Check out this great blog

I met a woman named Jamie Goldberg through Facebook over the weekend and Jamie's a Tampa-based kitchen and bath designer with a thriving practice and a blog to boot. I'm telling you, that Facebook thing continues to amaze me. Anyhow, I've been reading over Jamie's blog and she has some really great ideas and advice. Give her a read, her most recent post in particular --Kitchen and Bath Remodeling FAQs. She blends practical advice with a sense of humor and anybody offering that is a welcome addition to my blog roll. Here's an excerpt: 

Q. How long will the remodel take?

This is a three-part answer that has nothing to do with 30-minute HGTV shows.

Part one is the planning/designing/shopping process. This will depend on your availability, as well as your designer's or architect's. It will also depend on the complexity of the project. In some instances, you're keeping your existing appliances, so you don't need to spend time choosing and shopping for new ones. That can certainly shave days or weeks off the process. In other instances, you're opting for a complex wall and floor tile design. This can add days, in terms of choosing each element of the design and approving layouts. Typically, a full-scale kitchen or bath remodel will take two to three months to plan, including showroom visits, design plan and revisions, contractor bid preparation and consultations.

Part two is ordering your selected materials. Cabinetry can take from two weeks to 12 weeks to arrive, depending on whether they're stock or custom. Special order tile from overseas can take weeks, as well. If you're not planning major structural changes, you can wait until the new cabinets arrive and are inspected before tearing out your old ones.

Part three is the actual on-site work. This will vary from days to weeks, depending on the extent of work to be performed. Your contractor can (and should!) advise you on the time line in advance. Chances are, by the time the project is completed, you'll be about four to eight months later than when you wrote your first check, longer for major additions.

Bravo Jamie and welcome to both my blogroll and my Friends List.

Having fun with the Carmina Burana

Recently, I started reading the great blog called Bad Astronomy. Bad Astronomy deals with astronomy of course and its primary writer, Phil Plait,  touches on other branches of science regularly. The whole endeavor is peppered with a kind of sophomoric intellectualism and I can't get enough of it. Anyhow on Friday, Phil Plait wrote an amusing piece about pareidolia. Pareidolia is listening to something and hearing words and patterns that aren't really there.

To illustrate his point, he posted this video that's had me laughing since Friday.

         

That's O Fortuna from Karl Orff's Carmina Burana and it has to be one of the most stirring arrangements ever composed for a chorus. If you ever get the chance to see it performed live please drop what you're doing and go. It's at once so primal and so passionate you'd have to be a cadaver not to be affected by it. If you're interested in the lyrics, here they are in Latin as performed:

O Fortuna

velut luna                        

statu variabilis,                 

semper crescis                    

aut decrescis;                   

vita detestabilis                

nunc obdurat                     

et tunc curat                     

ludo mentis aciem,                 

egestatem,                          

potestatem                          

dissolvit ut glaciem.               

Sors immanis                       

et inanis,                          

rota tu volubilis,                 

status malus,                       

vana salus                         

semper dissolubilis,                

obumbrata                           

et velata                           

michi quoque niteris;              

nunc per ludum                      

dorsum nudum                       

fero tui sceleris.                  

Sors salutis                       

et virtutis                         

michi nunc contraria,              

est affectus                        

et defectus                         

semper in angaria.                  

Hac in hora                        

sine mora                           

corde pulsum tangite;               

quod per sortem                    

sternit fortem,                    

mecum omnes plangite!    

If your Latin's not up to snuff and you'd like a translation, you can find one here. Be warned though, these lyrics aren't what I'd call uplifting. That's OK though, uplifting lyrics are overrated.

Alessi sale! through March 3

Sales Time! Up to 70% off on many Alessi products!

It's true, it's true; the design gods at Alessi are having a sale through March third on their online shop as well as at their locations in New York (Soho and Madison Ave.), Chicago and San Francisco.

I've always loved Alessi's sharp design sensibilities and I appreciate their regular embrace of all things whimsical. If you've ever been exposed to Alessi wide range of products, you know what I mean. Seeing a display of their wares always makes me laugh and to walk through an Alessi store is my idea of a toy store for adults with discriminating taste. For my birthday last year, two great friends of mine gave me what's now one of my favorite possessions, the Pisenillo Q-tip holder.

Here's the Pisellino in all its comic loveliness. The word pisellino is Italian slang for the appendage the Pisellino uses to keep the swabs it contains standing up. I get a laugh from it every morning. Grazie mile Alessi!

Credit crisis 'splained

I haven't harped about matters financial lately, so I think it's high time that I do so now. Here's a really good video that explains what's going on with this credit freeze annoyance. It's ten minutes long, but worth the watch.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

It's a sign of the times my friends

Well you know times is hard when you get an Ann Sacks e-mail newsletter that mentions anything about prices. This month's arrived with something so far beyond the mention of price I had to make sure that it was indeed from Ann Sacks. Well it was and it's true. All is woe after all. Ann Sacks has three styles of wall tile that start at less than $10 a square foot.

Avalon II --2" x 19 1/2" field in beige and 4 1/8" x 19 1/2" field in cocoa

Avalon II --2" x 19 1/2" field in black and white

Hacienda --3" x 4- 3/4" diamond in Normandy cream

Hacienda --3" x 4" San Felipe in café olay

Savoy --3/4" penny round in brick

Savoy --stacked brick mosaic in silkscreen

Savoy --3-7/8" x 3-7/8" field, offset brick and surface bullnose in paperwhite and box liner in black gloss

Savoy --offset brick mosaic in mint

Savoy --stacked mosaic and 3 7/8" x 7 3/4" field in bronze