This is your captain speaking

It's never good to hear the captain speaking unless you are taking off or landing.

Yesterday my flight from Orange County to Denver was one of those travel nightmares that you hear about, but try to deny their existence in order to psyche yourself up for traveling.

It started out with a delayed plane at my gate in OC. Turns out that someone who was working in our Irvine office from KC was on that flight, so I chatted with him about the situation. Their flight had a bad parking brake (didn't realize planes needed parking brakes) and so they had been unable to leave for the past 3 hours. Since their plane was taking up the space at the gate, my plane wasn't able to come in. Eventually, a small tow truck arrived to move their plane out of the way. (Topic: Why would a bad parking brake require a tow? Discuss amongst yourselves.)

We were able to take off about an hour later and everything seemed to be going fine. Now to the aforementioned captain's announcement. He says that we can't land in Denver because there is a tornado. On top of the terminal.

We all flipped our 3"x5" LCD screens to the Weather Channel and sure enough.... there was a freakin' twister that appeared to be on the roof of the main terminal. The airport was completely closed. Not only was there a twister, but there was also baseball-sized hail. Six inches of it.

We continued to circle for about an hour before being diverted to Colorado Springs. Our pilot had hoped to wait out the storm, but it was only moving 5 mph. 5 mph! When was the last time you heard of a storm moving that slow?

On the ground in CO Springs, they wouldn't let us off the plane. There were several people whose final destination was CO Springs and therefore appropriately wanted to deplane. The captain said that unfortunately the airport there only has one set of stairs. What? Where is the Bluth Co. stair car when you need it?

Unfortunately, that one set of stairs was in perpetual use letting other passengers off other planes and they weren't able to get to our plane in the entire 2 hours we sat there. I kept waiting for one of those passengers to pop the emergency exit and escape down the slide. I would have if I would have known how crappy of a flight we were about to have from CO Springs to Denver, thanks to the storms.

By the time we landed in Denver (or DIA as the locals call it), my connecting flight was long gone. It was at this time that I set myself into Amazing Race mode. I silently thanked myself for changing seats to the first row earlier that day and sprinted up the ramp. I somehow managed to run directly into the Frontier Airlines customer service center. How is that for luck! I explained my situation to the lady at the desk and at first she seemed disinterested in my desperate plight to get on the next flight out. But when she found that there was only one seat on the last flight out to St. Louis, she was all over it! I've never seen someone type so fast! Why do they really have to type so much anyway? When I book tickets online, it's about 92% mouse and 8% keyboard. Regardless, she got the seat! I felt like I had Charlie's golden ticket.

The rest of the night wasn't as exciting. My second flight ended up delayed due to windshear, but I was just happy to not be sleeping on the floor of the terminal. I ended up getting to St. Louis at midnight, a mere 12 hours after leaving OC.

I want to live in Architectural Digest too. FML.

I want to know where the municipal code enforcers are in Venice. Apparently you can do whatever you want within your property lines! For real!! They seriously must not have any associations or codes or rules or anything. Anything goes! Want a giant sculpture of a head in front of your yard? No problem! Three foot drops off your deck into a moat of rocks? Who cares? No handrailing on your staircase? Go for it! Safety is for wussies!!

Today Tammy and I participated in the Venice Garden & Home Tour, which benefits the Las Doradas Children's Center. It's an annual event where homeowners allow you to come in and see the unique (and often dangerous) ways that they have chosen to construct their living space. It's a walking tour over a few blocks, but they encourage bike riding. We took Footbikes instead and it was awesome.

I've been a long time subscriber to Architectural Digest and these are exactly the types of homes that have always intrigued my imagination. The homes accentuate the outdoors, by merging the main living spaces of the house with a tranquil outdoor area. Even though some of the floorplans were small, the way they were connected to the outdoors completely made up for it. Most of them included either a gallery for the owner's artwork or sculptures or a studio. This really is the best way to make the most out of living in California. It would be hard to turn your 180 wall/door when there is a foot of snow out there.

I decided to just upload a whole bunch of photos I took, with emphasis on my favorite ones.

Okay, this house wasn't on the tour, but we couldn't help but to stop and gawk at this massive wall of books in the dining room! The whole front wall of that room is a gigantic garage door. Talk about a breeze!



This was my favorite house. Note the doors that open 180 degrees.



Same house, inside.



Same house... the family room wall opens out directly to the pool.



Okay, now this is crazy. Same house, this is a suspended plexiglas walkway and stairs that go up to the second floor.



Same house. This is the pool, which is small, but makes great use of the side yard space.



Same house, view from the street.



This is a different house, but they also made great use of a tight space with a lap pool.



Alright, this lady's home was our favorite until the one with the plexiglas walkway. Her house was small, but it was exquisitely decorated. It also has my new favorite flooring material, Terrazzo. It's the same floor my elementary school had! It's apparently making a splash in homes now. This picture shows a pod room that is her office. It's separate from the house and is on the deck. It's on casters so she can move it around as she likes. Very cool!



Here is another example of the 180 degree doors. LOVE THEM!



Alright, this is where I'm wondering where the code enforcement is. This is a set of "stairs" (I'll use that term loosely) that leads up to a loft bedroom above the kitchen. Would you want to climb that every day?


This next house was great. It was basically a rectangular box made out of concrete block. It was just like a loft you would find in an urban area. GENIUS!! You don't need to have a fancy floor plan. Just a rectangle and some structural steel!



Ahh. Bouganvilla.



This house was TINY. Or maybe I should say TINY. It was 400 square feet. The picnic table is almost as big as the house! However, the use of the outdoor space actually made it seem livable! Off camera there is a structure in the corner of the yard that is an art studio.



Ahh, corner couch.



Once again, how do these stairs without railings get approved!!! Tammy and I actually walked up them to see what was upstairs. It wasn't too bad going up, but going down was a bit weird. I'm assuming the homeowner's insurance wasn't aware that the general public was going up and down these all day....


I liked this place due to the creative use of exercise balls.



One more of my favorite doors. Definitely want this in my home that I design someday...