# 12 ..

++ 12. I have lived here in the united states ever since then.
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i think out of all the places i've lived in i enjoyed denver the most. i'm not quite sure why. maybe it was because it was the first time i had really really gone off and lived without any kind of guidance. when i left home to go to college, there is still that RA sort of thing on the floor and quality control for getting into the dorms. but when i went to denver, it was just me and brian and adam and drew and no one to tell us what to do or who to see or not to do or not to see. or maybe because it was my first time really being out west for any extended period of time. and in the mountains of all places! or maybe it was i really connected with denver. (doesn't everybody connect with colorado somehow though?) it could have been the hiking and camping in the mountains in the summer and then going back to the exact same places in the winter and snowboarding down them. or it could have been that it was the first time i had ever climbed outside. or the first time i had ever been on a multi-pitch route. or the first time i had ever been on a snowboard. doesn't matter. it was fun. i'd go back any day.
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san francisco had its moments. of course the two times i lived there i lived in two completely different places. cole valley the first time (just right up the street from the haight) and in the mission (the OTR of cincinnati, except all spanish people). the first time i lived in cole valley i had to drive down through the castro (the gay district) everyday to get to work. the second time i had to drive over to the warehouse district over on the east side (over by pacbell park). i think what i enjoyed most about san francisco was the inevitable morning fog which would be replaced by sunshine in the afternoon. the distinct neighborhoods in a unified city were something you don't see everywhere, especially in suburbia ohio (which isn't necessarily a bad thing. just a different thing.) there is a completely different side of san francisco you get as a tourist than as somebody who works there or does installations and deliveries there. oh and the streets. oh the streets. you learn unless you live on those insanely steep streets that you avoid the insanely steep streets. or rather you learn alternate ways around them. not that they aren't fun to drive, because they are. but they do damage beyond what you would ever think to your clutch and to your gas mileage.
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portland is a city which is deceptive. it is one of the largest cities in the pacific northwest (after seattle) and yet it feels about as big as dayton, ohio. it may be because it has so much room to spread out, that it does. or it could be that its not right on the water (which i really didn't know until i go there and looked at a map.) it actually sits about an hour inland on a river. oh oh! i get it now. port. land. its a port. its surrounded by land. portland. (holy wow i'm smart.) there is a code in portland that none of the buildings built now are allowed to block views of mount hood (which is visible from downtown even though its 2 hours east.) so i think the building height code is something like 30 floors which puts it at just around 450' or so above ground level i think. mount hood is ridulous. its a little kid's drawing of a mountain. its basically a triangle. and its soo cool. portland has free public transportation downtown and it operates on an honor system outside of downtown and oddly enough most people if not all people oblige to the honor system (except when they fall asleep drunk and accidentally take the train all the way to the end of the line 15 miles outside of downtown, but thats another post.) portland is basically a family town if you ask me. it seems that everyone is either married and has kids or at the very least married.
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seattle is a place shrouded in myth and rumors to us people who are from the midweset (and by the midwest i mean our made up midwest of ohio, which isn't really in the midwest, but is for all practical purposes.) seattle is a place so far away that we (ohioians) think it rains there all the time. we think seattle never has sunshine. its always cold. and all the people are either gay or lesbians or ugly. .. most of this is true. well all except for the raining all the time thing. to forever dispell rumors about seattle (to the 10 people who read this. i'm not gonna lie. i don't pretend that a bunch of people read this or care.), seattle does not rain all the time. it is surrounded by water everywhere you go. it seems that every street you turn down, it ends at water. however in the summer when the high pressure system of california moves north, it pushes all the rain clouds north and its actually sunny (and hot .. 80+ degrees). it does however seem to mist a lot. which is different from rain. most buildings in seattle don't have a/c. why? it basically pretty much never gets warm enough to warrant the use of a/c. when it does ge that warm, people just open their windows and use that old and proven cross-ventilation cooling system. there is a definate critical regionalism thing going on in seattle. seattle's architecture carries that very techtonic feel, where structure is defined, shown, and almost celebrated. it is a very working class city with lots of ports and shipping plays a very big influence on the city's structure and skyline. and with that comes a very straightforward and honest architecture. oh and mount rainier. how could i forget about mount rainier. it is visible from seattle even though its 3 hours southeast from downtown. its absolutely huge! all those photos you see of the skyline of seattle where it looks like mount rainier is either photoshopped in or cut and pasted.. yeah those are real. its ridiculous how big the mountain is. disturbing almost.
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cincinnati has grown on me over the past six years. its not that i ever disliked it. it just didn't have all the flair of the other cities. or maybe it was because its too close to home. but now it has turned into my home and really like it here. its not as big as columbus, but it seems like it is. downtown is completely different from the east side which is completely different from the westside which is completely different from the scene around campus. downtown is still really dead (especially after the riots and since it sits right next to OTR, which is one of the poorest districts in cinci.) downtown has gottne better in recent years or at least it seems. the eastside is comprised mostly of big fat old homes perched on small hills or tucked away in groves of trees. for lack of a better stereotype it is the rich part of cinci. the westside is a step back in time as well, but not for the architecture, more for its old ways of thinking and mentality. for lack of a better stereotype, the westside is the working class of cinci. they are hardnosed. they work mostly blue-collar jobs. they have a character about them which is completely different from the eastside. and then the campus parts of cinci. well its like most other campus sections of cities, except its a little more urban, but not a true urban campus. basically i'm saying its a fake campus. ..architecturally.
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and finally last but by far not the least, fairborn, my hometown. i grew up there and spent my childhood there and the endless summers where i had nothing to do there. it was great. its still great. my parents still live in fairborn. and for the record i have never lived in beavercreek, although i was only a few streets off. some of my most vivid memories are in fairborn. playing soccer, endless games of soccer and practices. going on bike rides. summer midday holy hot runs. kickball. you name it. it most likely happenned. fairborn is a town made mostly of government employees. i would venture to say that if wright patterson air force base had not been more or less in town, the city of fairborn would not be a city, but still a town or a village or a settlement or still the wild west. fairborn is actually the conjoining of the towns of fairfield and osborne with a railroad more or less splitting it right down the middle. it is the all-american suburb except that main street and downtown fairborn has gone through a relapse and because of the transient nature of wright patt, downtown is not as vivid and busy as it should be. it doesn't contain as many cute little shops as it should. it is a sity of single family small detached houses with vasts amount of neighborhoods all sporting the same house, varied slightly, but more or less the same house for rows and rows on end. it is my hometown and i am proud of it despite its shortcomings.
what can i say. ..its home. ++