Showing posts with label Columbia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Columbia. Show all posts

Planned Cities are vastly better than unplanned cities. The Joy of Columbia Maryland, Almaden and Scotia, CA and Reston, VA

I Lived in Columbia, Maryland and Almaden, California. I worked in Reston, Virginia and have visited Scotia, California.

Columbia is an example of a truly outstanding design. It is based on small "pods" of homes and businesses that are interconnected by bike trails and roads. Every home is within walking distance of stores that sell basic necessities. This becomes crucial during snowstorms when all the roads are undriveable. Designed by James Rouse. It is home to the Merriweather Post Pavilion concert venue in Symphony Woods. Across the street is a Shopping Mall and Lake Kittamaqundi... sail boats and canoes for rent. Columbia is home to Howard Community College and Hobbit's Glen golf course. Yes, he planned for everything... and it's all within biking distance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia,_Maryland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Rouse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Kittamaqundi
http://www.merriweathermusic.com/

Almaden: During the 1960s IBM built a disk drive factory in the rural farmland near San Jose, California. Then they build homes for the employees, a golf course and a swim and racquet club. They believed that they could attract a higher quality employee if the living conditions were ideal. It worked. The concept of a the database was invented there. One of those truly epic ideas...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaden_Valley,_San_Jose,_California


Reston was a city built by Robert E Simon. Note his initials in the name of the city. Located near Dulles Airport it is a popular location for corporations. It is easy to fly into Dulles and take a taxi to a meeting. Having an airport close by was convenient for shipping our finished products to the customers. I worked for a defense subcontractor and Reston is close to the Pentagon and Washington, DC. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reston,_Virginia

Scotia was built for the employees of The Pacific Lumber Company. Their plan was to harvest 1% of the trees every year and plant a new tree for every one harvested. That "100 year plan" was designed to ensure that there would be work for the mill employees forever. In a hundred years, the new trees would have grown up and be big enough to harvest again. Sadly, Charles Hurwitz used junk bonds to do a hostile takeover of the company, cut down all the profitable trees, looted the pension fund, hid the money in Texas and then declared bankruptcy. Now the company has been purchased by the Fischer family and they have returned to sustainable logging.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotia,_California
http://www.jailhurwitz.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Fisher

There is a lovely coloring book of The Headwaters Forest.
Link: http://www.jailhurwitz.com/pdfs/hfcb_cover.html

On a personal note: If you and your friends drive over Blossom Hill Road from Los Gatos, California at night and you put Pink Floyd's "Division Bell" CD in the stereo... when you crest the hill and can look down on the sparkling lights of the city of Almaden... the band sings...
The grass was greener
The light was brighter
With friends surrounded
The nights of wonder
 it's all true and a really emotional experience...
You see, it appears that the lyrics describe what is actually happening... Cosmic...

I had the blessing of attending many rock concerts at Merriweather Post Pavillion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merriweather_Post_Pavilion
The Grateful Dead played there Six times while I was living on the east coast and I went to all six shows.
One night there was a thunder and lightning storm at dusk. Torrential downpour... all the power went out and we were treated to a drum duet played by Bill K and Mickey Hart. It appeared that they were incorporation the thunder into their music. A traditional tom-tom fill is "da da da, de de de, du du du, boom". They used the flash of lightning to predict when the thunders boom would sound...

As a special blessing, half the audience on the lawn area went home... That solved the overcrowding problem. The rest of us stayed and danced in the mud.

Sadly, the audience forced management to prohibit the Grateful Dead from playing there. One time there was a concert near July Fourth and the members of the audience set off too many fireworks after the concert. Since it is possible to buy rockets that fly up into the sky and explode in South Carolina (not too far away), that year there was a danger of setting Symphony Woods on fire. Oh Well... it all worked out because about that time the Grateful Dead became really popular and needed RFK Stadium to satisfy the demand for tickets.


psychedelic art by gvan42 Gregory Vanderlaan - City of the Future



psychedelic art by gvan42 Gregory Vanderlaan - City of the Future

psychedelic art by gvan42 Gregory Vanderlaan - City of the Future


psychedelic art by gvan42 Gregory Vanderlaan - City of the Future



CITY OF THE FUTURE!(lyrics)

we are living in the city of the future
all of us have hi-tech jobs...
we don't give a dam about unemployment
that only happens to low tech slobs
be a nurd!
be a nurd!
I'm a high-tech wizard
BE A NURD!
They used to laugh @ me
when I was in high school
the social in set was so very proud
but now when those people
are searching thru the want ads
they say "I want to be one of the 
computer crowd
be a nurd
be a nurd
be a high-tech wizard
BE A NURD!

a song I wrote... after seeing the movie "Starstruck" a silly Australian Musical... 

~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~

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Woodstock 50 - FREE CONCERT! At Merriweather Post Pavilion in Beautiful Colombia, Maryland... How to get Free Tickets "to be announced" ... Well, at the very least, the parking lot scene will be EPIC...

There are parking lots in Symphony Woods and a giant shopping mall right across the street... SHAKEDOWN STREET -  "Don't tell me this town ain't got no HEART!" boomp, boomp, boomp; bompa, bompa, boomp...  tweedleet!

Remember: Do not bring a lot of illegal fireworks... I remember that the Grateful Dead were "forbidden" from playing there because the people in the parking lots shot off a lot of fireworks, endangering the forest... Since people often drive South of the Border into South Carolina and buy Rockets that shoot up into the sky and explode... it's a real health hazard to play with them in Symphony Woods. 

https://www.tmz.com/2019/07/27/woodstock-50-free-concert-donations/

Woodstock 50 will be a free show to those lucky enough to get their hands on tickets ... though which performers will officially take the stage is still up in the air.


Sources familiar with the event plans tell us, organizers have decided to release tickets in the coming days free of charge. We're told a limited number of seats will be available for the show -- which has been moved to Maryland -- and instructions on how to get tickets will likely be posted by the end of the week.

Woodstock 50 Free Concert - free coloring book art by gvan42 Gregory Vanderlaan - feel free to print it and go wild with felt pens!
Woodstock 50 Free Concert 





The Grateful Dead were "Banned" from the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland because of too many fireworks in the parking lot... The venue is close to the State of South Carolina where people can buy rockets that fly up into the air and explode... SO...

I guess there was a danger of BURNING DOWN THE FOREST... anyway, the next Year the dead started Playing in a Basketball Arena... Maybe this is a true story or maybe they just wanted a bigger hall so more people could get in...

In Pittsburgh, PA I remember a lady had "Liberated" a Roll of bright orange Supermarket stickers that said "BONELESS" and she was sticking them on boys... I thought it was funny... Kind of a Pranksterish Thing to Do...  That was the Crosby, Stills and Nash & Dead Concert and there were many People from Canada and New York City attending... Great Show and The Three Rivers Stadium is a Perfect Circle with all the Echoes Cancelling near the Pitchers Mound... Yes, they did play "Teach Your Children" and Jerry Garcia played the Pedal Steel Guitar... 


At RFK Stadium in Washington, DC I men many Deaf Students from Gallaudet University... They said that Phil Lesh's Bass did not require Hearing using Ears as We could Feel it in the Stomach...
Photo of me demonstrating American Sign Language for the Phrase "Do you have any LSD?"
Photo of Gregory Vanderlaan demonstrating American Sign Language for the Phrase "Do You Have Any LSD?"

I love playing "Deal" on the Guitar... It's Really Simple... and Fun to Sing in Public... I Remember Playing that Song in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House in Washington DC and Some Homeless Guy said he Liked that song about a DEER... I guess I wasn't pronouncing the words accurately... In Contrast, a Homeless woman really hated "The Golden Road." The Lyric "She's a Neon Light Diamond, She can live on the Street" pissed her off...

~~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~~

I attended a Live Performance of Seastones at Winterland in San Francisco... The record has a lot of Classic Analog Synthesizer Sounds... He turned up the Resonance on the Band Pass Filter and Modulated the Pitch using a Low Frequency Oscillator... You Know that sound... Like Spaceships Taking Off in 1950's Science Fiction Movies... Thanks to Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead, Ned Lagin got a bit of NOTICE by the Deadhead Audience... Thanks Phil, for Finding him...

My real Gratitude is that I Bought an Analog Synthesizer and Played That Cosmic Outer Space Whoosh Whoosh Music Myself... Korg Poly Six and Roland SH-101 with a Micro Composer... 

~~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~~

I saw the Jerry Garcia Band at San Jose State, California... That was the only concert that I got to Dance Right next to the Stage in front of Jerry... I remember that he was drenched in sweat... Those Stage Lights are HOT! and it was Just too loud for me so I moved back after a while... The big song of the Night was "Lay Down Sally" by Eric Clapton. That is a really PERKY Song with a Difficult to play rhythm... Jerry was able to play it well... I remember the Bright Orange Streetlights after the show caused a totally odd color scheme...


Jerry also was able to Master the Rhythm of "La Bamba" while all the other guys seemed to be scrambling to keep up... at a performance at the Capital Center in Landover Maryland...

During the year I went to Howard Community College in Columbia, Maryland I studied FORTRAN and COBOL.

 I punched cards that were fed into a HP-3000 mini-computer. My final project for FORTRAN was to simulate playing a million games of Roulette to see if any betting system would be advantageous to a gambler. The answer is NO. For example: A betting system would be to place a bet on RED or Black: if you won-keep the money, if you lost-double your bet and play again. That way if you lost the first time but won the second time, you would still be one dollar ahead... The plan is to keep on collecting dollars... It would work unless you lost MANY times in a row. Eventually, the player either exceeds the table limit on how much a player can bet OR the player loses all his money and can't keep on playing. In general, this only happens if a player loses 7 or 8 times in a row... and in my simulation, I played a million games... and a losing streak always happened.

Then I took a couple of short term temp jobs thru an agency. One was working for an architechs office measuring old townhouses in downtown Baltimore and then drawing floorplans. We went out in groups of three. One man held one end of the tape measure and the other held the other end. The third watched the truck to make sure it wasn't stolen. The abandoned townhouses were being sold by the City of Baltimore for $1.00 but the new owner had to promise to put a lot of money into reconstruction. We were drawing the floorplans so the builders could estimate how much material to buy. Often these abandoned townhouses were very elegant... built at a time when people had marble fireplaces... but over the years they had fallen into ruin.

Another temp job was at Ward Machinery in Towson. They built machines that created corrugated cardboard for boxes. Every installation was a custom job and so my task was to draw wiring diagrams from polaroid photographs of the machines after they were installed. One day The Nuclear Power Plant at Three Mile Island had an accident. We were about 50 miles from TMI and one of the engineers in my office was a Nuclear Engineer. He said there was nothing to worry about because the system was designedd to be safe unless 10 things went wrong all at once... He said that we were at about #8 and he left the office to drive to safety. As it turned out there was not a gigantic Nuclear Disaster. However, peeople close to the power plant did report tasting a metalic flavor when they breathed... sure sign of Uranium in the air.

I was driving to work from Columbia to Towson in the winter and it was very scary to go on the Baltimore Beltway during rush hour in icy conditions. I'm sure glad to come back to California where it does not snow.

Read more of my autobiography at: http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2018/03/growing-up-in-los-gatos-california-in.html

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