yeah, i designed that

21 May 2009

It's cool to see past projects have a life of their own and how their presented artistically, in this case musically and visually on the web.



via the Square Room site.

i was born twenty years too early

20 May 2009


See here.

Posted by ck at 2:32 PM 1 comments  

it's time to densify

18 May 2009

This is the savviest video I've seen yet explaining a philosophy that has become a cornerstone of my personal and professional life:

holy crap

17 May 2009



I don't know if this will be as good. I don't know if I'll cry silent tears in a movie theater seat the way I cried in bed at 3:00 in the morning while I was reading it. I'm not sure how I like this "action" style trailer, but the little bit of the Coke scene makes me hope the movie exceeds this marketing. What I see here makes me realize that I'll be seeing this movie, for better or worse. Early review here.

p.s. No matter however the way the movie portrays it, I'll always see the father and son walking across the Henley Street Bridge in the ash, finding the mummified remains of the dead on the streets of Knoxville.

p.p.s. After watching it a half dozen times, I realize that this will definitely set Appalachia in a post-apocalyptic Deliverance light. But let's face it- when the world falls apart, it probably will be only West Virginians and East Tennesseeans left, eating each other.

more adventures on the road

13 May 2009


A hair raising experience on the road this morning prompted me to do something I don't usually do- send an angry email. Luckily the culprit was well marked:

To: karen.estes@knoxcac.org

Ma’am,

I bicycle commute down Western Ave. everyday and typically have no problem with cars passing me in a lane. However, this morning one of your buses showed that they are apparently unaware how to safely share the road with bicycles. Bus No. 3172 passed me between 11th St. and Henley St. without giving the legally required 3 feet of buffer space, which wasn’t so bad, but they also accelerated extremely rapidly while doing so. Bus No. 3172 could have easily caused an accident this way. I understand that your driver has a schedule to keep, but such driving behavior is very dangerous for bicyclists on the road. While one might expect this from a common driver, seeing it from a public vehicle with a commercially licensed driver is startling.

I am trying to be polite here, but I have to say that it makes me very angry to see a professional driver so flagrantly disregard the rights of others on the road. I trust that this letter will reach whomever it needs to so that the driver of 3172 will be reprimanded for his/her actions this morning. If your drivers don't know how to properly accommodate bicycles on the road I fear that accidents may be inevitable, especially in the downtown area where there are hundreds of bicyclists everyday.

Thank you for you attention to this matter-

Regards,

Christopher King

Which was promptly responded to:

Mr. King,

Thank you for your email. I am sorry that this occurred. I will follow
up with the driver and also check into some Bicycle Awareness Education
for all staff.


Thank you.

Karen Estes
Senior Manager
Knox County CAC Transit

Hopefully this will lead to good things.

khan!!!

07 May 2009



I'm more excited than I should be about the new Star Trek movie. I should know better. Last time I got excited about a movie all I got was a blue glowing penis.

Posted by ck at 4:28 PM 0 comments  

a quick update

After a flurry of blogging last month, it seems I've slowed down here at DESIGN///ck. I thought I'd give you a glimpse of what's going on. Right now I'm reading C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, currently on That Hideous Strength. I took a break from The Fountainhead, but I'll probably finish it up later this month. It's always a good reminder why I wanted to be an architect in the first place. Some friends that are on vacation lent us their Wii for a few weeks, so I've been busy getting my skill levels up to Pro on Wii Sports. See why I haven't been blogging? We've been landscaping our yard and putting out our garden. Alice has been ambitious, and I think we'll have tons of vegetables this summer. But we want to can a lot of them and save them for winter and save money on food. She also put in a beautiful flower bed around the tree in the front yard. I built the brick retaining wall in front and mulched it. Also, I bought a lawnmower on Craigslist and have mowed more than I ever have since I moved out of my parents' house. The joys of home ownership! We've been keeping Colleen's dog Callie this month and training her, but she'll be heading up to Indiana to rejoin them this weekend. We're going up to see Colleen and Cevin's final projects presentation, and to celebrate Mother's Day with Mom and the family. My company has reduced all of us down to 4 days a week and 4/5 pay, so I have more free time (three day weekends!) but less money to do anything (reading and Wii, see?). I'm starting to pick up odd jobs to make up the difference, the first of which is a small trim carpentry job I'm starting tonight. On a grander scale, it looks like I'll be taking a few weeks off and building a garage for the 'rents in WV. Tomorrow I'm looking at bidding a reroof for one of the pastors at my church. So God is good, and provides ways to make money to those who aren't afraid to work hard. Let me know if you guys have any projects for me! With Alice off school in two weeks, she may be able to help me on projects, which would be cool to spend more time with her. This spring has been hectic for our schedules. Hopefully summer will be slower and she can relax a little. One more thing, I'm starting to take on organizing and coordinating the building projects for the Friends of Fort Liberte nonprofit group in Haiti. I'm also master planning and designing the next phases for the orphanage down there. So more work in my free time, but it's definitely a labor of love. And it looks like I'll be getting back into the groove of going to Haiti every year, something I've missed. I'm set to go in December, and I hope Alice and I can go in May together. She really wants to get involved with really helping other people, and I think Haiti and her will be a good fit.

So that's the main stuff. Now you know about as much as I do about my life right now.