An amazing wedding. So beautiful. I could not be happier for my sister. Congratulations to them both. Good luck and I wish them the best in their future.

The weather was beautiful today in Chicago! I talked about Burnham early today in my blog post, and by coincidence Chicago will be celebrating 100 years of it’s central plan soon, http://bit.ly/4G4lqs

Part of the awesome exhibit that is going on in Millennium Park is the these pavilions that were created near the park. I took this a neat photo from inside the pavilion.

So I’m in Chicago for my Sisters wedding. It’s so awesome being able to see all of my family at such a happy occasion. I love the City of Chicago.

Last night I had tapas for the first time, I am a big fan.
The reason I love Chicago is partly because of it’s awesome urban planning. It’s basically the birth place of modern urban planning, during the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition oversaw the construction of the “White City.” A small scale avenue of buildings built mostly from papier-mache and included things like grand boulevards, classical building facades, and lush gardens. During the expo many saw the benefits of a centrally planned city and a decade later Daniel Burnham started work on “The Plan of Chicago” using the principles from the “White City” and the City Beautiful movement that was taking shape during the beginning of the 1900’s. A great example for reference of what planners of this movement were aiming for is the The Mall, in Washington D.C. All in all I love Chicago, it’s public transit, and it’s architecture.
Just a little history to start your weekend, enjoy.

Just another test of using flickr to post photos to twitter and wordpress. Also I already miss richmond. Sometimes travel isn’t so fun, the trip is, but the travel part not so much. Why does my stomach always hurt on trips. But Chicago is amazing, and I’m excited to see my family soon.

P.S. the new flic.kr support for twitter is pretty awesome.
On my way to Chicago in a little more than an hour yeppie for me.

Just wanted to let everyone know I’m still working on the website. Sorry for the silence. Expect big posts in the coming weeks and big visual improvments.

Recently I’ve been paying attention to design that does good for the world. I worked recently on a competition submission for the Good 50×70 competition. Also I’ve talked recently about how at VCU we have a team of people working at the da Vinci Center on a $500 operating table, dubbed “operation simple.” So I’ve been really intrested in  all of this designing for Good. Recently i’ve stumbled across the blog Changed by Design which tracks all of these industrial design projects that work to promote a better world. So here are some examples showcasing this philosphy.

If you know me then you know I have trouble with time managment. One of the ways I try to counter act my issue is by finding short cuts in my everyday life. One that I’ve had for a long time is the Japanese t-shirt folding trick.

But today I stumbled on this video on Gizmodo about the 5 minute Japanese morning routine. Now most of the tips weren’t very useful to me but I did love the Japanese Tie technique. It’s too cool. Learned how to do it quickly and now I’m using it. Check it out at about 6:23 into the clip.

APRIL – NEW MATH by Craig Damrauer.

Spring & good intentions by Jessica Hagy.

I saw this photo is a presentation by Sun Microsystems about their modular storage systems. I really like the idea of this portable shipping containers that can carry a whole bunch of data. This photo is awesome, offsite storage taken to the max.

That’s the new Tata Nano, a car that costs $2,000. The idea behind designing a cheap 4-door car is that it gives families in developing countries an opportunity to own a vehicle and travel efficiently around their country. Now their are some philosophical issues presented here. First off we should be eliminating personal transportation and aiding mass public transit. Developing cities are prime areas for the creation of innovative transit solutions. But to counter that , it’s nice to allow families of little means the ability to travel freely without the restraints of transit schedules or fixed travel destinations.

I believe this is the kind of vehicle that people in the U.S. would also appreciate, especially in the city. That interest also seeds the opportunity for the Nano to be marketed as BOGO, or Buy One, Give One. It’s cheap enough to where $4,000 would be a fair price to ask for a four door car that’s new, attractive, and economical to drive. Also it appeals to poor students who need personal transportation but also need to appeal to their want to help the world.

I love companies that sell their products in a Buy One, Give One philosophy. Companies like Toms Shoes sell the idea that buying one pair of shoes for someone in a developing country is almost more important to the purchase then actually receiving their product. I love when giving becomes trendy. (See Live Strong campaign)

Also when interest in buying the famed $100 laptop (OLPC) the company realized that their was a bigger market then just developing countries. They allowed people in the U.S. to buy the OPLC but only if they bought one for someone in an developing country as well. I think that every company should try to create this kind of BOGO activity in their business model. It truly can shape the world we live in.