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You Won't Find Anything Else Like Checkbook
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Subscribe and see 55 Washington, DC area shoe repair shopsSubscribe »
Our ratings tables will help you find area shops that offer top-quality shoe repairs at reasonable prices.
Talk with top-rated shops about whether repairs make sense, how well the job can be done, and how long the shoes are likely to last. You may find there are several ways to solve your problem—at substantially different costs.
There are a few basic steps to follow in dealing with whatever shop you choose.
Our ratings turn up many local drycleaners who can tune up your clothes. The really good news? Many top-rated shops also charge low prices, meaning they won't clean out your wallet while they clean your wardrobe.
The most important thing you can do to assure yourself high-quality medical care is to form a strong relationship with a good primary care physician and, at times, together make informed decisions on specialty care. We identify top area doctors.
Once you have identified doctors who are potential candidates, you may want to get answers to several questions about each. Here's a list of things to ask.
Whichever doctor you select, how you interact with the doctor will have a big effect on the success of your care. Here are some suggestions on how to get the best care from doctors.


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The most beautiful girl in the entire world, inside and out. Royale is funny, smart, and has an all around good personality. Guys want to date her, and women want to be her. She can make you feel like a better person just by being in her presence.
I wish I was more of a Royale.
by bribrionoma February 12, 2010
by ltph June 20, 2018
toilet paper brand
very soft comes in different variety to fit your ass
very soft comes in different variety to fit your ass
"oh man you got to try this new toilet paper from royale... it makes wiping your ass feel like a piece of heaven"
by SSSSSSomeonE January 14, 2009
the other day i saw this weird royale guy. but he was hawt so it's all good.

subset: commoncrawl


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This Office Has a Secret Entrance
Good leaders know good first impressions are critical. A strong handshake, smart suit and sufficient eye contact speak volumes before you say a single word to new acquaintances. The same goes for your startup's office.
When it's your company's purpose to produce brand marketing experiences for major companies, how do you convey that your team lives and breathes extreme creativity?
David Link, co-founder of The Wonderfactory in New York City, shows off an entrance complete with a hidden door that -- communicates the agency's mission, values and dedication to originality.
To take a full tour of The Wonderfactory's fascinating office, click here:


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- Premier League
Suarez apologises over 'bite' incident
Luis Suarez has apologised for biting Branislav Ivanovic and admitted his actions were "inexcusable".
Liverpool have criticised their controversial striker with manager Brendan Rodgers branding it "unacceptable" and managing director Ian Ayre saying he had let the club down.
Suarez bit the Chelsea defender on the arm in Sunday's 2-2 draw at Anfield and escaped unpunished for it, going on to score his side's injury-time equaliser.
Rodgers earlier claimed not to have seen it but said he would launch an internal inquiry into the incident and had warned Suarez that no player is bigger than the club.
And Liverpool's 30-goal top scorer has accepted he was in the wrong, taking to Twitter in order to apologise for the incident.
"I'm sad for what happened this afternoon," Suarez said on Twitter. "I apologise Ivanovic and all football world for my inexcusable behaviour. I'm so sorry about it!"
Suarez apologised further in a statement released on Liverpool's official website, citing that he had let the club down.
"I am deeply sorry for my inexcusable behaviour earlier today during our match against Chelsea," Suarez added. "I have issued an apology and have tried to contact Branislav Ivanović to speak to him personally. I apologise also to my manager, playing colleagues and everyone at Liverpool Football Club for letting them down."
Manager Rodgers revealed he had reviewed the footage, stating that he had made the striker aware of his behaviour: "Having reviewed the video footage and spoken to Luis, his behaviour is unacceptable and I have made him aware of this."
Managing director Iain Ayre seconded Rodgers' words, saying that the matter will be dealt with by the club.
"Luis has made an unreserved apology for his actions today," Ayre said. "His behaviour is not befitting of any player wearing a Liverpool shirt and Luis is aware that he has let himself and everyone associated with the club down. We will deal with the matter internally and await any action from the FA."
The FA are still expected to take action against Suarez, who was nicknamed "the cannibal of Ajax", after biting an opponent, PSV Eindhoven's Otman Bakkal, during his time in Holland.
The controversial striker was given an eight-match ban last season when he was found guilty of racially abusing Manchester United defender Patrice Evra.
Former Liverpool captain Graeme Souness had called his actions "embarrassing" and said he is in the last-chance saloon at Anfield now.
And Gary Lineker, the top goalscorer in the 1986 World Cup, called on the PFA to remove Suarez from the shortlist for the Player of the Year award.


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Express. Home of the Daily and Sunday Express.
Wenger annoyed with touchline ban
Arsene Wenger admits he will "feel powerless" watching Arsenal from the stands in Montpellier tonight - and maintains he still does not really understand why UEFA handed him a three-match suspension.
Wenger was fined 40,000 Euros (£33,000) and banned after he confronted referee Damir Skomina in the wake of last season's Champions League defeat by AC Milan at Emirates Stadium.
Wenger, though, sees no reason why it should impact on Arsenal's performance in France, where new assistant Steve Bould will take charge on the sidelines. He said: "I will feel powerless, but sometimes have that feeling on the bench anyway."
He added: "We talk about all the possibilities before the game - if we defend or if we attack, if a player makes this run or that run - and go through all the solutions.
"An element of the unexpected can happen, but Steve has experience."
The Gunners manager's latest ban followed on from the Frenchman being sanctioned after his post-match outburst following defeat in Barcelona during March 2011, which saw him banished from the dugout for the crucial Champions League qualifier against Udinese last season - only to then communicate with the Arsenal bench, which again saw him fall foul of Europe's governing body.
The Arsenal manager maintains the guidance received by the governing body is far from clear.
"Honestly, nobody knows really - even at UEFA - what is allowed and not allowed," he said. "When I ask: 'But what is it really about?' Nobody can tell me. I appealed. First, let's not forget, that I was suspended last year for having done what they told me I can do.
"When I went back there and said: 'Why do you want to punish me?' They said: 'because you communicated with your bench,' I said: 'but you allowed me to do it!'
"They said: 'We made a mistake, but we punish you anyway.'"


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"Administry" is a complete solution control panel template.
It is best for content management systems, website backends or as a standalone skin for a web application.
- Fully HTML5+CSS3 compliant
- Crossbrowser compatible
- jQuery
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- Well commented code
Template comes with 6 color variations and includes 4 sample pages: "Login page", "Dashboard", "File management" and "Product management".
Icons from FAMFAMFAM.
Last update (24.07.2010)
- FIX: Small bug fix in administry.js
- FIX: Minor CSS modifications
- UPDATE: Closeable info/notice/error boxes
- NEW: Added support for <input type="date"> fields with fallback for older browsers
- NEW: Grid system demonstration page


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[Illinois] CMMB IGERT & M-CNTC Annual Symposium: A Microfluidics Approach to Probing Neuronal Filopodia
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In her research Anika exploits the unique properties of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic devices to study early neuronal development. Her group recently demonstrated the efficacy of solvent-extraction as a PDMS-treatment protocol, enabling low-density cultures of primary hippocampal neurons. They have used flow manipulations in closed-channel microdevices to generate stable and instructive gradients of substrate bound cues, such as laminin and poly-L-lysine (PLL),to allow precise control over neuron development an network formation. Anika discusses the possibility of using this technology to compartmentalized neuronal dendrites and selectively stimulate only certain regions of the cell.
Anika Jain is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before joining U of I, She pursued her undergraduate studies at Panjab University, India, completing a B.E. in Biotechnology in 2007. She is currently working with Prof. Martha Gillette towards furthering understanding of the processes that define and modulate the connectivity of neurons in the mammalian brain. She is specifically interested in examining the factors influencing the development of dendritic filopodia, which are dynamic, thread-like protrusions of the cell membrane of neuronal dendrites, using microfluidic culture systems. When not peering through the microscope at neurons, She can be found digging deeper into matter, following recent developments in the field of particle physics. Other interests outside the lab include astronomy, reading, trekking and bungee jumping.
From Anika Jain's trainee profile
Sponsored by
Midwest Cancer Nanotechnology Traning Center (M-CNTC) Training the next generation of leaders who will define the new frontiers and applications of nanotechnology in cancer research It is known that more than 1.5 million Americans were diagnosed with cancer during 2010, and half a million have died (Cancer Statistics 2010, ACS). In spite of considerable effort, there has been limited success in reducing per capita deaths from cancer since 1950. This calls for a paradigm shift in the understanding, detection, and intervention of the evolution of cancer from a single cell to tumor scale.
In response to this challenge the M-CNTC has assembled a preeminent interdisciplinary team of researchers and educators across the University of Illinois and clinical collaborators in the Midwest to train the next generation of engineers, physical scientists, and biologists to address the challenge of understanding, managing, diagnosing, and treating cancer using the most recent advancements in nanotechnology.
Cellular and Molecular Mechanics and Bionanotechnology (CMMB-IGERT) Training the next generation of leaders who will define the new frontiers of cellular and molecular mechanics and bionanotechnology Critical experiments during the last decade show a fundamental link between the micro- and macro-mechanical environment (i.e., intracellular forces, local shear, gravitational force) and a variety of cell functionalities, their lineage, and phenotype. These findings pose the grand challenge: what is the underlying molecular mechanism that cells employ to transduce mechanical signals to biochemical pathways?
In response to this challenge the CMMB IGERT launched an interdisciplinary research effort with national and international collaborators.
Cite this work
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign


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Seattle Reflections
Michelle Alton 8/20/2012 4:54:36 AMA wonderful glimpse into life in Seattle. #1481322
Don Johnson 8/20/2012 9:08:47 AMThanks Michelle! #10282991
Exif: F Number: 11, Exposure Bias Value: 0.00, ExposureTime: 1/500 seconds, Flash: did not fire., ISO: 1600, White balance: Manual white balance, FocalLength: 92.00 mm, Model: NIKON D300
Uploaded on 8/19/2012 6:02:20 PM
Camera: Nikon D300 Digital SLR Camera
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Our Animal Action Education programme helps children learn and care about animals
Learn more about threats to elephants:
- Facts and Fables: Are there too many elephants in Southern Africa?
- Cultural traditions in Japan may no longer dictate use of ivory
- Fatal flaw: Inadequacies of Japan's ivory trade controls
- Using DNA to track the origin of the largest ivory seizure since the 1989 trade ban
- Fact sheet: Combating poaching and other threats to elephants
- Fact sheet: Protecting elephants and their habitats
Popular posts about elephants:
- WATCH: elephant moves in India, Cote d'Ivoire.
- Meet the elephant researchers: Vicki Fishlock, Cynthia Moss, and Rudi van Aarde
- Explore CERU's "Elephants—A Way Forward"
- Help youth help elephants
Elephants news
The air was cold and the sky still dark when I arrived at the Deux-Balé management unit in Boromo. It was 4:45 AM, Read more »
One of Kenya's first all-female ranger units, team Lioness protects 150,000 acres of community lands shared by both Read more »
The ZEN Project: Making a difference for individual animals, wildlife populations, habitats and local communities
Nestled between national parks and elephant migration paths, Panda Masuie Forest Reserve was originally a lush landscape Read more »
This World Wildlife Day, which this year has the theme of #ListentoYoungVoices, I want to encourage everyone to # Watch Video »
Our video team has been fortunate enough to chronicle so many of our successes over the years. Here is a rundown of our Watch Video »
UPDATE: While the older orphans seemed to have accepted their temporary home quite quickly, Musolole, Nkala and Muchichili Watch Video »
Recently, the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Wildlife Trust of India collaborated with the Similipal Tiger Watch Video »
A training workshop to equip enforcement officers stationed at One-Stop Border Posts (OSBP) in Kenya and Uganda with skills to detect and deter transnational wildlife trafficking began today in Kampala, Uganda. The training workshop hosted by the Uga Read more »
Australia takes one step closer to agreeing to protect elephants and shut down the domestic ivory trade
One of the toughest bans on the sale of ivory is a step closer to coming into force, after the Parliamentary inquiry into the domestic sale of ivory and rhino horn, today tabled recommendations in Parliament for Australia to implement a domestic ban. Read more »
A new study from the Conservation Ecology Research Unit (CERU) at the University of Pretoria set out to unravel migration in the world's largest terrestrial mammal - the savanna elephant. Migration, a term often associated with wildebeest in th Read more »
IFAW's latest report on online wildlife trade highlights the scale and nature of advertisements in four key countries
Research conducted in France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom found almost one-fifth of the posts offering ivory or suspected ivory products Disrupt: Wildlife Cybercrime – Uncovering the scale of online wildlife trade – Read more »
Washington, D.C. – Today, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) announces its acceptance into the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the preeminent membership Union, which provides public, private and non-governm Read more »
Today's announcement by the Government of a ban on ivory sales has been welcomed by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) as a positive and vital step for elephants, as it urges the Government to do all it can to ensure the ban is in Read more »
We have reached a critical point in time for elephants. The number of wild elephants across the world has fallen dramatically Read more »
IFAW's first ever research into online wildlife trade in Africa found 990 endangered and threatened wildlife advertisem Read more »
IFAW's flagship publication explores where we work, the species we protect, the inspiring work of our staff, and other IF Read more »
The International Fund for Animal Welfare's briefing summarizes the important steps taken by the EU and at the intern Read more »
On Saturday millions of animal lovers around the world will be raising a cheer for nature's biggest land animal, the Read more »
This blog originally apppeared on ebayinc.com on August 9, 2017, written by Mike Carson, Senior Manager of Global Policy and Read more »
Last week in New York, musician and IFAW ambassador Mick Fleetwood joined his ex-wife, IFAW ambassador Lynn Fleetwood and Read more »
Today, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) destroyed almost two tons of illegal ivory Read more »


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Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi today broke his security cover to meet his eight-year-old fan here.
Rahul stopped his convoy and got down from his car to meet Dushyant, a class four student who was waving a NSUI flag at the Congress Vice President as he was leaving Central College ground after an interaction with select students.
Speaking to reporters after his brief talk with Rahul, Dushyant said "....I had come to see Rahul Gandhi; ....he asked me how are you? I replied I'm fine, how are you?"
"Then I told him- you will become Prime Minister; ....he replied to me- you will also become Prime Minister," Dushyant added.
Visibly overjoyed, Dushayant's father said ".....I have been waiting with my son for three hours to catch a glimpse of Rahul, I was not let inside....Rahul who saw my son himself called us; ....I have blessed him that he will become Prime Minister."
Speaking to reporters after interacting with Rahul Gandhi, Mithun, a student from Christ University said "....the interaction was about education, skills, employment..... He (Rahul) had kept the interaction very general, rather wanted to know more from us. His major emphasis was on women empowerment."
Stating that there was clarity in his (Rahul) thoughts, another student said "there was no specificity, it was general discussion."
"Rahul spoke about basics like education in India, how to improve it.....; most of the topics were given by students as he wanted us to talk....," said a group of students from Mount Carmel College.
Pointing out that students spoke to Rahul on topics like granting more money for R&D and quota issues, they said "....he wanted students to be part of the political system and bring about a change in it."
Narendra Modi or Rahul Gandhi? Who will win the battle royale of the Lok Sabha Elections 2019?
Get real-time news updates, views and analysis on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 on Deccanherald.com/news/lok-sabha-elections-2019
Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram with #DHPoliticalTheatre for live updates on the Indian general elections 2019.
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Everyone has questions they hate to be asked. High on my list is, "Are you religious?" I dread it especially if I sense that a "no" answer will prompt a barrage of other questions, some of them rhetorical.
Usually, in those circumstances, I say something on the level of "I'm spiritual, but not religious" or "I believe in a higher power, but not any organized religion." I suppose it's the same as posting a "Support Our Troops" bumper sticker on your car while declining comment on the Afghanistan war — a middle ground between taking sides and sounding like a churl.
The above reflections were inspired by my attendance Sunday at the fifth annual Blessing of the Waves in Huntington Beach. Each year, the Diocese of Orange brings together representatives from Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and other faiths for a program of speeches and songs. The subject matter is roughly split between God and the ocean — two concepts that frequently intertwine throughout, especially when the entire group walks from Pier Plaza to the shore to sing a concluding hymn.
This event, for me, represents faith at its finest: a ceremony dedicated to a cause (serving a greater power and, more immediately, serving the ocean), inviting everyone to attend (no "right" or "wrong" religion specified), that ends in a gesture of camaraderie (paddling out together into the ocean) instead of a mission to convert the heathen.
If events like the Blessing were all that being religious entailed, I would give a relaxed "yes" whenever the question came up. Under the wrong circumstances, the word atheist sounds so harsh. Suppose I'm the kind of person who refuses the possibility of any higher power. Do I also not support the troops? Do I kick dogs and favor cutting funds for the children's hospital?
The late pundit Christopher Hitchens roused some furor when he wrote a book titled "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." I would never make a statement like that. I've attended Catholic masses and other services that were as warm and welcoming as the Blessing. I've covered more religious charity drives than I can count. I felt proud and humbled listening to my Mormon college roommate's stories about being a missionary in Peru.
In short, my favorite aspects of religion are what I might call the secular ones: the ones centered around life in the here and now instead of punitive speculation about the life to come. I imagine that if the universe is ruled by a loving and merciful God, then He — or She, who knows? — takes heart when I help a person on crutches over the curb. He/She probably nods approvingly when I forsake some material indulgence, contribute to the office canned-food drive or pick up my wife's dry cleaning.
What I somehow doubt is that God's mind is as petty as many of our own — that a force powerful enough to create every speck of the universe would chafe at the notion of two men in love, or a woman showing her hair in public, or people attending one house of worship and reading one scripture instead of another. When I hear particularly zealous people try to impose agendas in the name of religion, I sometimes wonder if they're using their respective Gods as a shield for personal biases.
For example, years ago, I wrote a story about a local church and covered a service there. When the worship began, the pastor made some general remarks about solidarity, about how the congregation had come together as brothers and sisters. I smiled just as I did during the Blessing of the Waves — it's good to belong, even among strangers.
Then the sermon began, and it turned out to be an extended diatribe against homosexuals, nonbelievers and followers of all other faiths, who, the pastor insisted, wouldn't make it to heaven "even if they were 16 inches away from accepting Jesus." I nearly walked out, and only my assignment kept me there past the first 10 minutes.
I've encountered that side of religion more often than I can count — with classmates who doggedly plied me with pamphlets and explained that God would punish them if they didn't convert me, with a fitness instructor who brazenly insisted that 9/11 was God's revenge on America for letting its Christian values slip. In situations like that, I'm always too polite. I want to ask the logical question: How do they know, out of all the many faiths from many cultures around the world, that the one they're imposing on me is the right one?
But back to the Blessing of the Waves. For those two hours Sunday morning at Pier Plaza, more than 100 of us stood together in a show of unity — teachings of Christ meshing with teachings of Zoroaster, head scarves sharing the stage with surfboards. When we made that trek to the water's edge and sang "God Bless America" together, the massive roll of the ocean said it all. Somewhere, on the other side of that horizon, all the answers may await us. Here on the sand, for now, we do our best.
City Editor MICHAEL MILLER can be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Veterans in the outdoor-graphics industry discuss how their companies have dealt with changes in the market and how other recent issues, such as the economic recession and the push for sustainability, have impacted their businesses.
By Lori Leaman
GABRIEL: Our clients are a combination of entertainment and retail. We haven't seen much of a decline, and quite honestly, we have seen an increase in business. Our clients are looking for options, and someone who can manage their entire campaign and offer solutions will always have the best chance.
NORRIS: The clients that buy the majority of outdoor graphics from our company include a major retailer, several transportation companies, and several oil companies. The only pattern seems to be that there is no pattern. They all want to be seen, or they wouldn't be in the market for graphics. They all seem to want to update and refresh their image, but tend not to make any drastic changes because they already have well-known images and do not want to risk any loss of recognition. But they seem to go from one year of adding graphics and buying a lot to another year of buying little to a different year of average buying. They economy does have an effect on overall purchasing, but it isn't a reliable way to forecast what any given client will do.
MCDANIEL: The end user of the outdoor graphics range from companies in a number of industries like home improvement, convenience store, grocery, and retail-store chains. The buying mix has changed in a positive direction, mostly due to the new equipment that we can offer. As digital production has become more cost effective, and with the ability to print direct to substrates, clients often run regional promotions and small test markets before rolling out a national campaign. Five years ago, we rarely produced test market and regional signage. Today, it goes hand in hand with almost every campaign. We believe this change is primarily driven by the speed and cost effectiveness of digital printing.
SP: How have recent technological trends affected outdoor-graphics production in your business?
GABRIEL: The quality and speed of today's equipment is allowing companies like LAgraphico to compete with screen printing, where in the past that wasn't an option. We carry materials in house that meet both our sustainable objectives and the quality expectations of our clients. One material biodegrades in landfills. Lighter-weight materials (7 oz) that are able to hold the quality are extremely important to us.
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This high quality line of color is produced at a uniform and economical price. Daler-Rowney Georgian Oil Colors are ideal for use with a knife or a brush, for a variety of effects. Every batch is matched for color and texture against exacting standards.
Color Swatches created using heavy application/medium application/50% tint and were applied on acrylic primed canvas (7 oz) material.
Zinc White is the coolest white, and it has a cold, clean masstone and a slightly bluish tint. It has less hiding power and is more transparent than other whites. It dries slowly and is good for painting wet into wet and for glazing and scumbling. Zinc White is neither as opaque nor as heavy as Lead White, its covering power is not as good, and it takes much longer to dry. However, it does not blacken when exposed to sulfur in the air as Lead White does. It is very valuable for making tints with other colors. Unmixed Zinc White dries to a brittle and dry paint film that may crack over the years, so it is not good for frescoing. It is more transparent in acrylic form than Titanium White and is the most commonly used white with gouache. Chinese White is a version of Zinc White appropriate for opaque watercolor techniques.
Zinc White has great permanence and lightfastness.
Zinc White is moderately toxic if ingested and slightly toxic if inhaled.
Though historians are divided on who first isolated the element zinc, they agree that it was first suggested as a white pigment in 1782. Zinc White was accepted as a watercolor in 1834 and was called Chinese White due to the popularity of oriental porcelain in Europe at the time. Ten years later, a suitable oil form was produced. By the early 20th century, it had improved to the point where it was an acceptable alternative to Flake White.
Chinese White, French White, Permanent White, Silver White, Snow White, Zinc Oxide.
earth, synthetic
iron oxides (synthetic), iron oxide, silica, alumina, lime, and magnesia or hydrated iron oxide
Fe2O2 or Fe2O3 • H2O
Red iron oxide varies in hue and transparency, depending on hydration and slight impurities. Indian Red is a slightly duller, deep brick hue with a bluish undertone. It is very dense and opaque, with excellent tinting strength and covering power. It is dependable when mixing with all other permanent pigments and yields good flesh tints when mixed with Zinc White. It is the synthetic version of PR102, which is a pigment made from earth reds, or natural red iron oxides, and the names applied to PR101 and PR102 often overlap. The synthetic red iron oxides have mostly replaced natural red iron oxides and are brighter, stronger, finer, and more permanent. Indian Red is the highest grade bluish shade. Light Red, English Red, and Venetian Red are yellowish shades. Mars Violet is a dull and subdued bluish or purplish oxide.
Red iron oxide is very lightfast with excellent permanence.
Red iron oxide has no significant hazards.
Natural red iron oxide comes from the mineral ore hematite, called bloodstone by the ancient Greeks from the word hema, meaning blood. It is one of the oldest pigments, has been used by every major civilization, and was an important mineral for medieval alchemists. It was not widely used in artists' materials until the 17th century and was not produced in large quantities until the 18th century.
Indian Red, Colcothar, English Red, Light Red, Mars Red, Mars Violet, Morelle Salt, Pompeian Red, Indian Red, Red Oxide, Sinopia, Spanish Red, Terra Rosa, Tuscan Red, Venetian Red, Venice Red.
iron(III)-oxide, hydrated
Fe2O3 • H2O
Yellow Ochre provides artists with earthtones from cream to brown. It has good hiding power, produces a quick drying paint, and can be safely mixed with other pigments. Its transparency varies widely from opaque shades to more transparent ones, which are valued for their use as glazes. If gypsum is present, Yellow Ochre is not suitable for frescoing. (See Brown Ochre, PY43.) PY42 is made from synthetic iron oxides. PY43 is made from natural iron oxide.
Yellow Ochre has excellent permanence because ochres are some of the most permanent pigments available.
Yellow Ochre is non-toxic unless it contains manganese.
Ochre comes from the Greek word ochros, meaning pale yellow. It was one of the first pigments to be used by human beings, and evidence of its use has been found at 300,000 year old sites in France and the former Czechoslovakia.
Chamois, Iron Yellow, Mars Orange, Mars Yellow, Minette, Ochre, Sil, Yellow Earth, Yellow Oxide. Varieties of Yellow Ochre include Brown Ochre, Flesh Ochre, Roman Ochre, Spruce Ochre, and Transparent Gold Ochre.
titanium dioxide
Titanium White is the most brilliant of the white pigments. It is considered an all purpose oil color useful in all techniques and the best all around white. Its masstone is neither warm nor cool, placing it somewhere between Lead White and Zinc White. It is less prone to cracking and yellowing than Lead White, but it still yellows easily. Titanium White dries slowly in oil form, more slowly than Lead White but more quickly than Zinc White. It is opaque in oil and acrylic forms and semi-opaque in watercolor form. This pigment has good chemical stability, and its tinting strength is superior to both Lead White and Zinc White.
Titanium White has excellent permanence and lightfastness.
Titanium dioxide is highly stable and is regarded as completely non-toxic. Animal studies give no indiciation that it is absorbed biologically, even after long periods of exposure. The primary safety concern is with inhalation of fine pigment dust particles. Titanium White, if inhaled in large amounts over the course of several years, may cause a benign pneumoconiosis that is visible on x-rays. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) considers fine titanium dioxide particles, if inhaled, to be a human carcinogen. The primary concern for artists is to avoid exposure to fine particulate dust from raw pigments.
Titanium is the ninth most abundant element in the Earth's crust, however mineral deposits that are economical to mine are less common. Titanium dioxide was first discovered in 1821, although it could not be mass produced until 1919. Widespread use of the pigment began in the 1940s. Since that time, it has become the most commonly used white pigment. The name comes from the Latin word Titan, the name for the elder brother of Kronos and ancestor of the Titans, and from the Greek word tito, meaning day or sun.
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Last week was my final class for my MS in Real Estate degree from the University of Texas at Arlington. This post is a journal of that week. We traveled through Austin, San Antonio and Houston for the trip. This was a picture of our class (minus my wife who was taking the picture).
I took about 600 pictures during the week as well as nearly filling one of those 3″x5″ memo pads. I've whittled it down to the best 80 or so pictures.
Day 1: Austin
Cool House Tour
We started our tour a day early because they were having the Cool House Tour in Austin. It featured 10 "green" built homes. Each was interesting in its own approach to greenness and sustainability. By the end of the day, many of the green features all started to blend together.
9717 Peakridge Drive
This one featured a long east-west floor plan, stained concrete, double pane doors, the AC inside the thermal envelope, natural earth plaster and a stone facade. What really made this house stand out is that it is completely off of city water with a 20,000 gallon rainwater collection tank in the back, a great use of cross breeze ventilation and natural lighting in every room. And for what there was, there was grass that required little water – Buffalo, I think.
3115 Sacbe Cove
This house belongs to a solar subdivision. Of course these homes aren't run entirely by solar but every bit helps. In this house, no windows ever get direct sunlight. There's a modular media room. There are windows high up to allow hotter air to escape. And as you can see in the picture, the driveway is half pervious. There was also some rainwater collection going on. The sign said there was a community garden somewhere. I think it was further up the street.
Another house for sale on the same street has some interesting features too. I think they call it a thermal heat tower or something where the heat all collects at the top and is either removed by a window or vented back through the AC system to keep it moving.
If I recall correctly, someone inside was commenting how if they took the savings from the utility bills and applied it to the principle, it would allow them to pay off the house in something like 10 years earlier. That's an interesting way to look at the extra investment required for green building.
M Station 2906 E. MLK Blvd
This is a transit oriented development by Foundation Communities. It's an affordable housing development built near one of the light rail stops.
They reused an urban greyfield (underutilized but not polluted) concrete factory. They collect rainwater, use solar energy and high efficiency fixtures.
Another curiosity was the playground. The couple of playgrounds we saw didn't look anything like what we grew up with. Many of the features were unrecognizable to us and we found ourselves theorizing what kids might do with them.
The Stanley Studio 1901 EM Franklin Ave
This adaptive reuse turned an old dilapidated house into a house, architect's studio, metal shop and permaculture land. They have a green room, lots of native landscaping, and lots of metal art and structures. The neatest feature was a grain silo that was converted to architect meeting rooms.
This particular property stood out in my mind several ways. First off, a green roof on a residential property. Secondly, a lot more art built in to the design (metal works). And lastly, it was warmer inside than most of the rest of the properties too. Obviously there's only so much that can be done in adaptive reuse and I'm sure it would have been cooler inside if people hadn't constantly been opening the doors.
4205 Camacho Street
This house is part of the Mueller Development that we toured the next day. Of interest here was that this was the only house that displayed their active monitoring of energy usage. I forgot to take pictures there but the person monitoring the energy stated that they were paying 10% less on utilities for this 3250 SF house with more people in it (including a tenant in a detached unit out back) than they had been in their previous 1200 SF house.
The other thing that stood out was how much dark wood trim there was everywhere in this craftsman style house.
1901 Alegria Rd
The next few houses were in my old stomping grounds in the Brentwood/Crestview neighborhoods.
Alegria was in an existing neighborhood. I'd thought you couldn't build more than 2 stories without a variance of some sort but this one and the Taulbee one coming up were both 3 stories.
Of course there was just a reading room on the 3rd story and it was pretty warm up there. As you can see in the picture, it had wide porches in front and in back. It also used the stack ventilation method of drawing hot air off the top and recirculating cooler air. They had LED lights as well.
7705 Mullen Drive
Dominique Levesque from Another Great House was the builder on this house. Funny enough, I used to know Dominique and it was good to see what he'd been working on since I'd last seen him. His comment was that this house was more about simplicity than featuring all the features as many green builds do. It was just a nice place to be.
While I took pictures of some of the interiors, most of them wouldn't jump out at you as something unique.
This picture of the screened windows in the master bedroom were an exception. They highlight not only the practicality of screening the windows (surprisingly absent from most other properties) but the nice symmetry of the design.
The guidebook also mentions that this house was designed with outdoor living in mind – the residents have 3 dogs.
913 Taulbee Lane
This was actually the street that I built the tiny house on so it was nice to drive down memory lane.
The unique feature of this house was that it was the only straw bale house. AND it was 3 stories if you can believe it.
The picture to the right was the front facade. It doesn't jump out at you as a sustainable house nor scream green building. In fact, we had to look fairly closely to decide whether they were functioning garages or not. We guessed yes.
While many folks in the planning field think the front of the house shouldn't be built around cars, I've seen a number of other cultures that make good use of their driveways for social interaction as well. This driveway could host a really great picnic or party if you got out the tent shades.
They had someone giving a discussion of straw bales. The bottom floor was stained concrete and the other floors were wood. Most of the interior that I saw was plaster as is typical of straw bale homes.The interior was fairly unique – I think it had more of an Eastern flavor of large, open veranda near the middle of the floor plan.
It's always nice to see an intersection of better design (past the basic long, box homes with typical features) along with the sustainable features.
While this staircase wasn't conducive toward large groups touring through, it was unique among the homes we saw.
There was another way up to the second floor so there was enough circulation if you know how to navigate it. The color pallet of the interior was also more calming than some of the others.
7119 Valburn Drive
By this time we were approaching exhaustion in the heat and walking around. This was a little bit of a drive away in north west Austin. But once we got here, we were glad we made the trip. This was a blend of luxury and good design. It doubles as an architect's office.
It's huge – about 3800 SF but has an average utility bill of $125/mo. It has all the basics like longer east-west walls, great use of cross winds, lots of natural light, sustainable materials, etc.
The coolest feature to me was a screened-in porch. It has great breezes, a fantastic view and a custom made fireplace. To give you an idea of the attention to luxury, check out the picture of a bathroom sink – it's a hollowed out half geode.
That was the end of our Cool House Tour. There was another house in Pflugerville with green features by KB Homes. From the booklet (and considering our exhaustion) we opted to skip it.
Day 2: Austin
TreeHouse is a new home improvement store devoted entirely to sustainable building products.
We were fortunate enough to get a personal tour from one of the founders of the business, Jason Ballard.
The concept of the store is that all the sustainable products have been curated to one location. He emphasized that it was a curation process because they can't possibly have every product that claims sustainable traits. They look for better products and preferable local. They also are willing to match any price you find online elsewhere.
They were started with private investment and are still privately held. They have architects and interior designers on staff for customers to plan their projects with.
Education drives many of the concepts. Many people don't know what's possible so there are displays all over the store talking about that.
They mostly service homeowners currently and hope to incorporate more professionals in the future. They've found their market so far hasn't been the do-it-yourself crowd as much as the do-it-for-me crowd. Those are the people who come in, figure out what they want, and then have the professionals install it for them.
They have a section devoted to recycled materials.
Another great feature that's often overlooked in sustainability efforts is that they also focus on the aesthetics of things.
They consult with lots of important advisors in addition to their board of directors such as the LBJ Wildflower Center.
An interesting phenomenon has been that they can't seem to keep their preferred rainwater collection barrel in stock.
The store is really worth visiting if you're anywhere in the area regardless of whether you have a pending project or not.
Austin Downtown Alliance
There weren't many pictures to be taken at the Austin Downtown Alliance. Molly Alexander met with us for some time and talked about this organization. It's similar to a mandatory homeowners association for downtown properties.
The ADA is devoted to improving downtown. So they employ transitional folks to pick up trash. They have downtown rangers to request people comply with keeping the place up.
Molly's role is to advocate for the downtown property owners and downtown in general. She's also looking into improving downtown's mass transit options and improving the homelessness problem.
She quoted the statistic that 140 homeless people die every year on the downtown streets. Evidently it's more cost effective (not to mention more compassionate) to get these folks into housing even allowing for their existing addictions than to let them stay on the street and be a drain on the medical and security systems.
Mueller Development
The Mueller Mixed-Use Development was our next stop. It was the 700 acre site of the former Mueller Airport before it moved out to Bergstrom Air Force base and became an international airport.
They set up the utility infrastructure to be changed from residential to commercial should that use be more appropriate some day.
The development is home to the Dell Children's Hospital is the world's first LEED Platinum hospital. HEB is slated to come in with a LEED Platinum building. They already have a Best Buy and Home Depot that are LEED Gold. They have twice as many trees as is typically specified.
They are 30% built out and completion is scheduled for 2020. Twenty-five percent of the residential is built as affordable and managed by the Mueller Association. If one of the units is sold, they try to buy it back and keep it affordable.
Ronald McDonald House
The Ronald McDonald House in the Mueller Development is also LEED Platinum. Of all the buildings we saw, this one stands out as a high expression of sustainability and aesthetics.
Kent Burress, the CEO, was our guide as we toured the building. He has a background in construction management so he was highly involved in the design and construction.
Almost every green feature of this building was added with the use in mind. Most of the views face Dell Children's across the street.
The foundation used 40% fly ash from Bastrop which is relatively local. There's no formaldehyde anywhere in the building. The building opened in 2007 and they've already recouped their investment in green features by the savings in utilities.
There are all low-flow fixtures. The landscape is low water and is irrigated with reclaimed rainwater. They have a few nice rooftop patios with green roof areas. The cool thing about their rooftop gardens is that they decided to plant in 8-10″ of soil instead of the typical amount which is often twice that.
With 30,000 SF and up to 30 families staying there at a time, their highest water bill was $300 and their highest utility bill was $2390. Ninety percent of the occupied spaces get natural light and 86% have views to the outside.
To give you an idea of the attention to aesthetics, the hallways are curved because studies show that curved paths are more calming than long straight hallways.
The curves also serve a sustainability feature. The building actually shades itself in many areas. They did a number of CAD renderings in the planning phase to get that part right.
There are lots of cool features like solar powered motion sensor bathroom sinks, rooms that turn on with a room key, a film on the single pane windows (found to be more cost effective and equivalent thermally to double pane), and air quality systems that work on a room by room basis.
The beautiful thing about this building is that it takes even the little details into account for making it a comfortable place to stay. There's a memorial rock garden outside as the program has taken on a bereavement function as well as that was completely unavailable elsewhere.
Many other LEED certified buildings are long boxes. It's as if the sustainability criteria trump any sense of aesthetics. The Ronald McDonald House stands as a testament to the fact that you can have a highly aesthetic sustainable building.
The Austonian
The Austonian is Austin's first luxury condo building. It's also Austin's tallest building at 56 floors.
My biggest question was how such a building came into being given the real estate crash in 2008. It turns out they'd already secured financing before that and just recently completed building.
They are 65% locally owned and 55% sold. Obviously they didn't meet the initial projections after the real estate crash did a number on the condo market.
The top two floors are community space available to all the owners. The top floor is a gym and yoga studio. The most surprising view was looking down on the Frost Bank Building.
Prior to the Austonian being built, the 360 Condos were the tallest building followed by the Frost Bank Building.
The prices are currently ranging from $670K to $10M for a whole floor that's 8561 SF. The HOA is $0.67/SF/mo and that includes most bills.
While they didn't go for LEED certification, they did include a number of sustainable features. The pool and green roof are serviced by the AC condensation.
That seems to be the trend – only using the sustainable features that make business sense. The big opportunity for sustainability consultants is coming up with hard numbers to substantiate such claims.
So Austin now has luxury residential condos.
Day 3: Austin
Austin Community Design and Development Center
The ACDDC is a non-profit devoted to improving sustainable and affordable housing options in Austin. They have a big hand in the Alley Flat Initiative that I wrote about previously.
As we heard from the director, Sam Gelfand, they struggle with the financing issues that I mentioned. The design criteria are high enough to price out most homeowners requiring about an $100K investment. Then they are required to charge no more than $750 in monthly rent. In exchange they get design consultation and expiditied and reduced fees on permits.
Those rent payments might or might not cover the payment on a home equity loan for that amount. And as any landlord can tell you, you've also just made another job for yourself. So there haven't been many takers for the initiative even though it's a great idea in theory.
They're continuing to look for other ways of making it work including prefab. Perhaps they should check with Kanga Room Systems if they haven't already.
The ACDDC has been more successful in other projects including getting federal weatherization funds to improve a low income housing project.
Texas Downtown Association and Preservation Texas
The TDA and PT are located together so we had a conversation with both directors which was fun and informative.
The TDA works with small towns with less than 10K population to help them renew and improve their downtown presence. Preservation Texas does what the name implies.
The TDA recommends setting up "destination businesses" for downtowns. That's where the retail space has one purpose during business hours and and alternate purpose in the evening. An example could be a gift shop during the day that has wine tasting or salsa dancing in the evening. That's actually good advice for any downtown retail. Most establishments aside from restaurants are only open daytime or nighttime and create relative dead zones when they're not open.
The things that indicate a downtown needs some work are vacancies, suboptimal parking arrangements, signs that detract from curb appeal, creative attempts at decorating the streets, general upkeep, trash cans (do they have them and are they emptied out?), and available public restrooms. Some terms for further study are "economic gardening" and "pop-up stores".
The question I came up with is why we want to improve small town downtowns. The TDA is a membership organization so that makes sense for small towns that want help. From overall sustainability point of view, I wonder whether they're really worth saving. If the majority of their talent leaves as soon as they're old enough, what are they building on?
Pedernales Lofts
Pedernales Lofts are a LEED Gold mixed use development on East 6th St. The notable feature of this property is that the ground floor is flex space meaning the owner can use it for retail, office and/or residential.
The side facing 6th Street is mostly retail and some office. The side facing the other south-facing side is mostly residential. Apparently the idea was that after some time the adjacent properties to the south will be developed and activate pedestrian traffic and make those units attractive as commercial uses too.
San Marcos
Sanctuary Lofts
Sanctuary Lofts are a converted church first built in 1925. They are primarily student housing and have everything from efficiencies to 4 bedrooms and rent on an individual basis.
If I were starting over as an 18 year old undergrad, this would be a great place to stay.
It's a great example of adaptive reuse.
Neel Morton, Architect
Neel Morton spent some time talking to us about a couple of projects he's worked on as we migrated south to San Antonio.
In a previous post I talked about pocket neighborhoods. Neel has worked on plans for a couple of different co-housing projects. One is built in Tucson, AZ – Milagro. Another had financing issues as these types of projects often do.
Neel was working with different materials including ICFs – insulated concrete forms. They look something like CMUs (concrete masonry units often referred to as cinder blocks).
The ICFs are basically shredded pallets mixed with concrete and provide superior insulation, are more sustainable (preferably locally sourced), and are much lighter to work with.
Of course if you go ahead and fill them in with concrete as is the typical practice, some of the sustainability benefits are negated especially from an embodied energy standpoint.
He said this building was going to be a residence but it looks a little bit like a retreat center to me.
Another building nearby was a different concept. He'd built it years ago and used rammed earth. They'd done 4′x8′ sections of it at a time.
At first it was getting hot inside and then he built on another room that shaded the hottest part. When I went inside, it was comfortable and the interior thermal mass wall was cool to the touch.
The main drawback here was the elements. We drove in on marginally paved roads across a low water crossing kicking up white dust the whole way. We really should have left our car elsewhere because it's not an off-road vehicle. Also, I'm still recovering from the 10 or so chigger bites I picked up.
Day 4: San Antonio
We drove into San Antonio after visiting in Wimberley. We got in early enough to go have dinner on the Riverwalk. Our hotel was close enough that we walked the mile or so back to our hotel.
Prior to starting this tour, I'd been doing remodeling work on our new house (not a tiny one) and doing an extended juice fast. While I can say in retrospect that was a terrible idea, I hadn't really thought how it would be.
All I can say is that I started the tour exhausted. After those first 3 days, I was even more exhausted and despite going to bed by 10:30pm, we didn't hear our alarm and overslept by about 2 hours.
Build San Antonio Green
We weren't there for this one, I regret to say. I'm sure it was interesting. Please check out their website for more info.
Solar San Antonio
Solar San Antonio was our first visit of the day. Larry Sinkin was our primary host and he talked at length about their non-profit's efforts at getting as much solar energy going in San Antonio as possible.
They've got all the resources set up from tax credits to financing to installers. It's a one stop shop for all things solar. Their website says they've assisted with over 600 projects and have 55 applications pending.
The reason San Antonio is interested in promoting this is they see this as a citizen funded alternative to building another coal plant.
The market demand is there and SSA is helping consumers bridge the gap and make it a reality. It's an inspiring operation that hopefully other cities will emulate. One key concept from the discussion was to look at the "value of solar" instead of just the cost. It's a win-win for everyone on a lot of levels.
At our current technology levels, installing solar on a residence will pay itself back in 8 years. No doubt that figure will continue falling as technology improves.
Marty Wender
Our next appointment was with Marty Wender who is a major land developer in San Antonio. He's been responsible for much of the development in north west San Antonio including Sea World.
Marty was probably the most inspirational speaker on our tour. He told us his story from starting out in the family business to going out on his own and putting together a multi-million dollar land deal.
Marty calls himself a "deal junkie." He says he worked harder to make the deals that no one wanted. North west San Antonio used to be nothing but hills, rocks, an aquifer recharge zone, and – as you may have guessed – an endangered species. He said all of the biggest opportunities in his life were what others would call the wrong conditions for success.
He built roads and convinced the state to build highways through them. He got access bridges built. He built out the Westover Hills area. And instead of regular roads, he built boulevards. That brought the major employers.
Marty says he's a salesman first and ideas guy second. His attitude is "Yes, unless there's a reason we can't." Most retail and service professionals would do well to pick that up.
He says his job is to fix problems and that the solutions are often better than if there had never been a problem in the first place.
He's always used the best advisors and helpers he could afford. Even with all of his success, he still only has one employee.
Instead of location, location, location, Marty says the most important features being location, timing and capital. He says he was in final negotiations with Disney to bring a Disneyworld to San Antonio prior to the Disneyland Paris failure. The timing and capital were wrong even though the location was right.
From a tactics standpoint, Marty prices land based on use. A generator is someone who will bring other traffic in and build up the are like a major employer. A user is someone who capitalizes on the traffic but doesn't bring in any of their own like a gas station. Users pay a premium for land.
The other criteria Marty uses to evaluate a deal are whether it's going to be an improvement for the area. He's been in it for the long haul and relationships are important to him.
It was a real treat to get to meet Marty.
3+1 Project
I missed who tipped us off on this one but it was very cool too. Basically the city of San Antonio built 4 houses of about the same square footage and floor plan.
They built one with SIPs (structured insulated panels), one with aerated concrete block (R-60) and one from reused shipping containers. The plus one was a conventional build.
They plan to make them affordable housing and monitor the energy usage for 2 years. Sounds like a fantastic idea.
For those of you who have seen shipping container houses before, this was totally different.
Almost all of the shipping container houses I've ever seen have retained the original shape of the containers and simply cut openings into them.
A graduate of the architecture program from UTSA designed this one and had welders cut it to fit the design. I don't know why more people aren't doing that. If you're going to cut doors and windows, why not cut a better design while you're at it? It fit the criteria for affordable housing so it can't be the cost that's stopping anyone.
David McGowen, San Antonio Real Estate Manager
A former student of our professor, David McGowen spent a little time with us in his city office.
He talked about different things the city is working on like a land swap with the federal government so they can get some prime downtown land and the feds can get updated buildings.
They're working on bringing in more mixed use and making downtown more friendly for young professionals who want to come and stay. For those of you who know about downtown SA, it's great for tourism but not many people actually live there compared to other downtowns in cities of comparable size.
Another example he cited was that when people drive down to a Spurs game, they go, watch the game and then drive home. There's no much there for people to walk to or many businesses to patronize. And this is still a downtown location too.
Lake Flato Architects
Our next stop was Heather Holdridge of Lake Flato Architects. Heather is actually an engineer they hired to help them improve their sustainability design. She does a lot of energy modeling and talking about high performance buildings and energy efficiency.
It was interesting hearing about the evolution of their planning meetings. Before, they used to just go down the LEED checklist which is probably how most people still do things. Now, they have what they call integrated design charits. I probably misspelled that last word but google and everything else thinks I'm trying to say charity. It's a fancy architecture term for design planning meeting.
Their planning meetings now consist of all the major players going around and talking about how their areas of emphasis are affected by any design criteria and potential ideas.
Heather says she's most excited about the possibilities of regenerative design. There are TED talks available about that if you're not familiar. The basic idea is not just that the building can reach net zero energy use and the much harder net zero embodied energy but that it can contribute back to the environment in itself.
As a former architecture student, I was curious what she thought the biggest thing was that architects miss from an engineering point of view. She said it's the impact of the building envelope. Most architects are mostly interested in the visual design of the facade and that's it.
Lake Flato designed 1221 Broadway which we later toured was developed by Ed Cross who we later met.
Pearl Brewery
Our last stop of the day was the Pearl Brewery Development. It's a mixed use development on the north end of the Riverwalk and was intended to draw local traffic in contrast to most of the tourist development.
We looked around and checked out their solar power station monitoring screen (pictured below).We also browsed the AIA San Antonio (American Institute of Architects) office.
We stopped in a restaurant and had some great tacos and tres leches cake.
Apparently there are some other good restaurants there as well as a year round farmers' market every Saturday.
If you're ever in the area, I highly recommend checking it out.
Day 5: San Antonio
Ed Cross
We met Ed Cross for breakfast at Mi Tierra Restaurant which is near his main claim to fame, The Vistana (pictured here).
I've inserted more pictures from The Vistana along the way so they're not all clumped up where I talk about it.
Ed spoke to us about his idea of sustainability which focused more on durability, energy efficiency and using local where available.
Prior to getting into property development and management, I believe Ed said he was a CPA with Ernst & Ernst which was a predecessor of Ernst & Young at some point. He talked about the oil booms and busts in Houston first and then San Antonio.
Ed started off buying distressed assets in 1990 and between '92-2000 he bought 25 different assets. He noticed that compared to his commercial assets, the industrial assets (mostly warehouses) were very low maintenance and had good cash flows and that parking was a great asset too.
Urban renewal came through and completely gutted eastern downtown San Antonio. They basically leveled all the historic buildings and put in wider roads. Some time after that, Ed started developing The Vistana. It was originally just going to be a residential tower then he added a level of retail, then parking, then mini-storage.
The Vistana has 247 apartments which are nearly entirely occupied, 114 storage units and 30K SF of retail space which isn't doing well at all. He says he's just breaking even on the project at the moment.At this stage in the game, the retail isn't doing so well. He also commented that you should never put a hole through the middle of your building like he did for his banking tenant to have a drive through window.
Ed said if he were doing it again, he would have built more 1 bedroom apartments as you can fit more of those in and charge more rent. And the larger apartments aren't in as high demand.
As we toured The Vistana we noted that the rooms were fairly spartan – concrete floors, exposed sprinkler systems. Aside from the lower maintenance of such a design, there's a certain aesthetic appeal to it as well. The windows even open – a little. It's an industrial look.
Ed talked about the difference between merchant builders who build and then immediately sell and the investment builders who build it and hold on to it. As pointed out, it's probably harder to get the merchant builders interested in sustainability features if they're not interested in the long term viability of a project.
Ed said that urban renewal and urban infill haven't taken much hold on San Antonio yet as San Antonio is behind 5-10 years on most trends.
The 1221 Broadway story was pretty interesting. He bought it as a distressed property and then the prior owner fought him through court for it. It turned out the owner had fabricated architectural plans and ended up going to prison for it.
HUD financed the rest of the development of it, Lake Flato came up with a new design and it turned out great. More on that in a minute.
Another interesting pointer from Ed was that he prices his units like airline seats – you pay more for a better view and better amenities. Sounds like good business sense.
12welve 2wenty1
As mentioned before, 1221 Broadway was an Ed Cross and Lake Flato project. There were other partners involved too, those were just the ones we got to meet.
We showed up and were glad to find ample parking even as the apartment complex is mostly rented up.
My notes here say it's mixed use – I think some of the units are intended to be live-work units but the guide said no one is using it that way yet.
They have a large parking garage and have some retail in the works.
They have 268 units built out and more planned to reach 307 total.
This is a really cool place to be. The materials and colors are hard to put into words. It's a more contemporary industrial.
In addition to the concrete and pipes all around are splashes of color reminiscent of some fun colorful part of a small developing country.
The average utilities run $50-70/mo based on the green features which our guide didn't go too much into.
The model one bedroom we saw goes for somewhere between $1300-1400.
There are lots of cool features like an app that lets you play your music on the speakers by the pool, a decent gym, a city bike rental station, social events — and the best part — they're on the Riverwalk.
I really can't say enough good things about this property. It was featured in a HUD publication of sustainable residential properties.
Friedrich Building
The Friedrich Building is an old converted AC factory. From the look of it, the development hasn't been as successful as they would have liked.
The city of San Antonio considered purchasing the building and using it for their school district administration building but that hasn't gone through either.
It's a pretty cool building nevertheless. It probably just didn't have enough of the location, timing and capital going for it.
Alamo Architects
Alamo Architects was the next stop before lunch. It was another great example of adaptive reuse as a prior truck repair shop.
Their building reused much of the hardware left there and was able to achieve LEED Silver status in 2008.
The big gold ball slightly visible next to the rainwater collection cistern was evidently from the Pope's visit one year.
Advanced Earthen Construction Technologies, Inc.
Larry of AECT spent some time with us after that. We must have been there a couple of hours and it was fascinating.
The site certainly got my attention as a forklift drove by, a 2″ diameter rock shot out and caught me in the cheek. Fortunately it was smooth so didn't break the skin but it left my jaw a little sore.
The picture at right is Larry pointing out the durability of one of their CEB (compressed earth block) buildings. The big pock marks were due to flying debris from a neighbor.
One interesting lesson learned from this particular building was that you shouldn't mix materials. Someone insisted that the top layer be stabilized with concrete for the roof's sake.
The CEBs were plenty strong without the concrete but what happened was that the concrete expands and contracts at a different rate than earth alone and a crack rimmed the building where the concrete started.
Then Larry went and got his tractor to demonstrate the CEB process in work. We all got souvenir blocks to take with us.
Visit their website if you're at all interested in natural building materials. They have a good photo gallery there. They also have lots of resources for further study.
While I didn't take any videos, someone else posted one on YouTube:
After that we began the 3+ hour trip to Houston. After chiggers and being hit in the heady with a rock, I welcomed the down time.
Day 6: Houston
Discovery Green
Discovery Green is Houston's downtown park.
It got a LEED Gold certification. Presumably that includes the entire site which consists of a few fountains, a dog run, lots of open green space, a couple of ponds, a couple of small buildings, lots of landscaping and – if you can believe it – underground parking for the whole convention center.
We had the site manager, William, on hand to give us an impromptu tour.
Unfortunately none of the cafes were open for us to grab a bite. Fortunately, the hotel we stayed at had hot breakfast included in our bill. It seems like even a taco truck would have done fantastic business at this hour in the middle of downtown here.
The cool thing about the parking is that you can't see it from the park. The entrance is concealed by a berm and accessed through two colorful block entrances.
The park has made a huge impact on the area. William recounted one local worker in particular who expressed what a big difference downtown is now that this park is there. It really transformed the area and had made it a much nicer place to be if you want to live nearby in downtown.
Most of the wood on the site is IPE which doesn't need treatment to last a long time outdoors.
One of the cafes on the site has a rooftop restaurant area complete with a veggie and herb garden the chef can pick fresh from.
There's an express library if people prefer to have books transferred there for pickup.
They have solar panels but they sell the power back to the grid rather than use it themselves.
There was another cool feature hidden on the side that was an amplifying structure of some sort. The idea is that you sit in one and someone else sits in the other about 40 feet away. Because of the amplification, you can hear each other perfectly without raising your voice.
William talked about the power of 10 rule. The idea is that you need about 10 different activities/uses/purposes in an area before it becomes a strong draw for people. It was evident this rule played a part in the design of the area.
One humorous story was that evidently Houston residents wanted goldfish in the pond. So they would covertly release them there despite the park's best efforts to keep them out. Now they have goldfish.
Another cafe started out as a gourmet, organic restaurant but the majority of the market couldn't afford to eat there as a regular lunch option.
The cafe switched their fare to more affordable (and slightly less healthy) options and they've done great ever since.
What people may not realize about the park is that it's privately owned. No doubt that's a contributing factor to it's success.
While it's free and open to the public, they reserve the right to ask anyone to leave that isn't following the rules such as no sleeping on the benches, etc.
Check out their website for listings of events as there are many.
City Centre
City Centre is a great example of an upscale mixed use development. While you'd think that most mixed use developments are upscale, this one is somewhere between that and luxury.
It's 37 acres and was an abandoned mall before that. In fact they basically got it for a steal – they got it for what it would have cost them to build the three existing parking garages alone.
They'd done a ton of market research to know this area was underserved for the demographic. They have a lot of unique establishments such as Ruggles Green which had been recommended to us.
Instead of looking for traditional anchor stores, they sought out activity drivers and synergistic uses. Anthropologie was their first tenant and open at a volume 30% above projections.
They have the similar orientation that most of the successful developers we talked to had – make a positive contribution to the community in addition to making a good return on the investment.
They've been successful enough that their office rents are comparable to what you'd pay to office downtown.
And as we'd heard before they're interested in the economic benefits of sustainability.
They have much better pictures and more information at their website.
New Hope Housing, Inc.
Our next stop was New Hope Housing. I had some familiarity with them due to them being mentioned in a trends class I had as well as being a featured component of the ULI Urban Design Competition I participated in earlier. But it was nice to actually see it live.
For those of you unfamiliar with NHH, they are a non-profit whose mission is to reduce homelessness and help transitional folks. Some people like the community aspects well enough to stay long term too.
They build SROs – single occupant residences. The idea is to make affordable housing by making the spaces smaller. When you're doing urban infill, people – especially single people as they require – don't need as much space. Clearly that's an obvious idea here on a tiny house site.
Aside from the space, what makes this work so well is what they call their permanent supportive housing aspect. They have community managers that know the residents personally and check in on them.
One surprise for me was to walk into a unit and see how small it actually was. It was 235 SF, had a bed, a fridge, a bathroom and a microwave. The idea was that people weren't meant to live in the room but to get out and engage with the community. There was a commercial community kitchen for those that wanted to cook.
Also, if a resident happened to begin slipping into old anti-social habits they would be required to accept help from the program. Otherwise they would be asked to leave.
They also have programs focused on improving job skills and finding a job. And while they were started by a religious organization, they aren't a faith-based organization themselves even though Bible studies are offered.
A really ingenious aspect of their finances is that every building is paid for before they build it. They get 3/4 of the funds from low income tax credits. The rest is from HUD and private donations. Their operating expenses are paid entirely for by the rents.
To help with those operating expenses, they build green. With 166 units, the Sakowitz building was the first LEED Platinum affordable housing development in the country.
The 235 SF units go for $435 per month all bills paid. I don't know how it could get more affordable than that for having your own room.
By the end of next year they forecast having over 900 units across 7 properties. This is a non-profit to watch as hopefully they start a trend.
BG Group Place
Just prior to this visit, I'd been asked to procure a visit for the next day (Saturday). I'd heard that the mega-developer from Houston Gerald D. Hines had built a new LEED certified office skyscraper.
I looked it up and found the name. I called them and was told no one would be in the building to open it on Saturday. Leasing put me through to property management who referred me back. It was a no-go.
We drove by to check one last time later that evening. It's a great building – LEED Platinum. More info on the building can be found on their site: http://mainplacehouston.com/.
Another of our tour participants was able to secure us an appointment with AmREIT. They are a REIT (real estate investment trust) focused on what they call "Irreplaceable Corners" which are primarily retail.
While you might not think that retail would be the market to be in right now, they're doing pretty well with it. The CFO Chad Braun and SrVP Charles Scoville were kind enough to spend a late Friday afternoon with us.
They are also focused on urban infill which is a rising trend. They're finding that low water landscaping is becoming a necessity. They're tackling the challenge of making bricks and mortar competitive with online shopping.
They're finding that tenants' space requirements are generally getting smaller as more businesses find it's better for them to specialize than warehouse. They're aware that retail needs to embrace the Starbucks principle of becoming a 3rd place.
Kemah Boardwalk
While this wasn't part of the tour, my wife kept insisting that I needed to see Kemah. So us and another tour participant went. It was more than I expected.
It was more commercialized than she'd remembered but we found a nice seafood restaurant to eat at and then enjoyed the fireworks show later on.
Day 7: Houston
Green Building Resource Center
Since almost nothing business related is open on the weekends we only had one stop on the last day.
The City of Houston has a green building initiative in conjunction with their permit and code enforcement division.
The Green Building Resource Center shares the building with Code Enforcement. So when you go to get your permit, you see off on the side lots of displays showing you how to build greener.
I actually didn't take any notes there as it was all in the pictures. They had different types of windows, air filtration, lights, rainwater collection, insulation, attic ventilation, wall assemblies and even some recycled metal art to boot.
My favorite display was a version of grasscrete made of recycled plastic. The idea is that instead of pouring concrete for a driveway or parking lot, you lay these plastic grids out and fill them with either gravel or grass. The grids protect the contents from crushing and retain the permeable nature of the ground.
They say it's half as much as concrete installed. I can't vouch for how much fun it would be to walk on it barefoot but it's getting there.
That concluded the tour. We drove back to the DFW area and pretty much crashed.


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North Carolina's sunset provision on its incentive brings uncertainty; Georgia has no such provision.
The Economic and Tourism Committee chair in the Georgia House says it would be just peachy if North Carolina does away with its film incentive.
Rep. Ron Stephens, a Republican from Savannah, is a 16-year member of the Georgia House. With a colloquial tongue, he calls the film incentive in Georgia his "baby" and says of naysayers: "I break their arms and legs and make them understand that's not the proper way to go."
Georgia has dug in its heels to become a movie-making mecca – not only drawing Hollywood to the South but planting its roots there, too. Since 2010, 11 film and television studio facilities have made announcements to locate or expand in Georgia.
The state even awards an additional 10 percent tax credit – on top of 20 percent – if a production company imbeds the signature Georgia peach logo. Unlike in North Carolina, where there is a $1 million per-person cap, there are no spending limits in Georgia on big items such as talent, allowing the state to draw high-paying actor gigs including "The Hunger Games."
Seven years ago, Stephens said, the filming industry was generating about a $200 million economic impact in the state. Last fiscal year, the state topped the $3 billion mark, he said. That's billion with a "B," he said, to drive the point home.
So why can't North Carolina be more like Georgia?
As in North Carolina, Georgia is run by Republicans, though the film industry in that state is on much more solid footing than it is here. Stephens said there are some legislators who are concerned the incentive is a "gimme" to Hollywood. Education is key to swaying public opinion, he said, including studio tours and events.
Tim Bourne, of Wilmington, a producer who has worked in Georgia and North Carolina, said North Carolina is a different brand of conservative.
"Why was North Carolina one of the last to have a lottery? It's just the mindset of our state, I think. Apparently North Carolina is much more conservative than Georgia. There's no fiscal reason," Bourne said. "North Carolina is not smarter than Georgia. North Carolina doesn't know something that Georgia doesn't."
For another thing, Georgia's film incentive doesn't include a sunset provision, unlike in North Carolina, which brings uncertainty each time it's up for renewal in the General Assembly. That's particularly true now with Republicans at the helm and tax reform on their minds.
North Carolina's film incentive remains on the books through Dec. 31, 2014. Without legislative action, it will expire the following day.
Film industry representatives would love to have seen North Carolina's film tax credit extended by lawmakers during the long legislative session that just ended.
But as state leaders considered one of the nation's most comprehensive tax overhauls, the focus turned toward keeping the film incentive intact – period – as in making sure it wasn't wiped from the books. Some Republicans in the N.C. General Assembly oppose incentives altogether, favoring instead lower taxes that level the playing field.
"The real takeaway here is thank goodness nothing happened this session, because there were two very open attacks on the film incentive this year," said Rep. Susi Hamilton, D-New Hanover.
One of those "attacks" was legislation introduced by two local legislators – Reps. Rick Catlin and Chris Millis – to rewrite the incentive in a way that the film industry said would result in the loss of productions. The other was an amendment offered in a House committee to the massive tax overhaul package that died narrowly on a tie vote.
Millis, of Pender, and Catlin, of New Hanover, said they were addressing a constitutional concern with the incentive.
The N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law published a report questioning the constitutionality of the film incentive package as it is currently structured. The report by Executive Director Jeanette Doran said: "The error of North Carolina's film incentives rises to a constitutional infirmity because no appropriation has authorized the drawing of public money for payments of these subsidies."
Currently, if credits allowed under the state's film incentives package exceed the amount of taxes the production company owes to the state, the state writes a check to the company for the difference. The Catlin/Millis bill would have eliminated that and instead waived any tax liability the company accrued over five years up to the credit limit.
Since most film companies have no tax liability in North Carolina, that would have killed any financial incentive to film here, industry supporters said.
The bill never moved, but midway through session, as tax talks heated up, Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger forecast the film credit's uncertainty.
"The film incentive and other incentives are going to be part of that overall discussion, and we'll see how things work out.… Whether we will need a specific set-aside as opposed to just the tax reform to make North Carolina attractive, I think that's part of the discussion," he said.
The uncertainty is new with Republicans in charge. The incentives were beefed up by the Democratic-controlled legislature in 2010 to include allowing film companies to recoup 25 percent of their qualifying expenses. Prior to this juicing, the film industry here was languishing.
But support for the film incentive has been bipartisan. Commerce Secretary Sharon Decker, a high-profile member of Gov. Pat McCrory's team, has expressed support.
Leveling the playing field may be well and good, but the film industry says the ballgame isn't played without incentives. Competition among states is too stiff, and movie and television show makers will go with the best deal.
"We hope North Carolina moves along its path of eliminating its film incentive so it helps Georgia," Stephens said.
He's not afraid to throw down fightin' words.
"We didn't have a studio big enough for 'Iron Man 3,' but that's going to change. It would have been right here had we had a film studio big enough," he said.
No one is more aware of what's at stake than Aaron Syrett. "We're looking at what we can do right now," says the director of the N.C. Film Office.
The Friday the legislative session ended, Syrett said, his phone rang. It was a studio representative who had heard an extension was not granted and the film incentive was going away.
"The news is in Los Angeles," Syrett said. "The damage is already done."
Syrett said a plan of attack is in the works to persuade lawmakers to extend the incentives. Still, in an industry that deals in concrete certainty, he said, "we can only offer you certainty up to this date."
When it comes to the movie industry, it's a cutthroat game of the best deal offered. In the early 2000s, Canada was getting the lion's share of motion pictures by ponying up both federal and provincial incentives. But states woke up when the movie "Chicago" was done at a sound stage in Toronto. Now, it's a game of who offers the best package, said Vans Stevenson, a senior vice president with the Motion Picture Association of America, based out of Washington, D.C. He said the industry is closely watching the N.C. General Assembly.
"North Carolina, and Charlotte and Wilmington in particular, have that opportunity, but without a stable incentive program those opportunities will likely not be there, and in fact there are opportunities that are being lost as we speak since the legislature did not extend the credit beyond the sunset date of Dec. 31, 2014," he said.
"Unfortunately, without a stable and predictable program, you're going to take certain film and finance people who look at this ... and they're just going to go somewhere else. You're shopping for the best environment."
And the environment is ripe in Georgia, he said.
"Georgia is really realizing the benefits of a constant, stable policy designed to facilitate the development of significant infrastructure creating huge investments and creating thousands of jobs in television and motion picture production," he said.
Metro desk: 343-2389
On Twitter: @StarNewsMolly
Georgia's incentive at a glance:
> 30 percent transferrable tax credit (plus 10 percent for embedding the Georgia peach)
> $500,000 minimum spend on qualified expenditures
> All resident and non-resident labor qualify; no caps
> No sunset clause
North Carolina's incentive at a glance:
> 25 percent refundable tax credit
> $250,000 minimum spend on qualified expenditures
> First $1 million of each resident and non-resident labor qualifies
> Sunset clause (ends Jan. 1, 2015)


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Jason Hanson announced his retirement from the NFL after 21 seasons as the Detroit Lions' kicker.
Hanson, a second-round pick in 1992, opted to retire when a contract agreement couldn't be reached with the Lions for the 2013 season. Hanson said he didn't want to play for another team.
No player in NFL history has played more games with one team (327). The 42-year-old is the NFL-record holder with 52 field goals of 50-plus yards and is third all-time with 2,150 points and 495 field goals.
The Lions could sign his replacement soon or wait to find a rookie during or after the draft. The Ravens signed undrafted kicker Justin Tucker before 2012, and he made multiple game-winning kicks for the Super Bowl champions.
Former San Francisco 49ers kicker David Akers visited the facility this week and at least one other free agent, Justin Medlock, worked out for the Lions.


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text: Well Tony, Things are pretty simple for using SSI at your beowulf cluster. The short summary: a) openmosix is dead b) open-ssi is still alive Simple tip: go for open-ssi. A bit longer explanation: a) openmosix is dead. I can confirm that even wikipedia has that. Openmosix was an Israeli project and therefore died when It's Israeli main developer left, for whatever reason. He has left a very clear statement that he no longer works on openmosix. What usually happens is that 1 or 2 enthusiasts then do an effort to support it. If that doesn't work for you, then consider it dead. Using kernels 2.4.x is not realistic for todays quadcores. That was the status in 2005, that is in 2008 still the status. In 2005 if i remember well i used kernel 2.6.7 for a quad opteron dual core. Using kernel 2.4.x versus 2.6.x numa gave at a dual opteron dual core a speedloss of 50% for my chessproggie. 50% is *a lot* to lose in speed. Supporting a thing like openmosix requires a lot more than 1 guy who in order to modify 3 bytes needs 1000 dollar. What you see a lot is that open source projects get hijacked by people who want to make cash out of it. In the world i come from, computerchess, i remember already since 1988 that this happens every year several times. The developers usually get really demotivated when they work for hundreds of hours at their 'money project', and then just make under a 1000 dollar; at the macdonalds you make more money. In short such projects usually die soon also, as there is no money for them into it. Most nerds are social seen total robots. b) open-ssi is there fore several distributions and actively supported by several developers. It is there, it works, it improves and it works for latest kernels also (yes also 2.6.x). In itself it would be GREAT if there is 1 open source project there, as that joins forces more. My hope is that open-ssi will work great for highend nic's also and slowly get to a phase that all features work great. OpenMosix nor openssi could migrate processes that work with shared memory, a nerd feature i like personally a lot. Just claiming that they use 'stolen' features like page migration is like claiming that linux stole multithreading from unix; it is a bad attempt to smear dirt just to earn a 1000 dollar. It is not a reason to not use it. It is a bad attempt to spit at these guys who donate time and their money without asking for payment. Vincent On Oct 1, 2008, at 1:10 PM, Tony Travis wrote: > Vincent Diepeveen wrote: >> I agree tony that paying for such crap is not very good idea. > > Hello, Vincent. > > I don't think MOSIX2 is crap! > > However, I don't like the idea of having to pay for 'updates'. > >> You might want to move to open-ssi in this case; the project is >> alive and there is in theory work getting >> performed on support for cards over infiniband as well. > > I have looked at OpenSSI, which uses the openMosix load-balancer, > but process migration is more coarsely grained than in openMosix. > Only the active pages of the user context of openMosix processes > are migrated. > > I've been looking at alternatives and I think Kerrighed looks very > promising but, in our hands, Kerrighed is very fragile: I've > mentioned on this list before that if one Kerrighed node goes down > you lose the entire cluster. We've been talking to Christine > Morin's group at INRIA and they tell us that the next release of > Kerrighed with be more robust: > > http://www.kerrighed.org > >> Most importantly is that you are gonna get more replies. > > Yes, thanks for yours :-) > >> Additionally the manner open-ssi implements shared memory is very >> transparant; in principle on each write it migrates a page >> to the node writing. >> Maybe the only big lack of open-ssi is its limited support so far >> for highend network cards. > > What bothers me about OpenSSI is that it's based on an open-sourced > version HP's (now Compaq) discontinued commercial product "non-stop > clusters for Unix". The OpenSSI project also came in for a lot of > criticism from the openMosix community for stealing ideas, so my > concerns about it might not be all that well founded ;-) > > The main reason I didn't use OpenSSI, previously, was that many > features had not been implemented fully and, like Kerrighed, it > wasn't really a viable option for a 'production' cluster even > though it was interesting as a research project. What makes me take > MOSIX2 seriously now is that it is a commercially supported > 'product' with all the same virtues (and most of the vices) of > openMosix. > > Tony. > -- > Dr. A.J.Travis, University of Aberdeen, Rowett Institute of Nutrition > and Health, Greenburn Road, Bucksburn, Aberdeen AB21 9SB, Scotland, UK > tel +44(0)1224 712751, fax +44(0)1224 716687, http://www.rowett.ac.uk > mailto:ajt at rri.sari.ac.uk, http://bioinformatics.rri.sari.ac.uk/~ajt > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf


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