They Just Don't Get It.....Seriously

OK, so apparently people think I'm denying myself something, many things, possibly "important" things.   What the hell?     I'm one of the only people I know who has everything they want.   There are more things I wouldn't mind having (like if anyone has a spare Johnny Depp lying around going unused....that would be fine).

So, here's how this came up today:

I got a call from a colleague this morning asking if I was coming to a group work event. I said that I was stranded on the wrong side of the mountains by weather, 6 hours from home, so nope. She asked if that was a problem and I said, thinking she knew me well, that nope, I had a plenty of savings at this point in my life for these sorts of little "emergencies" so it was no hardship to find a budget hotel and spend a night in Portland Oregon (actually...it's really fun with the cheap efficient public transit and the Powell's bookstore and the amazing food).

She said something like, "but you deny yourself so much to get those savings"
.......I am still sort of stunned. I have everything I need! And most of what I want. In my mind I don't deny myself anything.   I wanted to say, "But I'm talking to you from a one bedroom apartment in Seattle (that I rent instead of a hotel room because it's cheap and private and I enjoy having a kitchen when I travel), and I'm on my way to Portland to wait out a storm while I find books on my list (resource material for things I WANT to do on MY land) and eat delicious food (just because I WANT to...).  I mean for cripes sake, I went to Paris for Christmas (thanks Unca Pat for the room!) because I wanted to.  Then I went to Amsterdam for New Years because what the hell, I was already in Paris.....oh the denial of not staying in Plummer...boohoo.

This woman has been connecting me with inexpensive resources and whatnot since I've bought land so I sort of thought we were on the same page, but I guess not.

Part of it is that long ago I started sorting my wants from my real "needs" and setting priorities for both. Once that was sorted, the rest started fall in place financially.   For example, I "need" somewhere to live. I want privacy so I have lived alone in low cost housing. Decor and fashion and large amounts of space are not things I want, so not having them isn't "denial" to me, it's cool. I didn't want or need debt the last several years so I paid it off. That's not denial...that's awesome for my financial goals. I want savings. I have some. I need clothes...don't car about fashion...so I get 2nd hand clothes. Back to the savings and debt pay off priorities with the left overs. I wanted to ask her if she understood that I wasn't denying myself anything that interests me.   I wonder if people who buy into the mainstream wants, or who maybe just don't get that we all want different stuff, will never get that for those of us who are outliers from the norm.  I have friends and relatives who have much more gracious and spacious homes.  My assumption was that that was what THEY want, not what EVERYONE wants.  Some people really enjoy fine art.  I think it's great.  What I choose to spend my money on and get the most enjoyment out of is art by someone I have a personal connection with.  Some day I'd like to own a Jim Denommie.   I already own a Carly Bordeaux,  a Gerald Nailor Jr (thanks Marcie!), an Erika Greenwell (hi Erika!).   Sometimes something grabs me like the handmade plate I saw in New Mexico...I do know the potter now so in that case the art came before the personal connection.  But you get the theme.  These aren't all high dollar items but I really like them.  I LOVE my original Bree (Hi Bree) and my Jon Hostager (Hi Jon!) and my Annnnnggggela (Hi Ange!) and my Laurie Koenigs (Hi Laurie!).   I have several Pamela's  (Hi Pam).   Where's the denial?

I wanted to go on a canal boat trip. So I did. I wanted to see ancient Roman and Druid ruins. Saw both on the way too and from the canal boat in Wales. Wanted to see Paris again. So I did. Wanted to spend the night in Portland rather than make a long and dangerous drive through ice and snow and freezing rain. So I did. Wanted to buy land for cash. So I did. I want to live in a home of my own design. So I'm working on a design. I want to learn to build things so I've taken classes and now that I bought land, I can start putting those things into practice. I want to know if I can build a home without debt. So I am giving it a shot. I want to live with a low impact on the environment, so I bought a composting toilet and started thinking about how to implement it's use.   I wanted to learn about gardening so I built a couple of raised beds.

Perhaps my loyal readers could clue me in on what I'm denying myself.  I can't think of a thing  (as I sit in my hotel, typing on my new computer, eating organic dark chocolate covered edamame beans from Trader Joe's and drinking delicious homemade chai from my purple stainless steel designer French press travel mug (hot water from my teal stainless steel Stanley thermos) wearing my organic cotton jammie pants and t-shirt (all of the things were bought at thrift) and wearing a lovely silver ring a friend just gave me after a giveaway/funeral on the reservation   For breakfast I've got an assortment of organic goodies to supplement the complimentary breakfast.

Seriously, where is the huge gap in my life I should feel bad about?  The part where I don't worry about whether I can pay my bills?   The part where I pay some giant corporations huge amounts of interest for credit?  The part where I stress about losing my job because of the crushing debt hanging over my head?  The part where I would lose my home and car if I lost my job? The part where I'm 1 paycheck from desperation? The part where if an opportunity comes up I can't afford to take advantage of it?  The part where I can't help people because I have no savings?  The part where ...I got nothing.

Vacation Day...I don't even know anymore...

I'm so tired and confused. I was going to go see Greg Palast and Mike Farrell today at a green festival in Denver, but I'm too f'ing tired. My eyes are just about swollen shut from allergies and tiredicity. So, we're just going out for lunch and too some thrift stores and hanging. I can't take in any more new information or learn anymore important messages (there WERE some at the sand dunes and the alligator farm...really). Then, yesterday, it all got to be too much. In a good way.

Anyway. Where did I leave you? It was with gibbons, right?

So that was Wednesday.

Thursday we lazed around Jonny's place until he had to go to class. I saw an art show on campus and read his Miranda July book (not for the faint of heart or the prudish of disposition) while he was in class. Then we took off for the "Ores and Mines B&B". It was great. We were a bit late (that will be a theme you'll notice in our vacation). It won "Most Rustic B&B/Inn" at some point. The owners, John and Donna, are great. We were the only guests so they let us upgrade to a sweet suite! Each room has it's own gas or propane powered stove (looks like a wood stove, runs off a thermostat). The suite had one room with a couch, chair, two queen beds, desks, dressers, secretary with china in the other half, and on and one. Then a small room with another queen bed. And ANOTHER room with a table and chairs and off that room was the bathroom (natural stone shower which was cool and scary) and a door out onto a private patio with a view of the lake. We were over 11,000 feet in altitude and I thought I was fine until I tried to walk up a small rise. Oh well.

We had picked up some thai noodle salads and nuts and dried cranberries and desserts at an organic market on the way and had those for dinner in their dining/game room. We listened to the juke box (quarters provided for free) which seemed to play the records at 29 rather than 33 1/3. It helped Jonny mellow out. sort of like time moved more slowly here.

We played shuffle board (we sucked) on their long shuffleboard table along one wall. John and Donna popped in and out to make sure we were OK. I spotted a copy of "amateur wrestling" magazine and thought that someone must have left it there in the past. Nope. It was from April 19, 2009! Turns out John is a fan and one of their boys is a coach! He knew all about the Cael Sanderson debacle and had seen him wrestle in high school.

We headed down stairs for a photography session before bed. Yes, sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? It's not like you think. Jonny has had photo series and individual photos in art shows around the greater Denver area and has won major awards. He was packing TONS of stuff which I didn't really understand since I had come down here for a week with one small backpack which is usually my field pack. I asked "what the hell?" and he said, "well, there's 7 cameras, the bag of wigs, the crocs (for a series he's working on called "croc whore"), and the costumes..."

Ah. I see.

Here is a sample. These are Jonny's so don't copy them or I will personally kick your ass.

From the Ores and Mines:

Note the rusticity! That couch is original! Not restored. has real applique'd deer and scenery. The chair matches. The lamps were just there. Jonny brought the shirts and those are my jammy pants I got at Goodwill a while back (with the original tags still on them so they weren't gross).

After we got up in the morning, John (the B&B guy) served us an amazing breakfast of french toast, eggs, strawberries and other berries and juice and coffee and an apple turnover thingy that he'd just made and I know there was more. We weren't hungry again until about 7pm.

We headed out (after loading Jonny's considerable baggage) and went to the Colorado 'Gator Farm. I'm not kidding. Here is a picture to prove it:

That's me and my jowls holding a 4 year old alligator that someone had kept in a small tank and underfed to keep small then finally admitted that they couldn't handle. So, like 150 other alligators and many lizards, tortoises, snakes, turtles, a caiman and much more at the 'Gator farm, they dumped on the farm. Idiots. The 'Gator bit of the farm is actually an off-shoot of their original purpose as a tilapia farm (a type of tropical fish related to the "oscars" that people keep in their fish tanks at home). They needed some way to get rid of the tilapia carcass waste after fileting out the fish for sale. So they got some alligators to eat it. It worked well, but then the 'gator bit started to grow. I wasn't delighted with the part where some idiot frat boy types paid the extra fee to handle a large alligator. It did seem that the alligator needed to be handled anyway to treat a cut on it's upper tail, but I'm not sure it needed to be man handled by a guy screaming "this is SO COOL" while his idiot friends took pictures and Jonny and I took ironic pictures of the whole thing (ultimately making us as assholey as the aging fratboys but you can't not take a photo of a scene like that). That photo hasn't been processed by Jonny yet and is larger than the blogspot will let me post. Someday.

I also had mixed feelings because this gator farm is not a wealthy place and they probably need the money that letting idiots handle gators brings in to pay for keeping other people's abandoned pets. the over all effect is a bit of the bayou in Colorado. Here are a few things we learned about the place:

it is fed by hotsprings or a hot well really, so the tropical fish and gators are comfortable all winter. The 'gators are allowed to roam about more than in the Denver Zoo and I liked that. The pallets, tires and wire fence enclosing them are not as pretty as the materials used at the zoo, but probably no more toxic. At the 'gator farm there are live fish in the ponds so the 'gators can hunt them or chase them if they want. They are also together with other gators. Cats, peacocks, and other critters run in and out of the pens (judging by the cats' tails...not always fast enough). That HAS to be more interesting than the life of a zoo 'gator.

There were also ostriches and a yak! I don't know the story of the yak. It was a baby and didn't look all that happy. He was in with some emus. The water runs in a stream through each pen so they always have water. There is shade for everyone too.

Water runs through the fish tanks first, only a few of which appear to be open for viewing. These people are trying to run a business! Then, it's pumped up into a hydroponic system over the tanks and cleaned by the roots (which take up many of the fish poop nutrients) and run back into the fish, then out into the streams through the various pens and alligator ponds. Anyway, I think that's how it works. So the water is used a few times before it goes down what they call "two mile creek" and allowed to soak back into the ground. This supposedly puts it back in the aquifer. I'm sure there is evaporation out of the large holding pond and at various other points in the system, but better than many would have done.

This is the only place other than the zoo where all the signs were correctly spelled and the apostrophes used properly. Interesting. Everyone was well educated about the alligators. Some people appear to live onsite in mobile estates not unlike my own.

OK, next we went to the Sand Dunes national monument. Amazing!!

Water carries sand west and it blows back east on monstrous winds and makes huge dunes. Looks like the sahara! The water flows in a "surge flow" which is fascinating. Just google it. It was really cool, but we don't have pictures processed yet. We waded in the water, sank in the sand, and just enjoyed the afternoon there.

Then, on to the La Plaza de los Leones in Walsenburg, Co. Fantastic B&B totally different from the other. There are rooms above and old store front in this small town in southern Colorado. We again ended up with a suite, some of which is visible in the mirror of this photo:

The owner, Marty, is a hoot and has actually been through north Idaho back when she sold advertising.

Breakfast here was fun. There was a note on the coffee maker instructing the first person to pour in the water. A fridge had milk and juice, there was cereal and some store bought muffins. Perfectly satisfactory! It's right downtown and there were many fun trading posts and stores that we had no time to go in. We had supper that night at the Iron Horse. Good Italian food and interesting locals to look at.

That was Friday.

Saturday, yesterday, was overwhelming too. We left Walsenburg, a bit late, and headed to Arriba, Colorado to Grampa Jerry's Clown Museum. Wow! Here is a photo:

It's small but has 10s of thousands of items crammed in there. Blogspot won't let me post any more photos than I've already got in here and I need one for the next thing...

Grampa Jerry is a character, as one might expect, and the museum is amazing in so many ways. And, Jonny will be punished for photographing me from the back.

The Wonder View Tower in Genoa, Colorado. It is a hand constructed tower touted as the highest point between Denver and New York City. It was a tourist spot from the 1930s and is now just STUFFED with things:

Yes, a two headed calf over jars of things like preserved lizards and another double head. Wow.

The owner of this is Jerry Chubbuck, locater of a mammoth (tusks on display in this facility) and one of the main buffalo kill sites in North America. That was 40+ years ago and he didn't talk about it much. There were 20 or 30 rooms, plus the multi story tower which is a stack of rooms, all stuffed with ...stuff.

You pay a dollar to get in and then Jerry will give your dollar back if you correctly guess 10 obscure items in a row. I got cow-stomach magnate, caponizing kit, bloodletting knives, and golfball stamper. Jonny got "quarter pounder" (a quarter and a tiny hammer glued to a block of wood). I guessed "mouse glasses" for something that turned out to be rooster glasses (I'm not kidding!) but Jerry would not give me partial credit. Neither of us got the walrus penis bone. But we were both holding one when we were told what it is. Another Jerry who is a character...

After that we'd pretty well had it. We headed in to Denver and met up with Jonny's friends at a Derby de Mayo party that was pretty much over. They celebrate the Kentucky Derby and Cinco de Mayo all in one. The door prize was a car!!! An old Probe that was being donated to charity. It will still be donated.

Now we may had out to some thrift and lunch, then hopefully meet up with my cousin before I get on the plane and get home at midnight. I won't be worth much at work tomorrow.

GIBBONS!!! and 2 Sloths. Awesome and sad zoo and The Tap

So, Wednesday I woke up at my usual fricking 5AM. Christ. I'm on vacation.

Anyway, I just stayed in bed reading for a few hours and got up after Jonny went to work.

I checked the interwebs to see if there was a bank (need to deposit the rent) in the area, an independent coffee shop, and some bread products (Jonny has peanut butter, jam, even hummus but NOT a single cracker or crust of bread in the house...I had a cup of tea and some peanut butter on a spoon for breakfast...actually, that's not that bad of a breakfast).

When I google mapped his place, turns out he is 10 blocks from the Denver Zoo. Cool.

Let's start with the bad:

KIDS. I hate kids and they were everywhere. Busloads of them. Screaming. Don't they have "adults only" hours at the zoo like they do at the pool? And the animals really don't like the screaming. I agree with the animals. Anyway, they sat down to eat at noon so I just kept going.

These animals had enclosures that were too small and showed signs of stress from the caging: bears, rhino, hippo, elephants, giraffes, various "hoofed" animals from africa, eagles and a condor in a cage less than 30 feet high and less than 100 feet long was sad.

Seals didn't look too pleased either.

BUT...some animals seemed to be doing OK. There had been some work on the primate area and most seemed to have enough "enrichment" that they were relaxing rather than pacing or rocking or throwing poo.

Anyway, the gibbons ROCK.

I have a video on my phone but don't know how to put it in the right format.

Then, I'm walking through the bird building which I was going to skip but thought that inside and without kids (they were not that jazzed about the birds). One docent was SUPER chatty which usually annoys me, but this one pointed out sloths that I hadn't noticed! In with birds.

The cave bats and fruit bats were behind glass in another building and I kept ducking when they came to the window. I hate bats.

They had fantastic turtles. The alligator snapping turtle would scare the b-jeezuz out of Pam (Hi Pam), but was very cool.

They have a surprising number of toucans. Who knew?

They have quite a bit of conservation and "anti-extinction" information around which is nice. Several zoo-keepers were available for comment while they worked in the food prep rooms. There were windows in to the rooms and buttong so you could ask them stuff.

I hope they can remedy the cage situations for some of the bigger critters soon.

At the zoo I had no portable cup and eventually gave in and got a lemonade. The plastic cup (DAMMIT) was made of corn. Corn is such a high-petroleum-input crop that I'm not sure it's worth it. I hear that corn plastic decomposes and I did carry the cup (with lemon slice) around for the rest of the visit and kept refilling it at drinking fountains. I did use drinking fountains without a cup for much of the visit, but I was getting woozy from the all protein breakfast and the heat and needed a bit of sugar and flavor to avoid heat stroke (I'm very heat stroky).

Now for a new dilemma. It's easy to get regular skin grease without a plastic bottle. I can refill the ones I have or get shea butter in tins at the Moscow Food Co-op and will look in to ordering larger quantities of shea butter (unrefined) online. BUT: where does one get sun screen without a plastic container? The shea butter has some variable sun screen properties but my nose is already peeling. I didn't even bring a hat or a bandana so the ears may go next. I kept moving the part in my hair to avoid scalp burn. I'm such a moron sometimes.

This was funny. I'm in the primate area and am wearing my black keen shoes with the newly applied retreads, brown carhart pants, a dark green un-marked t-shirt, and the blue removable sleeves shirt I got for christmas a couple of years back. I had the zip-off sleeves zipped off. A kid, about 5 or 6, says "What are you?" I looked confused. He said, "Are you a person who works here" I said "No, but I am an anthropologist". He was not impressed and his mother just walked off. I don't think they realized that that meant I could actually answer a question or two about the mandrills we were looking at.

OH! and this was the best best best. At the main potty room by the entrance/exit gate, they play environmental information in the bathroom (e.g. you help the environment if you shut off the water while you brush your teeth). AND the door of each stall has a picture of an animal head on the outside...and that animal's BUTT on the inside of the door. Awesome. I was in the mandrill stall.

I made some pasta for dinner for Jonny and me and then we went to see Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer at the Paramount Theatre here in Denver. AWESOME!!

They were hysterical and Christopher Guest is a seriously good musician. They did all their big songs and a few more that we hadn't heard much or at all before. Big Bottom was redone as a jazz bit with only Shearer on bass and McKean and Guest snapping their fingers and reciting/singing the song. A woman in a black leotard came out and did a free form jazz dance to the song. Disappointingly, she was very thin and did NOT have a big bottom. I would have much preferred a Beth Ditto type in the role. Oh well.

I did have to run out and pee during Stone Henge (no dwarves or props) and used that time to get a t-shirt.

We were in the 7th row on the aisle and could see very well. It was fabulous. Money well spent. we're going to wear the t-shirts to the clown museum on Saturday.

Today (it's actually Thursday because I was too tired last night to get it together and finish the blog) we're heading out to Twin Lakes Reservoir and the Mines and Ores or Ores and Mines B&B. Should be fab as well. Friday is the alligator farm and Walsenburg and Saturday is the clown museum and back here. Sunday the green festival is in town and I'm hoping to go to a bit of that.

Awesome Thrifting

I dont' know if people are getting kicked out of their homes or what, but the thrifting has been so good, I'm having to take a break.

Finding a Japanese/English keyboard for El Kid was pretty cool. He was impressed and hasn't hooked it up but seems to like staring at it.

Books I've found: some I can't tell because they will be gifts...but maybe those people won't read anyway. Someone from the 1970s croaked or something and awesome books were at a couple of thrift stores. I got "Everything you always wanted to know about sex...but were afraid to ask". Frankly after reading parts of this book, I'm more frightened than I've ever been. According to the good "doctor" (the author claims to be a psychiatrist and is getting his info from patients...perhaps not the BEST source for info about "normal" people's sexuality) all prostitutes are lesbians, there is no such thing as male prostitute, ...I don't think there is one other thing I can post without turning this blog into something horrifying and making both readers cringe.
I also found a 1970s textbook for some class that would probably be called "health and human development" now. It talked about finances, making a nice home (a woman's job apparently), sexuality (don't do anything, you'll probably get an infection, die and give birth simultaneously), and making money (a man's job...unless a woman wants to work before she gets married, that's probably OK but she might get mannish).

The decorating book from 1978 is fabulous! (these books were a dime each or so) It is one long fashion DON'T for your home. I think my favorite is how they "opened up the space" by getting rid of that pesky wall between the master bedroom and the master bathroom. They did not however, get rid of the master TOILET!!! It is behind a sort of halfwall. The master tub was sunk down and made flush with the (carpetted) floor. Another pit was sunk near it and filled with plants. The toilet, tub, and in-potty-garden are all visible through the GIANT WINDOW. In the background you can see lights from the neighbors. But, I suspect the neighbors moved. As did the wife the first time the husband used that toilet (not a vent to be seen) and then expected a little boom-chicka-wrow-wrow. Don't you love waking up to the sound of your beloved taking a loud pee? Or perhaps they both died when they were trying to take a late night tinkle without turning on the lights (what with the lack of WALLS to confine the light) and fell into the sunken tiled tub and/or planter breaking their heads open and bleeding out (though conveniently into the drain and I hear the roses looked FABULOUS when they were finally found by the neighbors who couldn't help but look now and then.) I'm pretty sure this book must be featured on the webpage commemorating ugly rooms from the 1970s. I'd send you there but the bastards have taken it down and are now selling it as a book. That's not nice. The ugly should be free for us all to enjoy. I'll see if I can get my scanner up and running and share some from my own 10cent book.

Then there is the 1970s knitting patterns. The patterns are disturbing enough (3-D puppets poking out of children's sweater dresses so short that the crotch of her tights is well below the hem...the wearer does not look pleased) but the photos are amazing. Every single person looks self-conscious and uncomfortable if not outright pissed. Fantastic. Frankly, they look like photos my friend Jonny (Hi Jonny!) would take and put in an art show. I'm hoping someday we can re-create them and take a picture with the book open in the background to the page we're recreating.

I bought a "Cheapskate" book but it turns out I'm well beyond the piddling suggestions they make (eat at home more, cook for yourself...DUH). So that dime was wasted.

Someone recently suggested to me that since I read so much, I get some new high tech gadget where you can download books and read them off a computer screen. It apparently has an integral cell phone type link and you can buy books no matter where you are. I highly suspect that the books I enjoy will not be available on that device. The device itself costs something like 400$!! I can get 4,000 books for that amount of money. Not to mention the library.

That's probably enough for now.

Of Potties and Pie

OK, actually there is no "pie" but I needed a "p" word for alliterative purposes.
Here is an EXCELLENT photo sent to my by my cousin (either a second cousin by modern reckoning or a first cousin once removed by previous terminological standards).













A port-a-potty graveyard in St. Louis, MO. Not unlike its elephant counterparts, apparently the residents migrate here just before they die. Their bones dry in the sun and are revered as aphrodesiacs by the regions natives.

Actually, I'm just really glad this is not a scratch-n-sniff picture.

And as an extra treat, here is a video of old people singing inappropriate songs from my current favorite documentary, Young@Heart.

(the cheap bastards won't allow me to embed the good stuff so please click the link)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v8_BnZSBQo


Here's a not as good video embedded (BUT for Unka Pat...it is their version of one of the Boss' tunes). Skip ahead to about the 40sec mark for best results. Yes, old people singing Bruce Springsteen to prisoners.

And Now for the Anti-Rant

Here are some of the sites that have cool TINY apartments, houses, and cabins that ARE inspiring for those of us trying to simplify and NOT live in a house where the crapper is bigger than the entire residence for most people on this planet (actually...I don't know that. It's called "hyperbole").

Tumbleweed Tiny Houses
The guy who designs these sounds like kind of a self-righteous dick (but I think that about Thoreau too...he lived in SOMEONE'S BACKYARD for pete's sake...sorry...side-rant-tracked), but the designs are cool and he'll sell you just the plans. The houses range from 65 square feet up to 774. I'm thinking somewhere around 600 square feet right now.

Apartment Therapy
These folks apparently run a contest each year for the coolest small residence and get entries from all over the world. Some are a bit designer-y and high-tech-y for me (I want chickens and a compost toilet not an electric stairway and a roomba) but the way people arrange tiny spaces rocks. I've linked to the 2008 contest but you can find the others once you've gone through the hundreds of apartments on that list (well...dozens).

100 x 100
I am hypnotized by this art project. These are photos of residents, in their rooms, of the oldest public housing project in Hong Kong. The project has since been demolished according to the website and now I wonder where the people are. They had rooms that were 100 square feet. There is one door. No windows. And everyone has turned these into unique living spaces. The options range from an empty room [check out #56 and #83] with a bit of newspaper on the floor to put your veggies on, and perhaps a rice steamer, to absolutely cramming [check out #79] the place with crap. One family [see #76] seems to have divided the space horizontally creating 2 levels though both appear fairly in accessible. I'm fascinated by #25 (a house divided...) and #27 (the Hong Kong 'Dark Knight'??). I swear I once saw a guy sitting on the floor by some food on a piece of paper and a cooker that looked like a charcoal burner which seemed sad AND like a disaster waiting to happen in an unventilated 10x10 room. If anyone sees that, please put the number in the comments. Anyway, I love this art project because each room is so different and you can see the personalities (or think you can) in the decor. Some people seem happy there and like they'd be happy anywhere. They've painted and decorated, are having card parties, watching something on their TVs. Others, like the 'Dark Knight' look like they are a bit odd and perhaps "happy" is not part of their life's quest. Anyway, enjoy these. The artists other projects have links up at the top right. Those are cool too. I like the one about bastard chairs.

Cabin Plans
I not only have a small-living-space fetish; I have a floorplan fetish and this site satisfies both issues. I love to look at plans and decide why they are wrong. I pity the architect who ever has to work with me. Nothing will ever get done because I will always see something I want to change.

Bale Watch
This one has cool (and some crap) plans for strawbale houses. These could easily be adapted to cob or other alternative building materials. I have long liked the design called the Cube, eventhough it is 1152 square feet and probably too big for me if I live alone (and let's face it...that IS the plan...people in my house pisses me off). I wish I could put a link to that plan but you'll just have to scroll down and click on it. I can't figure out the frames thing. Anyway, I don't like the shed roof, but the floorplan is nice. Very egalitarian. The bedrooms are all the same size and the crapper is small. I would add a nice greenhouse to the south side for passive solar and just because I like plants and want to garden.

There are more sites, but I'm sure my readers have all dozed off by now.