Random Stuff 06-13-10

A few days ago I posted a photo of an old WWII era metal building currently being transformed in to something modern and pretty cool. Old Fool and Steve A. correctly identified this type of building as a Quonset hut. Old Fool weathered a typhoon in a Quonset hut on Okinawa in 1959. I did a little research and learned that these buildings were originally manufactured during WWII at Quonset Point in Rhode Island. The military needed buildings that could be easily shipped and erected without skilled labor. There's not much too them, just a metal shell with a wood floor. Looking at the now visible interior of the hut in my photo, I was surprised at how spacious it was. As usual, I wondered what it would take to convert one of these old huts into a home. I'm always thinking about converting stuff into housing; shipping containers, storage buildings, missile silos, opal mines.

Copy and paste the address on the right in Google maps if you'd like to see the building in it's previous state. 1008 Foch St, Fort Worth, TX, United States

Steelmaster USA sells affordable steel buildings that can be used for housing. They look like the old huts but are constructed by attaching a series of steel arches.

If you need a little more space than a hut affords, there are still a few of these missile silos around. This one is near Abilene, Texas.

This Girl's Bike: I like finding new bike blogs, especially bike blogs by people new to the world of cycling. Dreamlet (I don't know her real name) is a new fellow cyclist exploring the streets of L.A. on her new Bianchi.

I think all Bianchi's should be celeste green.

Geography Pillows: My wife saw these on Apartment Therapy. They're not cheap, they're hand stitched, but they are interesting. There's one for every state and most major cities.

The Austin pillow. They even included Mr. Armstrong.

Fort Worth

Japanese wave pool:

This can't be safe. Do you think there is any urine in that pool?