Talked to my mom today she is in Wyoming...they had a foot of snow and 80 mph winds this past week so there is lots of drifted snow. (Snow Dunes). She told me she voted for Obama, which made me feel good cause I think only a handful of people in that state voted for him.
Happy Saturday TC!!!!
I think my cold/cough is resurrecting itself yet again. I am so discouraged b/c of it.
LB - I'm definitely going to have to check out the 2700K CFLs, although I'm wondering if it's even worth it. I put a CFL in one of the light sockets in the basement when the last bulb burnt out and it only lasted about 3 months. A friend of mine who also owns an older home said she tried using CFLs when her bulbs burnt out too, but they would die sooner than incandescents and so now she's back to using incandescents as she theorizes the older wiring in her home may be incompatible with the CFLs. She's an engineer and is knowledgeable in this realm. Anyone else ever heard of such a thing?
lb: thanks for the concern! it took some recovery, but my mind is still intact very much so. if anything, it is better because of learned things in variety. stand by.
vado, i actually like the choice, i think the reputation is probably a bit overstated, but who'd fuck with a guy with 9 1/2 fingers and is a cross between a hemorroid and a toothache?
immanuel is named after a fallen member of the stern gang which was responsible for bombing the king david hotel. policy as usual with regard to israel.
now that he's been elected, my suspicion is that it will take until about march for the backlash to reach a fever pitch as it becomes apparent to the new president that the treasury is pretty much empty and that he can't actually afford to do anything. but hey, maybe obama can finally get a playoff* for college football!
*this really annoys me because what the hell does obama know about college football? it's not like he even went to a football school like notre dame, nebraska or usc. if the current bowl system was good enough for president ford (who was actually a captain on the michigan football team in the 1930s) then president-elect should really keep his nose out of it. besides, he's got plenty of other things to keep him busy right now (including over 7,000 job appointments of which more than 1,000 require congressional approval) not to mention economy, & foreign affairs which include two longstanding foreign military campaigns. but, yeah man, football it is!
nam I can't believe you are back already....it seems like just yesterday that you left, or perhaps I have just been really preoccupied these last few weeks? :o/
puddles what the hell are you going on about? Obama doesn't have anything to do with college football...
vado I thought you might drive up to see the fam this weekend - gas prices are so low it's hard to resist the temptation to just go for a Sunday drive! I did, though, and instead stayed inside my house all day. Making a quilt, in fact.
Hey all, posted a school blog entry with some new pictures of that geo-dome, with a basic description. I forgot to mention, in relation to Liberty's comment re: bugs, that the squiggly bits on the finish of the dome was caused by snails walking over it at night. Do snails walk? Or just ooze/glide? Anyway check it out
Oh shit...welcome back NAM!! I know why your trip felt so short - its cause you kept checking up on Thread Central, you couldn't stay away. Looking forward to seeing those pictures
was all over thesports news recently...fortunately it appears his interest was somewhat tongue-in-cheek...still i'm nervous to think this guy is now in the white house...bush was an asshole but at least he left college football alone
the only problem i see there, puddles, is that everybody will expect obama to care about everything, i.e., the things they think are important.
personally i don't give a hoot about his football opinions - they're about as informed as mine, probably - but there are certainly some out there who live and breathe it that will want him to think their issues are among the most important.
i'd really like him to prioritize architecture and issues of urban design, of course, though i hope he gets some good arch advisors on board - better than those that bought the convention temple for him.
Male synchronized diving, on the other hand...well I'm just happy that the recent Olympics brought this very important form of competition to my attention. Surely that was the most significant long-term impact of the Beijing games, no?
steven, what scared me is that obama responded to an open-ended question regarding what he would change about sports
When asked what would be the one thing he'd change about sports, Obama said he'd like to see a college football playoff.
"You know, I am fed up with these computer rankings, and this and that and the other," he (Obama) said.
and he called it "one of his legislative priorities"...i'm probably over-reacting given the circumstances but he definitely hit a nerve on this subject.
i believe the plan for obama is to jump into debt. even nobel prize-winning economists are saying that is good plan...so state of coffers is not such big issue. it will be, but not yet. when obama starts talking about national debt you will know things are getting better.
anyway, china just decided to jump up their economy with nearly $600b. uk dropped interest more than expected. things are happening. by january the whole field might be different.
got a sick cat at home :( today. So we got a vets appointment at 11:45. not a good way to start a very busy week & we don't have the $ to pay for the visit. so now we start the slide into credit card debt till our income improves or we dip into savings.
better news, my dad is buying us plane tix to boston for the holidays just so the steven starr can meet his cousins, aunt/uncle, and make the grandparents smile. It will be good to get out of the cold for a bit.
tk, my folks are paying for us to come to PDX for the holidays too. Isn't it bittersweet: my parents made more money than their parents, but here I am over 40 and still can't afford to travel?
Not that I've tried very hard, though. I'm not super ambitious.
I don't have any grand parents of my own sp today I'll be taking care of someone elses. Oh and its not the fun part of playing scrabble whilst drinking iced tea, oh no, I wouldn't be so lucky. I'll be taking the "data" for the labs to be tested, then waiting for the doctor's diagnosis, then fill prescriptions. Throw in the fact that I have to walk 3 or so miles to do this. No no no, don't feel sorry for me - its one of those things you do for love. Anyway let the day begin
SH/TK - I was thinking the same exact thing. Boston?!?!?!? Getting out of the cold?!?!? But then again, I've never been so I wouldn't know.
Atechno - I think it's a wonderful thing you are doing, and I hope you are at least able to talk to a couple of them. The older generations always fascinate me with their life stories. For instance, it wasn't until I was in high school that I learned that my own grandfather was a pilot during WWII. He actually trained the fighter pilots to "fly blind".
LB - Hurray for going to visit your parents for Xmas.
TK - sorry to hear about your cat. Hope he/she feels better soon. Nothing too serious I hope.
hah hah hah yes Liberty, I do mean samples. I'm just waiting for the call to say they have said. In the meantime I'm procrasting doing Kitchen elevations... I used to love doing them. Wtf?
I am getting a little worried about all the sick cats around here lately. tk, my thoughts are with you, obviously. This makes me wonder about cat food...could any of it have come from China?
I am also really quite worried about the job market. Did you see all of the new threads popping up?....Uh yeah...
Dr. Suess is now sedated and living with a catheter for the next few days at the vets till we solve the cause of the urinary tract problems. My recent choice of cat food seems a likely catyst (pun intended, even though it's organic & 'healthy'), we might be buying purina again versus the $40/bag 'perscription' diet.
Job security is foremost on my mind lately... And I've just been informed that my annual review is coming up any day now. After obsessing over the elections for the past few last weeks, the reality is starting to sink back in again, and I'm nervous as hell.
If the worst-case-scenario happens and I lose my job here, I'd probably spend a couple weeks or maybe a month at most looking for a new job here in NYC before I start to look at more dramatic options. Unemployment benefits, even in NY State, don't even begin to cover the cost of living in NYC, so I'd most likely have to break my lease and leave town in a hurry just like I did in 2004. My parents in NC have an extra bedroom, and my grandmother in Cincinnati has an unoccupied second floor in her house... Of the two options, I'd almost certainly pick Cincinnati. Job prospects there probably wouldn't be any better there than in NYC, but at least the my unemployment checks would go a lot further while I'm looking. Hopefully I'd be able to find some sort of job -- either in architecture or not -- before unemployment benefits expire. At least Obama would be in office by then, and would be very likely to extend unemployment benefits by a few months. Yes, elections matter.
The hard part, though, would be paying for the move and/or having to buy a car. When I lost my job in 2004, I got enough of a severance to buy a car or pay for a U-Haul truck to move all my stuff out of NYC, but not both. I ended up buying a used Jeep Cherokee and stuffing everything that would fit into the back; any of my earthly possessions that didn't fit into the Jeep got thrown away. It was one of the worst things I ever had to do, and I'm really hoping to avoid repeating it. (And I have much nicer furniture now.)
So, if most of your marketable skills are related to architecture, what sorts of non-architecture jobs do architects look for when the economy goes down the shitter? Besides flipping burgers?
That would probably be the most realistic option.... Buy a used Jeep and bring my essentials with me, and put the rest into storage. Come back later when I can afford to move the rest of my shit. That's pretty much how I moved here from Chicago last year.
On a somewhat related note, now I'm wondering if I should go ahead and apply to some M.Arch. programs this year... I wouldn't be obligating myself to actually start classes if I still had my job, but it might give me more options in case the shit really does hit the fan.
Yeah, storage is very expensive here. I was paying about $150 a month 10x10 unit in Chicago, and then paying $180 a month for a 5x10 unit in Brooklyn. I think the prices drop off a bit once you get outside NYC, though.
yes, i too am now one of the unemployed! damn, was hoping it could wait until the new year, but cie la vie. am i afraid? uh, no, excited is more like it. how often do we really get to test our mettle? i mean cryz, dude, you've been doing it. LB is doing it, hell there are more here doing than i know or remember.
i think i will blog this adventure, because i don't think i want to go back to a firm anymore. i'll do whatever it takes to live - except porn, well - i am definitely not to proud to do something other than architecture. time to get busy living or get busy dying.
I don't know, porn sounds like a lot more fun that many of the other jobs out there... anyways, good luck beta, at the new adventures, and Gin at hanging on to the current one. And of course to WonderK+Man, hoping 'negotiations' go smoothly. WonderK, if you'll still be in LA in June, I'll see you then, as I plan to head south for a friend's wedding.
Today there was a bum sleeping in my housemate's car, right behind our house. He was still there when she got in to go to work. She was pretty freaked out, and so am I... we live in this cute little neighborhood filled with kids & puppies, so it was very unexpected.
just hope that the bum didn't have "a little accident" last night in the car...sometimes they can clean pretty good, but you might want to double-check anyways
GULP!!! All this talk of layoffs is seriously making me panicky. A friend of mine got laid off last week. She's not in architecture but she's #4 of of close friends that have gotten the pink slip in so many months.
Good luck beta!!! I love your positive outlook. It's incredibly refreshing and motivating. I hope if/when I get laid off I can maintain enough calmness to even think straight.
nam - Flickr is acting up at the moment but the photos that I did get to see look amazing. What an awesome experience. Hope the jet lag isn't too bad today.
beta, while tk's advice re: "meat" is apt, I also think there might be benefit to being a body - a contract employee body - when you have plans to go out on your own anyway. A little extra income while getting your footing in the self-employment world is a great way to proceed, IMO.
WK and TK : YES-- there HAVE BEEN KITTY PROBLEMS LINKED TO CHINESE FOOD RECENTLY! And in fact it was the expensive stuff. I had a coworker with a very sick cat fighting it -- actually it *may* have started with a UTI actually. Let me get the scoop from him and I will post it. They found all kinds of other people blogging about the problems and thus discovered the source of their poor kitty's misery. She had to be stationed at the clinic for a week. It was awful but she made it through ok.
Thread Central
Talked to my mom today she is in Wyoming...they had a foot of snow and 80 mph winds this past week so there is lots of drifted snow. (Snow Dunes). She told me she voted for Obama, which made me feel good cause I think only a handful of people in that state voted for him.
Happy Saturday TC!!!!
I think my cold/cough is resurrecting itself yet again. I am so discouraged b/c of it.
LB - I'm definitely going to have to check out the 2700K CFLs, although I'm wondering if it's even worth it. I put a CFL in one of the light sockets in the basement when the last bulb burnt out and it only lasted about 3 months. A friend of mine who also owns an older home said she tried using CFLs when her bulbs burnt out too, but they would die sooner than incandescents and so now she's back to using incandescents as she theorizes the older wiring in her home may be incompatible with the CFLs. She's an engineer and is knowledgeable in this realm. Anyone else ever heard of such a thing?
Anyway, time for some hot apple cider.
lb: thanks for the concern! it took some recovery, but my mind is still intact very much so. if anything, it is better because of learned things in variety. stand by.
vado, i actually like the choice, i think the reputation is probably a bit overstated, but who'd fuck with a guy with 9 1/2 fingers and is a cross between a hemorroid and a toothache?
immanuel is named after a fallen member of the stern gang which was responsible for bombing the king david hotel. policy as usual with regard to israel.
now that he's been elected, my suspicion is that it will take until about march for the backlash to reach a fever pitch as it becomes apparent to the new president that the treasury is pretty much empty and that he can't actually afford to do anything. but hey, maybe obama can finally get a playoff* for college football!
*this really annoys me because what the hell does obama know about college football? it's not like he even went to a football school like notre dame, nebraska or usc. if the current bowl system was good enough for president ford (who was actually a captain on the michigan football team in the 1930s) then president-elect should really keep his nose out of it. besides, he's got plenty of other things to keep him busy right now (including over 7,000 job appointments of which more than 1,000 require congressional approval) not to mention economy, & foreign affairs which include two longstanding foreign military campaigns. but, yeah man, football it is!
I'mmm back...
Just arrived back at my home a couple of hours ago.
I am editing and will be posting a flickr link soon.
Probably some blog postings eventually too.
WonderK, sounds like good news to me..
Hi all. I have missed you.
WELCOM BACK NAM!!!! I can't believe you've only been back a few hours and you've already started downloading photos.
vado - looks like Lucy Lou is the new mayor of Rabbit Hash, KY.
i never thought i would see a border collie elected to office in my lifetime! i'm so proud to be an american!
nam I can't believe you are back already....it seems like just yesterday that you left, or perhaps I have just been really preoccupied these last few weeks? :o/
puddles what the hell are you going on about? Obama doesn't have anything to do with college football...
I know - nam, your trip seemed short!
vado I thought you might drive up to see the fam this weekend - gas prices are so low it's hard to resist the temptation to just go for a Sunday drive! I did, though, and instead stayed inside my house all day. Making a quilt, in fact.
Hey all, posted a school blog entry with some new pictures of that geo-dome, with a basic description. I forgot to mention, in relation to Liberty's comment re: bugs, that the squiggly bits on the finish of the dome was caused by snails walking over it at night. Do snails walk? Or just ooze/glide? Anyway check it out
Oh shit...welcome back NAM!! I know why your trip felt so short - its cause you kept checking up on Thread Central, you couldn't stay away. Looking forward to seeing those pictures
was all over thesports news recently...fortunately it appears his interest was somewhat tongue-in-cheek...still i'm nervous to think this guy is now in the white house...bush was an asshole but at least he left college football alone
the only problem i see there, puddles, is that everybody will expect obama to care about everything, i.e., the things they think are important.
personally i don't give a hoot about his football opinions - they're about as informed as mine, probably - but there are certainly some out there who live and breathe it that will want him to think their issues are among the most important.
i'd really like him to prioritize architecture and issues of urban design, of course, though i hope he gets some good arch advisors on board - better than those that bought the convention temple for him.
Football...what a dull sport.
Male synchronized diving, on the other hand...well I'm just happy that the recent Olympics brought this very important form of competition to my attention. Surely that was the most significant long-term impact of the Beijing games, no?
Morning,
Yeah it felt a bit short considered how much inter-Indian traveling i did.
Unfortunately, got to get back to work.
steven, what scared me is that obama responded to an open-ended question regarding what he would change about sports
When asked what would be the one thing he'd change about sports, Obama said he'd like to see a college football playoff.
"You know, I am fed up with these computer rankings, and this and that and the other," he (Obama) said.
and he called it "one of his legislative priorities"...i'm probably over-reacting given the circumstances but he definitely hit a nerve on this subject.
Morning!
Welcome back Nam; I'm glad you had a good trip. Did you bring me anything?!
i believe the plan for obama is to jump into debt. even nobel prize-winning economists are saying that is good plan...so state of coffers is not such big issue. it will be, but not yet. when obama starts talking about national debt you will know things are getting better.
anyway, china just decided to jump up their economy with nearly $600b. uk dropped interest more than expected. things are happening. by january the whole field might be different.
interesting times. that ancient curse.
got a sick cat at home :( today. So we got a vets appointment at 11:45. not a good way to start a very busy week & we don't have the $ to pay for the visit. so now we start the slide into credit card debt till our income improves or we dip into savings.
better news, my dad is buying us plane tix to boston for the holidays just so the steven starr can meet his cousins, aunt/uncle, and make the grandparents smile. It will be good to get out of the cold for a bit.
just like dick "deficits don't matter" cheney
tk, my folks are paying for us to come to PDX for the holidays too. Isn't it bittersweet: my parents made more money than their parents, but here I am over 40 and still can't afford to travel?
Not that I've tried very hard, though. I'm not super ambitious.
I don't have any grand parents of my own sp today I'll be taking care of someone elses. Oh and its not the fun part of playing scrabble whilst drinking iced tea, oh no, I wouldn't be so lucky. I'll be taking the "data" for the labs to be tested, then waiting for the doctor's diagnosis, then fill prescriptions. Throw in the fact that I have to walk 3 or so miles to do this. No no no, don't feel sorry for me - its one of those things you do for love. Anyway let the day begin
By "data", techno, do you mean, um, samples?
Hope the weather is at least nice for your walk!
TK, I would never consider Boston as a place to "get out of the cold." I could never live where you do. BRRRRR.
SH/TK - I was thinking the same exact thing. Boston?!?!?!? Getting out of the cold?!?!? But then again, I've never been so I wouldn't know.
Atechno - I think it's a wonderful thing you are doing, and I hope you are at least able to talk to a couple of them. The older generations always fascinate me with their life stories. For instance, it wasn't until I was in high school that I learned that my own grandfather was a pilot during WWII. He actually trained the fighter pilots to "fly blind".
LB - Hurray for going to visit your parents for Xmas.
TK - sorry to hear about your cat. Hope he/she feels better soon. Nothing too serious I hope.
hah hah hah yes Liberty, I do mean samples. I'm just waiting for the call to say they have said. In the meantime I'm procrasting doing Kitchen elevations... I used to love doing them. Wtf?
I am getting a little worried about all the sick cats around here lately. tk, my thoughts are with you, obviously. This makes me wonder about cat food...could any of it have come from China?
I am also really quite worried about the job market. Did you see all of the new threads popping up?....Uh yeah...
Dr. Suess is now sedated and living with a catheter for the next few days at the vets till we solve the cause of the urinary tract problems. My recent choice of cat food seems a likely catyst (pun intended, even though it's organic & 'healthy'), we might be buying purina again versus the $40/bag 'perscription' diet.
Job security is foremost on my mind lately... And I've just been informed that my annual review is coming up any day now. After obsessing over the elections for the past few last weeks, the reality is starting to sink back in again, and I'm nervous as hell.
If the worst-case-scenario happens and I lose my job here, I'd probably spend a couple weeks or maybe a month at most looking for a new job here in NYC before I start to look at more dramatic options. Unemployment benefits, even in NY State, don't even begin to cover the cost of living in NYC, so I'd most likely have to break my lease and leave town in a hurry just like I did in 2004. My parents in NC have an extra bedroom, and my grandmother in Cincinnati has an unoccupied second floor in her house... Of the two options, I'd almost certainly pick Cincinnati. Job prospects there probably wouldn't be any better there than in NYC, but at least the my unemployment checks would go a lot further while I'm looking. Hopefully I'd be able to find some sort of job -- either in architecture or not -- before unemployment benefits expire. At least Obama would be in office by then, and would be very likely to extend unemployment benefits by a few months. Yes, elections matter.
The hard part, though, would be paying for the move and/or having to buy a car. When I lost my job in 2004, I got enough of a severance to buy a car or pay for a U-Haul truck to move all my stuff out of NYC, but not both. I ended up buying a used Jeep Cherokee and stuffing everything that would fit into the back; any of my earthly possessions that didn't fit into the Jeep got thrown away. It was one of the worst things I ever had to do, and I'm really hoping to avoid repeating it. (And I have much nicer furniture now.)
So, if most of your marketable skills are related to architecture, what sorts of non-architecture jobs do architects look for when the economy goes down the shitter? Besides flipping burgers?
I hear Borders books has nice benefits. Among them, very flexible hours and encouraging you to read the books that you are trying to sell.
architecture is dead. the army & farming are the best careers now...growing food or being able to fight for food will be all we care about.
LiG- 3rd option, stash your stuff in storage and hitchhike outa the city.
Still, aren't storage facilities in NYC about the same price as regular rent in other cities?
That would probably be the most realistic option.... Buy a used Jeep and bring my essentials with me, and put the rest into storage. Come back later when I can afford to move the rest of my shit. That's pretty much how I moved here from Chicago last year.
On a somewhat related note, now I'm wondering if I should go ahead and apply to some M.Arch. programs this year... I wouldn't be obligating myself to actually start classes if I still had my job, but it might give me more options in case the shit really does hit the fan.
Hmm....
Yeah, storage is very expensive here. I was paying about $150 a month 10x10 unit in Chicago, and then paying $180 a month for a 5x10 unit in Brooklyn. I think the prices drop off a bit once you get outside NYC, though.
good luck beta!
thanks TK!
yes, i too am now one of the unemployed! damn, was hoping it could wait until the new year, but cie la vie. am i afraid? uh, no, excited is more like it. how often do we really get to test our mettle? i mean cryz, dude, you've been doing it. LB is doing it, hell there are more here doing than i know or remember.
i think i will blog this adventure, because i don't think i want to go back to a firm anymore. i'll do whatever it takes to live - except porn, well - i am definitely not to proud to do something other than architecture. time to get busy living or get busy dying.
sweet.
I don't know, porn sounds like a lot more fun that many of the other jobs out there... anyways, good luck beta, at the new adventures, and Gin at hanging on to the current one. And of course to WonderK+Man, hoping 'negotiations' go smoothly. WonderK, if you'll still be in LA in June, I'll see you then, as I plan to head south for a friend's wedding.
Today there was a bum sleeping in my housemate's car, right behind our house. He was still there when she got in to go to work. She was pretty freaked out, and so am I... we live in this cute little neighborhood filled with kids & puppies, so it was very unexpected.
beta! Oh my goodness. Now it's really hitting home for TC. If you can say, how many in your firm got the boot?
rationalist, that is sad, scary, and kind of funny, I have to admit.
just hope that the bum didn't have "a little accident" last night in the car...sometimes they can clean pretty good, but you might want to double-check anyways
a baker's dozen.
funny thing is, i sent a resume out on friday, got an interview tomorrow morning. don't that beat all.
hilarious.
Good luck Beta,
Anyone whose interested here is the Flickr stream of my India trip photos..
here
Welcome back, nam.
beta- that is really quick for an interview, seems like they need a body now. It's better to avoid the meat trade - I have stories to tell...
GULP!!! All this talk of layoffs is seriously making me panicky. A friend of mine got laid off last week. She's not in architecture but she's #4 of of close friends that have gotten the pink slip in so many months.
Good luck beta!!! I love your positive outlook. It's incredibly refreshing and motivating. I hope if/when I get laid off I can maintain enough calmness to even think straight.
nam - Flickr is acting up at the moment but the photos that I did get to see look amazing. What an awesome experience. Hope the jet lag isn't too bad today.
welcome back nam. hey for all the unemployed out there, oprah is all new!
beta, while tk's advice re: "meat" is apt, I also think there might be benefit to being a body - a contract employee body - when you have plans to go out on your own anyway. A little extra income while getting your footing in the self-employment world is a great way to proceed, IMO.
WK and TK : YES-- there HAVE BEEN KITTY PROBLEMS LINKED TO CHINESE FOOD RECENTLY! And in fact it was the expensive stuff. I had a coworker with a very sick cat fighting it -- actually it *may* have started with a UTI actually. Let me get the scoop from him and I will post it. They found all kinds of other people blogging about the problems and thus discovered the source of their poor kitty's misery. She had to be stationed at the clinic for a week. It was awful but she made it through ok.
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