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While i am thrilled he is gone, NOTHING at Fox will change. They will simply replace him with another liar—just one that won’t badmouth the bosses behind their backs and likely one who passionately and unashamedly loves to push lies and the Reich, no matter what.

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Another Trip Down Memory Lane

Back in 1983, the lot at the southeast corner of Wilmot Road and Grant Avenue in Tucson was vacant. I figured that sooner or later some developer would snatch it up and another apartment complex would soon appear.

Deep in what I call my “Mos Eisley” design phase, I decided to beat them to the punch and design a small complex myself. Hard to believe it now, but I actually used to do this for fun.

These (and several similar houses I designed around the same time) were designed for the desert; three foot thick concrete walls, high ceilings and small windows to keep the heat out. Maybe overkill then, but with global warming rapidly turning our planet into an air fryer, who’s to say this won’t be the norm in 100 years?

Looking at these plans now, I realize that these units are not handicap accessible and also have to ask, why a shared laundry? My only answer could be, “It was 1983. There was no Americans With Disabilities Act; and no one was putting individual washers and dryers in rental units!” (At least not in Tucson.)

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Sounds Familiar, Doesn’t It?

Hitler’s sales pitch to the German people was grounded in the idea that average German working people were victims and Hitler was their champion.

He claimed Jews, homosexuals, and socialists had “stabbed Germany in the back” by participating in negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles that imposed punitive conditions on the country, producing widespread poverty and an economic crisis.

If the German people were victims, Hitler told them, the villains were German minorities, promoting degeneracy like jazz and swing music, tolerance of homosexuality and transgender people, and the “international Jewish conspiracy.”

Once the Nazis took power they banned books, outlawed drag shows and homosexuality, changed school curricula to remove mention of their atrocities in WWI, and rewrote election laws so they’d never again lose an election.

[Source]

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Update

As promised…pix to accompany a post from a few days ago.

This is a little adobe bungalow that I designed in 1983—about four months before Ben was even born. As I wrote in the earlier post, seeing these drawings again after so many years being thought lost was quite a trip down memory lane.

These were all hand drawn; no computer or CAD involved. The most technological thing about them was xeroxing some generic notes and legends onto self-adhesive translucent sheets and affixing them to the individual drawing sheets.

I always prided myself on my drafting and lettering ability, skills that are at this point sadly lost to time. But looking at these drawings still makes me smile.

(If you want to build this little charmer, knock yourself out. All I ask is that you credit me for the design and send me photos when it’s finished! ?)

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Buried Treasure

The other day we made a run to our rented storage unit to leave stuff we can’t have at the new domicile (mainly things we kept in the garage at the old place— because we no longer have a garage).

While there, I noticed a box that I knew contained the large framed portraits of the material great-grandparents; something that had hung over the sofa in our family’s living room for as long as I can remember. After my mom’s passing a decade and a half ago I acquired them with hopes of having them reframed and hung somewhere in my house. That never happened, so at some point there were thrown in that box along with a couple of my paintings and a rather graphic AIDS awareness poster from San Francisco…not touched again in the last decade. I elected to drag the box back to the house with us with the intention of giving them to my sister who I knew would appreciate having them far more than I (even without reframing) and find a place to display them in her home.

After she’d come by and picked them up, I was about to haul the box out to the trash, but it seemed heavy for just a box of it size. I reached down into the box and squealed. There was a roll of 18″ x 24″ architectural drawings at the bottom.

Carefully unrolling them on the coffee table, they brought out a curious mix of emotions. I remembered making each and every one of them, but I’d assumed that they were long gone; lost years ago during one move or another.

Once upon a time I knew how to draw by hand—without a computer—a complete set of plans to build a house, a testament to just how much skill and knowledge I’ve lost since abandoning the architectural profession. I knew how the framing went together, the thicknesses, heights, and widths of various building materials, as well as how a window or door were set and anchored into a wall and what kind of flashing and weatherstripping was required. I knew how to draw a wiring schematic, laying out switches, lights, and outlets. I knew how plumbing worked.

Although I’m sure all that knowledge is still locked away somewhere in the recesses of my mind, it’s definitely in cold storage and even if I were to take up the profession again tomorrow, I seriously doubt I’d be able to hit the ground running. (Plus, technology has changed a bit since the 90s.)

I almost want to get the lot of the drawings digitized for easy access; I may have to look into that once things settle down here. (In the meantime however, I will post some photographs in the next few days as a teaser of what all I found at the bottom of that box. Stay tuned.)

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