Design Challenges

2-Miles: Jacksonville Zoo

Today we went to the Jax Zoo for the first time. I love the zoo, there's nothing more exciting than being that close to the real wild life and not have to fear it.

We visited the zoo as part of the HEAL First Coast Zoo Walk for Autism. HEAL ~ Healing Every Autistic Life ~ Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit based in Jacksonville Florida with a mission to help families who have a member with Autism. Visit our website at www.healautismnow.org and learn more.

The Walk started at 8:30am and was well attended. It was kick-off by Mkristo Bruce, fromt the Jacksonville Jaguars alongside other Players and Cheerleaders. We went down the path handed Icelandic glacial water to quench the thirst along the route.

We first encountered the storks, who were not originally part of the exhibit, but over the past couple of years have made the zoo their home. We later saw the east African Bongo, which are the largest forest dwelling antelopes. These mammals can reach up to 600 pounds. We later saw some Angolan colobus monkeys and soon after encountered my favorite species, the lions.

The jax zoo has one male lion and two female lions. Since the zoo made a special early opening for the walk, all the animals were freshly awake and moving around the grounds. The lions were no exception, the male was wide awake and fondly moseying around while the two females were still laying down, but yawning and stretching readying for the day ahead. After some photos and excitement, we moved on to see the giraffes and jaguars. The walk ended appropriately at the jaguars' exhibit where RadioDisney.com had set up a booth and were providing gifts and prizes for the kids, and the "Jaguars" were standing by signing autographs and taking photos with the attendees. We mosey ourselves over and had some time to talk shop with the Jaguar players. It was pretty amazing to see how tall and big these fellows are and were pleasantly surprised that they took the time to talk to us for a good 10 to 15 minutes while taking photos and providing autographs. The players in attendance are Mkristo Bruce, Atiyyah Ellison, Greg Estandia, and Stefan Rodgers.

After the crowds disassembled, we continued to see the rest of the exhibits and ended up spending over 5 hours there.

The bottom line is that when you get a chance to support an event while doing something you enjoy doing, it is a no brainer to jump-in with both feet. We had a great experience and were amazed how well stock the zoo is and the wonderful work they have done to provide a suitable space for the captive animals.

Labels: 2-mile, Jacksonville, jax

2-Miles: Dogs and covenants

As I previously mentioned communities in Florida are governed by a Home Owners Association (HOA) and its covenants. In Saw Mill Lakes the covenants state that dogs are not to be left unattended and are not to be outside without a leash.

Why is it then that I constantly see dogs outside, without anyone left to look after them, but an invisible fence. What many pet owners fail to realize is that invisible fences are not 100% foolproof. Who is in charge of enforcing these rules?

Today, during my two mile run, a man was walking his dog alongside his toddler. He was concerned for the little girl and was paying very little attention to the dog. The dog was small and full of energy. He had a leash on the doggy, but in his distraction, he fail to see that the dog had strech the leash close to six feet and inadvertly was heading righ down my way. I was in no way treaten by the little thing, but did get tangle and almost hit the pavement because of the retractable leash. I recover quickly and did not fall.

The bottom line is that when someone adopts a pet into their life they assume a certain responsibility. A responsibility that should not be taken lightly, if I happen to have fallen and crack, say a bone, who would have been responsible for the cost? During the year that I have lived in this development I have been chased by three different dogs during my outside runs. Would I be entitle to bring suit if one of those dogs have bitten me? Who would I sue, the community, the pet owner or both? Luckily for me, we are moving in a few weeks to a community known for enforcing its covenants and rules. In addition, our next community is bigger and offers more sidewalk and trails to allow, hopefully, for a more enjoyable 2-Mile experience.

Labels: 2-mile, Jacksonville, jax, lawsuits, maps

2-Miles: Coquina

Up in the northeast, where I grew up, most houses are built with either wood or aluminum siding. Vinyl siding is a plastic exterior cladding for a house. Vinyl siding was introduced to the exterior cladding market in the late 1950s. At that time, blending of colors was done manually. Because of all the manual labor involved, the process made it difficult to produce and install a consistent, quality product. In 1970s, a transformation of the product began, with the industry engineering formulation changes. Because of these changes a lot of houses in the northeast where upgraded to the product.

In Florida, however, we have seen three distinct materials in used. Stucco, vinyl, and Coquina. The first I was familiar with, the latter however was new to me. Coquina is an incompletely consolidated sedimentary rock. Coquina is mainly composed of mineral calcite, often including some phosphate, in the form of seashells or coral. It has been used in building stone in Florida for over 400 years, coquina forms the walls of the Castillo de San Marcos in Saint Augustine, this country's oldest city. The stone makes a very good material for forts, particularly those built during the period of heavy cannon use. Because of coquina's softness, cannon balls would sink into, rather than shatter or puncture, the walls of the Castillo de San Marcos.

In my current community of Saw Mill Lakes where I perform most commonly my two miles I have noticed that about every fifth house is sided with Coquina. At first I was not fun of the material. Although it gives a very beachy atmosphere, it texture is very shelly, and looks very rough. When we were looking to buying a house we decided that this material just wasn't for us mainly because all the houses we saw that had coquina had a pink tone to them. Later we found out that coquina can be painted. Ever since I have noticed many shades of coquina in our community. We ended up buying a house in a different community, The Players Club at Sawgrass, but it is made of stucco siding. This is not because of our original dislike of coquina, but because we found the right house for us, just a coincidence that it did not have coquina. We actually grew fond of coquina over time.

The bottom line is that you can't a judge something until you have all the facts. We originally dislike Coquina because of the tones we had noticed, turns out that it can be painted just like any other material to any color that suits your taste. It is very durable and long lasting. To replace coquina for another material in a house is quite costly, but this is true for all materials. If you find the right house, don't worry about the exterior, remember you expend 99% of the time indoors.

Labels: 2-mile, biggest loser, Connecticut, Florida, Jacksonville, jax

2-Miles: ARC approved

When we moved to the Jacksonville area from Connecticut, everything looked so foreign to us. Every house and neighborhood appeared to look the same, it was all uniform and stepford wife like. We just could not understand the vast difference driving from one community development to the next.

Now, almost 2 years later we have grown accustomed to the area. We now see all the differences and understand property value and locations a lot better. We recently bought a house and are in the process of adding on. Part of the process requires that we go through the community board for an Architectural Review. As we were walking our tow miles today, we went past a house with an ARC approved sign on it. They have now completed their renovations, they added a pool with a screen enclosure to their house. They also ripped out the concrete walk-way ad replaced it with pavers. My wife commented that she saw in the community Web site that someone was getting sited for violating their ARC approval. We think it was these folks as it seems they had partially ripped out their driveway and only partially placed pavers in its place. It looks quite silly that they have distastefully only done part of their driveway with pavers and the rest of the area with concrete.

This got me thinking that this would have never happened in CT. Everyone up there takes care of their home, however, if someone wants to add or remodeled their home, they don't have to ask the neighbors for permission, they simply hire an architect and do as they wish. It is nice to have the freedom to do whatever you want in your own property. However, there is something to be said to limiting what color you can paint your house or what monstrosity you can keep away from being added.

The bottom line is that regulations are good to have. It keeps the neighborhood looking right. We are moving to one of the best communities in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. I want to ensure that my investment increases in value. As long as the board doesn't abuse its powers or steps in to cause too much grieve, then so be it. Our government has plenty of regulations in place and it hasn't done too much harm to our freedoms. As for me, I'm just glad that our house received an ARC approved stamp at today's meeting and onwards we go deeper in debt with our addition and remodeled.

Labels: 2-mile, Connecticut, Design, Jacksonville, jax

2-Miles: Earth Day

With Biggest Loser season 7 now winding down to the end, it seems like Tara can't loose a challenge and will take this thing to the end. With that said, I think people have now become very health conscious and the whole world is hype up on losing weight.

This past Wednesday my colleagues decided to start a 2 mile challenge. That is, the folks who decided to join have to walk 2 miles a day, seven days a week. These two miles were imposed to motivate folks to step out of their daily life and comfort zone. With summer coming it seemed like a good idea. I typically run 3 miles four days a week and this seemed like the perfect thing to get me out of the house every day instead. My wife has decided to join me and we use the time to wind out the day and stroll down the neighborhood and beach.

I started thinking that there are so many different things that we observed on our daily life and as such, I decided to document in this blog the things I come out at me as different during my two miles.

As a celebration today being Earth Day, I started noticing while walking on the beach, that sometimes we disrespect our planet and our fellow cohabitants by polluting and trashing our share space on this Earth. We started our walk this evening a few minutes past 6 and as the sun started to set and the beach started to become more desolate, I notice the garbage people leave behind. The photo here depicts a bottle cap left behind from a sprite bottle. The bottle was gone, but the cap remained. So the people having this drink decided that they would pick up the bottle and leave a cap behind. Something this small could easily be picked up and swallow by one of the many dogs that are walked thereby leading to indigestion, or worse, death.

The bottom line is that there are so many things that we can do to change ourselves and our environment. It is the little things and details that set us apart. Do your part and start picking up after yourself. That 10 seconds it takes to pick a bottle cap can save our planet and a life.

Labels: 2-mile, biggest loser, Design, exercise, Florida, Jacksonville, photo resizing, photoshop

There's no upside to unemployment

I just read an article entitled "Florida unemployment upside: At least we're not California." The article gives some pretty amazing statistics. El Centro, California has a 24.5 percent unemployment rate. That means that 1 in every 4 does not have a job and is on unemployment. Do you any idea what this means to our taxes?

Take this and combined it with the trillions of dollars in bailout money and you can bet your butt that this nation is bankrupt. If we keep outsourcing, we are simply taking our dollars and making another country richer. Sure, companies can find laborers for half the cost, but at what price?

I'm still waiting for Obama's promise on taxing companies who outsource jobs to other countries.

The bottom line is that if we don't take care of ourselves sooner rather than later we will all be unemployed and set back 300 years to colonial times, or worse, medieval times.