It's another Blog Off: where's your slice of heaven?

If it's the seventh of September, it must be another Blog Off day. A Blog off is an event when bloggers from all areas of interest write about the same thing on the same day. I'll have a list of participating bloggers at the end of this post but I won't have it complete until the end of the day. In the meantime, everybody who's participating is already listed on the Blog Off website.

The topic today is Where's your slice of heaven?

My slice of heaven isn't a place, more something that happened on the island of Grenada in the year 2000. Although Grenada more than qualifies as a slice of heaven, I happened upon those shores at the exact moment I needed to be there and I carry what I learned on that island with me all the time.









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If you don't know, Grenada's an independent nation in the Eastern Caribbean. It sits off the coast of Venezuela and its closets neighbors are Trinidad and Tobago to the south and St. Vincent and the Grenadines to the north.

Grenada rings a faint bell for many Americans because the United States invaded it in October, 1983. Grenada had gained independence from Great Britain in 1974 and it remained a member of the British Commonwealth. Grenada's transition to independence was a rocky one and Sir Eric Gairy, the man who led Grenada to independence in the first place was behaving more dictatorially as time went on. In March, 1979, Maurice Bishop led a bloodless coup and took control of the country from Gairy. Gairy received asylum in the US. Maurice Bishop was a wildly popular socialist who was determined to bring his country into the 20th Century. Bernard Coard, a Bishop former colleague and friend turned political adversary, had other ideas. Coard was a Stalinist and raised his own army and on October 19th, 1983 he held a coup of his own. Coard executed Bishop and his cabinet.

Amid a lost of bluster and a media blackout, the United States invaded Grenada on October 25th, 1983. I was a freshman in college at the time and in a pre-CNN, pre-internet world, news came from three networks and the daily papers. I remember thinking that the whole thing was a Reagan Administration publicity stunt. Reagan made a great deal of political hay from it and despite the fact that it was a clear violation of International Law, the invasion was hailed in the US as a more or less painless victory.

According to what we were told at the time, the invasion was a cakewalk and a rollicking success. I remember the invasion being called Operation Urgent Fury and I remember being glad that no one died. People don't die in painless, bloodless cakewalks, do they? I knew that there had to be more to the story than we were being told in 1983 but at the same time, I thought I'd never know what the real story was.

Fast forward 17 years and some friends and I chartered a sailboat in the Country of Grenada. Grenada is a sailor's paradise. The waters surrounding it range from secluded calm spots between small islands and full fury of the open Atlantic. Besides, I'd never been to the developing world before and I thought it would be an interesting get away.

We sailed out of Mount Hartman Bay and rounded the southern end of the island on the first day. We pulled into The Port of St. George's to deal with customs and stock in more provisions.

It was Palm Sunday weekend and the hills surrounding St. George's Harbor were echoing with a loud buzzing, whirring sound and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what mas making the sound. It was a perfect day and as we sailed into the harbor I felt like I'd been dropped in some kind of a promised land. Grenada looks like no where else I'd ever been. Though the island's relatively small at 135 square miles, it has mountains tall enough to generate their own weather patterns. St. George's itself is spectacular. It was established by the French in 1650 and the buildings along the harbor have the red-tiled roofs of Nice.

We stopped in to see the dockmaster and upon seeing our white faces he asked, "Are you British or French?" I'd never been mistaken for anything but an American in my life and I chalked it up to there being so few Americans in this part of the world. We filed out paperwork and paid our dock fees. He told us he'd be around later for a visit.

Going to the market in St. George's means going to the a real market. As in the open-air kind. I'd never been in anything like it. It was packed to the gills with loud, laughing people and from everywhere came the sounds of ska and the scent of cinnamon.

We made our way back to the marina and set about making dinner.

After dinner, we were sitting on the deck and the dockmaster made his way over to us. He came aboard and we offered him a beer. He sat and we talked about general stuff mostly. He had all kinds of pointers for what to avoid and what to see during our adventure. He made no indication that he had to go anywhere and so we offered him another beer. I started asking him about his life, his family and his country. The other guys excused themselves one by one, they were lured by the sounds of a "Jump Up" that was taking place on the other side of the harbor. After an hour, it was just the dockmaster and me.

My first real question was about the whirring and buzzing I kept hearing even though the sun had long since set. The sound was coming from the kites Grenadians fly for Easter. There's a reed whistle of some kind affixed to the kites and then the kites are tied to something immobile and left aloft.

As we sailed into St. George's earlier, we passed under the bombed out shell of a building. I knew it was a leftover from the US invasion and I was dying to ask the dockmaster for his story about what had happened in the spot where we were sitting 17 years earlier.

After dancing around the topic for another hour I asked. It's curious, curious thing to sit alone with someone and ask him "What happened when my country invaded yours?" It's an even more curious thing when someone who has every right in the world to hate you, doesn't.

He proceeded to tell me his story of the invasion. He loved Maurice Bishop and hated Bernard Coard. When he and his family realized that the US was invading them, they were at first relieved. Their relief was short-lived. The US Navy shelled the hills surrounding St. George's and what got hit got hit. Most of Grenada's civilian casualties came from a mental hospital that ended up in the cross hairs of the Navy I pay taxes to support.

To him, this was the story of his life and times. He was there. He lived it. He lived through the fight for independence, then two coups and a political assassination. But to me it was news. It was the version of the story I never knew about in 1983. The US invasion of Grenada wasn't some casualty-free cake walk. 69 Grenadians and 19 Americans were killed during that campaign. The names and faces of those dead never occur to the war mongers and Reagan's jokes of the time are even less funny now than they were then.

I didn't go to Grenada to get a political education, I just picked one up along the way. We went on to have an idyllic sail. The Coast of Grenada defies description. We had dinner in a family restaurant in Carriacou. Family restaurant in Carriacou means we ate in a family's home for $20 a head. We dived the Tobago Cays, bought lobster and lambi from boatboys on Union Island, experienced some of the roughest seas I've ever sailed in and I learned that eight days in a sailboat is about six days too many.

Since the assignment was to discuss my slice of heaven, I picked Grenada because I don't think I've ever written about it before. As wonderful and amazing as Grenada and the rest of the Eastern Caribbean are, I'm not calling them slices of heaven per se. But Grenada, and my deck side conversation with the dockmaster marked a real change in how I see the rest of the world and ignited in me a pressing need to know how other people live. That sail was the first time I'd been somewhere and just let where I was reveal itself to me. Whether it's in the developed or the developing world, it doesn't matter. My goal when I leave the US is always the same, to sit still long enough to listen to the stories of unfamiliar places. The world's full of slices of heaven, you just need to get out of the way and notice that they're there.

If you're interested in reading more about the US's invasion of Grenada, please read The US Invasion of Grenada by Stephen Zunes. The photos I used for this post aren't mine. My trip there took place before the advent of consumer-grade digital photography. As a result, the only photos I have of my Eastern Caribbean adventure are 35mm prints. The photos shown here are from a kind Flickr member named shaggyshoo.

As of 8pm today, the participating bloggers in this week's Blog Off are as follows:

Veronika Miller	@modenus	Modenus Community
Paul Anater	@paul_anater	Kitchen and Residential Design
Rufus Dogg	@dogwalkblog	DogWalkBlog
Becky Shankle	@ecomod	Eco-Modernism
Bob Borson	@bobborson	Life of an Architect
Bonnie Harris	@waxgirl333	Wax Marketing
Tamara Dalton	@tammyjdalton	Tamara Dalton Design Studios
Sean Lintow, Sr.	@SLSconstruction	SLS-Construction.com
Richard Holschuh	@concretedetail	Concrete Detail
Tim Bogan	@TimBogan	Windbag International
Hollie Holcombe	@GreenRascal	Green Rascal Design
Cindy FrewenWuellner	@Urbanverse	Urbanverse's Posterous
Steve Mouzon	@stevemouzon	the Original Green
Kevin Lee Allen	@klad2688	KLAD Design
Jody Brown	@INFILLnc	Coffee with an Architect
Madame Sunday	@ModernSauce	Modern Sauce
Saxon Henry	@RoamingByDesign	Roaming By Design
Barbara Segal	@beachhousefinds	Beach House Finds
Jane Frederick	@JaneFredArch	Low Country Architect
Carrie Leber	@bloomacious	Carrie Leber PR Blog
Brian Meeks	@ExtremelyAvg	Extremely Average
Andrea Wolper	@AndreaWolper	Spin the Wheel

It's another Blog Off tomorrow

Tomorrow's another Blog Off and we're counting on a pretty significant turn out. The theme is Where's Your Slice of Heaven? Here's an excerpt from the website:

Everybody it seems, has a place in mind when the topic of get aways comes up. Where’s your slice of heaven?
After the last Blog Off, we thought it might be fun to lighten up the mood a bit by talking about perfect places. So where’s your heaven? What’s the best and most interesting place you’ve ever been? What’s the place that fills your day dreams, even if it’s somewhere you’ve never been?

What do you look for in a location? Do you go to a secluded beach and read? Do you head for the mountains and ride the trails? Do you take in the sights and sounds of a world capital? Or is it in your very own back yard? What’s the appeal of your perfect place and why aren’t you there now? Or are you? Join in with us and Blog Off!

My slice of heaven is illustrated by a story that happened on this very spot in the spring of 2000. I'm awarding bonus points to anybody who can guess this location. Hint: it's not one of my usual haunts.

Stumped, it's no big deal I'm sure you have a slice of heaven of your own. If you're a blogger, why not write about it? You'll be part of a growing phenomenon as bloggers start to arrange themselves into networks and give new perspectives on the same theme. There's more information and a registration form on the Let's Blog Off website.

It's Labor Day in the US, here's why

In the summer of 1894, President Grover Cleveland ordered Federal troops to descend on Chicago to put down a rail workers' strike at the Pullman Palace Car Company. The melee that resulted marked the first time that the US Army marched and opened fire against a domestic uprising. 13 US citizens were killed.

In the aftermath of those deaths, President Cleveland introduced legislation declaring the first Monday of September a Federal Holiday. A holiday to commemorate the achievements and contributions of the American Labor Movement. Congress passed it unanimously and within six days of the end of Pullman Strike, President Cleveland signed it into law.

In honor of Labor Day, and so I can take it easy, here's an account of the Pullman Strike from the Kansas Heritage website.

The Pullman Strike of 1894 was the first national strike in United States history. Before coming to an end, it involved over 150,000 persons and twenty-seven states and territories and would paralyze the nations railway system. The entire rail labor force of the nation would walk away from their jobs. In supporting the capital side of this strike President Cleveland for the first time in the Nation's history would send in federal troops, who would fire on and kill United States Citizens, against the wishes of the states. The federal courts of the nation would outlaw striking by the passing of the Omnibus indictment. This blow to unionized labor would not be struck down until the passing of the Wagner act in 1935. This all began in the little town of Pullman, Illinois, just south of Chicago.

Pullman Palace Car Company was famed for its sleeper and luxury railcars that it manufactured. One of these manufacturing locations was in Pullman, Illinois. George M. Pullman founded the town of Pullman as a place where his workers could live. This town was conceived and designed on the premise of being a model town for his workers, with every aspect complete including parks and a library. The problem arose when after the panic of 1893 the workers of Pullman received several wage cuts that on the average added up to twenty-five percent. These cuts were bad in themselves, but when coupled with Pullman's actions of not lowering the rents for his company owned homes in Pullman, the labor began to unite. From the outside, Pullman appeared to be a model town, and guided tours were given to impress outsiders. The town however was not model; the homes on the outskirts of town were shabbily built -- some without any kind of plumbing. The rent for these houses was also about twenty-five percent higher than normal for the area. In addition, in order to work for Pullman, one had to live in his houses. The workers formed a committee and on May 7 went to Pullman to ask to have the rent lowered. On May 7 and 9, they were flatly refused. Three of the committee members were then terminated. This caused the workers to declare that they were going to strike, and on May 10, 1894 they walked off of their jobs. Then on May 11, 1894 the Pullman Plant closed.

The strike went peacefully, but after several weeks the Pullman management had not changed its position and the strikers were desperate for aid. During the strike, the American Railway Union had convened in Chicago because it was the rail center of the United States. The recently formed American Railway Union had 465 local unions and claimed the memberships of 150,000 workers. Since the Pullman workers were an affiliated union on strike in Chicago, the ARU offered to send arbitrators for the Pullman cause. The Pullman workers refused this aid. Even so the ARU under the leadership of Eugene Debs decided to stop handling Pullman cars on June 26, if the Pullman Union would not agree to arbitration. The stage was set for the largest strike in the nation's history.

On June 26, the ARU switchmen started to refuse to switch trains with Pullman cars. In response, the General Managers Association began to fire the switchmen for not handling the cars. The strike and boycott rapidly expanded, paralyzing the Chicago rail yards and most of the twenty-four rail lines in the city.

On July 2 a federal injunction was issued against the leaders of the ARU. This Omnibus Indictment prevented ARU leaders from "...compelling or inducing by threats, intimidation, persuasion, force or violence, railway employees to refuse or fail to perform duties..."(U.S. Strike Commission Report pp. 179). This injunction was based on the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the Interstate Commerce Act and was issued by federal judges Peter S. Grosscup and William A. Woods under the direction of Attorney General Richard Olney. The injunction prevented the ARU leadership from communicating with their subordinates and chaos began to reign.

Governor Altgeld of Illinois had been hesitant to employ the state militia to put down the strike instead relying on the local authorities to handle the situation. However, he said he would use the National Guard to protect property. Above all Governor Altgeld did not want federal troops to intervene. However, the issuing of this federal injunction and the fact that mail-trains might be delayed caused President Grover Cleveland to send in federal troops from Fort Sheridan. On July 3, Federal troops entered Chicago against Governor Altgeld's repeated protests. Governor Altgeld protested by writing President Cleveland on July 5, saying

"...surely the facts have not been correctly presented to you in this case, or you would not have taken the step, for it seems to me, unjustifiable. Waiving all questions of courtesy I will say that the State of Illinois is not only able to take care of itself, but it stands ready to furnish the Federal Government any assistance it may need else where..." (Altgeld pp. 656)

Despite these repeated protests by Governor Altgeld, President Cleveland continued to send in federal troops.

The reaction of the strikers to the appearance of the troops was that of outrage. What had been a basically peaceful strike turned into complete mayhem. The mayhem began on July 4, with mobs of people setting off fireworks and tipping over rail cars. The workers started to tip railcars and build blockades in reaction to the presence of the federal troops. In addition to this, there was additional level of chaos caused by the ARU leaders' inability to communicate with the strikers because of the federal indictments. The rioting grew and spread then on July 7, a large fire consumed seven buildings at the World's Colombian Exposition in Jackson Park. This burning and rioting came to a zenith on July 6, when fires caused by some 6,000 rioters destroyed 700 railcars and caused $340,000 of damages in the South Chicago Panhandle yards.

At this time in the Chicago vicinity, there were 6,000 federal and state troops, 3,100 police, and 5,000 deputy marshals. However, all this manpower could not prevent the violence from peaking when on July 7, national guardsmen after being assaulted, fired into the crowd killing at least four (possibly up to thirty) and wounding at least twenty. The killing continued when two more people were killed by troops in Spring Valley, Illinois. All this violence started to cause the strike to ebb and on that same day Eugene Debs and four other ARU leaders were arrested for violating the indictment. These officers were later released on $10,000 bond. The strike was failing rapidly, so the ARU tried to enlist the aid of the AFL in the form of sympathetic strikes. When this was refused the ARU attempted to abandon the strike, on the grounds that workers would be rehired without prejudice except were convicted of crimes however, this offer was refused by the General Managers' Association. The strike continued to dwindle, and trains began to move with increased frequency. The strike became untenable for the workers and on August 2 the Pullman works reopened.

This strike was truly monumental if some of the figures for lost revenues are looked at. The railroads alone lost an estimated $685,308 in expenses incurred during the strike. However, the railroads lost even more in revenue an estimated $4,672,916 [$120,000,000 in 2009 values]. In addition, 100,000 striking employees lost wages of an estimated $1,389,143. These costs are just the localized effects of the paralyzation of the nation's rail center and do not include the far ranging financial effects. The manpower used to break the strike was also immense. The total forces of the strikebreakers both government and private were: 1,936 federal troops, 4,000 national guardsmen, about 5,000 extra deputy marshals, 250 extra deputy sheriffs, and the 3,000 policemen in Chicago for a total of 14,186 strikebreakers. In addition to these figures there were also twelve people shot and killed, and 71 people who were arrested and sentenced on the federal indictment. This strike had other far ranging consequences. The federal government took an unprecedented step in using indictments to make any form of a strike essentially illegal and supported this action by deploying federal troops against the will of the states.

The results of the Pullman Strike were both enormous and inconsequential. They were enormous because the strike showed the power of unified national unions. At the same time the strike showed the willingness of the federal government to intervene and support the capitalists against unified labor. The results were inconsequential because for all of the unified effort of the unions the workers did not get their rents lowered.

Reader question: Can I get a living finish to look the way it used to?

Hi! I was reading your blog piece on patinas of Feb.10 2009  but silly me I cannot figure out how to find the next day (you said it would be continued tomorrow.)

I impulse bought a hammered fired huge bathtub on Craigslist for a song, and am designing my bathroom. Due to space limitations, I will use the tub also as a shower, behind a wall of heavy glass doors. I read today on another site that the dark fired finish will turn as it is a living finish unless I treat monthly with beeswax. I'm trying to decide if I want to just let it go into its living finish and enjoy that evolution or treat it now. It's been in the garage for some months and I notice that where a drip of water got on it it is green patina'd. Do you know if it's possible to bring it back to a dark fired finish after I let it go green and beyond? I am chemically sensitive so I wouldn't want to use caustic chemicals to do so.

The problem with buying things for a song on Craig's List is that you have no idea where something's been. Seriously, unless you can find out the name of the manufacturer and contact them, you're shooting in the dark. That tub appears to be copper from that photo and based on the fact that it developed a green color in reaction to a water drip. But beyond my assumption that you're dealing with a copper tub, I haven't a clue whether or not your tub's been patina-d or spray painted to look the way it does.

So here are a few things I know about patinas and living finishes. I wrote a five-part series on this topic in February of '09 and those posts are here:

So What the Devil's a "Living Finish" Anyway?


No Really, What's a Living Finish?


Patinas on a Budget


The Peoples' Faucetry


All Good Things Must End: My Last Post on Faucets for a While


In a nutshell, metals like copper are reactive. That means they react to chemicals in their environments. Copper usually reacts to acids and alkilis to form a variety of chlorides, sulphides and carbonates known collectively as verdigris. Verdigris is composed of  copper carbonate or copper chloride primarily and those chemicals make up the green patina most people associate with copper. However, not all patinas on copper are green and not all patinas are the result of natural, chemical processes.

That's a lot of chemistry for somebody who says she's chemically sensitive, whatever that means, but reality has a way of intruding on the best-laid plans.

Pure copper develops a patina in what's essentially a process of decay. Patinas are the symptom of that decay but they also serve as a protective surface. A patina-d surface layer on copper seals off the copper from the outside world and the decay stops. Remove the patina and the decay starts again until it forms a new patina then it stops again. Repeat this process for a thousand years or so and your copper object will disappear.

The confusion with all of this comes from the imprecise language used to describe patinas. In the commercial sense, a patina is a surface treatment of a metal. The same word gets used to describe a patina that occurs naturally and a patina that's applied. Copper left out in the rain and elements will eventually turn green in reaction to oxygen in air and water. The brown color on the tub in the photo got there as a result of some chemical or several chemicals and pigments being applied to its surface.

Whether or not its a living finish is a function of it either having or not having a clear coat on its surface. Applying a clear coat stops the chemical reaction driving the patina. Not applying a clear coat allows the patina to evolve.

Don't waste your time applying beeswax. Use polyurethane instead. It lasts forever (more or less) and beeswax will have its own effect on copper over time. Just because one material comes from a bee and another material was developed in a lab doesn't make beeswax a better sealer, nor is it automatically benign. Whatever you end up doing, never scrub your copper tub because you'll disturb either the patina or the clear coat preserving the patina.

So to answer your question, once your tub starts to change color, it won't ever go back to what it was when you bought it.

SketchUp 3D Basecamp, Continued: Great Minds Think Alike (or Not)

Note: Google invited 250 of their devotees to a three-day meeting that started Wednesday. I was among those invited and although I couldn't get my schedule cleared enough to attend, I was asked to nominate someone to attend. I nominated Rachele Harless Gorsegner, a friend of mine and the woman who writes The Conscious Kitchen. Rachele's already written a dispatch from day one of the conference and now here is day two. Thanks Rachele!

The three-day 3D modeling conference for the SketchUp community continued Thursday, with a solidly packed day of "unconference" sessions.  Affable and highly entertaining Google emcee, Aidan Chopra, facilitated a large brainstorming session in which various individuals nominated topics for sessions.  Individuals were asked to write their ideas on sticky notes and then step up to the microphone to introduce their idea.  Their sticky note was then taken by Googlers and put up on a scheduling board.

As you can see, there were plenty of ideas to be exchanged at this unconference!  The brainstorming session was actually so fruitful that it ran over the time allotted, and the first unconference session start time was pushed back from 10a to 10:30a.

The topics were incredibly wide ranging, all the way from somewhat expected and highly relevant topics like "Tips and Techniques," to more elite super-user topics such as photorealistic rendering and building information modeling (BIM). There were some tangential topics such as exploring and harnessing the power of social media, as well as eclectic topics such as using SketchUp for set design in the film industry.  How creative and unexpected!  Unconference sessions ranged in size from 5-6 attendees all the way up to, by my estimate, 40 attendees.

Mitchel Stangl, shown as a topic leader in this picture (see the green shirt), was definitely one of the more engaging and passionate speakers.  Mitchel is the very definition of a SketchUp power user; he works with incredibly large and complex models, and has been using SketchUp since 2001, when it was "born."  One of his sessions, on the topic of creating 2D construction documents from 3D models, turned out to be one of the most popular topics of the day.

Following the unconference sessions, all attendees were invited to an hour-long session to propose and prioritize features for SketchUp version 9.  Yes, you heard that right -- version 9.  The very day after version 8 was released, the SketchUp team was already encouraging and soliciting feedback for their next release.  (My only explanation is that they must have learned to get by with about three hours of sleep per day.)  It was interesting to see which suggestions met with wide support (e.g. reflection property for SketchUp materials), whereas other suggestions sparked quite a bit of debate (an iPad viewer for SketchUp?  "YAY!"...  "NAY!"...  a web-based version of SketchUp?  "COOL!"... "WRONG DIRECTION!"...).  If you missed out on the conference but have ideas for SketchUp 9, there's certainly many opportunities and avenues to offer your ideas to the SketchUp team.  If there's one thing I learned this week, it is that the SketchUp team is very accessible and receptive to feedback.

Mark Johnson, FAIA and Eric Schimelpfenig, AKBD

On the fun side, the 3D Basecamp event provided a great avenue for getting to know, as Google calls them, your "Birds of a Feather."  While at the event, I met some kitchen and residential designers, some manufacturers, and also the guys from Igloo Studios, producer of popular SketchUp tutorials and classes as well as creators of hundreds of  useful components in the SketchUp 3D warehouse (i.e. cabinetry, plumbing, appliances).

The second day concluded with dinner and a party at the Google offices.  The party was on the deck, which was accessed by going up the stairs of a central rec room.  It was something of an oversized romper room for adults, including not only this awesome rock wall (note "GOOGLE" in the upper right corner), but also: massage chairs, a ping pong table, a pool table, and super soaker water guns.  

The Google deck welcomed us with a beautiful vista of the Rocky Mountains.  Can you imagine being able to come out here to this gorgeous deck, to eat your lunch every day?  A brown bag lunch never looked so good.

Sadly, my last interaction with the Google SketchUp crowd was this parting shot (literally).  I was unable to attend Day 3 of the event, which promised numerous interesting demos from various plug-in vendors ("Friends of Google") for SketchUp.  Most of the plug-ins offered functionality for photorealistic rendering as well as energy analysis calculations -- all very interesting stuff.

Thanks to Google and the SketchUp team for being gracious, welcoming, and enthusiastic hosts!