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Extensive cooking facilities were also included -- because Suma and Fujioka haven't fully retired just yet. For the past two years, they have been running a food delivery service for elderly people. A dining room sits in the heart of the five huts with a 26-feet (8-meter) high ceiling.
Nobuko spends her time baking cakes and breads as well as growing flowers, while Fujioka focuses on preparing meals for the elderly.
In the future, the women hope to open up their property to the community.
"Perhaps 10 or so years from now, the elderly could stay here to be cared for," Nobuko says.
"I think it's a trend (in Japan) for younger people to move outside of the city and have a happier life outside of the city," Issei Suma tells CNN. "One thing I can imagine is that, after my mother, younger people can run the facility. If it's good for older people it should be good for (others) too."
Suma says in order to save space, he designed the jacuzzi to accommodate wheelchairs.
"I came up with the spiral shape which enables you to use a wheelchair and go down it. At the same time, it's a great pool for kids and it's going to be a great jacuzzi for couples, too.
"That's my idea of universal design -- it's something that makes every generation happy."
"When they approached me about this house and their concept, they told me this was going to be their final abode," Issei says. "They were going to serve the community and live here for the rest of their lives.
"They told me they did not want anything fancy -- nothing embellished, (or) trying to be cool -- but something that is down to earth."
Issei felt particularly inspired by the term "down to earth": it reminded him of Stone Age pit dwellings that are often found across Japan. "That to me is un-embellished living," he explains.
The "back-to-nature" ethos is reflected in Jikka's design.
The unusual shape of the home echoes the mountain ranges it's surrounded by, while the use of wood is intended to blend in with the 820-feet (25-meter) high zelkova trees that encircle the site.
"I like the idea that ... the wood will be weathered and over time it will dissolve into the landscape," explains Issei.
"Chapel-like" high ceilings not only bring in an abundance of natural light into the space -- for the architect, they are also symbolic of old age.
"In that sense, it might make sense that a person that might move out here and live here in a primitive hut -- by the end of their life they can somehow grow up to the roof to the ceiling to the sky.
The Museum of Suburbia had more than its share of skeptics from the beginning, including me, when I wrote that it was a “fantasy, rather than a dream.” Eilert himself was doubtful from the beginning that such a concept could attract the $10 million needed to bring it to reality.
The Museum of Suburbia died with hardly a whimper, in sharp contrast to the notoriety it received over the past couple of years. That included a front page article in the Wall Street Journal, which was a bit tongue-in-cheek.
So much for expensive feasibility studies that indicated it would be doable to raise $10 million.
I could not disagree more, but kicking an idea when it’s down is not the polite thing to do. So, we’ll let it go.
The focus now should be on the former King Louie bowling alley at 87th Street and Metcalf Avenue, which the county purchased two years ago to house a regular kind of historical museum of Johnson County, currently located in an old flooded house in Shawnee.
The building is 76,000 square feet and will cost the county, all-in, including acquisition costs and improvements, a total of $15.6 million.
Of that space, a fourth of it will go to house the exhibits of the present museum, which tells the history of this county, from American Indians to the postwar suburban explosion.
Meeker, who now is turning his attention to the current historical museum, said he and the foundation board are committed to raising $2 million to enhance the exhibits, including making the museum more “kid friendly.” We shall see. The Johnson County Museum Foundation has never raised more than $38,000 in any year.
That leaves three-fourths of King Louie to fill.
The county is moving into the facility The Enterprise Center of Johnson County, which needs 13,500 square feet, plus 3,000 square feet for early voting —now at Metcalf South Shopping Center. That leaves a whole bunch of empty space that may someday house other county agencies or an expanded museum.
Of course, at one time the National Museum of Suburbia might have been an anchor tenant, but Eilert says he never figured on that when he recommended to the County Commission that they buy the building. Rather Eilert thinks they got a steal on the building, at just a bit more than half the asking price.
Eilert is one of the most frugal public officials around. His track record proves that.
So, when Eilert says the purchase and improvements of this “iconic” bowling alley was a good deal, you may have to take a leap of faith that he is right.
A one-alarm fire caused about $350,000 in structural damage and $50,000 in damage to contents of a single-story home in Menlo Park's Sharon Heights neighborhood Saturday afternoon, Chief Harold Schapelhouman of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District said.
One firefighter was injured when he "rolled his ankle," Chief Schapelhouman said.
The fire was reported at 4:35 p.m. in the 900 block of Continental Drive. Firefighters arrived within minutes, and the fire was under control by 4:45 p.m., he said.
Scott Johnson, a Trinity Drive resident who saw the smoke, told The Almanac that he stopped his car and knocked on the door of the Continental Drive home. The occupant had no idea her roof was on fire, he said.
She and her dog got out in plenty of time.
Mr. Johnson said he climbed up on the roof with a ladder and a garden hose. Smoke and flames were coming from an attic vent, the chief said.
The fireplace was in use at the time, Mr. Johnson said.
A big cloud of smoke was visible from Santa Cruz Avenue. Fighting the fire were some 16 firefighters from four engines and one truck plus two battalion chiefs to manage the effort, the chief said. The Menlo Park firefighters were assisted by firefighters from the Woodside Fire Protection District.
Firefighters drilled holes in the roof, but its triple layer construction of wood shingle, composition and wood shake made the operation "difficult," Chief Schapelhouman said, adding that the fire consumed most of the attic.
Firefighters also worked from inside the house, pulling down the ceiling after removing the furniture and valuables, the chief said.
The fire may have started in the attic of the 2,200-square-foot, ranch-style house, Chief Schapelhouman said. The cause is under investigation.
Good response time, good fire truck and ff coverage, good stop !
Mr. Johnson deserves a Good Citizen award from the Menlo Park Council, to recognize his quick thinking and responsible action. We are lucky to have a neighbor like him!
What a wonderful example of neighbor-helping-neighbor! Scott not only averted a tragedy by alerting the woman & dog inside, he also climbed to the roof with a hose to help until the fire department came. Way to go, Scott!
My Brother rocks! This action reflects his character- I was not surprised at all when I read this!
President Obama has announced plans to begin the withdrawal of tens of thousands of US troops from Afghanistan, starting in July.
Speaking in an address on US national television, he said 10,000 soldiers would be removed from Afghanistan by the end of 2011, with a total of 33,000 brought home by next summer.
He said that although al-Qaeda remained dangerous, the group was "on a path to defeat, and we will not relent until the job is done".
Role models portrayed as superhuman don’t always motivate students—instead, they risk discouraging kids who feel they can't live up to the lofty standards.
By that time Curie had already proved herself a brilliant scientist—she had won the Nobel Prize for her work with radioactivity in 1903 and in 1911 became the first woman to run the physics laboratory at the Sorbonne—but was coming under fire for her personal life. She had been widowed five years before and had since b...
A century later, Curie and Einstein have been inducted to the metaphorical pantheon of scientific greats. Their biographies have been written and rewritten; elementary school children learn about their lives and the impact of their science, still unable to understand the science itself. As the reputations of these grou...
Scientific heroes can be positive role models for aspiring scientists, helping them understand different paths to success and precedents for overcoming obstacles.
In recent years, educators and policy makers have thought a lot about what makes a field uninviting or intimidating to newcomers. Part of this was the realization that science, technology, engineering and math—or STEM fields—are less diverse than many other subject areas. There are lots of reasons for this, including l...
Exposing students to the stories of scientists with backgrounds like their own can help reduce stereotype threat. But when someone is held up as a role model, nuances are often lost. Dozens of people who paved the way to discovery dissolve into the background, failed experiments are forgotten, select personal details p...
But Julie Des Jardins, author of several books about gender including The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science, points out that the public didn’t start separating scientists’ professional and personal lives until science became a profession, not just a hobby— a trend that happened over the cours...
Indirect reciprocity only works if the recipient trusts that the other person has a good reputation—a similar mindset to how scientists put credence in or discredit previous studies conducted by colleagues. In science and in life, people are more likely to follow the example of someone they know to be successful. And s...
Highfield agreed: “Heroic narratives work well as viral transmitters of science in today’s crowded realm of ideas. The trick is to find heroic narratives with a reasonable correspondence with reality.” A more realistic narrative, he mentioned, would be that of Peter Higgs. Higgs is a “winningly reluctant hero,” Highfie...
By painting a more realistic picture of what science entails (like collaboration, frustration and struggle) and the people who conduct it (with personalities and complete lives), Des Jardins and Highfield are confident that students can go into science with a more realistic view of it that will help them overcome the d...
Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told The Guardian that Greece has no Plan B if negotiations with its creditors fail.
“We constantly hear, ‘if you don’t sign on the dotted line there is going to be Armageddon’. My answer is ‘let it happen!’ There is no fall-back plan. That is my plan B,” Varoufakis said in the interview.
On Monday, there is a crucial meeting with euro zone finance ministers where Greece has to present a viable proposal on the state debt issue.
Varoufakis though is not afraid to clash with Germany and its austerity program that instead of pulling Greece out of the crisis, has driven the Greek economy to the ground, leaving one-third of Greeks in poverty.
You are of course right. While Varoufakis proudly boasts how he has no plan B you can bet the Germans have a plan B, C, and D.
What’s really sad is so many Greeks wildly supported far leftist extremist Varoufakis. All it seems a politician needs to do to get Greek leftist votes is just bribe them with empty promises of handouts. They fall for it over and over and over and over and over again. Nothing will change for Greece for as long as too m...
When people have nothing to lose, they lose nothing.
I also don’t believe that anything is going to change much in Greece, but I think that Greece needed a change after all. For 4-5 decades, the governing parties were the same, only a few faces were chaning and those were of the same families. Basically, they were inheriting the positions of power from their ancestors an...
This is a massive change after a really long time. I don’t know if it’s good or if it’s bad. I suppose time will show. But the fact that they’ve been voted means that people couldn’t handle the situation any longer. They needed at least hope. Syriza gave them hope. It’s too early to jump into conclusions. We can only m...
Just to make it clear. I do not support any party. I don’t even vote in Greece. I’m just trying to see things objectively as much as I can.
Peterborough Phantoms produced a late surge to complete a full set of home triumphs against English Premier League leaders Telford last night (December 18).
It was the ice hockey equivalent of the tortoise and hare at Planet Ice as the city side were undone by the fast-starting Tigers before gradually gaining control of the game and eventually putting their short-benched visitors to the sword as they ran on empty in the final session to collect a 3-1 success.
The pattern of play didn’t surprise coach Slava Koulikov, who enjoyed a fine return to the Phantoms bench following a difficult week of World Championship hockey with the Great Britain Under 20 side, and was delighted to provide an early Christmas present for the club’s fans by completing a hat-trick against the table-...
Koulikov said: “Telford were pretty amazing in the first period and we struggled to keep hold of them, but we started to control the game in the second period and won it in the third period.
“It was all about keeping ourselves in contention to start with because we knew the odds would be in our favour the longer the game went on.
“Had we been 3-0 or 4-0 down, we would have been in trouble, but we managed to keep Telford to one goal and then turned it around.
That didn’t look a likely scenario early on as Phantoms were behind within a minute of the puck dropping.
Telford forward Corey McEwen gobbled up a rebound in front of the net after netminder Janis Auzins had blocked a Danny Rose shot through traffic.
At that point it seemed to be going perfectly to plan for the light-on-bodies, but high-on-fans table-toppers as they burst from the blocks in the manner of a champion sprinter.
No doubt their aim was to build up a match-winning advantage early on, while Phantoms weren’t helped by the loss of Scott Robson following a hit by the boards from Telford captain Jason Silverthorn.
The defenceman was immediately despatched down the road to Peterborough City Hospital where he received several stitches to repair a chin wound.
But his fellow blue-liners stood strong in his absence, helped by plenty of smart work from Auzins. A double-save to deny McEwen a second goal early in the second period was probably the pick of his contributions.
That was a rare moment of threat from Telford as Phantoms controlled much of the possession without ever looking particularly likely to score themselves in the middle session.
The fact they managed only a couple of weak shots during one minute and 38 seconds of five-on-three was the perfect illustration of that.
But it was a different story in the final period as two of their imports engineered an excellent turnaround.
Only 10 seconds had passed when Wehebe Darge reacted quickly to swipe in a leveller that left Telford complaining about an over-watered ice surface.
And soon they had the sinking feeling as Ales Padelek took centre stage with two goals in a shade under four minutes.
The Czech veteran produced combined a great reach with a fine finish to put his side ahead before sealing a sixth win in seven games when rifling a rocket past Tigers netminder Sam Gospel.
With a two-goal cushion, big Phantoms man Petr Stepanek finally granted Telford enforcer Doug Clarkson his wish of a scrap.
The two giants battled for the second time this season and while it was a victory for Clarkson, the Tigers import’s actions did little to help his side claw their way back into the contest as he sat out all but a few seconds of the remainder of the game.
The visitors did have a go, though. They pulled netminder Gospel with just over two minutes remaining and Phantoms defenceman Ben Russell almost immediately picked up a delay-of-the-game penalty.
That was the cue for a six-on-four siege from Telford, but they couldn’t turn their ample pressure into clear chances and it was Phantoms who came closest to another goal when Tom Norton rolled an empty-net effort, from the opposite end of the rink, just wide.
But they had already done enough to earn another notable success – one which lifted them back into fourth place in the EPL standings.
It’s a position Phantoms will seek to maintain during a hectic schedule of five games in eight days during the festive period.
The first of those is a Boxing Day trip to fierce rivals Milton Keynes ahead of a return clash 24 hours later on Tuesday, December 27.
Drug lord Joaquin Guzman is seen in a June 10, 1993 file photo.
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is being singled out for his role as leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, which supplies the bulk of narcotics sold in the city, according to the Chicago Crime Commission and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
"Not since the Chicago Crime Commission's first Public Enemy No. 1 has any criminal deserved this title more than Joaquin Guzman," J.R. Davis, president of 94-year-old Chicago Crime Commission, said in remarks prepared for an announcement later Thursday.
It was the Chicago Crime Commission that designated Capone Public Enemy No. 1 in 1930. The non-government body that tracks city crime trends called other people public enemies, but Capone was the only one to ever be its No. 1.
Unlike Capone, Guzman doesn't live in Chicago. He lives hundreds of miles away in a mountain hideaway in western Mexico. But for all the havoc he creates in the nation's third-largest city, he ought to be treated as a local Chicago crime boss, the DEA's top Chicago official, Jack Riley, told The Associated Press in a r...
"In my opinion, Guzman is the new Al Capone of Chicago," Riley says in remarks prepared for Thursday.
Capone based his bootlegging and other criminal enterprises out of Chicago during Prohibition, when it was illegal to make or sell alcohol in the U.S. He eventually went to prison for income tax evasion, but he gained the most notoriety for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre 84 years ago that left seven rivals dead.
Yet Riley says Guzman is more ruthless than Capone.

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