CAHSR - Fresno's Station

California will be getting a station as part of the high speed rail network that is planned for the state. With trains traveling up to 220 miles per hour, high speed rail will move people across this great state very quickly and with a much smaller carbon foot print than other options.

The current plan for Fresno is to have the train come through the city on tracks that are 60 feet in the air! Read Kiel's great blog post talking about the design of the station when considering this extremely tall set of tracks. I find this most intriguing because a)these 60 foot high tracks will be at that level for 12 miles to avoid too large a foot print and b)60 feet is very high, especially considering Fresno only has a handful of buildings taller than this (almost all located within the downtown core).

What do you think?

Investment, Not Spending

If you are at all not sure about the concept of High Speed Rail, please please please read this post from the California High Speed Rail Blog's Robert Cruickshank.

I do want to share a couple of key points that Cruickshank makes that I think are really great.

1. Things in our country and specifically the state of California must change. The status quo is not acceptable, and as Americans we shouldn't be content on settling for the same old same old. We cannot stay reliant on gasoline and oil for much longer. Prices are going to continue to raise, and it's going to be harder and harder for people to drive everywhere and anywhere.
2. "Every HSR system around the world generates operating surpluses (including Amtrak's Acela) and are highly popular with riders." I really dislike it when people think that High Speed Rail will become some sort of political boondoggle when it has been successful throughout the world.
3. People in the US aren't so different from people in other countries around the world. The misconception of American's exceptionalism is a worldwide issue, because a lot of people in the United States think Americans are different and a lot of people in other countries think the same thing. People think that just because High Speed Rail works in every other country, does not necessarily mean that it can work in the USA. Its true that the US has been very dependent on cars in the last 4 or 5 decades, but I think one of the reasons rail and other sustainable transportation practices have not become as popular here is a lack of options. I have met very few Americans that haven't enjoyed riding trains when given the opportunity. We're all just people, and while there are definite differences between countries and cultures I don't believe there are that many differences between people.
4. We Americans are not permanently "wedded to our cars." At cheap gasoline prices (even current prices in Fresno, at about $3 per gallon) cars are easy to rely on. When gas prices head closer to $10 per gallon, like many places in Europe, there will be little choice but to ditch our cars and rely on environmentally friendly options such as mass and public transit. It is more the oil subsidies that are creating a reliance on cars than cars themselves.
   
5. If High Speed Rail is not built in California it will require the expansion of highways, freeways, airports, etc. with costs much higher than the cost of HSR. It's also important to note that highways don't pay for themselves in this country, and we are one of the heaviest users of automobiles.

If you aren't convinced about the importance of High Speed Rail, what are your reasons?

Downtown Fresno

As you know, I recently moved into the Iron Bird Lofts in downtown Fresno. Exactly one month ago today we moved in and so far it has been great.

These are a few of my favorite things:

• Raindrops on roses
• Whiskers on kittens
• Bright copper kettles
• Warm woolen mittens
• Brown paper packages tied up with strings

Some of my favorite things about living downtown:

• Short walking distance to a couple of cool restaurants/hang out places (Tokyo Garden/Luau)
• I'm only 1.1 miles from work, and I've even walked once so far and plan on walking much more often in the future
• Proximity to Tower District (less than a mile)
• The Iron Bird Lofts, the units are still filling up, and the Cafe is expected to open up March 1
• My balcony off my third-story bedroom
• Proximity to Fresh & Easy, Austin's, Library, Train Station, Yoshi NOW, and the baseball stadium
• My cool neighbors and all the great people I've met since moving down here

I'm very hopeful for the revitalization of downtown Fresno, I'm putting my money where my mouth is by living here and supporting the business down here. It is very exciting for me to see the progress that is currently being made, and while I haven't lived in Fresno (let alone been alive) the entire time that Fresno has been trying to revitalize it's downtown core, I truly believe that some pretty exciting things are in the works. To name a few:

• The Mayor's State of Downtown breakfast held this past week, almost 500 people were in attendance at this sold out event. $25 a head for breakfast shows how many people are in support of downtown revitalization
• More housing being built. While Iron Bird isn't full yet, I'm convinced it will fill up. A number of new complexes are being planned and built, and downtown (especially the cultural arts district) is starting to build some momentum that can only increase as more and more people move down here
• The Downtown Specific Plan/Fulton Corridor Specific Plan was unanimously approved by the Fresno City Council on Thursday, allowing for strategic planning of our downtown area
• City of Fresno is working on updating a lot of the bylaws that govern starting and operating business in downtown, current rules make it so difficult for businesses to start up and stay open downtown.

This is starting to create the perfect storm to push serious change forward, and a number of other things are only going to add to the momentum. The California High Speed Rail station planned for downtown Fresno will be great for the area and will be a great attraction for those looking at working and living downtown.

Pecha Kucha Vol. 5 - Fresno

This week was a big week for me as I FINALLY presented at a Pecha Kucha event here in Fresno.

I have had some ideas in the past as to what I would present if I ever decided to do so, so I finally decided to share some of my passion with the people of Fresno.

Watch my presentation here, thanks to James for putting this video together!

I think my presentation went well. I got a lot of compliments, and a fairly boisterous applause at the end (although I think I am attributing that to the 10-20 friends in the audience). My height was a disadvantage during the presentation, as I was probably the tallest presenter, and the mic was a little short (and I didn't bother raising it up). But overall I am very glad I presented, and I am looking forward to the the next time I can present.

My New Home

I have been interested in downtown Fresno for a while now, and I have been very interested in the possibility of moving to one of the many new lofts that have been and are currently being built in the downtown core. My roommate and I finally decided to take the leap last week and we applied for and were approved to move into a 2-bedroom flat at the Iron Bird Lofts.

Just this past Tuesday the first residents started moving into the lofts, check out this ABC 30 news story about the lofts.

There is a lot happening right now with the revitalization efforts of downtown Fresno. I truly believe that the direction the process is going is very positive, and I can't wait for my new home downtown to flourish with people, culture, activities, and art.

Earth Rings

Have you ever wondered what the sky would look like if the Earth had rings like certain other planets?

Watch this video and wonder no longer.

I find this very interesting for two reasons.

1. Science fiction shows/movies often show other worlds with rings or multiple moons, but I've never really thought about it applied to our own planet.
2. It's like a rainbow in the sky that never goes away!

(Via Presurfer)

Worst Finder Ever

One of my favorite blogs that I read is the Scott Adams Blog. Scott Adams as you may know is the creator of Dilbert and the Dilbert cartoons.

The Scott Adams Blog is full of wonderful thought exercises and brilliant ideas that may or may not be feasible, but the man has a creative brain that comes up with many thought provoking posts.

This recent post is more of a story than some of his other posts, but it is written very well and has a lot of humor.

Check it out, and I would strongly suggest subscribing to his blog.

Cell Phone Design

Check out these creative design prototypes of cell phones.



What would you like to see in the perfect cell phone?

Google Wave

I was lucky enough to get a Google Wave invite from my Dad a few weeks ago. If you haven't used Google Wave yet or even heard of it it's basically a new approach to communication and collaboration. You can read a little more about it here.

So far, I've mostly used it for short conversations with people that could more easily have taken place via email or facebook, but its a new toy so I want to play with it. I have used it a couple of times as a collaboration tool (very minimally so) and again, the type of collaboration may have just as easily been done on email. I think it will become more useful when utilized for larger, web-based collaborative efforts with multiple people. I think right now it is a little difficult to fully utilize it because not a lot of people are using it. Of course, I should also mention that its not even in beta yet, as it is still in "preview" mode. (I'm wondering if that is kind of like alpha...)

I did catch a glimpse of their maintenance page though today, which you can see here. It is a pretty cool maintenance landing page, with the text saying "Surf's out, dude. Google Wave is down for maintenance. Time to chillax."



If you have used Google Wave already, what is your opinion? What have you used it for?

Working Toward a Goal

While recently pondering my career and experience in retail I came up with this theory about working toward a goal in retail. One of the things that makes retail exciting and frustrating at times is the constant swimming upstream when trying to accomplish your goals. While I have found most other experiences in life to be a combination of heading in the right direction toward a goal and the occasional setback, retail seems to have much more fluctuation between getting closer to reaching your goal and getting further away.

I put together these charts to illustrate this point.



My experiences show that retail has many more factors that are working against you and something you accomplish can be completely undone just as easily and quickly. For example, if your goal is to increase the cleanliness and organization of your retail establishment you put together a plan to make this happen and carry it out. But, once you have a few customers in your store that decide your merchandise is better situated on the floor, the work you accomplished is all but canceled out. What compounds this problem is it's a daily occurrence. I said many times while working in retail that it would be a great job/industry/etc. if it wasn't for all those darn customers.

This theory of course does not apply to all retail situations. There are things that can be accomplished without major setbacks but they aren't necessarily the most noticeable. For example, human resource/staffing, customer service, and sales goals are situations that have a much more consistent line of progress.

In contrast, when you are working on a project in most other facets of life and business, when you complete a part or section of whatever you working on you have something to show for it that can't easily be taken away from you. Whether it is doing background research, working on a copy of a report, or making a presentation, most of the things you accomplish are done and won't need to be done over again except in isolated circumstances.

I think the biggest reason for this is that while in other areas of business and life the things you work towards and accomplish have obvious benefits to those involved (the client, the customer, etc.). In these situations you and the client or customer are usually both trying to accomplish the same thing and it is often not mutually beneficial to make someone redo the work they've just completed for you. In retail, customers might notice some of the things you do for them, but if they walk out of the store with the shirt/toy/tool they want it really doesn't matter to them what else is going on and if they made a mess of the work you have done.

In the same token, this uphill battle shouldn't be a reason not to try and reach your goals and become great. These goals (like the example above of keeping your store clean and organized) may have an important part to play in your brand and marketing efforts.

What do you think? How would you combat these issues both in retail or other areas where you find this same problem?