Happy Father's Day!

Great story snook and incredibly common int he realm of home improvement! "So then this was wrong, and that meant that had to happen, so ..."

I'm in Kentucky. I'm drinking bourbon.

Donna,

Already? Oh nevermind that was from last night.
Snook, sounds like fun and similar to the trajectory my father's home improvements (and in that best tradition) my own take.

Morning all.

Morning. Filling out applications is so boring. Why can't I just send a resume, again? I wish therewas an employment fairy that would just grant me an awesome job. I deserve it.

Goodness, where is everybody?

sarah, super busy here, but good things come to people who work hard for them. It will come!

Dear People:

Hi. How are you all? Long time no see. I'm exhausted.

Can anyone give me a synopsis of the past 8 pages or so? I'm tired just thinking about it...


Your friend,
-Dub K

hmmm....beta and wife separated, and seem to be headed for mediation.

steven, head down, working.

donna's come to gsa in kentucky. hi donna!

hello Dubk!!

It has been a minute. How is life in the NW shaping out?

I am busy too. Hope to get back to running today now that my neck isn't hurting anymore...

Sorry, Dubbers, I can't remember the last eight pages. Where have you been?

I've been working on this for the last two weeks. I'm so glad to be finished.

Steven, how does one get on board the GSA boat?

Sarah, Cute! Maybe you should start selling them....?

Hi beta. I'm sorry. I hope you're doing OK.

Hi Steven. Glad to hear that you and Donna are still hitting the GSA out of the park.

Hi nam. It has only been a minute, hasn't it?

Hi Sarah. I've been around, and busy as all get out. Most of May was a blur. I had all-company meetings to prepare for and other work things to get done. Plus I moved in a whirlwind couple of weeks... I really love my new apartment, and I am quite glad that I took my time looking because I ended up with a great place. Add in a couple of out-of-town weekends, out-of-town visitors, and a constant low buzz of mandemonium, and I disappeared into the abyss for a while.

Also, I've still been studying for my exams. However, I bombed the last practice test that I took and that jarred my confidence a bit. With the move especially I've only been focused on getting my life back in order, so I decided to postpone my first test (PPP) by about 6 weeks. It's only money, right? :o/

I don't even know why I try. I create and send out resume after resume, and then I call with follow-up calls only to get voicemails. In the rare case that I actually get someone on the phone, its only to hear "All positions have been filled." It's damn depressing is what it is. Damn depressing.

sarah - it's tough - when I first moved out east I sent out close to 100 resumes over several months, and both times I got laid off it was a couple dozen (plus networking) before receiving a single interview. I kept a list of all the places that actually spoke to me when I followed up and the ones that actually responded without me having to call - even if it was to tell me they didn't have anything.

IMO, a firm that responds to your job request, even if just to let you know the position is filled, is worthwhile staying in touch with in the future. this is either a sign that they are on top of things and/or were interested in you but honestly didn't have something.

personally, if a place is completely unresponsive it's probably best you not bother with them again.

Good advice, and some crossover applies. Just wanted to be clear that these are schools. I've all but given up on a job in architecture anytime soon. If I see an openng posted, I send a resume, but there aren't any openings here. Would it be wrong t just walk ont jobsites in a mini-skirt and apply for construction secretarial work?

unfortunately, i'm NOT at gsa this year. donna is the only gsarchinector present.

sarah, basically it's an invited/interview-y sort of thing. usually the instructors are kentucky-based but i thought donna was too good to miss, so i invited her to help me a few years ago.

maybe texas has a program of a similar type? i know that there are governors' schools in several states.

my architectural registration fees went up 7.8% this year. this in a down turn economy. i guess they want professionals to leave this state, well at least they are sending a message. funny how it is my arizona registration cost me a heck of alot less for two years than my one year tab for connecticut. i guess we be happy paying the salaries of state employees. geeze and the aia didn't say a thing about what was happening at the state level, guess those lobby dollars aren't going very far this year.

Hi all!
Mandemonium...I like it. Nice addition to the lexicon, dubk.

Is it bad that I'm a bit comforted to hear that the mandemonium continues? Cause it's been occupying my head a bit much lately, and you know how misery loves company. Well, not misery actually, just... crazy? I think crazy loves company too.

Also, the difficult client situation is getting even more complicated... their internal problems are blowing up, and the entity that exists when the smoke clears may not even bear the same name as the company I almost finished a logo for. I keep thinking that the story will make a really great article in Print or Comm Arts someday.

Hi Dapper, and thanks. And hi copper... not sure that my mandemonium is worth talking about, except there is one story that you all might find funny.

There's a guy that I probably talked about once or twice on here a few months ago as having struck my fancy... well back in May at one point, after a series of emails back and forth (long story) let's just say that I told him he was attractive and I asked him out. He hemmed and hawed for a couple of weeks, and then, just as I gave up on him and wrote him off, he decided to call me and word vomit all over himself, i.e., tell me that he couldn't see me because he was seeing someone else. (He couldn't have said this from the beginning? jesus h christ...) I found out later from a mutual friend of ours that he said, and I quote, that he didn't think he could date me because "I am not crazy enough for him". Yes that's right folks, now the reason I'm not getting dates is because I'm too put-together.

I mean, really.



Ps. Hi snook... that ticks me off. Why am I taking these stupid tests again?

His loss, dubbers. Besides, if he wants crazy women, then he will always have crazy relationships. That will get old eventuially.

Snook, that sucks. I wonder if all architects started to complain, would they change their ways?

Morning!

oh, if that's who I think it is, that at least explains some things, right? I managed to finally fall head-over-heels for someone (isn't that a funny expression? I mean, my head is usually well over my heels, so no biggie right?) but it's of course someone I just visited a few weeks ago, not someone who actually lives in a location where I could have a relationship with them. I know you've tried that mess before DubK, and despite my having a word-vomit moment myself and telling him how I felt, he's not going to touch that sort of mess. I may have been willing to, for him. But oh well, not an option, so it's time to get over it now.

so many choices; travel the globe, anchorage, east coast and master program, stay?

beta, if I may advise: I tried running away from something big and emotional a few years back by going to grad school elsewhere. In the long run, it only made it harder to deal with. Absolutely travel and move and have a blast... *after* you've gotten through it.

i'm super excited... i just found out that joan ockman is teaching a seminar on post-WWII architectural theory at upenn this fall... since my dissertation is going to be in this time period (team 10) this could potentially be very useful to sit in on even though i'm already done with coursework.

have any of you TCers ever had a class with her?

@phillip nope, but your thesis topic sounds fun.

i love the future house that the smithsons did. the members of team X did such interestingly good and interestingly horrible things. what is your actual topic? have you decided yet?

hang in there sarah. eventually something will turn up. maybe you can show up at schools and ask for a job? seems like architecture is getting harder and harder...

Hi Dubbers welcome back. I've been busy with teaching summer school. 3 hours, 3 days a week seems very difficult to do during the summer when all I can think about is cold beer at the beach. Nonetheless I progress.

Also I've been working on this. All are invited - if you want to speak at the event drop me a line.

I'm still alive.

Achieved a headstand this evening in yoga class without the support of a wall or the instructor. About five second later I tumbled back and tweaked my neck. Oops.

Am I the only one sick of all the hot weather we've been having? I mean it's not even July and we've already had three heat emergency days in a row. Gotta love that Climate Change. :o/

Beta - might I suggest a nice long road trip. Always seems to help clear my cluttered mind... or perhaps my power yoga class. Now that will help you release some toxins.

Nite all

@jump, essentially my dissertation is going to be a history of the urban discourse of team 10 covering approximately 1947-1981, but primarily 1953-1968... i also hope to trace threads through to the contemporary discourse(s) like landscape urbanism, everyday urbanism, informal urbanism, etc... eric mumford's book on CIAM (which actually started as his dissertation) is essentially my model...

very cool philip. an ambitious work. i am surprised that hasn't been done already though.

i show the robin hood gardens and smithsons future house project as prelude to discussion of metabolism here in japan (also the dutch members' stuff), and the students all shudder and wondered at the logic of the ideas of that time. the dutch seemed to make more sense to them.

anyway, if you make a book from dissertation i would like to put my order in today! does you're uni give you a time limit for completion?

Oh, well, now I want to go do a headstand.

@jump, i'm surprised that it hasn't been written already as well... there are a few books about specific members/firms that were involved (particularly the smithsons, aldo van eyck, and candilis-josic-woods), but no overarching history of the group... i have several ideas as to why: archives in multiple languages; it is a bit hard to categorize the group; there were a lot of different points of view within the group; etc... i've found two dissertations that cover the years between 1947-1959 when team 10 was still part of CIAM, but i can't find anyone that covers the later years... there are also a few books by alison smithson, but they only tell the story from her own distorted point of view in which she tended to overemphasize the important of her and peter's contributions...

and yes, we have a 5 year time limit post-ABD...

Morning all,

Melt, congrats on the headstand I only recently was able to do one without a wall as well. My lady friend (who recently became a certified yoga instructor) is helping me with mine.

Speaking of weather this time of year always makes me much more eager to leave north florida.

Beta, a short trip might be just what you need to clear the head etc, but I would advise better to leave bigger life changes until after your other changes have had time to settle in. But then again I am always a step by step (small change, low risk) kind of person.

Phillip, do you read/speak multiple languages? Sounds like the topic could be very fruitful....

I am swamped in work for at least the next couple of weeks. More weekend overtime, huzzah!!!

I need to go check out the doubleplusgood thread... work is doubleplusungood today. And I'm the only one here. I'm tired of being support for the "real" (read: industrial) designers.

oh damn, I misread. It's the doubleplusungood thread, so it's already depressing!

nam, i can read/speak french well enough to get by... and i'm currently working on german... in fact my german translation exam is a week from today... once i'm done with german i'm hoping to learn a bit of dutch as well... we have to pass two translation exams for the phd program...

melt,

what hot weather? we've had one, maybe 2 days over 70. the victory garden is not thriving!

philip,

via my german and french i can stumble through most of the northern EU countries, it's weird.

also, i think we can report holz may no longer be unemployed.

Holz - I'll send you some of the frigging hot and humid weather we're experiencing here in the Ohio River Valley if you send me some of the cool temps the NW is experiencing. Deal? I would love for just one evening to be able to open the windows and get a nice cool breeze coming in.

it's too cold at night to open the windows! we're at the top of a hill, and our place is fairly exposed - this winter kinda sucked because it's not well insulated or airtight. but it's great in summer (temps usu. drop low enough to be tolerable at night in summer, unlike chicago or rest of midwest)

"Speaking of weather this time of year always makes me much more eager to leave north florida."

96 here in the shade, 70ish% humidity.

69.5 degrees inside.

Beautiful 79 and sunny in Boulder with 39% this afternoon. It is the kind of day where strangers on the street smile at each other and exclaim, "What a beautiful day today!"

Greetings, all.... Long time no chat. But I'm still alive.

As some of you may have seen on Facebook, I finally completed my neverending BA degree and graduated in Chicago on June 112th. Never thought that day would come. This fall I begin my M.Arch. degree at the University of Cincinnati, which I'm very excited about.

Life here in Cincinnati is pretty good so far... I'm not exaggerating when I say I've had more of a social life in 4 months in Cincinnati than I had in years living in NYC and Chicago. The nice thing about being in a smaller city is that I can show up at my favorite bar on any random night and run into at least a few friends. That sort of thing never happened to me in the larger cities I've lived in. As a bonus, it's nice being someplace where I have personal roots and some family nearby.

The only real downside is that I'm still unemployed, and I'm not holding out much hope for finding anything before school starts in the fall. Even worse, my unemployment benefits will run out by the end of August unless the Senate passes an extension, which I'm not very optimistic about. That will leave me with no income for about 4-6 weeks until my financial aid package from UC kicks in, and I'm just barely scraping by with the unemployment benefits I'm getting.

As such, I've pretty much decided that if I haven't found a job or if unemployment benefits haven't been extended by the end of July, I'll most likely be putting my Eames lounge chair and ottoman up for sale. It's the 50th anniversary edition, with the santos palisander rosewood finish, and in like-new condition. I'm hoping to fetch about $4500 for it (new Eames chairs with the rosewood go for about $4800, plus shipping). I'd hate to get rid of it, but the money would certainly come in useful. If it has to go, I'd rather see it go to a friend, so I'm giving you guys first dibs. I'm willing to deliver it to anywhere within 100 miles of Cincinnati for an extra $.50/mile. Let me know if you're interested. Once I get my M.Arch. and (hopefully) get a job, I'll start saving up for a new one.

39% humidity, that is. Pinch me, I'm dreaming.

* June 12th, that is.

holz - congrats?

philip - I thought team 10 didn't really publish anything as a group - wasn't it mostly informal meetings were people would crit each other's work?

Wow, I never knew you had to have foriegn language in a phd. And can someone quickly explain team 10? I feel like maybe they are a group from the mussolini era, but I could be confusing them with someone else.

LiG it's good to hear from you. Glad it's going wellish.

And it's 100 here today, but I hear thunder! Cross your fingers that we get rain, it is Texas afterall and thunder sometimes is just a tease.

team 10 = essentially aldo van eyck and the smithsons.

they formed sometime in the 50s and were responsible for disbanding CIAM.

I tend to think of them as the beginning of the end of the old modern movement - this beginning to question the uber-rationalism in urban planning and architecture that began with people like corbu in the 20s.

those foreign language requirements are one of the main reasons why I'll never pursue a PhD. I have too much to read in english to have time reading in another language...

After a few days of rain, my garden is slightly waterlogged, but the tomatoes and cucumber vines have each grown another 6" over the past few days.