Signs of the Times

Big Hail, That’s what hit Oklahoma city last week. Here are a couple of videos. The first one you should turn the sound down. plus the camera work is pretty lame. Pool Video – Warning turn down sound
The second one is shot better and much better commentary. Better Commentary Some could argue this is part of the signs of the times.
About a year ago we had had some pretty big hail that hit Austin. I talked to a couple of people that helped fix roof damage. It is definitely an opportunity. So I started to talk to a couple of people to see if we can help with marketing and operations for some of the roofing companies. Like everything else it is going to be some work. I am just now testing the waters to find out how real the opportunity is. I should know in a week or two.

On election day I was working as a rover for the Washington County Clerks office in Southern Utah.  I had to be up at 5AM to be at the first polling location to make sure the polling machines were up and working.  On the way back from the I was listening to Morning Edition on NPR and I heard about a guy in San Fransico that had started a company called Myfarm. MY Farm SF website It was a cool story about a guy that is helping people to grow gardens in their yards in San Francisco. He had a done a little studying about it and then put up a inquiry on craigslist and got about 600 inquires within a couple of hours. I told my brother about it and he thought it was a cool idea and wanted to get something going similar in St. George Utah. Mike my brother is a film producer and thought it would be a fun project to document some of his farming adventures on camera. He was talking to one of our friends, Dr. Phillip Lee, a professor of business at Dixie State College, about the Idea. Mike discovered that Dr. Lee had been growing produce in southern utah for over 20 years. He has some really great insights into gardening and farming produce in Southern Utah. Dr. Lee has won several awards at the County Fair for some pretty outstanding produce.

One of the problems with gardening in Sothern Utah is that if you are using water out of the tap it doesn’t make economic sense because of the cost of the water. Tonight I was talk Verl Adams, a freind of mine who is an architech, He is designing a house southern California that is catching the rain water from its roof storing it in a cistern that will use the water for the landscaping. I thought that could potentially solve the problem for people that do not have access to irrigation water.

Verl told me about a house that was built in the desert by University of Utah students in 2004 RosieJoe House Project that used the roof to catch water.

I lived for for 22 months in Micronesia, 14 of those months I lived on without electricity or running water. I lived in some pretty primitive houses and all of them collected water in tanks that ran off the roofs.

Even after the experience of living in Micronesia I had never thought about catching rain water to irrigate the landscaping.  I am definately going to try to incorporate that into every house I live in the rest of my life.

Verl as an architect is trying to develop and build sustainability into the houses he builds.  Everyone needs to think more Green and try to be innovative on how to conserve more and build a more sustainable future.