I would love to see a comparison/critique of Rouse and Robert Moses (the I-190 & Robert Moses Parkway guy) and how their planning philosophies relate to current localist, independent, green, higher density, transit-oriented planning (yea Buffalo First!). (Must take at least one urban planning course before leaving school!)Until I read the wikipedia entry about James Rouse
I didn't realize he was the planner of Boston's Faneuil Hall Marketplace. I knew he designed Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Both these places are used as "good models" for promoting the current plan for the Erie Canal Harbor/waterfront development in Buffalo that uses Bass Pro as an anchor store for an "urban theme park." Benderson, the proposed developer for the waterfront, creates suburban strip malls. I have been questioning the wisdom of the waterfront plan, but being in Columbia again gave it a whole 'nother layer of questioning. (For one critique of the waterfront plan: )I stopped in Columbia because it has Daedalus Books, my fav bookstore ever
Lots of academic press books for $5 or less. Yum yum! I picked up a hardback of Octavia Butler's Fledgling for M*. I also love Akbar a pretty standard Indian restaurant just a half mile (and 20 minutes of driving thanks to INSANE traffic) away. I find it interesting that Indian restaurants are rather homogenized. Akbar's food is very similar to that of India Gate on Elmwood, Passage to India in Harrisburg, Pangea in the Poconos, and a couple other Indian restaurants that I've been to and can't remember the names of. Is there an Indian-restaurant supply company? Anyway, the manager recognized me, even though I haven't lived there since 2003! I have stopped in during most of my MD/DC trips since then, so I'm not -that- surprised, but I was definitely pleased.My phone is broken - I also stopped at a Verizon kiosk at a BJs, another half-mile, 20-minute drive up Snowden River Parkway in Columbia to try to get it fixed. The kiosk guy made me call a service line, CSR1 transferred me to CSR2 who decided it was the battery. Although my magic-pixie-dust electronics sense says it's the phone, I allowed him to send me a new battery, "We'll FedEx overnight it! You'll have it tomorrow!" Ha ha. I gave them M*'s mom's address and of course it didn't show up Wednesday, nor Thursday, nor Saturday. So here I am in Pennsylvania with a phone that only works when plugged in, and not even continuously when plugged in, but the battery is probably going to show up at M*'s mom's tomorrow and I'll need to get my hands on it before I'm able to continue the troubleshooting process. *sigh* travel is difficult.
M* loved the gourd (see last post for pix) and book; her mom loved the three gourd ornaments (who knew you could find brown Santas in Tioga County?!?); we played lots of Wii (I'm getting *good* at the table tennis and archery of the new Resort Sports); we drank a lot of Ketel One Citroen, mango rum, lemonade & grenadine; I had wonderful conversations with M's family & fun bunch friends. I'm so glad I went, although I'm sad about missing xmas with A's family. I spent some very pleasant/bittersweet time there tonight, though.
M*'s mom gave me a quesadilla making machine! How neat. I make quesadillas all the time - hopefully this will make it even easier. Jill & Kelly got me one of those nifty Keurig single-serve coffee machines with a whole box of hot chocolate cups.
Appliances! 
You know, I have heard from fairly reliable sources that there *is* an Indian restaurant supply company. They just supply everything and the restaurants just heat it up or thaw things. That is exactly why all of them are clones of each other. This is tougher to do with South Indian food - but do-able.
I looooove my keurig!
Great entry!
Urban planning fascinates me although overall I know very little about it. Back when I was at UB, a billion years ago, a bunch of us from various disciplines would meet up at a coffee house and just.. talk.. really talk. It was easy to see how much *everything* relates. We had majors from history, psychology, architecture, sociology, poli sci and I remember distinctly (hence this comment) a passionate guy taking urban (etc) development classes. I was enthralled with the systems thinking involved with creating something on such a large intertwined scale. Just the thought of the placement of sidewalks withing a community can impact the relations between people, and so on. Cool stuff.
Never did take a class myself..
I'm a big fan of the Robert Moses State Parkway. It makes my area so accessible to everyone (there are several highway access points in my region)and for me to get going to where I want without a lot of down time having to navigate through residential streets. Even the secondary and tertiary routes within the region make sense.
Anyway.. sounds like your are having a good trip (minus phone issues-- boo!).
Nice find with the book store (yay for Butler!)
Love love love the gourds from the previous entry.
Have you tried your Keurig yet? It does make a good cup of coffee.