Back with a Hobbit Story

Hi All, I've been out for some time since Grad school Started. you can imagine why. It's VERY time consuming. But I've been up to a LOT. Really, I've been putting my money where my mouth is.
so in November a classmate of mine Kim P. and myself designed and built a test cell for thermal comfort. We also had help from my classmates Jacob, James, Melissa, and Alexandra. yau can go see it for yourself at the Center for Regenerative Studies at Cal Poly Pomona.

Essentially it is a hobbit hole with a large door facing south. We open up the door during the day and let in some sun that heats up stone tiles on the floor. We had initially been closing the door at around 3 pm but after we pulled the data we discovered it'd be best to shut the door no later than 1pm. I talk about why building underground is beneficial in a previous post.

The blue line is the temperature range inside the house and the red line is the temperature range outside. The yellow bar is the typical temperature range for thermal comfort. As you can see it did ok, but next time we should close the door at the peak of it's temperature gain. The lowest it got outside is just below 35 degrees and the lowest it got inside is just under 60 degrees while the warmest it got outside is just over 60 degrees but inside it got up to just over 85 degrees. This is all with passive methods and no energy usage.

When it's hotter in the summer we'll probably just need to keep the door closed and it'll stay cool all day.

Here's the opening line to The Hobbit
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort." - Tolkien

Just won an award for these.

So I'm adding a creative commons license so no one makes money off of them


Finished product.


Tire Chair by Andrew Kanzler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Just got back from Peru,

I forgot to post that I was leaving for a couple weeks to Peru. I went with Green Empowerment to provide assist with water problems in rural communities of the andes. I'll have to fill you all in about it once I've finished catching up on things to do around the house.

More Community Action! Through the Weekend and Wednesday at DBA 256

So all through this weekend there will be more work parties to help out Dawn of the Garden and Pam of the Yarn Shop.

ALSO! I'm looking forward to this. There will be a fundraising event at DBA 256, drinking beer and wine for a cause? Sounds good to me!

The First Organic Garden Shop in LA "The Garden" in Pomona Burned Down Yesterday

click here for more info at M-M-M-My Pomona
there are updates from community members there as well and links to News coverage.
The owner is Dawn Van Allen, she is also a regular on the workshop and lecture circuit for urban gardening among other things

The Yarn Shop next door also burned down.

These two businesses are well known among the community, in fact The Garden is the only place that Lisa ever frequents, and those that know us, know that Lisa almost never leaves the house, especially during the day.

Bicycling: The New Golf?

In New York (and Provo, and San Diego, and San Francisco) they are saying that Bicycling is the new golf. I'm not quite sure about that, and I don't think bicycling could adequately replace golf. I'm not a golfer, I've been golfing a handful of times, but I do think there are some fundamental differences that won't allow for one to replace the other. I do however agree that bicycling is picking up in popularity while golfing is declining, but it's not quite the same. So I've made a few comparisons (without addressing much in the article which talks more about the social aspects of golfing and networking):



Outdoors: Both "sports" happen outdoors, one in a very specific place that I find to be redundant and also not very conducive to the diversity of the environment. The other can happen almost anyplace at anytime.



Danger: Cycling is much more dangerous you cold get hit by a car! Though golfing DOES have its dangers.



Shoes: You can really golf or bicycle in almost any time of shoe. However, serious golfers and serious cyclists both have their own versions of cleats.



Clothing: I probably will not be wearing lycra anytime soon. Look at that style on those golfers though, I love it. Knickers also make perfect sense for bicycles. They'll keep your pants out of the chain instead of having to roll up your pant leg.


Folks early on seemed to recognize that golf clothing would work great for cycling. But somewhere along the development of bicycle clothing, clothes became geared only towards those who love spandex.

Fortunately, it looks like there are some folks who hate lycra as much as I do. This looks like a viable option, but i think there's still a ways to go.



Skill: Both Cycling and Golfing take adequate training. I know there are some people who teach their kids how to golf early on in their lives, but I still don't think it's as common as being taught how to ride a bike as a kid. One can learn how to bike in a day, it's much harder to learn how to golf in a day.



Transport: As we can see in this exhibit, it takes a bicycle in order to bicycle, and in order to golf one either needs to walk or use a golf cart. ALSO in order to GO golfing one needs to drive to the golf course with clubs in hand. In order to bicycle one just needs to jump on a bicycle. So you inevitably are being environmentally friendly, and with being environmentally friendly you are going to save money.

Here's a great article from Health & Fitness It talks about some more differences from golf and cycling. Things like Health benefits, Family time, Cost etc...

So is bicycling the new golf? I think it can be a viable way for execs to network over golfing, I think it's a better "sport" than golfing is by far. If I want to play a game that puts balls in holes I'll go play pool down on second street, (that guy really takes care of his tables AND cues they're PERFECT) and I'll bicycle there.

Bicycling is the new golf in that it is taking the place of many social aspects of golf while the popularity of the sport declines and while cycling ascends. But cycling will never take the place of the type of sport that golf is (for old white and asian men, which I will be one day except not plural)

Bee Orgy

Found this in my yard today in one of the flowers on a squash vine. Thought I'd share it with you all.