Raindrops keep falling on my head

According to the City of Tampa, the average household in Tampa consumes 104 gallons of water a day. That "average household" includes single family and multi-family residences, and multi-family dwelling skew that average down. The city doesn't keep separate statistics, but from I have been able to piece together from a host of sources, a typical Tampa single family home goes through 140 gallons of water a day. But for the sake of brevity and accuracy, I'm going to use Tampa's official number of 104 gallons. So at 104 gallons of water per day, the average house in Tampa goes through 37,960 gallons of water a year. The City of Tampa admits that 40% of Tampa's residential water use goes to landscape irrigation. That's a mind-bending 15,184 gallons of potable water that gets sprinkled onto lawns.

Tampa and the rest of Florida are running headlong into a water crisis. That crisis is being fueled by moronic development non-regulations and St. Augustine grass. You heard it here first folks.

So, what's a lawn-loving Tampan to do? Tune in later for some ideas.

All hail The New Yorker

I have been laughing haughtily at New Yorker cartoons since I was a wee thing. What? That's what you're supposed to do with cartoons from The New Yorker --chuckle and be smug. My life would be empty without that magazine I swear.

Cool new things in unlikely places

I deal with sinks all day. Ask me anything about sink construction, sink mounting, sink materials or sink trends. Sinks steal all the spotlight when it comes to kitchen plumbing and no one's ever asked me a whole lot about the drains that go into those sinks. That is until now.



Rose and Radish is selling these babies and they're calling them "Ornamented Metal Lace Drains." It's an interesting idea and it wouldn't surprise me if it caught on. Anybody looking for a million dollar idea? Check out how much these things cost!

This is why I have a TV

Completely unrelated to interior design, kitchen design and sustainability I know. Well maybe not completely unrelated, the set designs on this program are beyond belief and beyond words. What am I talking about? Why, AMC's Mad Men of course. Mad Men is quite simply the best program ever aired on American television. I know that I have a penchant for exaggeration, but this is no exaggeration.

Mad Men returns to AMC for its second season on Sunday night, 27 July at 10pm eastern time. Season one is already out on video so if you don't know what I'm talking about, there's still time to catch up. DO NOT MISS THIS SHOW.

Up from the angry streets

I love living in an urban neighborhood. The framed art shown here is one of my most prized possessions and it is a home made wanted sign I ripped off a telephone booth down the street ten years ago. "Found Art" everyone called it then; but whatever you want to call it, it makes me laugh. Its cryptic and provocative warning makes me wonder who on earth this subject is and what did he do to the person who made the sign? This framed piece of paper has spawned more conversations than I can count. I have people over and invariably, "St. Pete Beware" finds its way into the discussion. So thank you anonymous sign maker.

Earlier this week, the kids over at WebUrbanist featured a story about a graffiti artist who goes by the name of Banksy and who works the streets and alleys in London. Graffiti artist sounds like a contradiction in terms, but what this guy does what art is supposed to do. Namely, his work shows an audience a different way to see their everyday lives and it provokes a response. I'm sure the City Beautiful people in London would love to see him flogged but I'd love to have him move to Saint Pete.