Good morning all,
SH, your son is a born artiste...

Sarah that's a sweet card, but your son hasn't drawn Fiji its a lady sitting in a chaise lounge and I think its an Eames he's drawn as well.

Well folks its my last day on vacation part I; I fly out to tomorrow back to Monty to work on my house and find out about my bloody contract for certain I guess. Because everything has been so "delayed" I'll be returning to Jamaica, then likely to Cleveland at the end of the month - if things happen at a fair expedited pace for once. Then gawd knows how long I'll be there and if I'll be able to "move around the cabin"

Going to go have some coffee...love to all.

Techno, someone else mentioned the 'reclining woman,' but I dont see it. Oh well.

I see a reclining figure too. But anyway, the internet here at work is acting up today and its annoying the crap out of me. Hope everyone is having a good Monday.

i forgot it was monday, i guess that means im having a good one

hmmmmm i see java the hut with a crushed skull...

Hello all,
I have been busy...Guess you all have been to,.

Let me try

Yes!

and in the news today:
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, accused architect of massacres

that's really going to piss beta off.

I love this line from the last page:

that is a great mixed use project, the kind you only hear about - but mentally prepare for during arch school

Courtesy architechno. Seriously, that church / gas station is a 2nd year professor's dream studio project come true. hehe!

I left work at a reasonable time for once and am now in my living room enjoying the rays of the setting sun. I am certain that I want my dream house's "morning" rooms to face east and kitchen, dining room, back patio, and den to face west. The master bedroom will somehow manage to have both eastern and western exposure, but the master bedroom balcony will face the setting sun.

Oddly enough this set-up is actually not that far off from my parents' 80s tract home. They had very good purchasing taste, not too many tract homes are sited and designed like theirs.

techno, you can't come to the midwest without seeing the birthplace of american architecture...

chicago!

Chicago's architecture does rock.

Atechno - I hope you hear soon what is going on as far as your conract is concerned. It's gotta feel slightly disconcerting living in limbo. It would for me at least. There are some people out there that have no trouble with limbo, but I for one am the kind of person who at least needs to know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And with that I think I bid adieu for the evening. It's early (I know) but for whatever reason I'm pretty much dragging and my evening social card is already full for the rest of the week. Amazing considering it's only Monday. G'night.

I am alive....woke up over the weekend with a renewed sense of purpose and have been doing chores and thesis research ever since. Still, I need to ramp it up even more. After I get the cupcakes out of the oven!

Mmm cupcakes.
Good morning TC.

Mmmmm cupcakes. Good Morning TC. We had some wild weather last night. It was like a strobe light has been turned on in the heavens or something. Crazy ass shit. Power outages throughout the county and beyond. Fun stuff.

Mmmmmmm Cupcakes. Good Morning TC.

Just thought I'd keep it going.

Man! Where is everybody today. Come to think of it, traffic was pretty light on the road this morning, too....

agh. I come to check on people, and you're all talking about cupcakes? I'm freaking starving! The commute has jumped up to 8 miles each way, three days a week, and that puts me at a severe calorie deficit quite a while before lunchtime hits...

sigh... just got called an 'amateur' by one of the principals cause I never asked him about his expertise in the project type I'm working on - not that I knew he had the expertise. Seems that everytime I had a moment to talk to him previously, he was gone for the day. Now he comes slinging mud and pissed off about a project that he isn't involved in (as if that was my choice). This guy makes everything black or white - never gray, never good enough, never a compromise. And he wonders why he is being pushed off into a corner by the other head honchos.

TK, just look at a picture or your star, and feel instant relief. Speaking of, how is he?

the sapling is getting big, at two months he's already outgrowing the newborn sized clothes/diapers. He's also been sleeping almost all night- which is great.

Um, so not to be a total buzz-kill, but what is the suggested protocol for the death of the wife (53ish) of the firm president - in an 18 man firm?

sarah- that's tough for the entire office.

go to the funeral (& wake). sign the condolence card. donate $5 for the flowers.

anything else depends on your relationship with the principal and his family. If it is purely professional, you don't need to wear black for an entire year or cover yourself with ashes. If you were friends or more with the family, then you gotta make extra efforts.

Sh.
I agree with Tree.
Although i don't envy your position...

It took me a while to find my voice and garner the confidence to write it, but I'm grateful to Archinect for publishing my follow-up piece/review of Gravity Free. It's officially the first thing that I've written that someone else has published on purpose. :o)

I don't know where my career will go eventually, but every endeavor is an adventure and if nothing else, I hope that my work is useful to others.

Hi all I'm in Antigua. Just had 1.5 bottles of Du Toitskloof Cellar's Cabernet Sauvignon. Those that know, know that I don't usually drink CabSav thinking its for cubu and the ilks, but this is fantastic. I'm psht'd. I love it. Fly to Montserrat tomorrow to move the shite out of ex-girlfriends house. On brighter notes...I love life, I love archinect, and I absolutely hate limbo. Tunamelt my dear, its driving me up the wall and if I didn't go check about my registration I'm sure I'd be pulling out what little hair I have on my head. Please not the little hair I have on my head is by choice not nature.

Oh and I keep being identified as an architect by strangers, and I wasn't wearing my "architecture sucks" tee. Ain't that weird...

2nd or 3rd year in my first office job the father of the boss died. he founded the office before wwII, and was one of the people who brought the JIA to the area (like AIA, but in japan), so was really kind of important...our office was family-style. we all ate supper together and lunch, etc etc. so we all went to the funeral. after his cremation i was introduced to the ritual of moving the large pieces of bone from the pile in the box that came out of the cremating process and putting it into the urn...with big chopsticks. i did not know about it until asked to do it. very very freaky holding a big piece of someone's skull and putting it into a black container. i had seen dead people before but this was one of the weirdest and haunting experiences ever...also scary. i was so terrified that i would drop the bit of skull i was holding and create bad kharma for everyone for a hundred years...

just saying.

Then its lucky for me that we aren't in Japan, and that even if we were, since her bones were so cancer eaten that there wouldn't be any large bones to drop.

this is one situation in which i would refrain from doing anything on my own and find out what office consensus is: act as a group.

I agree with SW. Find out what everyone else is doing.

In more depressing news, I just found out my only living grandmother will be going into hospice soon. She was diagnosed with colon cancer last September. I was lucky enough though to see her in March when I was in Cali but she was only the shell of the person I had once known. Although I am very aware death is a part of life, it is still sad to see someone in their twillight.

Atechno - hang in there my dear... they say that all good things come to those who wait.

Congrats EmKem on your published piece. Keep up the excellent work you always do. YAY!!!

Well, the funeral is during office hours, so I will be attending - no mention of a wake though - and since I like to be helpful, but not obnoxiously so, I wrote a short note, and gave them some postage stamps. I know it sounds strange, but stamps don't go bad, and they're always needed.

In happier news, Husband loved the necklace, was really surprised about how it looked. He thought it would be more friendship bracelet/cheesy. And, he didn't like his back-up gift as much (three nice cotton shirts). The cake I made was awesome. Here, I even saved some for y'all.

spent all night working around a blog...
my blog flusiswa (which means nothing and given by google name machine) has two columns and i started this other one called place, just to experiment with 3 column. finally i found a simple code from internet and did a 3 column blog on place but i am afraid to apply it to flusiswa because it doesn't carry all the links i put in there which took me few hours.
remember that song istanbul/constantinople? now i am singing place/ flusiswa.....
...nevermind.....
do any of you have a nice 3 column cut and paste script for blogs?
anyway thats what i have been doing besides reading what is going on here. i haven't posted for a while but i usually read what you guys are up to.
btw, place has couple of killer pictures i took. one with the boston family the other snapshot of gregory ain's dunsmuir apts i visited last saturday.

Hi Orhan!

'place' is good, but 'elseplace' is really fun.

Hi TC...
Jump that has to bee one of the most interesting aspects of a funerary rite of have heard of, ever. I imagine it as respectful but spooky something that would definetely leave an impression...

SH, glad to hear that hubbie liked the necklace, once i saw it i figured he would...The cake also looks delicious..

Tuna, sorry to hear about your grandma. Mine was in a similar paliative care facility for a few months before passing on. I was glad to have gotten the chance to visit with her. although it is never easy to see the suffering of a love done...
Though i sometimes feel that the time i had with her prior to her passign made it harder for me to "actually" grieve once it was finally over for her. I still feel sometimes like i didn't grieve enough postfacto...

WonderK, congrats from me as well. I have tried working on a feature once or twice but always get bogged down in my own thoughts and never finalize.. I find the EP/Op-Ed is an easier way to be involved (for me) although i do hope to be able to publish something on here at some point...

DAngit, Orhan, now you've got it stuck in my head.

steven, should i adopt 'else place" as my blog? that is my big question...
can i write it together like "elseplace" ?
how does it sound ?

a-) flusiswa (means nothin and i never liked it 100%
b-) place (i like it but blog address is elseplace)
c-) elseplace (steven likes it and i do too. but would you be interested in a blog named elseplace talking about architecture and everything else?)

tc please help.

my office just got a samll contract signed for master planning that could lead to about $18m in fees for the full architectural + engineering services. yeay!!! just in time for my annual review tomorrow. At least they won't be sending me to azerbaijan for the kick-off meeting.

silly side story, that client wants a 'scottish' golf designer since the site is so windy. but there are no golf course architects based in scotland anymore. so they have the choice of hiring somebody born in scotland but working elsewhere, or hiring somebody that has worked on courses in scotland. at least I don't have make that choice for them.



oA & eK- great features...

help! typeface, color, name etc...

Orhan, could you do else/place? I like 'place' but understand the delima of the address. I just find 'else' to be a hard word to say, or maybe I just don't like the feel of the word. Actually, the more I look at it, and say it, the more foriegn it becomes; I'm not even sure its a word anymore - though I'm sure it is. And you have to think what would happen if people didn't seperate the two words; what will you end up with? Elsep Lace? Elsplace? El's Place? El Seplace?

Who knows. Maybe I'm just weird.

TK,
Congrats.....!
Orhan i like elseplace....maybe with a / or - between the two???

or with these fun little vertical breaks:

e|sep|ace

(and congrats, TK!)

nah, just elseplace, no interrupting/distracting caps er nuthin'. i LIKE that it feels funny in your mouth and sounds funny in your mind's ear.

Steven, you're making feel square. I find the mouth-feel of the word to be stumbling. It makes me feel like I have a speach problem.

Either all caps or all lowercase, drop the mixed, 'PLACE' in a slightly different color or maybe just one weight bolder than 'ELSE'. If you want a nice modern neutral, Folio and Trade Gothic are both nice but less in use than the Univers's and Helvetica's of the world... Gotham is also very nice, but is now so identified with Obama that it's up to you whether that's a good thing or a bad thing to you. If you want a little more character, I'm loving Interstate right now.

...I'll send you my bill at the end of the month. ;)

I like elseplace (wow that's hard to type) too. If you're going to put the blurb below I suggest finding a synonym for the second "else" though. Is there even a symonym for "else"?

I'm soooooooooooo tired. Think anyone will notice if I put my head down and proceed to drool on my keyboard?

i like ...architecture. or else everything else.