When i say i love Boston, i mean the people too. I appreciate their direct (some people call that 'aggressive') go-getter attitude. They would rather live life hard and be blunt than passively float down a river of status quo.

Spoken like a westerner...not that that is a bad thing (I love the WC). I've noticed that Westerners don't understand the East Coast and vice versa, it really is amazing how different the coasts are. Luckily, for me, I can call both places home.

The 50% "Masshole" ratio consists of the townies that will do nothing with their lives and will live in their neighborhood forever. Every city has these and I'm sure we all know people that I'm describing (including some SW forumers?)

If you're a funny person, you're natuarally always "on"

And that neighborhood and its businesses are the best in the world, bar none. My supervisor at a previous employer was one of them. Loudest, most obnoxious person ever. If you got to know him he was really cool, but based on his brashness, nobody wanted to talk to him that long.

I always wondered why he move away from the best place in the world with the best deli that had the best canollis and the best pastrami, and was right next door to the best Italian place that made gnocchi nobody in the world could top.

I've found that most (good) comedians are pretty serious people who read a lot, are well educated and have fairly deep thoughts on the subjects that interest them. I'll make a quip or two in a serious meeting or whatever, but I don't want to go out of my way to be Mr Yuck Yucks, that obnoxious.

I forget who said it (Mike Birbiglia maybe?) but you don't become a comedian because you want to make people laugh. You become a comedian because you want to control when people laugh. You're going to get laughed at either way, but its a desire to control the narrative of that laughter and to be in control.

Yah there's not necessarily anything wrong with how people are out here I guess, its just not the most natural fit for me. I just want to chill and stare into the western sunset while sitting on top of one of the Papago Buttes.

You always have the Prudential Center observation deck on the 54th floor! :D

D'Backs
 

Going into September, summer is fading, the elite playoff teams have emerged, D'backs are up big over the Giants to lead the NL West, have a great win streak and somehow Phoenicians fail to even fill half the seats of Chase Field! What's going on? A few years ago and Chase would be almost full.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/sports/diam...#ixzz1Wg7zGaBy

Baseball is boring as drying paint and Phoenicians realize it.

Welp, here's something all Arizonans can be proud of:

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/healt...ay-1600-pounds

She'll die around 900 I'm sure of it. Any bets?

*withholding all comments about the failure of Natural Selection*

Do you have a smart ass comment to make? Lets hear it, kid.

While searching for a video of the London "Seed Cathedral" building from the Shanghai 2010 expo I came across this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2CEM...eature=related

The first few seconds show a really nice white shade structure, its similar to SkySong but a bit more permeable and I really like it a lot. Its what I'd like to see the PHX Public Market have someday over the lot bounded by Pierce/Central/First/Fillmore. That way it would have more of an indoor/outdoor feel like the LA Market or Reading Terminal in Philly and be able to be open every day.

Then they could turn the current small Public Market building into a restaurant specializing in foods made from products from the Market itself. In a super ideal world the upside down L shaped lot around the Public Market Building (1st/Central/McKinley/Pierce) would become a Community Garden & Citrus Orchard.

Also, while thinking about the market, I wonder why it is that more Native American tribes don't participate in the market? At Reading Market in Philly all of the Pennsylvania Dutch are there and its awesome, I talked to them and learned a lot about them, tried specialized recipes of theirs, etc. It sure would be nice to have more of the Native farmers at the PHX market giving it a more multicultural experience....in general the PHX market is far too white/hippie/NPR and not nearly diverse or interesting enough.

I forgot to link here to my recent Blooming Rock article, so here it is if you're interested:
http://bloomingrock.com/?p=3043

Great concept, Hoover.

Yeah, this is a brilliant idea Hoover. Thank you for detailing your vision. It's unfortunate that the canals are so neglected in this town; relegated to barren utilitarian purposes.

Reminder, you should throw in a few shekels for Valley of the Sunflowers: http://t.co/R2aupur8

I did and I'm super broke. For as much as we all talk about getting rid of the dirt lots, its money where the mouth is time. Even a donation as small as $10 gets you some nice "Thank You" gift stuff.

So if you're bored you can check out my monthly article over on Blooming Rock:

http://bloomingrock.com/?p=3131

It's about the Westward Ho, something I've talked about a lot on here, so nothing terribly new...but its said in a more cohesive way I guess.

Another fantastic article! Here's hoping that the hotel Monroe and the Ho are both renovated into hotels soon.

Your article says (paraphrasing) "there's still hope that the hotel Palomar at cityscape will be built.".... Isn't it already nearly halfway done? What do you mean by hope?

To my knowledge (and I'm not as up to the moment on CityScape as HX_Guy and GymRat) the Hotel Palomar could theoritically be built, but we don't know for 100% certainty that it will be. The lower portion of the building (the retail) is there, but the hotel hasn't gone vertical I don't think....though maybe I'm wrong...?

you're extremely wrong. :sly:

The hotel is topped out, unless the retail portion is 10 stories.

Welp, this is what happens when you live on the other side of the country! Thanks.

I get confused trying to keep up with the big milestones when we're all bogged down in the exact physical location of Starbucks.

Starbucks is very important

Looks like I need to do another photo update thread, maybe this weekend. :)

^That would be great.

I realized now I got confused between the Hotel and the Apartments/Condos above. Its hard to keep this sort of thing straight when you're not near it somewhat often....ah well, the rest of the article holds up and makes sense anyhow.

Yes please! :yes:

No excuses now that the weather is nice over there.

I went into an open house today on the SWC of 3rd Ave and Almeria (first street north of McDowell) In Willo. It was a huge nice spanish colonial, said to have been built in 1931. There was a curved stairway that led down to a basement and halfway down there was a door that opened to a tiny space of nothing. The realtor told me that it used to lead to a tunnel that connected the house to the Jewish Synogauge and school (school since torn down) on the NWC corner of 3rd Ave and McDowell (the big pawn shop). So apparently that big brick pawn shop building was built around 1940 as a synogauge and someone (i think the rabbi) had a tunnel built to connect to the house. It has since been filled in.

I thought that was interesting, both the tunnel part, and the fact that that building used to be a synogauge... i always wondered what it was originally.

I love that house, I just wish it wasn't right behind the pawn shop.

If you are looking at houses in the historic districts there's an open house at Coronado and Palmcroft Way SW in Encanto Palmcroft tomorrow. I've been in the house and it's very nice but considerably smaller than the one on 3rd Ave. that you went through today.

I was just a "lookey loo" today, just saw the open house sign when i was driving by. I usually take any opportunity I can to go into the older houses around town to check them out.

The Almeria house was on this year's home tour. The owner mentioned that they get homeless folks bathing in their fountain. Very cool house but lousy location. The fire station doesn't help.

/\ wow that would suck and that's too bad. The realtor said the house is for sale for $480k when it was originally sold for near $900k. (sales price or sales price + renovations).

The Maricopa County Assessor's site says it was sold for $490,000 in 2002. They must have done a lot of renovations.

It was probably an exaggeration saying that hobos bathe in the fountain, I've smelled plenty of hobos on the bus and c'mon, they don't bathe at all :D

Seriously though, I doubt it's a major problem. Maybe once or twice they saw some unsightly looking people splashing themselves...

Crazy weather last night...this is near Happy Valley Rd & Lake Pleasant Pkwy.

http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...02298316_n.jpg

http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...58634891_n.jpg

Is that snow or hail?

Didn't see it come down but I assume it's hail...sure looks like snow while driving though. :)

Procedure for driving to work this morning:

Dress warmly
Whip down all windows to get water/dew off
Scrape ice off windshield
*Heater broken*
Search for gloves
Scrape ice again
Take the US 60 to 202 interchange, at 50 mph due to heavy fog
Being ready to slam on my brakes for a red light on McKelips(yes, fog was That heavy)
Park
Scrape ice off one last time

I loving this weather, it's so different. However having it everyday would surely lead to depression/me going crazy.

I wrote another article on Blooming Rock. This one is about my favorite block in PHX:

http://bloomingrock.com/?p=3128

Also, Im not sure if I mentioned it here or not, but I got out of my lease early and will be headed west on March 1st, should be in PHX by the middle of March. Im excited :)

Interesting article. One point I'd make is that 44 Monroe is nearly 90% leased. That means close to 176 units are occupied. You stated in the article that it will never be fully leased and that 100 people currently live there.

That number is VERY conservative given that most residential units (homes and apartments) in Phoenix have an average occupancy of 3/household. Now this is a unique housing situation so that number is likely to be lower (1.5-2). Still that would mean 44 Monroe has at least 264.5 residents and at most 353...

I retweeted it so my 36 followers can read it.

Actually I was in the 44 Monroe leasing office last weekend and they said it was 92% leased.

We haven't had a forum meet in a while. Perhaps we could gather some afternoon for some photo-shootin' and drinkin' at a saloon afterwards...

--don

I said it MAY never....I was just trying to use super conservative numbers to show a point as to how dense that particular block is. I actually wrote this article a few months ago, and its been back logged, so at the time 44 Monroe wasn't as leased :)

LOL, I guess I could have looked at the date, or asked when you wrote it. :shuffle:

No biggy, its todays date...I shouldve updated how well 44 Monroe was filling up when Taz (the Blogs operator) told me she was going to upload it today.

Either way, its a real dence, awesome block.

I'm in. I'd like to take some photos and perhaps we can pick a warmer day and enjoy one of hte patios at cityscape. I quit drinking, sans a couple of times a month, back in the summer so drinkin at a saloon is probably out, but I'm down for a light meal.

I'm coming down for a few days around Christmas (12/25 through 12/28). I haven't shot any photos of Phoenix since before Cityscape was completed. I'm game for a meet if some people are around?

I'm in.

It'd be cool to meet new people, I'm down with it depending on what day it is.. And if everybody's fine with being with an almost 18 year old?

Only if you'll be bringing some of your almost 18 year old coed friends?

:D

Good article.

Ahh...Phoenix in March, just in time for Spring Training, a late season Phoenix Suns run :shrug: and perfect weather, probably the best time of the year to be in Phoenix.