Preston L. Bannister { random memes }

About a year ago work started on a new housing tract in a once-empty field across the road from my father’s house in Colorado. Walking around the newly built houses, I could not figure out the placement of rooms and entrances. There seemed to be pattern, but I could not figure what the pattern meant. Documented my puzzlement in the faceless set of photos.

This was the house that cracked the code.

As the house on a corner, the scarcity of windows, and the main entrance that looks more like a side entrance – looks rather odd. Last night we took a walk that wandered through the same tract of houses – when suddenly the odd patterns made sense. The clue is to look at that same house when facing the garage, and imagine the house in a dense southern California development, with houses packed tightly on both sides.

This follows the usual pattern for recent dense-suburban southern California homes. The garage is in front, occupying nearly the entire street-facing side of the house. The width of the house (viewed from the street) is scarcely wider than the garage, which allows crowding the greatest number of houses on one street. The front entrance is around the side of the garage, and scarcely visible from the street as the next house (typically) is only a few feet away.

My guess is the builder took existing plans meant for dense-suburban homes – probably plans they had from prior projects – and stretched the plans to add more square footage (to sell into a market for bigger houses). The development is named Stone Ridge (though on flat ground), and the above pictures most closely match the Iron Ridge floor plan.

Once I had figured out the pattern, deciphering the other houses was easy.

Take this example. Note the narrow/useless “front porch”? The front of the house in the original plan was what is now the right side (in the photo). The room on the right was the garage. The useless front porch was originally the walkway from the front of the house to the “front” door. Push in a couple stretched-out rooms, and you have a house suitable for dropping into a dense-suburban development.

Note that the pictures are almost a year old, and none of the houses have sold since. Don’t know if the it’s due to the economy, or due to the random floorplans – but my guess is that even ordinary folk notice the odd layouts.

Been tempted to do something similar, at times.

xkcd

My daughter was goalie for the first half of the game. This shot was coming in high, fast and centered on the goal – too high catch or block, but low enough to go in. Looked like a certain goal.

Last season the grandfather of one of the girls on the team was a professional(?) soccer coach for goalies. He said nice things about my daughter, and taught some bits to her and another girl during practice. One of the bits he told her was to punch the ball upward when it was too high to block.

So she punched the ball – and it worked!! I think this is the first and only time she has used this bit in a game. Frankly I am pretty impressed (and proud) that she remembered and used this move at the exact right time!

This play got a big reaction from the parents on both sides.

I was at the other end of the field when this occurred. I thought the ball had gone in. My daughter thought the ball had gone in. Then there was this rising confusion of sound from the parents on both sides of the field (ooh’s ending in cheers). My daughter looked confused, then looked around to see the ball behind the goal. (She went from a confused look to a big grin.)

From the last game of the season. The team that won this game would go on to the playoffs. My daughter was goalie the first half. The other team scored only two goals – in the second half – goals that my daughter could probably have stopped.

Bet the other team’s parent were really glad she was not goalie in the second half.

OK – enough of the proud father nonsense.

No goal! It worked!

The Santa Ana winds are blowing again. Strong winds – gusting here between roughly 20 to 40 miles per hour – carrying warm, dry air. In addition this is a dry part of a fairly dry year. Most of the undeveloped hills in coastal southern California are covered by Chaparral – and highly combustible this time of year.

Today we have fires. There is a fire burning perhaps a mile from my home. I can see clouds of orange-brown smoke out the window. Not a big concern, as this community was built with fire in mind. Houses were built with concrete tile roofs, and stucco sides. Talked to a firefighter last time (years ago) when fire came near. He noted that the risk to houses of this sort was usually from add-on wooden structures built nearby – patio covers and gazebos. The neighbourhood is surrounded by a buffer zone – cleared, landscaped, and lightly irrigated – and is at the bottom of a slope. Fire burns more slowly downhill. Last time we had a fire out here, it took all night for fire to burn from the top to the bottom of the hill – then died when it reached the buffer.

On the other side of Los Angeles there is a big fire in the Malibu area. Drove around the Malibu area a couple years back. Saw expensive homes nestled amid thick stands of fragrant chaparral. Saw houses with rustic wood-shake roofs and even wood-shake siding. All very nice and very likely to be lost the next time fire passes through the area. My feelings are decidedly mixed about the homes lost in the Malibu fire. When homeowners choose to build homes in such insane fashion, should firefighters be asked to risk their lives defending those homes from fire? Should the government step in and offer aid when those houses eventually burn?

The wildfires are burning. Last night went out and took pictures. Will take more pictures during the day. Closed up the windows, to keep out the worst of the smoke (not bad here in any case). Fire vehicles occasionally roll through – looking for problems most likely – then leave. Otherwise, the whole thing is mildly diverting.

Update – 10am: Winds have died down – gusts are maybe 20 mph, with a quite modest breeze between. Lots of folk cruising through, to look as the fire started creeping down the hill visible from the street. Lots of worried looking folks coming back from work to check on their homes. Emergency vehicles cruising through looking for something to do. Over-protective parents picking up their kids from school, enough so the teacher cannot do lessons. Happy-chirpy daughter voice on the phone: “Daddieee, can you pick me up??” (No school today!!) Later, she ran around outside with the happy dog, while I took pictures and chatted with the neighbours.

We should have more fires, maybe.

Update – 6pm: Winds still occasionally gusting, but mostly just a gentle 5-10mph breeze (if that). During the day the fire burned clockwise around the community, from west in the morning, through north, and now east in the evening. Lots of folk out looking. Lots of fire crews cruising around and keeping an eye on things (just exactly as they should). Despite the attempts to create sensationalism on the TV news, the fact is – everything worked! The buffer zones around the community kept the fire at a safe distance. So far as I know, not one single house caught on fire.

Towards evening the fire burnt down the small thickly-grown canyon kept for the hiking trail into the local “wilderness area”. For a period of time the fire was quite dramatic. The local school – Foothill Ranch Elementary – is along one side of the canyon (kids get to see the occasional deer, coyote, etc.). The TV news reported “firefighters are trying to save the school!!”. The firefighters caught on camera were looking pretty relaxed, just keeping a close watch on the fire. In fact outside the school there is a buffer zone – cleared, landscaped, and maintained. Also inside the school fence there was another buffer zone. Looks like the buffer zones worked exactly as designed.

Given how little real trouble we had – given how well the proper zoning, construction, landscaping and maintainence worked – you have to wonder about the areas where houses burned, and where firefighters had to risk injury to protect property. Somehow it seems loss and risk of that sort should be largely unnecessary.

AVP dancers in the sand on Flickr – Photo Sharing!