The Slow Home Movement

One of my favorite websites, worldchanging just published a story on The Slow Home. Akin to the Slow Food movement, the Slow Home Movement is about turning the places we live back into a home, instead of just an investment or a temporary landing pad.

From Worldchanging.com...

"The newest slow kid on the block is the Slow Home Movement, a web-based design community and resource library dedicated to taking residential architecture back from the grip of the "cookie cutter houses and instant neighborhoods" churned out by community-blind development corporations, to revive the presence of good design and empower individuals to create homes that will support and fulfill them for a long time."

After I read this article, I sent off a quick email to the editor letting him know about how Newberry Place has integrated many of the Slow Home principles into our design. Within a couple days, they included us in their weekly video blog report, pretty cool...

facebook and blueprint

As you can see by the newly created Facebook Profile on the right, I've given up trying to resist the lure of this social networking site. I was overly frustrated with my MySpace account because I couldn't find any of my friends, and I kept getting trashy messages. So I cancelled my MySpace account and switched over, and it is soooooo much better. I've found old college friends, highschool friends, current friends in far off places - really nice and simple.

I'm also gearing up for Thursday when Newberry Place will be getting an award at a Smart Growth conference. The award is called the Blueprint Award and it goes to 3 innovative projects every year in the greater Grand Rapids area. The compliment to us is that they really didn't know what category to put us in because we fit all of their categories for good, responsible, innovative design.

Apartment for Rent in Fall

If anyone reading this blog knows of anyone that will be looking for a place to rent in the fall, send them this link http://719livingston.blogspot.com I will be adding more specifics to this post as I have them.

Nora and I are set to move into cohousing in October and will be looking for someone to rent out our current digs. It is a 3 bedroom unit with fenced in yard and park across the street. We've loved this home so much that we just can't part with it, so we are going to try the landlord thing for a little while.

Spring Parade of Homes

The Parade of Homes started last night. Nora and I will manning a shift this afternoon. Traditionally, the Parade doesn't profile many urban developments, so we'll see if we get any traffic. The good news is that there are several green-built projects on the Parade this year. We were one of 3 projects that was featured in a small press article earlier this week. It will also be interesting to see the reaction of people to our "Tokyo-sized" unit compared to some of the McMansions that are on the tour. I took a quick peek at the some of the other homes profiled and most of them have 3 stall garages out front...so that's a bit different from what we are offering at Newberry Place.

We also did a small neighborhood cleanup earlier this week. Walking the neighborhood, you could sense a bit of excitement and energy. I went and talked with some new and old neighbors and everyone was so supportive and interested in who will be moving in and when. It is really starting to feel like a community is forming.

Last weekend we did a couple nights of Conflict Resolution as a Newberry group too. The first night was using some case studies to better understand how people in the group react to conflict. The case studies ranged from barking dogs to extra-marital affairs. Pretty fun stuff to talk about. It will be very interesting to actually see what the conflicts are that come up in the group and how we will deal. Like in any neighborhood some folks are very straight forward and direct while others site and ponder things for awhile before talking with someone about an issue.

cohousing news story

Newberry Place got a little press coverage today in preparation for the Spring Parade of Homes.

VIDEO LINK

spring rolls into west michigan

Being a native of Washington State, spring in West Michigan usually involves a series of flashbacks for me. The crisper weather, greening of vegetation and frequent rain remind me of summer in my home town. Spring in Michigan is usually a really busy time as people emerge from their hibernation and inactivity of the Winter months. No matter how you try, cabin fever is a very real part of the these isolating months. But all of that makes you anticipate the warmer weather and appreciate it even more.

One of the marks of Spring in West Michigan is the making and distributing of Bell's Oberon. This local beer is only made from about late April through the summer. It is a wheat ale that usually gets served with an orange slice on the rim of the glass. Last year I came across a bar that will mix it with Guinness to create a sort of Black&Tan mix called an "Eclipse". Because of the different densities of the beer, the Guinness rises to the top and the Oberon to the bottom.
So today I think I will go buy a pint and savor the coming of Spring by sitting down and resting like its the middle of January.

Viget

I just joined another little online community called Viget It is in a Wiki format so people can add new info as a community.

I ran into one of the site's creators this week at a "test-drive" of the new Community Research Institute's website at GVSU. He is an art professor that has a class which takes over vacant spaces in business districts or neighborhoods and turns them into civic studios. The class then tries to create art that depicts that neighborhood's unique history and future. I would love them to spend a semester in Belknap with us. I've been intrigued for a long time the role that public art plays in raising awareness of overlooked potential in a neighborhood. Anyway, check it out if you get a chance, and I'll also link out from the side.

Levi Turns One and Other Mumbo Jumbo

It's Spring in Michigan! We spent most of the weekend outside - me working on the porch rebuilding posts and Nora out in the yard with Levi. The past month a Morning Dove has taken residency in one of our hanging plants. She has 2 little babies getting ready to fly off on their own.

It's Sunday night and I got a new compliment from my wife, "You were a good dad this weekend." I assume that means that I shouldered a little of the "burden" that Nora usually carries. But it was mostly about giving Levi some undivided attention and playing some learning games. I heard recently that one parent's strategy for raising their kids was to live out what every one of us is really looking for, that people's eyes light up when you enter the room and that we put down whatever might distract us. I think if we lived our whole life as a giant game of peek-a-boo a lot more people would be happy.

Levi celebrated his 1st birthday (it seams like it has been his birthday all month). You know I've been spending too much time around statistics when one of the first things that comes to mind on his birthday is that he can no longer be an infant mortality stat. So we did a little celebrating with Eli Morgan, a little with my relatives and a little with Nora's relatives. Nora's 92 year old grand mother took a bit of tumble a couple months ago and is recovering in an assisted living facility. The uncles and aunts have been doing their round-the-clock thing, so Nora's uncle from Paris is in town this week. We had a great time talking over lunch today and I always enjoy his perspective on the US and our national religion.

Getting Things Done!

This post is just some recent media and communication tools I'm really enjoying.

1) Thanks Paul for turning me on to a new little app for my Mac called iGTD (Getting Things Done!) I've been trying to find something to help get my calendar, email and documents more organized. This app organizes things by project and you can link in due dates, documents and contacts. You also get the very satisfying button click that completes an item. There are few things more satisfying than getting something off your plate. I've been managing my "to do" list on sticky notes, so this is a major improvement.

2) I started a new neighborhood Wiki at wikipedia.com Belknap Lookout The nice thing is that wikipedia entries usually come up first when someone googles the keywords. It is also cool because others can contribute to the entry and it's free.

racism-free

This morning I attended the Summit on Racism event at DeVos Place. They unveiled their new logo and message to begin creating a movement for a racism-free community. It was a really an inspiring event, but unfortunately ended with the news that Gene Proctor passed away last night. Gene was one of the "godfathers" of the christian community development movement in Grand Rapids, and until very recently, was still involved in almost any initiative of substance in the city that focused on poverty or reconciliation. Aside from being an astounding community loss, it also is a personal loss for me.

One of the first jobs I had out of college was as the Executive Director of a small nonprofit called Urban Produce. Gene was one of the founders of this organization as of Camp Tall Turf, where I now serve as board chair. He sat on my board for several years, and most of the initiatives I'm involved in now have Gene's name in their history some where.

Although our conversations were few, and he was backing out of responsibilities for much of the time I knew him, his influence on me was profound. He was one of those people that could shape the tone of a meeting by just sitting there, smiling. He brought levity and insight to the group, and I think his love for acting and theater translated into how he spoke with people. Everyone I know always felt welcomed and encouraged by knowing Gene. Regardless of who you were talking to, when you mentioned Gene's name, they listened harder or became more energized. For me, he was also the first black man I knew that was in a position of power and influence. That's a product of my sheltered upbringing, not a statement about the quality of leadership in our community. The beauty of watching Gene work was that he could go out to a rich, white guy's office, put them on the spot, get them to donate a wad of money, and they would thank him for it on the way out the door. It was an art!

Gene was a role model for so many people, regardless of their upbringing, race or culture. People found common ground in Gene, and he bridged so many cultures and allowed people to connect with each other in meaningful ways. He was the best of what Grand Rapids has to offer, and he will be missed.

mapping

I spent some time doing a quick mapping project for an area of my neighborhood that has consistently experienced high crime and poor housing conditions. It is only about a 4 block area but is responsible for about 20% of neighborhood crime. Some of this is due to a party store that sits dead center in the area and serves as a gathering point for people. You can see from the map that this is the epicenter of much of the crime.


So I took several data sets to create the map. It's exciting to me to start to see some local area maps with data at this level in a community. For several years I've been in groups talking about neighborhood data and indicators, but the problem always comes down to missing data or that we have data but it isn't meaningful to a group. I think through these series of maps, I've created a picture of a small community that is meaningful and could encourage some dialogue, action and accountability.

I know the image below isn't the best resolution, but I do that for your own safety. If you saw this map in all its glory, your head would explode trying to process the complex layers, graduated colors and symbols, and perfectly symmetrical north arrow. The basic gist is that your looking at a 4 block area with individual parcels or homes, the green to red scale is number of housing code violations (red bad) the smaller to bigger circles are number of crime offenses (big red or green circle is bad) and the purple crosshatched squares on the map are absentee landlords (purple may be bad depending on the landlord).

So the data I'm pulling together comes from three sources (it's about who you know, not what you know): the City Assessor's Office (taxpayer info March 2007) Neighborhood Improvement (housing code violations, 2006) and Grand Rapids Police Dept. (crime offenses April 06-Feb. 07). By using GIS to layer the data you can start to see trends of high crime areas with absentee landlords that aren't maintaining their properties. It makes sense to me that this would be the first tier. Communicate with the absentee landlords that have more than 1 code violation and more than 1 crime offense at their address in 2006. A second tier would look at homeowners that have the same and then third would be to go after more isolated cases. I'm meeting with the neighborhood association later this week to discuss some of this and see if there might be a plan of action.

Anyway, I wanted to share the idea here because I'm pretty excited about having this type of information at such a focused scale.

coming off a big weekend

The weekend started up with a trip with the boys to see "300". We had a couple beers with the guys and then stood in line for about 1/2 hour at the IMAX. We ended up a little close to the giant screen, but for a movie like this it really didn't matter. The critics are saying it is "like watching a big video game", which was fine by me. Morgan was in rare form, trying to start up blood chants at inappropriate times. SPARTA!

Saturday was mostly a day at home and then monster poker in the evening. Boelkins celebrated a birthday in style by hosting a 10 person game. I ended up placing 5th and Nora was tied for 2nd. Not a bad outing. Morgans must have partied too hard on Friday night because they crashed out 9th and 10th. The big man Phil won it all and heads into March Madness full of confidence. Brackets are out and due on Thursday. I think I will have Levi do my picks this year - he knows the teams about as well as I do at this point. I hear the middle seeds are all pretty even so Levi has as good a shot as any.

Finally, Sunday rolled around and we spent a couple hours in the afternoon looking at color options for the cohousing unit. We are finishing up our interior upgrades and option picks this week and then choosing more specific colors and materials in a couple weeks. I think we are going really "green" for most of it. Some of the features: ivory bamboo flooring which is a renewable grass, high efficiency Energy Star appliances throughout, Marmolium floor in the bathroom which uses natural oils instead of petroleum products, recycled carpet on the second floor and wood & fiberglass framed windows. They blew in the foam insulation and are finishing up the drywall in the first unit. We had a guy come out to test the efficiency of the unit, and we got a 99.5 out of 100. He said that our units heating bills will be 1/2 to 1/3 less than those of a Federal Energy Star Rated home. 1/2 = Awesome

first steps: 10.5 months

Picking Upgrades and Options

It's an exciting time in the life of cohousing. In the next couple weeks we are finalizing our picks for interior options by making decisions on bamboo flooring, cabinets, countertops, etc. Nora and I are really excited thinking about new appliances and getting some of the things we have always wanted. Owning a 120 year old house for the past 8 years was filled with great memories but some bad ones too. We have adopted the Boelkin's rule that everything in an old house costs 2.5 times as much and takes 2.5 times as long to complete.

Speaking of the old house. We have a new renter moving in this week. I spent most of last weekend cleaning and fixing things in our apartment. One of the major repairs was on our shower. A few years ago we had a couple move in, and he was a tile layer. So in exchange for no security deposit he helped me (or helped him) put in a built in tile shower and tile floor. The valve stems for the shower ended up stripping this year so I went on a mission to replace the stems. After a failed trip to our local hardware store, Rylees, I started to get the feeling that this was not going to be a morning project. So later that day I ran out to Godwin Plumbing who are known in GR as the plumbing gurus.

When I got into the store there were many older men walking around the plumbing department helping out various customers. I walked up to the counter and told Fred that I was having a problem finding a replacement stem for my shower and handed over the stem. He looked at my offering, looked back at me, and said, "Where did you get this, Afghanistan?" I felt my confidence and weekend time line disappear. It turns out that I have a knock-off valve in my wall, sitting behind beautiful new tile. The Godwin experts recommended that I cut out some tile, cut out some drywall and replace everything. That did not sound very good to me. So in Faber style, I have come up with a no-tile-breaking solution. JB Weld to the rescue!

With another trip back to Godwin, hoping that Fred was not working, I requested some stem extenders. Using some magic epoxy, I cemented new extenders to the old stems. I'm really hoping everything holds together, so far so good. I know that in the next few years I'll have to bite the bullet and break into that wall. As I cemented the new extenders my thoughts turned to cohousing and a new house... level floors...right angles...tight windows...

Community Counts

So part of the reason I haven't posted much lately is because I've been working hard on a major publication and event. Last Monday was the big kickoff and it hit the street. You can check it out at www.deltastrategy.org under the Community Report Card link.

Each year The Delta Strategy puts out an annual report card that tracks key quality of life data for the greater Grand Rapids area. Indicators and community data is some of the toughest work I've been involved in. There is so much data available, but at the same time so little data that you actually need or want.

A weekend at home

The past two weekends, Nora and I have been able to spend some good time at home, watching movies and playing with Levi. We have Levi on a very strict sleeping schedule thanks to a book, "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" which should be called "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Parents". The phrase "Sleep Nazi" is become popular around our house as we guard nap times and map sleep patterns. We have to adjust our schedule around these important milestones, so that usually means sticking close to home or making quick errands.

So we caught up on a couple movies we have been wanting to see. If you get a chance, check out "Idiocracy" by Mike Judge. It is a comedy about a future where the least intelligent have taken over the future because our great thinkers didn't procreate and spent their collective energies on solving erectile dysfunction and hair loss instead of the major world problems. It's just close enough to reality to make you cringe.

Similarly, but in a more serious tone, we watched "Children of Men" a Sci-fi thriller about 2027 when mysteriously, women can no longer have children. The world collapses into depression and chaos when they lose that hope for the future. England becomes the last safe haven for order so refugees are flocking to its coasts. There is a shot of the lead character leaving London and graffiti on the wall reads ,"Last one to die, please turn off the lights" which kind of characterizes the movie. Miraculously, a refugee girls becomes pregnant after the country has gone 18 years of having no children. The story involves trying to get this woman out of England because she also happens to be a refugee.

January Post

Hey readers,

sorry, things have been really busy in January so the blog has taken a hit in terms of updates. I have a couple big projects do in the beginning of February, just in time for my birthday. Happy Birthday to me!

Gerald Ford passing

There has been almost constant coverage on the life and death of Gerald Ford, GR's native son. I watched a well done documentary on Public Television that talked about Ford's upbringing. Apparently, he had a rather large temper, so his mother would make him recite this poem, IF by Kipling, as a way to calm down and control his anger - a more sophisticated way of counting to 10. This was a new poem to me, but I really love it, so enjoy...

[IF]

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

morning walk

Levi and I took a nice morning walk around the neighborhood. With all his winter clothes, he barely fit inside his backpack. It may be time to start looking for a stroller that can double as a bike trailer; I can't imagine having to lug him around this way for much longer.

First we visited the construction site to take a few pictures. Things are really moving along on the garages and the first unit. The first unit is taking a little longer because they have to work out some of the kinks that always happen between what is drawn on paper and what can actually get built. I saw our architect and builder on the site earlier this week inspecting the discrepancies. I think the other units will really fly once the builder figures out the details.


Second we walked through the various parks. Lookout Park was beautiful this morning; the sun was out and there was a haze across the city. It really made me want to hike down to the river and take the trail, but the thought of hiking back up with Levi wasn't do'in it for me. There were a lot of squirrels out, probably thinking spring is right around the corner. It has been such a mild December that I think the next three months of winter will be much more tolerable. We went from Lookout Park back over to Coit Park and took the small path that runs through the park. There were a lot of people sitting on benches and just enjoying the sun. Then it was home again.

for unto us....

Levi's first Christmas and a long weekend of family and friends.