My Built Environment: Good, Bad, and Really Ugly

On our way up to Crested Butte this past weekend, we passed the new location of the Coney Island Hot Dog stand in Bailey, CO. My daughter was so amused by it, that we had to visit it on our way back home. Most people consider this little stand one of the best remaining examples of road side archtitecture. This stand has quite a history. It was originally constructed in Denver on Colfax Avenue in 1966. In 1970, it moved up to the mountains to the town of Aspen Park, where it sat for a few more decades. In 2006, it was moved again to Bailey in order to make room for a Bank in Aspen Park. Now it is in a great location, with mountainside dining, as well as riverfront picnic tables. I do know that an attempt was made in the late 1990’s to landmark this structure, but I am not certain if that was ever finalized.

The day we were here, the place was packed, with lines out the door. We thought this place must be fabulous. It took almost an hour from the time we arrived, to the time we actually were served our food (a full 30 minutes after we recieved drinks and floats). The staff didn’t seem too terribly organized, or in an particular hurry, even though they only making hotdogs and hamburgers. To make it worse, it was not that cheap, and the food wasn’t all that good. I can make better hot dogs on the back yard grill. Oh well, it was the ambience!

I don’t normally advertise other blogs, but for those readers that are mac fans, such as me, this blog I recently found is fabulous! Mac AppStorm

The last 9 months or so, and the last 6 months in particular have seen a lot of changes for my family and me. It started late last year with the collapse of the real estate and construction industry. My business, Vignette Studios, is directly tied to it, so therefor my business collapsed as well. Between Nov. and Jan. I let all of my full time employess go, and converted on part time employee to a contract employee. I also accumulated a lot of debt trying to stay afloat last year. Then in January, I was forced to move out of my office location of almost 10 years into my home. Move number one. Now we have our home under contract (which only took two months) and are preparing to move in a couple of weeks. Move number two. For now we will be renting a home, with plans to build another home next year in Midori. It has been a lot of stress needless to say.

Now for the good news. With the sale of our home, we will be able to work out of most of our debt. I have also been renegotiating a lot of it. So in only 6 short months, we will have most of the bad stuff behind us, and can focus on the future again. Vignette Studios is slowly starting to come back to life. I am also continuing to work on Midori, and will hopefully be able to start development work on it later this year or early next year (subject to funding of course). I am also working with a local developer and financial partner on restarting my home building company to build homes on his lots as will as in Midori and other projects. We are already getting some good interest in that without even advertising. More to come on that one. So while it has been a difficult year, our family has pulled through, held together and perservered to get through it. Now we can look forward to a new beginning, and pray that we don’t see another recession like this again. I am also aware that there many other firms and people that are in for worse shape than us, so I am thankful for that.

Recently there has been a lot of talk in the press and on blogs about Flint, MI. This is a city that has been hit hard by the decline of the auto industry, not just this year, but the last 39 years. As noted on the site, CircletheUSA.com, Flint has shrunk from 195,000 people in 1970 to around 117,000 today. Like Detroit, it has blocks and blocks of vacant housing or empty lots. However, Flint has embarked on a program to physically shrink itself to create a more sustainable city. As noted in the New York Times Flint is relocating people from scattered homes into close in neighborhoods, and then demolishing homes and the infrastructure from the areas that they are relocating people from. They are doing this with a land bank that mostly gets property via tax sales, or buys up foreclosures, etc. By shrinking, Flint is hoping they can save tons of cash by not having to support the infrastructure from scattered residents. The concept of tighter urban development to make government services more affordable is what many planners have been pushing for years. Large lot developments are unsustainable. I believe the whole country is really beginning to rethink the whole concept of suburban development with new urbansim, a renewed focus on in-fill development, and mixed-use development.

We went camping over the weekend west of Larimie, WY in the Snowy Range area. This is the second year we have gone up there, and it has become our  new favorite place. The scenery is gorgeous, there are hiking trails, fishing lakes, and four wheeling opportunities, and it isn’t as crowded as Colorado campsites, not to mention it is relatively close to home. Of course, on the comical side, we ran out of propane in the main tank (which is why I carry a spare), and for some reason the battery on the trailer would not charge. So in a sense we had to “rough” it. We do have backup lights, so the only inconvenience was the water system in the trailer would not work. But I carry extra water anyway, so all was well. On one four-wheeling trail, we found this breathtaking view. On another trail we found some snow, which fascinated my son and he was enthralled trying to find the source of many of the streams. But with all adventures, it was good to get home again.