Author: vargocity

Atlanta and the Southeast are at a standstill due to snow and sustained low temps (plus no means of taking care of the situation). We can’t go to work because the roads have not been made suitable for cars (as you’ll see). Many people have ventured out to play in the snow and the news agencies had made a habit of displaying residents mobile picture and video uploads on their websites and twitter pages. Here are a few of my own from the event and another that gives a pretty good idea of what we’re dealing with here. Above I tried to make a run down a hill at Brownwood Park on top of an REI box. Below I’m using the liner for a dog crate to cruise down my driveway.

//www.youtube.com/get_player
This is one of the cooler videos I’ve seen from the recent snowstorm that has had us home from work for three days now. This is on the major road through Downtown, Midtown and Buckhead called Peachtree Street.

We are finally back from a 10-day, several thousand mile trip up to the northeast to visit with family and ring in the New Year. It was a great trip that allowed us to spend time and visit with a number of people. We stopped in DC on the way up and on the way back down but only saw one of our many friends who live there. We were in Hampton, CT, Newport, RI, Warwick, RI, Pawtucket, RI, Woodstock, VT. We had good weather up and back but got snowed in for a few days while in Newport. We took a wicked drive along the coast and saw some pretty serious surf for Little Rhodie. it gave us the chance to break in the snowshoes we had brought with us for Vermont. Christmas was great, I got a new bike tire which I have really been needing. It was great to spend some time with the family and to relax after the last couple busy months.

In Woodstock we stayed at a great B&B called The Woodstocker that feels like a really nice backpacker hostel and is run by a globe-trotting British couple. It’s just down the road from the town center where Lauren lived for a year after college. Woodstock is like the little villages people set up in their windows around the holidays with the fake snow. You feel like it probably has a town crier. On New Year’s Eve we went to a great restaurant located in the nearby Inn at Weathersfield (highly recommended). We also did some snowshoeing up to the top of Mt. Peg one day and then on New Year’s Eve we did a longer hike to the top of Pico Mountain. No snowboarding this trip.

Similar tothis post on Lexicon I was shown a new tool from Google today that can search the texts of over 5 million books going back centuries and in a number of languages. The New York Times covered it here. It goes much deeper than the Facebook tool to examine cultural tends and is pretty flexible for refining your query. The data is even available for download and use by anyone. Below are a couple of posts concerning the terminology of planning and some more recent trends in the field.

One of the key questions with this data is which books are likely to be skipped or prohibited in this cataloging and what are the trends among them? And then more importantly, what trends to these book represent or add to? That’s all probably covered in this paper but I haven’t read it yet.

Another important difference from the Lexicon tool is that you can not look at trends in seasonality. The data that comes on in books isn’t as spontaneous as that captured in Google searches, Facebook wall posts (recently removed), or tweets.

This idea must’ve been stolen from Georgia. After missing out on all the federal high speed rail dollars,I can see this type of ‘progressive’ solution being debated on the GA Senate floor. “Bullet buses will make it from the Capitol down to Macon in less than an hour. And their sleek aerodynamic noses will reduce fuel costs.” “…retrofitted and modernized for as little as $40.”

http://www.theonion.com/video_embed/?id=18473
Obama Replaces Costly High-Speed Rail Plan With High-Speed Bus Plan

Great video looking at three generations of youth culture. This is from a Brazilian social and behavioral market ing research group Box1824.
Good senior editor Patrick James says:
“What stands out most about the Millennials might not be the dissolution of social groups or boundaries, but that we possess an unrivaled propensity for conspicuous navel-gazing. That said, our generation’s willful surrender of privacy will, for better or worse, shape our collective consciousness. Though, as this video points out, by the time we make heads or tails of ourselves, there will be a whole new crop of young things changing the world. “

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=16638983&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0

It is always weird for me since, by the numbers, I fall at the junction of Gen X and the Millennials. Perhaps that means I can embody parts of both. But I am well past what the video calls the top of the influential pyramid. 30 Rock does a great job of demonstrating how the middle agers are consistently out of the loop and trying desperately to fit in with the youth around them.
http://www.hulu.com/embed/WzR55fefa7aMoFNuFpKhBw

The AJC, Atlanta’s newspaper has moved its operation to the northern suburbs signaling a change in scope and depth as well. They are evening asking writers to avoid the use of words like sprawl that may offend the readership of its new locale. Below is a faux cover created as part of this story in Creative Loafing this week.

From here; related to this.

Last weekend, Lauren and I went to Vancouver for the IDSA conference. I had never been to Vancouver prior to this but had made a trip out to British Columbia to do the West Coast Trail. I wanted to get to Vancouver then but didn’t have the chance and always hoped I’d get back out there soon. Now that I’ve visited the city I’m even more eager to revisit the area and spend more time there.

Vancouver feels like the city of the next 100 years. Everything is new, spotless, thoughtfully designed, safe, diverse, busy, on-time, and appropriate. It seems ideal in many respects. There is landscaping everywhere – in all the medians, and little gaps next to sidewalks. There is a great main park with beaches, huge trees, trails, and views. I think it says a lot when some of the most desirable, attractive and potentially profitable land is set aside for the public. The transit works well and the scale of the city is very manageable while still being dense enough to be very interesting.

I did a lot of walking around and working at various cafes and shops while Lauren was at the conference. One thing I found surprising was that there were not wireless networks at many places, particularly coffee shops. I thought this was the city of the future? We hopped on the bus and headed south for some world class Indian, and took the sea bus over to North Vancouver and trekked up the Grouse Grind, also known as Nature’s Stair Master. It climbs over 800m in just under 3km. Earlier this year someone broke his own record by completing the trail 14 times in one 24-hour span. The view at the top was great and we even saw some snow on our way down. Overall the weather was fine, a little drizzle here or there but most sidewalks feature ample awnings and if you are packing a raincoat or umbrella you should be fine.

On our last day we took a ferry over to Granville Island. This is a little spot underneath the Granville Ave. Bridge that has been converted from an industrial center into an artisan fair. There is a large market space and several small galleries and boutique production workshops. We walked from there to South Granville. I wish we could have rented bikes and seen more of Stanley Park but I think the way we enjoyed the place was great.

There is something weird about Canada. All its orderliness and rule-following, it feels a little sterile, but a great place to live. We were nervous to cross the street mid-block or against the crossing sign for fear of arrest and/or scowl. It is very Scandinavian in that way. Another odd thing is that the place is so diverse and feel so foreign that you are constantly surprised to hear people speaking English. Atlanta can be like that too, except you expect to hear English and can’t always understand what people are saying to you.

Other US cities in Atlanta’s Perimeter