I found this article interesting. The guy fighting the Union Hill historic district is right, of course -- gentrification WILL force out long term residents.

It sounds, though, like gentrification is already happening in Union Hill -- the historic district designation would just speed that up, I think.

My house is located in a city old and historic district, but the district was never a poor area -- nobody was forced out by the designation of the historic district. In actuality, the district was formed to prevent a local organization from tearing down one of the old Victorians on the street.

I don't know what the answer is to these sorts of situations -- poor neighborhoods often have houses which just sit and rot for lack of money to keep them up. For example, there's what could be a beautiful Queen Anne over on Laburnum and (I think) Hawthorne (or maybe Noble) that I have watched become more and more decrepit over the years. And you don't want the old houses to fall down -- they are pretty irreplaceable!

In this quote below, I wish the author had kept the "units" the same -- they switched from numbers of black residents to numbers of white families...but let's say that each white family has 3 members, then it is 4,000 black residents and 300 white residents.

The more than 4,000 mostly black residents of the neighborhood who, according to census data, have an average annual income of less than $15,000, aren’t likely to thrive under restrictive neighborhood covenants that serve to please fewer than 100 white families, Corbett says. Those recently transplanted white families have eyes toward the neighborhood’s inevitable gentrification, he contends.

http://www.styleweekly.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications::Article&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=C965B8830ACC413F8A64A2BB4799BE92&AudID=20938C672A3049EEB0CF33069AEE1AE0

Today was a good day. Any time the fire from heaven doesn't come down and burn the flesh from my very bones at work, then it's a good day. I work in a politically charged environment, so I make lots of jokes about the place -- you just never know what's going to happen when you walk in the place, especially given that we missed our (highly visible) rollout this past weekend.

The team is de-moralized. The head of the department used my favorite phrase -- "It is what it is" LOL!!! OMG!!! Fucked up from the flo up...

Anyways, it's probably tiresome that I keep talking about biking, but since the red (road) bikd is in the shop, I got the silver (commuter/trek/hybrid) bike out tonight and biked in the park. It was a lot of fun! I did a trails and alleys...things I cannot do with the road bike.

These yellow flowers seemed to be growing wild --


Young's pond at Bryan Park --


It's nice to see how much use Bryan Park is getting. Lots of soccer going on tonight. And there was a team of runners. And often you see bike races.


One of the things I love about my house is how the light filters in. It's an arts and crafts house, and both the morning and evening light can be very nice. This is the light from the sunset when I got home after the bike ride tonight.

Got a composter from the City today. I figured for $41.50, I couldn't go too wrong, and I really like the idea of making my own earth from kitchen scraps. Who knew that "kitchen browns" included things like paper towels!?

Anyways, finding this particular city office was very hard! The GPS on the iPhone said I was there, but I still didn't know where I was supposed to go! It is on North Hopkins, off of Hopkins, off of Jeff Davis.

Anyways, here's a picture of it. It does not have a bottom, so there are screws that you screw into the dirt to hold it in place.

I had a pretty boring day today! I met with a recruiter first thing, then pretty much cleaned the house the rest of the day. Of course, I get easily distracted, so while I'm "cleaning," you might also find me sitting at the computer or watching a little TV, lol! So, "cleaning" takes me a while!

I was taken in by one April Fool's joke today by my sister -- but that was the only one! Another friend tried, but after my first encounter, I had wised up. I think my sister got me because she called me while I was still in bed and still groggy!

I have heard that my nephew's wife is in labor. So, the new baby should be coming any time now!

I noticed that Skype has released an iPhone app. I don't have much use for Skype since most of the people I call are either local, or do not have broadband. But if I had a use for it, it could be pretty cool to not have to use your cell minutes! (Skype on the iPhone does require you to be using a wireless internet connection -- no 3G connections allowed, probably at AT&T's insistence.)

Lots of people are reporting that the app crashes, so it sounds like Skype has some work to do on it yet.

Significant snow happens so seldom in RVA, that it is a trait of the natives to take pictures when it snows, lol! So, here ya go --

I went to a career networking event this morning. It started at the crack of dawn (okay, it was 7:30AM, but I've been off work, okay?)...way over on the other side of town. I did not like getting up that early! I mean, damn, it was still dark when I got up!

Anyways, I'm really glad I went to the one today. I always come out of those meetings with ideas -- both for how to conduct the job search, and it also usually reminds me of names of folks that I know that I had forgotten about.

So, I came back and spent the morning networking.

I plan to get a walk in today and then this evening, a local charity has an event that I'll be attending.


On a different topic, I found out that my mortgage payment will drop this year for the first time EVAH! My assessment did not change, but I guess the price index that my mortgage company uses to project taxes and insurance led them to reduce the escrow part of my payment. Also, it appears that I will actually get a small refund check from the payments to escrow over the last year! I'll take it!

A friend and I went to dinner last night. Because I wanted a salad, and because neither of us was being particularly clever last night, we ended up at Ruby Tuesday's. It's not a bad place, just not a favorite of either of us.

Got back from one of my walks this week and startled Monsieur Bunny -- he ran, then stopped nervously, they way rabbits do. I wonder how many rabbits there are in the neighborhood! I always have them, and I think a lot of folks in the neighborhood have them too!


***
I found this article on Japanese thrift, as a result of their '90s recession interesting. They talk about using the bath water for laundry. That seems a bit much to me. When you bathe, you take off sweat and dirt, and I'm not sure I want to use that water in the laundry!

And Mrs. Takigasaki is correct -- a bit of cabbage, a bit of potato, and you're set for a stew!

Today, years after the recovery, even well-off Japanese households use old bath water to do laundry, a popular way to save on utility bills. Sales of whiskey, the favorite drink among moneyed Tokyoites in the booming ’80s, have fallen to a fifth of their peak. And the nation is losing interest in cars; sales have fallen by half since 1990.

The Takigasaki family in the Tokyo suburb of Nakano goes further to save a yen or two. Although the family has a comfortable nest egg, Hiroko Takigasaki carefully rations her vegetables. When she goes through too many in a given week, she reverts to her cost-saving standby: cabbage stew.

“You can make almost anything with some cabbage, and perhaps some potato,” says Mrs. Takigasaki, 49

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/business/worldbusiness/22japan.html

The internet is good for little games and activities, right?

I let it draw while I was playing music. I found that this worked better if I turned the volume down -- otherwise, I ended up with a big black dot.

www.zefrank.com/v_draw_beta/index3.html


***
I really, really didn't feel like doing any job hunting today.

So I got a walk in (bumped up the mileage to 4.1 miles), replaced the hand-held shower nozzle in the bathroom, did some personal grooming, did a little shopping, and otherwise kept myself occupied.

We went to Kitchen 64 for dinner last night and then to the art opening at the Gay Community Center last night.

We bumped into friends at both places. I think it is a good idea for the GCCR to have an art gallery and to have openings. Last night, none of the pieces really stood out for me, although I did like a couple of items.

Afterwards, we rented the movie Burn after Reading. It's not a bad movie -- it kept me interested the whole time -- but it was not a great movie. I guess I would label it a black comedy -- I was amused, although I think I only laughed aloud once.


***
A friend sent me this link --> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/garden/15hongkong.html?_r=1&emc=eta1.
There is a slideshow at http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/01/15/garden/20090115_HONGKONG_index.html.

The guy lives in a 344 square foot apartment in Hong Kong. The apartment "transforms" (by way of flexible walls and hidden appliances) from kitchen to bedroom to steam room to living room, etc. It's interesting.

The smallest apartment (other than a college dorm) that I ever lived in was probably about 500 square feet. So, I could probably make it fine in 344 square feet -- especially if I could change the space around easily.

The yellow light that dominates the space almost has a Bladerunner look to it.

Seeing such a small space is interesting, but makes me appreciate my 1800+ square feet house and my 1/4 acre lot! What would be cool though would be to make use of the ideas and technology in this apartment to make some of my rooms do double time (instead of adding on more space).

Ouch...I am NOT looking forward to the cold that's coming our way. The projected low for Saturday is 10˚F (-12˚C) -- I know that's no where near how cold it is in other parts of the country (or world), but it is WAY too cold for a Southern boy like me. Heck, the 29˚F (-2˚C) temperature this morning was too cold, lol!

***
I've been thinking that the paint in the living room needs to be refreshed. I wasn't going to change the color, but now I'm wondering...

It turns out that it is hard to take pictures of color chips, lol, and I have no idea how the colors will display on your particular monitor, but hopefully the pics below give an idea of the color.

This is the color of the living room now. It's called Heather Blue and is the color that the room was when I moved in.


I like the blue a lot. But I have also been attracted by a couple of other colors, like the ones below.

One is more of a chocolate brown. The other is a burnt orange color. I think that either would sufficiently match the furniture and rug that is currently in the room.




I probably won't paint the room for a while -- until I am more sure of the color and after O gets all his stuff from the bottomless pit out of the room.

***
I started listening to Persuasion yesterday (see yesterday's post). I imported the first CD into iTunes and transferred the tracks to my iPhone.

Then, I listened to the first few chapters while I was cleaning. What I found was that the listening caused me to pay less attention to my cleaning! So far, I am enjoying the book!

Random topic 1: Gift Cards

O and I are burning up the gift cards that we got for Christmas! A few nights ago, he took us to PF Chang's for dinner. Before that, I had taken us to Whole Foods to use a gift card there. And a couple of days ago, we went to Old Navy to use up a couple of gift cards there. We still have a couple more -- Kohl's, Best Buy, etc.

Random topic 2: Home Landline

I'm thinking about getting rid of my home telephone line. We both have mobile phones, and I never use up all my mobile minutes. So, it's starting to feel like a waste to have a landline home phone.

Con: I do like having phones in different rooms at home -- if I only had my cell, then I'd have to keep it with me around the house to hear incoming calls. And I'd have to make sure the cell was always completely charged.

Con: Also, I use my home number when I order online, so if I only had a cell number, then I might be opening myself up to junk calls on my mobile.

Pro: Cost savings!!

Pro: One positive item about getting rid of the landline (other than the cost savings) is that it would free up some electrical outlets around the house -- my old house has precious few outlets, and I need every one I can get!

Random topic 3: Does Size Matter?

Here's a Youtube of Davey Wavey -- a young, gay Buddhist blogger -- discussing whether size matters --

Spending some time on my own today -- left O home in bed.

Sitting at Panera for breakfast -- some lady just had me paged because she had parked all cock-eyed in her space and then couldn't get her hippo hips through the opening to get into her car -- I had to move out of the space, so she could get in! Rolling my eyes.

Think I might hit the VA Museum of Fine Arts for a while -- to see how the construction is going.

Otherwise, I think I'll spend some time with O this afternoon and evening. And I still have some outdoor decorations to get inside.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

(Later) Museum Update

The museum addition is still under construction, but more galleries are open than the last time I was there. The Renoirs are back up, and a Van Gogh and couple of others that I immediately recognized.

What I want to know is -- with the limited space in the museum right now, why, oh why do they display all those horse and dog pictures (the sporting pictures)? I mean, I really don't like those pictures, so why do they display so many?

Here are a couple of pictures from my tour --

***Party Cleanup

I spent the day putting the house back together after the party last night -- cleaning food particles, doing dishes, putting the furniture back in place. O was working today, so he couldn't help -- how very convenient for him, lol!

I really like how the tree turned out this year (see last pic in the previous post). And I still carried a nice feeling with me today, left over from last night.

Another nice thing about last night -- I got several pretty Christmas tree ornaments and several bottles of wine that I have never tried!

***Get your McCain Blackberry & Contributor Contact Info!

It seems that some of the Blackberries that McCain's campaign sold had not been erased and still had personal phone numbers and e-mails on them.

I can't get over it when that sort of thing happens. I don't expect everyone to be tech savvy, but doesn't everyone realize you have to erase electronic equipment before handing it to someone else? I mean, it's the same thing as just handing over your paper address book and a folder full of personal documents. It's the same thing!

One of the phones had 260 personal contacts on it including email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses to all sorts of McCain supporters.

So what’d they do? They started calling people. People like former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, who didn’t seem thrilled with the situation.

“It makes me quite uncomfortable,” he told the reporters, “It’s a matter of principle. I gave that information to McCain headquarters, and to have it sold is bothersome.”

http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/12/14/buy-a-blackberry-and-get-john-mccains-number-at-no-extra-cost/

***Useful iPhone Tips

Here's an article with several good tips on using the iPhone. I already knew about most of them, but I did not know about tapping on the status bar at the top of the screen to scroll to the top of a website (tip #1).

http://www.taptaptap.com/blog/10-useful-iphone-tips-and-tricks/"

No, They Did-n't

Evidently, the new re-make of the classic movie The Day the Earth Stood Still DOES NOT INCLUDE THE PHRASE KLAATU BARADA NIKTO! WTF?? How can that be? I mean, I enjoy seeing a classic brought into the modern age. But there are some things you just cannot mess with -- and not having that classic phrase in the movie just seems crazy to me!

Sounds like the re-make is a flop anyways. Here are a couple of quotes from the Rotten Tomatoes site --

• "A boldly mediocre remake..."
  
  
• "The rumbling sound you hear that shakes the theaters playing The Day the Earth Stood Still isn't an awesome sound system. It's everyone involved with the original turning over in their grave."
  
  
• "Klaatu barada crappo"
  
  
• "The whole thing finally crashes and burns in an orgy of noisy and uninspired special effects that stands as a lunkheaded rebuke to the restraint displayed by the original film"

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/day_the_earth_stood_still/

The funny thing is that I will still probably see the movie anyways, since I like the classic so much.

I think I caught what O had a few days ago, except for me, I had a fever in addition to the gastro-intestinal issues. Last night, I pretty much just slept and rested, drinking Echinacea tea and water and taking Tylenol.

It's almost gone...so today we went and got the Christmas tree. I'll get the lights on it this week, in preparation for the Tree Trimming get-together that we have scheduled for next week.

This was O's first experience helping me with the tree -- I think he would prefer that we have an artificial tree, so that we don't have to go to the trouble of lugging it to the house As for me, I just really like having the smell of a real tree.

Here's a pic just after we stood it up. Cross your fingers that it will be stable this year!!!

You know -- if I ever have problems with Alzheimer's when I get older, then I'm going to be in trouble because I already can be sort of absent-minded!

Last night, I put a couple of eggs on to boil -- and completely forgot about them. Later, I went downstairs, and the water was completely boiled away in the pan. When I moved the pan, one of the eggs EXPLODED all over the kitchen.

I had pieces of egg on the walls, floor, counter, windows, cabinets, everywhere! Even that DVD of the Exorcist (sitting on the counter until I could return it) got some burnt egg on it.

This is not the first time that I've done this! Years ago, when I was sharing an apartment in a high-rise with a roommate, I came home to find a terrible smell in the apartment. My then roommate told me that when he had arrived home earlier, the fire department had been there. Evidently, I had put eggs on to boil, and THEN JUST LEFT the apartment! And the eggs had caught fire. And the building supervisor had called the fire department!

Well, the weather cooperated, and I got to see the Venus, Jupiter and the Moon close in the sky. It was hard to get a good shot -- this are the best I could get --





I also got the lights up on the hedges today.





Poor O did not help -- he had a stomach bug last night and today. He ate at an off-the-wall Chinese place yesterday during his lunch break -- I told him he got some bad kitty cat. Anyways, hopefully he's doing okay right now -- he is working a 16 hours shift tonight.

We spent nearly the entire day getting stuff out of O's storage unit. We didn't really get a lot of stuff, but putting the bed together ate up a lot more time that I expected!

It took HOURS to put together the bed (which we put in the guest bedroom to replace that worn out mattress that I had in there).

His bed had bolts that were cheaply made, so they were partially stripped -- meaning a trip to Home Depot. And we couldn't figure out how those clamps were supposed to work -- my old bed frame was not so complicated.

Bottom line -- it took a LOT longer than I expected, but the job is done!

The furniture in the room is a hodgepodge, but I think that's expected from a guest room. I'm just happy to get rid of that old, old mattress that I had in there!


A funny (to me) thing -- our styles are very different. I'm a planner, so if I'm moving something, I won't budge until I know where we're going to put it, and what the plan is. It's the "planner" in me. He got so frustrated with me because my first question always was something like..."where are we going with this?" or "what are we doing?" I don't think he appreciated me laughing at his frustration, lol!

I went Christmas shopping at Macy's today because they had sent me a coupon and were having a sale. I am usually finished my shopping by Thanksgiving, but I think it may stretch into December this year. I only have a couple more items to buy though, so we'll see.

On a different subject, this is good news --

President-elect Barack Obama has laid out his commitment to LGBT civil rights in an eight-point plan posted on his transition Web site.

It calls for passage of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act; a gender-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act; repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell; repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act; opposition to any attempt to reintroduce an amendment to the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, support for inclusive adoption rights; and an expanded war on HIV/AIDS.

The program is identical to Obama’s positions during the campaign and LGBT rights groups said it shows that the president-elect is committed to keeping his word.

http://www.365gay.com/news/obama-posts-campaign-pledges-on-lgbt-rights/

Now, I'm outside to rake up some leaves!