US/mexico "Secure Fence Act of 2006",

town center?

Main Street.

I spent a lot of my teenage years with my friends in our market square. I grew up in New England and lived in Belfast, ME as a child and Portsmouth, NH as a teenager. We always lived in walking and biking distance to down town and school. It was something important to my mom who wanted me to be independent and not have to drive me everywhere. I greatly appreciated this freedom and could easily walk from the park, to a friend’s house, to my part time jobs, to the store, and to school. My mom dug up the sidewalk around our house and planted vegetables. We had compost in the back as well. Having grown up this way I see the benefits of urban living with amenities at a close walk or bike ride away. My small city also had grocery stories, individually owned businesses in town, a post office, and library all with in walking distance. I have been think about the design of Austin and its town center a lot. Everything is so spreed out!

$400,000 a year on grafiti?

I read the other day in the Daily Texan that the City of Austin spends $400,000 a year cleaning up graffiti around town and plans to prosecute graffiti artists. There is a task force to hunt the artists down and identify their tags to then fine them. I am not a fan of poorly done graffiti in bad places though I enjoy well-done work as well as the uncontrollability of street art. Philly started their amazing city mural program as a way to control graffiti around the city. The program was designed so that caught graffiti artists would have to do community service and help with city murals along side artists and volunteers. Amazing murals now cover the city.
It would be great if some of that $400,000 could go into Austin murals! Austin has a weird history of not supporting public art mural projects and even racist blotters covering up Mexican American murals around the Holly Power plant (John Yancey gave me a bit of history about it last year). I am happy to say that the 2 youth mural projects I have done at Kealing Jr. High have not suffered any graffiti tags over the last 2 years. It has shows me that youth can handle a paint brush and respect each others work if given the chance.

my number is ahhhhhhhhh

Does anyone ever for get his or her own phone number or his or her best friends name when talking to a new person? I do this weird thing in my head when I am about to give someone my phone number or mention a name…….. I freeze. Its because a little voice in my head takes over and plays a little game. (the game starts like this…..I think to myself wouldn’t if be funny if I forgot my own number…… I freeze and the number will not come out.) Today someone asked me my number and the little voice in my head played the freeze game. I had to open my phone and pretend to look up my number while I internally battled with the little voice to give out my 9 digits. I don’t think the person though I was that out of it but I had to think to myself……… okay I know it starts with 512-…….. and then it came out. The same game happens with names. Its like a little missing program bug… and just lasts a few seconds. When I introduce people in can happen too. Its not like life isn’t embarrassing enough at times.

cold swim

The Free Barton Springs pool hours of 9pm-10pm seems like the way to get though the 90 plus degree days and nights left in Austin. Last night I found it to be like swimming through one of Blake’s midnight light pollution photos minus all of the other swimmers. The water has a deep green omniscient look under the natural pools streetlights. Though the water maintains its shockingly cold temperature throughout Austin’s unbearable heat I have managed a ways to endure more then a quick “Oh my good its cold” and jump out experience. The trick is swimming from one side to the other. It never gets warm but swimming with a destination and goal seems to help with mind over body. Goals…….. This semester I am trying to include swimming, biking, and yoga into my grad. school days. They say physical exercise helps one be more productive in other aspects of their life. Worth a try………..now to set some project goals and time lines.

swimming

Last night I left the art building after dark and rolled my bike up the hill toward East Austin. Once I reached the top I decided to cut through the grass hill by the Latin American Studies Dept. I guess I wanted a mini nature walk through the trees instead of looking at the overpowering stadium (ha only used 7 games a year) and its parking garage. I began to feel like a moth flying toward a glowing light. The fountain was on full steam and completely lit its 15 foot plus water spray. Being the only one around I started to wonder who it was lit up for. As I enter earshot I began to go under its hypnotizing trance due to the power of its crashing waves. It brought me back to the Maine Cost for a minute. I then began to think about all the campus folklore stories I have heard about campus fountains. One is that the campus energy plant uses the large fountains for cooling the plant. I have also heard the fountains have electrical shocks to get ride of swimmers. First off you would have to be really crazy to scale the high walls of this fountain though it would feel amazing. Second its seems like an electrical shock coming out of a fountain would be lethal. Next time I have time for a swim I think I will stick with our under utilized country club pool at the Gregory gym. Now to just find the time….anyone want to go for a swim?

Bouncy Balls

Okay so have you guys seen the sony bravia (bouncy balls, bunny ad, foam city, exploding paint ball) videos? Thanks to my TA job in digital design with Peter Tucker I have been exposed to them and a few other silly things out there on the internet. Some really talented artists have sold out big time to Sony Bravia TV. The videos are really stunning and make you think about the possibilities for color applications to the built environment in a whole new way. You Tube videos are out there to even learn how them made the videos. My question is who are the artists because Sony Bravia is the only one that gets credit.
here is a link to one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bb8P7dfjVw