2009's greatest hits, part two

I love it when I get the chance to go all science-y in this blog and I take the opportunity any time it presents itself and sometimes when it doesn't. The basics of chemistry, biology, physics, geology and the rest are not hard to master and understanding the underlying mechanisms of everyday life are the first step in facing the world from a place of knowledge instead of a place of fear.

I have very little tolerance for conventional wisdom that's born of ignorance and scientific illiteracy and one of the bogeymen I enjoy slaying is the cloud of fear that surrounds a little concept called radiation. In June of '09 I wrote a series about radon with the help of Chris Forrest, a physicist from the University of Manchester.

Reader Question: Are My Counters Giving Me a Headache?

That radiation series was a real highlight for me. It is my supreme pleasure to help other non-scientists like me understand how the world works.

I love ancient Roman art and mosaic was an form where they excelled. My appreciation for Roman mosaics sits underneath my passion for mosaics now. In June of last year I wrote a post based on some ancient Roman mosaics that had been unearthed recently in Israel. I'd been alerted to their existence by the great Sara Baldwin of New Ravenna Mosaics.

That mosaic post from June cemented my friendship with Sara and her company and it introduced me to the amazing group behind Mosaic Art Now. Mosaic Art Now has been a real boon to me both within this blog and outside of it. My life's been enhanced immeasurably by my contacts and friendships in the world of contemporary mosaics and I am anxiously awaiting what great doors are waiting to be opened in the new year.

Roman Mosaics Make Me Swoon

Many thanks to the artists who opened up their work and their studios to me and many thanks to my readers for indulging my passion for the things I find there.

If at the beginning of the year you would have told me that I was going to change my pro range brand loyalty from Wolf to GE Monogram I would have called you delusional at best.

Well July found me in a GE test kitchen in Louisville, KY where that exact brand loyalty shift happened. I learned so much from the gang at Monogram not the least of which is that they really know what they're doing. They also host a hell of a training seminar.

I'd Like to Add Some Initials to My Monogram

Big thanks to the whole gang at Monogram.

I got nominated for a 2009 Homie award from Apartment Therapy last week, a development I find toe curlingly hilarious when I stop to think how much mileage I get from ragging on that site. Big thanks to Nim for that nomination.

Anyhow, at some point in July some misinformed but no-doubt well-meaning soul wrote into AT about her unchlorinated, "natural" swimming pool. The irresponsible staff at AT wasted no time praising this hare-brained plan as a "healthy" alternative to yucky chemicals. Never mind that the pool they were praising was a waterborne disease outbreak waiting to happen.

Please Don't Try This at Home

I say it all the time, chemistry is your friend folks. So my question remains, when a website pushes some kind of alternative medicine nonsense (whether it's the Huffington Post's embrace of the anti-vaccination movement or AT's endorsement of swimming in untreated pool water) are they responsible for the typhus or polio outbreaks that follow? Just wondering.

Second only to my love of Italy is my deep love and respect for The Bahamas and her people. Few places I've encountered expose me to more and make me take stock of my own life the way a little island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean does. I wrote a lot about The Bahamas in 2009, but my favorite post involved the retelling of an adventure I have with a broken down jeep on a Thursday afternoon.

A Traveler's Tale: High Adventure with a Broken, Rented Jeep

All hail the Bahamian people for showing this white face how enjoyable life can be when you have less stuff and even fewer expectations.

September found me at Fashion Week in New York thanks to my friends at Brizo. Going to Fashion Week has been a running joke between my friend Kevin and I for years. I call it a joke because we're both fashion-illiterate and aren't the kind of folk who attend such things as A-list runway shows under ordinary circumstances.

New York Day Two and What a Day It's Been


Sittting up close and personal with a major unveiling that like was an experience I'll remember forever. I still don't know anything about fashion, but I certainly have a better appreciation (if not awe) for the role those runway shows play in every day life. I came away from that weekend with an insider's look at fashion design but thanks to Judd Lord and the rest of the gang at Brizo, I got an insider's look at industrial design.

That same month, I found out that there was an exhibition opening at the American Museum of Natural History and it opened within days of my leaving New York. Drat!

A couple of Malagasy artists had found a way to spin spider silk into thread and then they wove that thread into fabric. Finding a use for spider's silk has been a quest for dreamers and schemers since the dawn of humanity and these guys pulled it off.

Of Spiders and Silk, of Silk and Textiles

This story appealed to me for a host of reasons. For starters, it involved the American Museum of Natural History. Secondly, the spiders in question were Nephila inaurata, a close relative to Florida's Nephila clavipes pictured here. Nephila clavipes is an arachnid of such majesty it's hard for me to put into words what amazing creatures they are. That some of their relative's silk would be woven into what's arguably the world's most expensive textile is perfect on a bunch of levels all at once.

In October I'd been done wrong by some missing appliance specs from Sears Kenmore Pro and I wrote a blog post about it. My complaints were bitter and my criticisms were pointed. I wrote that post to get my frustrations off my chest.

Sears' Blue Crew Needs Some Work

Well imagine my surprise when I heard from Sears about my blog post. They were genuinely concerned and they really wanted to help. Within two weeks of that post's going live I'd organized a conference call between the Kenmore Product Team and a handful of design bloggers I hand-picked. I think it will go down as the least expensive focus group ever assembled and a whole lot of good came out of it. Not only that, I have a respect for Sears as an organization I would have never had otherwise. Social Media works gang, let there be no doubt.

I started off this round up with an admission to my fondness for getting science-y on this blog and I don't think anything fired my curiosity quite as much as an invitation I received in November from the Aspex Corporation.

A Microscopic Look at Some Counter Materials

Aspex makes Scanning Electron Microscopes and I had them scan some granite and quarts samples I had lying around. I spoke with a couple of their techs and with their help wrote a great post about Scanning Electron Microscopy in general and the results of my sample scans in particular.

And so I wrap up 2009 and head into the new year. Thank you to everyone who reads these screeds. Putting this blog together every day is a real peak experience and the feedback I get from you guys keeps me plugging away at it. Happy new year to one and all and keep coming back for more.

New Year's achievements and goals

So it's New Year's Eve already and I'm looking forward to closing the door on 2009 in many, many ways. It's funny, my income took a hit at the beginning of the year and had I been told about it in advance I would have thought it unsurvivable. Survive I did and that loss of income made me smarter, faster and more innovative. 2009 had me reaching into places I never thought I'd get to on my own. What a year! My head still reels from a lot of it. I owe a huge amount of what I accomplished in 2009 to this blog and to all of you who read my rantings. So thank you.

Every year, I take stock of the year we're about to leave and I spend some time setting goals for the year to follow. New Year's resolutions are too vague and unmeasurable so I dispense with them all together in favor of writing down a list of achievable, measurable goals. Before I write down my targets for the new year though, I write down my achievements from the year that's ending. It's always interesting to compare my achievement list to the goal list from the previous year. Interesting to me anyhow.

Telling myself through a resolution that I will make more money in 2010 isn't specific enough, there's no yardstick. I find it a lot more helpful to write down, "I will increase my income by 30%." That leaves me with something to measure and it makes me responsible for my own performance.

Ordinarily, I keep my lists private, but this year I'm going to share some highlights from it to keep me accountable. Indulge me:

2009 Achievements

• I survived the longest dry spell in my career.
• I flew to Google for a meeting with the SketchUp team.
• I increased my blog readership by over 1000% (I checked that math repeatedly and I still can't wrap my head around it).
• I won a cooking contest in the test kitchens of GE Monogram.
• I sat in the front row of a major runway show at Fashion Week in New York.
• I interviewed Sarah Susanka.
• I interviewed Sara Baldwin.
• I took on my first virtual design clients.
• I had paid and unpaid writing gigs show up all over the internet.
• I did the best design work of my career.
• I held my first great niece.

2010 Goals

• I will increase my income by 30%.
• I will double my web traffic by the end of the year.
• I will go back to Rome in June.
• I will go to the gym and lift weights for 45 minutes twice a week, every week.
• I will end the year at the same weight I am right now.
• I will write three feature stories for print publications.
• I will formalize a fee schedule and business plan for my social media consultations by February.
• I will re-tool and re-launch Kitchen and Residential Design by May.
• I will pay cash for everything.
• I will pay off the last of my consumer debt by December '10.

And that my friends are the highlights from my list. What about you guys? Anybody else want to list some goals and be accountable here?

2009's greatest hits, a retrospective in two parts

I posted more than 500 times in 2009. My goal is to post once a day and I'm happy to report that there was not one day in 2009 that went post-less. I think I've earned the title prolific blogger. While it's true that a lot of work goes into this blog, not all of it's worth remembering. There are a couple of stand outs though, some posts of which I'm particularly proud. Coming up with a list like the one I'm about to launch into let's me toot my own horn and it makes for good SEO at the same time. Here goes:

In response to a reader's question about faucet finishes, I embarked on a multi-part series of posts that explained how plumbing manufacturers come up with and apply fixture finishes. The marketing team at Kohler was instrumental in pulling this one together. So thank yous go out to Kohler and to my reader Ming who got this particular ball rolling back in February.

So What The Devil's a Living Finish Anyway?


I'm not at all prone to being star struck, but in March I came pretty close when I landed an interview with Sarah Susanka. She was doing publicity for her new book and of all the high profile architects out there, she sits at the head table in my pantheon. I am not kidding when I say that Sarah Susanka's ideas are what motivated me to choose my profession. Having the chance to visit with her was a real highlight of my year.

A Conversation with Sarah Susanka

I love it when I get reader questions. I get them all the time and I answer each of them personally and usually the same day they come in. However, some of those questions end up as fodder for a post. What ends up being posted is a more fleshed out version of my original answer, but those posts always preserve the flavor of my answer. Got a question? Ask away but you just may find your question shot across the internet. Such was the case with the following. This was a blast to write and it continues to be a traffic magnet nine months after it appeared for the first time.

Reader Question: How Do I Explain a Bidet to a Four-Year-Old?

I am a generalist, a dilettante. I'll be the first to admit that. I know a little bit about a lot of things and I love to write about my varied interests. Sometimes, I get to combine some of my passions and such is the case in this series I wrote about High Renaissance Mannerism and the history of western art.

Speaking of the Renaissance

I followed it up the next day with Unbelievable, Really... a rant about the small minds who can't handle looking at a classical nude statue.

I try to keep my work life separate from what I write about on this blog. I try to. I am a publicity whore but I know that most people aren't, so I take great pains to avoid identifying my clients and potential clients in this space. A lot of times though, my work life and the things I discuss here collapse on top of each other. Sometimes a real-life situation will help me to make a point, sometimes I want to show off and sometimes I want to shock and provoke. Such was the case with this post.

Don't Call Me If Your House Looks Like This

Man, I can still smell that condominium and it sends shivers down my spine. What's funny is that post prompted some well-meaning soul to send me an e-mail where she accused me of being bitter and lonely and then offered me her contact information so that she and I could talk about how Jesus could free me from my anger. OK.

Finally, in early June a reader sent me an image of a Christopher Peacock kitchen and she asked me about the source of the light fixture hanging in the center of it. I love challenges like this, so I turned to Gina Milne and her blog Willow Decor. Gina was one of the many great blogosphere contacts I made in early 2009. Gina's a terrific researcher and she's pretty plugged into the world of shelter blogs. Gina then turned to Brooke Gianetti and her blog Velvet and Linen. Brooke posted the question within an hour and then a short time later Tammy Connor, one of Brooke's readers and a Birmingham-based interior designer, identified the light fixture. Here's the post I wrote about it.

Behold the Power of the Blogosphere

In a matter of hours, a reader from New York asked me, in Florida, a question. I then asked a blogger in Boston who in turn asked another blogger in LA. The LA blogger had a reader in Alabama who answered it. The answer followed the chain back to me and I answered my original reader. That question circled the US in a matter of hours and none of that kind of networked communication was a thought let alone a possibility a few short years ago. Pretty cool stuff.

So they are the highlights of the first half of 2009. On Friday I'll go through the second half and then I'll be ready to attack 2010 with a renewed sense of my mission here and a passion  reborn. Writing this blog has been the most rewarding endeavor I've ever embarked on and I owe each and every one of you a profound thank you.

Believe it or not, not all gorgeous European tile comes from Italy

I wrote yesterday about Petracer's from Modena in Italy. Well if you head south west and across the Mediterranean for about 1200 kilometers you'll come to Castellón de la Plana in the Castellón province of the València community in Spain. Here's a map for those of you who are geographically impaired.

Castellón de la Plana is the home of Dune ceramics.

Dune ceramics was a real stand out at the last Coverings show and what these people are doing with tile and metallics is setting a new standard. Just look at all this beauty.

Dune's motto is Pasión por Decorar and that translates into English as something like Going Further in Decoration. I'd say they're living up to their motto. What say ye? Is it beautiful or is it too much?

Petracer's makes beauty

I'm putting my travel schedule together for 2010 and one of the highlights will no doubt be attending Coverings this year. Coverings is the trade show for the tile, stone and flooring industries and it takes place in Orlando from April 27th through April 30th this year. I'm very much a tile guy, and Coverings is a feast in every sense of the word.

Coverings is an international show and the world's best and most interesting producers and manufacturers show off their wares during those three days in April. The Italians are well represented of course and for me, it's the Italian companies that push the envelop farthest.

The last time I attended Coverings, I had the distinct pleasure of spending some time with the sales and marketing team from Petracer's Pregiate Ceramiche Italiane. In English, that means "Petracer's Precious Italian Ceramic." They are aptly named.

Petracer's is based just outside of Modena in Emilia-Romagna. Modena is renowned for it's basalmic vinegar of course, but it's also a hot bed of Italy's tile industry.

Petracer's tile has a unique aesthetic and I say they produce the most authentically Italian tile in the business. There's a distinctive look to Italian decorative art and Petracer's captures it perfectly. There's a spare and clean feel to the aesthetics I'm describing. Petracer's look whispers instead of shouting. And when it does raise its voice, it's a joyful sound indeed.

Look at some of their offerings here. What do you think?