Jodi and I attended our good friend Ben Krause’s gallery showing last Friday - a solo exhibition by another good friend of ours, a talented artist named David Peterson.

I’ve known David for a little while, and always loved his work. I take that back: I friggin’ love this guy and his work. Another disclaimer: we commissioned him to do a large piece for our home. I have watched his work over the past years, and I was looking forward to his solo show.

I remember walking in the gallery last Friday and being blown away. The show was amazing. As a techie/engineer-type, to me, his resin-based artwork resembles amazingly clear flat-panel like displays showing the most intricate, detailed patterns and colors. Pure blacks, and bright colors — amazing, just awesome. For even more of David’s work, check out his website at davidepeterson.com.

I got this letter from my pal Javier:

Dear englishspeaking friends

As you might have already heard, we’re planning a little roadtrip in may 2008 starting from Zürich to Odessa (Ukraine). We’ll be driving about 3000km in 10 days in a car that should cost less than CHF 500 (~ $425). The cars will be sold in Odessa and the profit will be donated to a local NGO.

Intrested in joining us? Write an email before the end october that contains the following information:

1. Teamname
2. First name, last name and email-address of every team member.

The maximum number of cars will be 20, so: First come, first served!

Gentlemen, start your engines!

Carlo, Duri and Javier

P.S.: Excuse our english, but it’s not our fault that your german sucks.

I’m sitting on the porch of the Georgia Tech’s Solar Home, listening in on the strategy sessions on regulating the power from the array of solar panels on the roof. The competition’s scoring system has all kinds of regulations, rules, and ways to earn points. This means the strategies range from making sure the electric car is drawing excess energy from the panels, while running the dishwasher to using passive cooling (opening the doors) versus simply saving up energy to complete the energy balance (no net loss) daily.

The competition is really heating up. Georgia Tech’s team is a bit bummed about their placement in the Lighting category. Their entire concept is based on Lighting — and is quite spectacular, with the best natural light of all the homes, in my humble opinion. Somehow, with their clever use of LED, florescent, and sun-light, they got placed last (20th), and not just last, but quite far behind the 19th place finisher. It’s quite baffling, and it’s dropped them from 2nd to 4th, which says a lot about how well they’re still doing in every other category.

The mood on the mall of DC is very cool. Last night, Jodi was giving me a “private” tour when Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) walked up with a few aides, and wanted a tour as well. So, Bernie and I toured the home with Jodi as our guide.

Georgia Tech’s Team Icarus is competing in this year’s Department of Energy sponsored Solar Decathalon.  Jodi has been working tirelessly for the past year on the house as part of her Architecture Master’s degree, or what I like to call her “early retirement” (only kidding honey).  Her impeccable design talents really show through.  She’s way too modest to blog about it, but, I, on the other hand, have to do some shameless promotion to give this blog its namesake.  Plus, I’m killing two birds with one stone by blogging about this awesome environmental cause as part of Blog Action Day 2007.

Just some insider facts about the Georgia Tech’s Solar Home:

• The solar panels covering the roof power the full home and home office, and an electric car.
• It has a sexy Bulthaup kitchen with a full glass window where a sink floats over it.  German, modern, industrial, clean lines with a Bisaza glass tile backsplash make this kitchen hott.
• It has a “transparent” roof — this is cool because all around the top of the roof there’s sunlight streaming in, and with the solar panels able to move on levers, this house lets in a serious amount of light.  This could mean lots of extra heat, but the aerogel insulation and clever shading do a good job of just letting light in and keeping heat out.
• The shower has a full floor to ceiling window for “showing off your assets” to your neighbors.  Actually, I can see this house on the side of a mountain or on the beach….

I’m going up to Washington DC to visit the competition, and Jodi this Wednesday through Saturday.  I’ll be tumbloging the event.  As it stands now, Georgia Tech is in 2nd place!

I just went down to Blockbuster Video (and had to re-sign up for a membership, it’s been so long), and rented 8 movies for a total of about 31 bucks (I got a free one).

I whipped out my trust copy of HandBrake (for the Mac).  Set it to iPhone, and hit rip.  My flight to Frankfurt is looking bearable already.

To Whom It May Concern:

Please accept my SECOND FINAL attempt at paying off a balance for a charge I did not authorize. You see, I haven’t used your crappy credit card since 2003, and somehow one of those Internet companies charged $14.95 to an already expired, non-activated card (which I still can’t figure out how they were able to do). Unbeknownst to me, your company purchased the previous Credit Card company, MBNA, through which this Georgia Tech Alumni Credit Card was issued, and never bothered to get my account working for your paperless billing system.

You reported my account delinquent, and closed the account without contacting me. Ever. When I finally decided to pay you losers off using your phone system, since you couldn’t take any other forms of payments, I found out a month later, that you charged me $10.00 for paying off my $19.00 balance (14.95 plus all those huge late fees). Please accept this payment of $21.50 which includes another $10.00 in addition to the $10.00 fee and $1.50 who-knows-what charge. Keep the damn change.

Thank you,

a customer you will never have to deal with again.