GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Notes

  • Cliff Stoll on Numberfile

    One of my favorite video series on the web is Cliff Stoll on Numberphile.

    Part of it is the subject matter, topology is totally mind twisting and I’ve always had a fondness for old technology, especially after my days in San Jose.

    However, I think it’s mainly about him.  He is just so joyful; he is enthusiastic, curious, and a bit impulsive.  This force of personality is also rooted in a deep interest in science and reality.  It’s this balance that makes it one hell of a joyride on the screen.

    The fun question for me is how to channel this dynamic as a client.  Exuberance doesn’t matter much if the client doesn’t have the basics down (firm decision making and holding the team accountable to high standards, setting up the conditions of success)  But beyond the basics, I suspect being a client who is excited about the project does get that extra 1% out of the team.  And if it’s gonna take ust as much effort to be dour, then why not, right?

  • Aladdin, Ron Clements & John Musker, 1992

    I was watching Aladdin with my daughter and I realized that architects are like the genie in the bottle.  By definition, this profession literally creates the world around us.

    But we are also bottled up by the constraints of circumstance and the limitations of our client. While tackling one technical problem after another, we can’t forget that we are the big silly blue genie with ridiculous power!

    The hard part is getting the client to wish for it.

  • Laughlin, Nevada

    In the fall of 2000, I took a landscape studio and was introduced to the classical form of the labyrinth.  Unlike modern maze puzzles, the labyrinth is a continuous route that leads you to the center and walking this wound up path has been used by monks as a form of meditation.  It is an intriguing form, which is why it has survived through history.

    Fast forward seventeen years later and I spent a good chunk of last autumn working on an RV park along the Colorado River out in Laughlin.  The project was sited on a property that was previously slated to be condominiums with several structures already installed on site.  Like that ill fated project, this one fell through and was shelved late in construction documents.

    This past Friday, we took a day trip out to Laughlin.  Unfortunately the casino strip is unremarkable, aside from the ability to buy a lotto ticket across the river.

    However I was finally able to conduct a belated site visit (finally saying hello to an online friend in person). Plus we found a little grassroots land art feature, the Laughlin Labyrinths. So I finally had a chance to walk a few labyrinths in person with our daughter. 

    In both cases, it was good to take these places out of the minds eye and live them in the fullness of reality.

  • Steamed Bread, 24 November 2018

    It looks like wee will be veering into steamed breads for a bit.  My wife prefers them and I like them well enough. Plus, being steamed, it’s no big deal to freshen them up by steaming them again, when they literally become freshly bread all over again!

    The yellow one was a cornmeal batter that my wife wanted to try out, from a recipe online. My daughter and I mixed up the ingredients in the kitchenaid mixer bowl and we quickly realized that we should have just mixed it in the steaming bowl because this thing was a really slack batter!

    80g all purpose flour (Central Milling)
    100g cornmeal (Arrowhead)
    80g water
    40g starter
    35g sugar
    1 egg

    After having poured out the batter, I felt it a shame to waste the kitchenaid bowl on nothing, so I went ahead and made a steamed bread of my own, wanting to test out a recipe with a nice elegant ratio of “5 flour : 3 water :  1 starter : .25 sugar” . 

    240g all purpose flour (Central Milling)
    60g whole wheat flour (Montana Wheat)
    180g water
    60g starter
    15g sugar

    In all I think they both came out nicely and while my wife is interested in playing with different flours, I’m most likely going to just stay on the path I was previously headed, working in more and more whole wheat flour to see what I can max out on…just now steamed.

  • Mary and the Witch’s Flower, Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2017

    I woke up thinking about the animated movie Mary and the Witch’s Flower, which was done by a group of Studio Ghibli alumni.

    The drawing style of the movie was classic Ghibli in its look and feel, as was the story with a strong girl as the lead in a fantastical world.  In fact, it was based off of a story by Mary Stewart, who had also written the story behind Howl’s Moving Castle, which is a very good movie by Ghibli.

    Unfortunately however, there was something missing in this effort.  Or rather, I should say maybe there was too much thrown into this effort.  It hit all the classic Ghibli beats, but it just didn’t hold together tightly as an experience.

    I wonder what was the missing piece of the puzzle.  I wonder if it because they didn’t have big headliners on their team, like directors Miyazaki or Takahata, or if it was someone outside of the limelight who held a quiet influence over the studio process.

    What is the magic ingredient that takes excellent craftsmanship and shapes it into greatness?

  • Atrium!

    The other day I went to a meeting at a consultant’s office.  As I entered the main entry, my eye caught the name of the complex, “Rent your office at the Atrium!”

    I saw the fire stairs and rushed up the usual utilitarian set of concrete steps with metal pipe rail.  But when I pushed open the door to the second floor…there was indeed an open courtyard with a big rock landscape feature with stream in the middle!

    So yes, it was exactly as advertised, this is an open impressive atrium office building. In suburbia, you’re definitely fed a whole lot of bull with the building names, but once in a blue moon a developer will give you exactly what they promised.

  • Bread, 15 November 2018

    I decided to also do a steamed bread for the Thanksgiving potluck today and it worked out pretty good.

    240g all purpose flour (Costco)
    60g whole wheat flour (Montana Wheat)
    150g water
    50g starter
    30g sugar

    If I thought my sourdough was easy, the steamed bread that my wife has been working on is even more so.  On Wednesday morning we mixed up the ingredients in the kitchenaid and let it sit.  After I came home from work last night, we proofed it in the oven and accidentally overproofed it so I added an extra 60g of flour to the final 300g overall that we see up there.

    Then I let it recover from the re-knead for an hour, took it out and put it in the steamer, let it proof for a half hour and then steamed it for 45 minutes.  I can’t complain, it kept its shape and was nice and tasty.

  • Bread, 13 November 2018

    I baked two of these for our office Thanksgiving potluck.

    The pretty one went to work.

  • Monster’s University, Dan Scanlon, 2013

    We watched Monsters University a couple days ago and I have to say I was quite surprised.  I had very low expectations at first after realizing it was a prequel during the first scene.  In fact I almost walked away to do some chores. However, by the end of the movie I was impressed. It showed me the story telling potential of a prequel, which I had previously written off as an impossible task after the weak Star Wars movies as well as the horrific Assimov infill Foundation infill novels.

    The movie did the basic job of a prequel, illuminating the characters and the relationships of the main protagonists.  Unlike other prequels that seem to repeat the genre structure and tropes of the original, Monster’s U also does a good job of telling a different and amusing story. It’s not a groundbreaking story, but as a sequel to another children’s film it doesn’t need to.

    Ultimately it made my wife and I want to rewatch Monster’s Inc, to see how knowing that original story would be different now that we know the backstory of these guys. I’m not sure if there’s a higher recommendation that I can give than that.

  • Kahuna, Günter Cornett, 1998

    We bought the game Kahuna on a sale the other day.  I had not researched it thoroughly but the price was right and I had heard good things about it.  Even if the game itself is a little to complex for my daughter’s age, I knew the rules were very simple so we started playing it anyways.

    A few plays in, a chain reaction revealed itself on the board.  At that moment, I was reminded why I love boardgames, especially the old german style games that was popular in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.

    For me it’s not about winning, even though the fact it is a competition does sharpen the mind.  The true joy in boardgaming is found in these moments where the game mechanics come together to create an emergent moment you couldn’t easily envision after a straight reading of the simple rules.