Several years ago things were booming. Where you cold really see it was in the west. Places like Phoenix and Las Vegas were building subdivisions so fast it made your head hurt. And these subdivisions were huge. not the kind you’re use to if you are from the Midwest or east coast. These were ridiculously big. One subdivision running into another; creating a massive community.

In 2008, things started to change. They changed quick too. the economy started showing signs of instability. The first thing that started being affected was homes. Home sales started to plummet. People were not buying homes all of a sudden. Home builders had just gone from bragging about how they could build a home in record time, to having thousands of brand new, empty homes.

As things got even worse, more people became unemployed. The more people that became unemployed, the more people that couldn’t pay their mortgages. Folks started walking away from their homes. They made the decision that vacating the house was the only option – they simply could not afford to pay the bill anymore. Add on to that, the fact that because housing prices had dropped to all-time lows, they were never going to get their money back out of their house.

In this country, we have a tendency to be extremists. If something is big, new, popular or working for someone; we go full bore and run it straight into the ground. We do it with sports, we do it with music, with technology – and we do it with construction. Hopefully we will learn from this, and be more prepared when the economy takes a turn for the worst.

The Brooklyn Bridge opened on May 24, 1883. The bridge is a suspension bridge made with cable stays. The bridge was designed by John Augustus Roebling, and spans 5,989 feet. Designer Roebling had previously designed big project suspension bridges in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas.

Roebling was injured while surveying the property for the bridge, and died of tetanus before the bridge was built ever build. It was a tragedy. Roebling’s son, Washington Roebling, completed the design and supervised the engineering for a time, but he died. The bridge was completed 14 years after it was started The project was eventually completed by Washington Roebling’s wife, Emily.

When the Brooklyn Bridge opened, there was a rumor that the bridge was about to collapse. A stamped ensued, killing 12 people and injured 35 more.

Of all the engineering designs of the 1800s, the Brooklyn Bridge stands out as the most famous remarkable. It took a long time to build the bridge; more than a decade. It also cost the life of its designer, and his son. The bridge and was constantly criticized by those who thought it was going to fall into the East River.

The Brooklyn may always be remembered most as the passage way that thousands took to escape Manhattan on September 11, 2001.

The Quaker Oats company actually got its start on the property in 1886 when it built the Quaker Oats cereal factory.

Quaker Oats operated for 38 years until production was stopped in 1970. The mill stood vacant for three years until 1973, when some changes were made to turn it into a viable place for the city. In 1975, it reopened with four mall-like shops and an ice cream parlor. Five years later, in 1980, the silos were changed into a Hilton Hotel, called the Crowne Plaza. The hotel had 196 rooms that were round.

Through the 1980′s more shops were added to a converted mall that was attached to the hotel. The hotel itself had a restaurant and bar, along with 16 banquet room, a pool, exercise room. The hotel actually had room for 12 floors, but the space was never used. The upper part of the hotel was utilized for storage space instead. As popularity grew, more shops were added to the mall. Eventually, the 1st floor of the mall contained a train store, candy store and a homemade oatmeal raisin cookie bakery. These cookies were known as the best in town.

The 2nd and 3rd floors of the mall were full of shops with everything from perfumes to greeting cards. The top floor of the mall housed local business offices. The mall also had a restaurant located below the mall underground. A third restaurant was located in transformed train cars in the parking lot. Quaker Square became a great place for families.

In December, home builders started building 657,000 homes across the U.S. The Commerce department said that building permits stayed the same and apartment construction, which was already dead, dropped even farther. The number of homes that single-family home builders broke ground on this year is half of what experts say is needed to be considered a healthy economy. the housing market is still many years away from a full recovery.

Single family home builders broke ground on over 428,000 homes in 2011, which is the fewest in the last 50 years. That’s pretty scary. Economists all say that the single family homes make up 70% of the market and are a key indicator of the housing market rebound. One thing that makes it hard is that new purchases are also down and are at a 50 year low. With the crackdown of the government on the lenders and banks, no one wants to give out any money. People that normally would be able to get a loan cannot because they do not have perfect credit. There is fear in the market, and there will be for a while.

Since many homeowners walked away from their homes when things became impossible to afford, there are an overload of empty homes. These are homes are much cheaper for the buyer that building a new home – experts say about 30% cheaper. So many are looking at buying existing homes, since there are so many to choose from, rather than paying too much to build new.

Stonehenge is, in fact, a henge which means circular ditch. It has standing stones that are placed in the circle. Radiocarbon dating has been done on these stones and they are very old, and were placed there a long long time ago. Some archaeologists speculate that Stonehenge could have originally been used as burial ground. Remains have been found and have been verified to be some 500 years apart from each other. Stonehenge has had much speculation about what it really was. Some researchers say that because of the number of burial sites that have been found in the area, that it was a burial site and a place to come to meditate or worship.

Many believe that Stonehenge was a sort of dial that was aligned with the solstice. Since the 18th century, the horseshoe of great trilithons on the inside of the Stonehenge Monument and the horseshoe of 19 bluestones on the outer ring had their opening face the direction of the midsummer sunrise. Some came to the conclusion that the monument must have been deliberately placed so that on midsummer’s morning the sun rose directly over the Heel Stone, in the distance, and the first sunlight that shined on the center of the monument between horseshoe. The alignment also made it pretty clear that whoever built Stonehenge had to have astronomical knowledge relating to the sun’s path.

Researchers were also skeptical about the ability of men being able to lift and move such large heavy rocks into position. That hurdle was overcome when techniques were used to imitate how the people may have moved and stacked the enormous rocks.

For years banks have been the facilitator of mortgage loans which make it possible for people to buy houses. Part of the reason we are in a housing slump is because these same banks allowed a whole lot of loans to be processed to people that were not fit for either the amount of the loan, or any loan. Once people cannot pay their mortgage, bad things happen. First, they stop taking care of the house because they are not sure how much longer they will be living in it. This negatively affects the neighborhood just by the bad visual the house now emits. Or worse, they could abandon the house. So now the neighborhood has to deal with a unkept house with no one living in it. Makes it almost impossible to sell.

Some now, are calling for the banks to bend to help the cause. They are asking the banks to become more lenient by lowering existing mortgage payments to reflect the new real time worth of the home. As we know, most homes are not worth as much as they were when they were purchased; especially homes purchased in the last ten years or so. Now, home owners are paying high mortgages for a home in which they will never regain the original value.

So far, no banks have really stepped up to the plate backing this concept. It does make sense though. If banks could find a way to recalculate a homes real time worth when moving toward foreclosure, they could lower the payment and keep the homeowner in the house. The alternative is to continue to see people leaving their homes abandoned and run down. The banks are then stuck with a house they really do not want and is worth far less to them. The homeowner loses, the bank loses, the neighborhood loses – we all lose.

Customers of Hudson-based ROI Energy have saved an estimated $1.2 million this year alone with lighting retrofits.  Though future energy rates cannot be determined, ROI Energy’s clients can anticipate a savings of $12 million over the next ten years.

ROI Energy’s customers reduced carbon emissions in excess of 7,800 tons annually, which is equal to 1,422 cars taken off the road or 880,000 gallons of gasoline saved.

“The ability to reduce lighting energy costs by 50% in today’s economy while increasing light levels are the biggest benefits. Lucrative rebate incentive dollars paid directly to business and building owners along with the ability to deduct their entire energy reduction project the first year, are icing on the cake,” notes Bob Taussig, President of ROI Energy.  “Presenting a turn-key energy savings package with an excellent return on investment to top management makes my job extremely rewarding.”

The “green” movement and taking steps to create sustainability is an important consideration for corporations and their customers.  ROI Energy reports their lighting retrofit installations are up over 300% due to Illuminating Company and Ohio Edison lighting rebate incentives. First Energy provided millions of dollars directly to businesses who agreed to have lighting retrofit projects performed in 2011, in their effort to reduce energy use.

“Without exception, our customers with warehouses and manufacturing facilities were thrilled with the increase in light levels realized from their new, high bay T5 and T8 fixtures, at the same time reducing their energy costs by over 50% year after year, helping them to remain competitive,” comments Taussig.

ROI Energy Solutions, Inc. of Hudson specializes in providing turnkey lighting retrofit projects for Ohio area factories, warehouses and distribution centers.  Their specialty is retrofitting (converting) industrial, 400 watt metal halide high bay lighting to energy efficient T-5 and T-8 high bay fixtures, typically providing twice the light using half the energy. More importantly, projects are installed without disrupting their customer’s production.

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Many years ago, windows were nothing more than holes in the wall. Down the road they were covered with animal hide to protect from the elements. Then came shutters which could be opened or closed. Finally came glass pieced together to allow light in. The Romans were the first to use glass.

Modern windows are known as double glazing or double paned and are made up of two pieces of glass. The glass is slightly separated and the gap is filled with air or gas for insulation. The spacer that separates the two pieces of glass is made of aluminum and foam, sealing the gas in. Over time the double pane window can become compromised allowing cold air and moisture to form on the inside of the window. This could result in a higher gas bill as cold draft will come into the house and heat will be able to absorb outward through the window. The only way to fix this problem once it occurs is to replace the windows.

Glass can now be made with lower-emissivity or low-e qualities through manufacturing which reduce the absorption of heat through the glass. This keeps the heat in a home or building making it more efficient. Low emissivity is actually low thermal emissivity and represents the quality of a surface that emits low levels of thermal energy.

So if you have windows with moisture on the inside, it might be time to replace those and look into the low-e glass that will not only keep the heat in, but will also save you money.

Glass is everywhere in our house. Many of the cups we drink from are made of glass. We have decorations in our house made from glass and light bulbs that are glass. Some houses even use glass for table tops or shelving. The windows in our house are glass. They keep us away from the cold and the heat. We also have glass in our shower doors. Some shower door glass is simple and thin, and some is fancy and thick. Sometimes the entire shower is made from glass, and sometimes just the door. The glass in showers is laminated so when it breaks the glass does not come apart. There is a thin layer of plastic that runs between two pieces of thin glass to make the finished glass piece. This prevents injury if the glass were to break.

Automobiles also have glass. They have windows and windshields made from glass. the glass in a car keep us safe from rain and debris. It also keeps us dry and away from the elements. Car windshields are also laminated and tempered. Tempered means that the glass has been strengthened through a heating process. When a windshield is hit with flying debris, it will not shatter. The glass will actually spiderweb and remain in tact.

Buildings also have glass. Architectural glass is specially tempered for strength and the glass is also designed to keep heat from passing though it. This allows a glass building to keep the heat of the sun out in the winter and keep the heat in during the winter. The way the glass is manufactured can really make an impact on the efficiency of the building.

The prototype house in called “Pinwheel House”. It can withstand an 8.0 hurricane. There are many skeptics of the $1,000 house concept. They say that house will not be equipped with the necessary items to give someone a healthy lifestyle. Apparently the house has no capacity for hot water. many believe that it is a good idea to build lower cost houses, but that this is going a little too far.

The Pinwheel House is constructed from hollow brick walls, reinforced with steel bars and bamboo. The whole idea of the house is to provide a very low cost house. A $1,000 house seems a little bit of a stretch, but the idea of pushing the limits to create this house initiates brainstorming and creation of new ways of looking at doing the same old tasks. The $6,000 prototype house was located in a remote location which added to the cost of building.

The MIT students involved in the project believe that this type of low cost housing can help a great number of people. The low-cost homes would be a great help to heavily populated poor areas and displaced families from catastrophic events. The $1,000 house project is currently looking for sponsors for continue.