Public steps make me happy.  I’m talking about those large stone or concrete steps that typically line plazas or porches.  They’re great places to sit and read, talk, eat lunch, and watch a parade of people thronging past.  Some of the best public plazas I’ve ever encountered have been located in Italy; I spent hours sketching in one of my favorites, the Piazza dei Signori in Vicenza, one summer during grad school.  The only complaint I have about public steps is that they’re a little rough on the hindquarters if you try to sit in one place for …

If you’re anything like me, you don’t spend much time around children and probably find them slightly unnerving.  I mean, think about how fast they’re growing.  It’s completely freaky.  Just consider this: if you measured a child’s foot when it was one year old and then you measured it again six years later, the second time you measured it, the foot would be a completely different size.

Image courtesy www.geekinspired.com
Feet grow, but shoes don’t.  What this means, of course, is that children go through an enormous quantity of plastic rain boots as their feet get larger.  And …

“There’s always that one [material] that will always have your heart
You’ll never see it coming cause you’re blinded from the start
Know that you’re that one for me, it’s clear for everyone to see
Ooh baby aw…
You’ll always be my boo” – My Boo by Usher feat. Alicia Keys
How can you not fall madly in love with bamboo?  It’s tall, ridiculously strong, and you can bring it home to your mother.  The source of bamboo’s heady blend of charisma and reliability is “its growth system, which generates a root system that produces 30% more oxygen and sequesters 35% …

One of the really nice thing about living and working in the United States is that individuals have the right to buy in bulk.  If you need six pounds of Country Time Lemonade mix, then you can go buy a six-pound canister.  If you want 48 pairs of identical tube socks, then you can purchase them in a neatly shrink-wrapped package.  Need a gallon of Vidal Sassoon shampoo or 60 grapefruit?  No problem. 

Image courtesy Inhabitat.com
None of this bulky goodness would be possible without a humble, often overlooked construction: the wood pallet.  The …

I love the name of this product:  Bendywood.  It sounds like someone Gumby would have befriended, or a trendy new subdivision on the outskirts of Las Vegas.  It’s also an accurate name because Bendywood is wood that you can bend by hand.

Image courtesy imagethief.com
Here’s how it works:  blanks of hardwood – beech, ash, oak, or maple – are steamed to soften the cell walls.  (Woodworkers are now scratching their heads and wondering how this is different from any other operation in which you’d steam wood to bend it, but take it easy …

I have a confession to make.  I’m not proud to admit this, but I can’t keep it to myself any longer: I do not like fungus.  There!  I said it!  I don’t like mushrooms on my pizza and fairy rings creep me out.  Those little ridges on the underside of mushroom caps remind me of dirty filters on air conditioning units; I don’t like how they’re spongy and dense, or how mushrooms taste like soil.  They live on dead things and grow in damp, dark places.  It’s not that I …