Earlier this year, while doing my usual sleuthing for information about CSI Fellows, I discovered several references to Milton Potee's military service. As seems to be typical for many veterans, he mentioned nothing about his service in the autobiography he wrote for the College of Fellows, and even his obituary observed only that "He also served in the United States Army Air Corps in WWII." As it turns out, that's a bit of an understatement, and I'd like to tell you, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.
Constructive Thoughts
Observations and musings about architecture and the construction industry.
The focus of this blog is construction-related topics. The purpose is discussion, so please feel free to comment! See Specific thoughts for thoughts from the daily life of a specifier.

14 July 2019
13 December 2018
A Dickens of a tale, revisited
This is an update of a piece I first published in 2007. I tweaked it just a bit to update some of the references. I hope you enjoy it!
Scrooge was an old man, set in his ways. And why not? He had been doing things the same way for many years, and the resulting success was sufficient evidence of the wisdom of continuing in that path. Whenever it was suggested that change might be a good thing, “Bah, humbug!” was his response. “I like things the way they are! I started this business, I’ve been doing things the same way for fifty years, and I don’t see any reason to change! All this new-fangled stuff is just a fad.”
One evening, a strange series of events befell our dear Mister Scrooge. Having had a particularly trying day, he tried to enjoy a rich repast and a few glasses of wine in an effort to forget his problems. As he fell asleep, he was thinking of how much fun he had had in his youth.
![]() |
Scrooge's Third Visitor |
One evening, a strange series of events befell our dear Mister Scrooge. Having had a particularly trying day, he tried to enjoy a rich repast and a few glasses of wine in an effort to forget his problems. As he fell asleep, he was thinking of how much fun he had had in his youth.
02 August 2018
Memories: TeamCS and MWGTW
I've been having a lot of fun lately, going through boxes of old Construction Specifier magazines, paper files I accumulated at the office, and digital files I've acquired in the last forty or so years. Among my own articles, I found a couple of series I wrote for CSI that might be interesting to look at again.
One of them was TeamCS, CSI's first attempt at an online magazine; forty-one issues were published from 1998 through 2003. Each month, a topic was given to four authors, representing the four team members as envisioned by CSI at that time. There were a couple of changes in authors over the years, but the ones I remember were Tom Deines, speaking for the constructor; Paul Bertram, speaking for the supplier; Phil Kabza, speaking for the designer; and me, speaking for the owner.
I don't know how many readers we had, or what the response rate was, but I suspect both were low. Nonetheless, we authors had a good time. Here is an example:
One of them was TeamCS, CSI's first attempt at an online magazine; forty-one issues were published from 1998 through 2003. Each month, a topic was given to four authors, representing the four team members as envisioned by CSI at that time. There were a couple of changes in authors over the years, but the ones I remember were Tom Deines, speaking for the constructor; Paul Bertram, speaking for the supplier; Phil Kabza, speaking for the designer; and me, speaking for the owner.
I don't know how many readers we had, or what the response rate was, but I suspect both were low. Nonetheless, we authors had a good time. Here is an example:
22 May 2018
The CSI College of Fellows on Facebook
The CSI College of Fellows has two Facebook pages. One, at https://www.facebook.com/FCSICollegeofFellows/, is the official page, where announcements from the College are posted. It focuses on College of Fellows announcements and
activities. Formal reports of the passing of Fellows are posted here,
as is information about new Fellows, the Celebration of Fellows, and
College of Fellows history.
The other page, at https://www.facebook.com/groups/CSIFellows/, is more casual. This one is a group page, with membership restricted to CSI Fellows. It's a place for Fellows to talk with other Fellows about what they're doing. Members (again, restricted to Fellows) automatically are notified about new posts. For the last several months, we have been playing a game of "Who, when, and where?" A picture of Fellows from a past event is posted, and visitors are invited to guess who's in the picture, when it was taken, and where it was taken.
Anyone can visit either page, and anyone can comment, though comments from non-members may be moderated. Watch both of these pages for news about the College of Fellows, and when you have a few spare minutes, see if you can answer the "Who, when, and where?" questions. For a start, who is in this picture? When was it taken, and what are they doing? Post your answers on Facebook, at https://www.facebook.com/groups/CSIFellows/.
The other page, at https://www.facebook.com/groups/CSIFellows/, is more casual. This one is a group page, with membership restricted to CSI Fellows. It's a place for Fellows to talk with other Fellows about what they're doing. Members (again, restricted to Fellows) automatically are notified about new posts. For the last several months, we have been playing a game of "Who, when, and where?" A picture of Fellows from a past event is posted, and visitors are invited to guess who's in the picture, when it was taken, and where it was taken.
Anyone can visit either page, and anyone can comment, though comments from non-members may be moderated. Watch both of these pages for news about the College of Fellows, and when you have a few spare minutes, see if you can answer the "Who, when, and where?" questions. For a start, who is in this picture? When was it taken, and what are they doing? Post your answers on Facebook, at https://www.facebook.com/groups/CSIFellows/.
14 May 2018
Head to head

My last firm regularly announced milestone anniversaries, and, beginning with the tenth anniversary, each honoree was given the opportunity to say a few words. At my tenth and fifteenth anniversaries, I took a project manual to the lectern, opened it, and intoned, "And now for an interpretive reading of a specification section." The next time you speak, try it; it's always good for a laugh.
For my twentieth anniversary, I couldn't help but think back on my career. I decided I should compare myself to another writer, and, for reasons I can't explain, I chose Tom Clancy. That might sound crazy, but we're both prolific writers, and there is a resemblance…
21 February 2018
Construction documents - are they worse than ever?
![]() |
Two women operating ENIAC; Wikipedia Commons |
In 1997, Michael Chambers and I presented “Document Coordination” for the Minnesota chapter of AIA. We discussed the roles of drawings and specifications, document quality, coordination techniques, short-form specifications, and MasterFormat 1995. Our handout included reprints of several articles about document quality; some, with scary titles, tried to prove that construction documents were atrocious and getting worse, while others how quality depended on coordination of construction documents.*
06 December 2017
Wayward websites

At the time, there wasn't much in the way of instruction for web designers and there were few rules about how to make a website work or what it should be. An architecture firm in my area had a beautiful website, graced by one the firm's most impressive projects. The problem was, it took forever to load. I analyzed the code and the files, and discovered they were using a huge image file. They apparently didn't know that there usually is no discernible difference between an image file of a few kilobytes and the same image in a two-megabyte file.
07 November 2017
Is it time for change?
![]() |
Design-Build Institute of America |
The Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) was founded in 1993, coincidentally the same year that USGBC appeared. At the time, DBIA made what seemed to be optimistic projections of a future dominated by design-build (DB), with a corresponding decrease in design-bid-build. That prediction is nearing fulfillment, though perhaps at a slower rate than first expected.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)