I skimmed it, and I'll read it in depth over lunch. Looks like a great paper, BUT it's designers evaluating designers' presentations. Does anyone know of any research where Joe or Jane Average weighs in?

To anyone who didn't watch the broadcast on ESPN, you HAVE to catch it when the rebroadcast it (and they will- how many times a week is The World's Strongest Man on?). Those announcers have mastered hyperbole and bombast (bombasticity?). The 40 minute lead-in to the competition was some of the best tv I've ever seen.

Dave

As busy professionals, I think we all identify with the mouse:

The Mouse And The Giraffe
A mouse was setting in a bar having a drink when a beautiful giraffe came in and sat down at the end of the bar.

The mouse looked over at her and ordered her a drink.

Soon he had moved down beside her and ordered her another drink.

After a third round, the bartender looked up and they were leaving the bar together.

The next day the mouse limped into the bar, barely crawled up on the barstool and sat there gasping for air. His whiskers were bent and broken, tail was crooked and patches of hair were falling out.

The bartender took one look and said, "How did it go last night?"

The mouse said, "Man, that was the best sex I ever had."

The bartender asked, "Why do you look so bad?"

The mouse replied, "Hey, between the kissing and the screwing I must have run 10 miles!"

I read this weekend that using a human-powered reel mower instead of a gas mower, a 180-lb man will burn 500 calories per hour. As a sidenote, your grass will look 10x better as well. I used a reel mower all last year, and have been cheating this year and using a gas-powered rotary mower- no comparison. My backyard went from thick and happy to brown, stressed and weedy.

I'm not trading in my weed whacker for a scythe, though. I do have a life.

Dave

Paul James is good if a little corny. There was a really good show a while back called the City Gardener and it starred a British LD named Matt James. He did some great stuff, but when the network dragged him to America and shot a season here the show took a dive.

Getting back to one of the original thoughts in this thread, about interior designers and sexuality- I spent two years studying interior design. If you're single, male and straight, I HIGHLY recommend majoring in interior design. Just saying, is all.

Dave

There's a show on HGTV called "Dream House" or something similar (I think). They follow a custom home from concept to completion, and tend to do a good job showing some of the pitfalls and how they're overcome. My gripe is with Landscaper's Challenge- "Bob and Jill want a pool, patio, bbq island, fireplace, and a levitating marble cabana. They have a budget of $30,000 for labor and materials." And they never say the final real budget, OR what actual "retail" is for those projects! Cut my throat why don't you, HGTV!

I'm making it a point to get outside and work in the yard more. Also, when I go to a site to lay out the plants for the landscape crews I now grab a shovel and help them plant. It confused the heck out of them at first, but now they're cool.

The wife & I also bought pedometers and we're trying to increase our daily step count.

Dave

Ross,

My wife makes homemade yogurt with local organic milk, then puts it in a yogurt cheesemaker and lets it drain for two days to get out as much whey as possible. We're experimenting with various mix-ins like honey or herbs, because homemade yogurt is WAY more sour than the commercial stuff. It spreads like cream cheese, and is obviously way better for you. Lasts about two weeks, too.

I think this link will get you to the yogurt maker:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/lan ... pe=product

Sure, it's a unitasker, but it's set and forget so who can argue? We buy the yogurt culture from the same mfr. I'll see if my wife knows where we bought the cheesemaker. You can make the cheese with the cloth bag included with the yogurt maker, but it's a lot of mess.

Dave

Flax oatmeal & a bagel shmeared with homemade yogurt cheese... now that's some good stuff. That tang will wake you up better than coffee (which is still a true love of mine).

Dave

After much soul-searching I have decided to begin my modelling career as a professional "before" model. My impressive girth as well as my photoshop skills (for the after shots) will add credence to your most outrageous claims.

Dave

That's a beautiful house, and I particularly like the way the elevations turned out. One question: where does the overflow for the rain barrel go? Or is that a "for later" detail, once you're past the conceptual phase?

okay, that's awesome. By the way, it turns out that King's Architectural Metals offers a CD with CAD details of their parts that they'll send out for free. So that helps too.

Awesome site, Ron.

Dave

I'm designing a gate- imagine being told "make it as tacky and gaudy as you can." To keep the cost down I'm using stock Lawler, Blum and King's parts. My question is, is there a way (someone's proprietary program? A hidden website feature?) I can search by the size of the piece I need? Don't get me wrong, it's kind of fun to put the tunes on shuffle and flip page by page through 700 pages of parts, but I don't feel efficient doing it...

Dave

wow... y'know, now that I've come down off the ceiling and stopped sputtering like Donald Duck about this whole "migration" thingy, I was questioning my decision to pull my attachments- at least a little bit. Now, not so much.

Dave

Coen, thanks for all this. Maybe this was a little bit of a blessing in disguise- I know I for one had stopped posting as regularly. Sometimes it just takes getting a little fire lit under your butt (can I say butt? Are the cuss rules just about George Carlin's words, or more?).

Dave

definitely keep us posted- I'll be watching this space closely!

Happy Birthday, Tom! You've now crossed over from "smart-ass" to "wise"!

Getting a little farther along in the design- finally starting to look like something.

Phil- you mean like this? Obviously I'll do something (maybe even a cut on a 45) to terminate the bottom end. That solves my problem of what to do if the client opts to use real stone to face the bottom of the wall.

thanks- the stone is actually pulled out 2" (to represent cultured stone or a sawn veneer) but now that you mention it, it's not reading for me either. I'll go bigger.