doing fine in asia

A quick note from a huge computer sales center in central Taipei-

I'm doing fine over here. The earthquake in Indonesia hit when I was already here in Taiwan, so I wasn't directly impacted. Don whom I'm meeting up with was in Krabi, Thailand, at the time, but he's doing okay too despite overly close tsunami contact. I am tentatively still going to meet up with him there tomorrow. I'm going to call over to reassess the situation tonight. It feels wrong to go to Krabi post-disaster, but I've got the tickets and plans already... Bangkok is the plan B. We'll see.

By the way, the wedding was fun, family been interesting, and overall things have been going well here in Asia so far.

Cheers-
Leo

Density

Alain Bertaud was an impressive guest lecturer for my Planning Theory class. Check out his website. If you've got the time and/or interest, click for his article on "Clearing the Air in Atlanta: Transit and Smart Growth or Conventional Economics?" If you've not got time/interest, at least check out the density chart. I love that the metropolitan area of Ljubljana is denser than the metropolitan area of New York. I do have to admit that I think the reason for New York's relatively low density number is because he includes such a large amount of land area beyond Manhattan, even past the other boroughs. Although I guess in cities outside the U.S., they just end as opposed to here, where they sort of sprawl and deplete.

Fremont

I must get back to work but couldn't resist adding this after aggravating myself by trying to navigate the Men's Health website in an effort to answer a methodological question I had. Men's Health ranked Fremont, CA, the #1 City for Men. Unreal.

And their website is a nightmare to use, at least with my low level of brain function at this hour... Linearity may be overrated, but I don't know what kind of multidimensional word association game is going on over there.

City Rankings

I've been working on my term paper for my Planning Theory class nonstop for days and have grown weary. I have been investigating various city rankings that are out there, and believe me, they are endless. The highlight for me must have been the Thin Strips (TM) Cough and Cold Capitals Index from Triaminic (R) and Theraflu(R) Thin Strips (TM) - done by folks Novartis hired basically. In case you care, Bakersfield, CA is the city where most residents are reaching for cough and cold medicines disproportionately often. Environmental stressors apparently play a bigger role than weather or being in close proximity to others. Thanks, PR Newswire!

Even ones that seem initially reasonable can turn out to be a bit absurd. Look at the "Indicators and Data" section of the Kid-Friendly Cities report and try to understand what they are really assessing.

However, I did just come across the updated version of Mean Streets which is all about pedestrian safety. It's really well done, straight-forward, and interesting. Surface Transportation Policy Project does a good job articulating reasons why pedestrian safety has gotten worse and better in some cities (the Orlando stats are scary), considers race and age a bit more in depth than their 2002 report, and also looks at our government's funding priorities. Check it out.

Time to enter the blogosphere...

Okay, I'm giving it a shot. I figured it a fun idea to try this experiment and see if the thoughts spinning around can be put to some sort of generative use or at least provide some entertainment value.

Also, I wanted to be able to respond to Cathy's blog, so I decided I could handle the "five minute" process of joining in. Unfortunately, the blogger people underestimate the amount of care required in settling on an acceptable blogname (and can you believe that leoblog was taken!).

So, leotrope it is. Inspired by the idea that my life is a spinning cylinder of a movie rotating round and around. And the blog captures some momentary glance. Or something like that.

Cheers-
Leo