The Ol' Man and the C

So, there I was, trying to figure out a way to deliver on my promise of not only continuing the weekly blog, but doing it bigger and better. I developed a few ideas, but one stood out. The idea was to combine my love of urban design with my love of beer and cigars by conducting interviews with urban design cognoscenti at my Cherry Street office. Brilliant!! (if I do say so myself) My plan was to grab a buddy and do a dry run to test lighting, sound and experiment with my interview style. As fate would have it, I never got the chance for the dry run.

I met my friend and mentor Stroud Watson for a beer on Friday. I happened to have my computer with me and talked him into letting me take a shot at recording a brief interview with my webcam. I had three questions I wanted to ask and planned on sticking to the rule of thumb for blog video length (five minutes). I asked the first question and twenty-eight minutes later I had to interrupt him to see if our recording was even legible.

I attempted to edit the interview down to a more manageable size, but decided a) the nature of the response did not easily lend itself to editing and b) eff the five-minute rule of thumb. This is a niche blog and the godfather of the topic was dropping science- I’m giving you guys the straight, uncut dope. The lighting is bad, the sound is worse, and I look a bit of a Delta Bravo doing nothing but smoking and drinking for half an hour. That said, the quality of the content trumps the technical failings and that of the “host”.

I submit my one question interview in three parts. Enjoy...