Sunday, July 10, 2011

Really, It All Comes Down To Windows...


It's a long story, really, and it begins with my dad. Back in the early 1970's (or very late 1960's...) my father designed a house for his young family. They found the lot and building commenced.


But back those many decades ago, technology had not caught up with my father's dream. Specifically, the large windows he used in the front of the house were not very efficient. Needless to say, our family did not use the front room in the hottest part of summer, nor the coldest part of winter.


As time went on, replacing the windows was not an option for my mom. The home's new owners did replace the windows with the latest in insulated windows, something we should have done, but didn't do.


So what does all this have to do with beautiful sunsets? When we built our house, we angled it so as to have as few western windows as possible. It helps immensely with heating/cooling the home, but we miss out on those incredible western views. We can tell when a colorful sunset hits the sky when we look out of our north-facing window at dusk. When the neighbor's house and the mountainside beyond turns pink, red, orange, purple, we know the view to the west is special.


It happened again tonight. A storm rolled in and I went out on our back porch with my trusty Kodak point-n-shoot and caught another amazing colorful end of the day. And so a decision made in my dad's mind over 40 years ago affects me even today.

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