Can’t see the video? Click here.

Other posts that may interest you:

1. Stressful week
2. Dean Wormer Passes Away
3. what’s coming up??

You can watch the video here.

Other posts that may interest you:

1. Too Quick To Judge
2. Kill Off Comments?
3. The roar of technology

This seems to be the evening of a lot of people, as evidenced by browsing Twitter and the location based services I noted. I’ll be the first to admit it has been one of my habits. But, after a great deal of thinking about it, I wonder what these services really add to anything we do in our day to day lives, particularly the location based services.

What’s the Matter With Us?

Twitter has its place, it is a communication tool. Different people use it in different ways that make sense to them. Foursquare and Gowalla do not share the same kind of necessity as Twitter, just a niche novelty that, honestly, is kind of cool. Do we need such tools? My guess is that we don’t; They are just a new form of entertainment. Maybe it is just me, but I feel as though I am pulled in a bunch of directions by these different things. Add on top of them Google Reader for keeping up with news and other blogs, e-mail, Facebook, and whatever else you can think of, and it seems to become more work than it is worth.

The few times I have been incommunicado, the more obvious it has become that I need these tools less and less. Sure, their novelty is nice, but at what cost? What else could I be devoting my time to rather than letting people on Foursquare (some whom I don’t even know) see where I am at?

Is there a bigger trend here? Have we created the beginning of a time when verbal communication is no longer completely necessary? A lot of people think that children who are homeschooled are socially inept, to which I disagree and point out that more kids text today than talk on the phone. Not only do they text, but they have created a subset, shorthand language to do so. Maybe they are not inept but they have certainly begun a move away from “normal” communication, making further moves even easier.

Sure, there are other time wasters out there, there always have been. The difference now is that the time eating opportunities are constantly with us, no matter where we go. For me, this seems to speed daily life up, like fast forwarding an old VCR Cassette. We’re having the information thrown in front of us so fast that we do not have the time to really consume it. In a way, this pushes us apart. We are listening to people, but not really hearing them because we are distracted.

Can We Fix This?

We already have started to try. There are a number of people who have abandoned Twitter, Gowalla, Foursquare, MySpace, and Facebook out of a need to slow down and get back to normal. I am not suggesting the tools are causing the problems, they are simply making it easier for us to go through the motions of less communication and less interaction.

For me, fixing this means moving away from the tools as my entertainment and instead using them when necessary and filtering them often. A mass delete of the applications is not going to help you and it certainly is not the answer. Understanding what kind of time you spend on the services and how it affects your day to day activities is the way to start. From there, it’s up to you on whether it’s too much and how to correct it.

This definitely is not a call to abandon ship, it is me looking at what I have noticed over the past couple of years and asking others to do the same. What are your thoughts? Is this a bad path we are following or am I completely crazy and paranoid?

Other posts that may interest you:

1. money and the internet…
2. Staying in Touch
3. Technology and Education – The End Game

The recent rains we have had along with a little longer and cooler winter have really helped the flowers bloom this year.

The only downside to this wonderful weather and its causes are the allergies. Oak pollen has been rampant and those of us with allergies are suffering. This also means summer is only a few months away.

We were able to take a few shots of Sofie but for the most part she was not a fan of walking in the thistles.

The drive to the fields is easy, we just followed 290 west and found as many bluebonnets as we could before pulling over. The further west you go, the more bluebonnets there are. Go far enough west and you will hit Brenham, home of Blue Bell Ice Cream.

So, what are you waiting for? It’s supposed to be another wonderful set of weather this weekend too!

Other posts that may interest you:

1. Blogging from Sugar Land
2. Can Spring Break Come Fast Enough??
3. last test today!

After walking and driving through a number of neighborhoods in Houston that are in dire need of restoration and in the end, residents who care about their community I pondered that question. My quick, off of the cuff answer, at least for Houston, is that it cannot be done. My long, thought out answer is that it can be done but would require numerous people and organizations working together to make it happen.

Just east of downtown there is an area that used to be a warehouse district, complete with a massive rail network. Over the years, as the need for freight in the downtown area has dropped, those warehouses have moved further out of town and left a swath of land with nothing on it. The land is walking distance from downtown, yet most of it stays empty. There has been some development, but for the most part it is just grass. The townhomes that have been built were done quickly and from the looks of it, very cheaply, leaving a lot of them empty. There are no grocery stores or even convenience stores, just warehouses next to grass lots.

The city has decided to build a light rail line through the area, connecting downtown to a slightly more populated neighborhood further east. One would think that this would spur development; It hasn’t. They have also built a bike trail; It’s hardly ridden on.

What’s my point in all of this? The City of Houston and developers have an opportunity to make this area a great example of what urban living could be like. This is a great chance to add to the urban population without making the costs completely unreasonable.

Developers, this is your chance to build capacity without sacrificing history or usability. How you ask? Row style housing at affordable prices, it’s that simple. Build a few blocks of row style houses with maybe a garage on the bottom and people will start to move in. Give the homes small backyards and decent spacing between the front door and the road and people will be happy.

City of Houston, setup the neighborhoods with decent parking markings for street parking, add a few bus stops, and repair the roads. The people will move in. These are large investments for predicted returns, but they’re worth it. Right now that land is barely generating anything as far as property taxes, there is nowhere for it to go but up.

Maybe I am a daydreamer or grasping at straws, but I do have hope that Houston sees the different run down neighborhoods around the city as potential, rather than lost causes. I talk about this subject with my wife pretty often, usually as we are driving through these neighborhoods. I’ll look at an old building and make some remark like, “Wouldn’t that be an awesome office?”, maybe someone with the time and wherewithal has the same feeling.

Other posts that may interest you:

1. The Perfect City
2. Lubbock is deserted…
3. What I don’t understand

Click here to view the embedded video.

Next time I find some crazy routing or have a couple of long flights, I’m going to see if I can compile something like this.

Other posts that may interest you:

1. Visualizing the Credit Crisis
2. Frequent Flyer
3. Silver wings

David Byrne’s piece in the Wall Street Journal is a great little write-up on what it takes to make the perfect city.

Scale is important. In London people hang out in Soho, Covent Garden, Mayfair and other areas of mostly low buildings packed closely together. The City (their financial district), like the downtown in many American cities, is full of tall offices and it empties out at night. It isn’t that bustling in the daytime either. Some sort of compromise might be more ideal—the tall towers mixed in with the modest-sized shops and restaurants.

Scale is a big problem in Houston. Downtown is a mass of tall buildings with very few people living within it, then there are warehouses, some that are still active, others that have been turned into apartments. From then on it is houses and apartment buildings until one hits the Medical Center or the Galleria, both of which are mini Metropolises with tall buildings, shops, and housing. Then it’s the suburbs, each with the same strip center as the other.

The reason it is so spread out is because we have the acreage, so builders build. The other part is probably the weather. During the summer, southeast Texas is not the most comfortable area to take a stroll, so my guess is people have become comfortable driving further distances. We wouldn’t walk even if it was close, so why make it close? Density seems to be a dirty word associated with no greenery, space, or personal identity. So we continue to move outward from downtown Houston, extending our commute and then complaining about it.

Other posts that may interest you:

1. Perplexed Neighborhoods
2. why??
3. I Need My Golf Clubs

Other posts that may interest you:

1. Denver to Singapore in Five Minutes
2. Big Picture – 2008 in Pictures
3. The bad guy in being a consultant

Flag over Pearl Harbor War Memorial

Memorial Day marks the beginning of summer for most families and they use the holiday weekend to visit the beach or have friends over for BBQ. It’s fun and enjoyable but it views the “holiday” in the wrong light.

Today is a somber day. It is a day to remember those who have fought in service of their country and paid the ultimate price. From the Revolutionary War to the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, millions of men and women have served in the armed forces.

So take a moment to think about the freedom that we all share and the price that was paid for it.

Other posts that may interest you:

1. WWII Memorial Dedication
2. Wow, the truth about heroes…
3. More stupidity

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1. Gmail won’t stop giving me invites!
2. Weather Feeds
3. First Week of School; First Impressions