"Because Every Day Should Be an Adventure"

I've come up with a great slogan for ValleyMetro, the company which provides public transportation through the valley. Instead of "The Best Way to Get from A to B" which is thier current slogan, I propose "Every Day Should Be an Adventure." Riding the public bus, you never know just where you'll end up, and you'll certainly meet an interesting cast of characters along the way, ha ha!

In more seriousness, I have seen at least one person who is clearly deranged every time I've taken the bus, and at least four others whose sanity was debatable. The cultural breakdown of Phoenix is also radically skewed in favor of minorities which is very interesting to see on the bus.

Last night I biked to the new location of Gentle Strength Co-op on Southern and Mill. My neighborhood has railroad tracks which run through it, and so historically this area and the area south where I biked through developed as industrial with only minor commerical creeping in until you get to Mill Ave. Anyway, this place has reasonable prices and good quality food, but of course, as its name suggests, this is a kind of place where you don't casually order a pound of fresh whale. Or beef. Or anything with MSG.

I really enjoy walking through grocery stores just looking at the products. Especially special niche stores like these. The packaging, the product, the presentation, its like an open running dialogue between the manufacturers, the public, and each one's distorted view of the other. Sometimes its also just plain funny. One corny example was Paul Newman's brand of fig cookies, cleverly renamed Fig Newmans. The main thing that amused and repulsed me at the same time were the substitutes for meats and cheese. Provolone! No Milk Products! Now Melts! and all the various meat subsitute products. I couldn't stop cracking up reading the product titles, which were way too close to names The Onion satirized " Approximeat, Soystrami, I Can't Believe It's Not Dead Animal, Nausages, Prosciuttofu, Mockwrust," etc.

I did pick up some good strong local honey and some bagged mate for tea. They had a pound of looseleaf mate, the way they had in Buenos Aires for about 60 cents. Here, at the store, it cost a bit over ten dollars. I took a teabag with me to work this morning.

Today, I caught the bus to work, early again. I need to start eating breakfast and catch the bus that comes 15 minutes later. Work was pretty good. Went by quickly and then I was back waiting for the bus on central. I actually caught the same bus as a guy I knew from studio who was also coming back to ASU from his work.

I actually ended up hopping off the bus right downtown at ASU's downtown campus. This campus is actually spread out over the city a bit, so I walked a little ways to the PURL, Phoenix Urban Reaserch Laboratory. This occupies the top floor of a 1950's building in Phoenix, which stuck me as similiar in feel to our studio in Buenos Aires. I stopped in to talk to some of my friends there. The feeling was very professional, I assume because if you were going to schlepp all the way to downtown and find parking, you weren't going to be screwing around in studio. There was no mess, no clutter, no junk, nothing really pinned up on the walls, and I got in the impression that all the presentations were in powerpoint, or carefully arragned posters. The main part of the open plan floor was occupied by a massive scale model of downtown phoenix, which was about 20' feet by 20' square.

It was a pleasant part of town, the heart of downtown, at the intersection of Central and Van Buren, but the attempts to make it seem urban came across as cute. There was just too much space between buildings, too much grass, and too few stores and windows for every building facing the street. I bought a grilled portabella sandwich with REAL provolone cheese and sat outside to lunch.

I caught a different bus back to campus. This one was occupied by two deranged old women, both of whom had sunken bony faces and rasped at the driver incessantly. They screamed something at the giggling girls in the back as they went by. I got tired of the bus and hopped off early, so I ended up walking back about a mile through the borderlands of Tempe and Phoenix.

Tomorrow- habitat for humanity.