God and I have a freakin' terrible cold that is hitting hard today...gonna print out these drawings, let my partner handle the meeting, and go home. ugh. Irish Coffee sounds ridiculously good but if I go home I'll prolly do a spiced rum toddy.
architechno my head hurts just hearing you say that YOU haven't had coffee for four weeks!!
I linked to this article in another thread - written by beloved-to-many-of-us John Devlin. Very interesting article about trying to understand rationally what makes architecture effective on the highest level while simultaneously knowing that there is some "otherness" that rationality will never decipher.
i saw a drunk driver hit a parked car last night on the way home from the superbowl. he was trying very hard to not hit me, cleared me by by 4 feet when he hit the parked car.
actually, I never went to the superbowl party. I had my husband drop me off at work where I did some stuff for an hour or two and then did some studying for the ARE. I have two empty beer bottles in my trash this morning...
DCA - I tend to get stuck with lots of (unpaid) overtime lately too. This and this and this all need to get done... But as my boss would say, "You don't have to work overtime, but you have to get it all done."
I supposedly get comp time time, but dare I actually take it? I had some coming to me last Friday, but was the only one in the office. So I left anyways (at 2:30), shutting down the office. Yet, apparently one of our clients called the bosses cell phone a million times over the weekend because he couldn't get a hold of anyone on Friday afternoon and had an emergency. I had a couple of messages from him too, WHERE ARE YOU GUYS? Oops.
one winter about 4 years when i was living in VT, i when out to los angeles for a job interview.
cold snap hit back home and of course my house-sitter was too late in getting back to turn on the water.
found 2in of ICE on my kitchen floor, and a completely flooded bathroom. i wasn't due to return home for four more days.
fortunately, the weather stayed cold enough so that when i got home i could chip my way out of the mess.
once everything was cleaned out i took the opportunity to gut the bathroom. new floors, walls, electrical, and fixtures. worked out in the end. found out when i opened up the walls that the dumba$$ i bought the house from had plumbed the water lines within the exterior wall and shoved broken down styrofoam boxes in the cracks around the pipes to "insulate" them.
really. broken up pieces of beer coolers or something. un-frickin'-believable.
this was the same guy who had left for me electric baseboard heaters still in the boxes dated 1974.
note to self: do not leave house in vermont in the winter.
I just got a call from my landlady. She said "congratulations, you're getting a new furnace". I said, "woo hoo! And on the coldest day of the year, too!"
She also said that the heating guy was very impressed with our ingenuity in keeping the thing running. Apparently it was pretty dead....
My dad is driving around in PDX in his Miata with the top down. My pipes in the utility room are frozen because, yeah, vado, I forgot to leave a trickle on! Damn.
it was a little overcast today, but still around 75 degrees. I would have gone walking in the morning but felt too groggy and miserable that I couldn't have coffee
A 9-hour work day is so refreshing. I wish I had more like today. We're planning a team meeting for later in the week. I appreciate the additional advice that's been shared here since I logged off last night. Actually, I'm surprised that no one suggested that I ask to be moved to another project or switch to another firm. I think it's for the best. I couldn't bear switching jobs again, and it would destroy the resume.
In other news, I got a voicemail from a headhunter today. For a firm in Manassas. yechk. What a commute! It kinda puts things into perspective.
Strawbeary: you're also studying for the ARE? We really gotta start a support group - or just keep it local on Thread Central...
DCA, I had the headhunter thing a couple of weeks ago. It was for "another firm in Ohio", which, considering my upcoming grad school plans, was not a great idea. Also they were looking for a "VP of Design", which struck me as extremely funny.
AP, if you were here, and you went back to there, you probably wouldn't wear a coat for at least a few minutes. 30 degrees sounds lovely right now.
Re: the ARE support group thread....go ahead and start it! It's all you! There are much stupider threads that get started every day! We've got one about codpieces for christ's sakes....
ha, Manassas blows. ha ha ha. poor architecture firm. what a place to be stuck in!
as for mac firms... i didn't have luck, actually! there are tons of mac firms in boston and california, but seemingly NONE in chicago. it's been pretty frustrating getting used to pc's, actually--i don't know how you guys do it. having only ever used macs there are certain things i'm just used to, and it amazes me to not find them on the pc. it's like getting thrown back to the stone age, to me. probably just what i'm used to, or whatever.
anyway the REAL hard thing for me is fucking autocad, which is endlessly retarded. you have to do input 3 or 4 things for every 1 item you want to accomplish. i feel like i'm wasting most of my energy. it's very overly designed. why do i need to confirm everything a million times?! argh.
to make myself feel less frustrated, i've been keeping a running log of the things that annoy me about the program, so that by writing it down i at least get it out of my head.
I hear ya about writing things down to get them out of your head. I keep a notebook on my bedstand to write things down (like: revise cover sheet for the mechanical sheet that the MEP engineer decided to exclude at the last minute) so that it gets out of my head and I can go back to sleep. goodnight.
myriam, just to put things in perspective, when I got on a Mac a few weeks ago, the first thing I do is go, "Where's 'My Computer'? Where are 'My Documents'? How does anybody get any work filed properly on this thing???" So it definitely goes both ways.
WK- one of my friends was bugging me a while ago to submit for a "Director of Marketing" job at his office... I never did, partly because of the grad school thing, and partly because I don't feel like I'm up to being the 'Director' of anything. Even though he said that it was mainly just wearing v-neck tops while I schmooze with clients and telling the graphic designers what to do, I was way too intimidated by the title.
i'm fucking SICK of these people who start threads about how supposedly little we get paid. It's so fucking obnoxious to be complaining about that shit from the comfort of your swanky ass laptop in your stylish little urban apartment in your poncy "i moved here before it gentrified" neighborhood. peel your self-pitying eyes off your navel-cum-computer screen and take a look at the world around you. NO, we don't get paid as well as doctors or lawyers or dentists. But we make a damned comfortable wage, and live good lives, and it's not like you can't go work for a big skyscraper firm and make a ton more if you really wanted to. We make more then 99% of Americans. We do much more than just scrape by. These people who bitch about not "making enough money" have probably never gone a day in their lives without food. Fuckers make me sick.
I effing love it when myriam has rants! (I'm sorry myriam I still can't bring myself to swear like that....)
DCA, hopefully you have noted my participation on your/beta's new thread. This one will be very popular. If nothing else you can count on me to throw a Garwondler on there every now and again in case it gets too quiet.
i had same experience with pc switch the first time too, myriam. then the 2nd time. now i am so comfortable with my pc i don't think i can go back to mac...even if it is kinda stupid sometimes...
with autocad you can automate some of the commands into mouse clicks, so it speeds things a bit. maybe you have already dun that?
oh, and please curse loud and often. reminds me of home.
Like jump said, myriam, there are lots of ways to make commands easier, though no matter how much you customize it, you are right, A-Cad is still pretty much a ridiculously over-wrought program. I think the writing things down idea is good, because perhaps there is some cad guru in your office who oculd show you how to set up shortcut keys etc. for the things that drive you nuts?
I'm sick, sick, sick - staying home today to do this wall section I've been putting off all week.
i agree with you about A-cad. the program is really unreasonably odd in lots of ways, and has waaay too many functions. The one thing i really like though is the paper space/model space setup. don't know what i'd do without it anymore.
so, in light of the recent hijacking of archinect, I give you a highly entertaining (and even somewhat thoughtful) quiz from Slate: Are you a liberal anti-Semite?
Snow stories? School just called and they are closing an hour early - I'm terrified at the thought of driving in 3" of snow in my little car, so I'm headed out now - giving myself 2 hours to go 3.5 miles. Wish me luck.
lb.
snow story for you...driving back from mass. through connecticut.
fierce snowstorm..about 4" of accumulation on the highway. no
plows, no sand...still coming down and only adding. roads are icy
under the snow and i'm driving my front wheel drive honda accord
on what turns out to be two almost bald front tires. (i didn't know
this until i got to nyc several hours later). roads are more or less
empty except for two cars. i'm trying to keep my speed constant
and not tailgait at all. the car in front of me starts to lose control...
i see it, but can't do anything about it. he veers sideways into the
other lane where he's promptly hit flush by an suv...which sends
his car back into my lane...missing me by about a foot. i didn't
even tap the brakes or accelerator...
never been so scared driving ever. i've driven in all kinds of snow
and seen pileups...but this was the first time i've driven and feared
for my life.
I was having a real pity-me day, a while back, about not being able to land a better paying job. And I pulled up to a red light, looked out the window of my more than decent vehicle, and gave a mental STFU to myself while watching the people waiting at the bus stops to get to whatever below-living wage job they have to support their families. Because it hit me that my 32K was more than many of them made and I have no one to take care of except myself. It was a welcomed dose of reality.
i personally don't think people should be chided for wondering why
we as a profession don't make more money. of course we could all
be living in smaller cities, not driving, not living in a semi decent
apartment, not going out for dinner, not drinking...etc.
and of course there will always be people less fortunate than us.
unless you're homeless without a job and no prospects you'll always
be able to say 'there but for the grace of god go i'...
BUT the fact remains that we all pay for 5 years of higher education min,
at which point we put in a few more years so that we can take tests
to become a professional. as far as a profession goes with that kind
of training i think we are underpaid. most of the locations we can
practice architecture are the big cities..and i'm sorry gettin paid 25k
to live in nyc where there are no apartments for less than 900 a month
(unless you're very, very lucky) that's just not going to cut it.
i've always viewed it as whether or not i'm comfortable. i make enough
where i can do what i want and save about 7k a year...that's really all
i need...but i also work 55 hours a week on average with no benefits.
i think it's important to remember that there are people that need
help..but as architects we're in the perfect position to help out and
we could do even more if we were financially stable and/or had more
free time imo.
Made it home safely with the child. Miata performed like a total champ, given how little it likes snow. Took an hour and a half to do what usually takes about one-third of that. But still - I made it home and won't leave again until tomorrow and for that I'm happy.
Excep for one thing (and vado shut your eyes here cuz I'm a'slammin' on Indy): on the road for 1.5 hours I saw not a single snow plow. Even Meridian Street, main artery of the entire city, is unplowed. Now in Philly, a couple hours before the first flakes hit the plows were out in force, salting and generally getting ready for what was coming. Does Indy figure ti will just wait for the storm to pass and THEN go out to try to lean up? I think that's a bad attitude.
We are having a blizzard here too. My presence at the office wasn't totally necessary, so I came home. Took me 45 minutes on a normally 10 minute commmute, but it was fun as hell. Driving a manual is mucho entertaining in the snow!
Also, can I just say this: I f*&%ing LOVE living in the city, and I'm reminded of this every time I go home, and I'm driving in the opposite direction of like, 95% of all cars. Awesome.
Thread Central
lb....my vote is "Irish Coffee" Briing on the Pot!
God and I have a freakin' terrible cold that is hitting hard today...gonna print out these drawings, let my partner handle the meeting, and go home. ugh. Irish Coffee sounds ridiculously good but if I go home I'll prolly do a spiced rum toddy.
architechno my head hurts just hearing you say that YOU haven't had coffee for four weeks!!
I linked to this article in another thread - written by beloved-to-many-of-us John Devlin. Very interesting article about trying to understand rationally what makes architecture effective on the highest level while simultaneously knowing that there is some "otherness" that rationality will never decipher.
jd sent me that but i havent had a chance to read it yet. with all the superbowl and pirate art shows. this weekend!!!
congrats to da colts.
i saw a drunk driver hit a parked car last night on the way home from the superbowl. he was trying very hard to not hit me, cleared me by by 4 feet when he hit the parked car.
actually, I never went to the superbowl party. I had my husband drop me off at work where I did some stuff for an hour or two and then did some studying for the ARE. I have two empty beer bottles in my trash this morning...
DCA - I tend to get stuck with lots of (unpaid) overtime lately too. This and this and this all need to get done... But as my boss would say, "You don't have to work overtime, but you have to get it all done."
I supposedly get comp time time, but dare I actually take it? I had some coming to me last Friday, but was the only one in the office. So I left anyways (at 2:30), shutting down the office. Yet, apparently one of our clients called the bosses cell phone a million times over the weekend because he couldn't get a hold of anyone on Friday afternoon and had an emergency. I had a couple of messages from him too, WHERE ARE YOU GUYS? Oops.
pipes are frozen at work today .. i kid you not there's a bucket of water to throw down the toilet. ..
where'd the water come from if the pipes are frozen?
don't people know to leave a trickle of water running???
one winter about 4 years when i was living in VT, i when out to los angeles for a job interview.
cold snap hit back home and of course my house-sitter was too late in getting back to turn on the water.
found 2in of ICE on my kitchen floor, and a completely flooded bathroom. i wasn't due to return home for four more days.
fortunately, the weather stayed cold enough so that when i got home i could chip my way out of the mess.
once everything was cleaned out i took the opportunity to gut the bathroom. new floors, walls, electrical, and fixtures. worked out in the end. found out when i opened up the walls that the dumba$$ i bought the house from had plumbed the water lines within the exterior wall and shoved broken down styrofoam boxes in the cracks around the pipes to "insulate" them.
really. broken up pieces of beer coolers or something. un-frickin'-believable.
this was the same guy who had left for me electric baseboard heaters still in the boxes dated 1974.
note to self: do not leave house in vermont in the winter.
I just got a call from my landlady. She said "congratulations, you're getting a new furnace". I said, "woo hoo! And on the coldest day of the year, too!"
She also said that the heating guy was very impressed with our ingenuity in keeping the thing running. Apparently it was pretty dead....
Wonderk glad you called a professional....maybe you will get a more efficient furnace if you lean on the landlady.
no worries about the cold, midwesterners and easterners. It is beautiful here today, I'll send it your way.
My dad is driving around in PDX in his Miata with the top down. My pipes in the utility room are frozen because, yeah, vado, I forgot to leave a trickle on! Damn.
it's in the 30's here (Jacksonville FL)...gonna freeze tonight...been this cold off and on for the last few weeks...
I was thinking about going to the beach this afternoon.
AP, that's very interesting, but you know nobody is feeling sorry for you.... :)
it was a little overcast today, but still around 75 degrees. I would have gone walking in the morning but felt too groggy and miserable that I couldn't have coffee
oh, of course. i was responding to dubK's earlier comment:
Also if you are anywhere NOT in SoCal or Florida this week, put your coat on.
I'll be wearing my coat too, or at least a light jacket... ;-)...
Ah, of course.
A 9-hour work day is so refreshing. I wish I had more like today. We're planning a team meeting for later in the week. I appreciate the additional advice that's been shared here since I logged off last night. Actually, I'm surprised that no one suggested that I ask to be moved to another project or switch to another firm. I think it's for the best. I couldn't bear switching jobs again, and it would destroy the resume.
In other news, I got a voicemail from a headhunter today. For a firm in Manassas. yechk. What a commute! It kinda puts things into perspective.
Strawbeary: you're also studying for the ARE? We really gotta start a support group - or just keep it local on Thread Central...
DCA, I had the headhunter thing a couple of weeks ago. It was for "another firm in Ohio", which, considering my upcoming grad school plans, was not a great idea. Also they were looking for a "VP of Design", which struck me as extremely funny.
AP, if you were here, and you went back to there, you probably wouldn't wear a coat for at least a few minutes. 30 degrees sounds lovely right now.
Re: the ARE support group thread....go ahead and start it! It's all you! There are much stupider threads that get started every day! We've got one about codpieces for christ's sakes....
10-4 WonderK. If I create a thread, will you participate? :)
dangit... beta beat me to it. And I had a pretty good intro started, too!
ha, Manassas blows. ha ha ha. poor architecture firm. what a place to be stuck in!
as for mac firms... i didn't have luck, actually! there are tons of mac firms in boston and california, but seemingly NONE in chicago. it's been pretty frustrating getting used to pc's, actually--i don't know how you guys do it. having only ever used macs there are certain things i'm just used to, and it amazes me to not find them on the pc. it's like getting thrown back to the stone age, to me. probably just what i'm used to, or whatever.
anyway the REAL hard thing for me is fucking autocad, which is endlessly retarded. you have to do input 3 or 4 things for every 1 item you want to accomplish. i feel like i'm wasting most of my energy. it's very overly designed. why do i need to confirm everything a million times?! argh.
to make myself feel less frustrated, i've been keeping a running log of the things that annoy me about the program, so that by writing it down i at least get it out of my head.
I hear ya about writing things down to get them out of your head. I keep a notebook on my bedstand to write things down (like: revise cover sheet for the mechanical sheet that the MEP engineer decided to exclude at the last minute) so that it gets out of my head and I can go back to sleep. goodnight.
myriam, just to put things in perspective, when I got on a Mac a few weeks ago, the first thing I do is go, "Where's 'My Computer'? Where are 'My Documents'? How does anybody get any work filed properly on this thing???" So it definitely goes both ways.
WK- one of my friends was bugging me a while ago to submit for a "Director of Marketing" job at his office... I never did, partly because of the grad school thing, and partly because I don't feel like I'm up to being the 'Director' of anything. Even though he said that it was mainly just wearing v-neck tops while I schmooze with clients and telling the graphic designers what to do, I was way too intimidated by the title.
ok, rant time:
i'm fucking SICK of these people who start threads about how supposedly little we get paid. It's so fucking obnoxious to be complaining about that shit from the comfort of your swanky ass laptop in your stylish little urban apartment in your poncy "i moved here before it gentrified" neighborhood. peel your self-pitying eyes off your navel-cum-computer screen and take a look at the world around you. NO, we don't get paid as well as doctors or lawyers or dentists. But we make a damned comfortable wage, and live good lives, and it's not like you can't go work for a big skyscraper firm and make a ton more if you really wanted to. We make more then 99% of Americans. We do much more than just scrape by. These people who bitch about not "making enough money" have probably never gone a day in their lives without food. Fuckers make me sick.
/end rant
oh and sorry for all the swears, i have a headache
oh what the fuck, we all know i'm not sorry about the swears
i definitely am underpaid fucking paid. but i am not fucking worth a fucking cent more. fuck it.
precisely, vado, precisely.
I effing love it when myriam has rants! (I'm sorry myriam I still can't bring myself to swear like that....)
DCA, hopefully you have noted my participation on your/beta's new thread. This one will be very popular. If nothing else you can count on me to throw a Garwondler on there every now and again in case it gets too quiet.
i had same experience with pc switch the first time too, myriam. then the 2nd time. now i am so comfortable with my pc i don't think i can go back to mac...even if it is kinda stupid sometimes...
with autocad you can automate some of the commands into mouse clicks, so it speeds things a bit. maybe you have already dun that?
oh, and please curse loud and often. reminds me of home.
so you think you had a bad day - http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070206/D8N44OMG0.html
Like jump said, myriam, there are lots of ways to make commands easier, though no matter how much you customize it, you are right, A-Cad is still pretty much a ridiculously over-wrought program. I think the writing things down idea is good, because perhaps there is some cad guru in your office who oculd show you how to set up shortcut keys etc. for the things that drive you nuts?
I'm sick, sick, sick - staying home today to do this wall section I've been putting off all week.
get well lb.
nothing like drawing with a fever.
i agree with you about A-cad. the program is really unreasonably odd in lots of ways, and has waaay too many functions. The one thing i really like though is the paper space/model space setup. don't know what i'd do without it anymore.
what is paper space? is that when you put trace paper over your monitor?
That astronaut looks exactly how I feel today.
so, in light of the recent hijacking of archinect, I give you a highly entertaining (and even somewhat thoughtful) quiz from Slate: Are you a liberal anti-Semite?
Snow stories? School just called and they are closing an hour early - I'm terrified at the thought of driving in 3" of snow in my little car, so I'm headed out now - giving myself 2 hours to go 3.5 miles. Wish me luck.
The freakin' midwest.
take the tbird, lb! it's heavy!
lb.
snow story for you...driving back from mass. through connecticut.
fierce snowstorm..about 4" of accumulation on the highway. no
plows, no sand...still coming down and only adding. roads are icy
under the snow and i'm driving my front wheel drive honda accord
on what turns out to be two almost bald front tires. (i didn't know
this until i got to nyc several hours later). roads are more or less
empty except for two cars. i'm trying to keep my speed constant
and not tailgait at all. the car in front of me starts to lose control...
i see it, but can't do anything about it. he veers sideways into the
other lane where he's promptly hit flush by an suv...which sends
his car back into my lane...missing me by about a foot. i didn't
even tap the brakes or accelerator...
never been so scared driving ever. i've driven in all kinds of snow
and seen pileups...but this was the first time i've driven and feared
for my life.
so drive safe and make sure you have good tires.
Delurking, to heartily agree with Myriam.
I was having a real pity-me day, a while back, about not being able to land a better paying job. And I pulled up to a red light, looked out the window of my more than decent vehicle, and gave a mental STFU to myself while watching the people waiting at the bus stops to get to whatever below-living wage job they have to support their families. Because it hit me that my 32K was more than many of them made and I have no one to take care of except myself. It was a welcomed dose of reality.
i personally don't think people should be chided for wondering why
we as a profession don't make more money. of course we could all
be living in smaller cities, not driving, not living in a semi decent
apartment, not going out for dinner, not drinking...etc.
and of course there will always be people less fortunate than us.
unless you're homeless without a job and no prospects you'll always
be able to say 'there but for the grace of god go i'...
BUT the fact remains that we all pay for 5 years of higher education min,
at which point we put in a few more years so that we can take tests
to become a professional. as far as a profession goes with that kind
of training i think we are underpaid. most of the locations we can
practice architecture are the big cities..and i'm sorry gettin paid 25k
to live in nyc where there are no apartments for less than 900 a month
(unless you're very, very lucky) that's just not going to cut it.
i've always viewed it as whether or not i'm comfortable. i make enough
where i can do what i want and save about 7k a year...that's really all
i need...but i also work 55 hours a week on average with no benefits.
i think it's important to remember that there are people that need
help..but as architects we're in the perfect position to help out and
we could do even more if we were financially stable and/or had more
free time imo.
i need to floss my teeth, so i don't have time to participate right now...thanks.
We are having a BLIZZARD!!!!!
Made it home safely with the child. Miata performed like a total champ, given how little it likes snow. Took an hour and a half to do what usually takes about one-third of that. But still - I made it home and won't leave again until tomorrow and for that I'm happy.
Excep for one thing (and vado shut your eyes here cuz I'm a'slammin' on Indy): on the road for 1.5 hours I saw not a single snow plow. Even Meridian Street, main artery of the entire city, is unplowed. Now in Philly, a couple hours before the first flakes hit the plows were out in force, salting and generally getting ready for what was coming. Does Indy figure ti will just wait for the storm to pass and THEN go out to try to lean up? I think that's a bad attitude.
We are having a blizzard here too. My presence at the office wasn't totally necessary, so I came home. Took me 45 minutes on a normally 10 minute commmute, but it was fun as hell. Driving a manual is mucho entertaining in the snow!
Also, can I just say this: I f*&%ing LOVE living in the city, and I'm reminded of this every time I go home, and I'm driving in the opposite direction of like, 95% of all cars. Awesome.
no blizzard conditions in the twin cities, just white very fluffy powder blowing around - but that's what happens when it's five degrees and snowing.
vado- did you stop at a DQ?
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