Item From the Past: Fortaleza do Monte

Sept 23, 2012

This from Reuters recently: “U.S. billionaire Sheldon Adelson opened his latest resort in Macau on Thursday, adding to a string of casinos in the world's largest gambling destination that has helped the high-profile donor to the U.S. Republican party earn most of his multi-billion dollar fortune.


“Adelson, chairman of Las Vegas Sands Corp and its Macau unit, Sands China Ltd, presided over the opening of his Polynesian-themed casino and Sheraton Macau hotel, adding to his Sands Cotai Central property, which opened in April.”

Ah, Macao. I wandered into the round Hotel Lisboa during my visit in September 1990 and watched a packed gaming room for a few minutes. Some tables were packed with people playing recognizable games, others playing unfamiliar Chinese games. It was one of the few casinos in Macao in those days, I think. Now there are many, catering to the many more Chinese who have disposable income in our time.

The Lisboa was only one stop during my peregrinations that long-ago day. I also visited the hilltop Fortaleza do Monte. Wiki tells us that the site’s official name is Fortaleza de Nossa Senhora do Monte de São Paulo. In English: Fortress of Our Lady of the Mount of St. Paul. In Chinese: 大炮台)

As you can see, it had a spot of topiary. Old cannons also pointed outward from the hilltop – maybe for protection against junk-borne pirates, or Dutch or British ships eager to claim the territory, once upon a time. The building in the picture has been converted into a museum, I’ve read. When I visited, it was mostly empty, and had only one function as Macao’s weather station.

July 10, 2012

Yesterday I got up at about 5 a.m. and set to work on a short article that needed to be done, and then worked on a larger article that also needed to be done. At about 7, I went back to bed, not thinking I'd be able to go back to sleep. But I must have, since I got up at 8 surprisingly refreshed. Good thing, too, because I needed to be considering what I had to do the rest of the day.

I finished both the short and the long articles by 10:30, with time for a quick shower thrown in. Then I drove to Glenview, a northern suburb, where I needed to take photos of a lunch gathering of a real estate organization. The event was at a kind of place I rarely see: an upmarket golf club, complete with all the posh trappings.

I took pictures of four groups of people, talking to them about their business, then drove back in time to pick Lilly up from her summer school class. When I got home, I took Ann to no-extra-charge, supervised swimming at a nearby park district pool, and then went home to write most of my daily column about the economy, as well as my next weekly contribution for another publication, along with a phone interview thrown in. I almost finished both bits of writing by about 4, when I picked up Ann and left her at home with Lilly, since I had another event to go to, this one in the southwest suburbs. Traffic was awful.

Never mind the details, the main thing was the event included a 30-minute walking tour of UPS' Chicago Area Consolidated Hub, a 1.5 million-square-foot package sorting and distribution facility. I'd never seen the likes of that. I was going to stay for the dinner, but I had something else scheduled in the evening: a concert to attend, scheduled before I knew I going to be doing these other things on the same day.

So I drove back home -- traffic was much lighter by this time -- picked up Yuriko and drove to the northern suburbs. We got to Ravinia only a few minutes after the concert started, and stood for the whole thing. We didn't mind a bit, because we got to see Natalie Merchant.

We got home by 11:30, and I polished off the work I hadn't quite finished in the afternoon, despite exhaustion. I filed the bastards just after midnight and went to sleep without much trouble.

A remarkable day. But I'm glad I don't have too many like it.

Creating Permanence in a Specific Location

Press releases include many kinds of information, from complete pabulum to surprisingly useful nuggets of information. Rarely anything I see in one surprises me any more, but today I found one that made me think: this can't be for real.

It concerned a residential development. The quality of the release, I hope, isn't a reflection on the property, though very likely the development will be a fine place to live. This following are the first two sentences of the release, verbatim.

The uprise of building projects in general always show a good sign that the market is turning around for the better. The specs of this listed project while as a whole is impressive, it is not what makes this project the standout in Florida, but instead the standout project in all of the U.S and that is something to be excited about."

Mind you, this went out on PRWeb, so someone paid to have it published. Even though, as you continue to read, you can't help feeling that the writer isn't a native speaker of English.

With the housing market being in the current state of turmoil, consumers are seeking alternative options. The other options include luxury residences such as renting, which do not necessarily involve a mortgage payment or creating permanence in a specific location.

The buildings will be an amazing two to three stories high featuring single flats around 800 square feet to 3 bedroom units including parking garages. There will be a mixed population of occupants including families to singles. With 456 units, this green project will touch many different groups.

There are several individuals that will experience building green and others that will be lucky enough to live green. This is the future for building and we are spreading the message of sustainable building and healthy living.

I can see the writer's giving it the old college try in that weird language, English. But it's a slog for us native speakers to get through, and I can imagine releases of this kind being ignored by members of the media, something you don't want if you're paying to get your message across. The takeaway? Hire a writer from within your language group.

(This, on the other hand, is an example of a well-written press release.)

Springtime Misc.

Recently I interviewed a fellow at Pure Industrial Real Estate Trust, a company whose portfolio is made up of industrial buildings in Canada (I'm using the commercial real estate definition of "industrial," mainly warehouses and distribution centers). The company's acronym is PIRET. I didn't think anything of it until he told me that its symbol on the Toronto Stock Exchange is AAR.UN.  You know, ARR like a PIRET says, he told me. I got a kick out of that.

I pull up Google News every day and see more stories about the election, mostly horse-race coverage. Do I want to read this? No. The election is six months from now. I know who's running. I might take a passing interest when the Republicans fill their VP position, but other than that, this mess can wait till October.

Lilly and I saw some cool cloud-to-cloud lightning this evening, off to the east, where it must have been raining. She hadn't been aware that lightning could do such a thing. I told her that it could; a meteorological teaching moment. Ball lightning didn't come up, though.

Ann did her state report recently: writing, making a cube with pictures and drawings on it, and doing an oral report with props. She picked Texas as her subject. I was able to supply her with a number of props: postcards of various Texas spots, a plastic bluebonnet, a bag of Fritos, a 21 X 34-inch Texas flag that I hang in my office. She said a classmate held it up while she did her report.

But there was more. She wanted some Texas songs. She'd read that "Texas Our Texas" was the state song, so she wanted that on tape to play the class. I didn't tell her how seldom I'd heard it growing up, or the fact that a lot of people — a lot of Texans — think "The Eyes of Texas" is the state song. She wanted two others, and asked me for suggestions, which is a recipe for me suggesting something unusual.

Which I did. I suggested "Galveston," which I hadn't heard in some years. Not really about Texas, though part of the theme, and she took to it, maybe because she'd read about the city in one of her books. It's an example of song that's melodically peppy yet lyrically poignant. Not nearly as many people know the follow-up song, "Dear John, From Galveston," in which the narrator is so upset after receiving the title letter that he takes out an entire nest of Germans or Red Chinese or Viet Cong single-handedly in a berserk fit. Not to worry, he only lost a couple of fingers and some hearing in one ear, and lived out his days quietly as a family man in Houston — he married another girl — working as an appliance, and later car, salesman.

The other song I suggested was "Across the Alley From the Alamo," which doesn't have all that much Texas in it either, except for the essential ingredient of the Alamo, added for euphonious purposes. We played all three songs on YouTube, taping them on one of the tape-using microcassette-recorders I quit using a few years ago in favor of a digital recorder, and she played them for her class. Lo-fi, but passable. If that doesn't count as fair use for educational purposes, I don't know what would. It isn't likely that any of the other kids had ever heard those songs, and maybe the teacher was unfamiliar with them too.

201 W. Madison, the Poetry Garage

Snow tonight, the kind we usually get often from December through February, not just on scattered days during the winter. The entire day was cloudy, with some drizzle. In the early afternoon, I looked out the window and saw light rain and large snowflakes falling together -- almost straight down, since there was little wind. There was no reason to go out today, so I didn't.

Yesterday I needed to be downtown for a few hours. On the way back to my train, I noticed that the parking garage at 201 W. Madison now calls itself the Poetry Garage. I used to pass by that structure often, but never noticed that it had a floor-remembering scheme. I've seen other such memory schemes, of course, including one featuring a different Chicago sports team for each floor at the long-term parking garage at O'Hare. But this is the first one I've ever noticed, and may be the only one anywhere, that uses poets or any literary figure toward that end.

"Each level will be represented by a culturally significant poet from various historical periods and poetic genres," says the facility's web site. "Sights and sounds of poetry will entertain parkers and enable each guest to remember where to find their car. With a facade designed by Lucien LaGrange, this architecturally significant parking garage was designed to exceed the stringent and evolving city aesthetic code requirements for parking garages."

I'd be surprised if the city's "aesthetic code requirements for parking garages" is actually that strict, but never mind. Good idea, Lucien, if that was your idea (he's an architect I've met a few times). The poets and their floors are as follows:

2nd Level: Billy Collins, "Forgetfulness."
3rd Level: Ernest L. Thayer, "Casey at the Bat."
4th Level: Emily Dickinson, "Success is Counted Sweetest."
5th Level: W.H. Auden, "The More Loving One."
6th Level: Alberto Rios, "The Cities Inside Us."
7th Level: Kay Ryan," A Hundred Bolts of Satin."
8th Level: Carl Sandburg, "Languages."
9th Level: Langston Hughes, "Harlem."
10th Level: Robert Frost, "Mending Wall."

Shangri-La Interrupted

Back when I first toured Trump Chicago in early 2008, I took note of the project not too far away, on the other (south) side of the Chicago River, which had just begun construction. Called Waterview Tower and Shangri-La Hotel, it too was to be a high-end hotel/condo mixed-use development of large proportions, like Trump's building. Developers were thinking big back in the mid-2000s, after all. The idea was that many buyers would not be Chicago residents at all, merely the ultrarich who would want a residence in Chicago for those occasions they came to town.

The Trump Organization had better timing. Better luck, in other words, though the number of businessmen who will admit that luck has been a factor in whatever success they've had is vanishingly small. Trump was planning his Chicago structure as early as 2001. It was, in fact, scaled down on the drawing board from "the tallest building in the world" right after September 11, 2001, to something a little less tall. In any case, Trump Chicago managed to get it out of the ground and mostly built before the Panic of 2008. Or just as importantly for a real estate project, before the Credit Freeze of 2007. (Events that deserve capitalization.)

Waterview Tower and Shangri-La Hotel, by contrast, wasn't so lucky. Crain's Chicago Business noted last November that "the original developer... had planned a 90-story tower with 233 condos and 200 hotel rooms but never secured a construction loan to fund the project and ran out of money in 2008. After 16 months of litigation over more than $100 million in unpaid bills, a consortium of contractors... took over the property in May [2010] and has been seeking buyers ever since."

So far, no dice. And so the building stands there partly finished at the corner of Wacker Dr. and Clark St., a very prominent place in downtown Chicago. The place was a little eerie. There was no activity of any kind that I could see, just the shell of a building.

Such is real estate. People imagine that real estate developers are loose cannons, but no. They would be if they could be, but in fact they answer to the money men.

Trump Chicago

I'm glad I went downtown today instead of last Tuesday, during a period of deep cold, or the Tuesday before last, when the Blizzard of '11 was preparing to slap metro Chicago around. It wasn't exactly warm today, but not so cold that I couldn't walk without much discomfort from Union Station to the Trump International Hotel & Tower to attend an event there. I hadn't been inside the property since it was so new that the hotel was getting ready for its soft opening and the top of the tower wasn't yet completed -- about three years ago.

Trump Chicago still looks like this from the street. I considered taking some pictures inside, but I didn't really have time for it. Besides, the meeting space and corridors I saw, while poshly elegant in precisely the way you'd expect -- except maybe the deco touches in the lamps -- didn't offer up the kinds of things I like to take pictures of. Such as anything under the category of Odd Hotels at Hotel Chatter.

I will say this about the place: Every hotel employee I encountered, maybe a half dozen or so, was extremely solicitous, even if it was just in the tone of voice as they greeted me. That can't be an accident. It has to be Trump Organization training, which must put an emphasis on paying attention to anyone and everyone who comes through the door. You can't tell just by dress any more who has the big bucks, and of course Trump wants its guests to part with some of those bucks in return for the experience of the property.

I noticed for the first time a large steel plaque on N. Wabash Ave., fixed like a sign in the sidewalk near the entrance of the hotel. It said: "Trump International Hotel & Tower • Recognized by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat as the • TALLEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD WITH AN ALL-CONCRETE STRUCTURE • Second Tallest Building in North America • Sixth Tallest Building in the World... 21 October 2009."

There's the Trump braggadocio the world knows and doesn't love. I was glad to see it.

The Endless Ring

I've been inconsistent about this over the years, but time for the MLK holiday to be a no posting holiday. Back on Tuesday.

Today was a monochromatic day. Full grey overcast skies hanging over just enough snow cover to obscure the ground, all the while at some degrees below freezing, where the temps are predicted to stay for a while. We're entering the pit of winter. But at least the days are slightly longer now, just enough to be noticeable.

I wrote this recently about a dorm -- I mean, a fairly new student housing community near, but not on, a university campus: "[It] is comprised of two‐ and four‐bedroom units. Amenities include outdoor basketball and volleyball courts, a fitness center, game room, computer lab, tanning salon, pool and spa. [The property] also includes... retail space, and is also near [shops], restaurants and entertainment venues."

It sounds like an excellent property and a fine place to live. But the description also inspires curmudgeonly thoughts. Students need all that? They're students. They ought to be pretty good at inventing their own diversions.

I'm reminded of an amenity we had in the dorm I lived in exactly 30 years ago, a place called East Hall. That is, we had a telephone in the room. Bet most new student housing doesn't have that.

The box was fixed to the wall, of course. It had a rotary dial and, remarkably, there was no way to disconnect it, either the receiver from the cord or the box from the wall. That's not important unless it starts ringing in the middle of the night for no understandable reason, which is what happened periodically. And I don't mean a regular series of rings, but a constant ringing. One time we let it ring just to see how long it would ring, and the thing went on for about five minutes, until our next-door neighbor, a fellow called Spoon, banged on our door demanding that we stop it.

Usually, we would take it off the hook, which would stop the ringing (and there was nothing but silence in the receiver). But then we'd hear a fairly loud zzzt! zzzt! zzzt! to let us know that the phone was off the hook. That was just as bad as the ringing. Hanging it up again usually brought back the ringing. Soon we settled on putting the receiver into a nearby drawer, wrapped in towels. That usually muffled it enough, especially if the room's steam heat or the air conditioner were running. (We had those amenities, too; it was toward the end of the 20th century, after all.)

I'd forgotten about that damned phone until I paused today to think about my accommodations all those decades ago. Sometimes it's good to have an adversarial relationship with part of your dwelling space, as aggravating as that can be at the time. It teaches, or hones, problem-solving. Students living in a resort-like community might miss out on that kind of experience.

Homes Fit for McDuck and Glomgold

I filed a story earlier today that might be the only time in my professional writing career that I'll be able to mention the world's two richest ducks. Even better, the reference fits the story (actually just three graphs of a column), which is about Walt Disney Co.'s curious new plans to develop an upper-end residential community at DisneyWorld. Upper-end, as in resort homes for which the Mouse will ask $1.5 million to $8 million each. It seems like a contrarian play, but I suppose if anyone can make it work, it's Disney.

"Not every player in the new-home game is discouraged, however," I wrote. "Certainly not Walt Disney Co., which unveiled plans on Wednesday to develop vacation homes at its Walt Disney World resort in central Florida. Not just any vacation homes, either, but properties aimed at a distinctly upscale clientele — say Scrooge McDuck or Flintheart Glomgold."

For those unfamiliar with Flintheart Glomgold, familiarize yourself immediately. And then go to the main page of Who's Who in Duckburg to fritter away even more time. Or maybe "fritter" isn't the right word; the Ducks were part of my education, after all. But I realize that not everyone was fortunate enough to grow up in a house stocked with 1950s and '60s vintage Walt Disney's Comics & Stories, or have a subscription Walt Disney Comics Digest during most of its run, but the Internet can partly make up for that in our time.

"Bug Bomb Explodes in Apartment Complex"

I scan Google News many times a day in the course of my work, and I feel like I live a nice, quiet life when I put in the word "apartment" into the search function. I'm not looking for lurid local-news stories, but information about the apartment market. Still, I mostly get the kind of items that lead on local TV news.

If I were more simple-minded than I am, I might conclude that apartment dwelling is dangerous, conveniently forgetting the many years I lived in apartments without serious incident. Unless you count the time a neighbor down the hall at the Sunshine Mansion in Osaka had a cooking fire, and the rest of us residents got to see Japanese firemen in action. But they didn't even make us leave the building.

Anyway, I ran such a search at about 10:30 this morning and Google offered me the following menu of headlines, in exactly this order:

Blaze Destroys Apartments in Far East Dallas
Police Find Explosives in Chicago Apartment
Fire Destroys NJ Apartment Building
Dozens Displaced After Two Apartment Complex Buildings Burn in Starkville
Fire Guts Apartment in White Plains
Newhallville Apartment Blaze Was Arson?
Suspected Robber Shot and Killed at East Armour Apartment Building
Asheville Police Investigating Shooting at Apartment Complex
Bug Bomb Explodes in Apartment Complex [!]

Bug bomb, eh? I had to look at that, even though it was a Fox News story. Dateline Los Angeles: "An explosion from a bug bomb gone bad damaged some apartments in a four-story building on Sunday but no injuries were reported from the mishap." Helpfully, a video attached to the story explained that a moron (my term) set off a number of bug bombs simultaneously in a room that also contained lighted candles. "No injuries" was incorrect, if the video is to be believed, since it shows the fellow with minor lacerations to his head, the result of flying debris.

The Halsted Pershing Business Center

Not all buildings get to be Italianate mansions or steel-and-glass creations by starchitects (see last week and the week before). In fact, very few do. Much more common, and arguably more useful, are ones like the recently completed industrial structure I visited on the South Side of Chicago last week.

I drove through heavy rain to get there early in the morning. I stepped inside to attend a breakfast event, and saw this.

It isn't what you'd call beautiful, and doesn't reflect innovative design, but it's got muscle. Steel to give the box shape, concrete panels to keep out the elements. Wiring to bring in electricity for useful tasks, and HVAC to make sure the box doesn't get too hellishly hot or cold. Blue-collar work is going to happen here.

The only part of the structure not yet complete are the tenant buildouts, mainly the ultra-smooth floors. Highly smooth floors are very important in the scheme of things for industrial buildings, especially if the building is being used in any kind of warehouse or distribution capacity. If you need to move around items that weigh a lot using machines that weigh a lot, and move them quickly and without mishap, you're going to need really smooth floors.

Anyway, this particular building is 104,800 square feet but expandable to 200,000 square feet; built on 6.96 acres; has ten exterior docks and four drive-in docks; ten spots for trailer parking; ESFR sprinklers (trust me, that's the kind you want); and 30-foot clear ceilings. About a third of it is slated to be leased so far. But I'm sure that the leasing agents will be able to lease the rest before long, since the facility has good highway and railway access, as well as proximity to the Chicago CBD.

About 100 people came for the breakfast. Some probably wanted a look at the building, but more probably turned out for the breakfast speaker, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. That helped get me out of bed, since I knew I could quote the Senator for an article. Looking at the map of Chicago beforehand, I realized I would have the opportunity to see two Illinois Senators on the same day if I went to the event, and that clenched it. More about that tomorrow.

A Red Faux Fur Cape and Loincloth

Got a press release recently that falls in the "I can't make this up" category. Where would we be without entertaining press releases? Actually, only a handful ever count as entertaining, but they do show up over the transom sometimes.

Since I don't want to actually provide the man any publicity -- even at the low level of a few Blogger and Facebook readers -- unless he gives me something in return, I'm changing his name, and the name of his book (though with the information I'm giving, Google will provide his name, if that's what you really want). I will say that he's a developer of expensive houses in an expensive part of the country who apparently chalks his success up to God.

Anyway, it's a long release, but this was my favorite graph: "Capt. Geoffrey T. Spaulding’s second book is the spiritual/inspirational The Thump -- a book that shows how to act on life’s great 'thump moments' -- embracing the rewards and responsibilities of a blessed life. He believes that responsible stewardship of his resources has been the key reason he has experienced such astronomical success and he has a deep belief that God presents life-changing opportunities, and it is up to us to share our time, talent and treasure with others less fortunate. Known for his flamboyant style, whether it be posing in a red faux fur cape and loincloth or dressed as an angel coming out of a coffin, it all comes down at the end to helping others. The Thump offers an inspiring yet practical guide for those who want to succeed at a higher level in the most important business of all -- the business of life!"

Unit 3D, Imaginal Lofts

It's been an odd amalgam of September and November here during the first few weeks of this October. It seems that the leaves are still a lot greener than they should be -- and yet it's chilly just about every day, near freezing at night, with a lot of gray, drizzly days. We've mostly been lacking those crisp, bright October days.

I toured an unfinished condo project recently. Mostly finished, it seemed, and it was a handsome development on the inside -- blond woods, stainless steel in the kitchen, a more complex layout than you usually see in a condo. The person who had planned to buy it (actually an old friend) showed it to me, explaining that he was glad that he couldn't get a loan after all. I saw some leaky plumbing, but my guide explained it had been damaged during cleaning.

Then the developer spoke, via loudspeaker, about the property. He asked me if I liked it. All the units were connect via loudspeaker, and I wanted to leave. It turned out, you see, that I was dreaming. Literally. Has real estate has seeped into my unconscious? I'm not sure that's a good thing.

RIP, Melvin Simon

Something I should have known but did not: Melvin Simon, who died today, was the producer of Porky’s, among other movies. Mel Simon, you ask? Mall mogul Mel Simon, that’s who. The company that he co-founded with his brothers in the early days of U.S. malls, now called Simon Property Group, currently owns more retail space than anyone (263 million square feet or so: or about 9.4 square miles of gross leasable area.)

I never met the man, though I did interview one of his daughters about 10 years ago at Simon HQ in Indianapolis. Apparently in the late ’70s he decided to have a go at Hollywood, and managed to produce Porky’s and its sequel, as well as some lesser-known titles, such as Zorro, the Gay Blade and Chu Chu and the Philly Flash.

I admit that I saw Porky’s, on tape in the early 1990s, because I didn’t know much about it beforehand. It came out when I was in college, a time when I saw few new movies, so I'd missed even hearing much about it. I was long past the target demographic -- dim 12-year-old boys -- when I finally did see it. I didn’t get much out of it.

According to the AP: “ ‘I did about 25 movies and I got out of it, thank God — it didn't cost me any money ultimately,’ Simon told The Indianapolis Star in 2002. ‘It was a good lesson, and I wouldn't do it again.’ "

RIP, Mr. Simon.

Chicago Chinatown '09

This song comes to mind when I visit a Chinatown. One of the many things that occurs to me, but I have to like a song that begins, "I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand."

Lee Ho Fook is still around, according to ChinaWok.com. I remember in 1994 being startled in London's Chinatown to see that it was a real place. Maybe Warren Zevon had some good beef chow mein there once upon a time.

Chicago's Chinatown is larger than it used to be, even in the time since I first visited in the late 1980s. Chinatown Square, a residential and retail expansion, began in the 1990s, though the planning stretched back to when Harold Washington was mayor of Chicago. To reach the older core of Chicago Chinatown from Ping Tom Memorial Park, you walk through the newer development, first apartment (or condo) buildings, then the open-air mall.

"Framing each end of the square are imposing bronze gates depicting the 4 greatest Chinese inventions," says Chicagochinatown.org, but I wasn't able to check those out, since we were seeking out lunch after we arrived, and had a boat to catch when we were leaving. So I don't know what Chinatown Square considers the four greatest Chinese inventions. Gunpowder comes to mind right away, and it would be interesting to see that rendered in bronze somehow.

Wentworth Street is main street of the older Chinatown. We didn't eat at Won Kow, but I've always liked its marquee.

The other side of the street.

From there, the Pui Tak Center towers over the street, and the Sears Tower in the distance towers over it. "Built in the 1920s, the architecture showcases traditional Chinese design," notes Chicagochinatown.org, regarding the Pui Tak Center. "Imposing green and red pagoda towers topped with walls of terra-cotta flowers and mother lions truly represent the majestic traditions of China. Inside, the reception hall represented the one and only indigenous Chinese shrine in the Midwest. Originally constructed as the On Leong Association Building, this historical landmark became known as the Pui Tak Center (Pui tak means to cultivate and enhance virtues), which is a social service agency run by the Chinese Christian Union Church, a local Christian organization headquartered in Chinatown."

Thursday Salmagundi

We've had a run of dry, sunny days here, but not quite with full August heat (except for last weekend). This week has seen low- to mid-80s F. for highs and remarkably cool temps at night. I have lunch out on the deck if I can, and walk around the neighborhood in the late afternoon if I can do that. Declining summer, it is. School starts in less than two weeks, and I've already seen peewee footballers out practicing in parks, a little earlier than I remember in other years.

It's been six years this week since we moved into this house with a deck. I did some poking around not long ago, and it seems like the theoretical value of the house since 2003 has described a path that pretty much looks like the Matterhorn. Or at least the Matterhorn as it appeared in an old Donald Duck comic -- smoothly up to a point, then back down again. The real question now is whether it's any lower than in 2003.

I don't intend to find out. Child incubation, the main point of having a suburban house, isn't finished yet.

Got some borderline spam today from someone encouraging me to play a geography quiz associated with Facebook. No thanks. Can't muster the desire to do quizzes on Facebook, though other people are welcome to them. I usually find that geoquizzes are either too easy (what's the capital of France?) or too hard (name the eight countries on the migration route of the coconut-laden African swallow).

I persuaded Lilly to take an online U.S. states geoquiz recently, one that gives you three chances to match the correct name with the correct state. Guess it on the first try and you get three points. A correct second try gives you two points and the third gives you one. A perfect score would be 150. She got 113, or about 75 percent. Not bad, but I told she needs to know all the states by the time she gets to junior high.

Two other oddities I forgot to mention about Star Trek in a recent posting. One was McCoy's motivation for joining Star Fleet -- a divorce had left him destitute. Really? That kind of thing happens in a world of no poverty and full gender equality? Besides, he's a doctor, dammit. You'd think he'd be able to find a job of some kind, unless the movie's trying to make some point about the long-term (really long-term) impact of socialized medicine.

Also, in passing, I heard Capt. Pike tell the young Kirk that the Enterprise was being built at the Riverside Dock, or Shipyard, or something. I know I heard Riverside. A tip of the hat to Riverside, Iowa, which calls itself the future birthplace of Capt. Kirk, just because no place else had thought of it first? Some years ago, I drove through Riverside and managed to see this, but not this.

View From a Runway

Last Friday was probably the one and only time I will ever stand on an airport runway. I've deplaned onto tarmacs, but that isn't what I mean. By "stand on an airport runway," I mean stand smack in the middle of a stretch of concrete that airplanes typically use to land and take off. And I don't mean a runway at some general aviation airport. I was on a runway that could land a jumbo jet.

I didn't break any federal laws to take in this peculiar vista, since the runway is part of an airport still under construction, and I was the guest of the airport authority, so I could look around and write about the place. Write about it again, actually. To quote myself from an article I did about three years ago:

"Built it and they will come. Occasionally that happens in real life, and in the case of Bay County, Florida, it's about to happen in a big way... 'It' in this case means a new international airport in Bay County -- the first major airport developed in United States in years. 'They' mean home-buying retirees from the Midwest and Northeast, time-sharing vacationers, beachfront aficionados and spring-break revelers, real estate investors, developers, speculators and flippers. The rush is just beginning."

The rush might be delayed by the current state of the economy, but the airport's going to be ready for them when they eventually come, as they surely will. People familiar with the project told me that construction will be done in about a year. When I was at the new Panama City airport on Friday, only part of the the skeleton of main terminal building looked finished, and none of its exterior was; the control tower was just a stump; and an enormous pile of asphalt stood near the runway, waiting to be used in some part of the project. Workmen here and there attended to parts of the project. A couple of cranes were hoisting things. Earth movers were scraping away earth.

Still, the basic structure of the runway was there, long and flat. Flatness in both lengthwise directions, so far that it almost extended to the horizon. A thin rim of greenery marked that horizon, which was sandwiched that day between a bright blue sky with puffy white clouds and the reflected brightness of the white runway surface. As the picture shows, the surface sported a lot of tire marks.

The surface was still unpainted, so I saw no alphanumerics or other symbols known best to pilots, but I did notice that the surface was grooved, for traction. Our guide said that the slight slope to either side directs the rain off the runway, and I couldn't help but think of way Roman roads deflected water, even though the comparison is probably off. There was no threat of rain on Friday. It was sunny, and it was Florida in mid-May, yet the spot wasn't quite as hot as I'd expected. Could be that the whiteness of the surface bounced some of the heat away.

So even if I hadn't seen anything anything else on this latest trip to Florida, I'd count it as a success, in terms of novelty. But I did see other things between flying down late last Thursday (to the existing airport) and returning early Sunday: parts of Panama City and Tallahassee, long stretches of state and national forests lush with the Southern summer, a couple of small-town Southern cemeteries complete with ancient trees and their Spanish moss, a pair of capitols, the site of an explosion heard 100 miles away in Pensacola, docked fishing boats smelling of recent cargo, a lighthouse, a delightful city park that included a Huey helicopter, and this item:

This statue can be found near a small office building at E. 1030 Lafayette St., Tallahassee, Florida. No indication of why it was there, but I suppose it was because the property owners wanted a statue.

A Slight Difference in Latitude

A couple of inches of snow fell last night, meaning that the view from my back door this morning looked pretty much like this again, though it has mostly melted since:

That's actually a picture from Sunday morning, March 29. Roughly 48 hours later, thanks to the infrastructure that makes modern travel possible, I was able to point my camera at this view:

This is the Pacific Ocean at Punta de Mita in the state of Nayarit, Mexico, on the last day of March, 2009. Here in Estados Unidos de América, most of us have heard of Puerto Vallarta. I never actually saw more than about 10 minutes of The Love Boat, yet somehow I know that PV was a major port of call for that vessel. To an even earlier generation, The Night of the Iguana put the town on the map.

Not so Punta de Mita, also simply known as Punta Mita. "I say Punta Mita and I get blank stares," said an American expat we met during our visit. "So I say it's near Puerto Vallarta, and that gets a reaction."

Puerto Vallarta lies midward on the enormous Bay of Banderas, where the Rio Cuale meets the sea, a setting made all the more picturesque by the Sierra Madre in the background. Punta de Mita is a peninsula that defines the northern extent of the Bay of Banderas. The peninsula has a slender neck and more generous proportions toward its tip, with a small set of high hills marking its interior. From there, the land slopes to the sea, mostly in a way suitable for building. The peninsula is ringed by over nine miles of shoreline, sporting the classic white-sand beaches that make it into brochures but also rocky cliffs that look down onto scenes such as this:

As a resort- and second-home development, Punta Mita is in rompers. Serious development of the peninsula really only got under way in the late 1990s, with the Four Seasons Punta Mita opening in 1999. Later developments include a St. Regis resort, which opened in 2007, a number of residential properties and a couple of Jack Nicklaus-designed golf courses. A fair amount of other development has yet to be realized, though in the fullness of time I don't doubt that DINE, the master developer of the area, will achieve its aims. DINE, formerly a unit of Mexican conglomerate DESC but now a standalone commercial developer, probably Mexico's largest, is also at work on properties at Punta Ixtapa and Punta Gorda on the Pacific coast of Mexico.

My visit was in the dry season, so outside the lush green areas of the resorts and residential properties -- with their bright flowers and towering palms -- brown and gray and other earth tones dominated landscape, something like the one I see from my window at home this time of year. Northern Illinois is waiting for sustained warmth. The coast of Nayarit is waiting for the wet season, which I was told evokes a sudden, tremendous eruption of greenery and wildflowers.