hiking

30 October 2007





Alice and I went hiking up at House Mountain on Sunday afternoon. It was beautiful day to be outside. I love this time of year! I feel like I'm really awake for the first time in months.
Mr. P made it all the way to the top on his own. We had some tired dogs when we got home.
Click on "photos" to the left to see all the pictures.

friends, family, and bicycles

28 October 2007



I got to see some old friends from architecture school yesterday. They all came up to Knoxville for the Vol game last night and did the whole tailgating shindig all afternoon. I hadn't seen Courtney or Adam since graduation. It's funny- we're all gearing up to take our ARE (Architect Registration Exam) and comparing notes, just like we did in school. It felt good to know I'm not the only one sweating it out and wondering how I'll do.



Last night my family threw a birthday party for my brother Cameron back in Clarksburg. I really wish I could have been there. I got to talk with him on the phone a little last night and heard that he got a new bike to get around Morgantown. Bike communting rocks! It really does make sense for most of the little trips people make, usually in cars. So kudos to him for making the step. (Cameron, your present from us is on it's way! We hope you like it!)

I've been trying to bike commute more days of the week than I use the car. It takes a little more planning, but I really like it. Riding through morning traffic gets my adrenaline running and I don't need as much coffee when I get to the office. You just feel better from a little 15 minute workout at the start of the day. If more people rode their bikes to get around, more businesses would start locating in town instead of at strip malls, traffic would be reduced, there'd be less pollution, and there'd be less overweight people. I don't think our culture of "one car for every person over 16" will be sustainable with the growing global competition. People will always need cars for many things, but I think it will be more like our grandparents' generation- one car per household. Meanwhile the rest of us still need to get to work and run errands- so go get a bike.

probably not

26 October 2007

Posted by ck at 4:07 PM 0 comments  

mr. patinkins

Alice got back home from a long visit in Franklin yesterday, brought her Gramma's dog back with her. We call him Mr. Patinkins.



For those of you who aren't up to date, Alice's Gramma fell and broke her arm and leg and is in a nursing home doing physical therapy right now. She'll be home in a few weeks, but until then we'll be taking care of her dog. As you can see, out pointy-ear dog obsession continues.

Beginning a food theme for the blog: today's lunch-



Harby's Pizza, voted best in Knoxville. It's only a block up from our place! This is the bacon cheeseburger pizza. Mmmm MMMM!

Just got the soundtrack to "Into the Wild" by Eddie Vedder. It looks like it's going to be a great movie, I read a big article about it in Outside magazine. Vedder seems to be having a little rennaissance. He had a great song on Jack Johnson's Brokedown Melody this year and now this. He's picking up the banjo and mandolin these days, which I think is a good thing. I can't wait to see how the movie stands up to the book.
I also got Radiohead's new album "In Rainbows." Seems like they're going back al little to OK Computer and Kid A, which is fine by me. Hail to the Thief was cool, but I don't actually end up listening to it that much.

I finished East of Eden last night. I think it's one of the best books I've ever read. I'll write more later, I'm still thinking it through right now.

knoxville blog

25 October 2007

I've been working on another blog the last week, a group blog that Jason started- "the sunsphere is not a wig shop." It aims to document Knoxville life, inspired in part by Will's thorough documentation of life in Korea. Knoxville is a cool place with its own quirks. It's the kind of town that might seem boring if you were just passing through, but once you live here for a while and peel back the layers, it reveals alot of interesting things.
check it out: http://alittleknoxvillian.blogspot.com
I'm not sure if we're going to stay here for the rest of our lives, but I want enjoy Knoxville while we're here.

the start of a new blog

24 October 2007








I decided to externalize the blog part of my site to blogger so that it can be more connected to everyone else's blogs. As much as I like iweb, it doesn't have very good networking. I'll still keep the rest of the site running, so all your old links don't need to change- just keep going to my front page and click "blog."
To give the new blog a classy start, we'll revisit an old favorite: