It's amazing what can grow out of a cactus.
(right outside my doorstep in the courtyard)

Parents week in San Diego

My parents landed in San Diego and in 6 days they have toured:
1. Annie Liebovitz @ San Diego Museum of Art
2. Eva Zeisel @ the Mingei Museum
3. Museum of Man
4. Father Junipero Serra Museum in Old Town
5. Cabrillo National Monument at Point Loma
6. Geisel Library @ UCSD La Jolla
7. Ocean Beach antique shops
8. Fry's Electronic Superstore

On top of all that, on the 3rd day, while I went to work I sent them off to breakfast and they called me 2 hrs later from a Honda dealership telling me I was getting a new car to replace the 15 yr old car (w/missing exhaust system and no a/c) that I've been driving since my junior year in college.
My mom is retiring this year after 40 years of being an elementary school teacher. She's not sure what she'll do next...but I really think she's got a good eye for photography. She took this photo of me in a pepper tree on Presidio Hill.

Architecturally Challenged Part III

The NCARB has taken my money so that must meen my Council Record is being initialized. Since moving to San Diego I have logged 6.19 units out of 700 in 4 of 16 categories so far. One of my weekend projects will be compiling retro-active units from past work. Maybe I can come out with at least a 100 units to make the process feel less daunting. The NCARB gives you a 90 page excel workbook to log all of your hours in. I'm going to back up this file in 6 ways including hardcopies in a fireproof box until IDP is over, then I guess I'll save it for my grandchildren.

The technical health care remodeling has been balanced by equally technical but much more fun projects at San Diego's most famous hotel (Marilyn Monroe and Some Like it Hot). Doing field verifying or site visits to the hotel is kind've like taking a 2-hour weekday vacation. I can't complain about having to go to the beach in the afternoon once in a while.

There is falling in love and then there is what I call, “falling in wonder”.
Both involve the butterflies of connection. Both involve a sudden shift in what is on ones’ mind. Both involve the mixing of fiction and fact. But the difference is one can be done many times a day, with several people and without disaster. The difference is one can be remixed, replayed and repeated. In the past, I couldn’t tell the two apart and it caused me a lot of confusion. I had a sense of difference but no words of distinction. How can I get so pre-occupied with certain things? Why do I get so encompassingly enamored with certain people? And why does my sense of time bend so much when this happens? Falling in love is beautiful but there’s an emotional limit to it: one person at one time. I needed an alternative concept with no limit (and also not limited to humans). So falling in wonder is what I do; in my car, on my bike, on the street, in the alleys, in galleries, in friend’s living rooms, at the end of a song, in the middle of a word, in front of people and behind their backs. I’ll do a hundred hours of web design for someone I’ve fallen in wonder with. I’ll pull off the road at any time of the day for an object, building or situation I’ve fallen in wonder with. I’ll be wonder-struck by someone’s words for weeks until I remix them into images and new words.

Apartment building on Texas St.

facelift

the view from 3 ft

On my weekend hike around Fortuna I met my first snake. Prior to going my boss had mentioned that it's Rattle Snake season so Saturday morning the first thing I did was research the local venomous snake population. Apparently it's very rare to actually die from a Rattlesnake bite but it's sounds like it hurts like h*ll if it happens. So wouldn't you know about 10 min into my hike I was startled by the hasty departure of a snake into the brush but I'm 100% positive it was not a Rattlesnake. I also tried a different, easier trail on Saturday which exited onto the park road via very "rustic" wide and chunky stairs. A dad and his 3 ft. tall son were walking up as I was going down. The little boy was using his hands to get up the taller steps and as part of his effort he vigorously stated the question, "Dad! Why are these stairs so messy!". What a great observation!

On my bike ride today I came to a screeching halt because I found a new cement-screen-block that I haven't seen before. I've driven past the turn onto this street many times never noticing the building. You can get away with so much more 'seeing' on a bicycle. You can ride up onto the sidewalks, pull U-turns with no consequences and park practically anywhere! It's an indespensable part of an urban explorer's activities.