festival of maps: chicago

a friend pointed me in the direction of the Festival of Maps - Chicago. It looks like an incredible event, well-located in perhaps the finest city in the United States.

drought songs: the seed song

living in North Carolina is a bit like the opposite of living in Macondo of 100 Years of Solitude, when Ursula is waiting for the rains to stop so that she can die. According to the highly reputable source www.gradesaver.com it rains in Macondo for four years, eleven months and two days. I did some research and found out that in September we received no rain that wasn't directly a result of a tropical storm. so, here's a classic fable of drought - the Seed Song, Atom and His Package

the rain didn't come for one calendar year
so when the man with the sunflower seeds in his hand came near
we sent him away, we sent him away, we sent him away

the rain didn't come for twelve months more
so when the man with the seed catalogue darkened our door
we sent him away, we sent him away, we sent him away

I know you're waiting for the ironic ending
I know you're waiting for the punch line
I know you're waiting for the rain to come by
well - so am I, so am I, so am I

for those in Portland, Maine this friday

I hear that one of the preeminent experts on... umm - hmm - transit t-shirts will be giving a talk on the history of park planning in Maine this Friday, October 26.

okay - how am I supposed to talk right before a presentation entitled: Space Aliens?

anyways, be there at the great Eastland Park Hotel this Friday from 4:30 to 6:30 pm.

SimCity as energy advertisement

for many of us current planning students, one of our first experiences with planning was playing the seminal computer game SimCity. Of course the original game instilled those transcendent planning concepts such as Euclidean zoning and greenfield (blank slate) development, but as we dutifully separated commercial from residential areas and attempted to make our own Brasilias we grew to love the idea of working in cities and working with cities.


Enter Chevron in 2007 who in conjunction with the Economist Group just released Energyville, a game which owes a lot to the original SimCity in design and appearance. In the goal of Energyville, you are the mayor who must choose how to "power" his or her city for the next few decades. Not surprisingly, you learn that oil is essential to the future of your city, and the most effective way of moving forward is by creating a balanced portfolio of energy sources. I did manage to complete the 'simulation' by powering my city with 50% solar electricity, which should win me some sort of award and/or worldwide acclaim.

So, pass a few hours in Energyville, or better yet, play the original SimCity for free on-line.

a great day for the Howlett's

the other day during the 2007 Rugby World Cup the great Doug Howlett broke the all-time New Zealand try record. Now, I have no idea what this means, but I'm a big supporter of Doug Howlett. Not only is he a tremendous rugby player, he also has great hair and a charitable foundation.


check out these headlines:

Happy Howlett vows there's more to come

Six Try Howlett to Grace Pool Five

the guatemalan elections

I read about the elections every day when I was in Guatemala this summer. Under Guatemalan law a president is limited to one 4 year term so that means a new president every four years. This year there were 14 or so candidates running and on September 9th it was no surprise that no one candidate garnered over 50% of the vote. To avoid having elected presidents who receive less than a majority of the vote, many countries have run-off elections between the top 2 candidates. In Guatemala, this matches the center-left Alvaro Colom who is running for his third straight time against former general Otto Perez Molina.

In Guatemala where 56% of the country lives in poverty and a large percentage of population is illiterate - the primary way of voting is putting an X through a political party's emblem. When I first arrived in Guatemala I thought that opposing factions had crossed out advertisements for competing political parties but only later did I learn that this tactic was trying to get people to vote for a particular party. This means that graphic design is a major component of elections in Guatemala. Here are the two emblems for UNE and Partido Patriota, the parties of the two remaining candidates in the election.


Are these images loaded with symbolism? You bet they are. UNE loosely translated into English is the National Hope Party. Partido Patriota is the Patriotic Party and their slogan is Mano Dura or the Strong Hand. Is it something to have a clinched white fist be a symbol of a dominant political party in a country where half of the population is indigenous Mayan? I would think so.

This has been a particularly bloody campaign in Guatemala. The 40+ year civil war there ended in the early 1990s. Running for a political position can be a very dangerous proposition. More than 50 candidates, activists, and their relatives were killed in the run-up to this election. Here's a Washington Post article on the violence in the months before the election and here's election reports from the Washington Post and the BBC. I'll be keeping track of the run-off election and will keep you all posted. If I were one to make political predictions, I am almost certain that Otto Perez Molina will win the election in November.

who's afraid of google?

well, I am - at least a little bit. Of course that doesn't stop me from using and thoroughly enjoying google applications such as Googe Earth, Google Maps, and of course this blog. I'm still waiting for Google Marc to come out to render what I do at least academically completely useless. Did you know that Google's motto is "don't be evil"? I sure didn't. Check out the article in the Economist.