My Built Environment: Good, Bad, and Really Ugly

This past weekend we went camping for our last trip of the season. We happen to have a tent trailer, which we love for camping. I don’t know how many of you go camping, but those of you that do know that all campgrounds have one way loops in them. That is fine, but in the vast majority of the sites we camp in, we have to back the trailer into them. Not a big deal, but invariably, the back in spaces are designed in the opposite direction of the one way loop…so you have to go around the loop in the wrong direction to have a prayers chance of getting into the camp site. I find this idiotic, but have resigned myself to it. Now this particular camping site took the cake…it was actually pretty easy to get into it, but after I backed in, I realized the whole campsite was totally backwards! RV’s are universally designed to have the doors on the right side (when you are facing to the front of the trailer) with hookups and such on the left side. This campsite was backwards. The picnic table area was on the left side of the trailer, with the hookups on the right! This was the first time I had run into this. Of course, I had to borrow an extension cord to hookup. Walking around the campground, I notice a considerable number of campsites that were backwards. I am ashamed to admit that it is largely people in my profession that design campgrounds…and obviously, the ones who design them, don’t camp! Guess I need to figure out how to get some of these projects.

Week of July 23rd. Man was it hot this week! I only made it in once, but made that one count. With meetings and such, made it about 15 miles that day.

A quick update on my trips into work.

Week of June 25th: (bike to work week) I managed to ride in twice that week.
Week of July 1: None, a lot of meetings and the holiday
Week of July 9: Made it in two days in a row! Course, that was all she wrote that week, though I did squeeze in a 15 mile ride up in Aspen.
Weed of July 16th: I made it twice this week.

My friend Amy and I have been having a friendly discussion going about commuters who ride there bike. Currently, she is carless, lives in Boulder, and works from home, so she has an advantage. Myself, my commute is not that long by most people, about 5 miles each way. However, with my job I do end up driving quite a bit to meetings and such. For the past few years, I have riden my bike to work probably a dozen times or so over the course of the summer. A week ago, I finally broke down and bought a new bike. I wanted something that was an around town bike, but I do traverse hills. I ended up getting a Giant Cypress bike that is a combination cruiser style bike and mountain bike. It is great because you ride upright, and it has 21 gears for hill climbing. My challenge from Amy is to keep track of how many times I commute on my bike. For the week of June 18th I rode to work 1 time. This is bike to work week, so I will shoot for more times! For the record though, so far this season I have bike commuted about a dozen times already.

I found this “lovely” home in a new community today…and I couldn’t believe it! What builder, in there right mind, would build a home where the street front was all garage door and driveway! Could you imagine coming home to this…with this being the first thing you saw? What amazes me even more…this home is already sold! It must be spetacular inside! Nahhh…