friend of the built environment

Tomorrow I’m off to the northwest with David. Needless to say, I’m excited as hell. It will only be my third time out of California, the first being to Ensenada when I was about 10 and the second being Las Vegas a few years ago. This will most likely be much more enjoyable and exciting. Not [...]

The weekend past saw an enlightening visit to Southern California, which within a few weeks will have successfully been washed away. Pity. Finally managed to meet Drub and Chuck at Pomegranate. Other gastronomic tourist stops included Mister Tiki and Jimmy Carter’s. Much weight was gained and cute neighborhoods seen.

Going South. Be back next year…

What’s this here thing? Am I supposed to be updating this or something?
Three weeks of Blah in San Francisco, which I expect to break up with one or two nights of dinner with friends, a trip to see the family in Fresno (and give them the gorgeous shiny videos David made for them) and a [...]

Portland. Facial Hair capital of the world. A city composed entirely of the same cute 20s-40s neighborhood that I covet so. A cheap city whose housing prices do not reflect their Left Coast geography as they should. A city full of fuzzy granola fags with tattoos. Portland.
I met up with Amy for Bread and Ink, [...]

Alameda is a really strange place, by Bay Area standards.It’s not outrageously expensive, considering its geography and the quality of housing on offer. It has a vast amount of undeveloped space and thus a healthy reserve for future growth, thanks to a dead naval air station on the northern half of the island. It is [...]

[A long essay written during and after our mega 2-week roadtrip of the Great Lakes' urban environs.]

Three airlines dead in one week.

It’s definitely time for some industry rationalization. As a frequent flier, I am totally baffled why the cost of my tickets has not gone up by 30-40% since I started doing this transcontinental commute three years ago, whilst the cost of oil has gone up 100% in the same time.
Honestly, [...]

Waiting for my plane this morning I picked up a snack at the airport. I think it tasted good, but I tossed it away after a few bites, when I realized that the manufacturer obviously had no idea what the hell was in it:

But by golly, at least the mystery treat was bagged in the [...]

Why is it that most of the nurses I see outside of Winston Salem’s two large institutional hospitals are either obese or smoking or both? Shouldn’t anyone taking the hippocratic oath be required to first apply it to themselves?
How many years you expect it will be until no one bothers washing their hands at public [...]

It’s interesting that I have heard about 10 different news sources today talking about how much pork is in the new Federal spending bill that the President is signing today, almost all of whom are mentioning Amtrak as one of those pork projects which is ‘popular with Democrats’.
Let’s look at what sort of pork was actually there:
Above [...]

Today America West US Airways announced that it would be consciously avoiding flying anywhere near Pittsburgh or Winston-Salem. Routes that approach airspace within 200 miles above these cities will be diverted to ensure the airline is no longer tainted by its Appalachian roots. “It was a tough business decision,” noted spokesbabe Valerie Wunder at a press [...]

Dear ‘Progressive’ Americans,
Please support and actually start using regular public transit and existing stuff like Greyhound and Amtrak and support the expansion and improvement of these services before you start calling on the government to blow its wad on “High Speed Rail corridors” all around the country. Do you have any idea how grotesquely expensive [...]

What a great discussion going on at NullSpace:
As flights from Pittsburgh have collapsed, the Pittsburgh story has gotten a whole lot brighter. I DO NOT imply any causality like that for the record. But what was equally baseless was the causality many just assumed went the other way.
Followed up by MH:
Your last two sentences sort [...]

I’ll miss my Nerd Bird. Tonight is my last east-bound turn on what has always been one of the few pleasant air travel experiences I’ve repeatedly had over the years.
US Airways has always been one of the only carriers to offer such pleasant overnight transcontinental nonstops, probably because their hubs are on the far sides [...]