Dec 3, 2010 | 0 comments

Faster and Faster

At the start of the new school year, there was a flurry of social activity at my children’s grade school and high school.  I didn’t attend all of the events, but made it to a couple -  both informal gatherings hosted by parents and featuring refreshments and finger foods.  In both situations, I arrived a few minutes early to find hoards of frantic parents ripping open huge plastic containers of pre-made foods and hurriedly dumping everything out onto platters.  Almost every single offering was from Costco, and at the end of the evenings, over half of the food ended up in the garbage. 

The whole scene reminded me yet again that the ever faster pace at which we are forced to function is clearly impacting quality of life.  How did things get to be this way?  It seems to me that it happened gradually at first, and then, aided by advances in technology, increased in pace quite rapidly over the last few years.  However it happened, this addiction to instantaneousness is impacting all of us, in many different ways.  Sometimes this can be a good thing, but most of the time, I fear it is not so benign. 

 

Nov 24, 2010 | 0 comments

Saving Time & Giving Thanks

About 30 years ago, I lived and worked in the Palm Beach, Florida area.  I had a friend in Miami who ran a horse quarantine for polo ponies coming into America from Argentina.  One day, he received a load of 14 horses via cargo plane, and when the plane was opened to check on the horses, inside was a 15th head, except of the human variety.  Her name was Pamela, a British-born woman in her 60s who had stowed away because she couldn’t afford the trip to America. 

A well-skilled groom with many years of experience caring for horses in England and Argentina, when Pamela’s husband passed away she had decided it was time to move.  Since she had no place to live and very few resources, she came to live with me for about six months, working in the stables to earn her keep.  We became friends, and I loved to hear her stories. 

 

Nov 8, 2010 | 0 comments

More for Less

One of my favorite conferences each year is the Real Estate Trends portion of the Urban Land Institute’s Annual Fall Meeting.  I look forward to hearing some of the building industry’s brightest minds talk about both current and emerging trends in different parts of the world and from a variety of perspectives.  Commercial, hospitality, residential, retail, rental and sale, as well as a few related industries, all gather to contribute their insights.  For the last two years, I skipped the conference in an effort to avoid hearing more complaints and few (if any) solutions regarding the recession’s toll on building.  I finally decided to return this year, attending with high expectations and looking forward to talking with colleagues and professionals about recent innovations and sources of inspiration.  I was hoping to meet with others who viewed the recession as a starting point instead of a black hole. As they say, necessity can be the mother of invention, and I expected to see great ideas from those who, like me, are no good at sitting still and waiting.

Generally speaking, I was pretty disappointed.  It was dismaying to hear more of the same tired discussions about how the recession happened, how it’s not over, who did it,  what we should have done different, blah, blah, blah.  A couple of times, I just wanted to stand up and shout at the speakers, “It’s a done deal!  Let’s move on, already!”  So now, I’d like to spearhead an effort to go forward instead of sideways, and talk about what I see happening on the front lines in my part of the world.