This morning I participated in our second most important civic responsibility: Jury Duty. Judge Antonio DelCampo gave out pep talk and warned us that even if we did not get seated for a trial we had done a very important service to the judicial system simply through our mere presence. Yes, I know that barely two percent of all cases actually come to trial, and that there is something magic in a trial date that causes defendants and prosecutors to come to terms. But this is my …

Everybody is crazy about apple’s impending new product announcement. Some people are talking about features, others are talking about how “game changing” it will be For the most part however, every one is comparing it to the iPod and iPhone roll out. Eric Jackson of TheStreet.com goes as far as stating: “the company has really had only two major product announcements in the last 10 years: iPod and iPhone. Other announcements have only been feature updates to these products or the iMacs.” I for one however think …

Yesterday I went out to the Rural Studio to meet with Andrew Freear to talk about all kinds of beginning semester stuff. In amongst the wide-ranging conversation we started to talk about where ideas come from, and how the Rural Studio manages to get work done. For me the thing that I am always taken with in the process of design deals with the “art of the possible,” or rather focusing our energies on what we can do, instead of what we can’t. I think on campus …

A couple of days ago I went out to the mail box to collect my daily dose of junk mail, bills and credit card offers only to find something completely unexpected: a real, live letter from our great friend David Braly. The fun part of it was that it included a photograph of the “Field Special” taken in January of 2001. The Field Special is a “salad” of sorts that is a long-standing tradition of the Marshall Field’s Restaurant that USED to be located on the top …