Thanks Best Buy!

With the opening of a “Best Buy” near work, I’ve been on a bit of a movie watching kick.

Prince Caspian: OK, I actually saw this in the theaters. I’m surprised this isn’t doing better because it was an excellent film. Not quite as good as “Iron Man” but still far, far better than what I fear for the new Indiana Jones flick. Good family fun with lasting emotional oomph.

August Rush: Warning! This movie is sappy to the extreme. Also, do not watch unless you really like music and/or Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Still, I enjoyed it and found the music fairly well-done. Robin Williams plays an interesting role as a slightly villainous character.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets: Bought the DVD. I saw this in theaters but it was equally enjoyable at home. The jokes and suspense both held up and I love these characters! I really hope this franchise continues for a long while. It’s so refreshing to see a bunch of really smart history-geeks as the heroes.

Sky Captain & The World of Tomorrow: I loved this when it came out in the theaters so I snapped it up quick from the bargain bin. However, after having seen “Iron Man” recently, it falls a little flat by comparison. Especially the chemistry between Paltrow & Jude Law as its infinitesimal compared to her and Robert Downey Jr.

28 Weeks Later: Very good suspenseful movie. More suspenseful and intense than the original. If the film has any flaws, it's that the entire plot revolves around TwoStupidKids who destroy everything they touch and always make the worst decision possible for the future of the planet. The fact that everyone is trying to save TwoStupidKids instead of shooting them dead greatly confused me.

Link to full post.

ODing on Steampunk

With the discovery of this awesome comic, I've been doing a bit of web exploring trying to find as many steampunk references as possible. Which isn't at all hard.

The best resource I've found so far is "The Brass Goggles", a weblog full of interesting things like "How Correctly Wear a Pocketwatch" and links to every artist thats ever built anything remotely steampunk EVER.

According to this, my steampunk name would be Senator Ginny Brogley. meh. I put my "Title Type" to professional because engineers are generally considered "professional" but I wouldn't consider Senators in that category.

Another wonderful place is "The Steampunk Lab" which has the cutest little steampunk robot ever!

There's actually several sources for Steampunk-style jewelry. Here;s some of the best off Etsy:
EdmDesigns - Excellent to look at but it's mainly men's cufflinks. Although I did almost buy these earrings.
Velvet Mechanism - How can you not love someplace that sells gear earrings?
Clockwork Zero - Go one better with nuts & gears earrings.
JewelsByNature - More vintage than steampunk but still quite cool.
(I'm incredibly thankful Etsy has a registration function as it stopped me from buying everything in sight)

Apparently, "The Five Fists of Science" isn't the only steampunkish comic out there. "The Helen Killer" Series sounds really interesting.

Most Interesting Result: A video game entitled "Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened". It's about Holmes versus followers of Cthulhu. The screenshots can be a bit gory but it sounds quite intriguing. I wonder if I can play it using WINE?

Link to full post.

Patterns: Shopping and Goodbye

While running errands, I stopped by my local Wal-Mart where some new clothes caught my pattern-seeking eye:
I really like this. Good color combination and use of contrasts. Although there is a great deal of detail, it isn’t gaudy or overpowering.

The same I could not say for the denizens of dress rack:
Who decided that brown&pink was a good color combo? I’ve been seeing this combination everywhere and it’s terrible! The pattern has the potential to be fairly cheerful but the dreary brown just deadens it. Yuck.

While browsing for some new shelves at Target, I noticed the following pattern on an ottoman:
A very bold black-and-white pattern. A little too bold perhaps, this sucker could take over your living room if you’re not careful.

My new shelves are now assembled and prettifying my living room. They replace a ratty cardboard table covered by a tablecloth. I won’t miss the table, but the tablecloth...
The tablecloth was from my parents when I moved out on my own. I grew up with this pattern and have always loved it even during my militant anti-pink phase. (sigh) Goodbye, faithful upholstery. I will remember you fondly....

Link to full post.

Composed of Words Not My Own

In an effort to test my literary-fu, I am attempted to create a poem using only excerpts from my recent reading, “Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases”. I only added punctuation to the end of the lines:

All silent as the sheeted dead,
Your Mind enthroned in the seventh circle of content.
But across it, like a mob’s menace, fell the thunder.
Kind of unscrupulous contempt for gravity,
Drowsiness coiled insidiously about him.
In a vague and fragmentary way,
Precipitated into mysterious depths of nothingness:
A weird world of morbid horrors.
Obviously the matter is settled.

I kinda like it. Any contrary opinions?

Link to full post.

English – Oh, How I Love Thee!

Via ManyBooks.Net, I am reading “Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases”, a 1919 book which promoted better speech and vocabulary. The phrases are remarkably modern sounding. Only occasionally am I truly baffled. However with 15,000 phrases occasionally can be pretty often. Here’s some tidbits of linguistic delight:

Bucolic Cudgeling = To Beat the Sheep (not a euphemism)

Possible New Titles for My Weblog If I Ever Get Over the Introverted Thing:
“Phraseological quagmire”
“A dire monotony of bookish idiom”
“Surfeit of Verbiage”
“Some flash of witty irrelevance”

Which one of these words or phrases if employed by your child in a playground setting will result in said child getting beat up?
a. lettered coxcomb
b. arrant trifling
c. effulgent
d. All of the above

“Black necromancy”, “Necromatic power” and “Wizard Influence” are all considered “Must-Know Phrases” in 1919? For whom? Dr. Van Helsing?

“Obsolete Phraseology” – Unintentionally Funny Inclusion.

Modern Interpretations of 1919 Classics:
“Quondam Foe” – An Early Supervillian in the "Gundam" universe best known for his redemptive storyline
“Disposed to Cavil” – Being held prisoner by Cylon Human Model #1.
“Eccentric Casuists” – Followers of the “Luna Lovegood” School of Thought (no really)
“Hooligan Wind” – Another alter-ego for the X-Men’s “Storm”, used during her brief pickpocketing career.
“Lurid Picturesqueness” – aka a “Thomas Kinkaid” painting
“Culinary Myrmidons” – Edible Minions for Cannibalistic Super-Villains OR Just People Who Eat Their Vegetables? You Decide.

“Sacrosanct Fetish” – This can’t possibly mean what I’m thinking.

“Waxwork Sex” – WHAT?!

Link to full post.

My Latest & Greatest Desktop

It has been a LONG while since one of these! That's a shame because I've been really enjoying playing around with the Compiz settings in Gutsy Gibbon. Here's now:


Wallpaper:The_Lost_Gardens by silveryn
Emerald Theme: Blue Satin (HEAVILY modified to match desktop so no link)
Icons: Tango (Unofficial)
Controls: Industrial

Also, I finally figured out how to take screenshots of some of the Compiz effects. The built-in Compiz "screenshot" function has never worked for me after much fiddling. This was incredibly simple once I thought about it. I just used the regular built-in screenshot tool with a 6-8 seconds delay, just enough so I could activate the effect.

My cube (can you tell I'm lovin' the transparency options?)

Very pretty but it's not as useful as the "Expo" function. Just press CTRL+ALT+DOWN to easily switch between desktops, like so:

Link to full post.

Shopping for Disaster Preperation, pt1

After building lists for my proposed kits based on some very helpful FEMA publications, I’ve begun shopping for various items. There will be 4 “kits” by the time this is done: Home, To-Go, Car and Work. I’m just starting with a few things for the kits and addons to my cache of tools:

Car Stuff:
Jumper Cables, A Shovel, A Camp Axe, 2 Tarps, Magentic Pick-Up Tool, 25’ Measuring Tape

Home Stuff:
New Container for first aid supplies, New duffel bag (for To-Go kit), Scissors, Xtra socks (for To-Go kit), Another extention cord, Flashlight, Hand-Crank Weather Radio/Lantern, A thermometer/Compass Keychain, Back-up batteries, 25’ Measuring Tape

While purchasing the tools, I made a terrifying “discovery”: “Home Depot” salespeople are criminally ignorant. One of my coworkers has a really nice digitial calipers and I’m frequently borrowing it. So I decided to get one of my own while I was there. I looked all around the measuring section of the tool department to no avail. So I asked the saleperson working the desk in the tool department. Here’s the actual conversation:
Me: Hello, do you know if you carry any digital calipers?
Salesguy: (blank stare) Um, I don’t even know what those are.
Me: It’s just a pair of calipers with a digital readout.
Salesguy: (blank state continues)
Me: You use it to measure parts.
Salesguy: Oh! Follow me! (walks)
Me: (follows)
Salesguy: Here you go. (walks off)
Me: (realizes he took me to a display of laser levels & stud-finders) Dumbass.

Aside from that misadventure, my shopping trip was fairly enjoyable. My supplies don’t look like much but once I get it organized, I’ll be on my way to being ready for anything except maybe global thermonuclear war. [After a careful review of the “Terms & Conditions” for my lease, it appears that my apartment complex would not be OK with me building a bomb-shelter even if I do live on the first floor. Darnit.]

The hardest part about this whole venture has been deciding which books to take with me. At first, I told myself “Only the important ones” but with 800+ books, that’s not really feasible. So, I’ve limited myself to books which I would need in a disaster. So far the must-haves are:
“San Antonio Key Map” – Need to Update.
“Texas Highways Kep Map” – Need to Update.
“US Army Survival Guide” – Check.
“Edible / Poisonous Plants & Animals Guide” – Missing.
“Rocks & Minerals Field Manual” – Check.
My “Workshop Book” – Check. (This is an excellent book I found in an antique store. It has tons of homemade recipes for everything from whitewash to furniture varnish to metal etching acids.)

Link to full post.

Book Review: Code v2.0 by Lawrence Lessing

Code v2.0 by Lawrence Lessig: Short, short version of review = WOW. *head explodes*

See full post for a detailed discussion of regulation in the Internet age, the political consequences of bad-code and how closed-source code has the potential to co-opt the political process.

WOW. This book is a dense and fascinating look at how the regulation of the Internet can and will reflect our larger society’s values and what that means for us as citizens. The author clearly demonstrated that modern US government has some seriously poor institutions in place for dealing with the kind of socio-legal changes in the works due to Internet regulation.

While it made for excellent reading, the holes and ambiguities latent in our current Constitutional thinking are a little terrifying. One thing that particularly striking: I have always favored a slightly stricter constructionist interpretation of the Constitution. Part of the reason for this was that loose constructionism always struck me as too “any way the wind blows”. Lessig’s discussion of translation to preserve meaning and functionality as opposed to literal preservation of exact eighteenth century thinking is the best and clearest explanation of interpretive Constitutional thought I had ever encountered. In the later parts of the book, his application of this “interpretive” Constitutional law to various aspects of free speech, privacy and political law was quite thought-provoking even in cases where I didn’t agree with his interpretation.

Not to mention Lessing has my eternal devotion for arguing for a connection I and every other engineer on the planet encounter daily. Design is rarely about absolutes; there’s usually an array of options and you choose the most feasible for your constraints (time, resources, etc). What he points out is that law is the design (“code”) of a society. There are countless assumptions and value-judgments buried into laws and regulations! The trouble comes when you make a value judgment for others (directly – smoking is illegal everywhere because its BAD; indirectly – you can’t smoke in hospitals, restaurants and bars). Most of the time the government has too much trouble regulating directly (political fallout, constitutional issues) so they choose instead to regulate indirectly. Using the example of Communist Vietnam, Lessig also points out regulatory restriction can be less onerous in situations where the government cannot enforce its regulations, resulting in the people having more freedom than you would expect because the government hasn’t the ability to make them obey.

The entire point of the book is that the Internet’s technical design (code & architecture) could give governments and private groups the ability to enforce their regulations on the people silently without their knowledge or consent. It is now possible for governments and private groups to embed their value judgments in our day-to-day lives without clearly marking these items as “law” or “regulation” and possibly without allowing for the transparency necessary to make the democratic process work. The author gives the example of a propagandist requiring all books have a chapter on Stalin (which everyone can clearly identify as indoctrination and skip) versus tweaking the text in a thousand tiny ways to propagate pro-Stalin beliefs (which would be harder for people to separate from the source and would be more difficult to identify as “regulation”).

Which leads to the standard (and wholly valid) argument in favor of open-source code. We would not accept a law written in secret, whose terms we don’t know, whose enforcement procedure details are forbidden for us to know. BUT proprietary code that embeds either governmental values (to avoid direct regulation) or commercial values (to manipulate markets/consumers) creates regulations for our lives that we aren’t allowed to know the ins&outs of. Also, it closes off debate regarding these values and the best way to propagate them. Only a select few, operating in secret, are a part of the design process.

For example, if there’s only say three companies producing code for an application and the government wants to regulate it, they can meet with the companies and build a law tailored to them. The consumer is not brought into the process until after the law is passed and the code changed. They are just served the modified application perhaps even without any notice that the new version includes a regulatory update of any kind.

BUT with open code, the builders and creators are distributed. Maybe one or two programmers design the application that regulates per government intent. However, if the consumers (&/or other programmers) don’t like it; they have the option to (1) study the regulation to improve it and (2) generate competing regulation that either propagates the values better than government intent or propagates competing values. Open code forces larger amounts of people to be a part of the distribution, design and review of code (ie – unofficial regulation of cyberspace). This functions on some levels as an increase in political participation and awareness.

If you think this is merely a thought experiment, you should review the current situation in Oregon where the state government wants to claim copyright control over the republication of state laws in order to prevent their free distribution online.

Lessig doesn’t take the easy way out either saying “ALL OPEN/CLOSED”. He provides several examples highlighting the complexity of these decisions and the fact that any “one-size-fits-all” solution is probably very, very wrong. There are certain quite legitimate reasons for secrecy. However, current thinking usually assumes secrecy is a de facto good without seriously examining if it is in fact a good in this case.

Another quite interesting point is that the very international nature of the Internet creates huge ambiguities in terms of jurisdictional boundaries. A perfect example from the book is how a streaming TV company was legal in Canada but the website was shutdown because it violated US copyright. Lessig points out that each person on-line is in essence in two locations at once: their country and the international internet community. When I use Blogspot, since I am a US citizen does US law apply to my weblog? Or international law? Or does it depend on the reader, if for example they are in China and subject to that government’s restrictions on publication and speech? For hundreds of years, geographical jurisdictions have determined the applicability of a citizen to certain laws. But with the Internet, I could run afoul of British anti-libel law, Australian hate speech laws or Chinese censorship laws. How do we determine the jurisdictional boundaries in an internet age?

In the later parts of the book, Lessig goes to great lengths to point out that solutions o this problem will need to be multi-modal and complex in order to have any functionality. There is a well-written Appendix which outlines the legal, normative, social and ????? modes by defining them and describing how they interact with one another. Although this book was published several years ago (CONFIRM), you can see the beginnings of Lessig’s recent anti-corruption advocacy here as well. He mentions several times that the current process for fund-raising is deeply flawed and demonstrates rather effectively how it nullifies the intended good of even the most dedicated elected official.

Needless to say, this is a book that gets the mental juices flowing. It’s not a difficult read; Lessing explains things like the underlying architecture of the Internet in clear non-technical terms. What makes it so provoking aren’t the questions he answers but the ones he raises. After reading this book, I’m almost tempted to conduct some kind of research into Constitutional Law because as out-dated as I thought the copyright systems was, well, it’s just a symptom of a much larger problem that isn’t going to go away soon.

So if you want something that changes the way you look at the Internet, Constitutional Law and your government, this is a highly recommended book.

Link to full post.

Everyday Things: Plastic Spoons

(WARNING: This post consists of Grade "A" nit-picking)

One of the perks of being an engineer is that you pay attention to how things work, how they are put together and what they are supposed to do versus what they actually do. I like just picking up an object and trying to figure these things out. Occasionally what I notice isn’t the sleek design or excellent functionality. It isn’t respect for the fact someone’s father worked overtime and missed his son’s baseball game to get this design just right or someone’s mother is on the phone most weekends to help the plants make XX million a year without complaint. What I notice instead is that this object is a piece of crap.

Case in Point:

You’re thinking, it’s a just plastic spoon, what’s the deal? Why are you bent out of shape about a cheap, disposable utensil? Because it’s a badly designed, cheap, disposable utensil. I’m only using this spoon for as long as it takes me to eat a yogurt (approx 2.5 minutes). If the utensil is so poorly designed that it annoys me in this short period of time, then it’s quite poorly designed indeed. In the time it takes me to eat a yogurt, here’s what I noticed:

1) The “scoop” of the spoon is too deep but also too narrow. This means it’s very difficult for your mouth to get out the yogurt in the bottom of the “scoop”. The best spoons are deep but wide that way you can easily slide the food from the spoon into your mouth.

2) Now the plastic used by this type of spoon is pretty flexible. So in order to get the yogurt out of the bottom of the “scoop”, you can flatten it with your tongue. Except these spoons usually have flash (excess material) around the edges from the injection molding process. This flash has usually been flattened while in the mold-press so that it’s razor-thin and razor-sharp, easily cutting into the sides of your mouth. Flattening the spoon with your tongue increases the cutting potential of this excess material.

3) The “ledges” on the underside of the spoon are too large. Yogurt gets stuck under there and the only way to get it out is by licking the underside of the spoon. Which is not something I want to do at work with everyone walking by my cubicle to get their morning coffee.

This particular brand of plastic spoon has a lovely textured handle that frankly does me no good. Perhaps the makers would have been better served to spend the money from the fancy texturing on making a properly functional spoon instead. Of all the things designers could have learned from software engineers why did they have to pick up the “cover woeful lack of function with pretty, pretty features” habit?

A plastic spoon doesn’t get a lot of engineering street-cred because it’s such a simply designed and made object. Spoons have been in use for centuries. Currently, plastic spoons are produced via injection molds of robust but simple design: 1 gate, 2 ejection pins, cavity ID, injected with cheap and ubiquitous plastic. There’s no rocket science here. However, no matter how simple the fabrication process or “typical” the object, every single design should be able to function without annoying the hell out of its user. This spoon doesn't not meet that criterion. It is an invisible, disposable object that becomes glaringly noticeable in the worst way.

People will forgive a computer for being annoying or even a car because on some level, they understand that these are complex machines that in certain respects aren’t fully known until they are built and used. I wonder: What is the excuse for a poorly-made plastic spoon?

Link to full post.

Black & White Coolness

Courtesy of a coworker who let me take a picture of her jacket even after I got her name wrong*:
Spiffy, yes?

*Considering some of the characters in my office, this is probably not the strangest request she’s had while working here.

Link to full post.

Tip: Stop Creepin' People Out.

A coworker lives in a gated community where they do not allow solicitors or anybody going door-to-door for any reason. But for those who bring God’s message, this is not a deterrent. They’ve now begun mailing letters with pamphlets inside to attract believers. Perhaps this tactic would work better if the materials weren’t creepy as hell. The letters start introducing what sounds like a weird self-help scheme. It even mentions that they have answers to age-old questions such as “Why do we grow old & die?”.

The pamphlets themselves are super-duper disturbing:
Those blankly cheerful people combined with that tagline are enough to put me off Kool-Aid for months! Honestly, who thinks this looks appealing? And reading inside doesn’t reduce the disturbing aspect either.

There’s a whole bunch of talk that why man has suffered because of our free will. Here’s a quote:

All the evidence shows that we are nearing the end of man's tragic experiment in independence from God. It has been clearly demonstrated that rulership by humans apart from God can never succeed.

Granted pamphlets have to be succinct but these are certainly some sweeping generalizations aren’t they?

Seriously, does this type of message work for anyone? I know and have known people of many different faiths and levels of faith in my life but I cannot think of one who would look at this material and say “Gee, this sounds exactly for me. Where do I sign up?”

Look, religion can be a powerful and transformative good. And whatever other wackiness these pamphleteers are up to, I highly doubt they remotely approach the ballpark of other religions’ wackos with far more dangerous recruitment techniques. Still, it’s too bad their message in drowned out with such creepy, off-putting presentation materials. Maybe they need to convert a PR consultant or something. Focus on less cultish, “the end is nigh” stuff and more “love your fellow man”, “be a good person” type stuff.

Link to full post.

Movie Review: “Iron Man”

Go see “Iron Man”.

Because it’s just about the most perfectly made action / superhero movie in a LONG time. Robert Downey Jr. is so utterly fantastic in the role that I can’t comprehend how no one thought to cast him as an action hero before. I absolutely adore the fact this movie is first and foremost about a creator taking both responsibility and control of his creations. Some of the best lines in the film revolve around this idea. Gwyneth Paltrow is also quite good as Pepper Potts, a female sidekick who while dedicated isn’t a doormat.

Not to mention the shockingly (and sadly) refreshing fact that the evil terrorists in this movie were actual realistic terrorists. I feel Jon Favearu used a very even hand in directing this movie. It doesn’t try to tell you what to think about certain things. He apparently trusts his audience to both accept his vision and to use their own judgment as to its meaning. In addition to all these obvious points, there were awesome touches sprinkled throughout the film. If I have to pick out the best things:
(1) Stark’s “test videos” for his suit are hilarious
(2) The fact that you’re able to follow the fast-paced battle scenes (good editing)
(3) The homeland security agent and agency name. Mr. Coulson with three scenes managed to be competent, low-key and likable. And the agency itself hints at certain great things to come.

Click on full post for my favorite lines (since these are slightly spoilerish, I’m putting them below the cut):

Engineer: Yes, see to power the suit... sir, the technology doesn't actually exist. So it...
Obadiah Stane: Wait, wait, the technology? Here is the technology. I've asked you to simply make it smaller.
Engineer: Okay, sir, that's what we've been trying to do but honestly, it's impossible.
Obadiah Stane: [yelling] Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave! With a box of scraps!
Engineer: Well, I'm sorry. I'm not Tony Stark.

(Pointing to a robot assigned with firefighting duties)
Stark: If you douse me again, and I'm not on fire, I'm donating you to a city college.

Obadiah: You really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you?

I didn't discuss this in the main article because it has to do with the scene after the credits. Whosoever got Samuel L. Jackson to play Nick Fury deserves a bonus. Considering what I've managed to dig up on the character, well, I'm deeply excited for "Iron Man 2".

Link to full post.

Patterns: Downtown SA / Hotel

As previously stated, I spent a great deal of time in a hotel conference room last week undergoing training. In addition to the lovely sights downtown, this experience also exposed me to some really interesting patterns and decorations.

Full post has patterns from the hotel, decorated luggage and some nature pics.
Teaser: Curtains from Bill-Miller BBQ

OMG! It Buuuuurrrrnnnnsssss!

I knew the hotel would be good for patterns immediately. Less than 3ft inside, I was already breaking out the camera. This column is to the left when entering the lobby from the parking lot:

I like how it kinda draws your eye toward the right (which is where the main walkway is located).

Further exploration of the hotel lobby revealed some decorated suitcases at the top if their main staircase (goes from lobby to pool):


Decorated or painted baggage has been appearing more and more lately in various locations. I’m not sure where this trend came from. Unofficially, I think this fits into the “Too cheap to pay for real decorations” category. They aren’t ugly, just cheap looking next to the more stream-lined look of the rest of the décor.

Inside all of their conference rooms the hotel really plays up their tropical theme:

If it was the same color, I might like it more. As it is, I wonder if the carpet-supply-people ran out of one color and just split the order half-way.

The lobby bathrooms have obviously been added on after the hotel was built. You can see the original wall from inside the bathroom:

Seems a shame to hide the stone but they really do need these bathrooms because of the nearby conference rooms.

While walking around the hotel, in addition to buildings I kept my eye out for any good patterns. I didn’t have much luck...Until I realized, there’s tons of parking lots downtown and the paving might make cool gray wallpaper for my computer. Here’s the best of the “parking lot” pics:

In addition, there's tons of stucco buildings:

I could build a nice white desktop theme around this as a wallpaper.

Finally, on the last day of training after walking by them for four days, I get a good look at the tables in the bar-area of the lobby:

That’s just gorgeous to me. I’m kinda a sucker for tiled tabletops anyway and this pattern is quite striking. If someone had just showed the colors to me, I would have been less impressed. However, I think it’s a mark of a good design that the execution is so well-done that it overcomes your “usual” preferences.

In conclusion, FLOWERS!

Link to full post.

Chocolate Experiment

HEB Grocery stores know their customers. Right next to the self-checkouts is a large display of their higher-end chocolate brands. Succumbing to the power of impulse-buying, I grabbed a couple:

The “Xocolatl” bar is my regular choice (spicy dark chocolate = yum) but on a whim I picked up the “Lavender Blueberry”. Very strange flavor. I was a bit indecisive as to whether I liked it or not. To get some additional feedback, I shared it with my coworkers. The general consensus: Pretty good. However, it’s kinda like eating an aromatherapy bar of soap.

Link to full post.

Overheard At Work, pt13

Category: “Ego Deflation”

Accountant: Why does this no-name have a fan club?!
Engineer: Everybody has a fan club.
Accountant: Even me?
Engineer: No.

PS - Wow, it's been almost two months since my last one of these....

Link to full post.

Exploring Downtown San Antonio

This week, I've been attending some training downtown. Now, most of the time I'm in classes but during lunch I've had some time to explore...And I decided to put my new camera to the test. So, this photo-heavy post is the result.

Full post includes photos from the hotel, riverwalk area (including new construction) and various downtown buildings.
Teaser: Weird Modern Fountain.


While the hotel itself was older, it had an interesting tropical theme that resulted in some nice touches. The patterns from this place will be a separate post. But here are a few decorative highlights....

Throughout the hotel lobby, they had these mask/suit things on display. They were quite colorful.
If a little scary.

The phone alcove.
I love this. It's very arresting.

And the piece de resistance:
Chairs made with seatbelt webbing! All over the lobby! Very Awesome.

The hotel was on the riverwalk at the very North end. The banks were lined with one of my favorite plants:
Now, I always heard this referred to as a "Wandering Jew" which, according to Wikipedia, is not a polite term. The technical name is Tradescantia pallida. It grows all over the Texas Gulf coast.

San Antonio is extending the riverwalk on the Northern end so from the hotel we had a great view of the construction (I know, only an engineer would think this).



To get to the riverwalk, there's always these wonderful stone staircases and tunnels, like so:
Well, in the new construction, you can see the "skeletons" for future staircases:


Most of the touristy parts of the riverwalk are on the Southern end, the North is more local businesses and park-like.


Sometimes the bridges are quite decorated, both under and over

There's also the occasional tunnel.
Can you tell I'm a fan of the stonework?

All around the hotel, there's tons of just gorgeous old & new buildings. Some fit in with what you'd expect and some are just very out of place if cool. Let's start with the first one I noticed:
Webb Hall is this huge complex of red brick buildings. It's practically a whole city-block.

Next up is the Municipal Auditorium. From the back, it appears quite stern and boring. Think: the administrative offices for Azkaban prison. The front however is quite cool.
(Note: the antenna is behind the building not sprouting from one of the domes)

Across from there is one of the many AT&T buildings downtown. This one is the largest I saw. It has a couple war memorials out front in a little park area. The majority of the building is boring-ol-skyscraper. But the windows and doors on the first floor are stunning:
And it's not just in front either, along the side there's equal detail:


Unfortunately, downtown has some parts that aren't very nice. But sometimes, even a rundown buildings catch your eye.
I love the details around the second story windows here.

Now some buildings very much blend in while also being nice-looking in their own right. For instance, there's this apartment building:
Definitely Hispanic influence, fits in with the neighborhood and beautiful building.

Other buildings, man, they stuck out like a sore thumb.
I don't know what this is. I call it 'Crazy Red Building'. It doesn't fit in AT ALL. In another area, it might be more appealing but I went looking for old houses and came across this.

Eventually, I did find some grand old mansion-like houses.
Most are law offices with the backyard converted into tiny parking lots. They usually have pretty huge porches and balconies.
This one looks great considering it's abandoned:


Finally, I struck GOLD. One morning while on the freeway, I noticed a church steeple:

I thought, 'Hmmmm...that's probably worth checking out for pictures'. Boy, was I right!

It's a historical building according to the marker, the "Madison Square Presbyterian Church'. Gorgeous stonework, with some buildings behind it done in the same material.



All in all, wandering around downtown like a tourists isn't a bad way to spend my lunch hours.

Coming soon! Patterns from my training experience.

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Seen Around: Patterns & Sundry

I. Nature patterns:

Good: The booth upholstery at Thai Corner

Nicely stylized. Subtle colors. Pleasing without being distracting.

Bad: Somebody’s actual truck in front of me during rush hour

Worst. Camouflage. Ever! What possessed this person to defile their vehicle this way?

II. Not Patterns, Just Wrong:

From a gas station in Laredo

The scary part is this crossed the border twice without anyone noticing.

From a gas station in San Antonio

How do you exorcise school spirit?

(This post brought to you by Canon, the makers of my shiny new camera.)

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