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Orbit Interaction Palo Alto, CA

Okay, here goes! There are major, cool changes underway in my eighteen-year-long career as an interaction architect! I'm going to wait until October to give all the details, but I'll say that the change is going to involve scaling up a number of things.

Orbit Interaction Palo Alto, CA

I'm now in the middle of shutting down of my office in downtown Palo Alto and moving much of my equipment and furniture into someplace new, not too far away.

Orbit Interaction Palo Alto, CA

I've been in this office on Forest Avenue since December of 1995, when I began renovating a dingy little upstairs space. Over the past six years, I've practically lived here. Something Toshimi has not been all that happy about! I guess the only thing that wasn't completely perfect about it, was that it wasn't attached to our condo a few blocks away!

Orbit Interaction Palo Alto, CA

I thought before everything was thrown into boxes and chaos, I'd take some time to document my little office with my digital Nikon. On Saturday, I took over a hundred digital images and short QuickTime movies of my office and the things in it. Some of the shots were taken with my fisheye lens. Heh, I still fail to get completely out of the way of fisheye shots!

Orbit Interaction Palo Alto, CA

Since I'm going to be making a major move and attending to about eleventy-thousand details, and reconfiguring a second office at home, JIMWICh may be updated a little less regularly for awhile. My DSL is going to take two weeks to get up and running at home, so until then I'll be squeezin' through the li'l pipe. My goal is to get back here with an October issue though, so hang on!

Although I'm excited about the new changes, I will always miss this little office. It's not the biggest, or even the most architecturally interesting office I've ever had, but it was just the right size, and was the site of many successful projects and happy times and parties!

Thanks little office! I'll always remember you!
- posted by JIMWICh on 9/26/2001 7:38:55 PM

Maru ni Chidori Plover	Ume-bachi Plum	Oboro Tsuta Ivy

Japanese family crests, or Ka-mon, are symbols representing family origins. The history of Ka-mon goes back fourteen centuries.

Emerging in the Asuka-era around 603 A.D., an old Japanese history, the "Nihon-Shoki," records Emperor Suiko as having used pictures on his flags, marking the beginning of the family crest.

During the Muromachi-era (1336-1573) and continuing on through the Warrior-era to the Edo-era (1630-1867), Ka-mon continued to play an important role in identifying the feudal lords. Their often bold, graphic simplicity and clarity aided in identification of allies and foes on the battle field, as well as signifying classes and authority.

Works for me...

Ka-mon were eventually used upon many objects and clothing, signifying perhaps the first real example of a comprehensive corporate identity! It makes me think of a shogun with his ka-mon on letterhead, baseball caps, and a white delivery van.

In later periods, many families adopted Ka-mon, often incorporating the basic symbology of the feudal families they were related to. There are thousands of variants, but they can generally be classified into seven groups: Plant, Animal, Nature, Architecture, Object, Design, and Letter. The most popular Ka-mon consist of ten typical types, nine of which are of the Plant category and one of the Animal category. Some very beautiful ka-mon are based on the butterfly.

- Butterfly ka-mon collection 1
- Butterfly ka-mon collection 2
- Butterfly ka-mon collection 3

Many ka-mon remind me of modern corporate logos. Such was the powerful and elegant graphic sophistication of the Japanese.
- posted by JIMWICh on 9/19/2001 12:44:03 AM

Barn Owl Tyto alba

Last night around 1:00am as I was hauling out our newspapers and plastic bottles to our recycle bins, I heard something that stopped me in my tracks and sent a chill up my spine.

It came from high up in the redwood tree next door, the site of one of my favorite neighborhood characters, a big old hoot owl (Great Horned Owl - Bubo virginianus). But this wasn't my buddy Hooty calling (184K .wav file). This was more like a harsh scream. Today I searched the web and surely enough, I found exactly the sound that I heard (104K .wav file). Here's another blood curdling example (116K .wav file). It was just what I suspected, a Barn Owl (Tyto alba). The sound was on this page full of the various owl sounds, including the different calls of barn owls along with other owl species.

Also known as the "ghost owl" or "spirit owl," the barn owl was once the object of great superstition. Today it's recognized as a major predator of rodents. This is a particularly welcome fact, given that the fence between our lot and our neighbors is home to a lot of scampering rats. To Barney, it must be like the drive-thru of McCritters.

Its voracious appetite makes the barn owl is among the most economically beneficial birds in the world. One study kept track of a barn owl's diet over the course of a year: 1,407 mice, 143 rats, 7 bats, 5 young rabbits, 375 house sparrows, 23 starlings, 54 other birds, 4 lizards, 174 frogs, 25 moths, and 52 crickets!

You can encourage a barn owl to become your neighbor by building or buying an owl nestbox and hanging it on a pole, building, or tree.

I've always loved owls. When I was little, my Aunt Mary Helen started me on collecting owls and for my birthday last month, my parents gave me a little wooden owl statue. I hope Barney sticks around.

More links on Barn Owls:

- The U.S. Forest Service's page on the Barn Owl
- Wildlife Associates' page on the Barn Owl
- i-bird's gallery of Barn Owl photos
- i-bird's chart of Barn Owl distribution throughout the United States
- University of California Barn Owl diet analysis
- posted by JIMWICh on 9/17/2001 6:37:53 PM

Tirana Albania	Chile	Tibetan Nuns

Moscow Russia	Argentina	Athens Greece	Belarus Minsk

Japan	Taipei Taiwan	Ottawa Canada

Berlin Germany	Istanbul Turkey	Bhopal India	Sydney Australia

Tel Aviv Israel	Zagreb Croatia	Seoul South Korea

Pristina Kosovo	Paris France	London England	Southern India

Lisbon Portugal	Moscow Russia	Palestine

Palestine School	Dhaka Bangladesh	Prague Czech Rep.	Sweden

Ryan and Gary's Gallery

Images of Solidarity and Support From People Around the World

- posted by JIMWICh on 9/15/2001 5:04:11 PM

The Peace Words from around the world continue...

http://www.anigami.com/Peace_Words.html

For the past two days I've been shocked in a way I can't ever remember having been. By the end of the 11th I was beyond numb and felt nauseous. Yesterday morning, unable to concentrate on work, I went to the web and after a while of looking at images and videos of death, mayhem, and destruction and listening to a radio filled with anger and expressions of sorrow and blind rage, I was needing something to reassure me of the ultimate strength of positive humanity.

I'm don't consider myself a religious person. I can't even say that I'm much of a spiritual person, even though I've studied many religions and accounts of spiritual paths and cultures. I suppose I'm ultimately a humanist, believing that the power of human beings together is essentially good and limitless and binding us together as a whole.

My wife, a Buddhist of the Nichiren school of Mahayana Buddhism (Soka Gakkai), within a couple hours of Tuesday's tragedy, received a message from their national director, which upon reading gave me a great deal of comfort and reassurance. Particularly in light of my fear that shock would be turned into fear and retributive anger towards other countries and people of minority cultures within our own country.

That message prompted me to begin searching the web for messages of peace and strength from as many paths and faiths as I could find. I'm still doing adding to the list have been greatly buoyed by this activity. I want to share this with others, and hopefully this will bring a sense of our common unity, expressed through many voices and forms, but one nonetheless.

So far I've collected quotes and excerpts from messages from the following paths: Nichiren school of Mahayana Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Native American, Pagan, Unitarian, Islamic, Tibetan Buddhism, Mennonite, Quakers, Native American Shaman, Wiccan, and Norse Asatru.

- posted by JIMWICh on 9/13/2001 5:42:02 PM

Messages of Peace and Strength From People of Different Faiths

- posted by JIMWICh on 9/12/2001 2:56:55 PM

worldnewyork.org

- posted by JIMWICh on 9/11/2001 6:00:00 PM

Burning Man 2001 Black Rock Desert - Nevada Panoramic Photo: ©2001 Matin Gillis

There are already some great images of this year's Burning Man up on the net. You may remember my friend, Bob Gillis, who I featured here last January, and his gallery of images from Burning Man 2000. Here's the Gillis' Burning Man Gallery of 2001. This year there was an amazing mausoleum built out of plywood cutouts remnants. Attendees were encouraged to write the names of their dearly departed on small blocks of wood, and others stuffed messages into the holes in the structure, which was burned at the end of the event.

Check out another great gallery of BM2001 images from fellow WELL member, Frank Miles.

Here's several aerial photos of this year's Black Rock City.

Galleries from the 2001 burn: - 1 - 2 -
- posted by JIMWICh on 9/10/2001 7:51:15 PM

Ghorfa Medenine, Tunisia Photo: Volker Radek

More cool ancient architecture! Ghorfas are mud and stone structures which were used for the storage of grain and oil in northern Africa.

Ghorfas, also called "ksars," are barrel-vaulted fortified structures (similar to "ksours" or "kasbas" in Morocco, which were more rectalinear in shape). Here's a page documenting a rehabilitated ksour in Morocco - (photo gallery). In ancient times it was necessary to build these to safely store such crucial supplies against possible raids. Today they are valued for their unique architecture and historical significance.

I found the image above and two others, both taken in the city of Medenine, Tunisia, on the trip documenting site of German, Volker Radek. In 1998 Volker took a trip in a "roof tent bus" (translation courtesy of Altavista's Babelfish) from Tunisia to Libya (map), documenting it in a diary (original German) and photo gallery.

Here's an account of a bike tour of this region.

Here, I found some more Ghorfas for you:

- Volker's photos of Ghorfas at Medenine, Tunisia: - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -
- More of Volker's photos of stone structures: - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 -
- Another shot of the Ghorfa at Medenine: - 1 -
- Ghorfa at Soltane, Tunisia: - 1 - 2 -
- Ghorfa at Haddada, Tunisia (remodeled as hotel): - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -
- posted by JIMWICh on 9/8/2001 8:34:36 PM

Polar Bear on Crutch Consulting With Doctor in Inset Archway Artist: Greg Brown Health Library Stanford Shopping Ctr. Building G East Corner Next to Bloomingdales

One the charming aspects of downtown Palo Alto are the numerous whimsical trompe-l'oeil murals painted by artist Greg Brown on the sides of various buildings. The murals started appearing in the 1970s. By the mid-1990s it was looking like a number were going to be lost. Fortunately, while a few originals have disappeared over the years, he's painted or repainted a few when buildings were remodeled.

Alien Saucer Crash Artist: Greg Brown Comerica Bank 250 Lytton Ave.

I've created a clickthrough gallery and a printable walking tour map and that shows the location of each of fourteen murals and their locations and orientations as black lines next to their respective marker numbers.

Bank Robbers Mishap Washington Mutual Bank Artist: Greg Brown 300 Hamilton Ave. at Bryant St.

In addition to those located in downtown and publicly accessible, there are a few others in the area. The Palo Alto Housing Corporation Board had Brown paint this mural, "Pipe Dreams" on the wall of their new conference room at 725 Alma Street.

And the UCSF Stanford Health Care's new Health Library at nearby Stanford Shopping Center has one of Brown's murals painted on one of its outside walls - a Polar Bear on a crutch consulting a grandmotherly doctor.

Secret Agent Man With Bird on Hat Artist: Greg Brown Greater Bay Trust Co. 400 Emerson St. at Lytton Ave.

Residents of and visitors to Palo Alto may enjoy following the map above on a walking tour to see the paintings. All are easily within a few blocks walking distance of the Palo Alto Caltrans Train Station.

Those who can drive, or are up for a slightly longer walk, can go over to nearby Stanford Shopping Center to see the Polar Bear painting, which is one of Brown's most impressive works.

You can see that Brown's style has become much more refined through the years. I hope that he will continue to be given commisions around town as new buildings go up and others are renovated. We're lucky indeed to have such fun touches of surreality lurking here and there around our community.
- posted by JIMWICh on 9/3/2001 10:07:12 PM

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