Good Foot Skills

The Catalan Way to Grow Players on Home Soil

Just in time for the Champions League final, there is a good article in the New York Times about the Barcelona youth development system. While I'm sure something is lost in translation, I think this is a great sentiment. (emphasis added)

“Parents are giving us something they consider most valuable — their children — at a vulnerable age,” Folguera said. “It is important to show them the value of effort and humility. Talent alone does not work. You must be humble and a normal person, something that each parent of a certain level of dignity would be proud of.”

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Parks and Recreation: Jean-Ralphio's best man speech

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The New Yorker: Up and then Down

This article in The New Yorker is the most interesting article I've ever read about elevators. Not that I read a lot about elevators but I do like tall buildings and especially super tall buildings. There are many eye opening pieces of information in it. Elevators are like magic, a lot of stuff happens where you can't see it. Good information for a structural engineer.

Not the craziest thought, but not something you often think about planning a high rise:

An over-elevatored building wastes space and deprives a landlord of revenue. An under-elevatored building suffers on the rental or resale market, and drives its tenants nuts. In extreme cases, when the wait becomes actually long, instead of merely perceptibly long, things fall apart. The Bronx family-court system, for example, was in a shambles last year because the elevators at its courthouse kept breaking down. (The stairs are closed, owing to security concerns.) This led to hour-long waits, which led to missed court dates, needless arrest warrants, and life-altering family strife.

I don't know what it is about someone describing what people do unconciously, but I always cracks me up. Like how people arrange themselves in an elevator:

Passengers seem to know instinctively how to arrange themselves in an elevator. Two strangers will gravitate to the back corners, a third will stand by the door, at an isosceles remove, until a fourth comes in, at which point passengers three and four will spread toward the front corners, making room, in the center, for a fifth, and so on, like the dots on a die. With each additional passenger, the bodies shift, slotting into the open spaces. The goal, of course, is to maintain (but not too conspicuously) maximum distance and to counteract unwanted intimacies—a code familiar (to half the population) from the urinal bank and (to them and all the rest) from the subway. One should face front. Look up, down, or, if you must, straight ahead. Mirrors compound the unease. Generally, no one should speak a word to anyone else in an elevator. Most people make allowances for the continuation of generic small talk already under way, or, in residential buildings, for neighborly amenities. The orthodox enforcers of silence—the elevator Quakers—must suffer the moderates or the serial abusers, as they cram in exchanges...

It's also cool to see innovation in what doesn't seem to be an exciting industry:

The other was the “destination dispatch” system that the Marriott introduced, a few years ago, becoming the first hotel in North America to do so... Destination dispatch assigns passengers to an elevator according to which floors they’re going to, in an attempt to send each car to as few floors as possible. You enter your floor number at a central control panel in the lobby and are told which elevator to take.

I was also glad to see Frank Lloyd Wright (being from Wisconsin I have an affinity for his work) got a mention for his crazy mile high tower with nuclear powered elevators

Two weeks ago, a Saudi prince announced a plan for a mile-high tower in a new city being built near Jidda—more than twice as tall as Burj Dubai. Fortune is bidding on that one, too. Frank Lloyd Wright designed a mile-high, five-hundred-and-twenty-eight-story tower, called the Mile-High Illinois, in 1956, a kind of architectural manifesto of density. Wright allowed for seventy-six elevators—atomic-powered quintuple-deckers, rising at sixty miles an hour. “I ran the studies once,” Fortune said. “He wasn’t even close. He should’ve had two hundred and fifteen to two hundred and twenty-five elevators.”

And guess what, the close door button doesn't actually do anything.

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I should be on this committee

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Hearst Castle

We actually went to Hearst Castle on two seperate days and took two tours. The first tour was the Experience Tour, where they tried to impress us with how rich Hearst was and how many celebrities visited the castle. The second tour was more focused on the history of the building and what, where, and how old everything inside was. That included almost all the doors, furniture, art, and the ceilings (which got their own post). There are four gallaries totaling twenty-nine pictures from both tours here, there is so much amazing stuff in there you end up wanting to take pictures of everything. These are some of the ones I took.

Both tours started and ended with pools. The first is the Neptune Pool (outdoor), and the last is the Roman Pool (indoor).

The first tour went through one of the guest houses, which was almost as nice as the main house. But the views from the guest house were just as good as some of the views from the main house.

From there we spent some time walking around the main house and then went inside. As I said there is so much stuff packed into every room, and there are a lot of rooms. I was really impressed by the detail of every single piece. But this is partly because he ordered the furniture, doors, ceilings from other old buildings from all over the world. Before walking into most rooms the guide would tell us it would make us say wow, and I certainly said wow a lot. But this library made me go all Keanu and say, "Whoah!" This was definetly my favorite room in the house. Now i really want a bad ass painting of myself to put in my own awesome library.

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Ceilings of Hearst Castle

As I mentioned in my last post, one of the coolest things in Hearst Castle was the ceilings. Every room had a different ceiling, and they all had a lot of depth to them and some of them had huge murals on them. It was awesome to walk into each room, look up, and see something different and impressive. I don't really know what to say about them, so it's a good thing I took pictures.

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San Luis Obispo Mission

We spent a couple hours in San Luis Obispo and checked out the mission there. It is mostly just a large L shaped building. All of the seating in the church area is along one of the legs of the L. I find it interesting that they would limit capacity like that, but I have no idea what the thought process was for the Spaniards who had it built. I unfortunatley didn't get any pictures inside but it's mostly stuco walls with an occasional painting and wooden pews. They also had a small museum about the history of the Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa.

And strangely at the bottom right of the picture of the mission is a water feature with bears. I don't understand it.

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Cayucos from the Pier

These first five pictures are a panoramic of Cayucos (south to north) from the end of a long pier. Surfers seemed to like to run half way down the pier and then jump in the water. It must be a huge time saver.

These last two are of Morro Rock. Apparently I was a little obsessed, but these are the last ones I'll post of it...

 

I think.

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Morro Bay... Well, mostly Morro Rock

Awhile ago, Libby and I took a weekend trip down to Morro Bay, Cayucos, and Hearst Castle. So I'm going to post a bunch of pictures from our trip.

This set of photos is from Morro Bay and are almost entirely of Morro Rock. It's a pretty impressive sight to see, and you can see it from pretty much every where, including from Cayucos. One of the pictures is of the plaque that explains more about the rock. There are all sorts of things going on near the rock, there were surfers, otters, seals, people taking pictures of waves, people kayaking to the sandbar. You can even see Cayucos on the further up the coast. The one thing I didn't understand was that next to this giant landmark they built a powerplant. But I guess the land there is flat, and the power plant needs water.

 

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Skyscraper, Moneymaker /via Wall Street Journal

My brother sent me this article yesterday about super tall buildings and the difficulty they have making money. The focus is on the International Commerce Center (pictured above), because it may actually have a chance to make money and it's the fourth tallest building in the world. It's an interesting read for anyone who likes skyscrapers, or other massive constructions.

I also discovered a few things in the article. One is what may be my new favorite structural engineering firm, Magnusson Klemencic Associates. They have worked on some pretty awesome projects including skyscrapers and the newish Seattle Seahawks Stadium, Qwest Field. The architects of the ICC have a pretty awesome portfolio too.

Plus, I think I should have known, but this exists.

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