Archive for October, 2009
Celebrity Houses – John Travolta
Posted by Jeff Awesome in Interior Design on October 23rd, 2009
I think everyone knows that John Travolta has a runway outside his house and two blimmin great big private Jets. Now that is proper old school eccentricity right there. The world needs more people like that, it gives us normal people something to talk, argue and moan about, without mad celebrities there would be no other conversations except for the weather.
Anyway John Travolta is aviation-mad and has lived with planes outside his door for a while now, previously living in a fly-in community near Daytona but had to move after other residents said his jet’s were too big for their facility. Now he lives in his current house in Ocala, Florida and he has a airstrip where most people have a driveway. He can walk out his door and under a canopied driveway (obviously only the nose of both the planes can fit underneath) straight into the plane’s cab and be up in the air quicker than it takes normal people to pick up their luggage form the carousel. When he was filming for The Punisher he commuted in his plane from Ocala to Tampa every day! I don’t think he is one of the celebrity’s that pretends to care about global warming much!
Travolta along with his wife Kelly Preston and daughter Ella Bleu (sadly their son Jett passed away in January this year) obviously all share his passion, or alternatively they have to put up with it at least because it is not just the outside that is a plane haven, inside is covered in huge mural and pictures of planes and plane paraphernalia. It is kind of like how I want my house to be except with Hot Rods, however I don’t think my savings account will stretch that far. The furniture all stays on theme as well, he has airline style sofas and chairs everywhere, two kitchens and big open rooms that remind you of departure lounges. Having said that the sofas do look quite a bit more comfortable than cheapo airport ones and the furniture is quite tasteful.
The only information and pictures I could find of the inside of his house can be found on this Architectual Digest article
Electricity-Free Fridge
Posted by Jeff Awesome in General Design on October 16th, 2009
A 22 year old student from Leeds has recently been named Women of the Year for inventing a Fridge that does not need electricity to function. Emily Cummins is a final year student at the University of Leeds and her prototype fridge was designed for use in 3rd world countries and came about after the student took a trip to Namibia.
The fridge works by harnessing the suns energy to cool valuable medicines using evaporation. I’m not quite sure how this works but it sounds like a brilliant idea and would be really useful for medics when out without the luxur of electricity. I would like to see the idea adapted so it could be used in a bigger capacity though. Imagine the possibilities of larger fridges that need no electricity, festivals would be brilliant no more warm stale cider. Not to mention the positive effects it would have on climate change.
So here is to Emily Cummins for possibly allowing me to drink cold alcoholic beverages wherever I am! Cheers!
Blog Action Day – Raising Climate Change Awareness
Posted by Jeff Awesome in General Design on October 15th, 2009
Today is blog action day, which is a day every year that tries to get as many bloggers as possible to talk about a particular cause. This year that cause is Climate Change. This video below explains what blog action day is:
Climate change is a very real and very urgent problem facing the world but we can do something about it if we just try. As well as the usual eco friendly things such as saving electricity and trying to walk places instead of drive, you can also help out with charity work as much as possible, either helping out yourself or giving money, either could make a massive difference. A good way I have found recently to do my part is to give charity gifts, I never know what to get people and this helps out a lot.
Recycling and re-using things is also a very useful tool to help fight against climate change. Charity’s like Trinity who I talked about yesterday (Cash Injection for London furniture recycling shops) will take away your old sofas and furniture to sell on in their charity shops. Of course charity shops have been around for a long time and have always been a great way to give away old dresses and suits, as well as all kinds of other useful things.