I was born in 1961, basically right in the middle of the era of civil rights protest marches. As such a young child in a smaller almost all white town, with conservative white parents I was blissfully ignorant of the turmoil that was happening in the larger society all around me. I learned of it later in school, like the world wars, as history. And that is what I thought it was, history, in the past. Something that was done and settled, and troubling as it was, we were better as a society for having gone through it. We had become more mature, decent, and civil. Or so I thought. For decades I never thought that I would ever feel the need to participate in something like a protest march. No we weren't perfect as a society, but I thought rights were largely being protected, I thought we were more civil, I thought our environment was being cared for more, etc. But the last few years have been a wake up call that the problems of racism, bigotry, hatred are not gone, or even or perhaps especially the issues of protecting the environment are not solved, far from it, and the election of Donald Trump to be President of the United States of America have caused these issues and many more to raise their ugly heads in ways I have never personally witnessed before. To the point that I know I can no longer just sit on the sidelines as an observer. To say or do nothing is to be complicit. So today I did something I never thought I would do. I went to a protest march, and it was one of the proudest days of my life. To be fair, I had been to one protest before and with the same sign actually, it was at a rally Trump had here at the fairgrounds during the Primary. I thought about dismantling the sign many times, but with the way I saw the election going I thought I might need it again. Sadly I was right. Today for me was far different, it wasn't about trying to stop this man from winning, it's sadly now about stopping him, after he won, and saving our society from the wreckage he has already caused in just one month! When I went I didn't even actually think it was a march, I thought it was just a rally at Five Points park in downtown Sarasota. But then the crowd started moving and the march was on! I do not know how many were there, but I would guess at least a thousand (If it had been a pro Trump march, I'm sure he'd say it was at least ten thousand!) We went down Main Street which was expected, it's a street with car traffic but also a lot of shops and foot traffic it get's closed for events a lot, then we turned on Lemon Ave which was already shut down with the farmers market, so no surprise with that. But next rather than going by city hall or back to the park, we kept on and turned on Fruitville shutting down one of Sarasota's main traffic arteries! This surprised me and it was there that I bumped into my landlord who was also in the march, that was really cool! And everything was remaining very peaceful which was great. But I was close enough to the front that I had a feeling that the police officers were trying to direct us off this street back onto less heavily traveled street. But the lead marchers and thus everyone else persisted, right onto Sarasota's main traffic thoroughfare Tamiami Trail shutting it down! At this point there was definitely some confusion at the front, but the march persisted on, as did the Sarasota Police in keeping the peace. We continued on the Trail from Fruitville back to Main about half a mile! I have no idea if this was planned or approved of or not, what I do know and am thankful for is that it was peaceful. I did not see any violence on the part of protesters or police. I am thankful and commend the Sarasota Police Department for allowing this assembly to proceed peacefully. I am sure there were many who were not thrilled with the situation. Back at the park there were a few more speakers that were hard to hear over mega phones, but one point made that I want to pass on is to get out of Wall Street Banks. This is something I did years ago during the great recession. I will only bank with a small local bank or credit union. Money moves our society and the more it is in the hands of a few corporations, the more a few move and control the many. The more we can move money from centralized to distributed, be it banking, investing, shopping local, energy (going Solar) and more, the better society we can create for more people. So what is the big deal about marching? It is taking a stand and being visible. Visible to politicians, certainly, but also visible to other Americans, fellow citizens of this country who still support Trump and the GOP. We need to be visible and say this destruction of social progress (ethnic, sexual, and gender!) is not acceptable. The destruction of health care is not acceptable. A ban on people due to their religion is not acceptable. Continually expanding inequality is not acceptable. The destruction of our educational system is not acceptable. The destruction of environmental protection is not acceptable. Denial of the facts about climate change is not acceptable. Shutting down scientific communication and advancement within our government is not acceptable. Defunding arts programs is not acceptable. The attempt to repeat lies so often that people accept them as truth and oh so many other things is NOT acceptable. We will not be the nice polite Germans who did not want to cause any trouble, and thus allowed Hitler and the Nazi party to destroy Germany. If needed we will cause trouble, we will persist, and we will resist! We are the people!
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So in my last post I talked about my tiny house ideas and since then, I have been watching a lot more video's, looking at more web sites, and getting more ideas. One thing that occurred to me is that while I don't think many standard homeowner's name their homes, many tiny house owners do, and I like that. I wanted a name for my tiny house. I was thinking of what living tiny feels like to me vs. living in a larger space and the thing I came up with is that it feels like a nest. A pocket like, protected place that has everything I need close at hand. A snug retreat, A place where everything fits together. The Nest is a perfect name for that! So The Nest it is. Next I pondered, is there a way to have the siding reflect the name? I could nail sticks to the side, but that would easily put me over the width limit. What about an enlarged photo close up of a nest kind of like this? Wow, that could be really cool, but I couldn't think of any buildings I had ever seen that had enlarged photo exteriors, so I was wondering if it was practical. Then it hit me, this isn't a regular building, this is built on a trailer chassis, and trailers have metal siding, not only that but many semi truck trailers have photo images on the side like this example: Man, my imagination went wild, I could do about anything a nest or daisies in a field. Grass, Although maybe not, I'm allergic. LOL. Puffy clouds, An Indian Silk Pattern, I really could do most anything I imagine creating an even more unique and personal space. But here is my clear favorite so far, a forest scene with the Doug from the Cascadia Flag imposed over it, a nest could easily be added to the Doug and this shows what I love the most about my Cascadia homeland. I do not yet know what the life expectancy or cost of such siding would be, but I love the concept and think it is worth exploring. In addition it is likely to be thinner than more traditional siding perhaps giving me just a bit more width inside. One of my challenges now is how to do this, as I want this in Cascadia, and I am living tiny now in Florida and I have come to enjoy living tiny so much that I don't want to go a lot bigger (even a 500 sq ft studio apt. would be a lot bigger to me!) evet to transition from here to there! While many people dream of getting wealthy and having a huge home and lots of stuff, I don't. I grew up in a large home and often it felt like a prison that kept me from living life, due to all the work that needed to be done in and around the house. I am working to build a Solar Business that could give me the financial freedom to have a large home while doing something good and meaningful for the world, but my housing dreams are tiny. 187.5 square feet to be exact! That's smaller than most people's bedrooms in the USA. I have struggled between a tiny house and a studio apt. in a mixed use building. The apartment might actually have a bit smaller carbon footprint due to shared resources, but the vanity of wanting to live in a space that is my concept and that I own, is winning out here. This post is really intended most as an easy online reference for ideas when I get to the point of working with an architect or designer. Now there is a lot I like about tiny houses, but there is one thing I hate and that is the loft bed that most of them have. So I have been coming up with concepts that worked around that, my favorite up to now was this one. The green sofa is actually the bed, which slides out from under an elevated kitchen. The kitchen works out pretty well to providing a two tier theater style concept for viewing movies with friends. It's also about 11x31 inside giving about 350 Sq. Ft. of space. I have been living in about 144 Sq. Ft. the past five years which I really love. A few more feet would be good for some socializing, along more efficient design, built ins, etc. but I really don't want or need to more than double the size of my enclosed living space! Besides, with built in's, better space planning and a high ceiling (mine now is about 7 feet, this will be about 9-12 feet) it is already likely to feel about twice as big. With a screen porch added it actually will be. So below is what I have come up with... Lot's of details to be refined and worked out. Such as wanting totally sustainable and non-toxic materials throughout, one good reason among many to hire an architect or designer to flesh this out. The bathroom has a washer/dryer combo, something I am missing now. There is a clothes wardrobe or closet between the bath and front door. The table between the sofa and front door can be moved and expanded so two or more could use it to eat on using the two chairs and sofa for seating. One note: The kitchen design here seems to indicate a gas stove, absolutely not! My goal is to move away from all gas use ASAP, including car. No, that is a solar powered (Big Grin) smooth top electric! The sofa does turn into a bed and has storage underneath, but it is not the main bed. (I'll get to that in a moment) A countertop runs across the end providing a desk area and a lot of storage under all but the work station area. Opposite the sofa is a floor to ceiling built in bookcase with space for a large flat screen TV. My first design concept here did have the sofa turn into the main bed, but then I saw what designer Ana White did in one of her tiny houses and it is absolutely brilliant! An elevator bed! Bed is totally up and out of the way during the day, at night it comes down right over the sofa without having to mess with the sofa, but if you have a guest you can turn the sofa into a guest bed, and bring the main bed down only part way (there are locking pins to keep it from moving) bunk bed style. Very cool, and cats would love it too! The interior floor, walls, ceiling, cabinets, bookshelves, etc. are all natural light wood, like the ceiling in the photo above. The ceiling is board and beam. Some cabinet doors in kitchen or wardrobe may have a punch of color, but most would be natural. This is a shed roof design with the high end over the bathroom for a storage/guest loft. Very modern, yet woody design. Exterior siding is most likely corrugated steel. Here is a very simplistic idea of the entrance side without a porch. This will be high quality, sustainable, and well designed I love the simplicity. However there is at least one "luxury" that I would really like to have, and that is a hot tub. For that I want a screened covered porch. (which expands the living space a lot!) OK, how to do a porch that adds to the design rather than being just a tacky add on? I recalled the new beach pavilions near where I have been living in Florida. They have a pretty cool design element that could work. On my tiny house it might look a bit like this, with a splash of color on the non-structural pieces. The porch is a basic rectangle 10 feet wide. The roof on left side does angle out to shelter the entry area. The blue area represents solar panels (of coarse!) which would be either on the porch or the main house. The porch roof has the same pitch as the tiny house roof but runs side to side rather than end to end. Those bright add on elements around the porch, are opaque tubes with programmable, color changing led lights inside, that will be fun! It would be something like this video!
FYI, for those interested I created my floorplans using Floorplanner, and my elevations using Photoscape. |
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