17 August 2008

You are now entering the NO PANIC zone.


Well it looks like Tropical Storm Fay will be Hurricane Fay by tomorrow morning. That storm is going to hit somewhere along Florida's Gulf Coast on Tuesday. So today's the day to decide how seriously to take these warnings. After having seen firsthand the damage that rained down on Florida in 2004, I'd recommend that you take this seriously. However, taking a storm warning seriously is not an excuse to freak out. Rather, it's an opportunity to prepare for what all of us who live in these climes know is an inevitability. Now that we know what's out there, we can come up with some concrete plans to get us through whatever the next couple of days will bring.

First, if you're going to leave the coast; leave now. Now if you plan to stay, find out what your evac zone is. Your evacuation zone also tell you how high above sea level you are. Pinellas County has a zone finder on their website that's really handy. All you do is write in your address ans hit send. It tells you your zone and it also tells you where the closest shelters are to you. Know where they are just in case we do get hit. That website is filled with other useful information on how to prepare in the days leading up to the arrival of a hurricane. That would be now.

Again, this isn't an excuse for a melt down. If we get spared the arrival of this storm, there will be plenty more over the next couple of weeks. Know where your important stuff is and know what you plan to do to prepare for it. Get gas today. Go to the ATM and get cash today. Tell your friends and family what your plans are. Today.

Hurricanes come with the territory and this is not news. They are a force of nature that no one can do a thing about. Knowing that you're completely impotent in the face of one is the key to defining what you can control. I can't stop a storm, but I don't have to sit back and do nothing either. So step to it!

16 August 2008

Crap again!

Man, this thing keeps looking more ominous. If you're in the zone of this storm, please use the National Hurricane Center's website for storm projections. Their site is completely devoid of panic and fear-mongering and it's where the the local agents of unrest get their information. It's still a day or so early to go into storm mode, but this one definitely deserves some attention.

Crap!

It's that wacky time of year again kids. Batten down the hatches and go stand in line at Publix...

Quick-thaw McGraw


I came across a posting on Apartment Therapy's kitchen blog the other day that reminded me of another one of granite's many positive attributes.

We know granite isn't everyone's cup of tea around here, but it does have a remarkable ability to defrost things. We'll leave a frozen chicken breast out (in a plastic bag, for all of you ready to wave your disinfecting wipes in protest) and it'll be soft and pliable in half the time it would take sitting in the sink or on another surface.

The writer, Elizabeth Pasarella, goes on to ask her readers for an explanation. If you've never read Apartment Therapy's website, they regularly do this kind of call and response with their readers. It's usually pretty informative and entertaining. Anyhow, A physicist who calls himself tulpoeid wrote this in response:

Physicist here ... although I've never given granite a thought before... Katti is absolutely right, if something feels cold to the touch (at room temperature of course) then it conducts heat rather well. And if it quickly transfers heat away from your hand, then it can also quickly transfer heat to the frozen food. This is why metal feels cool etc. The heat conductivity depends on the molecular structure so each material has its own, and although granite's is lower than metals' it's still higher than many other materials'. In this case the smooth surface also helps: notice how coarser materials feel warmer to the touch (e.g., cotton vs. silk). This is due to their molecules being a bit farther part, so their individual motion cannot be as easily transferred from one to the next. And molecule motion = heat.

Other respondents continued to echo this theme of granite's abilities as a heat conductor. Interesting. Interesting to me at any rate. I've always been one to thaw frozen food under running water, but it's really wasteful to do so and I've stopped. This seems like a good, efficient alternative.

15 August 2008

This is whack



I had a conversation with a client yesterday and I was trying to explain to her that the images of glamorous kitchens she sees in catalogs and magazines aren't real places. For the most part, those images are sets in a studio or on a sound stage. As fully-designed sets, their reason for existence is to sell you something, not to act as a template for what your life should look like. I hear that same sort of thing a lot; "make my house look like the one in As Good As It Gets" or "I want this to look like a Pottery Barn catalog." It's a strange, internalized kind of consumerism. One where it's not enough to want the goods for sale, rather the goal seems to be the acquisition of the advertiser's whole imaginary universe. It shows up for me in requests from people who think they want to live in a magazine spread or in a model home. Newsflash: no one actually lives in a model home and that magazine spread is peddling a fantasy.

Real life is messy but it's also a lot of fun. My goal as I set out design a space for someone is to minimize the messy part of life and accentuate the fun parts. Clean up should be simple. Everything should have a place that's easy to get to. Rooms should be furnished and accessorized with things that reflect the lives of their owners. I want the art on the walls to be art you like and that you pick out. I want the photos on the book case to be your photos. I want the stuff that's lying around to tell a story about your life. It's your house, not Arthur Rutenberg's and not Pottery Barn's and not mine.

Anyhow, as I was ruminating about that I came across something on Consumerist that may be the root of why I approach residential design the way that I do.

Buried on their page two was a brief mention of something they were calling Wacky Packages. Well, I remember them as Wacky Packs and for better or for worse, my design sensibilities were deeply affected by them when I was nine or so.

Wacky Packages were a collectible sticker series that were put out by Topps (the baseball card people) in the '70s. They were graphic, sophomoric, brilliant spoofs of consumer products and my brothers and I couldn't get enough of them. The mention in Consumerist alluded to their value as collectibles now and there's actually a website dedicated to buying and selling them. What does that have to do with making a house reflect the people who live in it? Hold that thought.

This is a photo of my mother in the kitchen of my childhood home in about 1973. Looming behind her is a cabinet door covered with, you guessed it, Wacky Packs.

Here it is in close up.

My mother, bless her heart, allowed her six sons to cover a cabinet door in her kitchen with Wacky Packs. It's an extreme example, but there can be no doubt that the house I grew up in reflected the fact that nine people lived in it. Seven kids are hard to miss to begin with; but just in case you did, check out this cabinet door! Thank you Mom for putting up with us, thank you Tom for getting us started with Wacky Packs, thank you Steve for scanning all of these old family photos and thank you Consumerist for the walk down memory lane.

Here are a bunch of original issue Wacky Packs, many of which were on that cabinet door. They mock the Cold War, they mock hippies, they are decidedly irreverent and gloriously offensive. They are aimed squarely at nine-year-old boys, yet they include some heavy allusions to cigarettes and liquor. I cannot get over how many of these things I remember, yet I haven't given them a thought in at least 30 years.




Now I doubt that I'll be encouraging someone cover a kitchen cabinet door with stickers any time soon, but if somebody really wants to; what's it going to hurt?