Big box ceilings

Architecturally, modern big box store design has little to recommend. However, I've discovered that the ceilings are another matter entirely. I looked overhead one day at the accursed Lowe's and immediately began a collection of ceiling photography. A big skylit nursery shed is particularly cool.

The view inside the store proper. I'd like to think that we're looking at an interior almost entirely lit by skylights, but I'm sure that isn't the case. No doubt banks of neons.

The nursery shed at WalMart West.

WalMart doesn't waste their ceiling structures -- very useful for hanging signs (above) and strings of bicycles (below).

I'm glad to have found another positive aspect of the big box monsters besides price.

I Want One: Just finished looking at a video of Micro$oft Surface, which combines the computer screen with the table top so that a bunch of people sitting around drinking beer, say, can pass Jpegs or documents from one to another -- or open an earth view to zoom in on their favorite saloon. Sounds like an app that would be perfect for a bar or a coffee house (or classroom), for that matter. Also worth checking out: a new blog that has just moved over to ScienceBlogs: it's called Eruptions; you can guess the subject matter. Also see: Arizona's Volcanic Past, though its coverage is spotty (i.e., nothing about our own homegrown volcano between Prescott and PV or the many lava topped mesas in Yavapai County, such as Big Bug high up in the Bradshaws.)