Ever wondered what happened to Alex P. Keaton's younger brother, Andy, from "Family Ties"? 

 

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What a cutie he once was.

Well, not anymore.  He's 26 and lives in Boulder, CO.  Unfortunately, he did not take away any of the good values or sound financial advice he was supposed to have learned from the show.  He was recently arrested for violating his probation.  Last year he was charged and sentenced for assaulting his girlfriend.  And, he's been unable to hold down a job.

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As it turns out, this is not his only run-in with the law.  He has had a significant history of numerous drug and alcohol-related issues, as well as numerous assaults on his girlfriend since he graduated from high school in 2000. So sad...

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Interesting article on NYTimes.com regarding moving farms into the city by creating them in skyscrapers, called "Vertical Farms":  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/science/15farm.html?_r=1&oref=slogin. 

Here's the web site that talks more about it. 

Interesting concept.  Fewer miles for the food to travel.  Safe from crazy weather that can ruin an entire year's crops.  Maintained using renewable energy sources. 

What do you think?  Do you think it'll happen at some point? 

The article mentions that officials in Portland, OR, are interested in a smaller version of the vertical farm: 

A smaller-scale design of a vertical farm for downtown Seattle won a regional green building contest in 2007 and has piqued the interest of officials in Portland, Ore. The building, a Center for Urban Agriculture designed by architects at Mithun, would supply about a third of the food needed for the 400 people who would live there.

Mr. Urban Planner - Steve - have you heard anything about this?  Any thoughts?

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Today was a day of projects.  Jon is in Portland for the weekend, so I decided to get crafty.  Interesting enough, just last night I was telling Meredith how un-crafty I am.  I guess I surprised myself today.

We have lived in Denver for almost a year now, and since first month we lived here, I have been promising to make curtains for the kitchen windows and the basement bedroom windows.   Both were accomplished today - only about a year late - but, better late than never. 

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I have also been on the look-out for some nice, albeit inexpensive, carpet scraps for our basement.  Check!  I found some at a small carpet shop on Wadsworth today.  The place was quite strange.  I was the only customer in the place and the guy working there had a black widow as a pet sitting on his desk. It's amazing how much brighter it makes our basement look - underneath is very dark crappy carpeting.  I even had to use the carpet cutter to make it lie flat around a pole and desk that was left in our basement.

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I hung a shelf in the bathroom for some tea-light candles.  And, a white-board / cork-board in the kitchen.  Jon and I have been talking about having something like this ever since we first moved in together.  That was 7 years ago!  Very glad to be able to check that one off the list.  Whew!

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The last project I did today is the best.  A couple of years ago, my sister made her own head-board for her bed.  Ever since, I have always wanted to attempt to do the same.  I made the whole thing from scratch using 5 foam pieces, quilt batting, fabric, wooden skewers and nails.  I was quite nervous and fairly certain that it was not going to turn out.  But, I have to say -  I am thoroughly impressed.  It turned out fabulous!

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It feels good to be productive - and have some cool things to show for my efforts. 

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I just received my first hand-written letter from my 4 1/2 year old niece, Sidney.  I've tried to upload a picture of it - but Vox keeps cutting out on me when I do (argh).  So, instead, here's what it said:

"Aunt Len,

You forget the book.

I mizz you.

Love,

Zidney"

Obviously, she has a little work to do on the Js and Ss (give her a break - she's 4 1/2), but otherwise - isn't this the sweetest thing ever?  Okay, so maybe I'm biased - but seriously - this makes me miss her like crazy.  Good thing I get to see her again in 1 1/2 months.  :)  I'll get the book then.

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Breakingnews

Someone from our Analytics department forwarded this along today.  Thought it was interesting enough to share with Vox.

"As any journalist knows, news has to be about people - they either make it, or are affected by it. No people, no news. It therefore stands to reason that heavily populated areas of the US, like California or the Northeast, generate most of the news stories. But even allowing for population, some locations account for a disproportionately high number of news items.

Researchers extracted the dateline from about 72,000 wire-service news stories from 1994 to 1998 and modified a standard map of the Lower 48 US states (above) to show the size of the states in proportion to the frequency of their appearance in those datelines (below). Some notable results:

* Washington DC accounts for a huge proportion of the news stories - not surprising, since it is the nation’s capital, and the home of Congress, the Presidency and other political news generating institutions. But still: DC (pop. 600,000; metro area 5.8 million) generates more news than the most populous state, California (pop. 36.5 million).

* New York is the largest news provider of the country, of course nearly all originating in New York City (pop. 8.2 million; metro area 18.8 million). Compare this to Illinois, home of the the nation’s third largest city, Chicago (pop. 2.8 million; metro area 9.5 million). Especially when considering metropolitan areas, Chicago/Illinois should be half the ‘news size’ of New York City/New York, while in fact it seems to be less than one fifth. Could this underrepresentation be down to another ‘capital effect’ (i.e. New York being the ‘cultural capital’ of the US)?

* News stories from Texas (pop. 20.8 million) seem overly scarce, especially when compared to, say, Georgia (pop. 8.2 million), which seems to get a bigger share. Could this be due to the fact that major news organization CNN is headquartered in Atlanta?

* The Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, with a combined population of under 9 million, are all but invisible. No people, no news? Colorado alone, with a population of under 4.5 million, is responsible for a much larger chunk of news than those states combined. Could this be because the other states lack large cities, while Colorado has Denver (pop. 600,000; metro area 2.5 million)? No cities, no news?"

Source: http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/266-where-news-breaks/

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Telluride Bluegrass Festival

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We are leaving Wednesday morning at 9:30 sharp and heading to one of the most beautiful towns in the US - TELLURIDE!

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Four days of music.  Camping.  70s and sunny.  Great friends.  Mountains.  100% carbon neutral.  Fabulous.   

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I just found out that Las Palapas, the place that Jon and I were married, is going to be torn down to make room for condos in Playa del Carmen.  [insert big sigh of sadness]

Seriously?  Do they have to build condos EVERYWHERE? [insert another sigh]

I typically like to check out new places when I vacation - Las Palapas and Playa del Carmen being the exception to the rule.  Obviously, this place holds a special place in my heart because I got married there - but - it truly is so beautiful and relaxing with fabulous service and a great dive shop to boot.  It's on the outskirts of town, so far enough away from the madness going on in town that allows you to relax during the day - but close enough so you can walk to it for those nights filled with plenty of tequila shots. 

Now the fun part begins.  Of course, we have to say a proper goodbye before it becomes rubble and is merely a part of history.  So, here begins the planning for our third trip to Playa!  Woohoo!!!

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We just hiked to the bottom of the canyon in Canyonlands National Park. Beautiful.

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That's the service you receive @ the P.S. Lounge. Lovely. :)

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