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Candyce, Norah, and I spent Sunday in Downtown Phoenix and Central Phoenix. We started the morning at Palatte for breakfast. If you live in the Valley and you haven’t been there–then you are missing out. Great atmosphere, live music, and tasty food. And for what it’s worth, it’s the best place to people watch on a lazy weekend morning.

When I first moved to Phoenix in 2001, I was disappointed that Central Avenue was so boring and undeveloped. What good is a city if it doesn’t have a lively central corridor? Apparently city planners knew this was a problem too, and they cooked up the idea to build a Light Rail to connect Mesa, Tempe, and Phoenix. After four years of construction, the Rail is ready for passengers.

In the big picture, the Light Rail will do more for Phoenix than any of the three cities because it imports a young population of college students to an area of town desperate for residents. This solves the big problem every city faces when trying to revitalize it’s forgotten inner core–convincing people to move there when there’s nothing to do. Nobody wants to live in a place if there are no places to go out to eat or go shopping. Unfortunately, entrepreneurs won’t open up those cool spots if there are not enough residents.  How do you solve the stand-off? Pipe in the pretty, young, and smart from ASU’s Tempe campus. Brilliant!

You don’t have to look far to know that the Light Rail has is making a big difference, even a month before it’s first run. There are countless restaurants, bars, and boutiques that have cropped up along its path, especially along Central Avenue. We had to drive slow just to take it all in.

I never knew Central Phoenix had so many beautiful neighborhoods. You find a lot of the same charm and style of Arcadia. That is, the Arcadia of five years ago. Investors should take note. Not convinced? Postino is opening a second wine bar in the area.

The Roof is On Fire

I love it when a building I hate burns to the ground. Take for instance, 105. E. Roosevelt St. at the corner of 2nd Street in Downtown Phoenix. Before I explain my distaste for the building, take a look at an image from Google street view before the blaze…

A moronic structure that deserved to burn

Why do I despise this building? For one, it’s sitting on a prime corner lot on Roosevelt Row, a fun part of town where you can enjoy concerts, art galleries, and coffee with friends. The building has absolutely no connection to people who stroll through the neighborhood. There is no welcoming landscape, no door, no shade from the desert sun. It’s anti-human.

On the practical side, it is really stupid to have a roof/wall facing south. Those dark brown asphalt shingle tiles absorb every minute of the sun’s heat. My guess is that they have to run the Air Conditioning 10 months out of the year.

The good news is that the building has a habit of catching on fire this year.  Either a vigilante is determined to burn it down, or a disgruntled owner has been dropping matches on his way out of the office with hopes of cashing in on insurance. That’s up to the police to decide. I’m just happy it’s gone.

I’d be even more happy if Macayo’s restaurant on Central burned as well. I know the designer wanted to make it look like a Mayan temple or something, but what we got was a bizarre stairnstep concrete structure that looks like bleachers for a football field. Believe it or not, this image from Google maps actually makes it look better than it does in real life.

Even with dorky buildings from past generations here and there along Central Avenue, Phoenix is still looking good. It’s more livable and lively than its ever been.

Jonathan from RED Modern Furniture came by my house and picked up my swanky Danish lounge chair last week, unofficially marking the end of my decade-long obsession with mid-century modern furniture. Without apology, I can now describe the style of my living spaces between Transitional and Restoration Hardware. I almost want to take time to expound, but I don’t have the time and I’m almost positive I’ve lost interest in this paragraph.

Instead, let’s talk about *the new hotness* that is the intersection of Central Avenue and Camelback Road. I haven’t been to that part of town months, but it seems like anything new and cool that I read about is within a stone’s throw of those cross streets. There are several clothing boutiques, Lola Tapas & Coffee Bar, Red Hot Robot, Stinkweeds Record Exchange, and the aformentioned RED Modern Furniture. Each of those spots are interesting for scrappy scenesters, but there’s not enough gloss to encourage the Y.U.P.s to come out after dark.

But that could soon change. The old Katz Deli (never heard of it till yesterday) was purchased by LGO and will open as Postino Central in January. That’s good news for uptown Phoenicians who tired of migrating to the Biltmore for a classy night out.

We attended the much anticipated Flip a Strip show at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art on Sunday. I was underwhelmed. Maybe the smallish exhibit had more context the day before when the winning designers were able to explain how they re-imagined tired strip malls around Phoenix. But standing alone in the exhibit and left to make sense of it myself, it seems to me that very few of the entries (if any) were interested in following the homework assignment of re-structuring blah strip malls.

The entries either promoted a single facet of utopia or a dramatic shift in the principles of city planning. What was noticeably missing was the space in between where responsible Real Estate developers can take notes on how to clean up the multitude of forgotten intersections within cities built around the automobile.

Here’s some photos from over the weekend, a couple taken at SMoCA:

Everyone knows how dull it is to get your emissions tested for your car. For those of you who’ve avoided this modern-day chore, this is how it goes…

You get a letter in the mail that your license plates are expiring. But before you renew your plates, you have to drive to an emissions testing station to have your car’s exhaust measured for pollution. The station is an open air garage that can service five cars at one time. Behind each service bay is usually 10 cars waiting for their turn. Imagine parallel lines of people waiting to pick up their food at the drive-thru at McDonalds. The end goal is to keep dirty cars off the streets, but the emissions testing station is one of the dirtiest spots in the city.

But the Arizona Department of Air Quality (ADAQ) is trying to solve the problem. They’ve set up webcams that update every couple of minutes that show everyone how long the lines are at each station around the city. Now you can gauge where and when you make the trip to the station. It’s a simple solution and everyone wins.

See it in action

Leg #1: Phoenix >> Chicago >> Pittsburgh >> Steubenville>
Leg #2: Steubenville >> Pittsburgh >> Charlotte >> Phoenix >> San Diego
Leg #3: San Diego >> almost Huntsville then Knoxville >> Atlanta >> TigerLeg #4: Tiger >> Atlanta >> Fort Meyers >> Ave Maria
Leg #5: Ave Maria >> Fort Meyers >> Atlanta, Atlanta, Atlanta >> Phoenix

Lessons of Love, by Way of Economics

First, the good news. I bought the New York Times in the airport and found a great article by Ben Stein: Lessons of Love, by Way of Economics. You should read the whole article, but here are my favorite excerpts:

In general, and with rare exceptions, the returns in love situations are roughly proportional to the amount of time and devotion invested. The amount of love you get from an investment in love is correlated, if only roughly, to the amount of yourself you invest in the relationship. If you invest caring, patience and unselfishness, you get those things back. (This assumes, of course, that you are having a relationship with someone who loves you, and not a one-sided love affair with someone who isn’t interested.)

Long-term investment pays off. The impatient day player will fare poorly without inside information or market-controlling power. He or she will have a few good days but years of agony in the world of love. To coin a phrase: Fall in love in haste, repent at leisure.

The Revolt at Terminal B -or- Delta Sucks

I had a two-hour layover in Atlanta on my way to Phoenix. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:30 PM, and since the thunderstorms had long since blown over, I was confident we would leave on time. I had no idea how many things would go wrong over the next 24 hours.

Since reading about boring travel drama is, well, boring, I’ll get to the point: they delayed our flight every half hour until we were finally able to board four hours later. I was snuggled into my seat preparing to sleep on the long flight to the west coast when the captain came on the speaker: “I’m sorry folks. This flight has been canceled. We’ve tried hard to get a flight attendant, but we are one short and we can’t make the flight. But there will be a gate agent waiting for you outside to help you rebook your ticket.” All 150 people stomped out of the plane and reluctantly formed a line. It was already 11:00 pm.

I got on the phone and called Delta because I figured it would be quicker. After a quick conversation with the man on the phone, he put me on hold. An hour and nineteen minutes later, I hung up the phone because my face was getting hot and I was losing my mind. During that time, only three people had actually gone up to the counter and walked away with a ticket. That’s 30 minutes per person. At that rate, it would take 75 hours to rebook everyone in line. That is almost three days.

Things got more miserable when I learned from the three people who actually got their ticket that they would not leave Atlanta until after 3pm the next day and that Delta couldn’t find any more hotel rooms. (Are you serious? They could only find three hotel rooms in the city of Atlanta?) Lets say we got lucky and were magically issued tickets for the next day. What were we supposed to do for the next 15 hours?

Even with this bad news, I felt fortunate because from what I could see, our line was the shortest line in the whole terminal. There were at least 300 people in the line three gates down. The place was starting to look more like a refugee camp. People were getting angry, yelling and slamming their fists on the counter. Throwin stuff.

At this point I realized something had to change. These things turn nasty real fast. I cornered a Delta employee and tried to explain the situation:

“I understand it’s been a difficult weekend for you all. The thunderstorms have caused a lot of difficulties that are beyond your control. I have no doubt that everyone here is working hard. But I don’t think your supervisors understand how bad the situation has become. We’ve been told there are no hotel rooms and no cars to rent. But there are elderly people here and mothers with small babies. None of us are able to get our luggage. All the restaurants and stores are closed and there is nothing to eat. I think if your supervisors understood how hostile it’s become here, they would send more employees to help.”

She gave me a blank stare and then barked at me: “Look around, you’re not the only one who’s upset.” Apparently something was lost in translation. I tried with two more employees. Nothing.

I called Stephen and told him there was about to be a riot if something didn’t change. I told him to call the local news and explain our story. He called three stations, and each said they already had people at the airport. I’m sure if I walked past security and to the front of the airport, I would’ve been on the news to explain the chaos on the other side. But selfishly, I wanted to get my ticket and get back to Candyce.

I ditched my place in the front half of the line after I got word that another line was moving faster on the far end of the airport. Really, what did I have to lose? There was no way I’d get a ticket if I stayed there.

Indeed, the other line was moving faster. I was the last person in my line to get a confirmed seat on a flight the next day at 6:30 PM, for a grand 24-hour delay. My celebration was short lived because once I had a boarding pass in my hand, they closed all lines and the employees went home.

There were no airline officials left in the terminal except two police officers sent in to keep order. Six hours before, we were dignified business travelers. Now we were treated like hoodlums. It was humiliating.

Survivorman

I rode the escalator down to the airport train with hopes of finding a less populous terminal to sleep in. I was too tired to walk. I just stood there, slowly descending down the stainless steel tunnel. Once at the bottom, I was alone at the airport train station. On the airport speakers played “Take My Breath Away” from the movie Top Gun. The train never came. I walked to Terminal C.

It’s important in situations like that to keep things normal. Try to make yourself at home. I walked into the bathroom to wash my face and wipe down my teeth with a paper towel. I looked at my face in the mirror and noticed the man next to me with a disgusting wound on his forearm. He dipped his soiled bandages into soapy water, then ringing it out as well as he could with the injury. My heart broke for this guy. “It looks like you’ve had a bad day. Can I help you with that?”

He explained that he was a welder by profession, and he had a chunk of metal removed from his arm earlier that day. His clean bandages and medicine were in his luggage which was nowhere to be found. He figured he would be just fine. He thanked me for the concern and he told me goodnight.

If you watch Survivorman, you know that it is impossible to sleep in the wilderness if you do not feel secure. It’s easier to sleep at the base of a tree than it is to sleep twenty feet away because your back is protected. After trying to sleep on a couple benches, I applied my survival knowledge and snuggled into a corner next to a the ticket counter. I was out in five minutes.

I woke up twice in the morning. The morning sun burned through the windows and lit up silhouettes of busy travelers walking confidently to catch flights. These were obviously new people. Each time I looked around and found new people asleep on the benches around me. My back hurt.

Into the City

I got up at 8 am road Marta into the city. I was starting to get depressed in the cage of the airport. Stephen picked me up at the station and few minutes later we were having breakfast at the Riah’s Bluebird, a cozy cafe off of Memorial Drive. I figured it was a new day and I needed to be alert, so I chugged a few cups of coffee after breakfast while we talked about the night before.

What I came to is this: that was just a really poorly managed situation. These are the kind of situations an airline is supposed to anticipate in advance so that when they come, you don’t enrage your customers by stealing away their dignity. I imagine that our story will get to a senior at the airline and many people will be fired. What bothers me most is that the solution was not far away. Delta is one of the largest employers in the city of Atlanta; it would not have been hard to call a couple dozen employees at 9PM the night before when it became clear that the situation was already out of control. But they didn’t, and because of that, there was chaos.

I was done complaining and asked Stephen to drive me around East Atlanta and Cabbagetown and show me what was new. I am in awe of how much those parts of town have cleaned up in the past ten years.

Back in 1998, I was a design intern at a web agency in a cool loft in between Little Five Points and Virginia Highlands. We were all hipsters who wanted to know about the next big thing online and around the city. I’ll never forget the day that James suggested we check out East Atlanta. (Isn’t that where people die?)

That night we went to an awesome pasta place and had a great time. We didn’t talk about it the next day. We never went back. None of us wanted to admit we were afraid of the hipster frontier.

Here we are, ten years later, and it’s become a great place to live, work, and play. Just look at the development called Glenwood Park just south of I-20:

Back in Phoenix

I got back into town yesterday. I was lucky to get on that flight because they put me on a plane that was supposed to take of today. (That would make a 48-hour delay with no hotel, no food voucher, no rental car.) I pleaded with the guy at the counter and he worked something out for me. Now I am back in my beautiful home with my beautiful wife. Soon we will have a baby. I’m probably not going to get on an airplane for the rest of this year.