Had some fettuccine Alfredo with chicken in honor of its holiness's noodley appendages. 

My Internet went out this week, so I posted from my phone a couple times. It's back, so now I'm curious as to why the phone is different than the tablet or computer

html is somehow automatically added to a post. My previous post was from the tablet, this one on the phone. I could see the p tags when I tried to edit it. If I want to go to the trouble of having paragraphs and spaces, I can add br in brackets.

what other css works?

shhh...

Curt, posting from my phone CSS works for line breaks, bold, italics, etc, haven't tried for other. Thanks, btw.

haven't posted in here in a while...  Hey TC!

I was finally able to take a vacation yesterday (first in two years!) and am currently kickin' it at the beach.  No thinking about deadlines, side projects or anything work / school related for a whole week.  Just a whole lot of basking in the sun, reading, writing, drinking, and constantly reapplying sunscreen.  Happy summer, all!

Back from my two weeks travelling Vietnam! Back to work I guess.

Hey Archinectors! We made it to Kigali in one piece and are loving life so far. It's clean, peaceful, orderly and absolutely gorgeous here. Feel like I dropped into heaven.

Pretty crap internet so far but I'm writing this from a cafe with slightly better wifi than at home right now. 

Going to catch up on threads now... What'd I miss?

What did you miss?

The usual.  Silly questions.  Richard.  A few of us shared our beer loving tendencies. Nothing was accomplished at work. 

You lot seen the new Tate Modern extension by Herzog and de meuron? At first it was strange now its beautiful.

Stephanie, first off congrats!

Secondly, there is a pretty good Land Art thread going. (jla-x's idea)

Steph, sounds great.

Join the Untappd discussion and supply us with your tales of Kigali brews! You've not missed much. A few entertaining dumpster fires but nothing else. 

On that note, my newborn was released from ICU after 3 weeks late friday evening and in just these few days since I've had him at home, I'm already comfortable holding both the baby and a hot cup of coffee.

archanonymous, congrats!

Stephanie, good to know that the world isn't such a scary place despite the insistent of those who never venture out into it. 

Non, good to hear. Have you tried the cheerio challenge yet? 

EI, I just learned about the Cheerio challenge yesterday. Hilarious game, but at 4.5lbs, his nose does not offer a enough of a stable foundation surface for such a glorious construction.

Yay for Baby No Seq being home!!!

Yay for vacations and travels to new places and beer favorites!

I'm having a fairly shitty day but you all make it seem surmountable.

I just realized I'm putting a carpet named Night Moves into the unit bedrooms in a senior housing project we're currently designing. My depraved mind thinks that is awesome. 

Hey TC! Sorry been out of touch, barely lurking here even. New project at work. Had June 17th deadline. Finally, worked my first weekend since I've started.

re: Stephanie's change in scenery,  that sounds like an amazing opportunity and you should definitely do some on the ground reporting, for Archinect HQ.

I applied to but never completed process for PeaceCorps. Still think of just going overseas...

Also, congrats Non Sequitur and family!

Thanks all for the nice comments!

Yay NS! Congrats on both baby and baby being healthy enough for home! 

I haven't developed my taste for beer (yet -- I'm certain it's about to bud) but Jed is a serious pursuer of interesting craft beers and I think there may be a few people here who do their own brewing. So far in the restaurants you can find only Skol, Mutzig and Primus (Skol Malt, I'm told, is the only palatable one...) Actually, there's a Nigerian-brewed African Guinness that is much, much better than the UK / North American versions. 

Pretty pungent gin from Uganda, though, called Waragi "War Gin". Never mind putting hair on your chest, that stuff'll burn it right off.

Currently working in the MASS offices with a pretty sweet view over the misty green hills of Kigali. I took a moto for the first time today - motos being the most prolific and fastest/cheapest way to get around. At a cost of a little less than a buck, I got the most exhilarating morning commute of my life.  

Yep, maybe I do need to start a blog...

Do it, I'll read it for sure. Maybe even do a youtube channel documenting your transition? I watch one called Texan In Tokyo and its fun.

Stephanie, a blog would be great. Or even just a discussion thread here on Archinect - when Sarah was pregnant she started a thread to use as a diary/blog and it was really enjoyable to follow along!

Stephanie, I would like to hear more of your stories. 

And we've been brewing for a few years. The homebrewing equipment is about 8" from my computer as I type this. The modem sits on the mash tun. 

I'd post this over on the Job Titles thread, but the original question is buried under pages of dumpster fire and I don't really feel like getting it started burning again (trying not to feed the troll). Not to mention the person who posted the question has probably been scared away due to the dumpster fire.

The original question was about a paralegal trying to get into architecture. Opinions were shared, but coincidentally, only a couple of weeks after I was commenting that there could be large architecture firms that could use a paralegal, there is a job posting for one on Seattle's craigslist. 

gave notice at work this week... this is the first time it has been legitimately hard - i really enjoy working with my current project team and principal. 

Done that twice in the past three years... way harder than getting laid off when you enjoy the work you do and the people you're with. Where r you going?

big corporate firm. 

Damn Friends of the Parking Lot - Chicago just lost out on the Lucas Museum because they want a damn parking lot to remain. Makes me think that if there was a similar use to the Adler or Field that they'd block that too. Damn bunch of Jar Jars. 

my ear hurts from all the phone calls.

Happy Friday TC!

Trying to get to bed early so I am rested for my walk of the High Line (well a segment) tomorrow. Unlike in NYC, Denver's is an old irrigation canal...

Walk on Nam... walk on!

Floatin on the Colorado myself tomorrow...

I'd be interested in learning more about that...

Yeah... never rafted the Colorado before. Brother in law has a raft and we'll have two young uns so going to do a mellow little stretch of class 2s with maybe a class 3 rapid here or there. Couple of beaches for picnic and swimming. Gonna make a day of it. Water will be cold but supposed to be in the 80s. Could be a good fit. We'll put in just past Edwards.

Jeff Speck, New Urbanist, and I and others are in a big twitterfight right now if anyone's interested....he tweeted a bunch of student work from GSD last night and said (paraphrased) "I fear arch schools only care about image, not substance". I retweeted every single image he posted with a complimentary comment, and then things got grumpy.

I don't understand our current belief that everything has to be either THIS WAY or THAT WAY. Isn't there room for multiple approaches in our discipline?!  Schumacher doesn't think so, because he thinks *every* piece of architecture should be parametric from here forth. But people like New Urbanists look at topological diagrams in arch school and start wailing and clutching their pearls about the death of the profession and how nothing is like it used to be!  Sheesh.

"WITH DISTINCTION!!"

I'm involved in a few urbanist circles, and the whole New Urbanist mentality is beyond infuriating. It's as if they expect architects to be nothing more than a drafting service for the latest clone of Celebration, Florida.

David your response about managing GSD grads was priceless.  I mean, if he has a problem with his alma mater, slam *it*, not a bunch of people in their 20s following a professor's guidelines! "Get off my lawn, you damn emerging professionals!"

schumacher is selling his books and his firm.  i can't say whether he really believes his way is the only way, but saying it is probably what he has to do for marketing.  i don't think ZHA wants to be architect for a pole barn in the middle of oklahoma, so i know there's a lot of room in the field of architecture outside of the services he wants to perform.

some people believe new urbanism is a religion, and you have to be 100% or you're fighting their cause right?  kind of a bore.

outside of those examples, not sure why anyone would want to believe their way is the only way.  is jeff speck trying to sell a book critical of harvard, or does his religion depend on him being a zealot or something like that?

The really wonderfully ironic thing about this situation for me? I'm arguing passionately that architecture education has to be about bigger ideas than buildings and constructability and sentimental notions of historic times, but all the while I'm researching how to build an addition onto a Tudor Revival house using actual timber and 3-part stucco rather than Hardi-Plank Stucco Board with applied trim LOL! 

Ya gotta do what ya gotta do, sometimes.

*takes a bow*

Speck just hates architects in general, and he thinks having a decades-old MArch with distinction from GSD gives him some sort of special credibility. I unfollowed him on twitter when it became clear that most of his tweets were either about promoting his book or bashing architects.

Yes, he hates architects, and uses bashing them to foment controversy and draw attention to himself. Exact same thing with Fred Kent of Project for Public Places.  Does every New Urbanist/faux traditional populist who hates architects have a name that sounds like it should always be spit rather than spoken?

You guys: This website is kind of amazing.

http://architecturalfees.com/

I had not heard of it until today. 1. It's really well-organized and complete information and 2. I'm not charging enough!

I saw that Twitter exchange and posted my thoughts as well. I don't think he's exactly wrong because the whole primacy of the image thing going on right now isn't great but hey that's what some architects want to do. I personally don't like the whole idea of it..and it is kind of rich that a New Urbanist is taking shots at it given their use of watered down traditionalist style....as an image!

His shots at the students on the other hand without talking to them was pretty bogus, but I didn't necessarily disagree with him on what he thought.

On another note, I finished this the other night. Pretty happy with how it came out. Waiting for the frame to come in now.

 It's as if they expect architects to be nothing more than a drafting service for the latest clone of Celebration, Florida.

Too many New Urbanist evangelists are so obsessed with the pretty box they forgot that there could even be anything inside it.

i am trying to re-like the archinect forum threads again and thinking of them as the telephone game. it is really helping. i mean hilarious.

Donna that site is great, but I wish they'd looked at webdesignerfees.com before publishing it.

You guys, this is a really, really good recipe for sugar snap peas:

 

Prep time: 15 minutesCook time: 10 minutesYield: Serves 4-6.

INGREDIENTS

    •    2 tbsp olive oil

    •    1 pound sugar snap peas, strings removed

    •    3-4 scallions or green onions, sliced on the diagonal

    •    Salt

    •    A pinch of sugar

    •    Zest of a lemon

    •    3 Tbsp chopped fresh mint

    •    Black pepper to taste

    •    Lemon juice to taste

METHOD

1 Heat a large sauté pan on high heat for 1 minute. Add the olive oil to the hot pan and heat it until it shimmers, about 1-2 minutes. Add the sugar peas and toss to coat with the oil. Sprinkle salt over them and toss again. Allow to cook, undisturbed, for 1 minute.

2 Add the green onions and sprinkle with a pinch of sugar. Toss to combine. Let cook for 1 minute. Toss and cook untouched again, this time leaving everything undisturbed for 2 minutes.

3 Turn off the heat, mix in the lemon zest and mint, then add black pepper and lemon juice to taste. Serve at once.

Read more: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/seared_sugar_snap_peas/#ixzz3DL4Y4U6i

The trick is to *just let them sit*! They sear and caramelize and that's what makes them tasty.

Donna, that sounds delicious. I'll be sure to give that a shot - I love cooking. I imagine it would work about as well for other firm veggies.

I have been grilling the past two weekends for like 6-8 hours at a time which has led to some interesting discoveries. Just sitting out there with a 6-pack of beer, my dog, and a bag of vegetables refreshing the coals every 2-3 hours.

Best beets ever:

Ingredients:

4-5 extra-large whole beets with dirt scrubbed off the skin

Method:

Nestle in to the charcoal on the lower level of a hot charcoal grill. Rotate every 15-30 minutes. Cook 1.5 - 2 hours in the coals. When they look totally ruined with about 1/4" - 3/8" of carbonized "shell" on the outside, they are done - remove into a stainless steel or glass bowl and cover to cool. Once cool, remove the carbonized "shell" (hands are easiest for this) - you will be left with the most tender, smoky, caramelized beet you have ever had. Surprisingly firm texture too.

Grilled Baba-ghanouj:

Ingredients:

6 whole bulbs of garlic

3 limes, sliced in half

2 whole eggplants

1/4 cup Tahini (may omit)

tablespoon Olive Oil

tablespoon Cumin (may omit)

Method:

On a hot charcoal grill, place the eggplants directly on the coals on the lower level. Rotate every 15-30 minutes until they totally collapse, approximately 45 minutes to 1.5 hours.  Meanwhile, place the grill above and grill whole bulbs of garlic until tender and smoky, approximately 30 minutes. Place in glass or stainless steel bowl with a dash of olive oil to cool.

When eggplants are done (its very obvious when they finally collapse) remove to a glass bowl to cool. Meanwhile, slice the limes in half and place cut-side down on the hottest part of the grill for 3-5 minutes. Remove to glass bowl. 

Remove skin and top from eggplants and peel and smash grilled garlic. Place all this in a glass bowl and squeeze the grilled limes over it, scooping the pulp out with a small spoon. Add tahini, cumin, and a dash of olive oil, salt, and pepper. Puree with a fork until relatively smooth. Serve with pita chips. 

This was the best baba-ghanouj I've ever had.

archanonymous those both sound good but I may have to try the baba ghanouj like right away, maybe even tonight! It's so hot here we've been grilling everything possible to keep from heating up the kitchen.

Donna, that inspired me for this, Aegean version.

In Turkey, snap peas really like dill weed and olive oil. This recipe also has artichoke hearts and pearl onions. Served cold since it doesn't contain any meat or animal fat. Excellent dish for the hot summer meals. You can substitute the fresh artichoke hearts with jarred ones not excluding a little lemony brine.

Cut the scallions (diagonally:) and lightly saute with pearl onions and a pinch of salt in a two tablespoons of olive oil.

Add the snap peas and saute a bit more.

Add the 1/4 cup water and reduce heat and cover for 10 minutes or until snap peas are done.

Turn off the heat, add the sliced artichoke hearts and dill weed and lightly mix with two more tablespoons of olive oil.

Cool the whole dish to room temp or slightly chill.

Serve as a side dish, appetizer, salad etc. in the summer.