Categories
Blog Life

Car lust

Friday, March 10, 2006

not too shabby

You know that old line about how boys never grow up, they just get bigger toys? I’ve a feeling I’m an example of that, despite my best intentions.

For someone who lives in a house with one car and five bikes, I think about cars a lot. If I’m driving (in the deeply unfashionable 1999 Honda CRV that’s our family’s ride), I’ll sometimes watch the cars that pass me and ask myself, ‘would I drive that?’.

Almost always, the answer is no, which is ironic because when I pass another CRV, I say no to that too. Partly, it’s that too many American cars are very ugly, and partly it’s that here in Santa Fe, there’s a preponderence of big SUVs. Which I really hate, for many of the reasons outlined in Keith Bradsher’s excellent book, High and Mighty.

When I’m home and grab a few minutes, I play Gran Tourismo on the Playstation, and think about cars some more.

Normally, this obsession is kept at manageable proportions, but currently we’re thinking about getting another car, so I feel I have permission to do piles of internet research, peer into the windows of parked vehicles and download clandestine episodes of Top Gear via BitTorrent (not that I actually do that last one, of course).

Like a true European, especially one who grew up driving Volkswagens, I’ve my heart set on a GTI (here they drop the Golf epithet for some reason). It’s plenty fast, practical, good-looking, not too big, and has a great ‘manumatic’ gear box wiith paddle shifters that will keep both Buendia and myself happy.

The four-door version is out here in the summer. So far so good. But that doesn’t stop me poring over reviews of the Mazda 3, the Audi A3, the faster Sube Imprezas and a few other cars that I’m pretty sure we won’t buy.

(The one distraction from the GTI is the funky ads for it that have started appearing on TV here. Clearly in the US the car is aimed at people much younger and less well-behaved than myself. )

At this point, I’m clearly not just researching cars because it will help us make a good decision, I’m doing it because I actually enjoy doing it.

I used to be bemused by Buendia’s inability to walk into a store and just buy something. Now I get it. When it comes to cars, the journey is as important as the destination.

(GTI image courtesy of VWVortex)

Posted by David in • Life

Permalink
Categories
Blog Santa Fe and New Mexico

The future comes to New Mexico?

Thursday, March 02, 2006

x-prize image

The NM state legislative session has just concluded and among a busy schedule of issues, one topic stood out – the plans for the world’s first Spaceport, to be built in the middle of nowhere in southern New Mexico.

Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is keen to move in and start offering space tourism flights, and there are also plans for a crazy-sounding rocket racing series (specifically modelled on the pod racing scene in Star Wars, just a bit higher up).

Currently these are just plans, and the spaceport is a patch of sere land between Truth or Consequences and Las Cruces, but there’s definitely something exciting at the prospect of all this space travel stuff.

We’ve all grown up with sci-fi, and while some of the technology has become real and humdrum – clamshell mobile phones still remind me of Star Trek commicators, though – having a spaceport in your state is still pretty cool.

There’s a 50s retro-future thing going on in much of the design work to accompany the spaceport material (and the X-Prize which has actually already happened), and that’s only fitting (check out out the above image, which is from the X-Prize site).

That imagery captures the optimism and innocence of the first space race, and hints at the maverick spirit of these potential rocket racers and orbital tourists.

If all this happens (and there are doubts over the state’s commitment of hundreds of millions of dollars to help build the infrastructure around the spaceport), as well as the economic benefits and boost to our image, there’ll be something more valuable than that. We’ll be helping to realize the past’s vision of the future. 

Posted by David in • Santa Fe and New Mexico

Permalink
Categories
Arts reviews Blog

Banville’s ‘The Sea’

Monday, February 27, 2006

I’ve just finished John Banville’s The Sea, and I’m mad.

As a writer I don’t think I’ve got an inflated opinion of my own ability, but on a good day I think I can string the words together with clarity, precision and a certain style.

And then I read Banville and realise that I’m just an old hack. His prose shines. You know those creative writing MFA programs that tell you to leave out all the adjectives? Banville’s clearly never been to one, and his choice of perfect and unexpected adjectives help to fix his images in your mind.

The plotting and slow revelation of his characters is artfully done, and the book deals with grown-up subjects like grief, regret and the beastliness of adolescents.

But it’s the prose itself that lingers. And makes me think I should either become a plumber or work harder at the writing.

Posted by David in • Arts reviews

Permalink
Categories
Blog Life

Announcing ‘Architect Babies’

Monday, February 20, 2006

the architectbabies logo

With a bit of work last week and over the weekend, Buendia and I have produced a new website – ’Architect Babies‘.

The tagline pretty much says it all, ‘For parents with more taste than money’.

Buendia describes the conundrum well:

Why is baby-related gear designed (or rather over-designed) to offend creative parents, and appeal to people who think ‘more is more’?

It’s a chore to find things that are safe, and practical, and affordable and NOT UGLY. The aim of this site is to share with people some of the things I’ve found that fit those criteria.

You don’t have to be an architect, of course. You might be a graphic designer, or an artist, or anyone whose house is not furnished from Oak Express.

There’ll be more posts arriving over time, and we hope we might even cover the hosting charges with some Google ads. Check it out: www.architectbabies.com

Posted by David in • Life

Permalink
Categories
Blog Life

Test of RSS feeds

Most recent posts

XML Full Text FeedSyndicate this site’s blog

Search

Archive

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Been having a few problems with the RSS feeds – this is just a test to see if at least I’m getting them. More news as and when.

Categories
Blog Life

Ripping good times

Thursday, January 26, 2006

So Buendia got me a turntable for Christmas, and I’m having much fun converting my vinyl to MP3 format. The records seem to have survived 18 months in the garage without too much trouble.

I’m struck by the way technology has influenced the creative process. Albums used to have sides, and artists would use the limitations of the medium to their advantage. So you’d have an up side and a more reflective side, or you’d have to make sure you started side 2 with a killer track.

Often, when I’d first buy an album I’d spend a couple of weeks just listening to the first side, to allow myself to really get it before turning it over.

And now all this analogue mechanical stuff is being filtered through my trusty PowerBook at home, and ending up on my iPod and the Mac Mini in the office. When we tell Finn that music used to come as an object, not just a data file to be accessed whenever and however we like, she’ll just laugh. But then I’ll show her the vinyl.

Posted by David in • Life

Permalink
Categories
Moore Consulting

Moore Consulting’s Review of 2005

While it’s still early 2006, I thought it was time for a review of Moore Consulting’s first full year in business.

It’s been a great success, and a lot of fun — here are the basic facts:

We built (or contributed to the construction of) ten sites, with most of our clients being public sector bodies (including the NM State Economic Development Department, the NM Office of Science and Technology, NM Tourism and Santa Fe Economic development). Among these site was the main NM Economic Development Department site, and the very well-received travel and tourism project, Off The Road.

I (that’s me, David Moore) did the lion’s share of planning, construction and project management on all these jobs — I think it’s important that the person working on the overall strategy and information architecture of a site (the higher level decision-making) is also well-versed in the minutiae of construction issues. However, I was ably assisted by a talented group of designers and programmers who were responsible for making many of the sites look and work the way they were supposed to.

On the consulting side I did accessibility reviews for other website developers, helped a multinational e-learning firm build a new developers’ section on their site, and co-wrote an influential review of British and Irish e-government sites for Irish web consultancy, iQ Content.

I also saw a dozen issues of iQ Content’s popular newsletter safely off the virtual presses as the editor and main writer.

Trends and Conclusions

A few things stick out from the year.

Standards-compliant tableless construction has gone mainstream — while not all the sites I built this year used CSS entirely for layout, many of them did (including the graphically-rich Off the Road site), and I endeavoured to make all of them as standards-compliant as possible. While many clients might not understand or even care when you start banging on about XHTML and divs, they are interested in the results of modern site development techniques — faster development time, easier changes, better search-engine performance, and more consistent display across browsers. We’ll see what IE7 has to offer in terms of better standards-compliance, but I’d be very suspicious of developers who tell you that the old-style mix of javascript, tables and browser-specific hacks is the way to go

Cost-effective CMSs please everyone — almost all the sites I’ve built this year have had a web-based back-end (or ‘content management system’ (CMS)) to allow easy updating. Sometimes this has been the free and great WordPress (http://www.wordpress.org), sometimes the cheap and powerful Expression Engine (http://www.expressionengine.com), depending on requirements. A web developer I know once told me that they always lost money on the original construction, but aimed to get it back on updates to the site. That’s outrageously unprofessional, in my opinion, not to mention a recipe for dissatisfaction all round. Clients should be able to change existing pages and add new pages (especially to a news or events section) without having to come back to the developer with more money, and it doesn’t cost a fortune to build that into the original construction.

Basecamp makes me look good, and keeps us all organized — the online project management system Basecamp is a great way to track projects and communicate with clients. Setting milestones, uploading samples, discussing issues — Basecamp keeps all the information in the one place, and makes it easy to find and use. My project with the e-learning company saw stakeholders in five or six locations (none of them Santa Fe, except me) in two countries, with more people being brought in over time. The Moore Consulting extranet (powered by Basecamp) kept everyone informed and on the same page.

New Mexico public sector website aren’t very good — from my review of 42 British and Irish e-government sites (and lots of earlier consulting and training on a number of central government projects in Ireland), it’s clear that New Mexico public sector sites need a lot of work. Of course, the ones I’ve been working on are better than most (though I would say that), but there’s a desperate need for standards and guidelines, and some emergency work on the usability and structure of most of them. I won’t say more now, but this will be one of my goals for 2006.

Categories
Arts reviews Blog

Blubbering fool

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Since Finn’s been born (and also before, truth to tell), I’ve been very easily moved to tears.

Sometimes a news item will see me crying, especially if kids are involved somehow. But most of my tears are shed over movies.

This week, the great documentary Mad Hot Ballroom did it for me. 

It traces the progress of three sets of 11-year-olds from different New York public schools as they learn ballroom dancing and then compete in a city-wide dance off.

It’s thought-provoking, funny and ridiculously cute, and there are enough ‘aaahhhh’ moments to see me crying.

Worth a look (and you probably won’t cry).

Posted by David in • Arts reviews

Permalink
Categories
Blog Life Santa Fe and New Mexico

Ho hum

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Is it wrong that I loudly shout ‘Wanker!’ at every Hummer I see?

Whether I’m walking or driving, it’s most unlikely the driver will ever hear me (although I’m careful to enunciate carefully, to help them lip-read).

Buendia points out they might not know what a wanker is, and even if they did, might not associate the criticism directly with their choice of vehicle. But I think anyone driving one (there are a distressing number around Santa Fe), is always thinking ‘Don’t I look great in this vehicle?’.

So I’m answering the question that’s in their head.

I”m just not as committed as these guys.

Categories
Blog Mississippi book

Plan B

Saturday, December 03, 2005

plan B in the planningSo with some help from Buendia (who reckons she should have been an editor, not an architect), I’ve come up with something of a plan for the Mississippi book: less Mississippi, more David.

I’d thought I would have something important to say about the red states, and urban decline and all that, and while I did see some interesting stuff, most of my conclusions could have been reached in the comfort of an armchair a long way from Iowa or Arkansas.

Also, how much does any travel writer really get inside a place that they only visit for 24 hours, before heading off to the next target?

I realised that the more interesting topics were more personal – how I came to have this troubled but affectionate relationship with America, and what I’ve gleaned from living in 3 different parts of it, not just drifting through.

The photo shows part of the planning for the next draft – some Mississippi stuff is still there (in pink, if you’re interested) – but there’s a lot more Kansas, San Francsico and Santa Fe in there (green post-its), and some broader themes (the yellow stuff).

Now all I have to do is write it (again).

Posted by David in • Mississippi book

Permalink