Life of Bryan

Halfway through The Death and Life of Great American Cities for the second time in my life (for a book club) and have come to the conclusion that it’s unreadable nonsense. Amazing how 20 years of professional experience can change one’s perspective so much.

Remembering a time in my 20s and early 30s when all I wanted was an out from where I was living in the Midwest. It felt like a prison.

It you’re in a similar situation, don’t give up hope. There’s someplace out there for you.

The job hopping in the tech space is so much different than government. As someone who has sat on many hiring panels, if I were to receive a resume with 10 jobs in as many years, that person is not even getting an interview.

Not sure why it bothers me so much that Las Vegas will get true HSR before the Northwest or Midwest, but it does.

I moved away from Lansing about 10 years ago. Lived there for almost a decade. I didn’t live there when developers tore down this block on Michigan Ave, but I still can’t believe they took out an entire historic, fine grained commercial block.

maps.app.goo.gl/T85Ea1yXJ…

My public university degrees (in-state undergrad and grad) cost $106k in tuition, not including community college costs or interest (2010). Thank god for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program. Hopefully it survives.

Made the mistake of getting back on Facebook right before the election. Just deactivated again, but seriously considering permanent deletion. What I always miss most are the groups. There are some great communities on there, I hate to admit.

I posted yesterday about needing more indoor play places for kids with adult amenities more like an airport lounge. Biggest concern to me would be sight lines. How would Foucault feel if we used the panopticon as a model? 😉

A large, circular prison interior with multiple cells and a central watchtower from which a beam of light projects.

The Achilles Heel of the YIMBY movement is the common thought that this isn’t built because it’s illegal. It’s legal in enough places to know that developers don’t build much of this. People have so much faith in the landlord and investment class. Such weird bed fellows for the movement.

Having one of those weekends with the kids where I’m ready to go back to work. I think we all need a vacation.

Making my homemade mac and cheese tonight. Feeling like I need some comfort food. Might not fill the void, but it will get me through!

We need indoor play places for kids where the parent areas are more like airport lounges. When we’re going through long stretches of bad weather, these places are lifesavers for people with young kids, but I think there’s an untapped opportunity here to provide better amenities for parents.

Went looking for a binaural sleep frequencies app and ended up self-administering EMDR. Have you tried turning your trauma off and back on again?

Currently: Old Fashioneds and a pretty competitive game of Rummikub while the kids watch a Christmas movie.

So many worries about the Fed’s direction in the coming years—beyond the usual. Transit funding, affordable housing, education… it all feels so precarious right now. Trying to stay optimistic, but it’s tough not to feel the weight of it.

As a staunch urbanist, I love the idea of the 15-minute city, but that lifestyle seems out of touch from most people’s reality. Allowing nearby amenities is easy from a land use perspective, but work, school choice, and childcare are other matters entirely. How do advocates reconcile the problem of most working households needing to commute to wherever they can find work, or needing to drive their children to consolidated schools outside their neighborhood? This is our traffic problem.