the Snowpocalypse proved to be good fodder in class today to discuss the difference between weather and climate, along with was the storm was a sign of climate change or not... then we ended the class discussing how peak oil in Egypt was one of the triggers for the current events (they peaked production in '96 and their output has declined by 26% since then, so: food subsidies have decreased proportionally plus global food prices have been rising = revolution). interesting discussion ensued (not to be a pessimist, but welcome to the future).
Hope no archinecteurs have family or friends in Egypt right now!
the discussion about witold missed the target. he's gone teaparty and is trying to prove that he is willfully ignorant of his own profession's jargon. It's not very becoming for the canuck to try appealing to the palinites - especially since I never thought that stupid folks read slate...
Ancillary. Yep, I pulled that one out of my brain even after two bourbons in 3 hours.
Mom's night out, tonight, prompted by the closing of school for the 4th day in a row tomorrow - a bunch of moms desperately needing to get out. vado, one of them is getting divorced - if you were still in Naptown, I'd fix you up, you'd be perfect for her!
Deadline tomorrow. Lots of drawing coordination - if I can be efficient tomorrow AM, I'm good. So I have to go to bed right now.
We got Lucky! The last little 6" of wet snow was by far the heaviest, as my back has been letting me know all night long. However if we were farther South we would have had more icing and if we were farther north we would have had more snow. Everyone pretty much had given up on getting anything done, because of the type of snow it was. So the roads were left with alot of snow on them and some people ventured out and went to work. I guess were becoming more and more like the Old New Englander you read about.
Work Sucks! We are doing some front end proposals but other than that we are sucking wind! I go shovel snow to forget about how slow it is right now. Think I might have to go find a paying job to keep the doors open.
treekiller - my class also had a discussion about the difference between "weather" and "climate". Anyone catch Bill Maher last friday? Hilarious.
Yep sticking with an unsatisfying job for the benefits is not a fun place to live. My partner is a contractor, so we are looking into the cost of insurance for our family on our own, but it won't compare to what my job offers. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel 6 months to a year from now, but for the time being (and for the arrival of my little one and maternity leave) it would be foolish to jump ship right now.
Am reading, "Good to Great" by Jim Collins, and he presents the "hedgehog concept" in reagard to leadership: (paraphrasing) a Hedgehog knows what it's good at, and is dilligent about maintaining focus in that area. Difficult to translate to architectural practice, when you have to be flexible and ready to try new things/solve new problems. However, perhaps trying to excel at too many things at once (private practice/proj mgmt for office/academia/motherhood...not in that order) is the source of my unrest.
I wrote a whole post ealier, but it got lost in the internet somewhere.
Snook, glad you're alive.
And I need some help. I have a PDF file, my portfolio that is currently 46,660 KB, and I need it to be under 4 MB to submit it for this job I found. I've already used the compress file in Acrobat. What else can I do? I don't have Winzip. If you can help me, please email or instruct from here.
3 snow days, 1 sick day, and office closed on Fridays equals one lazy week.
I found the Witold article to be funny, but I'm on mega doses of cold medicine and have always hated jargon. During an early school career review, a reviewer asked a question using a piece of jargon that I wasn't familiar with. I asked what he meant, and the whole room busted out laughing. Scarred me for life.
sarah, one thing that i've done that seems to work (although i'm not exactly sure why) is to make EPS files of each page (just save as from illustrator/indesign)... then process those files through acrobat distiller to create PDFs... for some reason the files end up much smaller...
oh, and you have to add a white background that is the size of your page (8.5x11 or whatever) behind all of your images because the EPS file crops down to the outline of whatever you have on the page...
strawbeary - your office has snow days? I thought architecture was so important that we're expected to come in even when there is a state of emergency. I swear, most of the offices I've worked for would stay open even during the apocalypse.
toaster....years ago I was working in Copley Square in Bean Town and we head a major fire in the utility company tunnel under Boylston Street. I was standing on the street corner when the Manhole cover blew into the air about 5 stories, then it waffed back to earth, followed by a big blue flash and a shit load of black smoke.
With in a few minutes the fireman were on the scene with the Electric Company and they were evacuating every building from Mass Ave to
Arlington Street. I remembering the Fireman coming to my office and telling us we must all leave. The Senior Partner of the Firm told him to bugger off. He was staying. The Fireman had met his match, for the moment, then a couple of police officers were at his side and the Senior Partner said well I guess I can go. We got the rest of the day off from work....with Pay!
i don't mind wytold, but that article was just boring. there are much more interesting ways to talk about bullshit writing in architecture. and wats with the ad hominem nonsense at the end. you know a dude ain't got chops when he has to rely on the ad hominems.
sarah, i usually reduce file size by exporting from in-design at lower resolution. either that or simply take out pages. philip's suggestion is an interesting one though. will def try it.
@nam, venue just got changed to bangkok. it was dehli. not that bangkok won't be as interesting but i got to admit i have wanted to go to india for most of my life so i was rather excited. guess i will just have to save up for it like everyone else.
@ smallpotatoes, i thought the same thing when i read his book and it has bothered me that he is probably right. wish i had an answer.
Philip, your idea is working for the most part. I only have one page left that simply doesn't want to shrink. It's the only InDesign file, and when exported to EPS, it won't print to PDF (something about memory?) and when I print it to PDF directly from ID, I can't get it any smaller than 28,030 KB. Any ideas?
I'm having a dinner party for 11 people tomorrow night. Haven't shopped, haven't cleaned, haven't bought any food or wine. I'll be winging it tomorrow!
apparently I've not even commented on this page and it's 1/2 way down. But it seems like I will be able to sit and enjoy it all as I found out the multi block 6 story student housing I was working on is on hiatus for a couple weeks.
I hope everyone is safely tucked in their houses, not playing hero in the snow. That storm looks mighty unfriendly. Stay warm kids
Sarah I have a suggestion but it may involve replacing your images. Most portfolios are designed for print so the image resolution is fairly large to handle it. So consider replacing your images with a lower - for print resolution and your portfolio should be significantly less.
happy friday everyone... who are you cheering for on Sunday?
yeah, a-techno's suggestion should definitely work if nothing else does... although i think that the "optimize pdf" function in acrobat pro will drop the individual image resolutions for you automatically...
does the problematic page have a really intense vector line drawing on it? although i hate to do this, once or twice i've had to convert a line drawing into a jpg/tiff at say 150dpi, and that has worked...
also, if the original file has a bunch of layers be sure to flatten it before you try to export it as an EPS or PDF...
It's probably your image resolution in the InDesign page. Remember, InDesign links to the original file as is -- so even if your image looks a lot smaller on the ID page than the original resoluation would give you, ID is still loading that full original resolution (in a sense) into the page. Does that make sense? So you need to always make sure your image down-sampling settings are set correctly when you export to pdf from ID. Make sure you have "crop image data to frames" checked, and also downsample your image res to even as low as 75-80 if it's just going to be an emailed (on-screen viewed) copy.
snook your story reminds me of the time we were having a meeting with our landscape architect at our office in Philly. The building's fire alarm went off - it did so every couple months, so we often ignored it.
But the LA project manager stood up and said "As the daughter of a fire fighter, I'm not letting anyone ignore that alarm. Let's go." I respected the hell out of this woman already, and I think of her all the time when I hear fire alarms now.
The particular page was nothing but heavy vector drawings. I did the EPS thing, and just omitted the heavy sheet. I'll carry it in my print document for the future. Thanks guys.
Yes you need to always export vector drawings as some other file type before embedding in InDesign. jpeg, tiff, even pdf. The quality shouldn't suffer in any noticeable way, and it'll drastically reduce your file size. There's really zero reason to have vector files (eps) directly embedded in InDesign.
"There's really zero reason to have vector files (eps) directly embedded in InDesign."
Unless, you know, you're printing anything larger than a napkin!
Ha. I kid. But an 11" by 17" tiff file is certainly not any more space conscious than an similar sized eps file. You can drastically reduce EPS files sizes by joining lines, simplifying lines and deleting unnecessary parts of the drawing in Illustrator.
The other reason to have EPS files in Indesign is if you're using any variety of wrap arounds, masks or you're doing your composition within indesign itself (which is technically smarter than doing it in photoshop or illustrator).
Dinner was a big success - we made a huge pile of different kinds of grilled kebabs: prosciutto-wrapped shrimp with apricots, chicken with fennel and garlic, and vinaigrette marinated vegetables, plus chili-lime roasted broccolini and rice. Dessert was pumpkin butterSCOTCH pie - scotch in the filling: a new recipe and very, very tasty. Friend brought amazing peanut butter fudge, and we drank lots of wine. Lovely time.
Sounds delish! I love dinner parties. Good food AND good company is heaven.
We will taste the home brew tomorrow. There were some temperature swings that may compromise the batch so I'm not sure it will turn out. I turned off the furnace (hate that thing) when it was almost 70 degrees and then when the artic swoop came in, it fell over 90 degrees in 24 hours! I fear the temperature swing, which amounted to only about 5 degrees inside the house before I turned the damned furnace back on, may have been too much for the batch. That could ruin it.
Sarah, Obviously I'm late to the game, but I'm personally not happy about your missed opportunity with the teaching position. I was rooting for you indeed.
hey TC, any suggestion on how to represent my blog in a portfolio? right now I'm listing the top dozen viewed posts w/# of views (top post has been looked at 798 times!), the total views (17,960!), top search results, and total number of posts (80). [without any of the exclamation points]...
at some point I'll need to re-create the file in in-design so it'll be print quality, but powerpoint was the expedient format for now...
sarah, try opening that ornery eps file in either illustrator or photoshop and manually resizing the resolution.
I'm still alive. Been a busy week. Got a dozen red roses from my man last evening for my birthday. First time in my entire life I've received such a gift.
Donna - happy to hear you're dinner party went off without a hitch.
manta - congrats on passing #7.
jump - have a good time in Bangkok. It's a place I've always wanted to visit.
TK - sounds like a great discussion to have during these crazy winter days.
snook - glad to hear yoy guys are safe. Been hearing a lot about collapsed roofs.
Anyway, the baklava is almost done. Gotta get ready for my trip up north to watch the super bowl commercials.
Some weird things going on in life lately. About the same time I learned that will be officially an architect, I was offered a position in a completely, TOTALLY unrelated field for a base salary of about 10k or so more than the most I ever made actually working as an architect - and the position pays 1.5x overtime on top of that. In a bittersweet twist, this is the first position I've been offered that will pay me enough to begin paying down my student loan debt from architecture school - and it is also the first job I've taken since college that doesn't require a college degree. Kinda weird feeling, although I am *extremely* grateful for the opportunity and really looking forward to it. It's just kind of a weird situation - the type I never imagined I'd ever find yourself in, when I was planning out my career in high school.
I worry also that my position is emblematic of the position that many college grads in my generation will find themselves in. I think mine is really the first generation that truly grew up with the mantra of "college will always make your life better - no matter what it is - no matter who you are - you HAVE to go to college!" This push from our parents combined with an unprecedented financial gap - in terms of being squeezed by record-high tuition on one side, record-low student grant aid on the other, and record-high loan and credit offerings at the same time... it makes for a really bad position for many of the people in my age group. I don't mean to sound like I'm blaming anyone - I'm not (except maybe those who cut higher ed funding in Congress, frankly), I'm just saying, times, they are weird.
yeah, manta, and a house used to always be a good investment, because the value would always increase. it was also smart to borrow, because you got to use other people's money to make more money. paying down a mortgage was actually discouraged because it was better to keep that money liquid rather than pay it back - in the days before upside-down mortgages.
a lot of the rules have changed.
if this position is a good opportunity, but you have questions about whether it's a long-term shift, just try ([b]try really hard[/i]) not to get too used to the difference in pay so that shifting back won't be so painful.
the times i worked outside of architecture were instructive to me and informed a lot of the way i think about things, giving me glimpses into how other businesses work (or don't). well worth it, even though - in my case - it was involuntary and seemed like a horrible compromise of my career path.
oh, and, another interesting angle: because i really wanted to be doing architecture - or art, or something that involved making and designing - the time during which i wasn't in architecture is what i now remember as one of the most creative periods of my life. i was so determined to keep doing things that i spent all of my spare time drawing, building, writing, doing competitions, designing unsolicited 'idea' projects, and taking little side projects.
So I submitted my resume and partial portfolio for a local job dealing with cars and architecture. I uploaded it all on Saturday, and Sunday got an email saying they didn't have anything for me at this time.
Really? Who's really sifting through resumes on a Sunday? God, I just want to send it to a human. I'm starting to feel I'm just not meant to be employed. If I didn't have a kid I'd be working at Kohls, or the local Quick Trip, or McDonalds.
I wonder if I can get that old man teaching the HS architecture class to retire. You guys know anyone that can lean on him for me?
i am a bit jealous actually. unless it is causing huge stress for you guys i totally recommend that you enjoy the time you have to spend with your son. someday you will look back on it and wish you could live this way again ;-)
great to hear that manta. even with the weird feeling about working outside of the profession.
you could be right about the college education being a ticket to a better life thing.
back in highschool i was not in right socio-cultural group to think university was going to be part of my future but we did have this one travelling lecture dude come through who told everyone how life would be for us all.
he suggested we would all of us change careers at least three times in our lives, would have zero job security, and would need to be very flexible about where and how we earned a living. this was back in the 80's and times were not good in canada then so maybe he was a crank....except in hindsight he really had it right.
Manta sounds exciting! Any clues as to what field?
Sarah maybe it was an automated reply?
I felt like i was on a little bit of a creative streak late l;ast year/early this year. And given how many hours I have been putting into non-creative job, i want to be doing more writing etc. But i find it hard to find time when working 55 hours + a week. Any tips?
Although I guess i would have had some time this weekend, minus superbowl and minus ladyfriends birthday....
manta, I'm practically ready to leave the field myself., but am so glad I have my license - congrats to you for persevering. I'm not the only architect I know who has often thought of the license as a way to close this chapter in my life and move on to the next thing. Granted, I'm still in the field, but a lot of people I know are not, and are happy with that choice. I'm glad you've found a job that you're enjoying and that pays you well.
I don't know, I've always enjoyed the work I do but possibly more important to me has been enjoying the people I work with and the culture of the place I go for 8 hours a day. Six years now of working alone is taking a toll on me. I spent some time this weekend working the AIA booth at the local Home Show and really enjoyed talking to other architects. Even though we agree the field is difficult, it was just fun talking to them. I'm lonely.
Sarah, are you still substitute teaching , or did that stop?
donna, that's where i was after only 18months of being on my own! maybe time to find a firm that wants a brilliant and powerfully charismatic partner-track chick(-en-farmer).
The sub thing is on hold while I complete the student teaching thing. 15 weeks, but I think I've completed three of those. Since we were out for a week do to snow, I'm not sure.
Thread Central
the Snowpocalypse proved to be good fodder in class today to discuss the difference between weather and climate, along with was the storm was a sign of climate change or not... then we ended the class discussing how peak oil in Egypt was one of the triggers for the current events (they peaked production in '96 and their output has declined by 26% since then, so: food subsidies have decreased proportionally plus global food prices have been rising = revolution). interesting discussion ensued (not to be a pessimist, but welcome to the future).
Hope no archinecteurs have family or friends in Egypt right now!
the discussion about witold missed the target. he's gone teaparty and is trying to prove that he is willfully ignorant of his own profession's jargon. It's not very becoming for the canuck to try appealing to the palinites - especially since I never thought that stupid folks read slate...
See, I've just been gone too long. What do you call spaces like bathrooms, offices, hallways, ect that are necessary for a building to function?
Sarah, you should really read the slate article everyone in here is raving about.
Your jargon will be up to speed in 10 minutes.
Maybe I will. I feel like the word I need starts with an A... accessory? anci... Nothing. I've got nothing.
Ancillary spaces. Google knows everything!
god, i hate that guy's writing so much that it really hurt to agree with one of his points!
'"Ology" means the study of something, but in architecture methodology and typology just mean method and type.'
so true...has been a pet peeve of mine for years...........
Ancillary. Yep, I pulled that one out of my brain even after two bourbons in 3 hours.
Mom's night out, tonight, prompted by the closing of school for the 4th day in a row tomorrow - a bunch of moms desperately needing to get out. vado, one of them is getting divorced - if you were still in Naptown, I'd fix you up, you'd be perfect for her!
Deadline tomorrow. Lots of drawing coordination - if I can be efficient tomorrow AM, I'm good. So I have to go to bed right now.
Donna,
We got Lucky! The last little 6" of wet snow was by far the heaviest, as my back has been letting me know all night long. However if we were farther South we would have had more icing and if we were farther north we would have had more snow. Everyone pretty much had given up on getting anything done, because of the type of snow it was. So the roads were left with alot of snow on them and some people ventured out and went to work. I guess were becoming more and more like the Old New Englander you read about.
Work Sucks! We are doing some front end proposals but other than that we are sucking wind! I go shovel snow to forget about how slow it is right now. Think I might have to go find a paying job to keep the doors open.
hi all,
Jump, india was amazing when i visisted a couple of years ago. where will you be headed to?
smallpotatoes I don't want to come back to this job - the job with a steady paycheck and insurance.
sounds like you have found something that makes you happier. donna gives some good advice.
instead of snow, florida has been getting rained out..
treekiller - my class also had a discussion about the difference between "weather" and "climate". Anyone catch Bill Maher last friday? Hilarious.
Yep sticking with an unsatisfying job for the benefits is not a fun place to live. My partner is a contractor, so we are looking into the cost of insurance for our family on our own, but it won't compare to what my job offers. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel 6 months to a year from now, but for the time being (and for the arrival of my little one and maternity leave) it would be foolish to jump ship right now.
Am reading, "Good to Great" by Jim Collins, and he presents the "hedgehog concept" in reagard to leadership: (paraphrasing) a Hedgehog knows what it's good at, and is dilligent about maintaining focus in that area. Difficult to translate to architectural practice, when you have to be flexible and ready to try new things/solve new problems. However, perhaps trying to excel at too many things at once (private practice/proj mgmt for office/academia/motherhood...not in that order) is the source of my unrest.
I wrote a whole post ealier, but it got lost in the internet somewhere.
Snook, glad you're alive.
And I need some help. I have a PDF file, my portfolio that is currently 46,660 KB, and I need it to be under 4 MB to submit it for this job I found. I've already used the compress file in Acrobat. What else can I do? I don't have Winzip. If you can help me, please email or instruct from here.
3 snow days, 1 sick day, and office closed on Fridays equals one lazy week.
I found the Witold article to be funny, but I'm on mega doses of cold medicine and have always hated jargon. During an early school career review, a reviewer asked a question using a piece of jargon that I wasn't familiar with. I asked what he meant, and the whole room busted out laughing. Scarred me for life.
tell her all about me. lb! leave out the less appealing parts. of which there are many.
sarah, one thing that i've done that seems to work (although i'm not exactly sure why) is to make EPS files of each page (just save as from illustrator/indesign)... then process those files through acrobat distiller to create PDFs... for some reason the files end up much smaller...
oh, and you have to add a white background that is the size of your page (8.5x11 or whatever) behind all of your images because the EPS file crops down to the outline of whatever you have on the page...
i hope that makes sense...
strawbeary - your office has snow days? I thought architecture was so important that we're expected to come in even when there is a state of emergency. I swear, most of the offices I've worked for would stay open even during the apocalypse.
toaster....years ago I was working in Copley Square in Bean Town and we head a major fire in the utility company tunnel under Boylston Street. I was standing on the street corner when the Manhole cover blew into the air about 5 stories, then it waffed back to earth, followed by a big blue flash and a shit load of black smoke.
With in a few minutes the fireman were on the scene with the Electric Company and they were evacuating every building from Mass Ave to
Arlington Street. I remembering the Fireman coming to my office and telling us we must all leave. The Senior Partner of the Firm told him to bugger off. He was staying. The Fireman had met his match, for the moment, then a couple of police officers were at his side and the Senior Partner said well I guess I can go. We got the rest of the day off from work....with Pay!
toaster - I don't work in an arch office anymore.
funny story, snook.
i don't mind wytold, but that article was just boring. there are much more interesting ways to talk about bullshit writing in architecture. and wats with the ad hominem nonsense at the end. you know a dude ain't got chops when he has to rely on the ad hominems.
sarah, i usually reduce file size by exporting from in-design at lower resolution. either that or simply take out pages. philip's suggestion is an interesting one though. will def try it.
@nam, venue just got changed to bangkok. it was dehli. not that bangkok won't be as interesting but i got to admit i have wanted to go to india for most of my life so i was rather excited. guess i will just have to save up for it like everyone else.
@ smallpotatoes, i thought the same thing when i read his book and it has bothered me that he is probably right. wish i had an answer.
Philip, your idea is working for the most part. I only have one page left that simply doesn't want to shrink. It's the only InDesign file, and when exported to EPS, it won't print to PDF (something about memory?) and when I print it to PDF directly from ID, I can't get it any smaller than 28,030 KB. Any ideas?
sarah, i've had that same thing happen a few times too, but i can't for the life of me remember what i did to fix it... i'll try to remember...
in the meantime, have you tried the "optimize pdf" tool in acrobat? this is different from the "reduce file size" tool and sometimes helps too...
in in-design you should be able to set the export resolution sarah. maybe that doesn't work on eps links?
one way may be to flatten the eps and save it as a jpeg in photoshop...i have done that before to drop file size too.
I'm having a dinner party for 11 people tomorrow night. Haven't shopped, haven't cleaned, haven't bought any food or wine. I'll be winging it tomorrow!
apparently I've not even commented on this page and it's 1/2 way down. But it seems like I will be able to sit and enjoy it all as I found out the multi block 6 story student housing I was working on is on hiatus for a couple weeks.
I hope everyone is safely tucked in their houses, not playing hero in the snow. That storm looks mighty unfriendly. Stay warm kids
Sarah I have a suggestion but it may involve replacing your images. Most portfolios are designed for print so the image resolution is fairly large to handle it. So consider replacing your images with a lower - for print resolution and your portfolio should be significantly less.
happy friday everyone... who are you cheering for on Sunday?
yeah, a-techno's suggestion should definitely work if nothing else does... although i think that the "optimize pdf" function in acrobat pro will drop the individual image resolutions for you automatically...
does the problematic page have a really intense vector line drawing on it? although i hate to do this, once or twice i've had to convert a line drawing into a jpg/tiff at say 150dpi, and that has worked...
also, if the original file has a bunch of layers be sure to flatten it before you try to export it as an EPS or PDF...
It's probably your image resolution in the InDesign page. Remember, InDesign links to the original file as is -- so even if your image looks a lot smaller on the ID page than the original resoluation would give you, ID is still loading that full original resolution (in a sense) into the page. Does that make sense? So you need to always make sure your image down-sampling settings are set correctly when you export to pdf from ID. Make sure you have "crop image data to frames" checked, and also downsample your image res to even as low as 75-80 if it's just going to be an emailed (on-screen viewed) copy.
snook your story reminds me of the time we were having a meeting with our landscape architect at our office in Philly. The building's fire alarm went off - it did so every couple months, so we often ignored it.
But the LA project manager stood up and said "As the daughter of a fire fighter, I'm not letting anyone ignore that alarm. Let's go." I respected the hell out of this woman already, and I think of her all the time when I hear fire alarms now.
Gotta go make my marinade!
The particular page was nothing but heavy vector drawings. I did the EPS thing, and just omitted the heavy sheet. I'll carry it in my print document for the future. Thanks guys.
I'm sorry Sarah - that should of been "for web" resolution. ack my bad
hi all.. donna what you marinading?
Off to sushi for my ladys bday. her fav place in town. started working on building a bug hotel
Yes you need to always export vector drawings as some other file type before embedding in InDesign. jpeg, tiff, even pdf. The quality shouldn't suffer in any noticeable way, and it'll drastically reduce your file size. There's really zero reason to have vector files (eps) directly embedded in InDesign.
Sorry, I'm a file size nazi. I've had to learn to be as I am still doing most of my work on an 80gig harddrive! ha. I need to fix that problem...
Donna: "I'm having a dinner party for 11 people tomorrow night. Haven't shopped, haven't cleaned, haven't bought any food or wine."
Is it snowing right now? You should call it the DONNAr party. Yum!
"There's really zero reason to have vector files (eps) directly embedded in InDesign."
Unless, you know, you're printing anything larger than a napkin!
Ha. I kid. But an 11" by 17" tiff file is certainly not any more space conscious than an similar sized eps file. You can drastically reduce EPS files sizes by joining lines, simplifying lines and deleting unnecessary parts of the drawing in Illustrator.
The other reason to have EPS files in Indesign is if you're using any variety of wrap arounds, masks or you're doing your composition within indesign itself (which is technically smarter than doing it in photoshop or illustrator).
Dinner was a big success - we made a huge pile of different kinds of grilled kebabs: prosciutto-wrapped shrimp with apricots, chicken with fennel and garlic, and vinaigrette marinated vegetables, plus chili-lime roasted broccolini and rice. Dessert was pumpkin butterSCOTCH pie - scotch in the filling: a new recipe and very, very tasty. Friend brought amazing peanut butter fudge, and we drank lots of wine. Lovely time.
Sounds delish! I love dinner parties. Good food AND good company is heaven.
We will taste the home brew tomorrow. There were some temperature swings that may compromise the batch so I'm not sure it will turn out. I turned off the furnace (hate that thing) when it was almost 70 degrees and then when the artic swoop came in, it fell over 90 degrees in 24 hours! I fear the temperature swing, which amounted to only about 5 degrees inside the house before I turned the damned furnace back on, may have been too much for the batch. That could ruin it.
Sarah, Obviously I'm late to the game, but I'm personally not happy about your missed opportunity with the teaching position. I was rooting for you indeed.
hey TC, any suggestion on how to represent my blog in a portfolio? right now I'm listing the top dozen viewed posts w/# of views (top post has been looked at 798 times!), the total views (17,960!), top search results, and total number of posts (80). [without any of the exclamation points]...
at some point I'll need to re-create the file in in-design so it'll be print quality, but powerpoint was the expedient format for now...
sarah, try opening that ornery eps file in either illustrator or photoshop and manually resizing the resolution.
I'm still alive. Been a busy week. Got a dozen red roses from my man last evening for my birthday. First time in my entire life I've received such a gift.
Donna - happy to hear you're dinner party went off without a hitch.
manta - congrats on passing #7.
jump - have a good time in Bangkok. It's a place I've always wanted to visit.
TK - sounds like a great discussion to have during these crazy winter days.
snook - glad to hear yoy guys are safe. Been hearing a lot about collapsed roofs.
Anyway, the baklava is almost done. Gotta get ready for my trip up north to watch the super bowl commercials.
Some weird things going on in life lately. About the same time I learned that will be officially an architect, I was offered a position in a completely, TOTALLY unrelated field for a base salary of about 10k or so more than the most I ever made actually working as an architect - and the position pays 1.5x overtime on top of that. In a bittersweet twist, this is the first position I've been offered that will pay me enough to begin paying down my student loan debt from architecture school - and it is also the first job I've taken since college that doesn't require a college degree. Kinda weird feeling, although I am *extremely* grateful for the opportunity and really looking forward to it. It's just kind of a weird situation - the type I never imagined I'd ever find yourself in, when I was planning out my career in high school.
I worry also that my position is emblematic of the position that many college grads in my generation will find themselves in. I think mine is really the first generation that truly grew up with the mantra of "college will always make your life better - no matter what it is - no matter who you are - you HAVE to go to college!" This push from our parents combined with an unprecedented financial gap - in terms of being squeezed by record-high tuition on one side, record-low student grant aid on the other, and record-high loan and credit offerings at the same time... it makes for a really bad position for many of the people in my age group. I don't mean to sound like I'm blaming anyone - I'm not (except maybe those who cut higher ed funding in Congress, frankly), I'm just saying, times, they are weird.
yeah, manta, and a house used to always be a good investment, because the value would always increase. it was also smart to borrow, because you got to use other people's money to make more money. paying down a mortgage was actually discouraged because it was better to keep that money liquid rather than pay it back - in the days before upside-down mortgages.
a lot of the rules have changed.
if this position is a good opportunity, but you have questions about whether it's a long-term shift, just try ([b]try really hard[/i]) not to get too used to the difference in pay so that shifting back won't be so painful.
the times i worked outside of architecture were instructive to me and informed a lot of the way i think about things, giving me glimpses into how other businesses work (or don't). well worth it, even though - in my case - it was involuntary and seemed like a horrible compromise of my career path.
oh, and, another interesting angle: because i really wanted to be doing architecture - or art, or something that involved making and designing - the time during which i wasn't in architecture is what i now remember as one of the most creative periods of my life. i was so determined to keep doing things that i spent all of my spare time drawing, building, writing, doing competitions, designing unsolicited 'idea' projects, and taking little side projects.
Manta, that's awesome for you. Really.
So I submitted my resume and partial portfolio for a local job dealing with cars and architecture. I uploaded it all on Saturday, and Sunday got an email saying they didn't have anything for me at this time.
Really? Who's really sifting through resumes on a Sunday? God, I just want to send it to a human. I'm starting to feel I'm just not meant to be employed. If I didn't have a kid I'd be working at Kohls, or the local Quick Trip, or McDonalds.
I wonder if I can get that old man teaching the HS architecture class to retire. You guys know anyone that can lean on him for me?
sorry to hear that sarah. keep hanging in there.
i am a bit jealous actually. unless it is causing huge stress for you guys i totally recommend that you enjoy the time you have to spend with your son. someday you will look back on it and wish you could live this way again ;-)
great to hear that manta. even with the weird feeling about working outside of the profession.
you could be right about the college education being a ticket to a better life thing.
back in highschool i was not in right socio-cultural group to think university was going to be part of my future but we did have this one travelling lecture dude come through who told everyone how life would be for us all.
he suggested we would all of us change careers at least three times in our lives, would have zero job security, and would need to be very flexible about where and how we earned a living. this was back in the 80's and times were not good in canada then so maybe he was a crank....except in hindsight he really had it right.
The message seems even more true today.
Hi all,
Manta sounds exciting! Any clues as to what field?
Sarah maybe it was an automated reply?
I felt like i was on a little bit of a creative streak late l;ast year/early this year. And given how many hours I have been putting into non-creative job, i want to be doing more writing etc. But i find it hard to find time when working 55 hours + a week. Any tips?
Although I guess i would have had some time this weekend, minus superbowl and minus ladyfriends birthday....
and i did finally start my bug hotel.
hey jump!
manta, I'm practically ready to leave the field myself., but am so glad I have my license - congrats to you for persevering. I'm not the only architect I know who has often thought of the license as a way to close this chapter in my life and move on to the next thing. Granted, I'm still in the field, but a lot of people I know are not, and are happy with that choice. I'm glad you've found a job that you're enjoying and that pays you well.
I don't know, I've always enjoyed the work I do but possibly more important to me has been enjoying the people I work with and the culture of the place I go for 8 hours a day. Six years now of working alone is taking a toll on me. I spent some time this weekend working the AIA booth at the local Home Show and really enjoyed talking to other architects. Even though we agree the field is difficult, it was just fun talking to them. I'm lonely.
Sarah, are you still substitute teaching , or did that stop?
donna, that's where i was after only 18months of being on my own! maybe time to find a firm that wants a brilliant and powerfully charismatic partner-track chick(-en-farmer).
The sub thing is on hold while I complete the student teaching thing. 15 weeks, but I think I've completed three of those. Since we were out for a week do to snow, I'm not sure.
ahoy all!
i got my license 2 months ago and i've been contemplating an enormous "so, what now?" sort of thing ever since.
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