Leaky Buckets

  My collection of destroyed work clothes We had a snow day on Monday, which was much needed because David and I very badly needed a work pants repair day. Climbing up to clean the chimney last week, I had torn open the inseam of my best insulated jeans. After six days of enjoying the breeze, I saw a forecast of -20 and knew that repair day had come soon. David, my best friend, coworker and resident of the tiny cabin below my house, was also sporting some risque cuts in his Carharts, so we settled in at the sewing machine. Sewing is not one of my better skills, but thankfully David is a master seamster. He did a majority of the work while I pulled stitching on a dozen different seams and cut patches for ten different pairs of Wranglers and Carhart work pants.  David and I destroy pants for a living. The IRS classifies us as construction workers, but we spend most of our time tearing holes in double stitched, heavy duty work pants and jackets. The beefy sewing machine that doubles as Da

  San Francisco... formely a 15 minute city, but not anymore When I was in architecture school back in the mid 2000’s, one of the core tenets of our schooling was to design buildings and cities to better serve people. Sometimes, that meant easing the struggles of disabled people, unable to navigate existing infrastructure. Sometimes it was providing multi-use space that doesn’t already exist in our urban fabric. Sometimes it was just making something pretty to look at. But most of the time, the emphasis was on making buildings and human construction less wasteful; so that we didn’t burn all sorts of physical and societal resources simply trying to exist. This was where I first learned of the 15 minute city idea; the premise being that every human could access their basic needs within a fifteen minute walk or bicycle of their home, like food, entertainment, employment, social interaction, etc. Often, when discussing the 15 minute city in school, it was implied that if humans didn’t fi

  South Dakota with a thunderstorm imminent I am a mountain man. I grew up in the mountains. I climb mountains, take pictures of mountains, and generally seek out mountains of all shapes and sizes to live my life among. I don’t know why topography is so important to me, but I need to make my home in the mountains. However, I absolutely love driving on the plains. As most Americans over the age of four know, there is a large swath in the middle of America that was once an ancient seabed, stretching over a thousand miles east to west and several thousand miles north to south. This region is called the Great Plains. And they sure are great… Most mountain or ocean dwellers like me often disregard the Great Plains as endlessly boring, utilitarian, uninterrupted wasteland that is simply a distance hurdle while traveling between the more interesting parts of the world. Whenever I talk to someone who has recently driven across the USA, invariably they will complain about the worst part of th

  Stand up comedy is having a moment in our society right now. For decades, it has been a popular medium for analyzing the world we live in and sharing personal stories that strangers can relate to. I am fairly new to the genre, but it seems to have a constant presence in the news and now every major media platform has an entire category dedicated to stand up comedy. I often put on playlists of various comedians during long drives (which happens a lot in Montana). Kyle Kinane, Lachlan Patterson, John Mulaney, Robin Williams; there are hundreds of comics to choose from on most streaming or radio platforms. But my favorite comedy to seek out comes from a Provo, Utah based venue called Drybar Comedy. In an age where funny and vulgar are sometimes considered interchangeable, Drybar’s slogan “funny for everyone” is incredibly accurate.  Because of the unique personality that stand up comedy requires, it is natural for its performers to be the types of people who push the boundaries of what

  Slurping my way through a gelato monster I was digging through my pictures the other day. This blog dredges up stories from the old days, and I always try to find a fitting picture to accompany the story on the blog. More than once, that search for a photo has inspired another blog post. Such is the case today.  In the photo at the top, you will see a 20 year old Ben holding a very large gelato cone. It was a roasting hot June day in Florence, Italy. We had been walking for hours and I was starving. I was part of a thirteen student group from Montana State University’s Architecture Program that had been invited to Rome for the summer of 2011 to study in one of the greatest architectural cities in human history. For ten weeks, we took a deep dive into classical art and architecture. When not in classes in central Rome, we would travel to other notable locations from the Italian Renaissance to study the magnificent work done by the masters such as Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Bernini, Palla

  The truck with all its bumper stickers, circa South Dakota, 2015 I am not a fast driver. It is one of the traits of my dad, like premature hair loss or a habit of filling barns with antique knick knacks, that appeared a little earlier than I had hoped. I tend to drive just a hair under the speed limit, mostly because I am rarely in a hurry. In fact I have been pulled over twice for going under the speed limit. In our modern world, driving slowly is suspicious, or so a friendly South Dakota police officer once informed me. So are bumper stickers, no matter what they say.  An old friend shared a song with me the other day that brought to mind a memorable experience with the South Dakota Bumper Sticker Police (SDBSP for short). We were headed north on I-29 near Brookings, South Dakota on a blustery but sunny August afternoon. The posted speed limit was 80; I was driving a hair over 70. I had the windows down, arm dangling, Marshall Tucker Band turned up to max volume. My scruffy hair wa

  Wade Montgomery, Rustler's Moon This morning I have a new album on repeat as I prepare my usual breakfast of an apple, black tea and a toasted English muffin with peanut butter. Rustler’s Moon by Wade Montgomery, first released in 1994, so it is not a new album by any means, but it is new to me. And I love every song on the ten track release. It is classic western music, songs about bucking horses and growing up on the Northern Cheyenne reservation, gold panners in Idaho and lost love. While all the songs may not be personal stories, they clearly come from life experience. I am humming along to songs like Bound for Billings and Weakness as I scoop the last large gobs of peanut butter out of the jar and hand the nearly empty Skippy container to the impatient husky beside me for cleaning. He trots into the mudroom with his prize and I do a Google search for Wade. All I can find are links to his songs on Spotify, a live performance on 11th and Grant radio show in Bozeman from 2010

  Pregame in the Minnesota Masterpiece           For my 29th birthday, Sam got me tickets to see the Minnesota Vikings play the Philadelphia Eagles at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on my birthday. It was my second ever pro football game, the other being a very memorable visit to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts for the Patriots vs the Vikings in the 8th grade. That is a story unto itself for another time.  For the sake of brevity, I am going to skip over the lead up, that included crossing the Dakotas in a white knuckle October blizzard that dumped forty four inches of snow and made both states nigh impassable for days. Needless to say, it was stressful. Not the driving in the snow so much as the potential that we may not be able to make it to the game, even with two days head start.  But we made it. We wove into the busy, yet pleasant traffic of the Twin Cities. Maybe it is because I am such a fan of the sports teams, but it seems like I don’t mind Minneapolis traffi

  I didn't a have a photo of my bookshelf, but this will do...  I am staring at my bookshelf. It is teeming with books and maps and DVD’s and all sorts of other consumable entertainment. I sorted most of it when I installed the bookshelf, but I have mis-shelved items so many times that the organizing system is now defunct. Sam, a former MSU library employee, has given up on ever finding the book she is looking for. I don’t mind though, because I very rarely approach the bookshelf with one book in mind. It is like the old days of going to Blockbuster video stores; there are so many options to choose from, you just randomly select a title off the shelf. And so today, I am doing just that. It is time for a new bathroom reader. I just finished “The Greatest Beer Run Ever,” a true story of an ex-Marine and sailor from New York City who brought cases of American beer to his friends and buddies on the front lines of the Vietnam war in 1966 to boost morale and give thanks. They are makin

  The woodshops in various states of clutter My workshop and my mind are a mess. It isn’t a disaster or a catastrophe. I just had a long week of work and it's been a long winter of half finished projects and half-baked ideas. There are bags of screws and electrical parts strewn about amidst broken saws, dull chainsaw blades and unused plumbing parts. In my head, I am stuck on a few song lyrics for a new song about the wildfire season of 2017. I am planning my wedding, now just four months away. I am trying to compose email responses to people I really don’t want to talk to. I am scheming how to accomplish an upcoming week of high and dangerous roofing around potential snow and wind. A lot is going on simultaneously in my head and on the workbench. It is uncanny how often the clutter of the shop and the clutter of my mind are synonymous. But when I clean the physical world, it seems that the mental clutter gets organized too.  Some people like a messy shop. They know exactly where

     Bendemeer, the stomping grounds of the Barefoot Butler         I vividly remember Heather, the spunky little British girl, turning around and asking me, “Where the hell are we going?” I didn’t know. I had an address for 55 Lake Haynes Rd, New Zealand scribbled in my notebook. I had assured Heather and her friend Jenny that it wouldn’t be too hard to find. They were on the whirlwind New Zealand vacation of a lifetime. I was a bum, hitching a ride from Wanaka to my next workstay, smelling like I hadn’t showered in a week, because I hadn’t.  Like most folks I hitched rides with, they insisted on taking me to the front door so I didn’t have to find another ride. Two minutes in a car often saved two hours of walking. We turned onto a steep gravel road and bounced our way into the hills. The driveway split and we took the right turn, coming to a locked gate. Back we went to the left and after about a mile, the rutted road popped us out in a luscious, manicured garden. A stately stone