here i am

2011 - The Year of the Sink Meat

2011-12-31T16:50:00.000-08:00

This is how 2011 started: with browned hamburger and a beer can, New Years gifts from the former inhabitants of the fixer-upper that has now been fixed up! After that cleanup job the year just got better and better. I made friends with the best electrician and sandwich maker in the county. I've learned how to re-key locks, lots of them. I travelled to New York, Palm Beach, Tampa, St. Louis, San Francisco, Ames, New Brunswick and Minneapolis. I ate the best freshly caught Grouper that I've ever had in my entire life in Matlaiche, Florida. Dr. G extracted an unwanted canteloupe from my reproductives and I lived to tell the tale. We saw glowing waves from the spectacular effect of bio-chemical energy during the red tide. Eveline came to San Diego and we whisked each other off to Venice Beach and my favorite cafe, Intelligentsia. Our new room-moose is tidy, hilarious, and very chicken parmigiana literate. Last but not least and best of all my brother and sister-in-law had a baby, the first grandchild and the first nephew. Thanks to all of the ancestors, spirits, deities, jesus, god, sister agnes, friend, family, strangers, cats, birds, dogs and self-efficacy that made this year so abundant.

Se Renta

2011-12-29T07:59:00.000-08:00

Available for rent 1/1/2012 - $1,795 + utilities, located in Normal Heights just threee blocks north of Adams Ave. in a quiet residential neighborhood.

2br, 1ba, 1100 SF

Front house of a 2-on-1 property

Spacious kitchen and bath

Central Air conditioning and Heat

2 car garage included

Shared patio

Hardwood floors and tile

No pets and No smokers

Note: Rear tenants have two large dogs in a private fenced rear yard

Last Summer in Venice

2011-12-18T17:10:00.000-08:00

I just like this photo a lot. It's about how Eveline sees the world through sushi.

SAN to PBI

2011-10-11T18:53:00.000-07:00

Despite delays, security lines and compressed seating, I still believe flying is a privilege. To move at such great speeds and linger amongst clouds is a wish granted. Birds know, we wish to have their earthly perspective. Not knowing impossibility, we have found it.

More before and after photos

2011-07-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

I finally have before and after pictures of my second job which I still work on evenings and weekends. This is Phase I of our fixer-upper project which I'm doing on a shoestring budget acting as contractor and owner. The kitchen countertop came from my neighbor's backyard scrap pile. The polycarbonate sheeting lining the shower was in the discount bin at Ridout plastics. The hardwood floors were resuscitated with a rented drum sander from Home Depot. Most of the paint came from yard sales. I took out a double-sided wall heater and replaced it with a single-sided facing the hallway so the painted yellow stripes serves as a reminder not to put a hole into the heating duct. The best part of this construction venture was issuing my own certificate of occupancy in the form of handing keys to the new tenants. A big thanks goes out to the project team - Andrea, Mary, John, Shane, Dante & Deron.

stumps and blocks

2011-07-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

The three lonely palm tree stumps have been put to good use as pedestals for our new house numbers. What's more fun on a Friday night than making numbers out of stray blocks? Wait, you don't need to answer that.

*Cutting by Deron's custom demolition saw

Area 51

2011-06-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

It's incredibly satisfying to think of outside the box ideas and see them come to life. In this case, they came to life on the first attempt with the help of my expert fabricator, Deron Miller. I've always liked polycarbonate panels and all the shapes and cell sizes they come in. I picked up an 8 mm sheet in the scrap bin of a local supplier for $15 but had to buy two more sheets at the tune of $60 each. It's still less than one of those cookie cutter plastic shower enclosures. The most difficult of the installation was the scribing and cutting. There were no straight walls in this bathroom!

Recovery Act

2011-05-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

It's been 16 days since the extraction of the Invader and the recovery is going very well. What really helped was all of the visits from friends - Isa, Michele, Nikki, Janet, Jess McK, Jess E, Victoria, Renee, Cris, Christine, Steph, Kate, Deron, Mom and Dad, Andrea's Dad, our neighbor Mary Claire. It's impossible not to have a speedy with recovery with so much love and affection. I've been making wheatgrass, apple and ginger juice from the gigantic flat of wheatgrass that Steph dropped off. Unfortunately, Gizmo our cat likes to eat wheatgrass too so I have some competition. The downtime has been a mixed bag since the timing was not the best but since I have it, I'm trying to make the most of it by getting my motivation kick-started for the CSE and learning a little more about parametric families with Revit. I'm counting down the minutes to the day that I'm allowed to bend over again and drive. I'm taking the doc's reccomendation and waiting until the 23rd.

sand everywhere

2011-03-28T06:39:00.000-07:00

Took a break from bathroom remodeling to go out to the desert with my super friend Deron. The best vehicle for driving around on sand is his custom designed buggy which looks like it drove right out of the movie Cars. During our hike Deron caught this beautiful little hummingbird having a snack.

The new place: de-junkifying

2011-01-16T20:10:00.000-08:00

After over a year of searching and looking at places all over San Diego including places that were absolutely wrong for us (i.e., the duplex on 34th with a black ceramic panther guarding a broken wheelchair, syringes and a stack of porn magazines ) we ended up with a great fixer-upper in South Park. The first order of business was de-junkifying about 10 cubic yards of stuff from ghosts of tenants past. The fastest way to open space was doing a curb alert on Craigslist and a nice big FREE sign. There were a few treasures in the junkpile - a sewing machine, two grecian pedestals for a coffee table and a thing I call a "post-pounder". I've met a few of the neighbors and I can pretty much tell that I'm going to love the location. After 20 years and as many mailing addresses I'm looking forward to moving for the LAST TIME.

Lindsay White and the White Lies

2010-11-09T21:17:00.000-08:00

My talented friend - Lindsay White is now available bit by bit on iTunes!

The tracks I would bet the family pet on are: Rapunzel, Recipe, Chasing a Lie.

I bet they will be getting extensive radio play if we all start telling our local radio stations.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/tracks/id402919863

Can you believe it? a new block!

2010-08-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

In honor of the 80's Atari game and the 100 million inside me I'm calling this the Invader Block. I found the Invaders on my recent trip to Washington D.C.

Venice, California

2010-08-27T19:29:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Zander on music and passion

2010-08-20T21:17:00.001-07:00

This is one of the top favorites on TED and if you give it 20 minutes you'll see why.

Here's one of my musical stories. After Aunt Dee was transferred to the nursing home and Uncle Phil was home alone I knocked on his door to surprise him on his birthday. He gave me a hug and I gave him a present, which he unwrapped and promptly put into the CD player. We both sat down in the living room and closed our eyes and listened for over an hour to the tangos of Astor Piazolla. It's hard to put into words what that hour was like. We just listened with undivided attention, taking pleasure in the music and in each other's company. I was really grateful for those 60 minutes of re-connection through Piazolla.

Raspberry Diaries

2010-08-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

I'm making today the official, 28 year anniversary of my fall into the raspberry bushes in the front yard of my Great Aunt Dee and Great Uncle Phil's house. Uncle Phil was a scientist, so he should've warned us that over the millenia raspberry bushes developed their coat of thorns to thwart five year old children from de-fruiting them. I have an inclination for red things and I realized this evening after painting some wood with red paint and later standing over my kitchen sink with a 1/2 pint of red raspberries that it may be because of that traumatic childhood event.

On the fateful day, in my usual not-very-astounding feat of climbing, I mounted the second horizontal plank (there were 3 total) of Aunt Dee and Uncle Phil's red fence. I must have been intensely foraging that season because all of the raspberries nearest the perimeter of the fence were gone. I leaned forward with a 5-year old's sense of leverage and center-of-gravity, which is to say no sense, and the combination of my pudgy will for those sweet red fruits and my Uncle Phil's deferred maintenance, I went for a head-first dive into the bush. Those were tall and healthy raspberry bushes because Aunt Dee kept them well watered and she was a bird lover, so they were well fertilized. I'd felt like I'd fallen into a dark, prickly forest, with the sun blocked out by the breathtaking height of the canopy. Naturally, I cried my eyes out and whoever was nearby had to brave scratches and reach in and get me.

If I look down at my right forearm I see the two deepest scratches from that day's fruit-picking. Every time I eat raspberries this event comes into my mind but is then quickly overtaken by tactile memories of what it felt like to pick a ripe raspberry versus an almost-ripe raspberry. There's a big difference. I imagine an unripe raspberry with little legs and arms and a look of determination to stay wrapped around it's stalk. A ripe raspberry is like an eager traveler at a train station and waiting for you to show up to take it away.

When I go back home and drive by the old fruit-scene there's a new family in my Aunt and Uncle's house and the raspberry bushes have been gone for a long time. I know there's children living in the house now because I've seen toys parked out front. I hope those kids get a chance to pick some raspberries.

Varese, Italy

2010-08-14T17:49:00.000-07:00

I had the recent good fortune to visit Italy on a short business trip. Before the business portion of the trip got underway, on the evening of my arrival I walked from my hotel down to the lake which happened to be in the midst of a festival with food (had some pane con salsiccia) put on by the Lion's Club. I spied some planes and a group of gentleman sitting on the dock. I approached them and asked if anyone spoke English and were they giving rides? A few minutes later I wa up in a seaplane flying over Lake Varese and Lake Maggiore.

invader...

2010-08-04T21:44:00.001-07:00

Electric Glitter!

2010-08-04T12:37:00.000-07:00

https://share.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/glitter-sized-solar-photovoltaics-produce-competitive-results/

2010-06-06T14:10:00.000-07:00

2010-06-06T14:07:00.000-07:00

2010-05-29T21:09:00.000-07:00

radiator overheated, bicycle was stolen, koi came swimming out...

2010-05-24T20:34:00.000-07:00

2010-05-01T07:35:00.000-07:00

Paris Metro (Photo by A.C.C.)

You can never know this as a child but who you choose to be with is the most important decision you'll ever make or re-make. That person will color your life and their act of coloring will be somewhere between Impressionism and artless graffiti.

Pike Place Market - Seattle

2010-04-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to take an urban hike through Seattle last weekend. Of course, I visited the teeming Pike Place market but I took a walk on the quiet side first (see above) to gaze at one of my favorite features: windows with lots of panes. Before arriving at the market, I hiked until my knees and footbones were creaking. I started out at Capitol Hill on Friday night and had a porter so good, it was like petting a pony. The blend of chocolate, coffee, and malt was something to behold. he purveryor of this Porter? Elysian Brewery. I walked from Capitol Hill down to China Town where I had a little dim sum and attempted to unsucessfully eat a chicken foot. I visited two unique japanese botiques, MOMO and Kobo at Higo. From there I hiked past galleries around Pioneer Square, down by the piers and restaurants on the waterfront and into the backdoor of the Pike Place Markets. I had some mac and cheese at the market which I normally would've enjoyed but now I'm living with one of the world's best mac n' cheese makers, so I get it better at home. The volume of salmon in Seattle is astounding. I walked past the first Starbucks ever where blueglass and picture-taking was also voluminous. I wound my way down to Olympic Park and saw another Serra sculpture. I once was very excited about Richard Serra but now I've been overexposed - it's not special when it's everywhere. I headed back down the northern end of 1st ave and hopped a bus back to the center and descended upon Westlake station. It was fun to feel like I was in Europe for a moment, getting on the underground. 40 minutes later and some great views of downtown Seattle from the train I was back at SeaTac.

Travelling Mischief

2010-04-09T18:58:00.001-07:00

1. Driving on the left side of the road, with a stick-shift, in a foreign country, at night.

2. Buying up scallops still in the shell at Les Halles in Dijon, France and packing them in ice and having them for dinner in Zurich.

3. Writing messages on the wall to Tadzio

4. Goofing around under the Moosli sign.

5. Wandering into a deserted pub in the Chute villages of England, peeking into the kitchen and having the place opened just for us. It also ended up being some of the best fish and chips out of the whole trip.

6. Ordering a million succulent indian dishes at a restaurant on Brick Lane.

7. Slathering a fresh baguette picked up in eastern France with apple blossom honey from Zurich.

8. Feeding a french horse Ovalmaltine cookies

View from the Bon Marche

2010-04-09T18:51:00.000-07:00

Inside the Theatre des Champs-Elysees

2010-04-09T18:23:00.000-07:00

On a light rainy night, we sat and had a glass of wine and read some papers. I noticed there was a concert playing nearby, starting in less than 2o minutes! So we finished our wine and briskly walked about 15 minutes to the Champs-Elysees Theatre. We took a seat on the balcony and listned to the Orchestre Nationale de Lille tune up their strings. The Choeur Regional Nord-Pas-Du-Calais was gathered behind the orchestra. Together they performed "Les Choephores - Gloria". The performance featured a soprano, Olga Paslchnyk and she really sang to the rafters.

staying up all night

2010-03-16T23:38:00.000-07:00

In order to catapult out of the zurich aiport at 7:10am on our arrival day and spend the subsequent 15 hours taking it all in, Moose and I are turning up the volume and staying up all night so that we'll sleep like a couple of freaks who stayed up all night during our cross-atlantic flight. We'll be sputtering through Switzerland, France and England in a leased Fiat and by the end of our trip I will be an expert in the ways of the manual transmission.

I'm so grateful that two years ago Isa invited me to France and introduced me to Velib, Metro, and Cote D'Oieu (sp?). That experience has emboldened me to go back, fearless and armed with senses locked and loaded. I'm also lucky that my first friend in San Diego, Eva, has been such an atomic connector otherwise Switzerland would've never been on my mental map and there would be no friends there to visit.

I'm taking requests for souvenirs...

YUMMY OATMEAL COFFEE - get it while it's hot!

2010-03-11T23:42:00.000-08:00

24 hours, or more, in...

2010-03-11T23:19:00.000-08:00

The places I've been to since moving to San Diego:

Antigo, WI

Mission District, San Francisco, CA

Chicago, IL

Denver, CO

Los Angeles, CA

Rushville, IL

Ensenada, Mexico

Marie St. Ouen, France

Edwardsville, IL

Stillwater, MN

Palm Springs, CA

Minneapolis, MN

San Jose, Costa Rica

Colorado Springs, CO

Quepos, Costa Rica

Charlotesville, NC

Paris, France

Phoenix, AZ

Durango, CO

Lakeland, MN

Japantown, San Francisco

Northampton, MS

Lille, France

Macomb, IL

Mammoth Lakes, CA

Sonoma County, CA *wine and stars

Carlsbad, CA

Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA

Black's Beach, San Diego, CA *hot chocolate and stars

Bassersdorf, Switzerland

old rubber

2010-03-07T10:40:00.001-08:00

The 28 days of February

2010-03-07T10:01:00.000-08:00

My brother in the shadow of the mountaintop

February was a month of extremes. There were high altitudes and low temperatures; watery environments and dry desert vistas; new characters coming into my life and a special person leaving. Within a span of 5 days, there was the funeral of my Uncle Phil, the first ever visit of my entire family to San Diego and our roadtrip to Mammoth Lakes, el gran cambio en la oficina, and the celebration of the Feb. 10th, 15th, and 16th birthdays. It was a bittersweet week because I couldn't be everywhere. In lieu of attending Uncle Phil's funeral I sent my goodbyes to him atop the Eastern Sierras. *

February was also an epic month for waves and on President's Day, I took a dip in the Pacific and got tossed around in the spin cycle. My landing involved the edge of the surfboard and my right thigh. Like any happy-surfer, I kept on surfing, impervious to my injury and paid for it later with a lot of pain and a side-to-side zombie walk for 3 days.

Last but not least, there were more visits from the most calculating characters. Edouard and Tadziou from Paris, France came to visit their sister and I had the pleasure of brunch and dinner with them and Kathryn, my favorite person of the past, present and future, famed San Francisco pedalist and extra-action alumni, popped into San Diego for some Pomengranet martinis and unavailable seabass.

So despite Feb's extremes. I was in for every minute of it.

*I had a dream about him last night. We were in his garage and we had all sorts of things out to tinker with and he looked happy in our shared creative moment.

Obituary for Uncle Phil

2010-01-31T15:45:00.000-08:00

This weekend was the weekend that I had contemptibly cheap roundtrip airline tickets to San Francisco. Last summer Southwest had a short but sugary sweet sale and I scooped up (4) tickets for moose and my parents who've never been to SF. I was excited to see the new Renzo Piano designed Natural History museum, delighted that Kathryn Aaker was up for dim sum and her excellent reccomendation (Yank Sing) and most of all totally psyched to share my love of traveling with my family. But this weekend was not to be. Instead I received a call and boarded a plane for Minnesota, finally stepping out into the icy nursing home parking lot at 1:30am.

This Great-Uncle who passed away January 30th at 8am at Greeley Street Care Center in Stillwater, MN, was the greatest, great-uncle to ever live and he was like a father to me. As a kid, I would leave my house in a flat-out run, pumping my little legs as fast as they would go past the 6 houses that made up the distance between his home and mine. From diaper-hood until age 17 I'd been sleeping over at Auntie Dee's and Uncle Phil's. Auntie Dee used to tell me stories about me hiding my dirty diapers behind the easy chair in the living room. Uncle Phil used to literally toss me into bed as a nightime ritual, "one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, here benny goes!". Uncle Phil like to call me Ben or Benny, short for Benjamin J. Bonehead. During my tomboy years this would often result in waitresses asking "and what does your son want to order" whenever we were at a new restaurant.

After Elementary School, out of necessity, sleeping over turned into moving in so that I could take care of Auntie Dee who'd had a stroke that had taken her body but not her tender heart and spirit. Uncle Phil cleared out his office, a room that was painted green like the needle-fans of a cedar tree. A framed beetle, tarantula and butterfly specimen hung on the wall. The desk was a large formica countertop resting over two steel specimen cabinets filled with drawers of meticulously preserved insects.

Uncle Phil planted the seed that grew into my present roots here in San Diego. We took a trip to SD when I was 12 to visit his mother and sister (Muriel E. Taylor) . He took me to the tide pools in La Jolla and my kid-brain remembers hours of discovery, hermit crabs, tadpoles, small fry, bugs. We did a fair amount of bird-watching and Phil was so excited to add new sightings to his "life list". We went to the French Cafe and Bakery which is still in La Jolla where the bread was shaped into different creatures. I went home with an alligator which lived on in the refrigerator far longer than it should have. On Thanksgiving Day we ate lunch at the French Cafe together and I felt so rebellious doing something different than the traditional Thanksgiving.

Another favorite trip with Uncle Phil was a fishing excursion up to Prune Lake. We caught and packed a cooler full of bluegills. Poor uncle discovered the limits of my tomboyishness that day when I was too grossed out to put the night-crawler on the hook. We brought the fish home, de-scaled and gutted them in the backyard. My last job of the day was to wrap the guts in newspaper, dig a hole in the garden and bury them so the racoons wouldn't find them. I'm digressing...there's so many great memories with him!

Obituary for Phil Taylor - Science Museum of Minnesota

2010-01-31T15:00:00.000-08:00

Phil Taylor was a longtime director of the Science Museum of Minnesota. Phil always felt, "your work should be your vocation, your vacation and your advocation" and he lived that mantra. He even repeated this after he'd gotten Alzheimers.

Growing up with him I loved to hear him talk about his work at the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM). He had a box of memorobilia with a sepia colored photo of the first ever SMM, which was little more than a room in an old building housing a small collection. He was very proud of the relationships that he'd built with the governer and MN legislator not only securing more and more funding but also indirectly improving the funding environment for all MN arts and culture organizations. His efforts led to the former Science Museum with the giant 'lizard' sculpture in front of it. During the design phase, the architect Ralph Rapson, kept wanting to make a statement with lots of glazing and Phil would say, "I'm just going to paint those windows black".

Phil spearheaded the OMNI theatre's integration with the museum after scouting it out elsewhere (possibly at the Ruben H. Fleet in San Diego). He also brought the innovative idea of mixing live theatre with science education, delighting kids by the busload. One of his last project before retirement was the establishment of the St. Croix Watershed Research Station and the honor of having Taylor Pond named after him.

At home, after his workday had ended, Phil would talk about the men and women who made all of the museum programs so successful, from theatre to dinosaur digs, to curating. I know there were some who were like sons and daughters to him too because even after they had moved on to other institutions he would still know of and share their ongoing accomplishments.

His visit to the new state-of-the-art science museum on the river was very much a crowning moment for him. Not many people get to see their legacy so solid and so clear.

In addition to being the longtime director of the Science Museum of Minnesota Phil was a war vet, a U of MN graduate, an entymologist and an avid outdoorsman and I'm going to miss him so much.

New Year's 2010 at Torrey Pines Beach

2010-01-01T21:49:00.000-08:00

I wanted to start out the new decade with clarity and simplicity so Moose and I scouted a spot at Torrey Pines beach the week before. We stayed up all night with the great circular nightlight shining down at as we gazed at Osidious the Emphatic and Orion's belt. By morning the surfers were gathering even before first light. The sunrise and moonset was the best anti-alarm clock to wake up to.

The moonset before sunrise

the morning view from our 'hotel room'

Our makeshift stovetop and sandbag - perfect for hot chocolate and soup that keep us warm during the night and hot green tea with honey in the morning.

The first footprint of the new year?

the reward: breakfast burritos!

midnight and a billion bits of sand

2009-12-31T20:09:00.000-08:00

air duct @ urban grind cafe

2009-12-31T20:05:00.000-08:00

Structural Systems

2009-12-29T21:06:00.000-08:00

I took my last exam, Structural Systems, about 4 weeks ago. I know it will be another 2 months before I get results, thanks partially to California's budget problems, the CA Architect's Board is closed on certain Fridays and also partially because of NCARB's slow grading process. In the meantime, I've moved something new into my brain - Spanish. I live 20 minutes away from Mexico, I hear it spoken everyday in my office and on the street, it's about time I learned to hablo espanol. I've found some great podcasts called "The Spanish Survival Guide" hosted by a guy with a great speaking voice, Dave Spencer. I also scored "Learn Spanish in 3 months" at a very rambunctious white elephant hosted by Kristen and Molly. I hope that between my spanish-speaking coworkers, podcasts and CD's that I'll be fluent enough to order my own chicharron and horchata at Super Cocina by the end of '10.

Cross-Pollination

2009-11-21T13:21:00.000-08:00

On 11th and F street there's a two story warehouse that's been converted into an open creative space called the HIVE. A local San Diego group called the Collaboratory took over the HIVE one night to showcase their collective art and music. My favorite pieces of the show were the mini-monstrous works of Shayna and the Robot-rex by the guy who just moved here from Philadelphia a year ago. Aside from getting a headache from the weird red wine it was fun to get a firsthand look at a space I've driven by a hundred times. The interior is sectioned off with thick polycarbonate panels and sweepingly tall fabric dividers. The building's exposed timber ceilings and windows-of-many-panes are two of my most comforting architectural features. The spaces are priced for creative-startups.

http://www.hivehaus.net/

crumple drawing

2009-10-17T19:23:00.000-07:00

4 Hours of studying today

2009-10-10T18:03:00.000-07:00

I have a quad-ruled comp book that I rescued out of the trash last year. On the front it says "Rashim Gupta" in ballpoint pen. I recycled it for use as my Structural Systems exam crash pad.

PB plein aire

2009-10-09T19:10:00.000-07:00

the last exam standing

2009-10-08T20:02:00.000-07:00

I'm putting on my battle armor for the last Architects Registration Exam: Structural Systems. That armor includes a good supply of coffee beans, a moleskin notebook dedicated to my study scribbles and notes, daily affirmations that I shall not fear shear and moment calculations, many xeroxes and printouts of study guides and structural articles (the world-renowned FEMA 454 for example) and most importantly, the will to conquer!

Fill Me Up

2009-10-07T21:59:00.001-07:00

Tonight Dr. Ross and I went to Anthology to hear Shawn Colvin. She got up on stage in a very decisively understated way, just her and her guitar and an opening song. The outfit she had on was part Pharoah, with a bejeweled like bibb, and part Ballerina, with her dress concluding in a shimmery pleated halo around her waist. Shawn Colvin is an epically old soul in a year 2009 body. One of my favorite songs by her is "Fill Me Up" because being a long way from home requires a different sort of fulfillment. When you're a long way from home there's no history to re=visit, you can't just stop by an old neighbor's or grandma's house for a piece of pie (but i like cake) and a good chat. That doesn't exist here. I have to make up my own, write-as-I go story and when it's fresh ink, it's uncomfortable. Oh, but eventually, this ink dries and one ends up with a definitive tale behind them that can be re-told and chalked up to the history books.

A House of a Hundred K's

2009-09-27T17:54:00.000-07:00

Moose and I have been shopping for a house and so far so BAD. There's a lot of both new and old, broken down, poorly kept, expensive crunk out there on the market that I can't afford. There's also a lot of good stuff in the good neighborhoods that I definitely can't afford. Every time I go through a property I get the overwhelming urge to move walls, change facades, add additions, place new windows. This urge exists even without the foil of awkward overpriced houses. This urge to make and re-make things is the reason I've stuck to the profession of Architecture and why I'll always be in it in some way.

When I was lamenting the poor conditions of houses I'd seen for $300k and that I just need to take matters into my own hands and build, my realtor's attitude was one of skepticism. When anyone says "You Can't Do It" I flip the "on" switch to the "Oh Yeah I Will" factory. I've got a couple books on order from the library "The 100K House" by Dwell Editor Karrie Jacobs and "Modern Shoestring". These two books document efforts by contemporary architects to build with materials and labor in the 100k ballpark. Below is one such effort by a developer called Postgreen and Interface Architects in philadelphia. I'm going to keep my search open for an urban infill lot in San Diego - I'm taking land donations! And then I'm going to build my 100k house.

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2421267374214289556

Las Vegas on the Rocks

2009-09-27T17:37:00.000-07:00

I had a Swiss visitor for two weeks and the picture above is one of our weekend moments in Las Vegas. I expected Sin City to be a 24 hour circus of revelry and it certainly was. It's an all night Disneyland for 21-99 year olds who want to drink, eat and gamble as much as their bodies and wallets will allow. Our version of Las Vegas was not so extreme.

I'd only met this Swiss visitor last summer, most of our time spent together was soaked in salt water, flipping off surfboards. We also had one fun night at Showmeo & Sushi's house which has been documented forever on Facebook. I was excited to play host to our guest's 2nd visit to San Diego. Right now, she's speeding over the Atlantic at several thousand feet.

A Mobile Home Made for the Outback

2009-09-09T20:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.gizmag.com/go/5869/picture/24948/

http://www.robgray.com/graynomad/wothahellizat/wot1/index.php

Luna's New House

2009-09-03T22:09:00.000-07:00

One night after hiking mighty Cowle's mountain, my co-hiker spied this plastic playhouse oustide a dumpster at a commercial daycare provider. Half a roof, no door, no problem! Hey, we're architects and no challenge is too small! We loaded it up in his truck, drove it to his mom's house and two weeks later, he sent me this picture. The playhouse was transported across the border to Tijuana and I hear the house's new owner, 2 year old Luna loves her new digs.

The Call to Wall

2009-09-03T22:04:00.000-07:00

It might not look like much but I'm very happy to have been part of this wall.

On Saturday morning, I was sorting some old boxes in the basement when my dad stuck his head in the door and yelled "help, we need help!". My mom and I dropped what we were doing and ran outside. We followed my dad over to my brother's house to find he'd started the final leveling of fill for his new retaining wall. My brother asked me for advice on how to level the ground. I laughed and said I'd never put in a retaining wall, let alone a level one. Long story short, he had the right tools and put me in charge of the leveling, we all did the filling and after 4 hours, the first 3 courses of block were laid and that wall is level as level can be.

TSA VS CARROTS

2009-09-03T21:45:00.000-07:00

Last week I went from coast-to-coast but on the way back to California I had the pleasure of a four day layover in Minnesota after 3 days of business traveling. Pictured above are carrots that m mom and I pulled out of her garden. They tasted so good, so sweet and crunchy! She had a miniature forest of them and a nice crop of yellow zucchini squash too. I bagged up as many carrots and zucchini that I could stuff into my carry-on luggage without checking a bag and incurring Sun Country's $15 fee. In order to fit more carrots and squash, I sacrificed a pair of shoes and left them behind in MN.

At the airport security line, I got the dreaded "Is this your bag ma'am?" from one of the uniforms. I nodded yes and followed the lady (who looked a lot like Nelle and talked a lot like Nelle but was taller, skinnier, and frizzier) to the stainless steel table of bag examinations. She plunked my luggage down, looked me right in the eye and said in a very serious Minnesota accent, "ya got any sherp objects in der?". I shook my head, "No ma'am, just carrots". She kept her stern gaze on me, unzipped my bag and started pulling out carrots at which point her demeanor completely changed. "Hey, there really ARE carrots in here!". She pulled out all of the carrots and squash, tossed them in a gray bin, and paraded them around to the front of the x-ray machine, saying to her TSA pals "hey, check out these carrots! Look at how great these carrots are!" Now I was getting awfully nervous that TSA was going to take my carrots home for their evening meal. After another pass through the x-ray machine, to verify I wasn't transporting carrots stuffed with heroin - the x-ray woman even said "Yep, they're carrots alright" - I was given my vegetables back with compliments and solicitation for advice, which I didn't have to give because my mom's the garden wizard, I'm just the happy traveler.

2009-08-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

can anyone tell me what the japanese writing says?
I suspect it may be completely incongruous with the fortune.

Intern Architects Speak Up! NCARB: What are the new testing fees really for?

2009-08-04T20:33:00.000-07:00

Copies and pasted from areFAQ.blog with links to publicly available tax returns from NCARB.
http://blog.arefaq.com/?p=54

NCARB is covering their butt and blaming it on ARE candidates.
The new test fee is just to cover the fact that they’ve been spending money like drunken sailors…on themselves.
In 2004-2005 Lenore Lucie’s salary and defered compensation was $233,000. In 2007-2008 it was $313,000. That’s a 34% in four years.
In 2004-2005 Mary de Sousa’s salary and defered compensation was $118,00. In 2007-2008 it was $207,000. That’s a 75% in four years.
But that’s nothing.
Stephen Nut was hired at $159,000 in 2006-2007. In 2007-2008 he made $201,000. That’s a 26% raise last year. And that’s not even the something.
In 04-05, the board and senior staff got reimbursed for $57,000 of expenses.
In 05-06 it was $67,000.
By 06-07 it had nearly doubled to about $110,000.
Last year though, they really outdid themselves…to the tune of $343,000…a sixfold increase in four years.
Gordon Mills had over $60,000 in expenses alone.
Of course that’s just part of it. NCARB’s new digs cost $1,305,799 last year. The old place was $765,982 in 2004-05.
I sure hope they’re half a million dollars a year nicer.
And remember, all this (a good fraction of $1.1 million) is before they were dealing with “cheating.”
BTW, those salaries don’t require sealing plans either.

Modulus of Elasticity

2009-08-04T20:07:00.000-07:00

I. A measurement standard used by U.S. textile manufactures to predict the eventual failure of stretchable waistbands used in synthetic fabric undergarments.

II. The theoretical stiffness of porous materials when subject to a high-temperature ionizing kool-aid bath after a period of 67 minutes.

III. Determined by the base times height of a material's cross-section, divided by it's ratio of thermal strain to cryogenic stress multiplied by the distance of the material's centroid to Jupitor's fourth moon.

IV. The scientific description of epidermal displacement after multiple rhinoplasties.

Comic Con San Diego - the scene outside

2009-07-25T15:26:00.000-07:00

Last night Robert Downey, Jr. was dining at the restuarant Moose works at. During Comic Con they are slammed and she comes home totally beaten up. I decided to go down there, stalk my girlfriend a little and see the Comic Con madness firsthand. At the restaurant the kitchen was so busy all I could get was a quick glance of her working on the line. I wandered outside and within about 10 minutes got a gigantic Mythbusters bag and a can of Amp energy drink. There were huge throngs of people everywhere with a 1:25 ratio of people in costumes and a 1:100 ratio of people in kick-ass costumes.

The masses crossing over to the convention center complex under the watchful eye of a mobile Brad Pitt.

There was a block-long line to say hello to two Playboy Bunnies

Across the street from the convention a circus had set up shop and provided some heroic bungee jumping.

2009-07-20T23:25:00.000-07:00

My present from Chef A: Grilled chicken wrapped in ham and provolone, balsamic marinated vegetables, spinach salad.

2009-07-20T23:24:00.000-07:00

Chef A's dinner last week: Fusili pasta with red pepper pesto, cilantro, cheddar and montery jack cheese.

2009-07-20T23:21:00.000-07:00

I requested breakfast for lunch and this was Chef A's creation! Scrambled eggs with sausage and vegetables, sauteed potatoes and peppers, a dollop of sour cream and drops of Chilula. Delicious!

This is a Blockbuster!

2009-07-20T23:06:00.000-07:00

My new favorite block, found on a pation in Portland Oregon. I'm going to name it the "Medo Block" after the photographer/finder.

making rainbows...

2009-07-20T22:42:00.000-07:00

The backyard is not just gas meters and a fence! For Pride, we transplanted the scorched scotch moss into the shade where it seemed to have a much healthier green glow. For $12 I spread out 4 bags of rocks from Lowes and started laying down color.

(pictured on right, Molly Williams - marvelous mistress of self-made messages)

I MOOSE U

2009-07-20T22:37:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to ISA for her methodical help in making the moose!

Sometimes...

2009-07-20T22:23:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I want to be a plumber, except I'd solder copper and pvc tubing and pumps into extraneous, unpurposeful wet systems, designed to do nothing but confuse.

Sometimes I want to take that Electronic Music class @ the community college and sample the noise around me, deliberately and spontaneously. I'd wear a fishing vest packed with my electronic recording doodads and batteries, lots of batteries, and I'd compile Erik Satie like compositions sitting on a curb.

Sometimes I want to organize a group of students into pods of Guerilla Architects. We'd take erroneous pieces of land, like the area between highway medians, or the odd patches of space between municipal utility cabinets and sidewalks, and we'd convene in the middle of the night with pre-fabbed forms and quick-working materials, a slew of powertools and construct a folly.

Sometimes I want to liquidate my bank account and jet off to switzerland or paris and be an illegal alien and live off tips from street sketching.

Sometimes I want to see if the local auto repair shop will take a weekend grease monkey so I can learn the mysteries under the hood and never feel helpless again when the car breaks down.

The NCARB transition

2009-07-20T22:10:00.000-07:00

I'm waiting anxiously for a very important letter from the California Architects Board. Very soon I should be receiving the results from my latest exam, Building Technology. I took this 6 months ago and failed it. I retook it in June and should receive results by August. NCARB and the ARE are going through a transition and rule change. The Architecture exam is going from 9 divisions to 7 divisions. For those who do not pass Building Technology (possibly me), they will have to repeat previously passed material, and take 4 MORE EXAMS! It's the most gigantic slap in the face to architecture interns everywhere. To add more grave injury to the insultory slap, is the fact that ARE exam fees are going up $40 each division. So if I don't pass Building Tech, I'd have to take 4 more exams on content I've already passed x $240. That, my friends, is $960 on top of the $1,000+ in fees for exams and study materials that I've already paid. If FAIL is the unfortunate result, I may reconsider this whole architecture licensing fantasy and become an attorney instead and start a class-action lawsuit on behalf of interns.

4.0 earth quake off the San Diego coast!

2009-07-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

Excerpted from the comments section of the San Diego Union Tribune.

Commenter 1
"Was the quake related to all the live, supposedly disoriented squid tht washed up on the beaches there right after the quake? What are the experts there in Marine Biology attributting this phenomena to, I was surprised it wasn't a headline in your Sunday paper. I lived for years at the beach and never saw squid wash up, especially so many and alive but witnesses said they appeared disoriented?"

Commenter 2
"It's early morning and you're a squid; amongst thousands of your slimy buddies lying on the sandy shore. In the unflattering morning light, you notice that you all look like 8-legged condoms with huge eye balls; and the human beings start to point and stare. It's then you begin to feel the creeping disorientation; so overwhelming, like a choking fog making its way inland."

The Suicide of Dorothy Hale

2009-07-12T16:12:00.000-07:00

During my last trip to the modernist style and stale starch smelling University Heights library, I picked up a book of Frida Kahlo's letters. One of her letters to a former lover mentions the painting "Suicide of Dorothy Hale". Dorothy's husband had passed away in a car accident leaving her broke and with an already failing stage career. She threw a party at her luxury high-rise, wrote some notes, had one last swig of vodka and put on a dress and corsage and jumped.

Garden Moose

2009-06-29T19:40:00.000-07:00

the Scotch moss

2009-06-29T19:23:00.000-07:00

My first real gardening/landscaping attempt unfurled two weeks ago. Now I am pulling weeds in between and out of the Scotch Moss and Dymandia. A few of the weeds went straight up like a dagger, into and then out the other side of the Scotch Moss. Invasive bastards! The roots of these marauders extend for inches below the soil, or the equivalent of several miles in plant scale. I have to dig, no, extract, EXCAVATE them out with a tool. During one moment of meditative attack on the weeds I began to compare their slow and consistent takeover to a person's inner life. We all have unusual, mean, inappropriate, lazy, vengeful, regretful, depressing, startling, stewing, negative, obsessive, repetitive thoughts that start growing from our subsoil and before we know it, they're in the light of day and we cannot avoid. Maybe the pharmacopia of drugs for mental disorders is really weed killer. Perhaps our conscience is the Constant Gardner, extracting those weeds before they get their start.

A Sunny Day at Aamodt's Apple Orchard

2009-06-28T08:30:00.000-07:00

Drawn from a photograph on my desk.
My mom the teacher.
Couldn't sleep last night.

Mother*WHAT!?#

2009-06-13T13:01:00.000-07:00

~ Hillary's opening statement at the 94.9 music festival in Oceanside last Saturday. Moose picked up these tickets to the sold out festival over a month ago hell bent on being in the presence of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's. At first, I let my Oceanside stereotypes get the best of me: 24hr. gamblers @ the gawdy Ocean's Eleven casino near the Mission Ave. exit, drunken military folk on the sidewalks, people who can surf better than me at the beach... Alas we arrived and I found a crowd of happy 20-40 somethings with excellently arranged outfits, perfectly tuned to the conditions of afternoon sun, ocean breeze and evening cool. The stretch of pavement lining the beach was my concrete catwalk to observe for the day. The Oceanside Amphitheatre atmosphere is hands-down the best outdoor music venue. Imagine your favorite band, imagine yourself at the top seat in nice steep bleachers so you get a great view of your favorite band. Then picture an infinite backdrop of blue sky, dotted with palm trees and dolphins frolicking in the frothy ocean waves. So, so, SO different from music festivals in the middle of a muddy field in the midwest, with port-o-potties for fences and rain 90% of the time, no bleachers and a view of your favorite band through the wisps of somebody's mullet.

The Yeah Yeah Yeah's were incredible and I have become a total fan of their new album, It's Blitz!

2009-05-10T21:02:00.000-07:00

Sunday Moose.

2009-05-10T20:52:00.000-07:00

sometimes i work like this...

2009-05-10T20:40:00.000-07:00

or i do this...my girlfriend gave me a broken key and asked me to make her something out of it. This is a tribute to the robot Gir in her favorite cult cartoon - Invader Zim.

Fiesta de Luna

2009-04-18T22:53:00.000-07:00

My co-worker invited me to his two year old daughter's birthday party in Tijuana. I was apprehensive about going since there were 836 murders in TJ last year, twice that of New York or Los Angeles. Everyone around San Diego is justifiably scared to cross the border. Oh, but the lure of a pinata, candy, tacos, tj hot dogs, was all too much. I made extra copies of my passport, told everyone where I was going and left the comforting confines of San Diego.

This was my first time driving my car into TJ. I was worried my California plate would stick out like a bad toupee but there were a lot of California plates. The worst part about driving was the gaping pot holes. Really, some of them were more like craters. After a half-dozen wrong turns and adjusting to Mexican on/off ramps I made it to the party at a rec center snuggled next to a Sony maquilladora.

I had my first TJ hot dog, which is a hot dog with bacon wrapped around it, with mayo, mustard, ketchup, queso, refried beans, and fried onions. I like the Mexican twist. Tacos were excellent and so was the juga.

Luna is sure a lucky little girl because her dad threw an awesome party with jumping cage, mechanical bull, two pinatas, an intricately decorated farm cake (farm was the theme) and gift bags Martha Stewart would've been proud of with hand drawn farm animals a green drawstring and packed with candy! I was only able to grab 4 pieces of candy from the pinatas so I'm glad Jose gave me a gift bag. As soon as the pinatas cracked the kids swarmed in faster than killer bees. No candy was left behind.

After the party I drove around randomly for about 40 min. exploring TJ, hoping not to get cornered by any chollos or cartels on a dead-end street. I happened upon the Museo El Trompo (see post below) and I stopped at a panaderia and picked out some sweets. The proprieter took my dollar after scolding me in spanish for not having pesos so I definitely got off the beaten path.

Now, i'm back in san diego, studying.

This cow did not go down easy...

Jose's gift bag extravaganza

El Trompo

2009-04-18T22:46:00.000-07:00

On my way back from Fiesta de Luna, I saw this building near Parque Morelos(sp?) and pulled in for a look. I eventually figured out that it's a children's museum, although I find nothing playful in its facade. The glass curtain wall is impressive but more imtimidating then inviting. The website wear a very different face: http://www.eltrompo.com/ - oh, and El Trompo is the word for "top", like a spinning top.

Jesus and Clamato Juice

2009-04-18T22:38:00.000-07:00

Crossing the border into TJ.

Returning to San Diego.

Clamato Juice on the left.

Jesus on the Cross to the right.

Border Patrol straight ahead.

Tijuana BC

2009-04-18T22:27:00.000-07:00

Guardrail Flowers

2009-04-11T17:58:00.001-07:00

Biochemistry chaos

2009-04-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, after a day in L.A., and eating practically all of the same foods as my friend that afternoon I arrived home and promptly had about 5 waves of nausea and tossing every last molecule in my stomache. This was followed by the worst headache of my life. I took Monday off. For the rest of the week I've had a rollercoaster headache that took a nice peak yesterday evening. After watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and 12 hours of sleep I actually feel normal again.

I've never experienced anything like this before. So I have two theories about these headaches.

Theory 1: It's a slow moving aneurysm that's hopefully self-healing but just in case I've got a doc appointment for weds.

Theory 2: Bodychemistry is violently bubbling and re-settling. Since cutting alcohol out of my diet 3 weeks ago and un-intentionally cutting caffeine out of my diet 1 week ago AND the addition of a juicer to the moosehold which has resulted in a 3,232,8947 % increase of fresh vitamins in my atmosphere, it must be my brain readjusting to the new fuel compound it's receiving.

March was wily

2009-04-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

Wily: Full of wiles, tricks, or stratagems; using craft or stratagem to accomplish a purpose; mischievously artful; subtle.

1. The Firm sent me into a blizzard, alone.
2. Chinese restaurants stay open during really bad weather.
3. Have not had a drop of alcohol since March 24th.
4. Saw Si*Se at Indiefest and they were great!
5. Fixed my laptop's wireless driver crashing problem. Thanks to the e-mail help of Annie B. Instead of paying $100 min. just for a look under the hood, she advised me to get a wireless usb or wireless card, i did and it worked!
6. Finally received the long overdue Jack LaLane Power Juicer Pro in the mail! The juice in my kitchen has been flowing with more fury than the Mississippi River. Moose and I have been rampaging the produce at Henry's Market.
7. My latest Object Project is a mini-file cabinet with 18 drawers, of which I've bolted 4 giant orange casters to and it is almost done. I'm still looking for a 17" x 23" plexiglas top. Every friday I dig in the scrap pile at Ridout plastics and I come close, very close, but not close enough.
8. Received a fantastic postcard from three swiss birds - the highlight of my mailbox life!
9. Am studying for Architecture Registration (ARE) exam #7, Building Planning, scheduled for Saturday April 25th. The thought of a 5 hour exam no longer phases me. I've gone from having exam day peri-orbital-cellulitis to being cool as a cucumber.

Masters of Mid Century Modernism - Jerome and Evelyn Ackerman

2009-04-01T06:50:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited that the work of this living couple, in their 80's is being exhibited right in Balboa Park. The Ackerman's produced so much work in so many mediums it gives me hope that it's okay to be interested in many, or too many things. Evelyn Ackerman's motto for decorating and design was "do what pleases you". From Mar 1 - May 25th the Mingei Museum admission is 1/2 price from 10am-noon on sat/sun, or $4 regular/$2 student.

http://www.mingei.org/exhibitions/detail.php?EID=161

wish me luck

2009-03-25T21:12:00.000-07:00

Friday Night in San Francisco

2009-03-25T20:10:00.000-07:00

Yaaaaayayyyyyyy! I have two tickets to hear Yann Tiersen at the Grand Music Hall in SF at the beginning of May. Who's going with me?

*Airfare from home state or country not included.

TJ Tacos in the parking lot at Joe's 99cent store in Linda Vista

2009-03-19T22:15:00.001-07:00

$1.50 buys you a freshly grilled pile of pollo, carne asade or casado (brains) on two corn tortillas complimented with a long shelf of killer condiments (cilantro salsa, green salsa, red salsa, pico de gallo, jalapeno, lime, grilled onions). I watched Kimi and Ken down the equivalent of 6 chickens and 2 cows under the glow of the duct-taped lights of the roach coach. Roach Coah - That's such an awful name for a mobile space that packs so much function into so little square footage. I have a fascination with RV's, roach coaches, spy vans anything small and special. I like the idea of having 'operations' out of a movable compartment. I saw a Discovery channel show a few years ago and with RV manufacturing the interior casework is designed with 1/16th" tolerance. Now that's tight.

Joe's 99 Cent Store Parking Lot

register

2009-03-19T22:15:00.000-07:00

message has no content. subject: register

National Ignition Facility

2009-03-16T19:25:00.000-07:00

Watch the movie Sunshine (Directed Danny Boyle) and then watch this:
https://lasers.llnl.gov/multimedia/video_gallery/

Rewind: 2006

2009-03-08T08:18:00.000-07:00

LED lighted Coke bottle lamp

2009-02-28T12:11:00.000-08:00

If anyone's interested in having one built, I accept R&D funding.

Feliz Navidad

2009-02-17T20:33:00.000-08:00

Feb. 10th
Moose woke up and sang me Happy Birthday. Private a.m. concert. Did not sleep too well due to drunken hostelmates and morning construction of new concrete stairs. Our big thing for the day was the public beach. We had the freshest Icee ever (can ice be fresh here?), hand shaved ice, orange syrup, gooey condensed milk, it was a dreamsicle in a cup and we were very hot girls at that point. Little islands jutted out of the water offshore.

We walked the whole length of the beach and shared a cerveza for 2,000 Colones and hung out with Barry the Barracuda and returned to find our worldly posessions being swept away by a wave. Andrea pounced and ran like a jaguar and pounced on our stuff - saved!

Barry

We figured out later from a guide that these littler holes and patterns are made by digging crabs. They were all over the beach.

Our company at breakfast the next morning.

Living La Pura Vida

2009-02-17T20:32:00.000-08:00

Feb. 7th 2009 - Had a bit of a rough start to the trip. It rained all the way from SD to LA. Traffic was weird and then came the cascading PMS! First Andrea, then me and later on that night her aunt. We arrived in Venice and walked a round a bit with Andrea not feeling well at all. We stopped for lunch @ a fun spot called Mao's Kitchen with vintage Chinese Communist posters on the wall and $1 vegetarian egg rolls. It cheered us up a bit.

I love visiting Venice for the non-LA feel to it and its high concentration of modern and contemporary architecture. This trip was only a few hours but there was still a lot of interesting residences to gaze at.

The night was spent in Andrea's aunt's smoky bed. Well, anything is smoky when you're a non-smoker. Her Aunt, Annette Harper, is an LA Actress. Her vanity plate reads "I M SO LA", she has Ellen DeGeneres cell in her phone contacts and you can see her makeup room to the left and her last movie here.

Feb. 8th, 2009 - Annette had to make two trips to the airport because I invoked Murphy's law and left the passports in my car causing us to miss our hopper flight to Phoenix. Andrea doesn't get mad at me and why, I don't know. In fact, she's so sweet about it you would've thought I'd just presented her with a silver bowl of strawberry ice-cream and VIP tickets to the Roller Derby. Meanwhile, I'm ready to throw myself onto the 405 Hwy for being so dumb. We make our connecting flight to San Jose without further adieu and spend our first night in Central America. Oh, and US Airways has become a money vaccuum! no complimentary drinks during the 5hr flight and it's $2 for a coke or water. Watch out, they'll start charging for bathroom visits soon.

Feb. 9th, 2009. - Stickerface looks so beautiful in the morning, at night, and in another country. We take a cab to the San Jose municipal airport and board a twin prop for Quepos. This is my first ride in a small plane and except for a little motion sickness I'm loving the immediacy of it! Climbing up the steps right off the runway, watching the guys throw backpacks into the nose and rear of the plane, hatch closing and engines reving with no instruction on seatbelts and oxygen masks and then we're up like a carnival ride but with pilots instead of carnies.

Thrills and all, I am glad the flight only lasts 25 minutes. We land in the middle of an African Palm plantation and it feels like we're in the middle of nowhere. Here's Andrea, running down the runway...

In Quepos, our first excursion was on a jungle path behind our Hostel, to a clearing, past a cow, through a barbed wire fence, then another fence, down a road and then out to a small beach. I get my first adventure scar from the barbed wire. The sun is starting to set and the light is so warm and so soaking, it soaks right into you. Andrea's green eyes morph into an Amber color from the setting sun, or maybe it's the Howler monkey spirits taking over.

We hang out at the hidden beach and entertain ourselves with the miniature crabs whose mobile homes are made out of every size and shape of shell. They're very sensitive to movement. Their legs instantly retract and they go rolling to a stop.

The sun slips out of sight and we walk back, crossing paths with two women we'd met earlier, one Italian and one English. They know the way back and lead us through the jungle path in complete darkness.

hit me with words

2009-01-31T13:13:00.001-08:00

While working on a little web design project I was trying to think of a slogan and in my word/web search came upon this little gem. It's a slogan generator, you type in keywords and a catchy phrase comes out. What's even more fun, is to type in your name. Here's what the Sloganizer spit out for me:

If you've got the time. We've got the Jennifer.
Happiness is Jennifer-shaped.
Why can't everything orange be Jennifer?
Once Driven, Forever Jennifer

http://thesurrealist.co.uk/slogan.cgi?word

San Diego Parents Month(s)

2009-01-30T16:49:00.000-08:00

My mom and dad embarked on their 2nd annual winter snowbird trip to San Diego. Last year their stay was 2 months and this year is no different. Fortunately my super awesome landman has been generous enough to let my parents move-in with me for the 2 months. Landman and my parents are of the same generation so I think there's some unspoken age-related camaraderieism at work. When I've told people my parents are coming for 2 months I'm met with loud *gasps* of all varieties, especially from those who know the size of my 2 br apartment. When did living with family in a smallish space became such a freak of social code? Or maybe I just operate on leaner socio-physical space. Sure I have moments with them where I need ME time but I believe that's what the oceans and mountains and cafes and restaurants and friends houses and happy hours of San Diego are for. One of the highlights of this year's visit from parents is the delivery of an item of mine that's been in storage for eons - a red Honda Motorcyle, born in Japan in 1981. Thank to Pat in Mpls for dropping it off for repairs. Thanks to mom and dad and my two brothers for loading it up in the back of the Plymouth Handicap Van and driving it 2,000 miles across Our Country tis of Thee! And a big thanks to the f*ing a**hole at the DMV who wouldn't register the bike because he made up some bullshit reason that was dismissed by a different DMV after a collective 5 hours of waiting over 3 different visits. Since we asians all look alike, I'm going to hire someone from craigslist to stand in line for any future DMV S&M.

red black and 80's!

she made me cupcakes

2009-01-30T16:43:00.000-08:00

one year

2009-01-21T06:16:00.000-08:00

http://www.one-year-performance.com/

When I first started using the internet after high school in 1995. I wanted to lock myself in a room for a year and only communicate with friends, family and future strangers via the internet. This was before social networking in the form of MySpace or Facebook existed. One of my side projects back then was e-mailing random people and asking them how they felt about circles. For my year I had planned to have everything I need to be ordered and delivered on-line: My groceries, personal items, objects of amusement, etc. At the time I told my great uncle of my plan and he, as always, responded with enthusiasm.

Morphosis @ Caltech - Cahill Astrophysics Building

2009-01-01T13:23:00.000-08:00

On a gorgeous southern California day I had the privilege of attending a walk through of a new project my firm consulted on - the California Institute of Technology's new Cahill Center. The building itself was designed by the great Morphosis of Santa Monica. My firm did the design of the interior astrophysics laboratories. I've been a fan of Morphosis ever since Thom Mayne had the moxie to critize the hyper-development of Dubai, calling it an "impending ecological disaster." Whether he proves to be right or wrong, standing up and critizing a trillion dollar juggernaut of development (and a potential next paycheck) is pretty impressive.
http://la.curbed.com/archives/2008/10/tho_mmayne_compares_todays_dubai_to_yesterdays_los_angeles.php

Torrey Pines

2008-12-28T22:15:00.000-08:00

The Day The Earth Stood Still

2008-12-20T18:44:00.000-08:00

It's an outerspace Noah's Ark.

Two of everything emerges.

what i feel like...

2008-12-06T17:49:00.000-08:00

2008-12-06T17:40:00.000-08:00

Location: Sunset Cliffs

2008-12-06T16:58:00.000-08:00

A cellphone camera is better than no camera at all.

Location: Downtown San Diego, waiting for the bus.
The smooth shapes of the tree trunk and pattern of the grid are inspiration for the exterior of my future house. The vacant lot that I have my eye on is situated near trees w/trunk patterns similar to this one. I think cement-fiberboard panels could be cut into a simplified interpretation of the tree trunk's almost paint-by-number look. I love gazing up at the Eucalyptus trees in Balboa Park and become a little mesmerized at the whiteness of the trunks punctuated by the slender oval-ish spots of color.

chemistry

2008-12-05T12:15:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to soak up everything I can about laboratories - my newfound specialization. I participate in the design of spaces for (not mad)scientists and their underlings. I've been at this for 6 months now and it is a very different flavor of architecture. If architecture were food, laboratory design would be the equivelant of kimchee, lutefisk, or blue cheese. It's very pungent and specific on one's palate and not many people really get into it. I'm adding many new acronyms to my organic memory clump (OMC, a.k.a. the brain) such as Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) and Polymerase Chemical Reaction (PCR) or Laminar Flow Fume Hood (LFH). I'd explain further what these things are but then I'd have to killya.

This morning at 0700 hours, marked my Moose's atmospheric adventure from 60 degree San Diego to 12 degree Chicago. I'm not even going to try and remember what cold weather is like. I've deleted those experiences of windshield-ice-scraping and frostbitten ears from my OMC.

2008-12-02T21:42:00.000-08:00

laying on the balcony in the afternoon sun w/my moose