Miami & Memphis

The site of this year's seven day Knight Fellowship Charrette was chosen today after two presentations outlining the Memphis and Austin proposals and lengthy discussion among the 12 fellows. We voted anonymously, and the first vote returned an overwhelming decision: Memphis! The proposals were very different - Austin is a 1600+ acre greenfield (undeveloped) development site at a soon to be completed highway interchange north of Austin, and Intown Memphis is a struggling community just east of downtown Memphis, located between two growing hospitals and struggling to overcome several tough issues.

A quick picture summary - here's the scene of the charrette training and Fellowship charrette presentations and discussion inside the beautiful new Leon Krier designed architecture building on Miami's campus. Lots of maps, photographs, schedules, and charts.


We spotted several toucans while walking to get coffee on Miami's campus:


This was the view from happy hour on Miami Beach yesterday after our program ended. Tough life.


We saw this boat (the little one) which had a helicopter, cigarette boat, Hummer, and Mini Cooper all on board. Insane.


A few pictures from the Miami Beach art deco architecture tour a few of us took yesterday:

Coral Gables

Back in Coral Gables for day 1 of the NCI charrette leader certification training as part of my fellowship at Miami - another fantastic and very inspiring day here. We spent the first half of the day getting background on the three parts of the charrette: preparation, charrette, and post-charrette implementation, and the second half of the day was spent practicing with hands-on public meeting simulations. I had to role-play as a city representative for a project for one part of the meeting, then facilitate a 9 person public visioning session for the second part of the meeting. Way more difficult than I expected, and I didn't think it would be easy... We'll be getting into more detail about how to facilitate public meetings and more intricacies of the urban design public process tomorrow.

Our fellowship group will be deciding this week whether to hold this year's Knight Program charrette this summer in Memphis or Austin. Both cities have put together incredible applications and will be presenting their case, and I really think the decision will be difficult because the proposals are very different from each other.

After the training was done for the day we grabbed pre-dinner cocktails at the Biltmore. Not too bad, especially for all of you reading back in Boston:


The view from our table of the biggest pool I have ever seen:


Then we headed into Miami for dinner at a Cuban restaurant. Chicken, rice, plantains, and endless sangria. I'm off to bed now to get some sleep before starting the day tomorrow with a run out in the warm Florida sun. Life is tough...

Change of plans

Well, the long weekend didn't exactly go as planned. Instead of visiting my brother in Chicago I spent the weekend at the gym, working on research at the office, and watching movies with Heather. Remember that meal I cooked on Tuesday? Well, in an amazing coincidence, Heather had one of the worst stomach flus I've ever seen starting Wednesday, with the effects still not completely fought off. Flying was probably not the most brilliant idea, so we postponed the trip.

And before all you wiseasses start in - she wasn't feeling well before the meal I cooked, and I actually have been forced into service as a cook while she's been sick serving scrambled eggs, toast, and crackers like a pro.

We had the chance to watch a bunch of movies - including Enron: Smartest Guys in the Room, Last Days, and Good Night and Good Luck. The three had some similarities: Enron and GN&GL were both about hateable bad guys and the role of silent accomplices & whistleblowers, with Enron's silent accomplices helping to carry out the worst corporate fraud in our history, and GN&GL's Edward Murrow and Fred Friendly daring to stand up to Joseph McCarthy. I loved Good Night and Good Luck, great film, tremendous directing by George Clooney.

Last Days was a fascinating artistic idea from Gus Van Sant. The film is based on Kurt Cobain's last days and follows a rock star trying to recover from drug addiction and the pressures of public life and stardom in a secluded house in the woods. Much of the movie is unscripted and ad-libbed, and the direction and cinematography leaves a lot to viewer interpretation. For example, extended mood shots and shots where the actors are out of frame, the lead character mumbles through the whole movie (we turned on subtitles), and the lack of background musical score leaves the viewer to figure out what's important rather than be led to it. I thought it worked, the main character didn't speak coherently through most of the whole movie but came across as complicated and likable. If you rent the dvd, make sure to watch the "behind the scenes" extras to see more about the artistic concepts behind the film. Cool stuff.

Off to Coral Gables again tonight through Saturday for a fellowship workshop! Wish I actually had time to enjoy the sunny Florida weather.

Food

I actually cooked a meal, yes, a real meal with more than 5 ingredients, last night. Heather was in Philadelphia for the day and off to Charlotte today so I figured a relaxing meal at home would be a good Valentine's Day gift. I cooked one of the "easy" healthy recipes in my latest Men's Health magazine. Easy, my ass! It turned out great, and would probably have been easy for people with some cooking experience, but Tuscan chicken pasta with ingredients like peppers and garlic that had to be diced and mashed, pasta and chicken to be cooked, separately, beans, rosemary, and spinach to be measured... I mean, come on, this is not something a normal person whips up in 15 minutes on a workday after a workout. But it was pretty good, and very healthy.

And by the way, if I ate what Men's Health has recommended you include as part of your daily diet over the course of my subscription, I would definitely explode. Plenty of lean meat and chicken, fruit and nuts, protein shakes, 1 glass of wine, 1 cup of tea, 2 glasses of milk, 7 glasses of water, flaxseed, fiber, soy... Maybe I'll try it someday and see how healthy I feel.

Financial planning from a real pro

I have been making more money than I can spend lately, which some call "saving". The key is to stop going out to bars so much...become a homebody and spend all your free time reading urban design books and working on research and your credit card balance will reach new lows.

Lacost...olo

Ern's boyfriend Frank is a fashion designer, who knew? He came up with this brilliant design, which would sell like crazy, I'm sure of it, if it weren't for the fact that the two actual clothing manufacturers involved would be tripping over themselves to sue him. The shirt looks quite respectable:


Until you zoom in on the logo:

Super Lombard

Congratulations to Lombard and his Steelers, SuperBowl champions. Brings me back to the days in Chicago where we'd split Sundays between the Pats, Steelers, and Browns, always humoring Joe with Steelers time. I remember one day he actually swore them off in a fit of rage, only to be back in front of the tv seven days later, McDonalds fish sandwich in hand. A true fan.

Congratulations to me as well, for winning the first quarter in my office squares pool. Quite a year for casual gambling - a squares quarter ($40), the year-long office NFL pool ($180), and most importantly and least luck-based, my fantasy football championship (pride). Time to take it to Vegas!

As for commercials, they ranged from mediocre to poor except for the pregame Patriots linemen ad with Brady in the back acting like a rock star. I loved it - the linemen getting the spotlight and spoofing Brady. I thought it was a sign of good commercials to come, but it was actually the peak.

Calla - TT the Bear's

It's a good thing Calla's songs are so strong, because they mailed in their show at TT the Bear's last night and I still remain a devoted fan. Strangely, they were without their second guitarist, and their full, raw sound was so noticeably lacking that it made me wonder. Did they get in a fight? Is he sick? Did he fall off the tour bus? I can't imagine they actually chose to go without, but I think that's what happened. Guitarist/lead vocalist Aurelio Valle gamely attempted both rhythm and lead guitar parts, but songs like "Initiate", "Strangler", and "It Dawned on Me" were crying for more depth.

Sean Donovan's seductive rolling basslines took center stage in the mix last night, and that was a big silver lining. Aurelio did his thing, singing and picking out warm guitar lines on his hollow-body guitar with the usual attitude of affected-but-shy indifference. Having seen them several times before, last night it just seemed tired.


Despite an off night at TT's last night, I'll be there next time they're in town.