I had a very rough week this past week. I spent about a week and half on a paper and then realized I did it entirely wrong, urgh. So I am now having to start over and redo the entire thing, so in actuality I wasted about 10days that I could have spent on sometime productive. Oh well, I did learn quite a bit about the media industry and the impacts of the Internet on it in the process, so I guess all is good.

I did have a few hours here or there where I just kinda said screw it and I spent time on other things so I have lots I read this week. If you talked to me any this week most of these stories probably aren't new, I talked about some of them quite a bit.

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Ahhh its the Holiday season. You can always tell right when the holiday season begins because its right when a right wing Christian declares its boycotting something. This year its GAP by the American Family Association due to GAP's holiday adds where they said "Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, Go Kwanzaa, Go Solstice" I don't see what the big deal is, looks like GAP finally gave in and is now trying to please everyone. There are some people your never please.

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On the subject of please people I read an interesting article about a solider who found a gun and turned it into the police and then was arrested and charged for having the gun! Poor solider was just trying to please the police by doing the right thing. This story blew my mind, come on, we make the rules that means we can follow them how we see fit. This is just plain laziness by the police and the judge, instead of trying to find out where the gun came from they will instead just place blame on the person who tried to help them. I hope this goes to a higher court and is overturned, and I hope this police chief is fired for such a stupid move!

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When it comes to stupid looks like Florida may have a lead in the race. We were been rated the strangest state when it comes to news stories. Funny, all my friends have been telling me this for years and I didn't believe, guess they were right.

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But not to worry Florida hasn't won it all. Looks like Oregon, and of course California, beat us in a rating of states in fiscal peril. I agree with the writer though that Oregon is much better than Florida, though I disagree its because they tax the rich. I think it has more to do with their sprawl laws that he just briefly mentioned.

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While on the subject of money I found a graph this week that shows where Fortune 500 companies are located, I was surprised to see how many were in Texas. Charts like these help me remember data and internally process it better, I wish we had more charts likes this!

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Robert Scoble this week blogged about the worst things new starts up can do. It made me think about how I am wanting to start Causation. Its easy for me to see how it will run once its up and going, its so difficult to see those first few baby steps though.

I was reading the book Silicon Alley this week and after this blog entry it pointed out all the wrong things that companies like Razorfish did. I hope that I learn from their lessons and that Causation is a success due to its strong founding.

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One thing that I want Causation to be focused on is being environmentally sensitive. This story about GE being focused on smaller options made me think about what each individual can do. My father had the opportunity to invest in some of this technology a few years ago so I have been following the individual wind turbine thought for the last few years, there is lots of potential here, I just hope that people realize its a financially smart move.

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This story about a tiny house inspired me. I live in a 525sq ft 2 bedroom house (yes I know IKEA had large show houses on its sales floor) and everyone makes fun of my tiny little house with 6 lightbulbs (yes it only takes 6 lightbulbs to light up my entire house and one window unit AC to cool it!) so this video of 96sq ft home challenged me to maybe have my next house be even smaller!

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One of the reasons I love the Orlando Sentinel is because its trying to make the news interactive. This feature on how people are moving out of Florida is a great example, the article itself kinda stinks but the interactive feature on the top kept me interested in the story and through it I learned quiet a bit about where people moving to Florida are coming from and where people moving out of Florida are going.

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On a completely different note I was first impressed that they named a new species after Steve Irwin but then a read what creature it was. A man known for wrestling alligators, sharks, and other creators, who dies because a stingray attacks him has a creature named after him and its a SNAIL! come on people! a snail. how sad is that, in the future people will Steve Irwin because of some tiny small snail and not because of some crazy insane guy. strange.

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On a more serious note I read an article beginning of the week that made me rethink how we may have to deal with terrorist. I must admit that I had oversimplified the matter before reading this, I am not sure if I agree with every thing this article says but it made me realize that matter is much more difficult than most people try to make it.

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And to finish off the list I'll include an article of general interest that I read about toilet paper. I love finding out new and interesting facts about the things we take for granted. I have books and books that I read over and over filled with random stories and facts like this. I don't know why but understanding the things around me that most people never think about really interest me.


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Well thats about it for this week. I have a few other articles and entries I've been thinking about but I think those will be used in some entries this week. If not I'll post them in next week's weekend reads. Have a good weekend. I'll be home researching Personal Rapid Transit systems all weekend for a proposal I'm presenting on Tuesday. This week I'm super busy with school. This week and next are my two weeks of presentations, papers, and projects then its the end of the semester. crazy.

While I was living in Tampa I had the opportunity to teach at an inner city school for about two months. It was the last two months of the semester and the teacher had an emergency out of state so I was called in and took the class through the end of the year.

I didn't have a lot of experience working with sixth graders before and especially ones from inner city poverty plagued families. It was a very eye opening experience for me and one I hope I'll never forget.

One of the most interesting insights in this 2 months in a inner city school for me was how the school used technology. As schools, especially here in Florida, focus more and more on Math, Science, Engineering, and Technology I was shocked to see how little any of these were used in the classroom.

Know I must explain that I taught a social sciences class so of course there would not be as much engineering or math in the those classes but there is no reason why technology and science aren't brought into them.

I had the freedom to bring in new lesson plans, due to the fact that the previous teacher had neglected to use or teach the required material. I quickly put a request in and got a projector and ELMO. Within a few days I had redid the desks, integrated videos into EVERY lesson, had students bringing in books and other items from the library and created a more hands on approach.

I quickly realized that cell phones were banned at the school (a popular rule at public schools that I disagree with but understand the logic behind it) and was amazed at how little most of these students actually knew about online social networking, cell phone usage, and other important skills needed in the 21st Century.

I was soon using facebook, twitter, and google earth in the lessons. Of course most of this was blocked on the schools computers so I was having to use my cell phone's web browser and the ELMO to actually do these things. The class was excited to come and actually have interactive lessons where we might send a person in another country a tweet asking them about that place or seeing a person's vacation pictures from a foreign country as we studied that country.

I had the other teachers talking and was soon helping them do similar projects in their classes. Sadly the end of the year came upon on quickly and my duty at the school was over. (I must say that many of the students who at the beginning of the two months couldn't even point out where Florida was on a map at the end of the semester could tell you in-depth information about many larger countries and information about the Latin American countries that have a influence upon Tampa's culture.)

I share all this to show how technology is currently discouraged in public schools and how instead it should be brought into the classroom. I see no reason why every school in the country is not on Skype, is not tweeting, is not on facebook. In the midst of my time at the middle school the swine flu epidemic broke out causing some other schools in the county to be forced to close. I was following the county school district on twitter and knew, often times before the other teachers, the latest information on what schools were being closed.

If we expect to educate our students to be successful in a 21st Century workplace we need to teach them how to be abreast with the latest ever evolving technology. I encountered schools that had little contact and even smaller amount s of understand of what social networking really was. Instead I found teachers encouraging students to delete their facebooks, not tweet anything and pretty much live in fear of the internet.

The teachers would joke with me saying I was going to be the first teacher to just tweet my lessons but the underlining fact was still there, that many of them openly didn't "get" what the facebook, myspace, hi5, twitter, digg, or any of the other mainstream internet was. The other joke was that this was the only inner city class in the world that has facebook, twitter, and flicker all used in the daily lessons, sadly this isn't far from the truth.

That was why I was so happy to see that Purdue is encouraging an integration of these newer technologies into the classroom.

I hope to see the same from out public schools sooner than later. Even if cell phones are still banned (which hate to break it to anybody who thinks differently but every student in classroom has a cell phone on them and most are already texting in class.) there could be a touch screen modular built into the desks. I'm imagining a laptop style learning center that each student uses throughout the class. I think in the long run this would be cheaper than the smart-boards (which in my opinion is the most overrated and under-preforming technology I have ever seen), continually updating the books, and helps teach different students in different ways. I loved the classrooms where each student had a computer and class chats were on each screen. The teacher can monitor the screens at their desk but I would prefer the teacher to have tablet PC so they could be able to monitor each screen while also moving about the room.

I realize none of this discussion is new but I think that for too long we have just said "oh we need technology is the classroom" and have put a computer in the corner, or a smartboard on the wall, or an ELMO in the room. Instead we need to say "What technology will these students need to know and how can we use that technology in the classroom?" That isn't overpriced webcams or interactive boards, its Internet technology. Sure I would love to see every desk in every classroom be a Microsoft Surface product but right now that's not the finical reality but there is no reason why twitter or flicker can't be in the classroom.

I just hope that our public schools are serious when they say they will become competitive in global market and the best way to see if they are is to see how they integrate technology.

The other day I stumbled across a blog dedicated to old malls. I find things like this just amazing. I love exploring older buildings, looking through old photographs of buildings, anything related to discovering what was in place before interest me.

A few blocks from my house is the site of the old Winter Park Mall, now redeveloped as a mixed use development and known as Winter Park Village. My mother has stories of going to the old Winter Park Mall so looking around this blog that I found I decided to search for this old mall. The pictures I found I must admit my mothers stories did not give justice to. In the middle of the mall was this beautiful chalice shaped fountain over pouring with water on all sides.



What's amazing to me as I look at this picture is how retro and in style this fountain is. Sadly I assume that when the Winter Park Mall was transformed into its new state this along with all the other details of the original mall were destroyed.

As we grapple with what to do with the wasteland of dead malls in this country I hope that we don't forget that these malls were once stylish state of the art centers of action for communities.

According to Mark Dery on Design:Observer, Southdale, the world's first mall, had...
"a garden court with a café. And a fishpond. And brightly colored birds twittering in a 21-foot cage. Reporting on the opening, Architectural Record made it sound like the Platonic Ideal of Downtown — what downtown would be “if downtown weren’t so noisy and dirty and chaotic.” A town square in a bell jar: modern, orderly, spanking clean."

What a wonderful place, sadly often times these small pieces of beauty are overlooked once the mall begins to fail and soon the entire thing, both the ugly empty stores and the beautiful courtyards are bulldozed in the name of progress.

I think there is another way though, why can't we as a community decide on what pieces of a shopping center to keep. Just as this fountain in the Winter Park Mall could have been a connection for the new shopping area with its predecessor, many shopping centers have pieces that can and should be preserved. (An even more recent example is the auctioning off of Church Street Station in downtown Orlando. What once was the epicenter of all cultural activities within the city was literally ripped apart and sold off piece by piece. I have not heard where many of the pieces were sold too but I hope that even as Church Street Station is redeveloped its legacy continues through these icons now hopefully kept local but spread across the region.)

I view this as a way to keep in touch with recent history. Often times cities, such the one I live in Winter Park, have numerous efforts to preserve and showcase the older history of the community but let more recent yet equally as important historical buildings and icons disappear.

Sure the 60's and 70's wont go down in history as the greatest time in history for fashion or architecture but that doesn't mean we shouldn't appreciate what it is.

On a recent visit to a local history museum I noticed this first hand, there were numerous displays on the community from its founding till the 40's or so then very little mentioned on anything after that period yet the community itself had such a rich and diverse history since then. Why is there no mention of the Winter Park Mall in the history museum, no pictures of these beautiful features the mall had, its as though the city has had nothing happen since the 40's.

My fear is as we redevelop these failed experiments in social relations called malls that we may eventually forget what these areas started as, that they started as malls and were different in their very founding than other areas of the city. That is part of the history of the community, a part of the history I fear we may forget if we don't keep icons from that era.

I hope for a future where malls are the minority yet I fear for a future where malls are a forgotten piece of our rich history.

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Here is a very interesting looking movie about Malls and their social implications and meanings.

Have any of you seen this documentary?

I realized that lately I have been posting a lot of urban design and referencing New Urbanism quite a bit. Some of you have been asking me why do I care so much about this. I'll let this video do the explaining for me.

I found this interesting website the other day.

Cities X Design

They are currently in the midst of a cross country film project documenting urban design from coast to coast. The site has a social networking aspect through ning also. I thought I would share it with you guys, it looks very intriguing. I have yet to have the time to really explore and add content to the site but I think this may quickly become one of my favorite sites.

It really excites me how many people are finally embracing the ideas of New Urbanism and realizing that the designs from the past are not working!

Is it the weekend already? This week has gone by so fast!

For most of it I have been working on my finals for school. Mostly the one about the media for my ProSeminar class. I started the week ready to begin writing it but instead I started doing some more research, found some very interesting articles and have now taken the entire paper in a new direction. (I don't recommend doing this just weeks before a project is due!)

Because of school I haven't done a lot of outside reading this week but I did get a few stories of interest that filled my thoughts this week.

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This first one isn't a story but a video.

New Urbanism Agenda is ruining Scottsdale

OMG I never knew people were this against New Urbanism. I personally think that sometimes it doesn't go far enough (Sorry Celebration looks a lot like sprawl these days) but this is insane. Albeit most of the points he makes are completely illogical fear tactics but who is this guy (my guess is a angry real estate investor who just lost a lot of money on a tract of land outside of Scottsdale, jk jk) Once again a lack of education on the facts has caused a person to jump on a bandwagon.

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On a happier note I learned that since I like Bud Light I "frat boy-like personalities, particularly when it comes to personal risk-taking. In regard to others, these good-time guys and gals are accepting of most everyone and generally easy to get along with. " Sadly this is pretty true I think.

I do like the occasional Blue Moon which means I "can also be sarcastic and snide in order to get a point across."

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With all the talk about the Berlin Wall recently this article showed how far we have come and yet how far we have to go. I was especially sadden to see the US-Mexico fence, I think this fence is by far one of the worst images America could ever portray. A nation founded by immigrants literally building a wall to block them is beyond my comprehension. And from what I have heard it doesn't help the local wildlife at all either.

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This blog entry on strange brand extensions wasn't that interesting. But the quote towards the end of it made me literally laugh out loud (or is it still lol if it happened literally?). When referring to Singles the poorly named canned adult food by Gerber "As Business 2.0’s Susan Casey said, “they might as well have called it ‘I Live Alone and Eat My Meals From a Jar.’” I love that! I did get a little enjoyment out of the article. Colgate microwave meals, ewww! My favorite flopped brand extension is Hooters Air, come on I don't want most of hooter's waitresses I've had in charge of a jumbo jet!

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Some interesting insights of how a small northern California town is being affected by the recent pot laws in that state. I see this as not a comment of how bad pot is but a comment of how many people use the drug. I think that as more states legalize pot we will see fewer of these bad examples. If its legal everywhere people won't flock to one area to get it.

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Here is good visual breakdown (though how accurate I don't know) of how profitable legalizing pot could be. I don't know of about you but I think that Florida could use an extra $48million in tax revenue! Of course I doubt these tax ideas. Taxing something that people can easily grow on their own doesn't seem like it would work to me. Taxing pot is like taxing tomatoes, who is going to pay the taxes when they can just grow it at home?

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One last article on pot. I found this one shocking. The American Medical Association is urging a review of pots drug status. I think this is more publicity than actual movement for the ASA. I view this as a way for the conservative ASA to gain acceptance with the more liberal leaning current Washington administration in preparation of the health care act. But that's just me and my conspiracy theories. Either way its a huge step forward for the ASA and for the Marijuana legalization debate.

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On the topic of mother nature still I found a great article that discusses global warming with a sceptic who has a similar argument (well actually the exact same argument) as I do. Of course I still support most environmental policies, not out of a fear we're all going to die but because we need to become more connected to the natural world around us. We do need to build and live more sustainably. It might not be the end of the world but its just the smart thing to do.

To say that Co2 is going to cause the end of the world seems far fetched to me. We have had meteors hit this planet, dinosaurs roam it, and ancient civilizations who were known for their fires and buildings conquer it. We know have the ability to go back to the ancients knew, that living with the land is far more important than just living on it. That is why I support environmental movements.

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One way to live in a better harmony with nature is by peeing outside! I just found this article today but I sure was thinking about it a lot and telling others about it. The National Trust is the UK is encouraging people to pee on their compost heaps to help it decompose, no joke!

I think this is great not only as a way to save resources like water but it helps jumpstart the discussion on acceptable public acts. I see no reason why urinals are hidden away out of sight in America. In Europe I saw this on the street corners, it only makes sense.

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Also out of today's readings I found an interesting article that states investing in nature is more valuable than investing in gold. The facts they use seem weak but still an interesting thought. I would like to invest in both though, how about investing in acreage that has gold on it. That way no matter which becomes more valuable I can be ok. lol

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And one last article. This one is on what makes a logo work. It all seems common sense to me. I have only done a little business consulting but the number one thing I always say (even to those who didn't ask!) is just keep it simple. Be original, don't use the symbol people expect you to use.

A good rule I always try to use is if a normal person can't draw it quickly then it MIGHT be too complicated. The other rule I like to use is how does it look on a letter heading and how does it look on a t-shirt? If in both cases it looks ok then it might work. I don't know how true in the industry these rules are but its just what I have tending to notice myself and it seems to work most of the time.

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Well sadly thats about all I joy-read this week. I could have filled about three of these entries with other articles I've read but I'm pretty sure you don't want to read academic articles about the new creative types and how they're changing media. I found it interesting but after about the 1oth article even I am getting tired of it.

Well much love and see you soon!
Thanks for reading

I have yet to see this film but it looks very interesting. Have any of you seen it? I'll be renting it in the next few weeks, if you want to see it just tweet or facebook me and maybe we can see it together.

One of the joys of living in Winter Park is the ability to experience all that metro Orlando has to offer but still have a small town where I do my daily activities. I have the ability to do all basic living without ever leaving a 6 block or so area. There are numerous shops, restaurants, grocery stores, art museums, a movie theater, book stores, a post office, a private liberal-arts college, and a train station (servicing the silver line going from here all the way to NYC) within a short bike ride or walk of my house.

What makes this so interesting is that Winter Park is a planned community, actually it is the first centrally planned community in the entire state of Florida. It is in some ways the type of city that many places are now trying to replicate, such as Baldwin Park in Orlando and Celebration in Kissimmee.

Orlando is now being broken into more refined districts, such as Baldwin Park, ViMi (Virginia and Mills), SoDo (South of Downtown), Parramore, and so on. Winter Park being literally across the railroad tracks from Orlando has the opportunity to show Orlando and urban planners the world over how to deal with transportation within these new (actually old yet rediscovered) district villages.

Instead of having Orlando or any medium to larger city for that matter focus on a single plan of action in address the pedestrian and traffic concerns of a city I believe each district should address the issues in a district wide approach then lay out a simplified approach in the connecting of these districts.

This is where Winter Park can shine. It has the ability to prove this method, though many other smaller cities are also already proving it.

I hope for a future in Winter Park where a bike sharing/rental program is city wide, where a city wide bus or trolley system connects the residential and commercial areas throughout. Instead of relying on the county to address the transit needs of the city why not have the city address them? Why not build large parking garages outside of the downtown shopping district with buses that people can use to travel to and from the shopping area.

Parking near Park Ave is at its breaking point and more overly decorated parking garages behind the shops on expensive real estate is not the answer. The answer lies in the idea of moving people to and from the downtown area without their cars. This means more bike trails, more walkable roads, and a better transit system.

London has a system in its core district that literally taxes every car that enters it, now I am not one for taxes but I do see where making it less desirable to bring your car into the core area and instead using an alternative way to access it helps the city. By getting people out of their cars they can pass more shops and spend longer in the city which in theory has them spending more in it.

I am imagining a system where people park near Orlando Ave (17/92) or 436 and enter into the core area of Winter Park in alternative forms of transit. Of course the SunRail will dramatically help this, one of the many reason I am a huge proponent of the SunRail and the supporting high speed rail. SunRail though is more of the system that connects the districts since it only has one or so stops in each district (one being in Winter Park, one being in Downtown Orlando, one being in Altamonte, etc.) But one commuter rail line is not enough.

We need buses, trolleys, maybe even boat taxis and horse drawn carriages to move people through the area. Altamonte realizes this and is attempting to address this by introducing the flexbus system the connects to the SunRail. This is a great first step but one bus route around a mall is not the end by any means.

Then if it is proven to work to here other areas will copy it. Baldwin Park seems to always be copying Winter Park (As seen in the recent ads that state "32814 is the new 32789" 32814 being Baldwin Park, Fl and 32789 being Winter Park.)

Winter Park has the opportunity to not only continue its growth by new transit but also can lay the foundation to help other areas realize their own potential when they look within themselves instead of looking for a metro wide approach.