here, we played a lot of Wii and bananagrams, and had a few really good dinners. Saori and Ayumi cooked us nabe which is a kind of Japanese hotpot, and then last night we had okonomi-yaki which is pronounced like "Economy"+ "yaki" which is like "teriyaki". It was pretty good stuff. The day after Tim's interview, the two of them borrowed Saori's car and drove up to the Grand Canyon for a night.
While they were gone friday, I went to the vet to pick up some more cat food, and then we hit the UPS store to send out some packages. Saori had a package she was sending to Japan, and the clerk told her that the lowest cost was about $140. "UPS doesn't actually do the international mailing," the clerk admitted, "we mark it up thirty to forty percent." We thanked the clerk for his candor, and decided to hit up the post office to send the Japanese package, although I still sent out a set of boxes for Salt Lake and also one to Oklahoma. That night, we drove to mom's house and grabbed burritos at the Ahwatukee Fillibertos before playing a few great rounds of Scattergories.
Saturday, we had a late start to the day, but we drove around looking for ski pants since they're pretty essential gear for skiing. We waded through the masses of people at Christown mall to the Big 5 sports before I could tackle a sales rep as he sprinted down the asile. "Ski pants? We didn't get a shipment this year."
Listening to our stomachs, we continued to Carls Jr. Burger, for a change, and were pleasantly surprised. They've been reworking the menu and the restaurant concept- all the burgers are charbroiled now, the fries are better, and apparently they've been trying to beat their competitors for customer service. Overall a very good experience.
We decided to go straight to the source, and hit Ski Pro, where the selection is as high as the prices. There were a few good deals going on, after about two hours of trying on pants, looking at features, quality, price, etc. we both found a pair. I was really happy with mine- nondescript black ski pants from Columbia for about $60, down from $100. They're going to last me a long time.
Tim and Ayumi came back that night, and we played more Wii games and bananagrams.
It was a pretty quick trip, we drove them to the airport this morning before hitting the nearest available waffle house. I'm not sure if its in "stuff white people like" (it may fall under the breakfast restaurants category) but they do serve up a good quick breakfast without much pretense, and good friendly service.
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