Rutting

[plonq]

A theme that comes up between atara and I on occasion is how easily we fall into a rut in our lives. One of the symptoms of such a rut is when our dine-out choices begin to narrow to one of about three restaurants that we really like. It is not that either of us are adverse to change, nor to trying something new or different, but it can be disturbingly easy to fall into a comfortable pattern. I brought it up the other day when making plans on our drive home, and these plans amounted to "stop at our usual sushi restaurant for dinner and then buy cat food at our usual pet store".

I joked about how we were falling into our usual patterns again, in spite of making repeated vows to try and mix things up now and then. I guess my comments must have struck home, because the next thing I knew, atara was talking about doing a free walking tour of the Exchange District. The tour actually sounded interesting; it was a scheduled 90-minute architectural tour of terracotta buildings erected early last century. The weather was a little ominous through the entire walk, but the rain held off until the tour was over. I gained a new appreciation for some of the old buildings around the city as I learned about their history, and had my attention called to details that I had long overlooked.

This building was not one of the ones featured on the tour, but we passed it near the end of the walk. I quietly disengaged from the crowd and wandered back to get a shot of this doorway. As far as I know, this place has not been open since I moved here, but this sketchy little entranceway with its painfully hand-painted signs has always intrigued me.


Obviously I ran this through a few bit of photo editing after the fact, but I rather like the way it turned out. It has that certain, grungy look that says, "Somebody had some photo editing software and too much free time on his hands."

Comments

[dronon.livejournal.com]

As for ruts, well... I still have mine. :-/

Terra cotta... architecture? But isn't that a material that can absorb water? Is that ok for a building?? (Obviously yes, 'cause they've used it; I'm just surprised is all.)

I like what you've done to the photo, it's like something you'd see in a good video game, where it's sometimes difficult to tell which parts of the scenery are based on real places vs. what a graphic artist has generated or tweaked. :-)

[atara.livejournal.com]

Here is the tour we took. Check out the PDF; it has a list of the buildings.

[atara.livejournal.com]

Here is the tour we took. Check out the PDF; it has a list of the buildings.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

The method by which they bake it renders it to a shiny finish that is no more prone to absorbing water than are bricks or concrete. Water can still get in behind it and cause damage through freeze and thaw cycles (like the kind we have in this climate), and the tour guide showed us a few examples of that kind of damage.

We've seen neither hide nor hair of you in weeks. How are you keeping?

[dronon.livejournal.com]

Life's been keeping me pretty busy with work and home tasks, yet strangely I have little to show for it. During the periods when I've had some time to myself, I've been using it to catch up on my backlog of Steam games. I was hoping to hang out with you guys around my birthday but you were busy; and then the next time my time freed up was during your trip to the west coast. :)

Meanwhile, what else... I've been getting some window estimates, I'm poking around on the new phone (Thanks for all your suggestions!), and I'm gradually going through my kitchen trying to use up ingredients that have sat around for a long time. Oh, and I tried a place called Dim-Sum Garden. Pretty middle of the road in terms of taste, selection and price. I don't particularly feel like going back.

And now it looks like tomorrow will be time to turn the air conditioning back on!