…and France for a few weeks. Will post later. In the meantime, enjoy Italian 60′s night with Rita Pavone doing Il geghegè, from oh-la-la.
There will be a growing Flickr stream here.
We did a quick trip to Santa Monica over the weekend to go to my nephew’s volleyball game–he’s a frosh at George Mason University, and they played #3 Pepperdine Saturday night. Great chance to see fam, and a good volleyball. Pepperdine won, 3-0.
We also spent Saturday doing galleries in Santa Monica, and made a great discovery of the Bergamot Station art gallery complex, as well as cruising the galleries on Main Street. I have to say, LA has great modern culture and music (KCRW).
We also stopped at the new Getty on our way back to Sac. No special exhibits for us, but just a great building and views.
More photos in Flickr set.
We’re in New Orleans for the RESNET conference. Over 800 people in the obviously growing residential retrofit business. Ed Mazria gave a great talk. DOE and EPA staff presented the headlines from the new programs created by the stimulus package–gazillions of dollars that they have to get out in 60 days. There will be a lot of chaos, but hopefully good programs will be funded as well.
Marilyn had amazing conversations with people who had been devastated by Katrina. While the French Quarter is clearly open for tourists, many people still don’t have homes or livelihoods. She heard a lot of very disturbing stories. But it is a city with great buildings and music, and I’m sure it will survive. We had time for a walk in the Garden District, and along Magazine Street. I found a coffee shop where I did two conference calls. I’m not a good tourist… Photos on Flickr.
Today we went to LACMA, which was a difficult choice for me since we were in Pasadena and I wanted to see the Norton Simon, which has long been one of my favorites. But there was the new (just opened) Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA which neither of us had seen, so we went downtown. I didn’t get any photos, though Marilyn saw two movie actors in the Museum and got her paparazzi shots…
The new BCAM space is amazing, but the most amazing thing was the roof, which was transparent glass. The roof has distinctive and large louvers on it which provide protection, but the ceiling to the art space is…glass. Which I find amazing–glass protecting very expensive art, and the top floor is 100% daylght. I have to find out how it was engineered. I’m disappointed that I couldn’t get a photo, but they weren’t allowed in the art space, and from outside just didn’t do.
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On the way home we stopped in Pasadena at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Gardens. It was a quick stop, and we were wowed by the Gardens, especially the desert garden. When we approached it I thought there would be a few desert plants, but the number and diversity were astonishing. See flickr for a few more. Unfortunately we just missed the opening of the new Chinese garden.
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Since we visited my brother-in-law in Valley Center, I also had the chance to go to Mengei Museum in Escondido (there are two Mengei locations). They had an exhibition of old and craft toys, along with a movie of the toys in motion, which completed the experience (seeing toys in a static display misses the point). They also had an origami exhibit–it’s impossible to see scale in this photo, but this origami is about two feet tall:
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We went to Balboa Park (San Diego) to the Mingei Museum, which is an amazing collection of folk art. Mingei in Japanese means something like “things made for practical use.” These items were African clothing for modesty…
The collection had a stunning array of artifacts.
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We’re taking a week in LA and San Diego to go to the RESNET (Residential Energy Services Network) conference. Spend yesterday in LA, and had a nice visit at the Museum of Contemporary Art. See Flickr set…
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We’ve been in Santa Fe for a few days of exploring. It’s been bitter cold–about 20F at night, and about 30F during the day, and breezy to boot. It snowed about an inch thursday, on top of about five inches that arrived before we did. Snow on the Santa Fe plaza — brrrrrrr:
But we’ve had a good time. Highlights:
One of my pet peeves is going to a conference on efficiency and being in a hotel that is an obvious energy hog. A particular irritant are the ballrooms with chandeliers with 100+ candelabra lights that are 40 Watts each, which is 4 KW of low efficacy lighting, plus extra cooling load to boot. Energy Star has a program for hotels, but I haven’t seen any hotels advertizing they are an Energy Star building.
Today’s NYT has an article about green hotels with several examples of hotels that have achieved LEED status. This is a picture of meters in the lobby of the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel. The meter on the left (hard to read in the picture) is carbon emissions, along with electricity and water. I’d like to know what the bottom screen was displaying. At the CEC we’ve been saying for a long time that giving consumers data is the best way to modify behavior. Hmmm…why can’t we have displays like this at the Energy Commission?
Fortunately people are working on some good ideas for hotels at the California Lighting Technology Center at UC Davis. Dr. Lux (Michael Siminovitch) and his crew are working on hotel solutions such as key card lighting controls (like have been used extensively in Europe) and bathroom lighting controls (i.e., a lighting control that turns on a night light, so people don’t have to leave the bathroom light on all night to find it…). These are clever ideas, but there isn’t a solution on the horizon for the chandeliers I dislike so much–maybe there will be an LED fix, but not yet.
Today is day 2 of a 3 day meeting marathon for me in Washington.
Today it snowed about 2 inches, then it kept snowing, reaching about 3-4 inches. This is Eye St. near Penn. Ave. They called this an “Alberta Clipper,” whatever that means. It’s now (weds night) in the teens, and tomorrow will be clear and freezing…
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In mid-June Marilyn and I were both in Boston on business. Marilyn was there to recieve an award at the Public Risk Management Association conference for her video on “30 Ways to Prevent School Arson” that she did for the Schools Insurance Authority. I was there to attend board meetings for the New Buildings Institute, and the Consortium for Energy Efficiency. So we had a great week in Boston, and then took the train to NYC for a few days of sightseeing.
In Boston we saw a Redsocks game at Fenway Park. Boston fans are crazy.
More photos on Flickr.
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