At The Sea in Krk

We spent 9 days on the island of Krk, Croatia. Most of the time was spent
laying in the sun or the shade. The kids loved playing with friends
and the water all day. For me it was a little boring but I did do a
good amount of swimming and even lost some weight on vacation. That's
a new one.

Our Plaza Project Comes Together

We started this project a few years ago with a sketch done for free at
the request of some local citizens who weren't happy with the design
that won a competition for a plaza in Pradipozzo a little village that
is part of Portogruarro. The final design is a lot different from
what we started with but the concept is the same. That is we wanted
to create a space that would actually be used by the local residents.
The well or pozzo in Italian was built many years ago and had to stay.
The big bench in the middle serves as a place to sit, a bandstand, or
maybe a place for kids to play. The trees will provide shade in the
summer and give the area a more human scale. The overall project
conisists also of revisions to traffic flow, and a new parking area
for the stores on the other side of the street.

Slazburg the Salt Mine Tour

We had a four day weekend so we took the camper up to Salzburg Austria. Here are a few pictures of the salt mine tour.

Gifts

Lately I've been thinking about the value of gifts. I like to get them, you may say doesn't everybody. I'm not sure. I don't know if everyone apprecitates the true significane of them. The reason I like them is not that I got something for free, well we usually give in return so they are not really free. What I like is that when I use the gift I remember the person that gave it to me. Here are some examples: A Swiss Army knife my son in law Uli gave me, it's great to take on hikes, even the hikes around Venice, two high quality knives we got for our wedding from friends we don't get to see much that I use everyday, an old wine opener I sort of inherited when Luisa's grandmother died, an electric drill from my father in law, a coffee cup that Callie gave me from a riding competition, the electric grill thing Erin gave us for Christmas one year. Those are just a few that come to mind, but in a life time there are so many more and each one connects us to the person that gave it. Isn't it great to put something on or in your hand and think about for a moment the person who gave it to you.

A Little Movie of the Party

Julia's Communion

We didn't take a camera to the church as they said they weren't
allowed. That's funny as I told Luisa before, this is Italy there
will be cameras and there were. Ya gotta love this country for that.
Anyway they had professional photographers there also so we will get
pictures.

It was a nice service, I felt very good seeing my littlest daughter
welcomed into communion with the church. I wish my older ones would
consider it. But that's another story. After the mass we had 24
adults and 14 kids packed into our little apartment. But it's wasn't
bad, most had to stand. The food was a combination of efforts between
me, Luisa, Luisa's mom and the super market's prepared foods. It all
turned out great and we had food left over so we know everyone had
enough.

We need work

Well we are doing ok, but the architecture business has pretty much dried up for now at least. When are things going to turn around?

Giovanni's Picture

Giovanni, he's 7, took this picture. He's a guy what else can I say.

Pictures from Mantova

Me cooking french fries

Ready to go see the castle

What is a Typsetter

A person I know from Facebook and before that Expats in Italy says she is a typsetter. My uncle Karl was a typsetter. He took me to the newspaper one night where he worked. This was when I was a kid, too many years ago. He sat in front of a big machine with a typwriter keyboard attached to it. As I remember he would retype the reporters pieces and the machine would take melted lead and produce type that was then set into big sheets of type. They would then be put into the press to print the paper. Another part of his job was setting photos, ads etc. that had been produced also in lead onto the sheets. In other words he also composed the sheets.

Since everything today is done with the computer I wonder what does a typsetter actually do. Typsetter can you tell me. I imagine it's mostly about composing sheets.

The Great Deoderant Scam

I've been a faithful user of deodorant for how long? Since I was maybe 13. Problem is that I am a bit allergic to the stuff that really works. After a few days of using it I start to itch under the arms and if I stop using it the itching goes on for a couple of days. And besides that I still don't smell that good at the end of the day, even though I shower everyday.

I usually swim in the local community pool a couple times a week and shower at the pool where I don't have access to my deodorant. What I noticed was that I don't have that dreadful body odor they scare us about in the TV commercials for the next day. So I began to wonder why. I reasoned that it's the chlorine in the water that makes me smell like the pool but at the same time must me killing all the odor causing bacteria. I'm sure you know that when you sweat the sweat doesn't initially smell bad. It takes a little time for those little germs to produce and I guess reproduce.

Thinking about the fact that plan old rubbing alcohol kills some 99% of all germs/bacteria (fill a little bottle with it and use it instead of that hand sanitizer stuff which is just alcohol combined with some jell) I decided to try splashing a little under the arms after my shower. Guess what no more smell, works in fact much better than the deodorant and the cost is next to nothing.

I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who shaves under the arms but they might try some other medical disinfectant such as what they sell here called Lyso Form. And of course the alcohol won't stop one from sweating. But maybe if you aren't worried about smelling bad you won't sweat so much.

"Mayo Clinic Housecall

Definition

Most people sweat when they exercise or exert themselves, are in a hot environment, or are nervous, anxious, or under stress. This type of sweating is both natural and healthy.

Sweating is usually only a minor nuisance. The odor is probably more troublesome. Although perspiration is practically odorless, perspiration can sometimes cause an unpleasant smell when it comes into contact with bacteria on your skin."

I suppose there could be some downside to destroying the natural bacteria on part of your skin, but I'm thinking it can't be worse that putting those other chemicals on it on a daily basis.

What is interesting?

My traffic has dropped off a lot lately. I suppose it's partly because I don't post everyday. But maybe also that the economy has people not thinking that much about traveling to Italy. Or maybe it's that I have mostly just been posting pictures. Anyway I think I'm going to try writing about stuff that's on my mind and posting less pictures.

Earthquakes in Italy part 3

Other than un-reinforced masonry buildings the most potentially dangerous are those built up on posts with little or nothing between the posts. Try standing a pencil on end, what happens, it falls down. Now if we take our little model, even the one with the tape on it and put some posts under it we would have a hard time making it stand up. If we taped or glued the posts to the model it would probably stand up under normal conditions, but if we again moved the cardboard base back and forth some of the connections of the top of the posts to the model would start to give way and the model would eventually fall down. If it were a real building everything and everyone below it would be crushed.

By trying to understand how we could make the posts below the model strong enough to resist the horizontal forces breaking the connection between them and the bottom of the model we get into the real meat of the problem of making buildings earthquake resistent. In an earthquake the earth is moving horizontally under the building. The weight of the building or it's mass makes the building want to stay where it is. Since the earth is much stronger than the opposing mass of the building, we know that the earth will move. The bottom of the building is connected to the earth so it moves too. What we would like is for the rest of the building to move at the same time as the part connected to the earth.

In our model example that isn't happening. So how can we make it happen? One way is to make the connection between the top and bottom of the posts strong enough to not come apart when the earth moves. These are called moment resisting connections, remember moments from physics class, they would involve steel frames, steel rienforcing in concrete columns and such things as steel plates in wood columns. Another way is to add some shear walls to the posts. Picture this, take a pencil, cut two pieces of cardbord the same height as the pencil about 5cm wide. tape them to the pencil and now the pencil stands up. But if you push on it at the top it will still fall down. However, if you tape the cardbord ''shear walls'' to the carboard base it will take much more force to push it over.

The same thing that causes the failure of the connection between the posts and the floors they support happens between walls and floors. And thus we get into all the technical apects, hold downs, shear walls, moment resisting connections, floor and roof diaphrams, etc. To make it all more complicated we have old buildings designed before much was know about earthquake forces. Retrofitting these old buildings is too much to get into here. The main point being that it's a costly business, but not impossible. Many Italian engineers are quite capable of designing reftrofits if given the chance and they are capable of designing new buildings to withstand earthquakes. It will be interesting to see if the failure of some relatively new structures in the recent earthquake was due to poor design or poor construction.

Next time I'll talk about what to do in an earthquake, and what you can do to minimize your risk.

More Venice & the Beach at Jesolo

Earthquakes in Italy part 2

Last time I give an idea of how earthquakes can cause problems with old buildings. Now I want to say a little about how we prevent the damage. It is a very complicated subject, but I just want to give you a feeling for it. Lets say we take our little building of blocks and this time put a vertical row of transparent tape down both sides of each row of blocks. We should also put a couple horizontal rows. Now if we shake the cardboard base the blocks will stay together until the force applied becomes really strong. The tape seems much weaker than the blocks, but it is much stronger in tension than the weak joints between them (in this case only weight holds them together without the tape). The thing is that masonry and concrete are very weak in tension, even though strong in compression and the joints between masonry units are even weaker. So we see in modern buildings steel is used to provide the tensile strength masonry and concrete lack. We have to also apply the same logic when attaching the floors and roof. We can just sit the floor on top of the walls which is fine for the vertical forces but as soon as we move the building horizontally as in an earthquake the floor might just slide right off.

You probably noticed if you built the model that even though the model did not fall down it slid around a bit. In a way this is good as the building is still intact, in fact some high rise buildings are designed to sit on a kind of rubber cushion that allows for a small amount of horizontal movement. But in most cases we don't want our buildings sliding around. So steel is again used to tie the building to the concrete foundation.

After the Northridge, California earthquake a few years ago I did some inspections for FEMA of damaged homes. It was interesting to see how some had slid sideways on their foundations, as they had not been properly tied down to the foundation.

Next time, buildings with lots of windows, or built up on posts over open spaces, shear walls and moment resisting connections.

Earthquakes in Italy

Italy is a country where earthquakes are a constant threat. The main problem is that the old buildings have very little resistance to them. If you want to understand what happens in an earthquake try this. Take a piece of cardboard and build a little house of blocks just staked one on top of the other on the cardboard. Now grab an edge of the cardboard and pull it back and forth horizontally. As you move the cardboard the blocks will start to separate and eventually fall down. This is basically the way the old Italian buildings, and buildings in many other countries are built. They are made of stones or masonry blocks/bricks just stacked up and held lightly together with cement mortar.

Earthquakes generally move the earth horizontally, with some vertical movement as well. If you imagine the house of blocks model several floors tall with heavy concrete slabs for floors and a heavy roof on top you can imagine what happens. The inertia of the mass of the floors and roofs make them want to stay where they are. The earth moves under them and the walls start to separate and or tilt. Then they can't support the mass above and the whole thing comes falling down.

More on this to follow.

Venice Italy

Another side of Venice.