Posted by Dave on August 3, 2010
McMansion under construction by merfam
Remember when people where trending on such topics as “downsizing” and “simple living?” It seems like just yesterday. With untold McMansions listing in their weed-infested suburbs across the U.S. it would seem that the time was indeed ripe for reason to reenter our housing market and smaller footprints and more practical usage of square footage to be valued and rewarded. The only problem is that downsizing is easy to talk about and hard to do.
American’s love things big. As my wife and I have listed our 4 bed 3 bath, 1990 sq. ft. home in SLC for sale we have discovered that it is too small to demand top dollar (in our current crappy homes market). I thought such a home would be ideal for all the people who have been talking about downsizing from their 3,000 sq. ft. 3 bed and 3 bath houses. But, apparently there aren’t any such people. What there are, are people who are looking for their first home and finding that 2,000 sq. ft. just isn’t big enough. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on May 17, 2010
Yeti by Philippe Semeria
The only question in regards to the death of the current green enthusiasm is, “Will the new green fad die via popular adoption, or via wholesale abandonment?” Well, I guess this is the first question, not the only. The second one would be, “What will green living look like when it is either abandoned or adopted?”
An intelligent reader (I know you are out there!) would of course respond, “Well, economical solutions will be adopted while unrealistic and utopian greening will be abandoned.” And while making sense, this sort of reasoning with the American people is redonculous at best and dangerous madness at worst. Just look at corn ethanol, still going strong all these years despite its fairly wide-known economic unfeasibility. And we all know that the milk of the female Yeti could be a financial boon for holistic medicine if someone would just put in the hard work to create a Yeti milking program, or at least learn to synthesize the stuff. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on April 29, 2010
Sweatshop in Chicago
Sweatshops. Sounds kind’a nice as I watch the snow fall outside my window here in SLC, in April. Oh, to feel the sweat trickle down the small of my back and then slowly spread along my waistband front and back until it looks like I have thoroughly wet myself. Oh to feel a hard dirt floor with my blistered and cracked feet and to be able to gnaw on my swollen, spongy tongue longing for a cool drink of water. Instead I just sit here at my fancy computer typing away with a hot mug of tea watching this freekin’ frozen crap cling to my grapevines and tulips.
Surely I jest. But seriously, in my quest to discover the truth about global sweatshop numbers and stats I have discovered that this is an idiotic quest. Much more important are the numbers and factors that make sweatshops not only flourish, but attractive. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on April 13, 2010
by Alfred T. Palmer
Environmental racism has been coined as an expression describing any policy, practice, or regulation that negatively affects the environment of low-income people. Everyone seems to acknowledge that the poor get the short end of the stick when it comes to negative environmental impacts, but at the same time the broad assumption is made that low-income people simply don’t care about the environment.
Now if I were to say that poor people hate the earth then you would probably cry foul and fill the comment box at the end of this post with vitriol and lingual excrement. But if we are honest, yes, the majority of us well-to-dos operate under a low-level yet constant assumption that low-income individuals (whether rednecks, urban minorities or simply blue-collar) don’t care about issues of sustainability. These assumptions have been built on a long tradition of alienating all brands of low-income folk with hoity-toity environmental clubs and lofty policies built on negative reinforcement. What do I mean? WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on March 7, 2010
It is probably not a new revelation to most of you that hemp once grew tall and proud throughout many regions of the United States. Before bored advocated of Prohibition teamed up with politicians and others seeking to push mostly Mexican immigrants back South of the Border during the rise toward the Great Depression and eventually leading to the “Reefer Madness” era, hemp was widely grown and used for dozens of applications in the U.S. including paints, cosmetics, fabrics and foods.
It seems, after many years of difficult struggle, groups such as the Hemp Industries Association and Vote Hemp might finally be gathering the momentum to bring hemp back into the mainstream of American society. These two organizations are teaming up this Spring to bring us Hemp History Week, May 17th-23rd. This is not the same thing as, “Smoke a Doobie, Attention Deficit Day,” or “Bake a Ganja Brownie for your Favorite Earth Sprite Day.” WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on February 28, 2010
As I metaphorically dug this last week, flipping participles and pretense skyward over my head and up to the sunny surface of my thoughts (and out of the maddening depths of confusion) the revelation suddenly dawned on me while seated and flying with Southwest somewhere over the eastern half of Utah.
I will call upon someone with a modicum of professional talent in Salt Lake City to make the prototype of “One True Pants.” Yes, the pair of pants that all others will one day bend the knee towards and acknowledge as king. How could I expect this pair of pants to be found wondering the savannas of retail America? No, the one true pants has yet to be woven together in the womb of its father’s mind. Too far? Yeah, I don’t even understand myself anymore.
Recently though, I found more helpful insight from Eric VandenBerg, the founder of the Hemp Barn. What will really blow your mind about a place called the Hemp Barn is not that it is primarily an earth-friendly upholstery store, or that it was founded by a young, non-hippy male, but that it is based in Salt Lake City. I know. Miracles never cease. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on January 9, 2010
In my last blog I chided hippies and granolas for not having the business sense to provide the world (or at least me) with a swell pair of hemp pants 34X34. Finally I found my savior, well within the bosom of hippie-womping hicks and sensible country folk, Orvis Clothing.
Orvis is the only clothing store with a website that sells hemp pants in size 34×34 for men. I know. A powerful statement made by a man wearing cannabis crafted clothing, but true. Nowhere else could I find my coveted pants. Orvis had two colors to chose from in 3 different inseams and several waist sizes. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on December 5, 2009
Credit: Modcell
Avert the eyes. Yes, they are at it again. Brits hold no modicum of decency when it comes to their efforts at mating sustainable products with modern building methods. Hemp and straw are so pure and modest, while industry is so brutish and base. Will it ever work?
Modcell is attempting, in their Flying Factory, to create the illusive commercially viable, modular, super-insulated, high-performance, low energy ‘passive’ buildings built using renewable, locally sourced, carbon sequestering materials. I know, I know. Crazy. When will these money hungry, earth-lovers give up? WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on July 24, 2009
Salt Lake City is going passive. Joe and Rebecca are teaming up with Brach Design and Fisher Custom Building to build Utah’s first certified passive house. That is the plan anyway. Brach Design is Utah’s only certified Passive House architect and this will be his first passive house if everything turns out right.
You may be thinking, “Who gives a diddly ding dang do.” But let me tell all you Flanders swearing neigh-sayers, this is pretty ding dang diddly cool. Let’s not forget that 76% of all electricity produced by U.S. power plants goes to the building sector. Passive House started up as PassivHaus in the UK, but that was too stinking European sounding for God-Bless-’Em-Americans, so we changed it to Passive House Institute US, but it is the same thing. Passive House is a certification that literally beats the insulation off of rating systems like LEED. The graphic shows it pretty well (although LEED is not pictured because it is a bit like comparing apples to oranges). But the point is that Passive House is the stiffest energy efficiency standard the world has seen by far. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on July 4, 2009
I just can’t feel bad about it. Post modern luxury and hippie just shouldn’t go together, and that is what so many of the most recently reencarnated pre-fab housing gurus have been trying to do. It has been doomed to failure since the start. Now the economic “downturn” is finishing the job, and I am hopeful that it may be one more good result that comes from it.
I think Buildblog puts it best in their recent post, “Pre-fab houses don’t work.” They go on to list 10 reasons why pre-fabbers have gotten it wrong at a time when I believe that most things were in their advantage to get it right. Like so many other huge changes that are taking place across the U.S. in the way that we think and live, this time of economic malaise could have been an opportunity for radical visionaries to rebuild American housing. Instead we came up with a stupider and more convoluted way to build the same old, stupid and convoluted environs. God bless America. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
