Thomas J. Johnson

Do the math.
The monthly payment on a $120,000 loan would be approx. $1,200. If you get out of school and are making $55,000 you’ll be taking home about $3,200 a month. After you pay your student loan, you’ve got $2,000 to pay for all your needs (food, rent, communications, clothing, health care & entertainment). In most major cities it’s easy to…[Read more]

Time / Space is an interesting relationship to study in the rebuilding of areas effected by disasters. When buildings and infrastructure are destroyed people’s immediate response is, “rebuild it”. But the physical structures that were ruined are much more than the sum of their materials. There is a history behind them. They were not built…[Read more]

The jetty at La Jolla was built to create a protected area for children to swim, hence it’s original name “childrens beach”. The unintended result was that the seals also found it to be a perfect breeding ground and have taken over, hence it’s adopted name “seal beach”. Since it’s a man-made structure that created the conditions for the seals,…[Read more]

Trace you have really been all over the place lately, are you taking your ADD meds…?
Japan building up to the seashore is not a government conspiracy. We do it all over the place in the US. Japan is a tiny island and needs to make use of every square inch they have available. Have you been up to San O and seen the two nuclear reactors (AKA Dolly…[Read more]

It’s unrealistically cost prohibitive to build structures substantial enough to deter tsunamis for all but the most key locations. Even then, if you build a big levy, Mom nature will build a bigger storm. I mean, did you see what that water did!? What would have stopped it?
The best “design” solution is to not build in locations that are only 3’…[Read more]

“Oil is over” Ha! Smoke another one… it’s only starting to get interesting…
No third runway at Heathrow is a triumph of reason related to the oil industry? What are they gonna do, fly their planes on lithium-ion batteries, solar power and rainbows?
Libertarians decentralize power by putting more accountability on the individual and relying…[Read more]

No, I was born in ’78… missed the Chicago River on fire… I did have the distinct pleasure of marching down Lake Shore Drive in the first Chicago Iraq War protest. We shut down LSD in both directions for as far as the eye could see… I found myself at the front, the protest organizer asked me, since I had my bike, to ride up to Oak St. to see…[Read more]

The Dude abides…

I think food and water are priorities right now… electricity is down=no water supply. Pipes broken/flooding=water polluted. Roads, rail ways & harbors destroyed = no delivery of food/supplies.
Their needs are very basic at this point… unless you can rapidly deploy mobile desalinization plants and figure out how to launch canned goods 3,000…[Read more]

You and I can win in the stock market… you just need to educate yourself. Right now you look at it and see chaos… change your perspective. Stop thinking emotionally and think logically. If you trade with emotion, like most people gamble, you will lose. If you understand that markets have patterns that are created by cause and effect…[Read more]

For “sexy” perspectives I like to use a lot of silhouettes of curvaceous women in various seductive poses… it really helps to sell the design, when you can distract the client from the design it self… if you can, place the figures behind frosted glass, fabric screens or sheets of water. Those elements really set the mood…
Ok, seriously…[Read more]

Don’t get stuck taking a 3 credit “math-mod” class your final semester that should theoretically require a 9 hour commitment a week but in fact requires a 40hr/wk commitment in order to pass… on-line/digital classes are a scam… they are profitable for the school at the expense of the students education… I passed but I don’t remember a damn…[Read more]

Because sitting around all day drawing pretty pictures, watching the stock market make your money for you sounds like a nice set-up… You’re not going to get rich being an LA but you might get rich sitting at your drafting table making an income in LA and keeping an eye on the market. Plus, you don’t “take” financial advice and follow it…[Read more]

OK, OK, I see that the bureaucrats have gotten their little fingers into the whole “cabin in the woods” idea… maybe I’ll just move to central America and trade in my “cabin in the woods” fantasy for a “beach hut and a hammock”… besides, beards grow faster in warm weather…

Got any hot stock tips…? I just got my IRA statement and there are some things I’d like to change… I’m gonna sell a few of the funds and invest in stocks of my choosing.
About 6 years ago I put together a list of companies related to the military industrial complex that I called “The Pure Evil Fund”. If you can’t beat’em, join’em. I didn’t…[Read more]

Yeah, my hair started abandoning ship when I was 18, so I’ve had plenty of time to become comfortable with my cranium. I can’t imagine having hair anymore. It would look ridiculous… This is how I’m supposed to be…It’s the guys who start loosing it in their 30’s who are really distraught about it. When you lose it later it makes you think…[Read more]

Amen. Moving is no fun… I wouldn’t mind a diesel truck with an airstream on the back… just keep moving… but packing, unpacking, getting settled, getting unsettled, packing, moving, repeat… no thanks. It’s not healthy for plants and it’s not healthy for humans…

much like this…?

Just give me a cabin in the woods and let everyone fight over the shards of civilization… you can have it.

So why should those who serve the citizens have it better than the citizens they serve? Why should they have better job security? Why shouldn’t they have to contribute to their health care and retirement like everyone else? Why should they be sheltered from the kind of job competition that people in the private sector face every day?
And to say…[Read more]