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  • OK, brace yourself for this one– I considered making this a “6 straight jacket” project, but I figured that would just put me on a slippery slope because I would then be tempted to crank it up to “11.”  The Foothills Mall in Fort Collins, Colorado, is a fairly typical indoor mall in decline.  In recent years it has lost two of the four anchors, and the smaller stores have a vacancy rate of around 30% with more stores leaving at a faster rate than new ones are coming.  Located in the center of Fort Collins, this piece of real estate is a prime candidate for redevelopment.  But what to build?  A large new commercial development on the south side of town has brought in many of the stores that would otherwise be interested in overhauling the Foothills Mall.

    An interesting fact about Fort Collins is it’s close proximity to the Continental Pole of Inaccessibility in North America.  Stay with me, I’m going somewhere with this.  First of all, you are probably thinking, “WTF is the Continental Pole of Inaccessibility in North America?”  It is the location in North America farthest from any of the oceans, and technically it is located in the far southwest corner of South Dakota.  Fort Collins is arguably the closest major town to this point. Sorry Cheyenne, I don’t consider you a major town.  Don’t take it personally.

    So what, right?  Well, anyone who is interested in going on a cruise in Fort Collins has a long way to go before they take their first step on a boat.  This can be quite a deterrent for many people when making vacation plans.  The latest cruise ships have so many attractions aboard they have literally become a destination in themselves.  This kind of brings up the question, “If there is so much to do on the ship, does it need to go anywhere for people to have a good time?”  And if the answer to that question is NO, then the next question becomes, “Why don’t we just start building the ships on land and save the costs of making it float, driving it around all over the place, and cleaning barnacles off the hull every few weeks?”  So let’s build a luxury cruise ship right on top of the Foothills Mall.  Sears and Macy’s can stay where they are now (being anchors and all), but everything in between will look and feel exactly like a luxury cruise ship.  The first floor would be rebuilt as a traditional mall that is open to the general public.  The upper floors would be accessible only to the people who have booked a cruise.  The entire experience of being on a luxury cruise ship would be duplicated– from the compact sleeping arrangements to the elaborate dining halls to the continuous party atmosphere.  And being the first land based cruise ship, people from all over the country would travel to Fort Collins to experience the novel type of vacation.

    I see this as a win-win-win situation.  The city gets a ton of new construction and service jobs, the cruise ship company that builds it gets to show off their fleet to a whole new demographic, and the mall gets a face lift.  I’m sure there will be some issues getting permits, financing, and few random people saying, “Let’s just do exactly the same thing we’ve been doing for the last ten years and just hope, for reasons that are not clearly evident, the mall and the surrounding area will suddenly recover through our blindly loyal inaction,” but the everyone else can rally around the new slogan I just thought of: “Let’s Get Our Ship Together!”

  • I was reading an article in Popular Mechanics about solar energy when I came up with this idea.   Solar panels are generally made out of relatively rare and expensive materials and have other drawbacks that, given our current technology, keep solar panels from being economically competitive with other methods of generating electricity such as coal and natural gas.  While it is possible that improvements in solar panel technology may change this in the future, a more cost effective method of converting sunlight to electricity would reduce our toll on the environment.  This is where solar collectors come into the equation.  Is it possible to gather sunlight in such a way that could be used to generate electricity and be cheaper than current methods?

    A company in New Mexico is working on reducing the cost of creating energy from sunlight. reflecting light onto a small area.  The energy harnessed in turn powers a Stirling Engine which then creates electricity  (pictured on the left).  As I read the article I was impressed with this different approach to the problem.  Honestly, I didn’t even know how a Stirling Engine worked.  They could really be onto something here.  The article mentioned the company has worked out all the technological issues, now they are focusing on reducing the cost of building these devices.   The article noted that each of these dishes can power roughly 12 houses with electricity.

    So I thought about it for a while, and I think there is a much less expensive way to achieve the same results.  Here is how I would build a cheaper solar collector:

    Step one: Acquire an OLD satellite dish.  Not one of the 18 inch models that are currently in use.  You need an old school dish that is several feet in diameter.  Here is a good example:

    Step Two: Acquire/buy several hundred blank CDs.  Back in the day you could ask AOL for as many as you wanted, but I’m not sure that would fly today.

    Step Three: Line the entire inside of the dish with CDs, with the exception of the very center, making sure the sure the most reflective side is facing up.  This will allow for the sunlight to be concentrated at the focal point.  Attach the CDs to the dish with bolts (in case they need to be replaced in the future), or Lee press on nails (if that’s all you have in your purse).

    Step Four: Place a large sized convex mirror, maybe one from a truck side mirror, at the focal point of the dish.  This is made easier by using the existing support structure of the dish.  The purpose of the mirror is to focus the light back onto the exact center of the dish.  (This will be where the engine is eventually placed).  Finding a mirror with the correct curvature could take some work.

    Step Five: Build a level circular base out of concrete.  The diameter should be at least as large as the diameter of the top edge of the dish.

    Step Six: Place the Sterling Engine in the center of the base.

    Step Seven: Build a support structure for the dish.  When finished, the base needs to be able to rotate freely in two dimensions in order to track the sun.  It also must be able to accommodate the engine in the center of the dish that keeps the top of the engine at the center of the dish.

    Step Eight: Build a mechanism for tracking the sun.

    So how is this method better than what has already been built?  The main improvement is moving the engine from the focal point of the dish to a stationary position underneath the dish.  This reduces overall center of gravity and complexity since only the dish itself is moving.  It also shades most of the engine, which relies on temperature differentials to produce energy.  Also, the smaller scale would allow individual homeowners to build this device from a kit to provide some or all of their home’s energy needs.

  • This idea has several sub-thoughts that are loosely related.  I’ve lived in a townhouse for more than five years now, and here are some things that I think could be improved.

    Basement/Garage

    I’ve lived in a townhouse for the past five years, and, in general, I’m quite happy with the layout of my unit and the development as a whole.  One problem in the area is parking.  Despite each unit having a two car garage, there is always a shortage of parking space around some of the buildings.  I soon realized that one cause of this problem is that many people have a bunch of crap in their garage, or have more than two vehicles that need to be parked.  So I would like to see townhouses developed where the entire garage and basement is combined into a single uninterrupted space that is two car lengths deep.  This way people could more easily store their garage related items while still parking two vehicles in the garage.  This large space would also allow four cars to be parked in the garage– in a two by two configuration.  OK, so maybe it couldn’t “officially” be called a four car garage, but people looking at buying a unit could see the possibilities.  Can someone get on that?  Thanks!

    Radiant Heating

    This has been around for a while now where deep wells are dug near a building and loops of plastic tubes are placed in the holes.  The holes are filled back up and a mixture of water and antifreeze is pumped down the wells and back up.  The constant temperature of the ground can be used to cool or heat building through more tubes running beneath the upper floors.  This is a really good system requiring minimal electricity to move the liquid, but digging the wells can cost tens of thousands of dollars.  Would it be possible to build a house with tubes running in the concrete foundation and connecting to the tubes in the floors?  If there is enough thermal mass in the floor of the basement it could cut the cost of radiant heating by an order of magnitude by eliminating the expensive drilling step.

    Keeping Houses Cool

    In the summer time a lot of houses can get hot, and people spend a lot of time and money to keep this from happening.  Houses get hot inside in part because the sun is shining on the outside part of the house.  (That’s not exactly rocket science there)  Making houses that reflect most of that light instead of absorbing it would result in a much cooler house.  How about taking a few thousand blank CDs, tying them together to create a flat, hexagonal pattern, and sticking it to the roof during the summer.  This would reflect most of the energy off the roof and lower the temperature of the house.  If that works, someone could manufacture inexpensive interlocking reflective plastic squares to make the process even easier.  I would try this myself, but I would like to avoid a lengthy legal dispute with my homeowner’s association.

  • Katherine and I took a short road trip to Saratoga Springs, Wyoming in August just to get away for a few days.  About three hours drive from Loveland, Colorado, this town consisted of some hot springs, two gas stations, a handful of hotels, and a few hundred people who seemed to have taken up residence here for their own personal reasons.  We booked a room at the hotel which included access to several hot tubs and a large pool filled with mineral water.  Some of the hot tubs were mostly covered with teepee-like structures that gave a large amount of privacy, just in case, say,  you and your partner needed some alone time to, oh, review old tax returns or exchange highly sensitive military intelligence.

    The hotel room had its own share of peculiarities.  In addition to the queen sized bed, much of the room was occupied by a large rustic looking armoire.  I’m not sure if it was real rustic or fake rustic– around here it could go either way.  Inside the armoire is a very medium sized television set.  A shelf above the television is a shelf bowing under the weight of a large VCR with, if carbon dated, would probably be traced backed to the early 1980s.  I can’t remember ever having been in a hotel room with a VCR.  We got all the standard cable channels, some better than others– perhaps a sign of a few too many sets connected to the cable feed.  All the network channels were based in Denver, which kind of negated the feeling that we were out in the middle of nowhere.  Or at least as much of nowhere that is left these days.  Come to think about it, we did pass a large Walmart distribution center about 60 miles from town, so somewhere is getting closer all the time.

    The only other notable attribute of the hotel was the high pressure nozzle on the shower.  This device literally separates the water molecules into individual atoms before shooting them out at a velocity approaching the speed of light.  This causes the water to assume wavelike properties and travel straight through my body, the tub, the subfloor, and so on until it slows down somewhere, I suspect, near the molten core of the planet.

    While somewhat limited in our dining choices, we found a rather small-townsy type place that served a small selection of breakfast options.  We must have come during the morning rush, because the one waiter was overwhelmed trying to take care of everyone.  When the shelf of clean coffee mugs became empty, one of the customers cleaned up a few tables, took everything into the kitchen, and came back out in a few minutes with a dozen clean mugs.  That’s what I like about visiting small towns– well, that and we didn’t see a single mugging or car-jacking.

  • Following the success of the show, “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant,” The Learning Channel greenlighted a sister show titled, “I Thought I Was Pregnant But It Turns Out I Was Just Getting Fat Really Quickly After My Boyfriend Dumped Me And I Just Sat Around On The Couch Eating Microwave Pizza and Twinkies All Day Long Waiting For A Miracle To Occur.”

  • However,  the application has led to many complaints from users saying the iPhone is either the wrong shape or that the docking port is way, way too small.

  • Boss Hogg, after having finished an absurdly large lunch in the back room of the Boar’s Nest, looks out the window at Bo and Luke Duke in the General Lee doing doughnuts in the parking lot before driving away.  “Those Duke boys have been a thorn in my side all day long!”

    Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane walks over to the table of dirty dishes an tenatively replies, “Well, Boss, I did see you drop a deep fried chicken wing bewteen your ample stomach and the chair during breakfast.  Maybe that’s what is causing your discomfort.”  Rosco tenatively reaches in to extract the piece of food, but before he can get close enough Boss Hogg slaps Rosco’s hand with a large butter knife.

    “Get away from me you idiot!” Boss Hogg yells as he starts to twist and squirm in his chair.   After a few absurdly strained attempts Boss Hogg finally grasps the wing and immediately starts devouring it.

    “Well, that did help a little bit,” Boss Hogg admitted, “but I still want to get rid of those Duke boys once and for all.  We need a plan, Rosco.”

    Rosco thought for a minute and then replied, “What if we planted something on the Duke’s farm to make it look like they were producing illegal drugs?”

    Boss Hogg thought about it for a moment.  “I like your thinking Rosco, but there is no way we could convince the honorable Judge Buford Potts the Dukes are dealing drugs.  Buford Potts and Jessie Duke have been fishing buddies since they were both little kids.”

    “Dang it!” Rosco yelled.  He looked over at his assistant reading some type of legal book.  “Enos!  Stop reading that comic book and help us take down the Duke family!”

    Enos looked up and said, “Well, golly, Rosco, I was just reading about new legal developments in Civil Asset Forfieture.  We don’t need any proof to take all their stuff, we just need a suspicion that they are doing something bad, like growing Mara-wa-hanna on their farm.  We could even ask for Federal assistance.”

    Boss Hogg smiles and yells excitedly, “This will get those Dukes out of Hazzard county!” as small pieces of chewed up chicken wing land on Rosco’s clothes.

    The next day a squad car and Boss Hogg’s white Cadillac drive up to the Duke’s house.  Rosco, Enos, Boss Hog, and a Federal agent step out of the vehicles.  The entire Duke family storms out of the house.  Uncle Jessie yells, “What is the meaning of this?  We haven’t done anything wrong and you know it.”

    Boss Hogg prods Rosco, who pulls a paper out of his pocket and starts reading, “Jessie Duke, you and your family have been accused of growing, transporting, and selling maraijuana.  All of your assets and personal belongings are now legal property of the Hazzard County Sheriff’s Department.”

    Uncle Jessie is infuriated.  “Just wait until Judge Potts hears about this.  This little plan is going to backfire on you Boss Hogg.”

    Rosco turns to the Federal agent.  “You see here, Mister, uhhh….”

    “Smith,” the agent replied.

    “Mr. Smith,” Rosco continued, “here is what happened.  My assistant Enos was performing surveillance on this farm a few nights ago when he observed a large number of marijuana plants growing behind the chicken coop.”

    Daisy piped up, “You mean when Enos was snooping around trying to watch me take a shower with his night vision goggles?”

    Everyone looked at Enos as he looked down awkwardly at the ground making small circles in the dirt with his right foot.

    Boss Hogg broke the silence by explaining, “during the observation, Enos was detected by Miss Duke.  She obviously applied her womanly abilities on him in order to obtain details of the upcoming raid.”

    With an odd blank look on his face Enos stared off to the distance and said, to nobody in particular, “I want to see Daisy’s womanly abilities….”

    Rosco interrupted Enos, “which is how they managed to remove all the evidence before the raid!”

    Everyone started arguing at once.  After a minute, Agent Smith spoke up, “I’ve heard enough!”  He reached for his two-way radio and gave an order.  A minute later several unmarked black Suburbans drive up and helicopters land behind the barn.  Heavily armed agents dressed head to toe in black clothing start swarming the area.

    Two agents tip over the chicken coop.  A few run into the house and come out wearing pairs of Daisy’s cut off jeans.  A team of agents run towards the General Lee with welding equipment.  Sparks start flying and the agents are giving each other high fives when they get the doors to open and close correctly.  The crew from MTV’s “Pimp My Ride” go after Uncle Jessie’s old pickup.  They paint it, add 10 television sets, and drive it away.

    Rosco hooks up the General Lee to the back of Boss Hogg’s Cadillac.  The Duke family is standing in front of the house not knowing what to do.  Boss Hogg gets behind the wheel as Rosco and Agent Smith get in the back seat.  As Boss Hogg pulls away with the General Lee, Agent Smith starts playing a guitar and sings:

    Framed the old Duke Boys
    For growing pot by the barn
    The best Hazzard ever saw
    They evaded the law since the day they was born

    Daisy’s got some nice curves
    Bo and Luke look good too
    That should help when they are broke
    On the streets begging for food

    Boss Hogg wanted them out
    But he didn’t know how
    That is until the feds gave the
    Fourth Amendment a bow

    So no more good Duke Boys
    No more General Lee
    Crushed by abuse in a system
    They couldn’t even see

  • We rented “Zach and Miri Make a Porno” from Netflix this weekend.  The premise is quite simple– long time friends and roommates Zach and Miri are broke, and decide to remedy the situation by filming a porno flick.  Of course nothing really goes as planned, and things get weird between the two friends when the idea of having sex with each other and a bunch of strangers comes into play.

    Overall I enjoyed the movie.  Seth Rogen who plays the main character Zach, does a great job being the slightly irresponsible but good intentioned roommate.  Elizabeth Banks play Miri, who kind of seems too sexy to have been living with Zach for the past decade.  These main characters get developed well through witty dialogue.  My biggest problem was that you could see where the plot was going every second of the film–  no major surprises.  Zach and Miri attend their high school reunion and meet a moderately successful gay porn star.  Brandon St. Randy mixes Keanu Reeves good looks, Clint Eastwood’s scratchy voice, and a dash of old fashioned compassion in perfect proportion to create his almost-but-not-quite over-the-top performance.  I kept waiting for him to appear later on in the movie, but was sorely disappointed.  Oh, I guess I should have put “spoiler alert” before that last sentence.

    I don’t know exactly how this type of compensation works, but someone should be paying Jason Mewes because they really just stole the his character of Jay from several movies (Clerks, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Clerks 2, and so on) with the Lester character.  He looked and sounded just like Jay, which really bothered me since all of the other characters seemed so original.

    My favorite line of the movie was Zach telling Miri, “I don’t mean to alarm you… but I think I just jerked off Lester a little bit.”

    See this movie if: you are a Seth Rogen fan and enjoy porn satire.

    Don’t see this movie if: you are on a first date, want to watch a real porn movie, or want to be surprised by exciting plot twists.

    And, while I’m thinking about comedy pornography, I think the best movie to see in this genre is “Orgazmo.”  Written by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Orgazmo details the transformation of Joe Young from a Jahova’s witness on his first mission to taking down an organized crime ring.  A variety of jokes about Utah (Joe Young, “I’m not a superhero! I’m a Latter-Day Saint.”),  fake boobs (“My doctor says now I have enough silicone in my body to kill a small elephant! Isn’t that cool?”), and even a surprisingly insightful debate by the porn stars about who gets degraded by pornography.

    The movie might have seen a wider audience if it hadn’t gotten an “NC-17” rating.  I don’t think it is any more or less graphic as “Zach and Miri,” which received and “R” rating.  I suspect the people who rate movies just don’t like Matt Stone and Trey Parker.  I’ve read that “Team America” and “South Park: The Movie” both orginally received NC-17 ratings.  Which is interesting since one was made completely out of puppets and the other one was a cartoon.

    So if you are only going to see one funny pornographic movie this summer, watch Orgazmo.  If you are going to see more than one, also check out “Zach and Miri Make a Porno.”

  • I wrote a ranting lunatic type letter to Dish Network the other day just to make myself feel better. Basically I want to be able to make playlists of DVR television shows for my future children to watch based on their age. Then I want everyone to be able to share their playlists with the world through the Internet. Anyone, even Oprah, could make suggestions about programming to watch based on date of birth. From this I can see which shows are popular with parents whose children are the same age. Oh yeah, and when my kid turns on the TV, they have to enter their own password so they can only watch shows on their own playlist. I’ll switch over to which ever company can effectively set this up. So Dish, Echostar, Cable guys, and Tivo– get working on this ASAP– my first girl is due in December!

  • I put off talking about this topic because there seemed to be so much wedding stuff to blog about, but here is the official news:  Katherine is pregnant and due to deliver in mid December.  Here is our first ultrasound, taken May 6, 2009.   I was going to scan this into my computer, but it was already quite blurry so I just used my cell phone camera.

    I have no idea what is in the picture, but Katherine explained to me that the big dark blob is her womanly parts, the small gray blob inside that is the baby, and the pink object on the right is my thumb.  At the time the ultrasound was taken it was roughly the size of a gummy bear, which is what led us to the nickname “Walter.”

    No word yet on the gender.  Everyone seems to have an opinion this topic, but I’ll just be happy if it comes out one or the other and not both.  We should have more information on the boy/girl issue after our August appointment.  We may even get a three dimensional ultrasound even though it is more expensive than the regular two dimensional version.  Most of the extra cost involves hiring an artist to be present in the exam room during the procedure to create a clay model based on a compilation of various two dimensional views.  Once the model is air dried it gets fired in a kiln after which time we can apply color glazes as we see fit.  It will look great on the mantle above the fireplace.

    So until next time– happy gestating Katherine!

  • Here are the exact directions (meaning I’m not making any of this up) to 4580 County Road 68, Wellington, Colorado:

    Go north on I-25 and get off at the Wellington exit.  Head north on the east side frontage road until you see a sign for CR68.  There is only one house on the road and it is in no way labeled.  Don’t worry– that isn’t the house you are looking for, but it does happen to belong to the guy’s brother.  He will vaguely point you towards three dirt roads in various states of disrepair.  Keep driving until you see another man driving around a front end loader for no particular reason.  He will explain how to get to the small workshop and instruct you to leave the package in the old refrigerator in the back– either compartment is fine.

  • Here are the exact directions (meaning I’m not making any of this up) to 4580 County Road 68, Wellington, Colorado:

    Go north on I-25 and get off at the Wellington exit.  Head north on the east side frontage road until you see a sign for CR68.  There is only one house on the road and it is in no way labeled.  Don’t worry– that isn’t the house you are looking for, but it does happen to belong to the guy’s brother.  He will vaguely point you towards three dirt roads in various states of disrepair.  Keep driving until you see another man driving around a front end loader for no particular reason.  He will explain how to get to the small workshop and instruct you to leave the package in the old refrigerator in the back– either compartment is fine.