Shaky Danny

Start with fire. You are going to build a fireproof house. Once you have a plan to build a fireproof Los Angeles house build an architectural model using the same materials, say an aluminum foil roof etc. Then take a blow torch and hold it to your model for a day. Dena means valley, Pasadena, Altadena…A valley is a wind tunnel. Say you have a surviving model. Then blast it with your garden hose, raising the water level to half the level of your model. Desert valleys flood. Make sure your model is somehow anchored, so it doesn’t float or slip away. Check your model for mold. The seals on your model must survive fire and flood. Then take a large pail of gravel and dump the gravel from some height on the steel framed model with the fancy Swiss made seals. Valleys also have rockslides. Make sure your model can withstand the landslide without moving. After that, take the entire diorama, including the model, lift it up and bang it on the table as hard as you can. Earthquake proof means...

Many people in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, are installing sewer valves for their homes. Some years back we had an impressive deluge and this is a reaction. Your stack or stand pipe may drain directly out to the street sewer. Putting a check valve or flapper in the way means that when the system hits load those houses refuse service and the overall pressure on the system will increase precisely at the time it is stressed. If you don’t have a flap then super tough on you, the effluent has to go somewhere. A product that creates its market. Once everyone has flaps there should be popped flaps or broken pipes. Flaps are necessary on flood plains. As flood plain construction is common it is difficult for other municipalities, such as Oak Park, to deny their use. Chicago used to require a basement floor drain. You were expected to share your suffering with your neighbors. Most people have their stack drain into their own sewer that then drains into the street sewer. This is a nice fea...

I thought of this term while visiting Indianapolis and seeing their library and a nearby church converted to residential. Mullet refers to a hairstyle that is: -business in the front and party in back. A mullet is a type of catfish. Mullet head is a derogatory word implying poor and therefore stupid. This word became associated with the hairstyle a few decades ago. While I claim credit for Chicago Facade, peeling the facade off an old building then pasting it on a new one to satisfy nostalgia, the Mullet Architecture term already exists. Examples given are Frank Lloyd Wright’s Winslow house in River Forest and modernist houses built in Nazi Germany which maintained a severe front. I am extending the term to Mullet houses that meet the requirements of historic districts while allowing large family rooms and kitchens. This type of restoration arises from envy of the Ranch styles with their dramatic living/dining and open kitchen areas. People living in Craftsman, Victori...

This is a perfect example of common perception inflated to economic theory.   It tells you to wait in line and take what’s coming to you.    The fundamental fallacy is the belief that the game is fair.    The moment you start depending on the efficient market hypothesis, you find yourself joining a buying club, in a time-share; your stop loss positions wiped out in a flash crash and trapped in the slow lane behind a befuddled shrivel. Do not confuse the efficient market hypothesis with the cost of investment decision paradox.    This is the famous cost accounting paradox predicated on the belief that the time spent on an investment decision should be tempered by the value of the expected gain.    Beloved of lazy accountants who refuse to get out their rulers and measure floor space, it leads to the off shoring of production facilities and the black hole of corporate Calcutta, where more and more employees are squished into cheaper and sma...

January 30, 2003 -            I would like to be a plumber. My heart lifts at this comment by Joshua, my fifteen-year-old son..    Parenting is a constant balance between insane euphoria and abject terror.    I reply cautiously. -            You have to be careful about electrical shocks.    It’s common to ground electrical equipment through the plumbing.    You should also keep your tetanus and hepatitis shots current.    There are opportunities to own your own business.    Like anything else, if you’re good you should always find work.    The hardest part is walking into the bathroom and saying, - -This is going to cost twenty grand. My kitchen faucet has been dripping.    It’s getting steadily worse.    I have become adept at moving the faucet to minimize the noise it makes.  ...