Grand Canyon

Here are some pics from the Grand Canyon.

A flickr set with more than even I want to consider (including some that are out of focus or need to be rotated -- flickr isn't the best environment for sorting pics).    This can be turned into a slideshow, but I would suggest picking and choosing those that seem interesting.

And speaking of which:

The family ... my sister, my mother, my niece & her boyfriend & my brother in law.   See, they all have importance because they are related to me, sort of like the characters in Alice's dream.  ;-)  Hey, it's my blog.

 

The kids are alright ...

My camera got stolen ...

 

 

Wildlife ...

 

 

Trees ...

 

 

Rocks ...

 

 

 

And a big hole in the ground ...

 

 

Arizona

My sister and her family are in town -- that is to say, they are on this continent.   They went to visit our mother & brother in Arizona, so I went down to visit with them.   We went around southern Arizona & also to the Grand Canyon.

On the way to Tombstone we stopped in a ghost town, Fairbank, which as it happened, had a gift store.   The person there was delighted to see Guy -- the perfect Father Christmas.  :-)

 

 

The buildings were still there, though not quite what we would want to live in today ...

 

 

One of the big holes in the ground that we saw was an old mine.   The water in the bottom is probably pretty toxic, but it was an interesting sight just the same.

 

You can view more photos here, including as a slideshow

Hawaii

I went to Hawaii for a couple of days.   I just went to Wakiki, without a car, so all on foot.   Wakiki is a big shopping mall with hotels and a beach, plus some almost naked people carrying surfboards and some homeless people digging through the trash.

 

I didn't take many pictures, but I did take a couple -- of my coffee.  :-)   I had picked my hotel because it had a kitchen.   It has a almost full size fridge, with ice cubes in the trays (nice), an almost full size stove, with a cooktop & an oven, a rice cooker, some pots and plates and the like -- but it had no coffee maker.   I have not been in a hotel room in my memory that didn't have a coffee maker.   Even the hotels at the airports have coffee makers.

I had brought coffee, so I could get up in the morning after I arrived (I got there late at night) and have a cuppa.   I had even brought coffee filters, just in case.   But, but, but -- no coffee maker!   I even had cream -- but no coffee maker.   I even had a coffee cup -- but sadly, no coffee maker.

But I also had a rubber band -- and as I said, a pot, and a sink and a stove ...

 

 

So I had my cuppa after all.  :-)

 

Guam

I just spent 7 days on the island of Guam (which is a US territory, fwiw).   I spent a lot of my waking time in a cold, windowless, loud shipping container (with doors), but I did get a chance to drive around the southern end of the island for a bit.   Here are some pics:

 

 

Yep, it's an island ...

 

 

It has coconuts ... at least, I think they are coconuts.

 

 

From a WWII park

 

The sign recommends against climbing on the guns, since they are rusting away.   This is a Japanese anti-aircraft gun.  [Guam was invaded by the Japanese not long after Pearl Harbor and was held for 2.5 years.  It has been a US territory since the 1898, following the Spanish-American war.]

 

The park is beautiful.   Sadly, my camera was not able to pick up the detail in the sky.   I could hardly see what I was photographing from the glare on the display, so I guess I should be glad to have anything.

 

 

There seems to be a certain fondness for bright colors:

 

 

The plaque on this bridge said that the original plan was just to build a bridge.  However, the governor insisted that it be made artistic (I don't remember the exact words) and be something that would celebrate the Spanish and Chamorro heritage of the island, so they added the towers.   [The Chamorro people are the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands,]

 

I am not sure the governers efforts were completely appreciated.   The bridge was built (the sign said) in the 1980s and the inside of the towers seem to have not been touched since then ...

 

 

This photo has a bit of the feel of Magritte's Empire of Light (without the great art, of course), but that is just a limit of my camera.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Downstairs bathroom

I spent a bit more time with the bathroom in the downstairs bedroom.   Here's what I came up with, from the top:

 

 

And from the side.  The sink would actually need to be built in, over the ledge.

 

 

I think maybe the wall between the tub & the toilet is too much, making the toilet a bit cramped.  Still, I think the overall idea works.

 

 

Back to the house

I have been letting the house settle in my mind.   The main change that has turned up is that it would be worth it to turn one of the rooms on the main floor back into a bedroom -- which mainly means putting in a bathroom.   Volia ...

 

 

I also reworked the bathroom on the lower floor again.

 

 

And I decided that the window in the bridge section should be moved to line up with the door & window in the upper floors, which puts it somewhat to the west.   This may need to be jiggled to avoid conflict with the shelf.   Even better would be to not need the shelf, or to have it be narrower, but that is a contractor question.

 

 

The next thing to do is to put together a powerpoint (it does have its uses) and take it to the building dept & then to an architect.

 

 

Another set of house pics

I changed the windows to a single casement, plus an awing above.  I think this is better.  It's the same number of opening panels, but has the awing to keep the rain out, plus I think it looks nicer.   The stairs hanging in space on the back porch actually go to the ground, but since it isn't shown, they look like they are in space.  Also, I have only put in the roof on the little bit of the house where the new part meets the old part, to demonstrate to myself that the new roof can slide under the old one.

 

 

The back:

 

 

North side:

 

 

South side:

 

 

I did some work on the stairs:

 

 

And also on the bathroom in the basement bedroom:

 

 

I will probably draw a powder room in the top floor of the stair tower, but aside from that, I think it is pretty close to done.

 

 

Looking out the windows

Not really a good take on the idea, but here it is ...

 

 

It's a picture pasted onto a plane, then I put the camera inside the room.   You can see my neighbors car and a bunch of green, which seems like about what would be true in real life.

I am still not finding the awing windows to be inspiring, but maybe they are starting to grow on me ... not sure ...

 

Yet more on windows

What the heck ...

 

I remade the 3x5 windows into 3x3 with a 3x2 awing window on top.   It's interesting how much one can learn by just poking around the program -- I didn't know it could do this until I started messing around with it.

I'm not convinced, but I'll set it sit and see how it feels when I look at it more.

 

 

From the inside, as if one were standing in the room.  The left hand window is actually a little bit shorter.  I looked at the windows I have in my house now -- these are actually slightly wider than the ones in the back.   The ones in the front are usually covered by curtains, because I don't want people looking in & also because they are very big and heat flows out.    At any rate, I think these would be fine for looking through -- it's more window area than I have now by a lot.

 

I could take a picture out the back & put it in sketchup to show what I would actually see out the window if looking out (well, except for the view of my neighbors yard, cause I don't have an angle to get the pic).

 

 

And more on windows

I laid out some window designs ...

A row of 3x5 windows

A set of 4x4 and 4x2 windows, with 2' between them

And a set of 4x4 and 4x2 windows all stuck together into one set

I like the first set, I could live with the second set & I don't like the 3rd set.

The first set would presumably take a lot of cutting of the blocks. That is, since the blocks are 8" high by 2' long, and since 3' isn't a multiple of 2' nor 5' a multiple of 3', 3 sides of the perimeter of each one would need to be cut. I think it costs about $1.5 per foot to cut, so for each window, that is 13' x $1.5/ft = ~$20 per window for the cuts. I count 24 windows with this design, so that is ~$500 for the cuts, plus however much more the windows would cost.

Assuming that the areas between the windows could be made of stacked blocks, the 2nd design has no cuts for the top, and 1/2 the outside perimeter for the sides per set, which is 4' * $1.5 = $6. There would be 7 of these sets, plus 4 single windows = 11, so $66 for the cuts -- a lot less.

The cuts for the 3rd set would be the same.

So the price for the cuts for the 2nd set is about 10% of the price for the first. However, $500 out of $200k is not a large fraction. There would probably be a notable difference in price between the 2nd & 3rd too, since only one window would be installed vs 3 of them.

Still, I really like the way the first one looks. To me, it seems elegant and graceful. The second one is ok. The next thing is to look at the way it works from the inside, coming up next.

Windows, again

Here's another take on windows -- might be better? These are casement windows, with the large ones in the middle being double casement & the ones on the edges single casement.

These are 4'x4' (big) or 2'x4' (small), which means that they are multiples of the block sizes (which are 24" by 8"). However, I would expect that the blocks are offset at the corners (that is, they are interleaved at the corners, so that they don't sit exactly on top of each other). If so, that would mean that any window shape will require cutting blocks, though having the windows and the window spacing be multiples of 2' would perhaps means fewer cuts.

I could put an external awning above the window set that is about 1.5' high, to get my golden rectangle (horizontal, instead of vertical).

Only art means anything

Maybe everything else is the supporting cast?

Sorry the pic is so small, but if you click on it, you can see a larger image on flickr.

Is this it?

I did another take on the addition.   I think this one might be a go -- clean up the drawing & take it on the road.   I hope so anyway.

I put in more windows.   These are a bit lower than I am planning (top at 6'8", should be at 7').    I figured out how to set this value, but then forgot to actually do so.  Changing it is part of the cleanup.

 

 

I also figured out how to change the wall height & how to add a railing.    I changed the garage door to a pair of them, because that way there is a support between them for the upper floor.   I think it looks a little nicer too, but it means the wall inside moved over a little (to make a wider space for the doors).   This may change when I talk with the architect and the contractor.

The spacing between the windows is all 3', except for the middle one, which is 4'.    Also, the top floor of the present house isn't drawn in, just because I had started with a new drawing & didn't want to draw all those fiddley bits.

 

North side -- which is pretty close to invisible from the street.

 

 

Another view, looking down the deck cutout.   It will have a railing, but I forgot to put it in.   It's a french door to the porch (meaning it is all glass) and a window in the tower.

 

 

South side.  This is where I had to compromise.   The staircase and the windows I wanted to put in did not work together.   I finally decided to skip the windows on the main & top floor.   I put in small windows on the lower floor, since otherwise there is little natural light that comes down there.   The back door porch will cover over the existing basement window, so I want to have light coming into the hallway and through the basement door.   There is actually a window opening on the north side of the basement, which is presently filled with a board & the dryer vent, but I could replace it with a window that has glass -- and a hole for the dryer vent.

 

 

I may put up tromp l'oil windows, or solar panels, where the windows aren't, just for visual balance.   The basement level windows will be pretty much invisible from the street, so I think it will be ok that they are a different size.

 

Corner view -- the door is actually about 3' above ground level & will have a porch going up to it.

 

 

 

Inside -- lower level:

 

 

Main level:

 

 

Vertical section through the hallway:

 

 

I discovered something else Floor Plan can do, which is to put in what it calls surfaces.   That is, one can have an elevation change without a wall, like a ledge.  This is what you see on the lower level.   The addition floor level is below the present basement level.   Rather than go down to the addition level & then go up to the basement, I put in a ledge that goes to the basement, then steps go down from that.    The addition level will be 16 (or 17) inches below the basement, so there may need to be a railing around the ledge.