It is with a certain pride that I see buildings going up all over the Texas Tech campus. With pride mixed with regret.
Why regret? Not just nostalgia for the way it used to be, but for the increasing lack of open spaces on campus.
What makes a melody beautiful? Sure tone is involved, but so is ... silence. One can argue that good music is good because of the uses made of periods of silence. Certainly continuous sound is merely ... noise.
So it is with architecture. Buildings are not seen alone, all by themselves, as though they are drifting in a cloud. They are part and parcel of their surroundings. The beauty, the impressiveness of a building, depends on the surrounding spaces that set it off.
Texas Tech is becoming an ugly, crowded campus, a ghetto of buildings that set off by themselves would be pretty but all stacked together are like a dozen symphonies played all at the same time-- noise.
The most precious commodity is space.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Savvy Shoppers in Today's AJ...
is about saving time shopping. Which is fine if you are really, really pressed for time and saving time is your main goal. (I'd link to today's S.S. but can't find it online.)
I have to point out though, that if your object is to save money, then you often need to take more time shopping and need to shop at different stores. Though to be sure you can save both time and money by buying items on sale in bulk. Andrew Tobias, the financial / investment writer, once said in a column that the highest return investment you can make for the degree of risk is buying a case of tuna fish when it's on sale. I seem to remember he said that if you don't have any place to store the case of tuna, put a board on it and call it a coffee table. Tobias also said that a penny saved is worth more than a penny earned.
But this is about health and fitness. What does that have to do with grocery shopping? Plenty.
A lot of older people need support while walking, and do fine leaning on a shopping cart. They need to shop 4 days a week to get their exercise. Stores are like free gyms or free physical therapy facilities. All those miles of aisles to walk through, and you get to borrow the cart to lean on, free!
Not just older folks either. Plenty of younger folk could use more time walking through the parking lot and striding through the aisles.
In fact, the main problem most Lubbockians have is not a shortage of time but an excess of fat. I still turn through the sports pages of the AJ, even though I have no interest in baseball or basketball and that along with out-of-season football and Nascar is 98.9% of that section and I end up throwing the whole paper away in disgust. Anybody see the photos of the winners of the Reese golf tournament? Did you laugh? You know those guys do not walk the golf course, probably haven't for 20 years. Nice though that someone 50 lbs overweight can play a sport competitively. Doggone it though, they need to walk, or maybe put the cart in neutral and get out and push the thing a mile or two.
Back to grocery shopping. Going several times a week for small items may be a waste of time to the Savvy Shoppers, but not when you consider it an excuse to walk or cycle to the store, replacing time and money spent at an exercise facility. Not when you reward yourself for an exercise program well done by going and buying a pint of ice cream or bag of chips.
How far is a grocery store from where you live? Do you ever walk there? Ride there? Do you drive and park as far away as you can?
Maybe one day there will be a sign up: "Grocery Store and Free Exercise Center." It's the truth; which we will not appreciate until some start to charge us for the exercise part.
I have to point out though, that if your object is to save money, then you often need to take more time shopping and need to shop at different stores. Though to be sure you can save both time and money by buying items on sale in bulk. Andrew Tobias, the financial / investment writer, once said in a column that the highest return investment you can make for the degree of risk is buying a case of tuna fish when it's on sale. I seem to remember he said that if you don't have any place to store the case of tuna, put a board on it and call it a coffee table. Tobias also said that a penny saved is worth more than a penny earned.
But this is about health and fitness. What does that have to do with grocery shopping? Plenty.
A lot of older people need support while walking, and do fine leaning on a shopping cart. They need to shop 4 days a week to get their exercise. Stores are like free gyms or free physical therapy facilities. All those miles of aisles to walk through, and you get to borrow the cart to lean on, free!
Not just older folks either. Plenty of younger folk could use more time walking through the parking lot and striding through the aisles.
In fact, the main problem most Lubbockians have is not a shortage of time but an excess of fat. I still turn through the sports pages of the AJ, even though I have no interest in baseball or basketball and that along with out-of-season football and Nascar is 98.9% of that section and I end up throwing the whole paper away in disgust. Anybody see the photos of the winners of the Reese golf tournament? Did you laugh? You know those guys do not walk the golf course, probably haven't for 20 years. Nice though that someone 50 lbs overweight can play a sport competitively. Doggone it though, they need to walk, or maybe put the cart in neutral and get out and push the thing a mile or two.
Back to grocery shopping. Going several times a week for small items may be a waste of time to the Savvy Shoppers, but not when you consider it an excuse to walk or cycle to the store, replacing time and money spent at an exercise facility. Not when you reward yourself for an exercise program well done by going and buying a pint of ice cream or bag of chips.
How far is a grocery store from where you live? Do you ever walk there? Ride there? Do you drive and park as far away as you can?
Maybe one day there will be a sign up: "Grocery Store and Free Exercise Center." It's the truth; which we will not appreciate until some start to charge us for the exercise part.
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