tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66157631878391170442024-03-14T04:55:19.207-07:00Not Built in a DayMusings on Architecture, Urbanism, and the Built EnvironmentCarolinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15479503203658615520noreply@blogger.comBlogger185125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-16901116141426991992019-08-29T12:46:00.001-07:002019-08-29T12:46:33.049-07:00Book Review: The Color of Law<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Years ago, I don't remember exactly when, I learned about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining">redlining</a>, disinvestment in America's cities, and how African American families were denied the opportunities given to white families to buy homes in new suburban neighborhoods throughout the early to mid 20th century. But I thought these racist practices were pursued by individual banks and maybe local governments; I didn't think much about the widely-heard statement that <i>de facto</i> segregation (that is, individual or socially-enforced segregation, not government-enforced segregation) was the common practice during the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws">Jim Crow era (1870s-1960s)</a>. <br />
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But it turns out I was wrong, as historian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rothstein">Richard Rothstein</a> persuasively argues in <i>The Color of Law </i>(2017), and it was actually <i>de jure</i>, government-sponsored and enforced, segregation that afflicted American cities across the country. It was not just the racism of specific banks or bankers that created redlining and white flight, but government policies, at the federal, state, and local level, that gutted our cities, segregated our neighbors, and denied African Americans their equal rights to housing, education, and future success. <i>De jure</i> segregation, although unconstitutional under the 13th Amendment and illegal under the 1866 Civil Rights Act, was practiced by the government until the 1968 Fair Housing Act and the <i>Jones vs. Mayer</i> decision.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn.monarchhousing.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/coloroflaw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="450" height="426" src="https://cdn.monarchhousing.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/coloroflaw.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Monarch Housing Associates</td></tr>
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Rothstein notes in his book that his research is not all new: He draws from many earlier sources that describe <i>de jure</i> segregation, which were published decades ago. But he argues that Americans have (conveniently?) forgotten the truth about these pernicious government policies, and that we have convinced ourselves that the government had little to do with segregation and the persistent wealth gap between whites and African Americans. He writes that if we were to confront this fact, then Americans, and especially the white Americans who benefited from these policies, would need to grapple with how to right these past wrongs, and it's easier to pretend that no one is responsible than to face this massive historical injustice. I think that is all the more reason that we should become educated about our own national history.<br />
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Here is an overview of the main examples of <i>de jure </i>segregation that Rothstein discusses:<br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>The US military enforced segregation in federally-provided public housing during the 1940s war years, allowing African Americans to work in military production, but not buy homes in new whites-only federally-funded worker housing. This occurred even in the San Francisco Bay area, which did not have a previous history of segregation. (Ch. 1)</li>
<li>The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which underwrote (insured) mortgages around the country, and whose policies dictated the requirements of lenders nationwide, enforced segregation by requiring that all new mortgages issued were only for segregated neighborhoods. The Veterans Administration (VA) did the same. (Ch. 2)</li>
<li>Local governments adopted explicitly racial zoning ordinances in the early 20th century, starting with Baltimore in 1910, that zoned different areas for whites and blacks. This practice was deemed illegal in 1917 by the Supreme Court, but most cities ignored the ruling. Cities continued passing racial zoning restrictions in various forms, attempting to subvert the law, through the 1930s, when they turned to economic zoning restrictions instead, by zoning areas for single-family (read: wealthy white residents) only, and placing industry next to and around areas that were predominantly African-American. (Ch. 3)</li>
<li>Federal policy under the 1930s Home Owner's Loan Corporation (HOLC) provided low-interest loans for new suburban housing developments, based on the previously-mentioned FHA Underwriting Manual, only if the loan was made for an all-white suburb. Interest rates and property valuations were based explicitly on the race of the intended homeowners. An example is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown">Levittown</a>, one of the most famous new suburbs of the post-war era. (Ch. 4)</li>
<li>Local and federal agencies encouraged and enforced restrictive covenants, which became common in the 1920s after racial zoning was declared illegal. Restrictive covenants enforced segregation by disallowing homeowners from selling their property to African Americans, and providing for eviction or monetary penalties if the covenant was not followed. Only in 1948 did the Supreme Court rule that states may not enforce restrictive covenants with government power (eg, police power). However, the FHA continued to insure properties that had restrictive covenants through the 1960s, which ensured that they remained in effect. Not until the 1970s did the Supreme Court rule that all such covenants are a violation of the 14th Amendment and the Fair Housing Act. (Ch. 5)</li>
<li>Various federal regulations either promoted or allowed segregation. For example, the IRS granted tax-exempt status to groups that promoted segregation, thereby making regulators complicit with discrimination. The FDIC did not oppose the denial of mortgages to African Americans, although it was abundantly clear that the banks they regulated were doing just that. And federal regulators upheld real estate boards that included mandatory discrimination (segregation) in their codes of ethics for realtors. (Ch. 7)</li>
<li>Local officials used all the tools at their disposal to create and enforce segregation, including routing highways between white and black neighborhoods, or through black neighborhoods; relocating schools to enforce patterns of segregation; or throwing legal roadblocks in the way of proposed integrated new suburbs. (Ch. 8)</li>
<li>State-sanctioned violence maintained segregation and terrorized families that attempted to integrate segregated neighborhoods. Police would sometimes do nothing to stop mob violence against African American families, or would even actively participate in the violence. (Ch. 9)</li>
<li>Government policy purposely kept the incomes of American Americans lower, by excluding African Americans from labor protections, taxing their property at higher rates, allowing segregated unions, and practicing discriminatory hiring for government jobs. (Ch. 10)</li>
<li>Some government policies have ended up enforcing segregation even if they were not originally intended to do so. An example is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_mortgage_interest_deduction">mortgage interest deduction</a>, which favors homeowners over renters. By subsidizing generally wealthier, generally white homeowners over generally poorer, generally minority renters, the mortgage interest deduction perpetuates the same system that put white families in some neighborhoods and black families in others. (Ch. 11)</li>
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Rothstein goes on to argue that the US needs to work actively to de-segregate our neighborhoods in order to improve our cities and the opportunities for our citizens. He suggests banning zoning that prohibits multifamily construction (that is, banning single-family zoning); eliminating the mortgage interest deduction for suburbs that lack multi-family or moderate-income single-family housing; and enacting <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusionary_zoning">inclusionary zoning</a>. He also suggests that HUD could, as a demonstration project, buy 15% of the houses for sale today in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown">Levittown</a> (usually going for $250K or more), and sell them to African American families for $75K, which is the price in today's dollars for the homes that were available only to whites in the 1950s. This wouldn't solve the problem of segregation on a large scale, but it would make clear how the federal government was complicit in segregation. Rothstein further argues that this type of retribution is a constitutional obligation under the 13th Amendment, and not just a morally right, and economically justified, course of action.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Suburbs of San Francisco</td></tr>
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A succinct case study of the kind of segregation discussed in the book <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/traffic-atlanta-segregation.html">is presented here</a> by the Times as part of their <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html">1619 Project</a>, commemorating the 400 years since Africans were brought to what would become the United States. As described in the article, Atlanta's highways, which were designed to enforce segregation, plus continued local opposition to mass transit, means that Atlanta has some of the worst traffic in the country. This is just one example of how the legacy of segregation continues to haunt us all. Here's <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/racial-wealth-gap.html">another article in the same series</a> discussing the wealth gap. It's not hard to find more examples, once you know what to look for.<br />
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I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in land use, housing policy, and urbanism. For more, check out this <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america">Terry Gross interview of Richard Rothstein on NPR</a>. If there are other books you'd recommend on the history of the American suburbs and housing, leave a note in the comments!</div>
Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-61597825313123805982019-08-24T10:23:00.003-07:002019-08-24T10:23:38.788-07:00Spotlight On: Design & Construction Disasters<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In graduate school, we took mandatory courses in "Building Technology" that covered structural and mechanical design, with some general information about other building systems thrown in. The focus was on understanding how to select appropriate systems, in general terms, so that we could work well in the future with engineers and other building professionals. Architects typically rely on structural engineers, MEP engineers, sometimes even building envelope consultants, and others, to complete the technical design parts of the project (produce structural calculations, fixture calculations, etc), but we are expected to understand this work well enough to properly advise our clients, ensure that the project meets all of its objectives, and is designed as a coordinated whole.<br />
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That said, I am not too surprised that we did not spend any time learning about building failures, except in a vague and anecdotal way. I think most architects are familiar with the famous Frank Lloyd Wright <a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frank_Lloyd_Wright">quotation</a>, "The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines." Usually I hear this used in reference to aesthetics, when we don't like the final look of the building (paint colors are so tricky...), but there are, of course, so many other ways that buildings can fail. Wright's Fallingwater is a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/us/rescuing-a-world-famous-but-fragile-house.html">notorious example</a>, where the cantilever terraces were seen to be failing immediately after construction, and continued to deflect (that is, slowly fall down) until the building was structurally reinforced in the early 2000s. In that case, it was an architectural mistake, where Wright himself directed the structural engineer to put in less steel than necessary. As it turns out, the engineers added more steel than Wright wanted over Wright's objection, just not enough to support the terraces permanently.<br />
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What I wish we had learned in school is not more anecdotes about Wright's insistence that he knew better than an engineer, but more case studies in recent catastrophic building failures, since it is these types of failures that are truly disastrous, and that everyone in the construction industry wants to avoid. In the examples that I have read about, it's not one man's hubris that causes the problem, but usually a series of incorrect decisions - sometimes involving the architect directly, but not always - that leads to potentially dangerous situations. As the leaders of the design team, architects should be on the lookout for these issues in order to avoid them. To be clear, I don't think these are common, and I think the processes currently in place for design and construction usually provide enough opportunities to correct mistakes before they are built, but I don't think it could hurt to have some cautionary tales be more widely known. So here are three cases I have found interesting, and that I think have some implications for general practice.<br />
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<b>Case 1: The Toppling Tower</b><br />
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In the construction of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citigroup_Center">Citigroup Center</a> (1977), engineering mistakes, plus contractor's changes, together created a situation where moderate-speed winds would be sufficient to cause a skyscraper to fail. The tower has a unique design with off-set loads, which meant that running the typical engineering analysis for wind loads was not sufficient to determine the worst-case design conditions, which are what is needed to determine the required strength of the structural design. So the engineer did not design for adequate strength. This mistake was compounded by contractor's changes, where lower-strength bolted connections were substituted for higher-strength welds. Further, the building had a tuned-mass damper, installed for occupant comfort (to decrease sway in high winds), but because of the inadequate building strength, this system was actually helping keep the building up; but because this system relies on power to function, in the event of a power outage, the damper would stop working and the building have would become vulnerable to structural failure even in low-speed winds.<br />
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In this case, the design team should have taken special care in the design and review of the structural system, because it was unusual; and should have provided better oversight to the proposed construction changes. In the end, the steel was remediated, and the building is now considered safe, but perhaps the worst part of this case is that the engineers hid this issue from the public, and it was only revealed in 1995.<br />
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For more on this near-disaster, and the undergraduate student who helped discover the design flaw in the 1970s, check out this <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2014/04/17/the_citicorp_tower_design_flaw_that_could_have_wiped_out_the_skyscraper.html">99% Invisible podcas</a>t.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Citigroup_center_from_ground.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Citigroup_center_from_ground.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: Wikipedia</td></tr>
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<b>Case 2: The Structural Shortcut</b><br />
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In the case of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse">Hyatt Regency Kansas City</a> (1978), engineering negligence again combined with inappropriate construction changes to create an engineering disaster, and in this case, it cost more than a hundred lives. The hotel lobby included two bridges, one hung above the other, that shared structural tie rods holding up the beams that supported them. In the original design, three sets of tie-rods held up three beams supporting the upper bridge; the tie rods passed through the beams and held them up with nuts on the underside of the beams. The tie rods then continued down to the lower bridge, and supported the lower bridge as well. This design meant that each bridge was supported from a separate set of beams and nuts, and only the tie rods took the full load of both bridges. As designed, this system was apparently inadequate and only supported 60% of the code-required load. To make matters worse, however, the contractor requested a change to the tie-rod design (for cost / ease of construction): they separated each two-story rod into two separate, offset one-story-long rods. This change meant that the upper rods now supported the beams of the upper bridge, as before, but then the lower rods were now hung from the <i>beams</i> of the upper bridge to support the lower bridge, instead of from the upper rods. In other words, the beams of the upper bridge were, in the revised design, taking the full load of both bridges, instead of the tie rods doing that job. Because the tie rods were discontinuous, the beam became part of the load path, a structural "shortcut" that reduced the structural capacity of the entire system to a mere 30% of the code-required load. Yikes.<br />
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Even worse - yes, there's more - the beams holding the bridges were designed as box beams made of welded C-channels, welded with the joints at top and bottom of the beam, with the tie rods passing through these joints. Thus, the nuts that held the beams in place were putting pressure on the weakest part of the beams. During a party in 1981, three years after opening, with a large number of people standing on both bridges, the beams deformed, allowing the nuts to pass through the beams, and the two bridges collapsed.<br />
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This tragedy might have been prevented if the engineers had carefully studied the contractor's proposed re-design, and realized that the structural load path had been substantially changed. But it would also have taken a dedicated city plan reviewer to notice that even the original design wasn't up to code. As an architect, it reminds me that we all share responsibility for reviewing design and construction changes, and that each change is critical to review fully.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Hyatt_Kansas_City_Collapse.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="334" data-original-width="481" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Hyatt_Kansas_City_Collapse.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: Wikipedia</td></tr>
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<b>Case 3: The Broken Beam</b><br />
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This one is close to home: the recently-fixed beams of the <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/microcracks-undermined-san-franciscos-new-bus-terminal/">Transbay Transit Center</a> (completed this year, 2019). While the final blame-assigning has only begun, <i>Wired</i> has described the extent of the structural failure and the fixes that have just been completed so that the center could <a href="https://www.kqed.org/news/11758146/transbay-transit-center-ready-for-partial-reopening-after-280-day-closure">open last month</a>. Fortunately for all, maintenance workers discovered the failures before anything catastrophic could happen, but the investigation and fixes took the better part of a year. The workers found major cracks running through a girder (a large beam) that supported the sixty-foot spans of the transit center across a street. It turns out that the girder also had hangers attached to it, which supported the floor below, and installing this assembly of girders and hangers required cutting some access holes in the girder for welding. Apparently, the access holes for the girders in one location (but not for other girders in a different location that spanned the same distance) were cut <i>before</i> welding took place, which meant that micro-cracks in the steel, caused by cutting the access holes, were able to fracture into full-blown cracks by the heat of the subsequent welding. The other girder, which was welded first and then had the access holes cut afterward, did not experience the same cracking. The transit authority decided to strengthen all the girders anyway, by attaching huge steel plates top and bottom of the girders with bolts.<br />
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Based on my reading of the article, this sounds like another miscommunication issue. Probably a sub-contractor needed to change the agreed-upon construction sequence due to scheduling pressure, and then either didn't consult the design team and other contractors, or did, but the necessary thought wasn't given to the impact of this change. In any case, the cutting and welding was done out of sequence, and resulted in cracks that could have caused the girder to fail entirely.<br />
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So here again, I suspect that faulty or insufficient construction oversight was to blame, either on the part of the engineer, contractor, or fabricator. All parties need to take adequate time to review changes during construction. Schedule pressure should not be used as an excuse for failing to complete a thorough review.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://media.wired.com/photos/5d4e0b97bb8cb10008a1a722/master/w_578,c_limit/Transpo_Vecchiopresentationpage42.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="519" height="640" src="https://media.wired.com/photos/5d4e0b97bb8cb10008a1a722/master/w_578,c_limit/Transpo_Vecchiopresentationpage42.jpg" width="415" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: LPI, Inc. via Wired</td></tr>
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Now that I know about a few of these problems, I'm planning to read more case studies in construction and engineering failures. What other engineering disasters should be common knowledge within the profession? Leave your suggestions in the comments!</div>
Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-62365048902560766882019-08-21T09:31:00.000-07:002019-08-21T09:32:09.096-07:00The Great Move 2019: A Southern Sabbatical<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hello from Virginia, our new, albeit temporary, home!<br />
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As part of a program through J's work, we will be spending the next four months in Hampton, Virginia, a town in the Virginia Beach - Norfolk - Newport News area, also known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Roads">Hampton Roads</a>. J will be teaching first-year computer science at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_University">Hampton University</a>, a historically black university (HBCU), as part of the <a href="https://careers.google.com/stories/google-in-residence/">Google-in-Residence</a> (GIR) program. As for me, I have left CAW, and will be taking a sabbatical while I figure out what's next. Our plan is to return to the Bay Area in January, and move to San Francisco.<br />
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We vacated our apartment at the beginning of August, put everything into storage, and left for DC, where J had training before starting at Hampton. While we were sorry to leave our great apartment in Mountain View, I think we were both ready for something new. We also said good-bye to my beloved 2006 Pontiac Vibe, which went to a new home.<br />
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During our week in DC, I took the opportunity to visit some museums and spend time with friends in the area. We were able to visit the <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/">National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC)</a>, twice, so we could actually see the whole thing; it's too much to see in one visit. The museum is organized around two sets of galleries: the lower-level history galleries, and the upper-level culture galleries. I spent 2.5 hrs on the lower level galleries, which trace the history of African Americans in the US since the first slaves were brought to the colonies, through the present. Then I spent 3 hrs on the upper level galleries, which showcase African American culture thematically, organized around music, performing arts, visual art, community activism, and sports. The exhibits integrate artifacts, text, photographs, video, and music throughout, creating an immersive experience that makes it easy to get lost for hours. If you haven't had a chance to visit yet, since the museum opened in 2016, I highly recommend it.<br />
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We also visited the National Portrait Gallery (to see the recently-installed <a href="https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.2018.16">Obama portraits</a>), the National Botanical Garden, Dupont Circle area, the District Wharf, and the Air & Space Museum. I also visited the "Lawn" exhibit at the National Building Museum, but that deserves a separate post.<br />
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I also went to Baltimore for a day, visiting the Visionary Art Museum, the waterfront, Druid Hill Park, and Hampden. I recommend the <a href="https://www.thecharmery.com/">Charmery</a> ice cream shop if you're in the neighborhood! I got a Cheerwine milkshake that was excellent on a hot day.<br />
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Last week we arrived here in Hampton, where we'll be staying near Buckroe Beach, just a few blocks from the ocean. Thanks to GIR, we have a furnished apartment for the time we're here. So far we have been focused on getting settled in, finding the closest grocery stores, etc, while J meets the Hampton CS Department faculty and I work on my portfolio. My hope is to get involved with the Hampton Department of Architecture, or work part-time on construction administration in a local firm, or some combination of the two. I also have a backlog of writing and personal projects to tackle -- including, probably, a new blog/website -- so look forward to seeing that!<br />
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So far, we've visited the Virginia Air & Space Center / NASA Langley Visitor Center, checked out the beach and a local seafood festival, and are planning to attend some of the <a href="http://hamptonva2019.com/">1619 Commemoration</a> events (recognizing 400 years since the first African landing in Virginia) this weekend.<br />
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East Coast friends, now is the time to come visit us here at the beach! Let me know if you're interested, and we hope to see some of you during our time here. Also, if you have any recommendations for what we *have to* see and do while in Virginia, let me know in the comments! I'm already planning on trips to NYC, Durham, Richmond, and Williamsburg, but would welcome more suggestions.</div>
Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-38909675375062845732019-05-12T23:35:00.002-07:002019-05-12T23:35:14.409-07:00Visiting Death Valley<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last month, J's parents invited us and his brother to meet them in Death Valley for a weekend trip over Easter weekend. Somehow Easter in Death Valley seemed appropriate, so we agreed. We packed up our best western gear and headed for the desert.<br />
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<b>Day 1 - Friday</b></h3>
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<b><br /></b>We had an uneventful flight from San Jose to Las Vegas, where we met J’s brother at the airport, and were picked up by his parents in a giant, black Jeep Wrangler, nicknamed Monique, which would be our road trip vehicle for the weekend. Our first stop was Whole Foods, to stock up on provisions, which for today’s modern family includes water, shrimp rolls, artisanal cheese and crackers, a mango smoothie, and chocolate-covered almonds -- only the essentials.<br />
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We then drove out to Death Valley, losing signal as soon as we left the Whole Foods parking lot, and relying on the downloaded maps I had remembered to save to my phone before we left home. We took NV-160 through Pahrump and Death Valley Junction, following the recommendations of <a href="https://www.earthtrekkers.com/2-days-in-death-valley-itinerary/">this website</a> the whole way. We had printed copies of the text of the website to refer to, which was good since no one in the car had any kind of signal for their phones. So while I could navigate us, we had no way to know what we wanted to go to! I won’t try to replicate all the information from that site, so check it out if you are thinking of going. Helpfully, it has not just recommendations about where to go, but how to get there, which, again, is important if you want to see some sights on your way in, but don’t yet have a park map or any idea of where you want to go.<br />
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Once inside the park, we took some crucial photos posing next to Monique so she wouldn’t feel left out of our group, observed the “no drones” warnings, and paid at the pay station. There were no maps available (and we would understand why later). And then we were off to see the sights!</div>
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<b>Dante’s View</b>: Turning left at the first turn past the pay station, we continued out to Dante’s View, which gives you a great view over the main area of the valley with the salt flats. According to the placards (always read the plaques), there is an underground river, the Amarosa, running along the valley, which dissolves soluble salts as it goes, and springs up along the valley, causing the salt deposits we could see from the viewpoint. Agua Amarosa means something like “bitter water” in Spanish. Dante’s View itself was named to go along with the general theme of the park (death) by the late-19th-century officials who created the park. The nearest ridge peak to the north is the site of the immortal words, “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany.” (For an excellent overview of Star Wars filming locations in the park, <a href="https://www.panamintcity.com/exclusives/starwars.html">check out this website</a>.)<br />
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The viewpoint area was upgraded and completed in 2018, and it looked great, with a low stone wall and curving steel barrier on top. At either end of the overlook parking area, you can walk a trail along the ridge for additional views. The viewpoint is at about 5,500 feet of elevation, and you can really feel it as you hike up and down the ridges; but it’s also cooler than the valley below. In the distance is Telescope Peak, on the other side of the valley, at 11,000 feet, with snow on top. After hiking south along the ridge for a bit, we returned to the car and continued on.<br />
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<b>Zabriskie Point</b>: We passed by Twenty Mule Team Canyon and stopped at Zabriskie Point, surrounded by yellow mudstone and tilted layers of other stone. The history of this area is that there was once a lake here, where layers of silt and mud created the mudstone, which was later uplifted through seismic forces, and then eroded by rainstorms into the shapes seen today. Layers of darker stone are lava from ancient lava flows through the area. The landscape is beautiful and weird with almost no vegetation. The viewpoint itself has a paved, easy ramp up to the top, which is also paved in a giant flat circular area. The installation here also seemed new, although I didn’t see anything with a date on it. After our relatively quick stop here, we headed for the visitor’s center.<br />
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<b>Furnace Creek Visitor’s Center</b>: We arrived at the visitor’s center just minutes before closing, but managed to get a map and some water before being shooed out. To get a map, you have to present your paid ticket or park pass, which seems like a good system both to ensure people are paying, and also to give the rangers a chance to interact with you, answer questions, and advise you not to drive your sedan on unpaved roads, all while enjoying the air conditioning. A whiteboard posted inside indicated which roads and sights were closed, which in our case, was quite a few, including some we had thought to visit, so I’m glad we stopped by. I didn't see those closures indicated anywhere else, on maps or otherwise, although I’m sure they were on the NPS website somewhere - if you could get a signal.<br />
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The visitor’s center was a 1950s modernist pavilion with some kind of exhibit area that we didn’t get to see because they were closing, and a nice 3D topo map with lights you could illuminate to show you where different sights are located. The temperature was hovering around 105 degrees, but didn’t feel too hot.<br />
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<b>Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes</b>: After our brief stop at the visitor’s center, we checked out the sand dunes, which are right next to our hotel, the Stovepipe Wells Hotel in Stovepipe Wells Village. The dunes are very impressive as they recede into the distance, with the mountains behind them, especially when the sun catches the top of them. Walking out to the highest dune is about a mile, though, so we didn’t do that. We wandered around for a bit, then continued on to the hotel, since it was already 6pm and we were pretty tired. We planned to go back to the dunes at night, since the weekend had a full moon. The dune area is another Star Wars filming location.<br />
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<b>Stovepipe Wells Hotel</b>: Our hotel room was spacious and had everything needed; the hotel has a pool, fire pit (...it was probably 90 degrees out, but it was on anyway) and very central location in the park. We had dinner at the restaurant, the highlight of which for me were the original Star Wars posters on the wall, including one Revenge of the Jedi poster.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<b>Day 2 - Saturday</b></h3>
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We had breakfast in our room, then left around 10:15am and drove to <b>Badwater Basin</b>. If I can make a recommendation, get there earlier than 11; by 11 it was probably over 95 degrees and there is absolutely no shade. Badwater Basin is the lowest point (on land) in the western hemisphere, close to 300 feet below sea level, and it was quite amazing. The viewpoint has a walk out onto the salt flats, and where the salt is pitted, you can see that it is salt all the way down.<br />
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We skipped Natural Bridge, which our online guide had said was not as good of a hike as some of the later stops, and went to <b>Devil’s Golf Course</b>. For a place with such a silly-sounding name, it was pretty spectacular. The sharp, jagged salt formations continue on uninterruptedly in all directions for miles; there are very few places I have been with such a monotonous landscape. The viewpoint / parking area is near the middle of the valley, and very quiet (once all the cars turn off their engines).<br />
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Our next destination was <b>Artist’s Drive</b>, a one-way spur off the main drive, where you can see multicolored rock formations made of various minerals. We followed our online guide’s recommendation and stopped at the first area with a “DIP” sign, and hiked up an unnamed canyon. It turns out there was a second “DIP” sign shortly after, so it’s possible we went to a different one than he recommended, but we enjoyed it anyway, so if you want to try it yourself, stop at the first sign. The canyon was still shady at 12:30pm so it was a nice walk, with a scramble up a fairly vertical rock in the middle. The end was blocked by a rock fall, and we climbed on it but then turned around. There was no one else there, and the views back out toward the valley were lovely.<br />
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We continued down Artist’s Drive to Artist’s Palette, which is the mid-point stop where you can admire the colorful rock formations. By 1pm the heat and lack of cloud cover had started to make it oppressive to be outside. We had lunch in the back of the car, admiring the people who brought tents and chairs with them, so they could have a leisurely lunch. We didn’t hike around here but continued on after lunch. The rest of the drive has more interesting rock coloration but we didn’t stop.<br />
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Back on the main road, we next turned aside at Desolation Canyon, down a gravel road that ends in a roundabout far from the canyon mouth. As hot as it was, with no shade, we walked around the bend in the path to see if we could see the canyon mouth, and discovering that there was still no shade, we gave up. Too desolate.<br />
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Next we stopped at Golden Canyon to try again; by this time it was around 2pm, and in the high 90s. The parking area was nearly full, so there were many other families around, but J and I made it a couple hundred yards into the canyon and gave up; it was too hot. We didn’t even make it to where the canyon turns golden, but hid in the shade while everyone else continued along for a while. I was concerned about getting heatstroke and didn’t want to chance it.<br />
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Our final stop on this outing was the Timbisha Shoshone tribal office which has a small cafe serving tacos and shave ice. Let me clarify - pretty terrible shave ice. They were out of most of their flavors, weren’t sure what half the flavors were when we asked (I couldn’t remember what flavor is “mai tai” and had no internet with which to check). We ate ours anyway because it was cold and we were hot, but I don’t recommend it. The tacos looked disappointing as well, so we were glad we hadn’t relied on that for lunch.<br />
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At this point, J and I were wiped out and needed a break. We went back to the hotel and rested for a bit, then the in-laws rallied and went to Ubehebe Crater. After the 20-minute respite, I didn’t feel well enough to go with them, so I stayed and napped for another hour, then checked out the pool, which was unheated, therefore too cold for me, and not particularly nice either. A dust storm went by. Meanwhile, the in-laws thoroughly enjoyed Ubehebe Crater and walked the rim, climbed down to the crater, and were entertained by driving through the storm. It took them three hours, round trip, so if you’re wondering how long it takes to get there and back from Stovepipe Wells, budget three hours. After they returned, we hung out for a short while then went to dinner at the hotel. I ordered a locally-produced root beer that came in a weird boot-shaped glass. It was just ok.<br />
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After dinner, we went back to the <b>Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes</b>, by moonlight. We tried to see stars, but couldn’t see the Milky Way, and soon thereafter the moon came up so we couldn’t see them anymore. But with the full moon, we could see everything else. With my Pixel's "Night Sight" mode, I was able to get some amazing photographs of the moonrise. We walked back to the car without flashlights or headlamps, with the moon lighting our way.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<b>Day 3 - Sunday - Easter</b></h3>
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We started the day with breakfast in our room, including some East Van Roasters chocolate from Vancouver as a special treat. By 10am we were out the door. We started with a quick photo op for me at the sand dunes, where everyone graciously allowed me a few minutes to take some photos with my Rey vest and lightsaber on the dunes. Then we were off toward Nevada and Las Vegas.<br />
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Our first stop was at <a href="https://www.redrockcanyonlv.org/">Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area</a>, which is a one-way loop drive with many scenic viewpoints and places to stop. The area seemed very popular with climbers, and we saw a good number of them tackling the various cliff faces. We stopped at several viewpoints and took a short walk over to see some petroglyphs at one of the stop areas. One of the strangest sights were the red polka-dotted stones around the park, which looked like they had chicken pox; apparently these are iron-rich inclusions that collected in the stones and then show up as the stone weathers.<br />
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After the drive through Red Rock, it was on to Las Vegas, where we had lunch at a nice Thai restaurant on the outskirts of town. Then we dropped off brother-in-law at the airport, and had ourselves dropped off outside the Bellagio, with an hour or so to kill before our own flight. We watched the fountain (as over-the-top as one would expect), walked around the Bellagio, and walked through Caesar's Palace, while criticizing the lack of any authenticity whatsoever. Then we took a short 15-minute Lyft ride to the airport, and proceeded to wait through several delays until we could finally board our flight home.<br />
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Overall, I would certainly recommend a trip to Death Valley if you are going to be in the area, although I would suggest going earlier than April, starting your day as early in the day as possible, and and planning for two full days instead of a day and a half. The landscape is unearthly and beautiful. Pack all your own food, drive a large and comfortable vehicle, bring plenty of water and sun protection, and you might be able to hike more than one canyon! We had a good time even with just one canyon hike, though, and the Jeep was definitely a good call. Thanks, Monique, for keeping us cool and getting us where we needed to go.</div>
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Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-15640325208660265732019-04-07T20:56:00.000-07:002019-04-07T20:57:31.440-07:00Visiting Vancouver<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This past weekend, we went to Vancouver for a few days so that J could participate in Lindy Bout. I went along to see the sights and visit with college friends who live nearby. I would try to say something cute about the weather, but I think my humor would be too dry for this climate. Suffice to say, it rained some of the time, but I didn't let it dampen my spirits. For the full photo set, <a href="https://photos.app.goo.gl/ep1fGuLB6Z7y7Gg6A">use this link.</a><br />
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We arrived Thursday night after a delayed flight, and took the <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)">SkyTrain</a> and bus to our Airbnb close to Granville Island. J went to dance, and I went to bed.<br />
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<b>Friday</b><br />
Our Airbnb host was excellent and gave us an orientation and suggestions for places to check out. I started the day with a blueberry-jasmine croissant from <a href="http://www.beaucoupbakery.com/">Beaucoup Bakery</a>, which he recommended, and which was just a couple blocks away. The croissant was delicious, and I got crumbs everywhere while waiting for the bus to downtown. The bus ride was less than 15 minutes and put me right in the middle of downtown.<br />
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My first event of the day was a walking tour with Erik from <a href="https://www.tourguys.ca/tour/free-walking-tour-vancouver-downtown-waterfront/">Tour Guys</a>. He was knowledgeable and interesting, covering a wide range of Vancouver history. We visited the Hotel Vancouver, Christ Church Cathedral, the Marine Building, and Canada Place / Vancouver Convention Center, admiring some public art, parks, and plazas along the way. The <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Building">Marine Building</a> was the stand-out by far, with its incredibly detailed Art Deco ornament both inside and out. Be sure to visit the lobby and check out the elevator doors and interiors (wood inlay, brass), ceramic tile work, terrazzo flooring, and decorative stucco. The entire building is marine-themed, with Viking ships, ships of famous explorers, signs of the Zodiac (for navigation), etc. The architect was McCarnter Nairne, a local firm. At Canada Place, we went to the downstairs lobbies and viewed some art pieces by local artists and some displays about local history.<br />
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After the tour, I continued my circumnavigation of downtown by heading east to Gastown, where I checked out the <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_clock">Steam Clock</a> (which, according to Wikipedia, is no longer actually steam-powered), had a fish burrito at Tacofino, and some hot chocolate at <a href="http://eastvanroasters.com/">East Van Roasters</a>. I later tried their chocolate bars (I picked up a few for later), and would highly recommend checking them out - they roast, temper, and make their bars all in house. At this point, it started to rain, and continued raining through the rest of the day. Armed with my umbrella, I visited the <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Sun_Yat-Sen_Classical_Chinese_Garden">Sun Yat-Sen Park</a> (and skipped the garden), walked around <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BC_Place">BC Place</a>, and finished at the <a href="https://www.vpl.ca/">Vancouver Public Library</a>. I was interested in BC Place for its retractable roof, which I studied as part of my work on the Frost Amphitheater at Stanford. Unfortunately there were no public tours of the inside of the stadium available while I was there, so I just tried to get the best view I could from the outside. The library was quite impressive as well, with an outdoor roof terrace, a stadium seating area on the top floors, computer labs full of people, art displays, musical instruments on loan, and all kinds of interesting nooks and places to sit. By the end of the afternoon, my socks were soaked through thanks to my decidedly non-waterproof shoes, and I was ready to head home.<br />
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My final adventure for the day was dinner at the <a href="http://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/"><span id="goog_1718483207"></span>Vancouver Art Gallery<span id="goog_1718483208"></span></a> Cafe followed by a trip through the galleries, which are open late on the first Friday night of the month. My local friend came with me and we enjoyed the interactive art installations by <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowry_Baden">Mowry Baden</a>, including a set of mop buckets cast in bronze, a weird pile of hand trucks that you can push around, a spinning thing that you use by lying on it on your stomach, a "DIY Yayoi Kusama Infinity Room" (my name for it) of a darkened room with annoying flashing lights that shoots ping pong balls past you, and more. Fun times were had by all.<br />
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<b>Saturday</b><br />
We started the day right by sleeping in and getting fancy Belgian waffles at <a href="https://www.grababetterwaffle.com/">Patisserie Lebeau</a>. I had the orange and the apple cinnamon waffles, with a side of whipped cream and custard; J had the plain Belgian waffle with a side of poached pears in caramel sauce. Both were extremely sweet and indulgent - one side of poached pears would have been plenty for two plain waffles. But everything was delicious so I can't complain. The shop is set incongruously amid a sea of high-end car dealerships / repair shops, so don't be confused if you are looking for it!<br />
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We then took a quick walk around Granville Island and the public market before meeting our friend for the main event of the day, which was a trip to <a href="https://www.capbridge.com/">Capilano Suspension Bridge Park</a>. The drive was short - everything is so close together! - and the weather was remarkably cooperative. It rained briefly while we were there, but not enough to stop us. The park is fairly "Disneyfied" with little shops and food kiosks everywhere, but I guess that helps pays for the attractions, which are a series of canopy and cliff walks built high in the trees and cantilevered from the cliffside. And, of course, there is the suspension bridge that started it all, which is really a fun piece of infrastructure, spanning across a canyon with a rushing river at the bottom. The bridge bounces and sways quite a bit as you walk across, so it's certainly not for anyone who's afraid of heights or can't handle unstable surfaces. Once across, the rest of the park on that side is very easy to access, though, so it would be a good trip for folks with somewhat limited mobility, assuming they can get across the bridge. The canopy walk reminded me of the zipline adventure we did in the redwoods in California - these are the same, or similar, trees - but without the ziplining; there are a series of platforms built onto the trees, and you walk on suspension walkways between them. The little platforms also reminded me strongly of Endor from Star Wars... definitely a plus for me!<br />
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We stopped to eat our picnic lunch at one of the sets of picnic tables; J and I brought sandwiches from Beaucoup Bakery, which were surprisingly good. I had a roasted yam and tomato sandwich on a croissant, J had smoked salmon on brioche. The yam was smoky and spicy and actually made a great sandwich.<br />
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Back on the entrance side of the canyon, the cliff walk was our group's favorite part of the park, so don't skip that. (An aside - I heard from several people that the free Lynn Canyon Park is equally good, but I can't attest to it myself. Let me know if you go there!) All in all, Capilano is a bit pricey, but if you're really into engineering works and enjoy being up high, this is a worthwhile trip.<br />
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After getting damp and cold at Capilano, we headed back to our Airbnb to warm up before going to dinner at the Sandbar on Granville Island. We had a view of the harbor and everyone enjoyed their fish. Then my friends and I went to see an improv show at the <a href="https://www.vtsl.com/">TheaterSports League</a>, and there was much rejoicing. It's an inexpensive and fun show, and they serve alcohol, if you're into that. We had our own little table in the front. My friends advised that the regular, daily improv show, which is a series of different improv sketches (like Whose Line Is It Anyway) is generally better than their single-theme shows.<br />
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<b>Sunday</b><br />
I slept in again - what is a vacation if not a chance to sleep? - and then grabbed breakfast at Their There, a breakfast/lunch spot down 4th from the Airbnb. I didn't really enjoy my granola and yogurt, since the yogurt was aggressively sour and the granola & fruit topping did not compensate nearly enough. But I also got an apple danish for J, which I wasn't able to get to him before I had to leave, and ended up eating it myself; the danish was excellent, very flaky and delicious. The shop is extremely hip(ster) and had the music pumping for a Sunday morning.<br />
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After breakfast I took the bus downtown again and met my friend for the 10:30am service at <a href="https://thecathedral.ca/">Christ Church Cathedral</a>. As an Anglican church, the services are very "high church," but I enjoyed the bit of pomp and circumstance, and the lovely choir and organ music. After church we headed over to Yaletown and walked around until we met the others for lunch at The Distillery. I had basic fried eggs on toast and breakfast potatoes, which were good but not anything special.<br />
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We then said goodbye to our friends, and I spent the afternoon walking around Kitsilano until it was time to catch the bus to the airport. I walked down to the beach, around the point past the Maritime Museum and Museum of Vancouver, and back along 4th. I stopped to get a hot chocolate at <a href="https://kokomonk.com/">Koko Monk Chocolates</a>, which was a small, slightly off-putting shop (the windows have giant signs indicating that they are VEGAN and RAW) but had pretty darn delicious hot chocolate. I got the "authentic" (unflavored) one, which was still very flavorful, with orange flavors and spices added, whipped cream, and a very thick chocolate sauce on top. I'd be curious to try their other flavors next time, since they have a long list of unusual flavors to try.<br />
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I then packed up and took the train to the airport. Public transit has been exceptional here, the buses are fast, frequent and clean, the trains quiet and easy to navigate. A+, Vancouver. I got to the airport in no time, then got through security reasonably quickly with my Global Entry card. And then, I waited. Unfortunately, the American security area has pretty disappointing food choices, so I had a mediocre banh mi while waiting for my flight. My flight back was delayed an hour, just like our flight there. Oh well.<br />
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<b>Conclusions</b><br />
And that, my friends, was Vancouver! A few general thoughts: I found the city to be very clean, well-kept, and friendly - at least, the parts that I visited. It was also easy to navigate and compact enough to walk easily. I did notice a more distinct lack of accessibility than I would have expected, specifically in newer buildings where I would have expected more; doors didn't have clearance at the sides, lots of stairs everywhere, etc. But then again, the specific regulations of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) don't apply in Canada, so maybe their disability groups have different priorities or requirements? I did see gender-neutral restrooms or single-accommodation restrooms nearly everywhere, which was nice to see. The weather was also very cooperative, waiting until later in the afternoon or evening to rain, and I even got some legitimately sunny weather on Sunday afternoon. The cherry trees were blooming, it wasn't too cold, and what more could one ask for!<br />
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I know I missed a lot of must-sees: the Museum of Anthropology / UBC campus, hiking / mountains, taking the ferries, etc. So I shall just have to plan to visit again. What else did I miss? Tell me in the comments!</div>
Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-38754534943919116102019-02-05T21:44:00.002-08:002019-02-05T21:44:30.900-08:00Art and Craft<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I think most architects have hobbies producing some kind of art or craft - some design furniture, others paint or draw, still others sew, and there are probably as many different outlets as there are individuals. One of my colleagues at work is a talented <a href="http://www.katiecgutierrez.com/">encaustic painter</a> (painting with wax), another designs and builds his own surfboards, and one of my <a href="http://www.robinjohnstondesign.com/">former colleagues</a> makes decorative knives.<br />
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As for me - I make, well, random stuff. The impulse is there, but the discipline (the craft, you might say) isn't, so the art pieces and crafts I make are whatever takes my fancy at the moment, allowing me to explore different techniques and materials. I haven't posted any of my crafts for a while, so here is a selection of pieces from the last couple of years.<br />
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<h3>
"Collected Works"</h3>
As a kid, I collected all kinds of things: figurative erasers, toy cars, stickers, enamel pins, etc. Lately I've been interested in trying to turn those collections into artwork, as a way of ending the collection and transforming it into a piece I could display. I'm calling the series "Collected Works." I decided to start with a display of all my enamel pins, which have been primarily collected from Odyssey of the Mind, but also from various places I've traveled over the years. <br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidUsPn3utVIjs69S0KW5U67SfXOMvKCsAx05sxKB4kGycfLbfvPfpu2o4rN5TDRi29sWMCgSzPlc_Y3PY7mebl5nbCVkxsFf0mSPwYZAgIdTnIzNR7ZujZkHJKSQV9HtgRJkccEz37_tGr/s1600/IMG_20180728_141116.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidUsPn3utVIjs69S0KW5U67SfXOMvKCsAx05sxKB4kGycfLbfvPfpu2o4rN5TDRi29sWMCgSzPlc_Y3PY7mebl5nbCVkxsFf0mSPwYZAgIdTnIzNR7ZujZkHJKSQV9HtgRJkccEz37_tGr/s640/IMG_20180728_141116.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Collected Works #1<br /></td></tr>
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To make this piece, first, I designed the background canvas using a pattern of circles that I drew digitally, based on the number of pins I needed to display. Then I printed the pattern, cut it out by hand (using a circle cutter tool) to make a template, and then painted the pattern onto the canvas. This gave me the grid for laying out the pins, with different sizes of circles for different sizes of pins; the intent was to have an abstract pattern of contrasting sizes. Last, I laid out all my pins on the canvas, and fastened them. It didn't turn out exactly like I hoped, because more of the pins were large-sized than I initially thought, but the pattern is still visible in the top half of the piece. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Background canvas</td></tr>
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<b>Collected Works #2 (in progress)</b><br />
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For my second piece of this series, I'm using all the ticket stubs I had saved from my semester abroad in Italy. This piece is also a test for a larger piece I'm planning using movie ticket stubs. I bought hardboard for the painting surface, gessoed it, and adhered the paper stubs to it. I'm still contemplating how to finish this piece - I want to coat it with a transparent top layer - so hopefully I can post the finished product later this year.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJjvIghS4UDx1rraw9WMlUefp5CXRULGDxjFFf9dE3Xuqkt1nmOz1uhH6k4g3rP7e5d5Q7hBQLV3tnEB_CvMIu2HOsHYrvXNu8TcOlG3rA7IUolxWvwdJvhQufMeKBLXAqh23rc4B2-ah4/s1600/IMG_20180903_182415.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJjvIghS4UDx1rraw9WMlUefp5CXRULGDxjFFf9dE3Xuqkt1nmOz1uhH6k4g3rP7e5d5Q7hBQLV3tnEB_CvMIu2HOsHYrvXNu8TcOlG3rA7IUolxWvwdJvhQufMeKBLXAqh23rc4B2-ah4/s400/IMG_20180903_182415.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Test fitting the layout - not painted or adhered yet...</span></td></tr>
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Ornaments 2016</h3>
My last post about "stuff I made" neglected to include the ornaments I made in 2016, which were pretty excellent, if I don't say so myself. I started by downloading <a href="http://www.snowcrystals.com/photos/photos.html">high-resolution photographs of snowflakes taken by Ken Libbrecht</a>, the father/father-in-law of our good friends. He graciously agreed to let me use his photos for this project. Then, I traced the outline of the shapes of six of the snowflakes I thought looked interesting, and laser cut them out of thin plywood. As a final step, I boxed them with red twine for hanging and little rubber feet for using as coasters, and a card showing the original photographs that I used. I think I can say they were a hit with our family and friends.<br />
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<h3>
Around the house</h3>
For months, we have had nothing on the wall above our dresser, since I took down a Chihuly poster that was just too dark. Finally I got around to figuring out what to do: I installed a picture ledge, and then spray-mounted a bunch of posters in coordinating colors that I already had lying around. Now I have a display shelf that I can change out whenever I please, I can shuffle the pieces around, and I didn't have to buy any expensive frames!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkFtg14vurHgaODopN_C4rfgecO77_VPAjYddHUCeGwFCmaivIIqH9puYp9obm8EMZLEL5Uacs4rVDnfqnP23XemeXlp_flxYhhyphenhyphen_E-uIlDEll3RLkniSoXFF9pyp59KorAm9Ra5_gAHT9/s1600/IMG_20190205_213306.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkFtg14vurHgaODopN_C4rfgecO77_VPAjYddHUCeGwFCmaivIIqH9puYp9obm8EMZLEL5Uacs4rVDnfqnP23XemeXlp_flxYhhyphenhyphen_E-uIlDEll3RLkniSoXFF9pyp59KorAm9Ra5_gAHT9/s640/IMG_20190205_213306.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Why yes, that is a basket of lightsabers on my dresser</span></td></tr>
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An earlier craft that I posted last year was a pair of Harry Potter-style wands. Since then, my wand has been stuck in a basket. I wanted to display it somewhere appropriate, so I repurposed this calendar display (thanks, <a href="http://wondermark.com/">Wondermark</a>!) to hold the wand. Of course, the display needed some House pride on it. I definitely cheated on this one and just printed out the crest, glued it to the board, then painted over it. Why re-invent the wheel, right?<br />
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Have any craft ideas you've been trying to finish for a while? I'd love to hear about them in the comments!</div>
Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-32439004361051604502019-01-03T23:38:00.002-08:002019-01-03T23:38:17.203-08:00Happy 10th Birthday, Blog!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
December 30th, 2018 marked ten years for this blog. That first post was only two sentences, which established this as a travel blog for my semester abroad in Rome, Italy, in spring 2009. Somehow, I've continued to post here more or less monthly for ten years since then, except for a break in 2011 when I posted only twice. Let's also not forget that embarrassing, but fortunately brief, time when I thought I would try using this as a food blog... which was, as we say in my house, "not good eats." Anyway, time went on, I got back to the good stuff (architecture, obviously), and here we are. <br />
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As it's now January 2019, it's time again for that most hallowed of traditions: reviewing how I did on last year's resolutions, and dedicating myself to some new ones for the year to come.<br />
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2018 was noticeably better for me than 2017, which was a year in which I felt frustrated and directionless. 2018 was not without its stress, and in fact much of it was very stressful at work - especially the last four months - but we took some steps at home that I think helped me cope. The biggest one is that we outsourced our apartment cleaning, which was always something I felt stressed about doing myself. As a neat freak, there is nothing quite like coming home to a clean apartment! This year we also chose not to travel for the Christmas / New Years holidays, which I found to be relaxing and positive, although J was pretty bored after the first couple days. I think the other tactic that helped was creating a year-long "to do" list with tasks each month, which let me keep track of my progress on bigger projects. I think this helped me both to get stuff done, and to remember what I had accomplished.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLEm-KxMpOa3l8etxCjy1X6AhHlwV-ToYEFZzNm2XQZYL1clqsD-8qi-9wL1mRl02-czrtlolyFUsmb2mjlxo3Tc7-Az5BfmLFfEirGQOlZYN2dGqNcCMF0-gzyuQDd0Y3ljzeTHvzW9hP/s1600/IMG_20181228_173949.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLEm-KxMpOa3l8etxCjy1X6AhHlwV-ToYEFZzNm2XQZYL1clqsD-8qi-9wL1mRl02-czrtlolyFUsmb2mjlxo3Tc7-Az5BfmLFfEirGQOlZYN2dGqNcCMF0-gzyuQDd0Y3ljzeTHvzW9hP/s640/IMG_20181228_173949.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is why I'm stressed. But we are so, so close to being done...</td></tr>
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In terms of my 2018 resolutions, I did actually have some success:<br />
-- I finished my scrapbooks! I had an ongoing scrapbooking project, where I already had all the materials but lacked the interest and willpower to finish them, which had been sitting around for years. Yes, years. And this year, I finally finished them, and then gave away my extra supplies. It was magical.<br />
-- I completed a number of other art projects, which I'll have to show in another post.<br />
-- I did read a number of architecture and other non-fiction books, hoping to learn more about how I might want to plan my future career, and to learn to take better care of myself and others.<br />
-- I was mostly successful in exercising twice weekly, between running and biking.<br />
-- I did visit with friends, although I forgot about that write-to-friends-monthly idea.<br />
-- On the professional development front, I participated in writing test questions for the California Architects Board, for the California Supplemental Exam (the state licensure exam). I also was trained as an SAP Evaluator, for the Safety Assessment Program, which allows me to serve as a volunteer expert in building safety assessment after a disaster. I just got my ID card in the mail, and we'll see if I get called to serve. It's one of the most direct ways I can use my professional knowledge to help others after a disaster.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtoycrX2WMWHfdG9wzJ-cTvWThleEWA-W5OKMSaegaF_5xeolkSoKxia8V2Rd2pJQGyinp-dflrNf8fsf_wze4H5zFt6GP4BXDtzdpsJkgZR9EumrLipADXMoueppm_JN51H65KeBDARPK/s1600/IMG_20181207_133611.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtoycrX2WMWHfdG9wzJ-cTvWThleEWA-W5OKMSaegaF_5xeolkSoKxia8V2Rd2pJQGyinp-dflrNf8fsf_wze4H5zFt6GP4BXDtzdpsJkgZR9EumrLipADXMoueppm_JN51H65KeBDARPK/s640/IMG_20181207_133611.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What is this, a table for... giant ants?</td></tr>
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Tonight, I went back and re-read my "resolutions" posts from 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2018 (what happened, 2016?). Goals from 2017 and 2018 are going reasonably well. Surprisingly, I achieved almost nothing of my 2015 list, and only this past year did I complete #3 on that list! I guess I need to give them another try.<br />
<br />
So now, the list you were probably waiting for, the things I will try to do in 2019:<br />
<br />
-- Find more ways to reduce my stress, both at work and at home. I'm going to leave this one vague because I'm not sure how to do it yet, but it should be here at the top of my list.<br />
-- Find another type of exercise, one that takes place indoors, so I can do it during the winter when I don't want to be outside. I am going to start by trying rock climbing, and will go from there. My goal is to exercise 3x weekly, up from 2x, in order to finally achieve the <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/expert-answers/exercise/faq-20057916">recommended weekly amount of exercise</a>!<br />
-- Get back into the habit of practicing piano, weekly. I was able to perform once this year, at church, but that was a one-off and I haven't been keeping it up.<br />
-- Write, monthly. I tend to start posts and not finish them, coming back months (or years) later, when they're no longer relevant. I want to be better about getting them done and published. This means accepting things that are "good enough" and letting them go, which is an approach I'm practicing both at home and at work!<br />
-- Finish the several art projects that I started this past year.<br />
-- Work on a real five and ten-year plan for my future career. I now have some better ideas for what I want to be able to do at the end of my career - which I should also write about in a separate post - but I'm not sure what the shorter term should look like.<br />
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Continuing on this path of finding the stressful things in my life (like cleaning the bathroom, or unfinished projects) and eliminating them seems like a worthwhile endeavor. With so many things happening in the world to be stressed about, I don't need anything else to add to it!<br />
<br />
Here's to a better year in 2019, with Democrats in the House, Voldemort on the run, and CO2 emissions on the decline. A girl can dream, anyway.<br />
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Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-34831893954068458052018-12-30T22:16:00.000-08:002019-01-01T22:48:20.911-08:00Visiting Portland<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Let's <a href="https://www.sparefoot.com/self-storage/blog/5625-portland-vs-austin-weird-infographic/">get weird</a>!<br />
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Justin and I, plus one of my best college friends, visited Portland in September. But I have not been great this year at keeping up to date with my posts, so you'll have to bear with me as I attempt to recall what we did during our trip. The impetus for the trip was to see friends, relax, and enjoy the weekend, so we didn't have much of an agenda. The reason we chose Portland was because, in the words of Zoolander, it's so hot right now; it has a reputation as one of the hippest cities in the West, and we needed to see if this reputation was deserved. We spent the weekend on high alert for signs of hipsters, artisanal everything, and plaid, and we were not disappointed.<br />
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We kicked things off right by communing sole-fully with the famous PDX carpet:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9m4ub444-NeX_ZC0mkIo6PgD-5SSMbUTLRMEw8J1ucD6iKfj0PmQZ7omXcARb8_JfMrhX93anF-v6bUaU8MY3jPTj_grjnBt5FDMB0dqjbMwMpeZXryodvPlY84pQXUIzO7_Kpx598Ix/s1600/IMG_20180913_193214.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9m4ub444-NeX_ZC0mkIo6PgD-5SSMbUTLRMEw8J1ucD6iKfj0PmQZ7omXcARb8_JfMrhX93anF-v6bUaU8MY3jPTj_grjnBt5FDMB0dqjbMwMpeZXryodvPlY84pQXUIzO7_Kpx598Ix/s640/IMG_20180913_193214.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;">Boots on the ground, if you will.</i></td></tr>
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If you aren't familiar with the glorious history of the PDX airport carpet, be sure to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_International_Airport_carpet">check it out on Wikipedia</a>. Yes, that's right: this carpet has its own Wikipedia page.<br />
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Our next stop, after admiring that PDX has its own miniature movie theater inside the terminal showing short films about Portland, was dinner at Bollywood Theater (an extremely hip restaurant), which was followed by ice cream at Salt & Straw. We thought at that point we might die from the sheer amount of Portland we witnessed just that evening. But we survived and carried on.<br />
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Friday, our first full day, we followed a walking path of my own designing through downtown. We visited, in no particular order: Blue Star Donuts - pretty good but not life changing; the Lan Su Chinese Garden - delightful and refreshing; Powell's City of Books - overwhelming, in a good way; the Portland Building by Michael Graves - under renovation, sadly; the outside of the Portland Museum of Art; and <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mill-ends-park">Mill Ends Park</a> - tiny but exquisite. Mill Ends was by far the best tiny park I have ever visited. We also rode the MAX light rail, because, well, that's just the sort of thing we do for fun. Public transit = priorities.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmkGqHC4Sn7_RFz3wvSNEsMvr5da2UVEqbI-xldvxsUOf4FDIj0Dp_YtrZt6rdM3AEeDfFJ3QEedCwq34x-zh_Ckpenf41nAk9NUc6Uslb16QjdHw-atP-3Nw1IldDoDuDdGVAEASF9nBq/s1600/IMG_20180914_133149.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmkGqHC4Sn7_RFz3wvSNEsMvr5da2UVEqbI-xldvxsUOf4FDIj0Dp_YtrZt6rdM3AEeDfFJ3QEedCwq34x-zh_Ckpenf41nAk9NUc6Uslb16QjdHw-atP-3Nw1IldDoDuDdGVAEASF9nBq/s640/IMG_20180914_133149.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An oasis within the city</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgksg8loqgaC1sVGeq-I54HfgNXrAIdvUHA2J6I3FVeUuIo7iAOUM0fs6_TzBVTST5C6F6xY0NbNux8NUoMTy2Z9JQzPS6LL27jQzaqOXCEnnaya1knfbVV4X_KqE4JQlF2z7uMQ2a0JDDF/s1600/IMG_20180914_164628.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgksg8loqgaC1sVGeq-I54HfgNXrAIdvUHA2J6I3FVeUuIo7iAOUM0fs6_TzBVTST5C6F6xY0NbNux8NUoMTy2Z9JQzPS6LL27jQzaqOXCEnnaya1knfbVV4X_KqE4JQlF2z7uMQ2a0JDDF/s640/IMG_20180914_164628.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'll get you next time, Michael Graves!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2CVHLgVeZwJsU27FtOq33G7BpM8rBG1WwTg8tCwdHS0rBNZLfnyXatIRi8SQ5Ec1eJ0a8AaO0oFmjk9vZWe402OsWx0vVZmnGIwGKjY_gTNCiJI6gIQ3gEeOIs3uAz5am2g_GFAArGqDr/s1600/IMG_20180914_170739.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2CVHLgVeZwJsU27FtOq33G7BpM8rBG1WwTg8tCwdHS0rBNZLfnyXatIRi8SQ5Ec1eJ0a8AaO0oFmjk9vZWe402OsWx0vVZmnGIwGKjY_gTNCiJI6gIQ3gEeOIs3uAz5am2g_GFAArGqDr/s640/IMG_20180914_170739.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, that is a salmon swimming through this building.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8eljs3nWjOGgfMrCLOmGH0IuaZdmEVKqcaSxFGV-G3r9UDWLuQAsyYAwU9RUy9TsXksCRd9nhiY54C8qNaD8kfw7S67EMPQNRWgXQodJSI1gI3ACp1qXAGJjL8JXuMoANab6iBFlWPIWk/s1600/IMG_20180914_173955.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8eljs3nWjOGgfMrCLOmGH0IuaZdmEVKqcaSxFGV-G3r9UDWLuQAsyYAwU9RUy9TsXksCRd9nhiY54C8qNaD8kfw7S67EMPQNRWgXQodJSI1gI3ACp1qXAGJjL8JXuMoANab6iBFlWPIWk/s640/IMG_20180914_173955.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My favorite park-that-used-to-be-a-light-pole!</td></tr>
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Saturday we met up with additional friends and visited the <a href="https://www.portlandoregon.gov/water/article/326405">Sabin HydroPark</a>, then checked out the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Rose_Test_Garden">International Rose Test Garden</a>, which includes all the roses. All of them. We set ourselves a scavenger hunt to find random roses within the garden, including "Sriracha" and others of equally ridiculous names, but our enjoyment was cut a bit short by rain. In the evening we had dessert at the <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/rimsky-korsakoffee-house-skb">Rimsky-Korsakoffee House</a>, which was purely delightful. I enjoyed the online description of the place as "casually threatening," and the dark, red interiors lived up to the name. The live classical piano music was fun, and the bathroom is a must-see. The desserts were also excellent! We shared a chocolate mousse, a ginger cake, a raspberry fool, and one other thing I can't remember, and everything was good.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhivQyZcp_oIDQHdnLeDrjPAa5lpKMF4T-Dg7RhqOq_1d_EjjAPckx1OtgYeQT0VCJiMBvIA7DjIVSWR4U4tLrQY2CyxmKBoCnIVu3HDlwF3HNMFhhegonNWFIWz57b7wdzMH2hjO3Vdw0O/s1600/IMG_20180915_163304.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhivQyZcp_oIDQHdnLeDrjPAa5lpKMF4T-Dg7RhqOq_1d_EjjAPckx1OtgYeQT0VCJiMBvIA7DjIVSWR4U4tLrQY2CyxmKBoCnIVu3HDlwF3HNMFhhegonNWFIWz57b7wdzMH2hjO3Vdw0O/s640/IMG_20180915_163304.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All the roses.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZVWhjrsD5fVvXttKA-tuE0xahkw4yG_ZrGV5zWwbhviJs_HlPM80oCWcKYk-NdSvUboduYT44bbfRfgmSdiZV31h9MzbeH_AII1zsJttVQZLJ0h2sz97owMUITPKpIdTKR6UJ4BtuGUDG/s1600/IMG_20180915_170351.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZVWhjrsD5fVvXttKA-tuE0xahkw4yG_ZrGV5zWwbhviJs_HlPM80oCWcKYk-NdSvUboduYT44bbfRfgmSdiZV31h9MzbeH_AII1zsJttVQZLJ0h2sz97owMUITPKpIdTKR6UJ4BtuGUDG/s640/IMG_20180915_170351.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All of them.</td></tr>
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Sunday we visited the Portland Saturday Market (despite the name) and Cacao, a hip chocolate place. The hot chocolate we tried - in three flavors - was good, but I still stand by Dandelion in SF as the best hot chocolate I've had.<br />
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Other memorable restaurants included Tasty & Sons, which was tasty but maybe not worth an hour-long wait; PokPokNOI, which was adventurous even for us, and both good and very spicy; and Random Order Pie Bar, a pie place that was, alas, arbitrary in the quality of its pies. One might say that the pies were desultory, or perhaps aleatoric. But not very good, in any case.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj296wCveKq2JkJr61Xxgi0kNTm6OeXrHlHHcqOyC3N3CFrXjRii16XtG46hsGZZK7UanGe79GLEquzF8gwtocUeKaLEDujQRHS31B-NSvpy9yePjYhNiwsUuheJBRxABLhjIe1YxpGDKkm/s1600/IMG_20180916_160244.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj296wCveKq2JkJr61Xxgi0kNTm6OeXrHlHHcqOyC3N3CFrXjRii16XtG46hsGZZK7UanGe79GLEquzF8gwtocUeKaLEDujQRHS31B-NSvpy9yePjYhNiwsUuheJBRxABLhjIe1YxpGDKkm/s640/IMG_20180916_160244.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Portland drinking fountains</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8VGC5ViK2a_AFZ_HgQm09aMW3GQIgHKgcqEXNYXBIe74Vr3Lyiayn23hEUzV3nf6MURVtJoaKLgNwrcb5UPRv9a-Ds3KxTJGfa_XTfoHrI9gfTx26ejSOS1Ar4KEoTv3nS9XqDb64R6Hq/s1600/IMG_20180916_160530.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8VGC5ViK2a_AFZ_HgQm09aMW3GQIgHKgcqEXNYXBIe74Vr3Lyiayn23hEUzV3nf6MURVtJoaKLgNwrcb5UPRv9a-Ds3KxTJGfa_XTfoHrI9gfTx26ejSOS1Ar4KEoTv3nS9XqDb64R6Hq/s640/IMG_20180916_160530.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Portland survey markers</td></tr>
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All in all, I enjoyed the trip, and can now attest that Portland is, in fact, very Portland. During the weekend it rained a few times, but not enough to dampen our spirits much or prevent us from continuing on our adventures. I did miss out on getting to visit Forest Park, which looks like the filming location for the TV show "Grimm," a show that I much enjoyed; on getting to ride the tram; and on seeing the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Machine">Weather Machine</a> at Pioneer Courthouse Square work its magic. There was an event in the square which prevented us from seeing much of it, and besides, we didn't arrive in time that day to witness the machine at work. But that simply means we will have to come back another time.<br />
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Thanks, Portland. It's been weird.</div>
Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-46668481355998842582018-10-28T16:23:00.001-07:002018-10-28T16:58:01.853-07:00Voter's Guide - Nov. 8th, 2018 Election, Santa Clara County<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It seems like just weeks ago that I was putting together my summer voter's guide for the primary, but here we are already at the November election. With just a few days left to go, I guess it's about time I figured out who and what to vote for! I'm in Mountain View, so a few of my ballot measures are local, but I've put those at the end. In general, I support more housing close to jobs; candidates with experience over total newcomers; and align with SPUR, YIMBY, and the Democrats. For a good online resource to look up candidates, check out Voter's Edge: <a href="https://votersedge.org/en/ca">https://votersedge.org/en/ca</a><br />
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<b>Statewide Measures:</b><br />
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In general, I followed the sound advice of this guide, brought to you by a friend of a friend of a friend:<br />
<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fla91P5xVE628os6rwKnta-cmyuErCIVywqmj6EkulI/edit?usp=sharing">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fla91P5xVE628os6rwKnta-cmyuErCIVywqmj6EkulI/edit?usp=sharing</a><br />
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The only places where I disagreed were as follows:<br />
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Lt Gov: I thought both candidates were strong, but was dismayed by Eleni Kounalakis' lack of experience in elected office (most of her experience in government is in appointed positions) and in the fact that she provided most of her campaign funds herself, as compared to her opponent, Ed Hernandez, who has experience in elected offices and did not provide millions of dollars of his own money to fund his campaign. So I went with Ed Hernandez. Not a great reason, I admit, but I think either of them will be fine.<br />
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Judges: I voted to continue all the judges except Justice Carol A. Corrigan. In 2008, she dissented from the opinion to allow gay marriage in California. Justin read her entire dissent and we thought she was fundamentally misguided in her interpretation of how the State Supreme Court should interpret and enforce the law. My opinion is that the Supreme Court justices should be willing to take action to ensure that the laws are fair, just, and reasonable, and not just enforce laws that are wrong. She appears to have dissented because she feels differently about this role. I think this is enough to support voting against her.<br />
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Measure 11: I voted no, because I thought the arguments against this measure described in the guide above were more compelling. This should be left to the legislature and worked out with the union.<br />
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Measures I am particularly concerned about:<br />
Measure 5 - Please oppose this! I oppose Prop 13, which is part of why we are in the mess we are about housing (by keeping property taxes artificially low, it decreases mobility, reduces ability for new people to find housing, and deprives local communities of needed tax dollars), and this measure would expand Prop 13. This is a definite "no" for me.<br />
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Measure 6 - This is attempting to roll back a law that was just enacted last year with major support. We need this transit money, and gas taxes are the way to do it, for now. This is a definite "no."<br />
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<b>Local Measures:</b><br />
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I relied on SPUR and somewhat on the advice of South Bay YIMBY (<a href="https://southbayyimby.wordpress.com/endorsements-2018/">https://southbayyimby.wordpress.com/endorsements-2018/</a>) and TransForm (<a href="http://www.transformca.org/transform-blog-post/transforms-november-2018-voter-guide">http://www.transformca.org/transform-blog-post/transforms-november-2018-voter-guide</a>), although I disagree with TransForm on Prop 10 because I oppose rent control, on economic grounds (refer back to the guide at the top of this post for a good discussion of why). I also relied on advice from some friends who are more active in the local political scene.<br />
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Santa Clara County - Measure A: Yes, to continue the sales tax that supports local services<br />
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Mountain View-Los Altos UHSD: My friend recommended everyone but Steven Nelson. Reading his information submitted on Voter's Edge, he does seem a bit crazy. But I did not like Catherine Vonnegut and how the past school board, of which she was a part, handled the math teaching changes and principal staffing, so I voted for Nelson instead of Vonnegut.<br />
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Mountain View-Whisman SD: My friend recommended Devon Conley and Greg Coladonato. I couldn't find any good reasons to vote for Coladonato, so I voted for Conley and Tamara Patterson, who seems invested specifically in the school district and isn't just running so he can get another elected position, like Coladonato seems to be doing.<br />
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Sheriff: I voted for John Hirokawa, as I discussed in my write-up of the primary race this summer.<br />
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Mountain View City Council: I followed the MV Voice and my friend's recommendations for Lucas Ramirez, Pat Showalter, and Lenny Siegel as the most pro-housing candidates. They are also the recommendations of the SCC League of Conservation Voters, for the same reason. <a href="https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2018/10/25/editorial-showalter-siegel-and-ramirez-for-city-council">https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2018/10/25/editorial-showalter-siegel-and-ramirez-for-city-council </a><br />
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El Camino Healthcare District: Having no strong opinions on this, I followed my friend's recommendation for Peter Fung and Mike Kasperzak.<br />
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Mountain View Measure P: I voted yes in agreement with TransForm & MV Voice.<br />
Mountain View Measure Q: I voted yes since I think taxing cannabis is acceptable.<br />
Source: <a href="https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2018/10/12/editorial-yes-on-measures-p-and-q">https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2018/10/12/editorial-yes-on-measures-p-and-q </a><br />
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So there you have it, now get out there and VOTE!</div>
Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-25708192648961340172018-10-01T21:38:00.002-07:002019-01-01T22:46:08.201-08:00Reducing Waste: A Visual Guide<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
For the last several years, I have been trying to reduce the clutter and waste in my life. I have realized that not everyone may be aware of the many easy ways there are to do this, or that there are other folks out there trying to do the same thing. So here is my take on all those "ten tips to reduce waste!" videos, illustrated with my own stuff.<br />
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Kitchen / Dining:<br />
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Let's be honest - I eat a lot of takeout, and I like food, a lot. So probably the area where I have the most trash is meal prep and dining. To that end, here are all the things I use to help me cut back on the stuff I throw away:<br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Reusable water bottles - never take a free water bottle! Since I discovered the half-size water bottles, I am now much more likely to carry one around. If you too can never finish an entire liter of water in an afternoon, I highly recommend the 500ml size, which fits more easily in a bag anyway.</li>
<li>Tupperware - the obvious. The less obvious is that we've started bringing them with us to restaurants. I am still getting used to this, but so far, no one has said anything or given us any weird looks when we bust out our own containers to take our leftovers with us. We haven't tried this at any very nice restaurants, though. Your mileage may vary. But takeout containers are one of the top items I'd like to throw out less often, so bringing our own containers is a big way to help with that.</li>
<li>Glass jars - ditto to the above. And besides, when you use Mason jars for all your stuff, it can fool your friends into thinking that have all your stuff together.</li>
<li>Beeswax wrap - I've only recently started using this, but I like it so far. The wrap sticks to itself when you warm it with your hands, so it works (mostly) like plastic wrap. This reduces the need for plastic bags and plastic wrap, for covering bowls, wrapping up a sandwich, etc.</li>
<li>Lunch box, ice packs - should be obvious</li>
<li>Picnic gear - For picnics, we have cheap metal silverware, wooden chopsticks, a picnic knife (with a knife sheath), cheap IKEA dish towels, and metal straws. I actually really like the metal straws for smoothies and mango lassi, and they're just fun to have!</li>
<li>Shopping bags - Not just the big ones for all your stuff, but the little produce bags, are very useful. We buy lots of produce and I re-use the plastic produce bags for temporarily storing compost, but I'd rather not have to use the plastic bags at all (which are ultimately thrown away), so I try to use mesh produce bags instead. These ones have not held up particularly well, so I may switch to cotton canvas bags soon. The little rolled-up brown bag is the one I keep in my purse so I always have a shopping bag handy.</li>
<li>Silpat - Not only can you avoid using parchment paper with this (or, alternatively, constantly oiling your sheet pans, or having everything stick to the pan), these are amazingly good for baking. I still end up using parchment paper for some things, like when I need a sheet cut to fit inside a cake pan, but this fiberglass mat significantly reduces the need for parchment or cooking spray for most things you bake on a sheet pan.</li>
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Bathroom:<br />
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To cut down on disposables in the bath, I have switched to using a safety razor (standard razor blades are super cheap and recyclable), bar soap (less packaging), and bamboo toothbrush and hairbrush (the handles are compostable). We also use a glass soap dispenser with refills, which use less packaging than single-use plastic dispensers, and refill our cleaning spray bottle with white vinegar (diluted some with water). This works fine for general cleaning.<br />
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My biggest source of cutting down on trash is just reducing the number of products I use in the bath, in general. This, of course, isn't possible for everyone. But for cleaning/showering, I now only use a bar of soap, a bottle of shampoo, toothpaste, and the safety razor; and for cosmetics, I have a moisturizer / sunscreen in one, a tinted face powder, deodorant, and a general body lotion. That's it. I still haven't made the leap to make-your-own deodorant (seems risky...) or to stopping the use of shampoo (seems actually more annoying than using shampoo). I did test out a couple different shampoo bars, with the thought that I might consolidate shampoo and soap into one product, but it didn't work that well and was more expensive than just buying regular soap and shampoo. But it's great for traveling!<br />
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In short: If you're trying to reduce your waste, you're not alone. It can be challenging to remember to bring my own containers and bags all the time, but keeping them in the car or at my desk at work helps me remember. Of course, doing all little stuff this isn't enough to forestall catastrophic climate change -- <a href="https://www.popsci.com/how-to-stop-climate-change#page-5">it takes a lot more than this</a> -- but if it prevents me from having to take an extra trip downstairs to empty the trash, that's a good enough reason for me. And, the way I see it, reducing my waste certainly can't hurt when it comes to climate change.<br />
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(And if you are looking for some things you can do as an individual to fight climate change? Check out the link above, and also this one: <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/how-you-can-help-fight-climate-change">https://www.nrdc.org/stories/how-you-can-help-fight-climate-change</a>)</div>
Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-8316071631130893602018-07-04T00:08:00.002-07:002018-07-04T00:08:24.059-07:00Visiting Hawaii - Part 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
After four days on Maui, we hopped a flight to Kaua'i for the second half of our Hawaiian vacation!<br />
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<h3>
Arriving in Kaua'i</h3>
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After leaving the fancy hotel and getting a Lyft to the airport, we arrived perfectly on time, took our three pineapples through security, and then... waited. Our flight out of Kahului was two hours delayed. Fortunately I had plenty of books to read! The flight itself was short and uneventful, and we arrived in Lihue just in time to pick up the car, drive to Kapa'a, and get some dinner at Kaua'i Pasta, since most restaurants close at 9pm. Then we found our Airbnb and got some sleep.<br />
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<h3>
Day One</h3>
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As usual, we were up relatively early, but for once didn't have to be somewhere right away. We had a breakfast of fresh pineapple and then went to explore Kapa'a. We visited some shops, picking up breakfast food for later, some papayas (they had three different kinds at the grocery store!), local chocolate (pretty bad), and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulolo">kulolo</a>, a Hawaiian dessert that's a paste made of taro, coconut, and sugar. The latter was pretty weird; it was like a soft, purple fudge with an odd but interesting flavor. I'd recommend trying it once!<br />
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We got lunch at Pono Market, which has a quick service counter of poke and Hawaiian dishes, and ate at the Wailua River Marina while waiting for our kayak guides to arrive. We went with <a href="https://www.wailuakayakadventure.com/">Wailua Kayak Adventures</a>, and when they say "family run," they mean low tech. They make all reservations by phone, and their check-in list was hand-written, but they seemed to know their stuff. Two older folks showed up to check us in and collect the payments -- you can't pay ahead online -- and then our guide arrived. She was one of the more interesting people we met on our trip, regaling our group with a mixture of mythology, history, and astrology (not astronomy) that she presented in an indistinguishable way. After the trip was over, we had to look up half of what she said in order to figure out what was true and what was myth, but it certainly added some interest to the trip!<br />
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We kayaked down the Wailua River (blazing sun, no shade), up the North Fork, to a point where there were some large trees down, then hiked an easy trail to the Secret Falls (also called Uluwehi Falls). We were one of the last groups of the day, so most of the other groups were leaving when we arrived. After exploring the waterfall (freezing cold) we hiked back through the forest to our kayaks. Along the way, the guide pointed out some unusual plants: passionfruit vines, <a href="http://hihort.blogspot.com/2014/07/awapuhi-shampoo-ginger.html">shampoo ginger</a> (she demonstrated by putting some in her hair), and others.<br />
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The trip back up the river really tested our arms, but we finally made it back, and, most important to our pride, we weren't last. I couldn't sense much current running in either direction, so we struggled to pull ourselves along. After that workout, it was time for dinner, which we had at Kauai Family Cafe, a Filipino-Hawaiian restaurant. I had the milkfish (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milkfish">bangus</a>), which was really good. As usual, all of our friend Cynthia's recommendations are spot on!<br />
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<h3>
Day Two</h3>
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We were up early again, but this time, we were on our way to the west side of the island for our third and final snorkel trip. We went on the "<a href="https://www.napali.com/raft/snorkel/">Raft Na Pali Snorkel Adventure</a>" with Captain Andy's. The boat company asks you several times to confirm that you are physically fit enough for this trip, and tries very hard to get you to watch a video showing you what the trip is like when you book your tour. I can confirm that it is not a trip for the faint of heart, or those who don't like getting bounced around and soaking wet, anyway! The boat is a rigid-hulled raft (also called a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigid-hulled_inflatable_boat">rigid-hulled inflatable boat</a>), and it goes very, very fast -- something like 50 mph, they said -- and there is a <i>lot</i> of bouncing. By the end of the trip, I was pretty much sore all over. But if you like going really fast over the water, this is a great ride. As you leave the harbor, the guides warn you to put your baseball caps on backwards to prevent them from flying off. I was dubious, since I usually put my ponytail through the back of mine to hold it on, but went ahead and flipped it around. Within two seconds after the captain gunned the engines, my hat was gone. RIP, Indiana Jones hat, you had a full life, and many adventures, and it seems fitting that your final resting place is somewhere at the bottom of a shallow draft marina in Hawaii.<br />
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We sailed up the Na Pali coast, through pods of hundreds of dolphins, under waterfalls, into several sea caves, and through some heavy seas (think nonstop waves into your face) to within sight of Ke'e Beach at the far northern end -- and then back, within about five hours. Our two guides, both fairly young guys, were cracking jokes the entire time and playing pop music from their phones over the boat's speakers. We stopped at a couple of snorkel spots and saw sea turtles and fish, although the reef was not quite as impressive as at Molokini. The dolphins were the highlight, though, as we watched them swimming right next to the boat, jumping and, yes, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinner_dolphin">spinning around</a>.<br />
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Back on dry land, I managed to get a giant inch-long splinter in my foot within moments of stepping onto the dock. Totally unfazed, one of the other captains used the sharp point of the pin of his name badge to help me get it out. Just another day on the water!<br />
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We had lunch at Ishihara Market, recommended both by Cynthia and our guides, which was a grocery store that had a deli-style counter for poke in the back. You order your food by weight, and although there is no sign indicating that you can also order warm individual servings of rice, they do have it, which makes a complete meal. I was impressed with the sheer number of options of preparations of fish. We ate at the couple of picnic tables outside, but there are probably better spots to eat nearby if you walk around a bit. On the hour-long drive back to Kapa'a, we stopped to check out the sights: <a href="http://rightslice.com/">The Right Slice</a> pie shop in Kalaheo (got the pina colada blueberry pie, it was odd, we should have tried more flavors); a random county park, because none of the fine establishments near the pie shop had restrooms; many arrogant chickens invading said park; <a href="http://www.eluawai.com/">a farm</a> that's shown on Google Maps but doesn't actually seem to exist (could not find it despite driving up and down the road a couple times); and <a href="http://www.kauainursery.com/index.html">Kaua'i Nursery & Landscaping</a>, a large nursery with many interesting plants. Back in Kapa'a, we visited the Hee Fat General Store for shave ice, since the pie was not all I had hoped for. The shave ice did not disappoint: Made with real fruit, not just the standard syrup, it was really good, and the macadamia nut ice cream underneath was great too. After showers and naps, we went out for dinner and got tasty fish tacos made with <a href="https://www.hawaii-seafood.org/wild-hawaii-fish/wahoo/">ono</a> at Sleeping Giant Grill.<br />
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Day Three</h3>
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Our final full day in Kaua'i was a bit of a last-minute arrangement. We had planned to drive up to Ke'e Beach and hike the Kalalau Trail down to Hanakapi’ai Beach, which is a popular destination. Unfortunately, the flooding earlier in the year meant that the road to Ke'e Beach was still closed, as well as the trail itself. So, in our state of being sore, slightly sunburned, and bug-bitten, we decided to go with a closer, shorter hike out of one of the books we found in the Airbnb: the Kuilau Ridge Trail. We had lychees (sour, unfortunately) and pineapple for lunch, then drove to the trailhead west of Wailua, stopping along the way at the Opaeka'a Falls overlook. We made it to the top of the ridge, climbing over an enormous fallen tree along the way, then headed back down when it started to rain. Fortunately the rain was brief and we managed not to get very wet. We did finally have our encounter with the famous Kaua'i mud, which coated our hiking boots, but at least it wasn't too bad in terms of the hike!<br />
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After our brief hike, it was clearly time for more shave ice at Hee Fat, then another shower and nap. We ended our trip with a moderately fancy dinner at Hukilau Lanai, another restaurant I would never have picked on my own since it was inside a resort, but which was a Cynthia recommendation and thus quite good. I finally had a long-sought non-alcoholic pina colada, which Justin said was better than the one he had at the fancy hotel on Maui (and which, I might add, he neglected to share with me, the scoundrel). I had the coconut-crusted fish which came with a mild curry sauce; Justin had the vegetarian entree, which was a sort of stir fry of vegetables and quinoa with a lime sauce. All in all, it was a relaxing final day.<br />
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<h3>
Day Four - Departure</h3>
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We packed up, returned the car, and then ate nearly an entire pineapple at the airport so we wouldn't have to bring it through agricultural inspection. Full of pineapple and satisfaction, we boarded our flight back.<br />
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<i>Missed the first part? <a href="http://notbuiltinaday.blogspot.com/2018/06/visiting-hawaii-part-1.html">Back to Part 1</a></i><br />
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<i>Just like seeing the photos? <a href="https://photos.app.goo.gl/hGCcznGgPxS5DNcM7">Here are some more</a></i></div>
Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-2780139860623024232018-06-29T21:39:00.004-07:002018-07-04T00:09:07.307-07:00Visiting Hawaii - Part 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've discovered that everyone in California has an opinion about vacationing in Hawaii. From my boss, who sent me photos of his favorite spot on Kaua'i; to friends of friends we see at parties, who recommended shave ice places on Maui; to good friends we've known for years, who have honeymooned there; and even to ex-Californians living in other states, we had no end of folks recommending places to see and providing suggestions. So after five years in California, we finally made the trip! I had been hoping to go for years, probably ever since my sixth grade science teacher covered the unit on volcanoes in such detail (he was from Hawaii). Thanks to the recent volcanic activity, though, we had to nix the Big Island and focus on other places, but thanks to our many friends who've been before, we didn't have to do too much research to figure out where to go. I was especially grateful for this, because most of what there is to do on Hawaii is outside, which is not my area of expertise!<br />
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Here's the view from where I was writing this, in Wailea, on Maui:<br />
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<br />The impetus behind the trip was an award won by Justin's team at work, which was given in the form of two nights at a resort on Maui. (Thanks, Justin's work!) We then planned the rest of the week split between Maui and Kaua'i, based on popular acclaim in a poll of our friends. The schedule was two days on our own on Maui, then two nights with Justin's work trip, then four nights on Kaua'i.<br /><br />I won't be able to do justice to the trip as well as my friends who <a href="http://www.timewhisking.com/2015/08/operation-kauai-thunder-aka-kauai.html?m=0">have their own write-ups</a>, so I'll just have to direct you to them - they have much more thorough trip descriptions! But here is my small contribution to the Hawaii travel literature genre.</span></div>
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Four Nights on Maui - Day One</h3>
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<br />We arrived after an uneventful flight to the small airport at Kahului, which is in the middle of the north shore of the bi-lobed island. The one disappointment was that Hawaiian Airlines, which seemed to be trying its best to be welcoming to all the vacationers, did not have a vegetarian option for the meal; the family next to us was even more disappointed than we were! So be aware if that applies to you. From the airport, we picked up our rental car and drove to <a href="https://mauitropicalplantation.com/">Maui Tropical Plantation</a> to walk around and have lunch. We had some interesting dishes at The Mill House, the main restaurant there, including a chickpea cake with pickled jicama and harissa cream (basically a mildly spiced aioli); risotto with bone marrow; and gnocchi with taro leaves. I liked the chickpea cake but the other dishes were very rich and heavy. I thought the restaurant was good, but the plantation seemed not that exciting, although we didn't do the tram tour so I can't comment on that. Justin found the whole place too Disney-fied.<br /><br />
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Thus fortified, we next visited the <a href="http://www.mnbg.org/">Maui Nui Botanical Garden</a>, which was more our style: an empty garden (save for the couple of folks working there - possibly volunteers?) with displays about Hawaii native plants and Polynesian-introduced plants, including taro, breadfruit, and sugarcane. It was quiet and a bit dilapidated, the opposite of the Maui Tropical Plantation, and free! After an hour there, we were ready to head to our Airbnb near Makawao, higher up on the slopes of the dormant volcano, Haleakala. The Airbnb we chose advertised itself as a farm, but really it was just a remote house with chickens, ducks, a few bunnies, a couple of cats, and some raised planter beds. But it did have a nice view and was very quiet, so if you don't mind driving a good ways, it was quite nice, and the host was excellent. We had dinner at a (relatively) nearby pizza place before packing it in.<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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Day Two</h3>
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Our first full day started early with a snorkel trip with the <a href="https://www.pacificwhale.org/">Pacific Whale Foundation</a>. I would highly recommend the Pac Whale folks and <a href="https://www.pacificwhale.org/cruises/maui-snorkel/molokini-wild-side-eco-adventure/">this particular trip</a>. The trip is on a smaller boat, for 38 people, with three crew members, and no fixed schedule, so the locations visited depend on the weather and what’s good that day. The group was small enough that it didn’t feel crowded, and the crew were great, very helpful and knowledgeable. We left from the small boat harbor on the south coast of the island, then sailed southeast along the resort area to the first snorkel spot. The weather was calm and the ocean wasn’t too cold, so we didn’t need wetsuits. In that area, we saw a sea turtle for two seconds, then looked up to tell others about it, and by the time we put our heads back down, it was gone - oh well! Next we sailed to Molokini Crater, around past the back side, and were able to do a swim at the outer rim in 100+ feet of water. Once the other boats cleared out from inside the crater, we went in. It was like swimming inside an aquarium; we saw a wide variety of fish, including triggerfish, parrotfish, butterfly fish, and even an eel. My favorite was a tiny spotted fish that apparently was a pufferfish, although I didn’t see it in action. The fish were so close it seemed you could touch them, and they were not afraid to swim around you! On the way back to the harbor, we had a pretty good lunch, with a vegetarian option.<br />
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We headed back to the Airbnb but stopped on the way at Ululani’s Shave Ice, which was pretty delicious; we got calamansi, tamarind, and lilikoi (passionfruit) flavors, with coconut ice cream underneath, and fresh mochi on top. Then it was time for a nap. In the evening, we drove up to the top of <a href="https://www.nps.gov/hale/index.htm">Mount Haleakala National Park</a> for the sunset. We took a wrong turn out of the Airbnb and ended up driving 10 minutes in the wrong direction, but still managed to make it up in time. We stopped a couple times along the way to watch the sun -- the view is amazing. As you drive up the mountain, you pass through the cloud layer at around 8,000 feet elevation, then the summit is at 10,000 feet. There aren’t a lot of places to stop besides the Visitor’s Center (below the clouds), one hiking trailhead, and the upper Visitor’s Center near the observatory on top of the mountain, but there are a couple of turn-offs. We stayed until dark, but didn’t stay for stargazing because it was cloudy. We did stop once on the way down just to see what we could see, and found a Japanese tourist group setting up some high-powered telescopes at the lower Visitor’s Center. They even had soothing background music as part of their event -- I had never seen (or heard) anything quite like that!<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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Day Three</h3>
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After a quick breakfast, we checked out of the Airbnb and headed over to <a href="https://mauipineappletour.com/">Maui Gold Pineapple</a> farm for a tour. Justin got a tasty parfait-in-a-papaya from the nearby food truck while we waited to begin. The tour was thorough, and showed us the pineapples in all stages of development, from fallow fields, to plowing, planting, harvesting, and packing / processing. We saw tiny little pineapples still in flower up to fully mature ones, which the guide picked and cut up for us with a machete right in the field. They were indeed very delicious! We each got a pineapple to take home, which I hoped to eat once we got to Kauai. The tour was pricey and probably only worth it if you really like pineapple, like I do, but the guide we had was fun and I enjoyed it. Justin and I had a bet on how long it would take her to say that pineapples are bromeliads, but we both lost because she never did. Justin decided to tell her about it afterward, and she thought that was hilarious, and in own her defense, she said during the tour that pineapples have “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromelain">bromelain</a>,” which is that meat-tenderizing enzyme in pineapple, and sounds like bromeliads. I think that’s a stretch, but she did know lots of other pineapple facts, and did agree that it’s a bromeliad, so I’ll give it to her.<br />
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After the tour we picked up lunch at Tin Roof, a popular foodie spot, then returned the car to the airport, then walked off the airport property to catch a Lyft (not recommended if you have a lot of luggage - in that case, just take the shuttle back to the airport and catch a taxi from there). First we stopped for some more shave ice (pickled mango and li hing mui - salty sour plum - with red beans), then headed to the Andaz Maui resort for the work-sponsored portion of the trip.<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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The resort was beautiful and contemporary in style, and very, very expensive. Thanks, Justin’s work! We would never choose something like this for ourselves, but it was nice for two nights. There were four infinity pools, plus a perfectly pristine private beach (which we didn't use), a hot tub, spa, etc. After check-in, we met up with Justin’s co-workers at a reception; most people had brought their families on the trip, so there was face painting, henna art, flower crowns, and a musician at the reception, along with pretty good food. (All for about 15 people, I should add - not a big group!) Then it was time to get sleep before another early morning! But first, I had to check out one of the pools, of course - my motto is to let no day go by without going swimming.</div>
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Day Four</h3>
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<br />We were up early to leave by 8am for our second snorkeling tour of the trip! This time, it was organized by the work event, so it was a private charter for just the 15 of us. The crew was very laid back and friendly, and the boat was nice because it had an upper and lower deck, so you could get out of the sun if needed (and by this point, I needed it). We sailed west this time, away from the resort area, toward Lahaina. At our first stop, we saw sea turtles! This time, there were maybe four of them, chilling on the ocean floor and swimming around. I watched two of them come up for air, bobbing on the surface for a bit, then descending back down; one of them swam right below me. The water was about the same as the previous day, although not quite as clear as where we had gone before. Our second stop was for a sunken ship, which itself was interesting (it was sunk by a diving company on purpose to provide something to look it), but even more interesting was the submarine that showed up while we were there to look at it too! We were in deep water again, 100 feet, and the sub was right below us as we fought a strong current to stay in place. After we got back on board, we watched the sub surface next to a tug and another passenger boat, presumably to swap passengers. So next time, we know we can sign up for a submarine tour! Our last stop was at another reef, which was neat but not quite as good as Molokini, but we were the only ones out there, which some folks prefer. We had lunch on the boat, then sailed back to the harbor.<br />
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Back at the hotel, we just relaxed for the rest of the day, then had a fancy dinner at the “farm to table” restaurant on the property. I put that in quotes because most of the ingredients were not farm to table, but the main ingredients were - the fish and meat - so take that as you will. I enjoyed all my dishes, which were an octopus salad, followed by pink snapper, and a coconut ice cream sundae. Justin was more adventurous and had a watermelon appetizer - basically a steak of watermelon; ahi tuna “caprese,” with a weird passionfruit sauce and passionfruit gelatin cubes; and black sesame noodles, none of which I liked. But it was certainly different. My fish was kind of odd too because it came with a sauce that I can only describe as barbeque sauce, although it was probably called something else. My dessert was delicious though, with a base layer of coconut cake, then coconut ice cream, coconut flakes, candied macadamia nuts, and chocolate sauce. All it was missing was some pineapple topping, and it would have been the best thing ever.</div>
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Day Five - off to Kaua'i</h3>
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<br />Today we got up late - 9am - and I went swimming for an hour before it was time to pack and check out. (One thing no one told me about Hawaii is that with all the early-morning activities, requiring you to start your day at 6am, you never really transition to Hawaiian time; you just keep getting up at 9am Pacific time, which is 6am on Hawaii. I did sort of enjoy getting to do so many things before lunch every day! I guess that's what morning people must experience?) I went “pool hopping” and hit all five of the hotel pools in an hour. Since then, we’ve been hanging out at the hotel, had lunch, and I’ve been writing this, waiting for the time to head to the airport. Once there, it’s on to Kauai!<br /><br />Things we didn’t do on Maui that I know everyone recommends: we didn’t go to Lahaina, since I’ve heard that it’s a bit touristy and that’s not our preference; we didn’t hang out on the beach, because we’re from Florida and the beaches here are full of rocks (and pretty narrow, let’s be honest); and we didn’t do the Road to Hana because there just wasn’t enough time.<br /><br />But I have a feeling we’ll be back.</div>
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<i>Still with me? <a href="http://notbuiltinaday.blogspot.com/2018/07/visiting-hawaii-part-2.html">On to Part 2</a>!</i></div>
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<i>Just want to see all the photos? <a href="https://photos.app.goo.gl/hGCcznGgPxS5DNcM7">Check them out here!</a></i></div>
Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-24338205562748274752018-05-27T17:32:00.004-07:002018-05-27T21:52:14.395-07:00Voter's Guide - June 5, 2018 Election, Santa Clara County<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If you're like me, you spend a lot of time figuring out who to vote for, because there is no single place to get all the voter information you need. So, since I have already spent the last several hours deciding how to vote, I've compiled all the information I used here, so you can decide for yourself! This is relevant to the Santa Clara County election here in California, so if you are looking for San Francisco-specific information, you can try <a href="https://www.spur.org/voter-guide/2018-06">SPUR</a> or other sources. Obvious disclaimer: I am looking for progressive candidates who support strong liberal policies on the environment, housing, education, human rights, and the economy. If you disagree with me, you may want to look elsewhere.<br />
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For each position or proposition, I'm going to list the position, my recommendation, link to my sources, and then note other viable candidates (if any).<br />
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<b><u>State & National Offices</u></b><br />
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Governor: Gavin Newsom<br />
Former SF mayor Gavin Newsom has an almost <a href="https://gavinnewsom.com/housing">overwhelming amount of policy objectives</a>, all with detailed descriptions, that gives me confidence that he (and his campaign) are ready for this job. Here's the <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/The-Chronicle-endorsement-Gavin-Newsom-for-12902013.php">editorial describing the race</a>. The other plausible candidates are Antonio Villaraigosa, Delaine Eastin, and John Chiang. I also liked <a href="http://shellenberger.org/housing/">Michael Shellenberger</a> - if you think (as I do) that housing is a critical issue, he's even more on the vanguard of YIMBYism than Newsom. Unfortunately, he seems never to have held elective office, and almost certainly cannot win. But if you prefer a protest vote, he might be your man. (More on <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/What-makes-Democrats-run-besides-loathing-12754144.php">why there are so many progressive candidates for governor and other offices without any experience here</a>.)<br />
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Lieutenant Governor: Jeff Bleich<br />
Mr. Bleich seems qualified, interested in the position, and I like that he has been <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Jeff-Bleich-for-California-lieutenant-12815579.php">described as careful and patient</a>. His opponents Eleni Kounalakis and Ed Hernandez also have reasonable candidate statements, though, so consider them as well.<br />
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Secretary of State: Alex Padilla (incumbent)<br />
Has the most reasonable candidate statement, seems to be doing a good job<br />
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Controller: Betty Yee (incumbent)<br />
Has the most reasonable candidate statement, seems to be doing a good job<br />
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Treasurer: Fiona Ma<br />
Based on reading the candidate statements, she is the only reasonable choice. Also recommended by SF Chronicle.<br />
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Attorney General: Xavier Becerra (incumbent)<br />
Has a very reasonable candidate statement, and seems to be doing a good job. His opponent, Dave Jones, was Insurance Commissioner, so he's not a bad choice either. Here's <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Xavier-Becerra-is-the-right-choice-for-12871133.php">an editorial on why to keep Becerra in his post</a>.<br />
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Insurance Commissioner: Steve Poizner<br />
Based on reading the candidate statements, he is the only reasonable choice. Also recommended by SF Chronicle.<br />
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State Board of Equalization, District 2: Malia Cohen<br />
I wasn't aware until now, but apparently this state tax board is on the way out. <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/05/09/editorial-pick-cohen-for-tax-board-that-should-be-shut-down/">Here's the article describing why it should be eliminated</a> but why in the meantime, Malia Cohen is the best candidate.<br />
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Superintendent of Public Instruction: Marshall Tuck<br />
<a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Marshall-Tuck-for-state-schools-chief-12795145.php">Based on this editorial</a><br />
Tony Thurmond also has a compelling candidacy and strong candidate statement, but I was persuaded by the argument that he failed to vote on at least one key educational issue as a state legislator. If you think the status quo on education in California is not that bad, though, then he may be your candidate.<br />
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US Senator: Dianne Feinstein (incumbent)<br />
There's a lot to say about this race, so I will just direct to you <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Chronicle-Recommends-Dianne-Feinstein-12833238.php">a better treatment than I can give</a>. Senator Feinstein is quite old (at 84), but she is powerful, and her interests are generally aligned with my own. I trust her more than her opponent, Kevin de Leon, to get things done, at a time when it is very difficult for Democrats to get anything done at the federal level. However, if you oppose her support for various software-related measures that, for example, make it easier for the government to have a backdoor into your computer - then you should consider Mr. de Leon.<br />
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US Representative, District 18: Anna Eshoo (incumbent)<br />
Has the most reasonable candidate statement, seems to be doing an ok job based on her recent <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Anna_Eshoo">voting record</a><br />
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<b><u>Local Offices</u></b><br />
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State Assembly, District 24: Marc Berman (incumbent)<br />
Assemblyman Berman's candidate <a href="https://www.voteberman.com/">website</a> is frankly embarrassing. He seems not to have updated it since he was elected in 2016. Does his team not realize that he has to run again every two years? As of today, just days before the election, his website homepage still has a message of thanks for everyone who helped in his 2016 campaign. Still, he is better than the other two fairly distateful alternatives. His <a href="https://a24.asmdc.org/">official state website</a> notes his recent work.<br />
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Judge of Superior Court, Office No. 4: Vincent Chiarello, uncontested<br />
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Recall of Judge Aaron Persky: No.<br />
This is a somewhat tricky issue, because I can understand why people are angry about Judge Persky's lenient sentencing of sex offenders. At issue, though, to my mind, is if he is following the law or not, since I do believe we must uphold judicial independence. So following t<a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-The-case-against-the-recall-of-Judge-12587849.php">he recommendations of this article</a>, I am voting against his recall.<br />
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Candidates to Succeed Judge Persky: Cindy Seeley Hendrickson, Assistant District Attorney<br />
Here's <a href="https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2018/05/11/candidates-for-perskys-seat-steer-clear-of-turner-case">a review of both candidates</a>. Hendrickson appears to have the most relevant experience of the two, although both candidates seem reasonable.<br />
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County Assessor: <a href="https://www.sccassessor.org/index.php/about-us/about-our-accessor/assessor-profile">Larry Stone</a>, uncontested<br />
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District Attorney: <a href="https://www.sccgov.org/sites/da/aboutus/aboutthedistrictattorney/Pages/default.aspx">Jeff Rosen</a>, uncontested<br />
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Sheriff: John Hirokawa<br />
The incumbent is Sheriff Laurie Smith, who has been in office for many years now. <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/05/08/santa-clara-co-sheriff-faces-fiercest-election-challenge-in-two-decade-tenure/">Based on this editorial</a>, I think it's time to let someone else have a go at it. Undersheriff Hirokawa seems well qualified and would be a welcome change of command.<br />
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<b><u>Ballot Measures</u></b><br />
<br />
Prop 68: Yes<br />
I generally support bond funding for environmental causes - parks, water supply, etc.<br />
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Prop 69: Yes<br />
This is mostly an administrative issue that ensures that taxes collected (on transportation) that were intended for a certain purpose are actually used for that purpose (for transportation).<br />
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Prop 70: No<br />
This would change the votes required to spend cap-and-trade monies from a simple majority to a 2/3 majority. That seems like a very bad idea. We should not restrict how cap-and-trade proceeds are spent by a supermajority. <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Chronicle-recommendations-on-Props-12849416.php">More on this confusing proposition here.</a><br />
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Prop 71: Yes<br />
This one streamlines how ballot measures are implemented.<br />
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Prop 72: Yes<br />
This one exempts rainwater capture facilities from increasing your property taxes. Solar installations are already exempt. This seems ok in order to incentivize the creation of rainwater capture facilities.<br />
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Regional Measure 3: Yes<br />
Increases bridge tolls to provide funding for regional transit measures. <a href="https://www.spur.org/voter-guide/2018-06/measure-3-bridge-toll">Here is SPUR's good analysis of this one</a>.<br />
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Mountain View - Los Altos Union HSD Bond Measure E: Yes<br />
I build schools. I support bond funding to help build schools. Enough said.<br />
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I hope that helps! And for those curious, here is more information about my research methods.<br />
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Note that I typically followed this pattern for finding information:<br />
1. Read the state-issed "<a href="http://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/pdf/complete-vig.pdf">Official Voter Information Guide</a>." This guide only applies to state-wide elections, though. It has candidate statements from most candidates, and summaries, with for and against positions, on all the statewide ballot measures. (If the PDF doesn't open, here's the source for the pdf: http://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/)<br />
2. Read editorials (San Jose Mercury-News, SF Chronicle, LA Times) about the candidates<br />
3. Look up individual candidate websites<br />
4. For the ballot measures, I also consulted SPUR and <a href="https://caleja.org/2018/03/2018-environmental-justice-voter-guide/">this environmental website</a><br />
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5. Finally, I relied on this good general guide: <a href="https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2018/voter-guide/">https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2018/voter-guide/</a>; and here's the guide from the LA Times, for comparison: <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/endorsements/la-ed-endorsements-20180518-story.html">http://www.latimes.com/opinion/endorsements/la-ed-endorsements-20180518-story.html</a></div>
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Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-17948435624210160272018-04-22T23:13:00.002-07:002018-04-22T23:13:30.834-07:00Exhibition Review: "Architectural Pavilions"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Back in October, during my two week "experiment" of living in San Francisco, I visited the Museum of Craft and Design, a great little museum in the Dogpatch, to check out their exhibit "<a href="https://sfmcd.org/architectural-pavilions-experiments-and-artifacts/">Architectural Pavilions: Experiments and Artifacts.</a>" Much of the work seemed familiar, either because I had read about or seen it before (DO|SU Studio's Bloom, IwamotoScott, SITU) or because it looked a lot like other work I've seen elsewhere, either in studio courses or around the web (Future Cities Lab, Jay Nelson, Warren Techentin). Unfortunately the exhibit is over now, so it's no longer on view, but I encourage you to check out the museum regardless.<br />
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Pavilions are the playgrounds of architecture, where designers are liberated from the rules that make new materials and new shapes difficult to use (eg, waterproofing, permanence) and thus allow explorations that are sometimes otherwise impossible. For me, though, I don't think it's enough to try out crazy shapes; there has to be more, either an exploration of a new technology that could have further uses, or testing a shape that could have wider applications, or similar. Pavilions that are purely spectacular seem to be a wasted opportunity. The exhibit itself explored this idea of pavilions as architectural testing grounds (see wall text below). By that standard, though, some of the featured pavilions were more successful than others. Here are some photos of the pieces that I found most interesting.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim8dX4cEFPQzQnqozFETptAXFnacsUY1_iGEpAAL535mhQJgCYhQ_TDgYMaSdcjxcZDPfiYYnhKyljre7Z_euDKnkDYKX5jOA8H0eJshNe0Fv1AfKpN8u7R4Dba577HfrRWK9Nlcq4xaTP/s1600/Architectural+Pavilions+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1600" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim8dX4cEFPQzQnqozFETptAXFnacsUY1_iGEpAAL535mhQJgCYhQ_TDgYMaSdcjxcZDPfiYYnhKyljre7Z_euDKnkDYKX5jOA8H0eJshNe0Fv1AfKpN8u7R4Dba577HfrRWK9Nlcq4xaTP/s640/Architectural+Pavilions+1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Clockwise from top left: introductory text; a piece of DO|SU Studio's Bloom bimetallic sculpture; overview of the gallery space; detail of Bloom sculpture</span></td></tr>
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At some point in the past, I had read about "<a href="https://www.archdaily.com/215280/bloom-dosu-studio-architecture">Bloom</a>," the bimetallic sculpture by <a href="http://dosu-arch.com/bloom.html">DO|SU Studio</a> that was on display in Los Angeles; this exhibition had one piece of it to demonstrate how it works. The sculpture is made of two types of metal with different rates of thermal expansion laminated together, so as the outer side heats up in the sun, it causes the entire structure to move. The exhibit had a small piece in a display with a heat coil so you could see it move as it heated and cooled. While I'm not sure what the practical application of this effect might be other than shading - the LA display seemed primarily decorative, although the architect's description indicated they hoped it might actually track the sun as an effective shading device - it's definitely an interesting idea. I imagine that with computer modeling, one could make it into an effective shade, somehow. This is the sort of material exploration that seems perfectly suited to a pavilion.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqhhuLQfiT-pkTULNdiRICJZH6ZkzC4RJ_ZcKhNIlCnZyfO60A-Uuw3SREi5gmYYMC1UDIFzN0PR3gjkLbFt7o_kG8L3Az_Dm21z-SXIPuH3t-5JcTXP9reOrCv_1kETwR35KsI-39Afpr/s1600/Architectural+Pavilions+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1600" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqhhuLQfiT-pkTULNdiRICJZH6ZkzC4RJ_ZcKhNIlCnZyfO60A-Uuw3SREi5gmYYMC1UDIFzN0PR3gjkLbFt7o_kG8L3Az_Dm21z-SXIPuH3t-5JcTXP9reOrCv_1kETwR35KsI-39Afpr/s640/Architectural+Pavilions+2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://situ.nyc/">SITU Studio</a> is based in New York and known for their fabrication focus. The exhibit had a piece of one of their pavilion shade structures, "<a href="http://situ.nyc/studio/projects/solar-pavilions">Solar Pavilion 2</a>," this one made of milled plywood panels held together by the hardware of choice of architecture students: zip ties. Ah yes, many a studio project have I seen with the classic zip tie in the place of honor! I can't say that I totally understand what the driving force is behind this design - their website claims that they wanted it to be flexible or reconfigurable, but what exactly was its configuration to begin with? It appears to be a big pile of stuff haphazardly lashed together with the ubiquitous "flexible tie-strap connection" (as their website calls zip ties). Who really needs to reconfigure a pile of stuff that doesn't make any sort of shape, anyway? Why not just push it around? Maybe that's the point - it's like plywood legos, that can be made into any shape. But while it gives shade, that's about it; it didn't seem sturdy enough to sit on, or lean against, and the pieces didn't seem to lend themselves to making amenity spaces. The bench part of it appeared to have a separate configuration: it was a regular bench with supports cut to look sort of like the rest of the structure. In any case, it was eye-catching, which seems to be all that most temporary pavilions are going for anyway. To me, though, this was one of the less successful installations.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Clockwise from top left: Future Cities Lab (x2), Iwamoto Scott Architecture, floating sculpture detail and overall view</span></td></tr>
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This last set of photos come from two local, San Francisco-based practices: <a href="http://www.future-cities-lab.net/">Future Cities Lab</a> and <a href="https://iwamotoscott.com/">IwamotoScott Architecture</a>. I happen to know someone who works at IwamotoScott - congrats to <a href="http://www.miazinni.com/">Mia Zinni</a> on the exhibition, whether you worked on it or not!<br />
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The top two photos from Future Cities Lab demonstrated their <a href="http://www.future-cities-lab.net/thermaespheres">Thermaespheres</a> and <a href="http://www.future-cities-lab.net/anemone">Anemone Canopy</a> projects. The Anemone Canopy is a built public art project in Albany, CA; it reminded me immediately of The Living's "<a href="http://www.livinglightseoul.net/">Living Light</a>" pavilion project in Seoul that indicates air quality information on a glowing tree-like canopy. That was apparently a project in conjunction with GSAPP; <a href="http://www.thelivingnewyork.com/">The Living</a> - now owned by Autodesk - is (was?) David Benjamin's studio, who is a GSAPP professor, and who was part of my second-year C-BIP joint studio. The Future Cities Lab project seems formally similar but conceptually far from the "Living Light" project, since the "Living Light" was meant to be interactive, showing information to the public (albeit in a very abstract way), while "Anemone Canopy" is a pure shade structure / art piece. I have to say I'm a bit disappointed that it didn't attempt to do more. It does look cool, though, as does the Thermaespheres. The latter was apparently about creating different temperature environments, although it wasn't clear to me from the model itself how that was supposed to work.<br />
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The IwamotoScott project is called, appropriately enough, "<a href="https://ced.berkeley.edu/events-media/news/new-exhibition-at-museum-of-craft-and-design-features-pavilion-by-iwamotosc">Site Specific Pavilion</a>" and was built for the exhibition. The "pavilion" was a seemingly hovering assemblage of metal-clad shapes held together by steel wires. It looked more like a sculpture than a pavilion to me, and I thought you actually had to look pretty hard to tell that the shapes were floating above each other. I had to follow the shapes around the piece in order to understand that they did not rest on each other. This seemed to be truly a pavilion without a purpose, since it, unlike the others, could not even provide shade; but as a sculpture, I found it compelling. Again, I wish it strived for a bit more, or at least was inviting enough to sit on!<br />
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Lest you think I am hating too much on pavilions that look great but don't do much else - I was indeed impressed enough with Studio Gang's <a href="https://www.dezeen.com/2017/07/10/hive-studio-gang-stacked-tube-installation-national-building-museum-washington-dc/">"Hive" pavilion</a> at the National Building Museum (which I <a href="http://notbuiltinaday.blogspot.com/2017/10/visiting-washington-dc.html">wrote about briefly</a> last year) to take dozens of photos of it. And I have designed at least a few nonfunctional pavilions for competitions myself. So it's not that I am immune to the lure of an exciting shape - but always left wanting more! Generally I had the same feeling about these projects. Perhaps that's the curse of an architect who thinks too much about the purpose, cost, and social impact of her work.<br />
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<i>For another take on the exhibit, here's a <a href="https://www.kqed.org/arts/13653322/a-primer-on-structures-built-for-pure-pleasure">more straightforward article</a>.</i><br />
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Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-58980623607914099042018-04-17T22:14:00.003-07:002018-04-17T22:14:36.841-07:00Book Review: The Power Broker<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York</i> by Robert Caro is a 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction/biographical account of Robert Moses' career in New York City. Many others have written better reviews of the book, the <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-power-broker-turns-40-how-robert-caro-wrote-a-masterpiece">writing of the book</a>, and even <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/arts/design/28pogr.html">re-evaluations of the book</a>, so I won't try to re-invent the wheel (or tire). What I do want to try here is to express my reaction to the book, and pull out some choice excerpts that relate most strongly to my own interests in urbanism and architecture.<br />
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I have a favorite saying: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor">Never blame on malice what you can blame on ignorance</a>. I had always blamed poor city planning and transit problems in New York City on ignorance. Now, I know better. Planners at the time of Moses knew his policies would be failures -- but they had no power to stop him, so he went ahead anyway. You might be able to claim that Moses' excuse was ignorance, but it was willful ignorance and a blanket refusal to allow his ideas to be questioned. Most of the villains I have read about have caused tragic events, limited in time and space; Robert Moses is the first I can recall who has created tragic <i>places</i>, extended spaces of tragedy, unlimited in time. Every time I think of riding the "air train" to JFK, or notice the disheveled state of the subway in Manhattan, or remember the time I carpooled to Long Island -- since the commuter rail station was too far to get to from the school I was visiting -- , I now get to curse his name.<br />
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Only <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironic_(song)">Alanis Morissette</a> would find it ironic that Robert Moses, who never learned to drive and spent the majority of his adult life getting chauffeured around New York City in a limousine (to the point of using it as his office), would build so many automobile-oriented public works projects in a city where driving makes so little sense. I find it simply depressing.<br />
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If you aren't familiar with Robert Moses, here's my brief summary of his life: Born privileged, he became an expert on civil service, and used his bill drafting skills and increasingly laissez faire attitude toward morality to write himself into a position of unassailable power within the New York metropolitan area. Never elected to office, he held something like twelve appointed positions simultaneously, at both the city and state level (which was normally illegal but he had written himself loopholes out of this). From these positions, he directed unprecedented construction programs along the lines of his own vision for the region. Using his leverage at both city and state levels, and as overall "coordinator" of the city's highway program as liaison with the federal government, he could play different groups off each other in order to force his own plans into approval. He held power for over 40 years and was only deposed in the 1960s (when he was over 70 years old) by a governor who tricked him into giving up his power. During that time, he implemented hundreds of projects: city and state parks as Parks Commissioner, hundreds of miles of highways, many (failed) housing projects, and many bridges, tunnels, power stations, dams, and other works. He apparently hated people of color and the poor, and ensured that it would be as difficult as possible for them to use his recreation facilities; for example, he purposefully built bridges too low for buses to go under, making it impossible for anyone to take a bus to the beach -- thereby preventing the poor and people of color, who used buses, from getting there.<br />
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Reading this massive book was an exercise in continued disappointment, in reading how again and again, different people and groups tried to stop Moses' more egregious policies -- tried to save their homes from destruction by highways, or tried to get some mass transit built along with those highways -- only to be suppressed, ignored, or attacked by Moses in the press. Caro describes how Moses' eventual fall was mostly due to his own mistakes, which led the press to investigate his record more closely, thereby revealing the scheme of kick-backs and patronage that kept so many people, politicians and construction industry professionals alike, in his power. While not growing rich himself, he enabled many others to earn fabulous amounts in public works, either through unreasonably low concessions fees or leases, the awarding of profitable projects, or by forcing outsiders to do business through only those companies he approved.<br />
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It's astonishing how much one man could control the city's future. Supposedly now, that can't happen again, since no one person would be given so many posts -- and Moses never should have been, but his success bred confidence, and thus he continued to be appointed to more and more positions, allowing him to accrue more power, generate more success, and so on.<br />
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I can see now why some writers on the urban scene might want to rehabilitate him; he accomplished so much, on a grander scale than we can usually accomplish projects today. But at what cost? The financial cost is possibly something we could calculate -- for example, take the cost of the Second Avenue Subway now, and compare it to what it would have cost then, when it was easily feasible as a relatively minor project compared to the money Moses controlled. But what about the cost to people's lives who have had to suffer from decrepit transit for decades due to his policies? There is no formula for calculating that loss. And his influence across the country means that not just New York, but many cities, have suffered thanks to his influence.<br />
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It's hard for me to understand, though, why people still think that building more highways, and more highway widening, is always the answer to highway congestion. Apparently planners knew this was a failure back in the 1920s. It's inexcusable that the general public still thinks this is the answer. Why don't we have better education about urban problems, like traffic, which affect all our lives? This is a crucial question to ponder as we in the Bay Area struggle to get more funding for Caltrain and high speed rail, over protests that what we truly need is more highways. I hope the pendulum can swing the other way, for once.<br />
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Favorite passages:<br />
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pg. 218<br />
On Moses' tactics, pushing ahead with construction even without approvals, in order to force a project to be approved:<br />
"[Moses learned from one of his early projects that] Once you did something physically, it was very hard for even a judge to undo it. If judges, who had to submit themselves to the decision of the electorate only infrequently, were thus hogtied by the physical beginning of a project, how much more so would be public officials who had to stand for re-election year by year? [...] "<i>Once you sink that first stake</i>," he would often say, "<i>they'll never make you pull it up</i>."<br />
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pg. 273<br />
On Moses' relationship with his staff in the 1920s:<br />
"And the most valued reward--the thread that bound his men most closely to him--was still more intangible. "We were caught up in his sense of purpose," Latham explained. "He made you feel that what we were doing together was tremendously important for the public, for the welfare of people." The purposes were, after all, the purposes for which they had been trained. They were engineers and architects; engineers and architects want to build, and all Moses' efforts aimed at building. Men who worked for him had the satisfaction not only of seeing their plans turned into steel and concrete, but also of seeing the transformation take place so rapidly that the fulfillment was all the more satisfying. Moses' men feared him, but they also admired and respected him--many of them seemed to love him."<br />
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pg. 479<br />
On Moses' treatment of New York City in the same way as Long Island, despite significant differences between the two areas:<br />
"A public work in the city might in terms of itself--Moses' terms--be an excellent public work while in broader terms being a poor public work: a highway, for example, that, however magnificently designed, was damaging either to the adjacent neighborhood--shattering its essential unity, cutting its homes off from its playground or from its churches and shopping areas, filling its quiet residential areas with noise and gasoline fumes that made them no longer nice places to live and to bring up children--or to the city as a whole: a highway, for example, through a hitherto sparsely inhabited area<br />
that initiated a sudden influx of subdivisions and apartment houses, loading it with people, before the city had provided the sewers and subways and schools those people needed, and that by boosting land costs made it immensely difficult for a financially hard-pressed city to provide such services--services which would, if installed before the highway was built, have been installed at a price within the city's means. If one tried to plan public works in New York City by the same simplistic formula by which the public works of Long Island had been planned, the public works thus created might well destroy what was good in New York even while it was supposed to be improving the city."<br />
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pg. 515<br />
On induced demand in transportation:<br />
"Some city planners noticed [in 1936] that the traffic pattern on Long Island had fallen into a set pattern: every time a new parkway was built, it quickly became jammed with traffic, but the load on the old parkways was not significantly relieved. If this had been the pattern for the first hundred miles of parkways, they wondered, might it not be the pattern for the next forty-five also? Perhaps consideration should be given to trying to ease Long Island's traffic problem by other means, specifically the improved mass transit that the Regional Plan Association and other reformer-backed groups had been proposing for a decade. [...] But their voices were drowned out by a flood of praise for Moses' idea [to build yet more parkways]."<br />
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pg. 760<br />
On Moses' aversion to the poor: Moses proposed (and succeeded) to make the subway system self-liquidating, releasing it from the city's debt service by increasing fares, so that he could borrow more money (through the city) to spend on highway construction.<br />
"[W]ho would benefit from highways, throughways and bridges? The same upper and middle classes--suburbanites, and the two thirds of a city that could afford to own an automobile--the same classes which, under Moses' proposal, would be freed from supporting the subways through their real estate taxes. The city's wealthier classes--its car-owning classes--would be subsidized at the expense of the poorer classes. If you insisted on increasing subway fare, at least spend the money from the increase on subways. With $425,000,000 you could, in 1946, have modernized all moving equipment on New York's subways and made possible the construction of comfortable, modern stations--and could, in addition, have sufficient left over to build the more urgently needed new lines. Spending the money from the subway fare on highways would compound the inequities already existing in the city's transportation setup. It was neither fair nor just."<br />
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pg. 836<br />
On Moses' disconnection from the actual effects of his transportation policies:<br />
"It was in transportation, the area in which Robert Moses was most active after the war [WWII], that his isolation from reality was most complete: because he never participated in the activity for which he was creating his highways--driving--at all. Insulated in the comfortable rear seat of his limousine, unable to experience even once the frustration of a traffic jam, [...] Robert Moses did not know what driving in the modern era was. [...] He was making transportation plans based on beliefs that were not true any more. He was making plans that had no basis in reality. But because of the enormous power he controlled, power that was close to absolute in the fields he had carved out for his own, such as transportation, he could impose these plans on the metropolitan region, and on its 12,000,000 residents.<br />
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pg. 897<br />
More on induced demand:<br />
"Watching Moses open the Triborough Bridge to ease congestion on the Queensborough Bridge, open the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge to ease congestion on the Triborough Bridge, and then watching traffic counts on all three bridges mount until all three were as congested as one had been before [in a short amount of time], planners could hardly avoid the conclusion that "traffic generation" was no longer a theory but a proven fact: the more highways were built to alleviate congestion, the more automobiles would pour onto them and congest them and thus force the building of more highways--which would generate more traffic and become congested in their turn in an inexorably widening spiral that contained the most awesome implications for the future of New York and of all urban areas. The only remedy that could check that vicious spiral was the coordination of new highways with new mass transit facilities--and not only was New York's Coordinator [Moses] not planning any such facilities himself; his monopolization of construction funds and his hold over the city's government were making it impossible for anyone else to plan them either. He was, in fact, destroying some of the old facilities [...]. And tearing them down was only one method of destroying mass transportation facilities. Moses--whether by design or out of ignorance of the effect of his policies--was employing other methods with equal effect." (Essentially, by only investing in highways, Moses encouraged more people to choose those facilities, which are newer and better, over the mass transit lines, which then would lose money and enter another vicious spiral of decreasing revenues and dis-investment, losing more customers, and so on.)<br />
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pg. 898<br />
On drawbacks to his highway program, recognized even at the time:<br />
"No crystal ball was needed, therefore, to foretell the end result of Moses' immense new highway construction proposal [since planners already saw this happening in the 1920s-30s], coupled as it was with lack of any provision whatsoever for mass transit: it could not possibly accomplish its aim, the alleviation of congestion. It could only make congestion, already intolerable, progressively worse. His program was self-defeating. It was doomed to failure before it began. It just didn't make sense." (This pattern of highway development without transit also opened up areas to suburbanization, as opposed to true urbanization, encouraging large, spread-out lots reachable only by car. Moses' parkways were closed to commercial traffic, so jobs did not spread to the suburbs, and everyone had to commute back to the city to work, ensuring continued traffic congestion. And finally, this suburban pattern meant that these newly-developed areas would never be dense enough to support future mass transit, since they were developed with such low densities. Each problem compounds with the others.)<br />
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pg. 901-902<br />
On the need for mass transit:<br />
"The answer to all the questions raised [in the 1940s] about Moses' transportation policies was, of course, mass transportation. [...] Mass transportation was, moreover, the <i>only </i>answer. [...] If residents of the region, particularly commuters, did not have a choice, if they were forced by the inefficiencies, inadequacies of service and high fares of mass transit to use highways whether they wanted to use them or not, the highways would never be able to fulfill their function. Build railroads at the same time that you were building roads, and solving the metropolitan transportation problem would be greatly simplified. Pour all available funds into roads without building railroads, and that problem would never be solved. Public exposure to this point of view was limited." (Although letters to the editor, writes Caro, picked up this theme throughout the 1940s, the editorial pages continued to praise the road-building projects.)<br />
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Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-47249320953402116052018-04-16T22:40:00.000-07:002018-04-16T22:43:35.483-07:00Book Review: Selling Jerusalem<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Selling Jerusalem: Relics, Replicas, Theme Parks</i> by Professor Annabel Jane Wharton*<br />
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After reading Professor Wharton's most recent book, <i>Architectural Agents</i> (<a href="http://notbuiltinaday.blogspot.com/2016/04/book-review-architectural-agents.html">my review is here</a>), I knew I needed to read her previous volume, <i>Selling Jerusalem </i>(from 2006). And I'm pleased that I finally did! The book covered a wide swath of topics I find interesting: Israel/Palestine, Early Christianity, architecture (of course), theme parks, and art history. Professor Wharton weaves a dual narrative of how Jerusalem has been "consumed" in the West by means of its images (in the form of relics, reproductions, panoramas, etc) at the same time that that consumption has changed together with changing economic systems (from gifting and barter, to monetary exchange, to late capitalism and globalization). The brief "Conclusion" chapter gives an excellent and succinct recapitulation of the book's arguments: "This text argues that the forms by which Jerusalem has been appropriated in the West have shifted sequentially. They have progressively dematerialized even as they became ever more visually persuasive. [...] The progressive dematerialization of Western expressions of Jerusalem curiously corresponds to the progressive dematerialization of expressions of exchange. I have argued that the ascendancy of each of the distinct invocations of Jerusalem -- fragment, replica, fabrication, reproduction, spectacle -- was conditioned by its peculiar embodiment of contemporary economic practice" (p. 234-235).<br />
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The one criticism I have is that this chapter is last. I found myself wondering in the early chapters of the book what the possible overarching argument of the whole book could be. Each chapter covers a diverse range of objects and issues, and rarely recapitulates itself, such that I had a hard time finding a narrative thread to hold the whole thing together. But each chapter is also so interesting in itself that I wasn't too concerned about where it was going as a whole.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVvqAmvjFf9SfQsP9saUot9mfkcWNCufU_K5fucluzZf15_Jg6s9WFlicexhA_fDX8-xDC6_4gqKf7cP8CRPLNMTI7QQoBhIWSMOz-4pzwtv1Ol85Bc_wtveK8k82vQBGUYOIk3C39cSZE/s1600/IMG_6328.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1066" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVvqAmvjFf9SfQsP9saUot9mfkcWNCufU_K5fucluzZf15_Jg6s9WFlicexhA_fDX8-xDC6_4gqKf7cP8CRPLNMTI7QQoBhIWSMOz-4pzwtv1Ol85Bc_wtveK8k82vQBGUYOIk3C39cSZE/s640/IMG_6328.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem</span></td></tr>
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Chapter 1 discusses relics of Jerusalem, or "fragments" in the author's terminology, which are pieces of the city itself, or of saints or others associated with the city. She describes the history of a reliquary of the True Cross, in its translation from owner to owner through gifting, until finally, in the modern era, it loses its value as a relic and becomes a commodity, an art historical artefact, through its sale as part of a large collection of objects.<br />
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Chapter 2 describes the Order of the Knights Templar and their replica churches of the Holy Sepulchre in other cities, including Paris and London. The Templars, a religious order founded in Jerusalem during the Crusades, are situated in their role as "protobankers" of the medieval period, who were entrusted with vast amounts of money and treasure, and guarded it on behalf of their owners. Thanks to their independent organization, independent of nation or parish and freed from taxes, they were able to accumulate great wealth of their own through alms and rents (p. 68). Wharton argues that this also made them vulnerable to takeover, and thus they were eradicated by Philip IV of France (through accusations of heresy) and their wealth confiscated.<br />
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Chapter 3 moves on chronologically to the Franciscans in Italy and their reproductions of Jerusalem on various sites within Italy. These reproductions were intended to be fully immersive and realistic, allowing the viewer to experience the same space as the life-size tableaux arranged for their viewing consumption. The Franciscans also played a role in Jerusalem itself as guides and caretakers of pilgrims. Their reproductions of the city were based on their knowledge of the sites and were an attempt to bring Jerusalem wholesale to pilgrims "back home." At the same time, they re-made Jerusalem in the image of how they believed it should look - for example, inscribing the Stations of the Cross on the city, in a specific number and sequence (p. 139).<br />
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Chapter 4 analyzes the Holy Land prints of David Roberts, in the context of tourism - no longer just pilgrimage - to Jerusalem. His works were idealized versions of the city, "the <i>real </i>Holy Land" (emphasis in original, p. 160) to his viewers. These prints were available for sale and were intended to generate a profit, in contrast to the modes of consumption described in the previous chapters. The second part of the chapter looks at panoramas of the city, which were also commercial ventures and had a similar pictorial and idealized relationship to the city. In the panorama, the landscape of Jerusalem functioned both as a religious experience and a historical one, allowing religious viewers to gain a spiritual experience from a reconstructed, (quasi-) historical landscape.<br />
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Chapter 5 concludes the book by examining "spectacularized Jerusalem," the Jerusalem of theme parks, specifically the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Florida. Although its creator viewed it as a religious space, like a shrine, Wharton argues that its nature as a space of consumption and spectacle undermines this reading, and it cannot but be read as a theme park. She also discusses the "remodeling" of Jerusalem under British governor Ronald Storrs, in order to make the city look more like David Roberts' prints (p. 206). She ends by describing how money and religion intersect in enterprises like the Holy Land Experience, with its position both as a for-profit organization and (its claims to) tax-free religious status.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Caesarea Magic," 2012 poster advertising for Caesarea (in Caesarea), historical site as space of spectacle</span></td></tr>
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Some things I realized after reading this book:<br />
-- It's getting to be embarrassing that I haven't read Robert Caro's <i>The Power Broker</i> yet, so that needs to become a top priority. How it is that practically every scholarly work I read cites it? Is this some kind of conspiracy to get me to read it? (p. 220)<br />
-- The photo of Duke basketball on p. 103 must be some kind of private joke, but I have no idea who it's directed towards. I would love to know.<br />
-- If the practice of art history were entirely like a combination of Professor Wharton's books and <a href="http://www.bldgblog.com/">Geoff Manaugh's blog posts</a>, I would quit architecture and go immediately to get a PhD. But I am fairly certain that the cost of admission is actually doing some "hard" research, so oh well. Maybe some day.<br />
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*It occurs to me as I write this that <a href="https://sites.duke.edu/annabelwharton/">Professor Wharton</a> may be lurking on the internet somewhere, with the possibility of reading this. So, Professor Wharton, if you are out there - playing Assassin's Creed or Second Life, or thinking about whatever comes next in our post-human environment - thank you for teaching me about architecture and theory. I would not be an architect if it weren't for you.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Jerusalem Landscape</span></td></tr>
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Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-51090764890792615392018-03-19T23:14:00.000-07:002018-03-19T23:14:05.803-07:00Stuff I Made: Moar of It<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Yes, friends, it's time once again for me to show off some stuff I made, having accumulated enough stuff to constitute a post.<br />
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I have been thinking about doing this for literally years. Why didn't I do it sooner? Who knows. Here they are now:<br />
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These are super easy Harry Potter-inspired wands, via <a href="http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-an-awesome-Harry-Potter-wand-from-a-sheet-of-/">this tutorial</a>. Next up I need to make a wand holster, via <a href="http://www.epbot.com/2015/06/diy-wand-holster-for-wizarding-world.html">this tutorial,</a> to make it easier to carry the wand around! (If you're super ambitious and want to make a wand that lights up, try <a href="http://www.epbot.com/2014/07/diy-light-up-wand-tutorial-for-harry.html">this tutorial instead</a>.)<br />
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To ensure you don't think that everything I make turns out well, I present to you, unfinished & abandoned Christmas ornaments of 2017:<br />
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The laser cutter melted the edges so they were sticky and gross; the engraving was impossible to read; I couldn't figure out the paint job. Sorry folks. You'll have to wait til next year for ornaments. But I did manage to cut out a bunch of squares of cardboard that may yet become something, someday!<br />
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In case you didn't know, every year I also design the t-shirts and pins for the Odyssey of the Mind - Silicon Valley Regional Tournament. These are shirts for judges, and pins for anyone to purchase. I post these typically on my Tumblr, so <a href="https://notbuiltinaday.tumblr.com/">go check it out there</a>.<br />
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Let me see, what else did I make recently? Oh yes, these buildings (Frost Amphitheater - though they are as yet incomplete):<br />
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Also this one (James Lick HS - Student Center, also incomplete), although I did not design it:<br />
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I think that concludes this post of Stuff I Made! Join me next time, when hopefully I will have made something slightly more finished (for the buildings) or interesting (for my personal projects). If you enjoyed this stuff, let me know, so I will be encouraged to make moar!</div>
Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-74019885695908775502018-03-18T22:44:00.001-07:002018-03-18T22:46:27.303-07:00An Architect Looks at Thirty<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My thirtieth birthday was <strike>last week</strike> <strike>a few weeks ago</strike> last month, and I seem to have missed New Year's, so here is a recap / resolutions and look back over the last decade all rolled into one.<br />
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This blog is now coming up on ten years of posts -- my very first post was in December 2008. Since then, I've graduated from college, then from graduate school, become an urbanist, done some traveling, moved across country to California, gotten my architecture license, and worked my way up to managing my own projects. Now I'm a project architect with nearly five years of experience, and I'm trying to figure out what's next.<br />
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Last year around this time, in the throes of the aftermath of the election, I was feeling lost and <a href="http://notbuiltinaday.blogspot.com/2017/03/into-wilderness.html">made some general resolutions</a> to take better care of myself. I was hoping to exercise more, take up piano again, and plan some trips. I was successful in planning the trips, and went to AIA Convention in Orlando; visited friends in Washington, DC; visited family in Michigan, North Carolina, and Alabama; judged at Odyssey of the Mind World Finals; visited more friends in Chicago; and even went to Europe. I also bought a digital piano so I could practice more, read some good books, and exercised more or less consistently, if not as often as I should. But I still had a tough year emotionally and at work, with fairly constant work stress and stress at home. At the end of 2017, I still felt lost.<br />
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This year, I'm hoping to change course a bit. As the great poet Jimmy Buffett once said: "Relationships - we all have 'em, we all want 'em, but what do you do with 'em?" I intend to work on mine, and finally stop apologizing for being a bad friend. One of those relationships worth strengthening is with myself, as I also hope to work on establishing some goals for the next five, ten, and further years. I have decided that 2018 will be the year for #relationshipgoals. (To be clear - the goal is <i>have</i> relationships, that is, to spend time talking with and being with people, not setting some particular goal "for" the relationship.) And you all get to hold me accountable!</div>
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Since my feeling is that goals are not useful unless they are concrete and measureable, here are some benchmarks:</div>
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1. Complete some of the personal projects that have been cluttering up my house and my head for the last year or more. This includes old scrapbooks, new paintings, and various crafts. Maybe even make a new Halloween costume or two.</div>
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2. Take the time to read architecture periodicals, books for fun, and some scholarly works.</div>
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3. Find an exercise regime that I can stick to. Do whatever it is 2x / week.</div>
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4. Write to my friends, at least once a month. Write real letters or e-mails, whichever seems right.</div>
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5. Make plans to visit with friends who live nearby; re-start planning events for local folks to join in.</div>
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The idea is to be intentional about my relationships with family, friends, and co-workers, but also stop guilting myself about things I don't accomplish on schedule.</div>
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I was talking with one of my friends about how I've come to this place in my life where I don't know what's next, and I don't even know what I want from life. She told me that the way she's been able to grapple with these questions is in face-to-face conversations with her friends and colleagues. At first I thought that was strange advice -- don't I usually do my best thinking alone, with pen and paper? But the more I've thought about it, the more I think she is right. Planning my life and my goals together with other people makes sense; developing my relationships seems like one way to expand the universe of possibilities, to find out what others are doing, and ultimately to learn what I want to be doing myself. So here's to my theme for 2018: #relationshipgoals, with friends and family, and to figuring it all out.<br />
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Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-1007183239052436052018-01-28T00:07:00.003-08:002018-01-28T00:07:45.952-08:00Buying a Digital Piano<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Here she is, my new Yamaha Clavinova CLP-625.<br />
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Overall, I have been very happy with it. The sound is good - I play mostly with headphones - and the interface is easy to use; no screen, just buttons, and not too many weird options. The touch is good, it feels like a real upright, while the size is much more compact than an upright. It fights neatly in our apartment, isn't very heavy, and has all the features I need (admittedly, not many). It came with the bench and standard pedals, the music stand, and a hook for hanging your headphones. All in all, everything I wanted, and very little extra.<br />
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And now the saga of how we bought our piano:<br />
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For the last few years, my only access to a piano has been either accompanying J to the sketchy music rooms his company provides, or going to my church to play during off hours. We rarely went to the sketchy music rooms, so mostly I would practice at church -- or rather, wouldn't, since I rarely went there either; going to play right after work was the most convenient time, but was also the time I was least interested. So after regular practicing for one summer and playing a couple pieces for church, I stopped playing.<br />
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Fast forward a year or so: I decided it was time to look at other options. Digital pianos have improved tremendously in the 15 years since I last playing a dinky keyboard, and I knew some of my friends had digital pianos that they liked. So I did my research - mostly <a href="https://azpianonews.blogspot.com/">here</a> - and asked my friends for reviews. I even played one of their pianos. After looking at used digital models online, it was clear that a new model would be best; the older models are substantially worse, and people seem to price them outrageously, thinking that they hold their value like an acoustic piano, when they don't. Most people were pricing them at half or more of original price! For not much more than that, I could get a much better new piano. (Remember that digital pianos are just electronics equipment, no matter what anyone else may say, so it would be like paying 50 to 80% of original retail value for an iPod or TV, five to ten years later. That's just stupid.) <br />
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I was not about to buy something without trying it first myself. In my area, there aren't a lot of different piano dealers, so that narrowed down the options. Based on all this, I decided either Kawai or Yamaha was probably best for my budget and needs.<br />
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First I checked out the Kawai store here in Mountain View. The salesperson was friendly and helpful, and I played a few models. The higher quality models, the CN-27 and 37, were noticeably better, and noticeably more expensive. There weren't many different models available, so after trying them all, we left with some price quotes and a feeling like these weren't the right thing.<br />
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Next up was the Yamaha store in San Jose. This store had a much larger selection of digital pianos, but one of the worst salespeople I've ever encountered, as I shall describe. We walked in and he immediately greeted us - great - and we asked if they had a certain model line that I thought was appropriate for me. He responded that oh, no, <i>this</i> store didn't carry anything like that; we would need to go to a Guitar Center or similarly inferior (I'm paraphrasing) store for that. <i>This</i> store carried fine instruments for real musicians (paraphrasing again). At that, I was just about ready to walk out the door. But we had driven all the way to San Jose, so I asked if he'd show us what they did have, anyway, just to see. So he proceeded to show us all the models, starting, of course, with the most expensive. These were grand-sized digital pianos with more speakers than you'd know what to do with, and price tags to match, in the tens of thousands of dollars. I may have rolled my eyes a few times; my memory is foggy. There were some very expensive uprights, too, with exposed mechanisms so you could see that they had real wood action that somehow translated into digital sound, all just to reproduce the tactile experience of playing a true piano.<br />
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After the grand tour, working slowly towards the more moderately priced options, we finally arrived in a side room where there was a sale going on, and he sort of waved at them and said these were part of a university sale. Glancing around, I discovered that they were the very next model line up from the one I had mentioned at first, and at their sale prices, they were the exact same price as what I'd had in mind.<br />
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So, in fact, the salesperson did have just what I was looking for -- he just didn't want to tell me, or didn't think it was worth mentioning, or something. I then spent some time playing the various models. Yamaha has an extensive line of options, and adds improvements every year -- these were all model year 2016 and 2017 pianos, with the latest "stuff," and they felt comparable to the more expensive Kawai models.<br />
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I left the store feeling positive that I had found something that would work, but not wanting to commit yet. I did some more research, tested yet one other piano that I knew about, and finally made the decision. I decided on the CLP-625 and called the store.<br />
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The salesperson (same one) was, of course, happy that I had decided to purchase a piano, but I had some questions he found it difficult to answer. Would they deliver it to me, and how much was delivery? Delivery was $100, I was told, plus extra to take it up stairs, something like an extra $90 per flight. We live on the third floor. Plus they couldn't give me a delivery window of any precision - I'd have to wait at home for half a day for it to arrive. And he really, really did not recommend that we try to fit it in our car. He told me horror stories of people who couldn't fit their new digital piano in their SUV, tried to unbox it in the parking lot to get it to fit, chaos ensuing, etc etc.<br />
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I decided I needed to go back to the store in person to check it out one last time. I was still pleased with the piano, but hesitant about how to get it home. While I was signing the initial paperwork (apparently buying a piano has nearly the same amount of paperwork as buying a car, it's ridiculous), the salesperson mentioned that they had a box of a different but similar size model upstairs! So I went up and measured the box. It was definitely too heavy for me to carry by myself, but dimension-wise, wasn't too big to fit in my hatchback. I decided we would make it work.<br />
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After trying to round up some help with picking up the piano when it was ready a few days later, I ended up pressing J into service. I brought my collapsible hand truck with me. Back at the store, for the third and final time, we slipped the box onto the hand truck -- and I could easily cart it by myself. In the end, I didn't really need J there at all! It was easy to maneuver it myself into the car. Back at the apartment, it was difficult to get it up the stairs, and I could not do it by myself, but J didn't need to have come with me to the store.<br />
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In the end, the salesperson not only had nearly run me out of the store by incorrectly telling me he had nothing I wanted, he had also nearly convinced me I could not get the piano I wanted because it was too hard to get home, although in the end, it was reasonably easy. And thus, I conclude, he was the worst salesperson I've met so far. I'm pleased to have persevered and actually managed to buy the piano! While I haven't been playing as much as I should, I have been playing more than I was before, and even J is using it sometimes. All's well that ends well.<br />
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(FYI: If you are in the San Jose area and thinking of getting a piano - let me know and I'm happy to let you know the specifics of who to avoid.)<br />
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Piano specs, if you're curious: <a href="https://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical_instruments/pianos/clavinova/clp-625/specs.html">https://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical_instruments/pianos/clavinova/clp-625/specs.html</a>. And no, I did not pay list price, fortunately!</div>
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Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-71033139312787567672018-01-23T22:37:00.001-08:002018-01-23T22:37:58.739-08:00The Experiment: Part 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I can't believe that somehow the rest of the the year slipped away without any more posts... so I'll just have to make up for it now!<br />
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By Day 3 of the second week, The Experiment was already over. Three more days of commuting and I was done. On that Wednesday, I took the train to San Jose, met my co-worker, took a Lyft to our site meeting, then Lyft back to the office. Then after work I went with another co-worker to an event in San Jose, then took the train back up to San Francisco. So I left the apartment at 7am to get on the train, and then got back at 10:45pm. It was grueling, and I was so tired that when I got home, I wrote a mostly incomprehensible post about how tired I was, that I will spare you from reading.<br />
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By Day 4 (Thursday) of the second week, J and I agreed that we were not moving to San Francisco. He had been sick most of the first week, so he wasn't taking the train, which meant he started in earnest on the second week. By mid-week, he was already calling it quits. The good news was that it was easy for us to agree.<br />
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Pros to living in SF while working in Palo Alto / Mountain View:<br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>We're close to everything interesting on the weekends, including our friends.</li>
<li>It's technically reverse commute so maybe it's not as horrible as the other direction?</li>
<li>I was happy to stop biking and driving; taking the train is easier. And I actually got more exercise than usual by walking to and from the train.</li>
<li>We both enjoyed living in Potrero Hill.</li>
</ul>
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Cons:</div>
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Pretty much everything else, including but not limited to:</li>
<li>The train is loud and annoying, the timetable is confining, and it's exhausting.</li>
<li>Spending 2+ hours of commuting time every day is a waste.</li>
<li>We can always drive up to SF on the weekends.</li>
<li>SF has pretty lousy internal public transit, so we'd still need a car. Compared to NYC, it's not a real city. (Yes, I said it.)</li>
<li>Did I mention it's exhausting?</li>
</ul>
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In conclusion, here's a bad picture of the new Dandelion Chocolate factory (not yet open) out of the window of a bus, which I guess is a fitting representation of this whole endeavor:</div>
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Just imagine me, sitting on public transit, imagining all the things I could be doing -- like visiting this chocolate temple of deliciousness -- if I wasn't on public transit but was instead in the city, and that was pretty much my experience of The Experiment. Now, instead, I can sit at home in MV on my comfy sofa, and imagine it from here, which is much quieter, and thus, a better place for imagining. So I guess that's better overall.</div>
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Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-74300800960675874092017-10-14T15:10:00.001-07:002017-10-14T15:10:24.377-07:00The Experiment: Part 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last month, J and I decided to "test drive" living in San Francisco. It's something I've been thinking about for a long time, since my urban-dweller tendencies have not exactly meshed well with living in suburban Mountain View. But since both of us work in the Peninsula / Silicon Valley, we would both have to commute south (by car, bus, or train) every weekday. So it's not a move to be taken lightly. We're looking at somewhere around 15 to 20 hours/week of commuting time for each of us. But we both find that our leisure activities pull us northward on a regular basis, so it seemed reasonable to figure out if we'd actually enjoy living in the city.<br />
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We're calling this test period "The Experiment."<br />
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We first tried renting a furnished apartment for a month in the Mission, but nothing looked that good, and after checking out the bike route to the train station -- involving biking up hills, under highways, and through lots and lots of stop signs -- we nixed that plan. There were no furnished, monthly apartments available in Potrero Hill or the Dogpatch, which are close to the 22nd Street Caltrain station, which both of us expected to use to get to work. So finally we settled on a two-week Airbnb stay as the most feasible. But the first available two-week period started October 10th, so then, we waited.<br />
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Day 0 -- Finally the day arrived! We packed our suitcases and headed for the hills. Potrero Hill(s), that is. The place we found is in a great location, walking distance from the train, and quite comfortable. It even has a little backyard patio. I've been pleasantly surprised by the amount of parking available, which would be useful if we moved here permanently and wanted to keep one of our cars. Potrero Hill is a quiet neighborhood and has most of the necessary amenities; however, it does lack a pharmacy, and I'm sure we'll find other things missing the longer we're here. But moving in went smoothly.<br />
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Day 1 -- I drove the car back down to work, which was surprisingly easy since we are just a few blocks from the I-280 on-ramp. Traffic going south is "reverse commute" traffic so it's not too bad. Then I left the car at our apartment, and took the train back up from Mountain View.<br />
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Day 2 -- The first full commuting day by train was generally uneventful, although there was a fatality on Caltrain that day, so if I had needed to get just two more stops south, I would have had to abandon the train and take a taxi. As it was, my stop was the one right before the train was going to be held at the station, so I made it to work fine. But it was a good reminder that Caltrain is unreliable and being an hour away from work adds uncertainty to the mix. I also had to get a ride to the station after work, because I had a late meeting and would have missed the train if I'd tried to walk to the station afterward. Having a 15-minute walk to get to the train adds stress since there is only one train an hour, so if you miss it, you're stuck for an hour until the next one.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTPcpFwPd-pKVO__Hgv1ziYaDqklmWW5slSldjhyK-oC80ESRv1ZD-pMHXRlNR1_z9H9RHcBLtl04Nx-wkqRdOFUAnarBZWZzy9LMn6PDb41Cv8mVRAwGMwnBENH2T-waj0M-5tlRUsGEM/s1600/IMG_20171011_194901.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTPcpFwPd-pKVO__Hgv1ziYaDqklmWW5slSldjhyK-oC80ESRv1ZD-pMHXRlNR1_z9H9RHcBLtl04Nx-wkqRdOFUAnarBZWZzy9LMn6PDb41Cv8mVRAwGMwnBENH2T-waj0M-5tlRUsGEM/s400/IMG_20171011_194901.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View downtown, from near our apartment</td></tr>
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Day 3 -- Fully uneventful. Spent some time walking around the neighborhood in the evening, checking out different grocery stores.<br />
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Day 4 -- The weekend! We put in our names at Plow, the local brunch hot spot that's just a block away, at 11:30am. Then we walked around the neighborhood for an hour, hung out on the back patio for half an hour, and by 1:30pm we finally got a table. The food was undeniably good. The wait would not have been worth it if we weren't so close, but was not a problem since we were. So yes, there are definitely advantages to being local! And it's pretty cool to be able to wake up and have the whole city before you with all its possibilities, plus the easier connection to other places (Oakland, Berkeley) where we have friends.<br />
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It's too early to tell what we think about this Experiment. But I'll plan to keep posting about how things are going over the next week, and ultimately we hope to reach a conclusion about whether the commuting is worth it to be closer to the things we want to do during our leisure time. There are other things to consider too - cost, proximity to things like health care and airports, availability of transportation, etc - but most of those things seem workable. Stay tuned!</div>
Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-5062864104815896582017-10-02T14:38:00.000-07:002017-10-15T14:40:15.245-07:00Visiting Washington, DC<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been to DC several times -- I think at least four times before -- but most of these trips have been relatively short, and there are still many sites I haven't been able to visit. So when I had the opportunity to travel to DC for a friend's wedding last month, and the chance to visit with old friends too, I packed my bag and headed east.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The DC Metro, winner of the AIA's 25-Year Award</td></tr>
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(Speaking of bags - I recently purchased a <a href="http://www.timbuk2.com/wingman-carry-on-duffel-bag/528.html">Timbuk2 "Wingman" duffel</a>, which converts between a duffel, messenger bag, and backpack, and have really enjoyed the hands-free travel experience. If, like me, you don't enjoy dragging a wheeled carry-on behind you between airport gates, onto the metro, and through train cars, then I recommend checking out their line of convertible bags. The backpack straps zip away into their own compartment if you want to check the bag or just get them out of the way, but the straps are reasonably comfortable on your back even when the bag is full. Just my two cents. End of unpaid sales pitch.)<br />
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Since this was a four-day weekend trip, where two full days were spent in transit, I didn't have a lot of time, and didn't actually plan what I was going to see until I got there and consulted with my host friend (who is the best, by the way <3). The day I arrived, we went to dinner and that was all we had time for. On day 2, which was cool and rainy, we ended up going to the National Building Museum, walking the Mall past the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, and over to the new Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.<br />
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Regarding <a href="https://www.nbm.org/">The National Building Museum</a>, I have many thoughts. So many thoughts. I shall try to be brief. The building is massive, with such oversized columns that I assumed they had to be fake and some kind of Pomo joke, but no, <a href="https://www.nbm.org/about/historic-home/">they are original</a>, made of brick but painted to look like marble, and built by Montgomery C. Meigs, the crazy architect/engineer/Army man who designed the whole structure. Originally the US Pensions Bureau, the building dates from 1887 and has hosted numerous events over its life. As a museum, however, the exhibits are spotty. Some were good, or at least interesting, but some had little to nothing to do with buildings or architecture. The one about asylums was interesting and had a lot of research on display, but failed to connect the dots between healthcare / mental health treatment and architecture. Half the museum appeared to be empty. The big temporary pavilion on display in the center, by Studio Gang, was cool, but clearly just a folly - it was fun for kids to bang around in, but not a good place to hang out. In fact the entire center area of the building was noisy and unpleasant. It seemed mostly to be a place to take pictures. Overall, I found the museum puzzling in its unevenness and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Visitors learn next to nothing about buildings, architecture, or the construction industry.<br />
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Moving on: The sculpture gardens on the Mall are always fun, and I enjoyed playing my usual "guess that artist" game, in which I've gotten pretty good. The Rev. King Memorial was serene and had a lovely view across the water, but I didn't find it quite as inspiring as some of the other monuments (eg FDR Memorial or Korean War Memorial). Apparently<a href="https://www.nps.gov/mlkm/learn/building-the-memorial.htm"> the sculptor was Chinese</a> (not Chinese-American), which sparked some controversy over the design. I do think it's a bit disappointing that the committee could not find an American sculptor to build the monument, but hey, we're an equal opportunity place in the good ol' USA, right?<br />
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I want to go on record saying that I did try to go to the new <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/">National Museum of African American History and Culture</a>, designed by British architect David Adjaye, which was top of my list of things to visit, but at the point where I was buying my plane tickets, I was already too late to get a ticket. So I had to settle for admiring it from afar. Hopefully next time I can visit!<br />
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Day 3 we went to the National Arboretum, checked out the huge-in-quantity, not huge-in-size bonsai collection, and then visited the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. In the evening, I went to the wedding, which was lovely and a great time to catch up with friends.<br />
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The National Arboretum was nice, although the Modernist visitor's center was drained of its surrounding pool and thus a bit bare. The bonsai collection is indeed extensive, with multiple plants over one hundred years old. It's divided into several different stylistic pavilions - Japanese, Chinese, American, etc - each with different styles of plants. I do wish there had been some additional explanatory text to help me understand the different styles!<br />
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The Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, on the other hand, was hot, muggy, and an endless sea of seemingly identical water lilies. Unless you're really into water lilies, I wouldn't recommend it.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZNE_4q545S-C_sAFwcPhyphenhyphenFEowpPtcdS4LLtgMA75Gvbg0f_MPePjvdvDYIw_9dJ__EW665nyLVjnm2SL4xyQ7YNSs9p6-ri9IrsDtIUNYKrFdRuC91intszJQfKvaLSPr6_sSLRYUs8P4/s1600/IMG_20170903_144112.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZNE_4q545S-C_sAFwcPhyphenhyphenFEowpPtcdS4LLtgMA75Gvbg0f_MPePjvdvDYIw_9dJ__EW665nyLVjnm2SL4xyQ7YNSs9p6-ri9IrsDtIUNYKrFdRuC91intszJQfKvaLSPr6_sSLRYUs8P4/s400/IMG_20170903_144112.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a garden, can't you tell? It's actually pretty cool that this area is preserved, since more of Maryland used to look like this.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So many water lilies</td></tr>
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Day 4 was my last day in DC, in which we got some breakfast at <a href="https://abakedjoint.com/">A Baked Joint</a>, a trendy brunch place with delicious pastries and biscuits (I got oatmeal, a rosemary goat cheese biscuit and some kind of pastry that I can't recall), and then a ride to the airport. Overall, it was a delightful weekend! Thank you to everyone who made it so fun!</div>
Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-19757335624009464762017-09-16T15:43:00.001-07:002017-09-16T15:43:14.527-07:00Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Just when you thought this year could get no more strange, difficult, or unexpected... hurricane season hits with a vengeance. This post won't have any real focus, but my head is buzzing with so many thoughts that I needed to write some of them down, to share with others who may also need a moment to reflect (or just to distract themselves).<br />
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I should start with the note that I am very grateful that my family came out of Hurricane Irma unscathed, but grieve for everyone affected by both Irma and Hurricane Harvey, including Puerto Rico, the Antilles and the Virgin Islands. If you want to donate to relief efforts, the best suggestion I've heard thus far is to donate directly to local organizations, like the local chapters of the Red Cross, since they can use the funds immediately. Or if you just don't want to donate to the Red Cross, but still want something that goes to local communities, try <a href="http://pda.pcusa.org/situation/tropical-storm-harvey/">Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.</a> And don't forget there are <a href="http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/our-work/countries">many other hurting places in the world</a> that could use some support. We Americans are fortunate in that rebuilding is nearly always an option, no matter how great the damage.<br />
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And now: here are the latest news articles to linger with me after they cross my screen:<br />
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
1. Let's Get Excited About Maintenance!</h4>
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/opinion/sunday/lets-get-excited-about-maintenance.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/opinion/sunday/lets-get-excited-about-maintenance.html</a><br />
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As someone who works on school facilities, long-term maintenance is a common topic. Currently I'm working on a nearly 70-year-old campus, built in the 1950s, which is the oldest school in the district. Without proper maintenance, eventually everything leaks, rusts, breaks, or gets abandoned, and sometimes it's not until years later that the forgotten infrastructure comes to light. Everywhere we dig or uncover today, we find things we didn't expect, from completely blocked storm drain lines made of paper (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangeburg_pipe">yes that was a real thing</a>), to water lines (oops), to sewer lines (sorry about that, we'll fix your bathrooms eventually), to abandoned gas lines (good thing it didn't still have gas in it...). We plan our new work with an eye to how frequently it has to be maintained, and how it will perform if, inevitably, maintenance is neglected or "deferred" (just a fancy word for neglected). 1950s schools are no different from most of our infrastructure, which Americans notoriously underfund and wear into the ground. One of Pres. Voldemort's only good suggestions has been that we should put together a large infrastructure spending bill - and let no one say that I am against a good idea, no matter where it comes from. Let's just make sure maintenance on our country's transportation infrastructure, water and sewer tunnels, digital infrastructure, and power grid, and not only new stuff, gets included.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUrHqgL4kf9hdcDsuIgjxydYGBTC3TALeMT9GskAr9rJCxdvSiSMj0sYdx3pNhE5qCWPz1KgUfo5yeT4Od5HhLfbH4S03w4N-CxVnxboucIYOkdd7hbA7fPTG-nyhpKuDihGoU-V8NegP8/s1600/IMG_20170726_101536.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUrHqgL4kf9hdcDsuIgjxydYGBTC3TALeMT9GskAr9rJCxdvSiSMj0sYdx3pNhE5qCWPz1KgUfo5yeT4Od5HhLfbH4S03w4N-CxVnxboucIYOkdd7hbA7fPTG-nyhpKuDihGoU-V8NegP8/s400/IMG_20170726_101536.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Contractor: "Wait, we're supposed to re-use what again? We demo'd that weeks ago..."</td></tr>
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
2. I pretty much hate the suburbs, which is so millennial of me</h4>
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/sunday-review/future-suburb-millennials.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/sunday-review/future-suburb-millennials.html</a><br />
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Did you know that not every millennial (25 to 29-year old) wants to live in a city? Well, the Times is on it! And frankly, they should be - while we all know the statistics that 80 to 90% of Americans now <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_States">live in an urban area</a>, that statistic includes suburbs as urban areas. According to this article by Alan Berger, actually 70% of Americans live in suburbs, which leaves only 10 to 20% in "real" cities. And I, for one, would like us all to recognize that suburbs are not cities, and have their own quite distinct set of urban (suburban?) problems and issues. Lately, there's been a trend of young people moving to cities faster than previous generations, but that's only a relative measure - this MIT professor claims that most millennials are still moving to suburbs, even if the main news item of the day is that a lot of them are also moving to cities.<br />
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I live in a suburb. I don't really like it here. But I recognize that most of my peers do like it, and that the several generations before us who built the suburbs are still here and like it too. So I think we urbanists need to continue to reckon with suburbs and their less-than-desirable effects, including over-dependence on cars, lack of alternative transit, wasteful use of land, proportionally greater carbon pollution and energy use than cities, lack of public services and lack of social justice, etc. <br />
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Berger's points about how technology can save us from some of the ills of the suburbs are not wrong, but I think he misses some major points about how we can continue to have suburbs without losing the fight against climate change. He argues that the "suburb of the future" will have fewer cars, since no one will drive their own vehicle - that will reduce pollution and energy use, and is a better use of land. He says communities will be able to share land better and include better infrastructure for flood control. Currently, I don't see what kind of legal mechanism will foster this change, but perhaps he's thinking of REITs or stronger local governments that will require land to be used for public benefit. Bizarrely, he cites drones as part of this vision -- I'm not sure why we care about drone delivery, and he doesn't say why this is important -- but ok, fewer cars on the roads, I guess.<br />
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But he misses big moves. If we don't need personal cars or parking lots anymore, we have the opportunity for a wholly new kind of urbanism, which isn't really new, but old -- more densely-built downtown shopping districts that cater to walking, for example. Without cars, we won't be as likely to drive short distances from place to place; it will be easier if we just build things closer together. I get that people want privacy and space, but we could still build more densely (via infill construction) if we can get rid of garages, narrow the streets, and eliminate parking. A more dense suburbia is, I think, a more sustainable one. Train transit becomes possible, biking becomes easier, and carbon pollution becomes manageable, possibly even if everyone keeps their energy-inefficient, standalone, single family homes.<br />
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At any rate -- let's keep thinking about this. If our grandparents could build the suburbs in a single generation, then surely in our generation, we can turn them into a place that isn't killing the environment as well as our souls. Or my soul, anyway.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEn-H0zRKSZ5TaCiL3XCYHh9xcBK8g0TuIkcejAc9mpGro1axgbHaeVyVaVm7TFgilgo9MLS94j0xdyZXRnQwRUtUAT4BBbgUFjurcOwoUqC7zNyGJWK7ZuDY-SzVdEjy8DvtNQBY5fx00/s1600/IMG_20170727_135207.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEn-H0zRKSZ5TaCiL3XCYHh9xcBK8g0TuIkcejAc9mpGro1axgbHaeVyVaVm7TFgilgo9MLS94j0xdyZXRnQwRUtUAT4BBbgUFjurcOwoUqC7zNyGJWK7ZuDY-SzVdEjy8DvtNQBY5fx00/s400/IMG_20170727_135207.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I don't have a photo that really screams "suburbs" to me, so instead, please enjoy this image of the Stanford Central Energy Facility. Mmm heat recovery yes</td></tr>
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
3. Art people are hilarious</h4>
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/arts/design/hurricane-irma-florida-museums.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/arts/design/hurricane-irma-florida-museums.html</a><br />
<br />
Some choice quotations:<br />
"Florida’s arts institutions work hard to prepare for hurricanes: The Dali Museum’s new building in St. Petersburg, which opened in 2011, was designed with 18-inch-thick hurricane-proof walls. The Pérez Art Museum Miami, completed in 2013, was designed by Herzog & de Meuron with the area’s mercurial weather in mind. Outdoor artworks required planning as well. The Mark di Suvero sculpture outside the Pérez was safe. “It can handle up to a Category 5 because of its cement base,” Franklin Sirmans, the museum’s director, said in a telephone interview from Atlanta."<br />
<br />
Translation: Yes, I always design my enormous steel sculptures for hurricane-preparedness, don't you?<br />
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"Ms. Rubell said she and her husband, Donald, were traveling when the storm landed, but that her staff hunkered down in the Rubells’ home behind the gallery, which she referred to as a concrete bunker. “I said, ‘Listen, guys, there comes a point where your life is more important than any piece of art in the collection,’” Ms. Rubell said. “‘Stay if you think you’re going to stay safe, but don’t stay there to protect the art.’” Norman Braman, whose home on the east side of Biscayne is filled with an impressive collection, removed all of the paintings from the house’s first floor, confident that the outdoor sculpture would be resilient. “We did not expect the Richard Serra to move, or the de Kooning,” he said."<div>
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Translation: I know you want to save the art, but don't forget to stay alive. Also: Steel is heavy.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This Richard Serra sculpture is not going anywhere. It's too stubborn.</td></tr>
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Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-72454664847799633582017-07-08T18:27:00.002-07:002017-07-08T18:27:14.500-07:00Visiting Chicago<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In May, I had the opportunity to spend a couple of days in Chicago after judging at the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals competition at Michigan State. I took the Amtrak from East Lansing to Chicago - Union Station, then the "L" ("elevated") train the rest of the time. There was one issue when I tried to get out to the University of Chicago which involved missing a bus connection and having to be rescued by my friend, but aside from that, public transit was a breeze.<br />
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Chicago overall was a really fun city: not too big as to feel overwhelming, but with great transit around the downtown Loop area, perfect weather at the end of May, and lots to see and do. I'm already looking forward to going back. I made myself a Google map of the city with an ambitious number of places to visit, but thanks to my patient friends, I was able to check off most of the places. The others will have to wait 'til next time. Here's the run-down of what I was able to see.<br />
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<b>Day 0</b><br />
Before I even got to Chicago, I did get to see one pretty cool building at Michigan State: the Broad Art Museum (not to be confused with the one in Los Angeles) by Zaha Hadid Architects. Opened in 2012, the museum is a lovely, compact piece that invites viewing from all sides, to the point of wondering how the art (and staff) even gets in - the loading areas are so well-integrated that the building does not feel like it has a front or a back. The art inside was not quite as impressive, although there were a few interesting pieces, including a room that appears to have a hole in it leading outside. (The hole is real, the "outside" is fake.) You might say this building has all the angles. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. I think this was the first Zaha Hadid building I've visited.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoIcwxhQgk0FU4o0BJwKeYneI3RRem2RaPf0zF4vNQwwnaoxHf2LxuzgoLegfEwSdvRQ0PGXiFFTpJbrM0lHsLnE8XdXFWyptHZilw8YrYuMs3OwHGVBjTo8vKZ8EbPKe5B1QxbK-ndMjm/s1600/IMG_20170527_170229.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoIcwxhQgk0FU4o0BJwKeYneI3RRem2RaPf0zF4vNQwwnaoxHf2LxuzgoLegfEwSdvRQ0PGXiFFTpJbrM0lHsLnE8XdXFWyptHZilw8YrYuMs3OwHGVBjTo8vKZ8EbPKe5B1QxbK-ndMjm/s320/IMG_20170527_170229.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLtJGmGVthmN4_lSD89bXMVxMP5NAp1VfalsNMDVc8Yp6j4itxDHkgOiC_HpPFIOTRODW6aqQqODC6t5RSaASqj7Hl6N4EJzrj_7BunZ-rThzFcjaeDUE65lmgkjYemV0gpZ1eNt4Du5bK/s1600/IMG_20170527_172318.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLtJGmGVthmN4_lSD89bXMVxMP5NAp1VfalsNMDVc8Yp6j4itxDHkgOiC_HpPFIOTRODW6aqQqODC6t5RSaASqj7Hl6N4EJzrj_7BunZ-rThzFcjaeDUE65lmgkjYemV0gpZ1eNt4Du5bK/s320/IMG_20170527_172318.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not a real plant.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not a real hole.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO6gyOLIFE__num0c8vpkSNceO7ThdUM9zjhQWDc913vLNbXRcAZuOsDZe63Yy30UXAxxWejfze-egjkyp2ZN6BS9p5dBlSXoFTrDZ2gfDMGSWFDbl9B3KzlGx8_wIgEQ-fP2GwBbWtQoX/s1600/IMG_20170527_173437.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO6gyOLIFE__num0c8vpkSNceO7ThdUM9zjhQWDc913vLNbXRcAZuOsDZe63Yy30UXAxxWejfze-egjkyp2ZN6BS9p5dBlSXoFTrDZ2gfDMGSWFDbl9B3KzlGx8_wIgEQ-fP2GwBbWtQoX/s320/IMG_20170527_173437.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not real plumbing piping.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKXX2pB1vnAaPK0TrWZYPcLu0dVQr5tbuACi7AfOAL-UfxqzHxdI1HYlvVrEVIrkk5JFzxMpATkOZHPRmXA0yw1AotVS_N49j7WjSzqJCMrWblTeoxRqdUmzBD7Jo2LycCYvveZBhYrzrT/s1600/IMG_20170527_174325.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKXX2pB1vnAaPK0TrWZYPcLu0dVQr5tbuACi7AfOAL-UfxqzHxdI1HYlvVrEVIrkk5JFzxMpATkOZHPRmXA0yw1AotVS_N49j7WjSzqJCMrWblTeoxRqdUmzBD7Jo2LycCYvveZBhYrzrT/s320/IMG_20170527_174325.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still really pretty cool.</td></tr>
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<b>Day 1</b><br />
I arrived around noon and met my friends for lunch at True Food Kitchen, which was pretty good. I didn't realize at the time that it's a chain with a location here in Palo Alto - so maybe I'll have to try that location too. We spent some time walking around, checking out the outside of the John Hancock tower, the Chicago Tribune tower, and Studio Gang's Aqua tower, before getting on the boat for the Chicago Architectural Foundation's river cruise. The sun was blasting in our eyes for much of the boat ride, but it was still great to see all the buildings from the river perspective, and the guide was entertaining.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0U9zxfUw560JQ_NFyFRR7U-QBWg8uEugkYOCRFJg-t3AM5fNDGZyZsocRtS4niJykdUYrAPKm98-Wz9RTj7ls6eenyAMRYnItsX7sjPjxA5NvcMlcEg02vuPAJovjURiZDYkM_WaBpqT2/s1600/IMG_20170528_143330.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0U9zxfUw560JQ_NFyFRR7U-QBWg8uEugkYOCRFJg-t3AM5fNDGZyZsocRtS4niJykdUYrAPKm98-Wz9RTj7ls6eenyAMRYnItsX7sjPjxA5NvcMlcEg02vuPAJovjURiZDYkM_WaBpqT2/s320/IMG_20170528_143330.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Hancock Tower - SOM</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFIfUk57Pp5bhUDB4PkHbU4dbmqkkRd2f0PJhfeHAyWJPS0PcUrVLQG2tLIeTTB1ShsX4yb2S4QdGaC-0dxI3js1KVqOfAzSWNScnG2FBLUPNvCGUYPXccQkNt412yTfG845-X0-4qn8ei/s1600/IMG_20170528_145651.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFIfUk57Pp5bhUDB4PkHbU4dbmqkkRd2f0PJhfeHAyWJPS0PcUrVLQG2tLIeTTB1ShsX4yb2S4QdGaC-0dxI3js1KVqOfAzSWNScnG2FBLUPNvCGUYPXccQkNt412yTfG845-X0-4qn8ei/s320/IMG_20170528_145651.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chicago Tribune Tower - Hood & Howells</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aqua - Studio Gang</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm4BXClmoISz0i0t9MRH45PC59QCxknmqbU0YHbAm9wDHzDt0IuxmAXIZQfXfKJgQR_7nYPm21Qa56IY8WTeD_UofMYKPlWgrRbnchK5p3pi5w6JLbyxVCgCJXVveP6FN2mn9dJj9NWdnn/s1600/IMG_20170528_161910.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm4BXClmoISz0i0t9MRH45PC59QCxknmqbU0YHbAm9wDHzDt0IuxmAXIZQfXfKJgQR_7nYPm21Qa56IY8WTeD_UofMYKPlWgrRbnchK5p3pi5w6JLbyxVCgCJXVveP6FN2mn9dJj9NWdnn/s320/IMG_20170528_161910.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv-9Ck7PVSF4mEpkKSJ4_ifql7-_j0bSu8reU-7nCdI5XNYus5i9JazuQfJZoX2fO-xSmtFdY7KqMw1zujN6WdEGC7OqkmmjoXOHnajs8WNUoVV2wUMxQIpKB9lEnneCwiaaRmpDwxOocF/s1600/IMG_20170528_164653.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1185" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv-9Ck7PVSF4mEpkKSJ4_ifql7-_j0bSu8reU-7nCdI5XNYus5i9JazuQfJZoX2fO-xSmtFdY7KqMw1zujN6WdEGC7OqkmmjoXOHnajs8WNUoVV2wUMxQIpKB9lEnneCwiaaRmpDwxOocF/s320/IMG_20170528_164653.jpg" width="236" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can just about see the "Skydecks" poking out from the face of the very top of the Sears Tower (now Willis Tower, by SOM). Something to do on my next visit. Or the "Tilt" attraction at the Hancock Tower, which is similar.</td></tr>
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After the river cruise we wandered through Millennium Park, which is fantastic; past Grant Park; and into the West Loop to find dinner. Not in the mood to wait hours for a table at a notable restaurant, we found an upscale taco place we could walk into. After that, we wandered some more downtown, checking out Chagall's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Seasons_(Chagall)">Four Seasons</a> mosaic, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Palmer_House_Hilton">Palmer House</a> lobby, and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Fountain">Crown Fountain</a> before calling it a night. No photos of these, since my camera doesn't do well at night.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPBFIMuCYFQ439zu0MBg1ciZXHz000LYhH5veHEpqEG8Nj0U_wKQbbBFQK_ZpgxylPhuvLtdjy419N4qF83hcXAtm1GtCqk_U_x_er_W6MVAaXnUB0zBdxHR2R_nzrFvh8UfYiTkWSjio1/s1600/IMG_20170528_180219.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPBFIMuCYFQ439zu0MBg1ciZXHz000LYhH5veHEpqEG8Nj0U_wKQbbBFQK_ZpgxylPhuvLtdjy419N4qF83hcXAtm1GtCqk_U_x_er_W6MVAaXnUB0zBdxHR2R_nzrFvh8UfYiTkWSjio1/s320/IMG_20170528_180219.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cloud Gate - Anish Kapoor</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-bVI87ZDV6BtjQ3yc85snctzJWXA79EZTYn2oHTuHTx4m8m6lezsBRzkm-GkW8I8cE8tt4AsnDTslh00KO-EOnFnYa6d66hDtn44ULvoGlOFB_PzqhS2QAxVVJR7U7z4SlV-hstocR4rZ/s1600/IMG_20170528_180637.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-bVI87ZDV6BtjQ3yc85snctzJWXA79EZTYn2oHTuHTx4m8m6lezsBRzkm-GkW8I8cE8tt4AsnDTslh00KO-EOnFnYa6d66hDtn44ULvoGlOFB_PzqhS2QAxVVJR7U7z4SlV-hstocR4rZ/s320/IMG_20170528_180637.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park - Frank Gehry</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUVi8iaJxg20DO9zjC2L-i6LSt2VJOBOYUYkQ13JbKOKus961bwcutUM_PHqvGCrSnS1BFsXwZJaqQUsInAwhzX3EdWuzzJIDiGUpkbPjZZbxleoehi2CQjWopLFYWRwa0Pj6SNHQ9DSTr/s1600/IMG_20170528_181353.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUVi8iaJxg20DO9zjC2L-i6LSt2VJOBOYUYkQ13JbKOKus961bwcutUM_PHqvGCrSnS1BFsXwZJaqQUsInAwhzX3EdWuzzJIDiGUpkbPjZZbxleoehi2CQjWopLFYWRwa0Pj6SNHQ9DSTr/s320/IMG_20170528_181353.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">BP Bridge - also Frank Gehry</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpcgiFWjKsDq6RIOtqdl8Mg-8wqqRfpN_sFGJGnqGubauRMY82lC_7Qmud7j4pWtKZl9K_EreF5gIpA9m4gJSSTmnACaYQMWfz9E3hCTbnCbBldFPeXyNdqYDAc8f9Je3avZRYYBZ68-wq/s1600/IMG_20170528_184824.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpcgiFWjKsDq6RIOtqdl8Mg-8wqqRfpN_sFGJGnqGubauRMY82lC_7Qmud7j4pWtKZl9K_EreF5gIpA9m4gJSSTmnACaYQMWfz9E3hCTbnCbBldFPeXyNdqYDAc8f9Je3avZRYYBZ68-wq/s320/IMG_20170528_184824.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Buckingham Fountain</td></tr>
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<b>Day 2</b><br />
This was the most ambitious day, where I started south of the city and worked my way north, with my very patient friend driving me to see random architectural sights. We started at the Robie House at the University of Chicago, after she rescued me from a highway overpass as previously mentioned. I think I've had just about enough Frank Lloyd Wright for one lifetime now, having visited Fallingwater, the Hanna House, Florida Southern College, and now the Robie House; the Unity Temple would have been nice, but it was closed at the time, and maybe I'd visit Taliesin West in Arizona, but other than that, I think I'm good now. The low ceilings do wear on you after a while.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoPhzRusJcny0WaQBNP44jeYv-zFnaF2kpfyucvj_E2Xwt24O-Hgx1ADzceOSQCkn1WUESVi1USqO6ziAKEH0HK-ZOjwybANXfFCzVa5UF_k9UAyeaBiKYFQQ9z0MVuY-Mi6JDgP0C_IWY/s1600/IMG_20170529_105009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoPhzRusJcny0WaQBNP44jeYv-zFnaF2kpfyucvj_E2Xwt24O-Hgx1ADzceOSQCkn1WUESVi1USqO6ziAKEH0HK-ZOjwybANXfFCzVa5UF_k9UAyeaBiKYFQQ9z0MVuY-Mi6JDgP0C_IWY/s320/IMG_20170529_105009.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a key detail: the grout joints between the bricks are different widths and even different colors (the vertical joints are tinted red) in order to accentuate the linear look of the brick. FLW was a bit crazy. But it works.</td></tr>
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The University itself had some pretty cool buildings, including the tantalizing <a href="https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/mansueto/tech/dome/">Mansueto Library</a>, by Helmut Jahn, which can only be entered from the adjacent Regenstein Library, to my great disappointment. We wandered around it looking for an entrance for a while. No luck. Apparently, below the reading room are massive automated stacks.<br />
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After U Chicago, next up was the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), home of the famous Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe plan and perhaps equally-famous McCormick Tribune Campus Center by OMA. The Campus Center is incredibly strange. The L tracks through the building are expressed both inside and outside, so it's clear there's a large train running through it. Inside, the finishes are left, well, unfinished: steel panels on the floors, unpainted drywall on the ceiling. At first I thought it was being renovated, but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be that way. It's like the floor and ceiling finishes got reversed by accident somehow. There is a copious amount of neon orange, odd patterns in fritted glass, strange interconnecting levels, and a general feeling of outdatedness. I don't think this building is aging well, and it's less than 15 years old.<br />
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By contrast, Crown Hall, the Mies masterpiece and home of the architecture department, felt delightfully spacious and open, even though it demonstrated some signs of age in the ceiling. The end-of-year student work was on display throughout, and a couple families were wandering through. My only puzzle was how the building could possibly work when it's full of people having studio: isn't it terribly loud, without any acoustic privacy? The downstairs does have full-height partitions between the library and the rest of the space, but none of the other spaces have walls. I wonder how it feels in there during school.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The mandatory decorative wide flanges.</td></tr>
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We had lunch at the diner where President Obama was said to be a frequent patron - this is his home turf, after all - and my friend dropped me off at the Art Institute of Chicago downtown to finish off the day. And all I can say is that it is an amazing museum. I speed-walked through the entire thing, and in three hours I could do little more than take note of what was there, not even spend time looking at much. My favorite areas were Piano's Modern Wing, the Tadao Ando Gallery, the Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room, the Thorne Miniature Rooms (need to spend more time in there. what.), the collection of architectural salvage items, and the crazy half-spiral stair in the Michigan Avenue Building. And a cool trompe l'oeil painting (1960s American?) of money and a medieval guy, of which I cannot recall the artist or title, so that's going to haunt me for a while. No idea why I didn't take a picture of it.<br />
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I have to give a shout-out to my fellow Columbia GSAPP alumni, one of whom worked in the Slide Library with me, for having an exhibit on display next to the cafe! Represent!<br />
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Suffice to say that three hours was not enough time to see the museum. I need to go back.<br />
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That evening I hit up a few more buildings, including the Monadnock Building (Burnham & Root, 1891 - one of the earliest skyscrapers) and the Louis Sullivan masterpiece of the Carson Pirie Scott store (1899, now a Target), then had dinner with my cousin at "avec," which was a quintessential "New American" restaurant: overly loud with wood paneling as far as the eye could see. But tasty.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monadnock Building - Burnham & Root</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carson Pirie Scott Building - Louis Sullivan</td></tr>
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<b>Day 3</b><br />
Grabbed some pastries and took the train to the airport - easy, convenient, and no issues other than being slightly confused about which entrance to use to get to the correct side of the station for the L. But I didn't miss my flight, so it was fine.<br />
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Hope to be back soon, Chicago!</div>
Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615763187839117044.post-44956595250489377662017-07-03T23:16:00.000-07:002017-07-03T23:16:27.433-07:00Book Review: City of Quartz<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles</i> (1990, updated Preface from 2006) by Mike Davis is a strange book. Honestly, I still have no idea what the title is about. As the back of the book notes, it's a work of "sociology/urban studies," meaning some of it is about urbanism, and some of it is a social history. I also have to admit that several of the chapters, the social history ones, had little interest for me; they chronicled a specific moment in LA history that, as a non-resident, doesn't seem to have a lot of interest or general usefulness now. But several of the chapters described a city wrestling with the effects of suburbanization and affluent NIMBYism that were the precursors to today's continued urban problems, and those in particular are worth a read.<br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Davis_(scholar)">Davis</a> is an academic and a Marxist, approaching his topics with a clear view as to questions of social and economic equality, which colors much of his commentary. But his analysis of local LA politics and history is extraordinarily thorough and deep. In his first chapter, he describes competing myths of Los Angeles, varying over time and depending on who the myth-makers were (novelists, scientists, artists). The second chapter follows the city's power brokers over time, focusing on families, industries, and social groups. Chapter three, "Homegrown Revolution," is where things really get interesting, as he writes about the suburbs, where residents raced to build their dream communities and then, once complete, turned about and fought any further density (read: diversity) under the guise of "slow growth." Chapter four and five discuss the police, chapter six covers the Catholic church, and the final chapter, "Junkyard of Dreams," follows the development of farmland in a fringe town, Fontana, into a steel mill and finally a post-industrial wasteland.<br />
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"Homegrown Revolution" is the one chapter I'd recommend reading. This chapter is a careful analysis, down to the level of city council minutes, of how white, affluent homeowners fled the city, created their own suburban fiefdoms, got the county to pay for their new suburbs' development, and then shut the gates to anyone who might want to follow them into their new paradise. As Davis writes, "The most powerful 'social movement' in contemporary Southern California is that of affluent homeowners, organized by notional community designations or tract names, engaged in the defense of home values and neighborhood exclusivity" (153). He contrasts the contemporaneous Northern California / Bay Area "slow growth" initiatives, largely organized around ideals of environmental conservation, with the Southern California version, which was almost exclusively concerned with "the defense of household equity and residential privilege" (159). Unlike the Bay Area, where he notes that developers and slow growth / environmentalist advocates alike learned to speak in terms of environmental impacts, in the LA area, developers became pitted against homeowners who refused to allow any growth - in sensitive areas or not - that they perceived would diminish their own property values. Of course, much of this opposition was also based on racist and elitist foundations, with wealthy homeowners refusing to allow minorities or the less-wealthy to enter their communities under the belief that their presence would not be good for home prices. (Such beliefs were nearly always self-fulfilling, as the wealthiest could afford to move out to ever-more-exclusive enclaves to avoid incoming poor or middle-class neighbors.)<br />
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Davis traces the history of homeowner associations, restrictive covenants, and racial segregation in LA, combined with the "white flight" of the 1950s-60s and the county's agreement to offer public services (fire, police, etc) to newly-incorporated areas at below-market prices, to describe how so many suburban wealthy enclaves were formed. After the 1960s, these same homeowners turned to defending these areas from all further development. As developers pushed politicians to re-zone single-family areas for higher density, and thus, higher market segmentation (and more renters), homeowners fought back with "slow growth" initiatives. As their property values, and thus tax assessments, rose, the same homeowners embraced Proposition 13, which restricted property taxes and made it possible for home values to continue to rise without equivalent increases in taxes for homeowners. Prop 13 continues to impact California cities today, by disproportionately benefiting the wealthiest homeowners, who should be paying the highest taxes. Meanwhile, the increasingly poor urban residents of LA continued to receive nothing, including no new transit, as homeowners associations organized against new light rail to downtown under the banner of avoiding development in "anybody's" backyard (205).<br />
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The chapter delves into the minutiae of local politics, as does the rest of the book, but it's an amazing glimpse into California history. David concludes that "if the slow-growth movement [...] has been explicitly a protest against the urbanization of suburbia, it is implicitly - in the long tradition of Los Angeles homeowner politics - a reassertion of social privilege" (213). In other words, the NIMBYs were (and are), beneath it all, doing nothing other than enforcing their race and class privilege against their neighbors, behind a veneer of "quality of life" and "environmentalism" that is merely a screen for maintaining their property values at the expense of others' lives - lives spent in traffic, spent in poverty, and spent in segregation.<br />
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It's hard not to think of Palo Alto when I read this, especially of East Palo Alto versus Palo Alto, with the hard dividing line of renters versus homeowners, the demographic divide that persists to this day, and the virulent opposition by Palo Alto homeowners to any new development, even senior housing (which could hardly impose new burdens on schools or traffic, but never mind that). Palo Alto and Mountain View both have an unwieldy jobs-to-housing balance of nearly 3x as many jobs as housing units, with no forseeable way out of this quagmire, since low-density zoning has trapped us where we are. Without substantial changes in attitudes, and the dissolution of the NIMBY coalition, it's hard to see how we can solve our problems of traffic (due to commuting to jobs), lack of transit (due to low density), and sky-high housing prices (due to both high demand and a restricted supply of housing). The Bay Area's "slow growth" of the 1960s has left us this quandary, which now looks more like the "slow growth" of 1960's LA than like the environmental movement of before. While we can still agree that preserving the unstable hillsides and green belts is important, we need to come to terms with the need for higher densities on the areas that can be developed, or continue to face chronic housing shortages and all the problems that come with it.<br />
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Caroline S. Lebarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09042296313678849952noreply@blogger.com0