On every blogger blog there is a section on the right (or left, depending on the template) navigation for links. I decided to add links to a couple of blogs I think are relevant to this blog.
The first two are links I got from my sister's blog. Judy (Make a Better Earth) and Erin (Green on the Poor Scene) are two of her friends. I don't know them as well as my sister does, but I do know them, so I feel the links are ok. Both of these ladies are the kind of people who practice what they preach, a difficult feat.
Green on the Poor Scene focuses on the ability to live green without buying a prius, installing solar panels, or other such spendy measures. Make a Better Earth is good general information on living better.
The third link is to a blog not unlike this. Actually, it it my friend Mike Maahs' blog, the blog he started at the same time I started this, for the same class. Mike and I have been good friends for a handful of years now. We fish together, shoot guns (his post about a cabin is the same cabin from my post earlier this week. As an aside, it is interesting to see two wildly different posts come from the same weekend.), our class schedules have aligned every semester, and he has been the key link to getting two of my jobs. As is evidenced by our cabin posts, we see things from different angles. It has been good for my academic career to have a close friend who sees things differently. Another way to get out of the box.
Those are the three links. All good blogs. All good people. I might add more links as the semester progresses, I might not. For now, happy blogging.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Grace and Art
I came home today and was welcomed by the smiling arrow that adorns the side of every Amazon.com box. Inside I found a stack of books for school. Fortunately, this is my last semester, which means that my course schedule is comprised of classes I genuinely enjoy (aside from statistics, that is), so seeing that stack of school books was a pleasure.
Underneath my urban design manuals and policy guides I found a small, thin paperback I forgot was in my order - Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It and Other Stories."
I have been intrigued by fly-fishing since Jr. High when my scout troop would camp one weekend a month, every month. A few of the older scouts were already avid fly-fishermen. Initially, I wanted to fly-fish because these boys, who I looked up to, did it. Soon though the arc of the line and the rise of the fish superseded any desire to emulate. It took a handful of years before I actually secured a rod and began learning the techniques required to bring a fish to the surface and take your fly.
For the majority of my life my bicycle has been my cathartic release. I still love to ride, and do whenever I can - most weeks around 100 miles of commuting, recreation, and errands. But since that first summer of fly-fishing, when school gets hairy, or work overwhelms, or a general malaise settles, my first impulse is to pack up my gear and head to the water. Even an hour of casting clears the mind and lifts the spirit. (I would like to make clear that I am far from fly-fishing excellence. Some day I will be able to raise fish from the depths and hit the pool behind the rock and under the low hanging branches with a flick of the rod and magical precision. However, that day is not today, probably not this decade)
This book, along with the "Orvis Fly-Fishing Guide," by Tom Rosenbauer, is a staple volume on the shelf of any fly-fisher. The story is genuine and enthralling, true, but the beauty of the book is Norman Maclean's description of the art of fly-fishing.
(As is the case with most of these entries, that is the long version of the background to this post.)
I opened to the first page and began reading. On page 4 I came across some lines pertinent not just to fly-fishing, but life in general. The father in the book is a Presbyterian Minister and fly-fisher. In his description of his father, the narrator says "My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things - trout as well as eternal salvation - come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy."
Those lines are beautiful, and I don't particularly want to muddle them with paragraphs lamenting the state of planning, or the state of the world in general. So I won't.
Underneath my urban design manuals and policy guides I found a small, thin paperback I forgot was in my order - Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It and Other Stories."
I have been intrigued by fly-fishing since Jr. High when my scout troop would camp one weekend a month, every month. A few of the older scouts were already avid fly-fishermen. Initially, I wanted to fly-fish because these boys, who I looked up to, did it. Soon though the arc of the line and the rise of the fish superseded any desire to emulate. It took a handful of years before I actually secured a rod and began learning the techniques required to bring a fish to the surface and take your fly.
For the majority of my life my bicycle has been my cathartic release. I still love to ride, and do whenever I can - most weeks around 100 miles of commuting, recreation, and errands. But since that first summer of fly-fishing, when school gets hairy, or work overwhelms, or a general malaise settles, my first impulse is to pack up my gear and head to the water. Even an hour of casting clears the mind and lifts the spirit. (I would like to make clear that I am far from fly-fishing excellence. Some day I will be able to raise fish from the depths and hit the pool behind the rock and under the low hanging branches with a flick of the rod and magical precision. However, that day is not today, probably not this decade)
This book, along with the "Orvis Fly-Fishing Guide," by Tom Rosenbauer, is a staple volume on the shelf of any fly-fisher. The story is genuine and enthralling, true, but the beauty of the book is Norman Maclean's description of the art of fly-fishing.
(As is the case with most of these entries, that is the long version of the background to this post.)
I opened to the first page and began reading. On page 4 I came across some lines pertinent not just to fly-fishing, but life in general. The father in the book is a Presbyterian Minister and fly-fisher. In his description of his father, the narrator says "My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things - trout as well as eternal salvation - come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy."
Those lines are beautiful, and I don't particularly want to muddle them with paragraphs lamenting the state of planning, or the state of the world in general. So I won't.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
The Project II
I don't really have much to talk about tonight. I just wanted to reiterate how excited I am about our project. I really do think it will be one of those projects that actually gets adopted, at least in part.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
How The West Was Awesome
My family has a cabin in Morgan County, about a mile north of East Canyon Reservoir. My wife's great-grandparents ran sheep on a couple thousand acres, some of which is now at the bottom of East Canyon. They lived in Porterville and built the cabin some for sheep business, but mostly for the deer hunt. Parley (my wife's great-grandpa) and his brothers/cousins/relatives made his house the base of operations during the hunt. Eventually, Edith (great-grandma) got fed up with the mess and stink of a bunch of deer hunters and kicked them out, so they built a cabin. This is a cabin in the original sense of the word. There is no electricity, no toilet, no shower, the water in the sink comes from a spring on the property. It is a cinder block box with a tin roof and an ace and a deuce painted on the gable.
In the next few years, the wives decided they would spend the hunt in Salt Lake, shopping and cavorting. This soon became a tradition, and it has stuck. Every third weekend in October the women head to Salt Lake while we head to the cabin. A grand time is had by all. (I will dedicate a post to hunting. Some people are turned off by it, but I actually found some common ground with a vegan because of it. It is all in the attitude.)
This weekend was our annual cabin preparation. We headed up with weed-whackers, shovels, paint, and cleaner to ready the cabin for the hunt. We got to the cabin around 10:30 on Saturday and worked till a few hours before dusk. When we were finished the cabin looked new, weeds cleared, fire pit rearranged, inside cleaned, outside freshly painted-
A short break before lunch and the last hour and a half before dark were spent shooting. We had two shotguns, .22 rifles, a .22 pistol, a .45, an 9mm, a .25, and an assault rifle. Add to that 180 clay pigeons, dozens of cans, some paper targets, family, and some close friends, and you have yourself a recipe for a great time.
The cabin, and the reason we can shoot like we did, is situated nicely in the bottom of a small valley in the middle of nowhere between East Canyon and Hennifer (don't feel bad if you've never heard of it, I think 18 people live there). Which brings me to the point of this already pretty long post - Utah.
I love Utah. In the hour we spent driving from our house in Murray to the cabin we went from developed urban metropolis to secluded nowhere. A short trip (on foot, shorter on 4wheeler) gets you to the top of a hill where you can see for miles and the only signs of human life are a barn and the faint outline of a minor highway. The trees were already beginning to take on their fall wardrobe and the evening air had that thin, crisp taste of fall. It was perfect.
I'm lucky, I am equally at home in the Salt Lake Valley as I am in rural Morgan County. As a planner I think that will serve me well. Rural and urban planning have different targets and different strategies, and I think that gets lost. In the four years I have been going up Weber Canyon to Morgan I have seen more development, most of which is not ideal, than I would like. If an entire county has managed to avoid installing a single stop light all the way into the 21st century, it deserves to keep that character. But the development I have seen falls into the "too small to plant, too big to mow" category. One acre lots which ruin the rural character, but fail to bring urban benefits.
If you look at almost any Smalltown, USA there is a clear pattern. A dense(er) town center surrounded by large agricultural properties. The small town feel means houses on smaller lots, close together. One acre lots are a false rural feel. Rural planers (in my admittedly less than experienced opinion) need to reevaluate how development happens. Envision Utah is doing some wonderful scenario planning for Morgan County right now. I hope the planner and the county will have the foresight to adopt and implement Envision Utah's ideas so the county will be able to maintain its character and maybe avoid stoplights for another century.
In the next few years, the wives decided they would spend the hunt in Salt Lake, shopping and cavorting. This soon became a tradition, and it has stuck. Every third weekend in October the women head to Salt Lake while we head to the cabin. A grand time is had by all. (I will dedicate a post to hunting. Some people are turned off by it, but I actually found some common ground with a vegan because of it. It is all in the attitude.)
This weekend was our annual cabin preparation. We headed up with weed-whackers, shovels, paint, and cleaner to ready the cabin for the hunt. We got to the cabin around 10:30 on Saturday and worked till a few hours before dusk. When we were finished the cabin looked new, weeds cleared, fire pit rearranged, inside cleaned, outside freshly painted-
A short break before lunch and the last hour and a half before dark were spent shooting. We had two shotguns, .22 rifles, a .22 pistol, a .45, an 9mm, a .25, and an assault rifle. Add to that 180 clay pigeons, dozens of cans, some paper targets, family, and some close friends, and you have yourself a recipe for a great time.
The cabin, and the reason we can shoot like we did, is situated nicely in the bottom of a small valley in the middle of nowhere between East Canyon and Hennifer (don't feel bad if you've never heard of it, I think 18 people live there). Which brings me to the point of this already pretty long post - Utah.
I love Utah. In the hour we spent driving from our house in Murray to the cabin we went from developed urban metropolis to secluded nowhere. A short trip (on foot, shorter on 4wheeler) gets you to the top of a hill where you can see for miles and the only signs of human life are a barn and the faint outline of a minor highway. The trees were already beginning to take on their fall wardrobe and the evening air had that thin, crisp taste of fall. It was perfect.
I'm lucky, I am equally at home in the Salt Lake Valley as I am in rural Morgan County. As a planner I think that will serve me well. Rural and urban planning have different targets and different strategies, and I think that gets lost. In the four years I have been going up Weber Canyon to Morgan I have seen more development, most of which is not ideal, than I would like. If an entire county has managed to avoid installing a single stop light all the way into the 21st century, it deserves to keep that character. But the development I have seen falls into the "too small to plant, too big to mow" category. One acre lots which ruin the rural character, but fail to bring urban benefits.
If you look at almost any Smalltown, USA there is a clear pattern. A dense(er) town center surrounded by large agricultural properties. The small town feel means houses on smaller lots, close together. One acre lots are a false rural feel. Rural planers (in my admittedly less than experienced opinion) need to reevaluate how development happens. Envision Utah is doing some wonderful scenario planning for Morgan County right now. I hope the planner and the county will have the foresight to adopt and implement Envision Utah's ideas so the county will be able to maintain its character and maybe avoid stoplights for another century.
Friday, September 5, 2008
It's really the 4th
Even though the post will be dated the 5th, it is late (or early) enough that this still counts as my post for the 4th.
I really just want to lament my tomatoes. A handful of months ago I planted these little guys
A mixture of hierloom plants from the Wasatch Community Gardens plant sale. Japanese black, cherry, black plum, and two roma-esque varities.
Over the course of the summer those little starts grew into these guys
Sadly, that picture was taken after the storm we had this past weekend. Those plants are almost twice that height, the wind and rain knocked them over, bending most of the stalks (branches? what are they on a tomato plant?) at the wire tomato cages.
About half way through the storm I went to check on them, and much to my dismay, they were tangled up and had fallen down. They are growing in the enclosed patio of our condo, which creates a small vortex when the wind kicks up. The wind, rain, and weight of the plants had bent the cages at the base, adding to the sad situation. I put on my jacket and boots and headed out to do what I could to help. I ended up cutting some of the branches, unbending the cages, and, as you can see from the picture, bracing the cages with some 2x2s. On top of everything by the time I got out there it had already hailed.
The damage was done. When I went back out to check my heart sank a little. The cages, which had been so helpful in supporting growth became barriers against which the stalks had bent and broken, effectively decapitating the top three or four feet of my plants. The stalks and fruits were riddled with welts from the hail - a weather induced, tomato marring small pox.
The black plum had already given us a few dozen little, delicious fruits. It was somewhat protected by the plum tree we have in the court yard, but about half of the remaining crop is probably lost. We had picked about 6 little cherries with plenty more on the vine. I had maybe been a little over zealous with 5 plants, because the roma-esque in the back did not get enough sun to produce much fruit. Because they were in the back, they also grew tallest, looking for sun I guess. This height is also a big factor in the loss of the others, they fell forward onto the poor little plants. But the Japanese black is the biggest tragedy. None of fruit had matured yet, but there are buckets of various sized tomatoes, waiting to ripen. This one was in the front and received the brunt of the punishment. Pockmarked, bent, and broken. We will still be able to salvage some, but won't get the crop we were expecting.
This may seem like an inconvenience at worst, and for most people that is true, it would be. Not for me. This is only my second attempt at tomatoes. Last year I planted late, in uneven, thick-clay dirt. I ended up with three feet of sad plant and a dozen grape-sized green tomatoes, the other plant died a month after planting.
This year I build a wall to even out the bed. I mended the soil with pep and manure, two feet down, with a shovel. I watered and fed the plants. This year I did everything an urban gardner could do, and I love it. Then one storm undoes a good portion of what I had done. The next time something like this happens it will roll off, but this is my first real tomato year.
I'm sure there is a lesson here. Something about eggs and baskets, or the inadequacies of man in the face of nature, or a some philosophical lesson about some principles of the human psyche. But I don't really care about a lesson, I just want to be bummed out because my tomatoes came to a sad ending (the happy ending would be ending up in my belly).
I really just want to lament my tomatoes. A handful of months ago I planted these little guys
A mixture of hierloom plants from the Wasatch Community Gardens plant sale. Japanese black, cherry, black plum, and two roma-esque varities.Over the course of the summer those little starts grew into these guys
Sadly, that picture was taken after the storm we had this past weekend. Those plants are almost twice that height, the wind and rain knocked them over, bending most of the stalks (branches? what are they on a tomato plant?) at the wire tomato cages.About half way through the storm I went to check on them, and much to my dismay, they were tangled up and had fallen down. They are growing in the enclosed patio of our condo, which creates a small vortex when the wind kicks up. The wind, rain, and weight of the plants had bent the cages at the base, adding to the sad situation. I put on my jacket and boots and headed out to do what I could to help. I ended up cutting some of the branches, unbending the cages, and, as you can see from the picture, bracing the cages with some 2x2s. On top of everything by the time I got out there it had already hailed.
The damage was done. When I went back out to check my heart sank a little. The cages, which had been so helpful in supporting growth became barriers against which the stalks had bent and broken, effectively decapitating the top three or four feet of my plants. The stalks and fruits were riddled with welts from the hail - a weather induced, tomato marring small pox.
The black plum had already given us a few dozen little, delicious fruits. It was somewhat protected by the plum tree we have in the court yard, but about half of the remaining crop is probably lost. We had picked about 6 little cherries with plenty more on the vine. I had maybe been a little over zealous with 5 plants, because the roma-esque in the back did not get enough sun to produce much fruit. Because they were in the back, they also grew tallest, looking for sun I guess. This height is also a big factor in the loss of the others, they fell forward onto the poor little plants. But the Japanese black is the biggest tragedy. None of fruit had matured yet, but there are buckets of various sized tomatoes, waiting to ripen. This one was in the front and received the brunt of the punishment. Pockmarked, bent, and broken. We will still be able to salvage some, but won't get the crop we were expecting.
This may seem like an inconvenience at worst, and for most people that is true, it would be. Not for me. This is only my second attempt at tomatoes. Last year I planted late, in uneven, thick-clay dirt. I ended up with three feet of sad plant and a dozen grape-sized green tomatoes, the other plant died a month after planting.
This year I build a wall to even out the bed. I mended the soil with pep and manure, two feet down, with a shovel. I watered and fed the plants. This year I did everything an urban gardner could do, and I love it. Then one storm undoes a good portion of what I had done. The next time something like this happens it will roll off, but this is my first real tomato year.
I'm sure there is a lesson here. Something about eggs and baskets, or the inadequacies of man in the face of nature, or a some philosophical lesson about some principles of the human psyche. But I don't really care about a lesson, I just want to be bummed out because my tomatoes came to a sad ending (the happy ending would be ending up in my belly).
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
The Project
Today we discussed our project plans for this semester. I have to say I'm happy with my group and our idea.
When we were brainstorming we decided to focus our efforts on the Foothills Cultural District for a variety of reasons. One of which is that we are all close to finishing our academic careers (or at least the current portions). Throughout our sojourn at the Uof U we have been involved in a handful of projects, most of which have been centered around downtown Salt Lake. Downtown is not perfect, and these projects have been worthy efforts. However, their fate is to be lost in the annals of planning students past. Another overly ambitious plan for the empty lot on such and such corner which will never receive an audience of people who matter.
Our project will be ambitious, we would like to see Sunnyside avenue go underground for a stretch so the Zoo and This is the Place can be connected by open space. We will also explore land use in the area to determine mixed use intensities. Where our project will be different is that in conjunction with the idealistic aspects there will be some feasible, solid deliverables. We will design a linear park to connect the Zoo, This is the Place, the future Utah Natural History Museum, and Red Butte Gardens. We will study sources of funding. We will look at possible collaborations between the sites to create a cohesive district, as opposed to a handful of interesting, but disconnected attractions.
I hope to affect some real change for good during my career. I do not want to have a stack of beautiful plans in boxes and little else when I retire. I am going to be able to take my grand children to the Foothills Cultural District (or any number of sites) and point to my contributions.
When we were brainstorming we decided to focus our efforts on the Foothills Cultural District for a variety of reasons. One of which is that we are all close to finishing our academic careers (or at least the current portions). Throughout our sojourn at the Uof U we have been involved in a handful of projects, most of which have been centered around downtown Salt Lake. Downtown is not perfect, and these projects have been worthy efforts. However, their fate is to be lost in the annals of planning students past. Another overly ambitious plan for the empty lot on such and such corner which will never receive an audience of people who matter.
Our project will be ambitious, we would like to see Sunnyside avenue go underground for a stretch so the Zoo and This is the Place can be connected by open space. We will also explore land use in the area to determine mixed use intensities. Where our project will be different is that in conjunction with the idealistic aspects there will be some feasible, solid deliverables. We will design a linear park to connect the Zoo, This is the Place, the future Utah Natural History Museum, and Red Butte Gardens. We will study sources of funding. We will look at possible collaborations between the sites to create a cohesive district, as opposed to a handful of interesting, but disconnected attractions.
I hope to affect some real change for good during my career. I do not want to have a stack of beautiful plans in boxes and little else when I retire. I am going to be able to take my grand children to the Foothills Cultural District (or any number of sites) and point to my contributions.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Faulty Logic and the Act of Cutting Off Your Nose
I just found this article in the Trim.
http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_10287763
I looked into this Rob Anderson, apparently, he thinks that San Francisco is not not liberal enough and wants to "flank SF democrats on the left." There is enough in just that sentence from his blog to keep me occupied for days. But I don't want to digress. I would rather use this line from the article as a jumping off point:
"Cars always will vastly outnumber bikes, he reasons, so allotting more street space to cyclists could cause more traffic jams, more time idling and more pollution."
On its surface, that seems like a legitimate statement, which is the most pernicious thing about it and other statements of its ilk. Such as, if you look at the embodied energy in our food, then riding a bike to the store is worse for the environment than driving a car, because you eat more food when you ride a bike, which outweighs the gains of bike v. car.
The problem with these types of statements is that they are too esoteric for their own good, and quite often either blatantly wrong, or slightly true, but just on the surface (the worst kind). They are made by people who are either so enlightened as to see that the only good mode of transportation is walking, or, they are so jaded and cynical that they think no effort anybody makes will help our desperate situation.
Either or, they are not helpful. This type of statement is the kind co-opted by those who do not believe there is a problem/do not want to do anything to fix the problem.
Sadly, we are our own worst enemy. One of my first reading assignments for a planning class was "The Death of Environmentalism" by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. The short version is that environmentalists are going at environmentalism the wrong way and end up hurting their causes more than they help. Which is easy too easy to do. When problems are not shown to be human problems, or are portrayed as so helpless that we may as well not even try (I'll write a post sometime about Michael Pollen's article "Why Bother" it's a good one), more people are lost than gained. The adage "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" is as true for environmental issues as it is for salesmen.
Do I believe we are doing the best we can? of course not. Does than mean that I want to sabotage everything but the best plans? that would be silly. Paradigms do not change overnight. Cultures do not reinvent themselves in a weeks time. Change is slow. Sometimes it is brought on quickly and people are forced to adapt (where did I hear that?), but that usually involves tragedy. It is one of the oldest cliches, but there is real validity to the idea of thinking globally, and acting locally. We (environmentalists, humanists, concerned citizens, whatever name you chose) need to get behind plans that are a step in the right direction. Is Daybreak the messiah of planning in Utah? no. There are a host of things that could have been done better or differently. But is it a step in the right direction? Yes. Has it already helped change views? Indeed.
I understand the habit of only doing the minimum is equally pernicious. Settling for the lesser of two evils when you could insist on an option that is actually good, not just less bad. And there is a fine line between the two. Support and striving. But sometimes, the decision is simple; do I cut off my nose to spite my face?
http://www.sltrib.com/
I looked into this Rob Anderson, apparently, he thinks that San Francisco is not not liberal enough and wants to "flank SF democrats on the left." There is enough in just that sentence from his blog to keep me occupied for days. But I don't want to digress. I would rather use this line from the article as a jumping off point:
"Cars always will vastly outnumber bikes, he reasons, so allotting more street space to cyclists could cause more traffic jams, more time idling and more pollution."
On its surface, that seems like a legitimate statement, which is the most pernicious thing about it and other statements of its ilk. Such as, if you look at the embodied energy in our food, then riding a bike to the store is worse for the environment than driving a car, because you eat more food when you ride a bike, which outweighs the gains of bike v. car.
The problem with these types of statements is that they are too esoteric for their own good, and quite often either blatantly wrong, or slightly true, but just on the surface (the worst kind). They are made by people who are either so enlightened as to see that the only good mode of transportation is walking, or, they are so jaded and cynical that they think no effort anybody makes will help our desperate situation.
Either or, they are not helpful. This type of statement is the kind co-opted by those who do not believe there is a problem/do not want to do anything to fix the problem.
Sadly, we are our own worst enemy. One of my first reading assignments for a planning class was "The Death of Environmentalism" by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. The short version is that environmentalists are going at environmentalism the wrong way and end up hurting their causes more than they help. Which is easy too easy to do. When problems are not shown to be human problems, or are portrayed as so helpless that we may as well not even try (I'll write a post sometime about Michael Pollen's article "Why Bother" it's a good one), more people are lost than gained. The adage "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" is as true for environmental issues as it is for salesmen.
Do I believe we are doing the best we can? of course not. Does than mean that I want to sabotage everything but the best plans? that would be silly. Paradigms do not change overnight. Cultures do not reinvent themselves in a weeks time. Change is slow. Sometimes it is brought on quickly and people are forced to adapt (where did I hear that?), but that usually involves tragedy. It is one of the oldest cliches, but there is real validity to the idea of thinking globally, and acting locally. We (environmentalists, humanists, concerned citizens, whatever name you chose) need to get behind plans that are a step in the right direction. Is Daybreak the messiah of planning in Utah? no. There are a host of things that could have been done better or differently. But is it a step in the right direction? Yes. Has it already helped change views? Indeed.
I understand the habit of only doing the minimum is equally pernicious. Settling for the lesser of two evils when you could insist on an option that is actually good, not just less bad. And there is a fine line between the two. Support and striving. But sometimes, the decision is simple; do I cut off my nose to spite my face?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
