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.)

Fallout from the housing bust

I haven't seen so many going out of business signs in some little time. But there's a focus: furniture, home accessories -- those goodies that people treat themselves to when they've just bought a new house. Let's start at the small plaza out Iron Springs Road, where Marler's, a 62-year local fixture, has called it quits. Problem: the down housing market with a big plus -- the down traffic, thanks to road widening that has taking forever and a day. The firm will continue to operate its other store over in the Verde Valley, says the Courier.

However, Marler's isn't the only store in that plaza to go under. Moe Tavassoli Oriental Rugs is also closing shop. Curious -- I checked for spelling in the Yellow Pages and the only address given was in Scottsdale.

Big sale signs are also posted over on Montezuma for Prescott Home Furnishings, a successor to Seitz office products which succumbed to competition from Staples...

...just as this new Big Box chain store has added to the woes of our local merchants. I wonder how well it's doing these days -- apparently furniture store sales were off over 8% nationwide in 2007 and this year looks to be far worse. What will happen to those vacated premises? Rumor says that 1) the Oak Tree will grow once more, this time on Montezuma and that 2) Goodwill Industries will plant a big thrift shop over on Iron Springs, a suitable replacement in the current not-quite-a-recession economy.