snap house (bloodninja says harrr!)

err, venkman wants his outfit back

after two years of toil, bloodninja brought his team to washington dc for the national solar decathalon competition. first, i think it's phat that they even made it to the competition. it required raising ridiculous sums of money by seeking corporate sponsors whoring out kenny's mom, designing all kinds of crazy innovative ways to harness the sun's energy, and a lot of trial and error. then they built it, took it apart, trucked it to washington, and rebuilt it on the mall. then they took it apart, trucked it back to austin, and rebuilt on campus. i'm sure kenny is glad to be done ready to torch the fucking thing.

last weekend i went up to dc. fuckface had been hoping that bunch of our crew would be there to root for him in the competition. unfortunately, almost all us had schedules that prevented us from going. about a month ago mrs. wintermute told me that it would undoubtedly mean a lot for kenny to have some friends there. shit, he's been working on it for two years! let the scheming begin. i managed to keep my visit plans a surprise from kenny (thanks to major help from cindy, august, and dana).

the snap house itself was phat. i saw almost all of the other houses, and i really think the UT's house was in the top three. had they listened to my suggestion of using cold fusion i think they would have won. here's a layout of their house. as it is, the finished in fifth place (of 18). click here to see all of the houses on the official competition website.

the tourguide so patiently explained sustainable design to dana and nikki...

...but he got kind of mad when i insisted on testing the sustainability of the bathroom

kenny was the consumate tour guide, giving every group a five minute overview of why it's called the snap house (pre-fabricated modular design that literally snaps together), how it saves energy, and how it incorporates the principles of sustainability. i thought his overview was also one of the best i saw. some houses literally said nothing as i entered. others offered very few materials or displays in the way of explanation. for the layperson, this makes it hard to really appreciate what goes into the house--which is a shame, b/c all of the students had clearly worked very hard.

bloodninja explains the snap house with his very best pirate bandana

finally, we had a good weekend just hanging out. big up to my big bro and his girl for letting me stay with them. had a lot of good eats and got to see some of the city.

click here to see all of the pictures.