Dress up time?

About once a year I feel the need to color myself stupidly and take pictures in some sort of costume. This day does not necessarily need to fall on Halloween. This year I was only off by a couple weeks. So like a reasonable adult, I indulged myself and played dressup, and then dicked around with the pictures to make them look more frightening than I look already. And that's saying something. This is what happens when I marathon watch American Horror Story.

Northern City by Night

 

 

 

Carport Olympics

Carports: Things we don't have a lot of in Canada save for in front of hotels. Or to shelter that boat you wish you'd never bought that won't fit in the garage. Probably the biggest reason carports aren't popular up here is the obvious one: its cold  and despite all our bluster, we're wusses. Going out into an unheated garage to start up the car in the morning is bad enough, and at least when you park your car on the street you're fairly certain you can get the car off and driving thanks to midnight snowplows (barring a blizzard, in which case you're probably allowed to stay home anyway). Carports have the dual disadvantage to us northern dwellers of lacking walls to block the icy cold winds, and being vulnerable to snow that will not be happily removed for you by any civic snowplow--or any hand but your own mittened one frozen to the shovel.

So, we don't really use car ports. But then, does anyone excessively? Unsure. Haven't traveled enough. Moving on.

Regardless of the lack of applicability of the carport to my own culture, I thought I'd throw up a few pictures of some interesting examples of these under-appreciated architectural sidebars. So here goes, in no particular order:

1. The Overhang - Villa Midgard, Stockholm
 

Because nothing screams "its safe to park your car here" like a concrete overhang. Concrete is indestructible, right?

2. The Solar powered bike rack


This solar powered beauty can at once charge your electric car and store your bikes while taking up minimal space. I call this a pretty cool little wonder of technology. It looks fairly easy to set up too, considering what it is.

3. The Green Rooftop-port



C'mon, for a warm climated place, you gotta admit this is a pretty cool idea. My only question is how/if you can get on top of it.

4. The Hollywood Hills 


Something sort of Jetson-y about this lean-to design, circa 1972.

5. The F**k You Gravity Carport, Lithuania



The cars are actually serving an important role in keeping the house up. Making this carport an essential part of the design. Really.

6. The Camouflage Dream Carport

 

A great, easy to set up, portable guestroom for your car. Because putting it in this is way safer and less conspicuous than parking it on the street. And it doesn't look ridiculous. AT ALL.

Textures of Today

 

 

 

 

 

 

Controlled Climate

Let me introduce you to my archenemy:

Mr. Breezy

Dun dun daaah: the ventilation system. When I first started work at the archives, this dude was constantly blasting cold air at our backs.

After weeks and weeks of suffering through this, we finally got up the gumption to play with our thermostat (not always the best idea in an archive/special collections office, but we were desperate, and tired of wearing jackets in July):

The room began to warm up! and for a time, things were good :). But . . .the warming trend did not stop. The working room got hotter . . .and hotter . . .

AND HOTTER

. . . until sweaty-handed me couldn't do my work properly without sweating all over archival documents and rare books. No bueno. So they got me this!

And once again, for a brief time, everything was good. That is, until the maintenance guy arrived. Well meaning, he told us the thermostat was broken, and that was the cause of our overheating distress. The fix? 

no thermostat

Proudly, the maintenance fellow announced that our heat problems were solved. . .we were now on full cool! Which, of course meant that my friend

Mr. Breezy

was back. 

 

The joys of library living! I have yet to set foot in one whose temperature is just right. Until then,

Chillily yours

Warm day

. . .hopefully not the last warm day. Spent some time wandering campus today, snapping purdy pichers: