:: the wonderSphere ::

Deconstructing CES

2011-01-23T20:10:00.000-08:00

I'm still recovering from the whirlwind three days that was the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, January 6th through the 9th. It's one of the most intense conference experiences you can imagine... 1.6 million square feet of conference space, 120,000 people from all over the world in attendance, all against the backdrop of Las Vegas and its endless amount of hotel rooms and casino floors.

I was there to see consumer-facing energy efficient devices and appliances, and I did. The photos that I took were mainly of oddities or cool stuff that I saw, some of which are shown below.

They had a Chevy Volt at the GE Ecomagination pavilion to tout the electric vehicle charging stations that GE is manufacturing.

CNET was broadcasting live from the conference, and they were discussing Lady Gaga's new Polaroid Camera/Sunglasses.

I think Audi was there to showcase their new electric vehicle, but I didn't care, because I thought it was it was the coolest pavilion in the entire show! It was like a space ship had landed in the middle of CES.

I guess this is Audi's new EV. Couldn't get close enough to it to learn about it.

The LG pavilion was awesome as well. They had these new monitors, much like the ones in this photo, that were only a centimeter or two thick. There were pretty amazing.

The Intel pavilion was nuts, and full of people at all times.

With a conference of over 100,000 people, the best way to get around - in theory - is the people highway!

1/11/11

2011-01-11T23:29:00.000-08:00

I wish there were good news to fill up the airwaves on the 24-hour news networks.

Instead, a lunatic tried to assassinate the popular and hard-working Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and what happens? The Chaos machine is set into motion... the butterfly flaps its wings, and we're left with a hurricane.

A young 9-year-old girl is one of the six caught in the crossfire. Her birthday? September 11, 2001. She was born on the day that America cried, when extremist terrorists attacked us, and she was taken from us by... an indiscriminate, extremist domestic terrorist. And America cries again. If there ever were an angel, surely Christina Green is one now.

...That butterfly flutter just turned into a strong breeze.

A judge who is friends with Congresswoman Giffords randomly visits her during her public event, and he also loses his life. Chief Judge John Roll was the chief federal judge in the state of Arizona. The entire federal bench in Arizona - his friends - recused themselves from the bench in the trying of the man who killed him.

...The strong breeze just joined the jet stream.

Meanwhile, the Congresswoman is shot in the head, and is it a miracle that she survives? Not only is she alive, but she is responding. Her astronaut / Desert-storm veteran / Navy-captain husband is by her side, holding her hand and helping her recover. Three months from now, he was due to captain the very last Space Shuttle mission. Right now, his twin brother is on the International Space Station.

...And the jet stream picks up moisture, and a storm is born.

The night before she was shot in the head, Gabby Giffords sent an email to a Republican colleague asking for help in toning down the noxious rhetoric infecting the public discourse. Was it the rhetoric that influenced this young man's mind? Perhaps. But a series of events was set into motion far before this event. Gun laws were lax, ammunition was available to a person that scared his classmates, nearly 50% of mental health service recipients in Gabby Giffords' county were dropped in 2010, and a catastrophe was born.

...And the storm becomes a hurricane, and destroys everything in its path.

As my hero Jon Stewart said, "It would be REALLY nice if the ramblings of crazy people didn't in any way resemble how we actually talk to each other on TV ... Let's at least make troubled individuals easier to spot..."

How do you clean up after a hurricane? You don't. You rebuild. Here's to hoping we can build stronger than the house of cards we were sitting on before.

Something happened on the way to Christmas...

2010-12-24T21:34:00.000-08:00

Well, hello.

So... let's not pretend like I haven't posted here in 2 1/2 months. I haven't, and I feel bad about that. But frankly, for the first time since I started this blog, I became so busy that the months of October and November were a total BLUR. We are talking tranny hot mess up in here. The situation was this: towards the end of September, I scheduled my 2nd architectural exam, Site Planning & Design. I already passed Programming, Planning and Practice in August, and I wanted to get another one done before the end of the year. So I scheduled it for the week before Thanksgiving because, you know, everybody checks out mentally in the week of Thanksgiving and starts getting ready for the rest of the holidays.

After that, things got a little crazy.

I knew I had two presentations to give at the beginning of November, two distinct presentations for two distinct audiences, and I fully planned on working those into my normal working hours. Well then I got pulled into a very important, very time-sensitive project at work... and then another project blew up... and then another project got handed to me with a due date of the week after Thanksgiving. Before I knew it, I was working 10-12 hour days and coming home to either work on one of my presentations or to try to study. I did in fact get everything done, but even after giving my big presentations, I had to stretch out my studying until the week before the exam, and then I still had a big project to finish at work. It wasn't pretty, but I took the exam and then poured my effort into that one outstanding final project. Then, on November 22, our client threw us a bone... would we like to work on revisions and resubmit on December 8, with a final submission of December 15?

Heck yes!

And so it was that on Thanksgiving, for the first time in a full two months, I got to relax.

Yes, I am aware that Thanksgiving happened last month and I haven't posted in the month since then. But frankly I got knocked on my tail and after the mess of those two months, I needed to decompress and get ready for the holidays.

And I did, and here I am. And it's DECEMBER. It's 2010. We are just a week away from 2011! What is THAT all about, anyway?!?

They say that time flies when you are having fun... lately I've been thinking that I need to take up a hobby that I hate, because I am having entirely too much fun (knock on wood). Time is FLYING by and I don't know what to make of it. All I know is that I've loved seeing all my friends from Cincinnati while I've been here but I'm also missing Portland and my friends there, and all over, really.

I remember the times when I used to travel all over and see everyone. I can't travel as much as I used to and I have way too many places to visit. I wish I could, though. If you are reading this and you know me, you know that you are welcome to visit me in Portland anytime. And I hope you do!

I have to go to bed now. More philosophizing before the new year comes, I think.

PS. I passed my second exam, BTW. Four more next year! :-O

Anybody out there?

2010-09-22T21:18:00.000-07:00

Hey, did I tell you about the time that they turned Pioneer Courthouse Square in Downtown Portland into a giant sandbox?

No? It was pretty awesome. I mean, come on. Look at these things... it took all I had to restrain myself from jumping on them...

How about the time that they shut down half of the blocks in NW Portland so that they could have a road bike race? No? It was pretty intense... especially when the crash happened about 25 feet away from me. Thankfully everyone walked away...

How could Summer have come and gone so quickly?

Houseguests galore

2010-08-31T21:28:00.000-07:00

I keep complaining that September has come so quickly, but the truth of the matter is, if I lived my life like I lived this August, the years would simply FLY by.

I promised you much better news than the stories that I told in my last blog post, and I am here to deliver on that promise. A week after my first houseguest, Patricia, left, and I took my first ARE, I bought a new bike, courtesy of my Mother, for my birthday present. Have a look... this is Daisy, so named because she is flowery but also because she is the hotness, like Daisy Dukes. Also, Daisy will not be going anywhere without at least two locks at all times.

Later that same week, another houseguest arrived, and then the real fun started. Katie came into town to attend the Lady Gaga concert in Portland with me but we decided to have my housewarming party on the same weekend. I did not take too many pictures of the group of 10 girls that went to the Lady Gaga concert, but if I did I certainly wouldn't put them online. Instead I will simply post this one image from the concert and you will have to trust me when I say that Gaga is down there somewhere.

My housewarming party was a small, lively affair that involved homemade donuts, jello shots, and grilling at 11 pm. Good times. Katie and I rounded out the weekend with a pub crawl, hosted by my friends at PDX Pub Crawl. Again, you'll just have to believe me when I say it was fun, because I have no photos that will be going on the Internets from this one.

Originally that was going to be pretty much all I had to tell you, but August had to go out with a bang, just like it came in. I have one last houseguest to tell you about...

The entire month, a little adorable cat has started living underneath of the deck outside my front door. He cries and shows up when I come home at night and when I leave in the morning, and I'd pet him, and that would be the end of it. Until today, when it started raining, and I decided I couldn't take this situation anymore. So I took him to the vet, and as it turns out, he is NOT chipped, so he does not belong to anyone, but he IS neutered; he is also young and healthy. What I'm trying to say is that now I have a houseguest, who has four legs, and is adorable, until I can get him in at the Humane Society. I have no intentions of keeping him, however, I do have to name him... I can't have a houseguest without a name!

If you have any thoughts on names for this adorable boy, please let me know. It seems that The Universe has given him to me for now, but we'll see if this is where he is meant to stay...

Oh, August

2010-08-23T20:56:00.000-07:00

Oh look, another blog post! I will now explain why you are so lucky as to get two blog posts in one month:

As soon as August started, I should have known that it was going to be one big punch in the face. When August 1st rolled around, I was already on Day 3 of what turned out to be a 4-day migraine. The doctor thought I might be having a "rebound" migraine... I really didn't care what it was, I just wanted it to go away. Fortunately I was able to function with the help of migraine medicine, but still... it was annoying.

Then I went on a business trip, and then I came back and promptly managed to get my bike stolen. It was this one, the one I had named Daphne:

Well, Daphne my bike seems to have been as troubled as Daphne the Greek Goddess... first her bike computer got stolen, then her back light got stolen, and finally some punk-jerk swiped her whole frame except for the front wheel. With the frame went those nice fenders, back rack, a cute LED blinking light, and my lightning-shaped reflectors. It pretty much sucked.

Three days after my bike got stolen, I got a borrowed bike, and with my friend Patricia, used my old bike Darcy to ride 26 miles of the Providence Bridge Pedal. Aside from a slightly annoying change in route, it was super awesome, and the best part is still riding your bike on the highway bridges. Here's a view on the iconic St. John's Bridge:

We went to brunch and then Bite of Oregon after the Bridge Pedal to see Brian Boitano cook. He apparently has a TV show called "What Would Brian Boitano Cook?" which I think is just hilarious:

Later that same day, after the Bridge Pedal, while just WALKING, I proceeded to sprain my ankle. Again, not helpful.

There have been other challenges for sure, like getting my washer/dryer unit fixed but not really, as well as giving up an entire weekend to study for my first ARE and then taking it. But since then, things have been looking up. I don't want to give away all the goods so I will save the good parts of the month for another blog post. Three blog posts in one month! Amazing!

Why yes, I did change the blog's layout.

2010-08-11T20:06:00.000-07:00

I am going to skip the part where I apologize to you for not blogging in nearly 6 weeks. I have had a very tiring summer but promise to do better and I am going to start by announcing the following:

YES, I have changed the format of my blog. I think it was due for an overhaul, don't you? I like it. Change is good.

Now I will tell you about some fun that I had attending the Portland Highland Games a few weekends ago. Lots of cities have Highland Games but I had never been before, and I found out about Portland's just in time to attend. The day started off with some true overcast Portland/Scottish skies, but then the clouds disappeared and I got sunburnt. Yes, sunburnt. At the Highland Games in Portland! Good times.

The sky was still cloudy for the beginning of the Kilted Mile Race. I think this should be an Olympic sport.

This is the Simon Fraser University Pipe and Drum band, from Vancouver, BC. Also known as the World Champions!!!

This is my souvenir from the day. Celtic Mist air freshener for my car. Enough said.

Lack of brunch is making me cranky

2010-06-30T23:02:00.000-07:00

It has been way too long since I had brunch, or blogged, or blogged about brunch for that matter. In fact, tomorrow is July and I can barely remember what I've been doing since April. I know that I went to Vancouver, BC; I moved into a new apartment; I went to my company's spring party; and I saw the Reds play in Seattle. Still, I promised more blogs about brunch so I'm going to start there and work my way back through recent history at a later date.

Little Red Bike Cafe

Two things make this a bittersweet post:

The person with whom I attended the Little Red Bike Cafe was the Creeper I mentioned in a previous post.
Little Red Bike Cafe is no longer open. In a sad turn of events, they were forced to close due to disputes with their landlord. No word on when they might be back but check the blog and go if you can because...

...from what I can remember, when I wasn't being creeped out, LRBC made me a delicious brunch. Observe:

(I don't remember the name of this but yummm)

Quality of food: 4.0
Quality of coffee: 4.0
Service: 2.5
Atmosphere: 4.5
Overall value: 3.75

LRBC, while it was open, was a lovely little institution in North Portland. I would have described it as scrappy but earnest, which is reflected in the lower service score (since it was an order-at-the-counter-and-serve-yourself kind of place) but higher atmosphere score (since it was jostling with customers from all walks of life). It's a little hard for me to remember since I was trying to focus on eating my food whilst being stared at, but I do remember the potato pancake/hash sort of thing, shown in the above photo under the salmon, as being particularly delicious.

And frankly that's about it. Sorry this isn't more descriptive but I don't want to get your hopes up about a place that isn't open anymore. I promise my next post will be about a brunch place that is still open, and which will serve you a ridiculous amount of food.

Loss / Gain

2010-06-11T16:35:00.000-07:00

(Cross posted with my other blog)

Dear readers, I apologize for my absence over the majority of the past month. My life, since my 100th post, has devolved into what can only be described as a hot mess. There are several very interesting things that I thought about and wanted to share with you, but I could not muster the time or the energy to do so. Things are starting to calm down and I think I will find that time soon, but for now I want to share some thoughts about the state of my life, and of the world in general.

I was engulfed by “all-hands” company meetings. Although it was a mad rush to get ready for the meetings, I loved it and it was neat to see all the people that I work with in one place. It was also great to hear that the things that I think are so important are important to the people that I work with as well. 300+ people working towards a higher cause is a pretty powerful thing. (Net Gain: Emily + Western U.S.)
I found an apartment and I’m moving. It all happened very quickly but it took me about 5 minutes to decide that I wanted the place… it’s lovely and spacious and has so much character. I feel really lucky to have found such a great apartment just in time for summer – it’s effectively been 3 years since I had a home in a neighborhood of my choosing, in a city that I feel comfortable in. So obviously, that’s been a process. (Net Gain: Emily)
I’m house-sitting for some very attention-starved animals, one of which I am allergic to. I love animals and for the past year I have lived in an apartment in a house with a dog and two cats. I am house-sitting in this same house while the owners are away. One of the cats got attacked a few weeks ago, so he is recovered at an undisclosed location; as a result, the dog and the other cat have been following almost my every move in the house. And as much as I like the cat, I am allergic to him! So it is hard, especially considering the move. But I am really going to miss the dog. (Net Loss: Emily’s 4-legged roommates)
Which brings me to the oily, ruined Gulf of Mexico. Referring, of course, to my love of animals as stated above, what really gets me about this mess is the animals that are being killed as a result. Not just turtles anymore, but birds, fish, the entire ecosystem. And as a result of the loss of part of the food chain, people’s livelihoods are being completely obliterated. I am so disgusted and saddened by the situation, that I have – frighteningly – been rendered numb. After all, what can I do? What can YOU do? We can only sit back and watch as the oil keeps coming out, and beaches keep closing, and more and more ecosystems are destroyed. It’s totally overwhelming. I feel, truly, that the best thing I can do is to keep doing my job, and to do the best job I can, so that I can help improve energy efficiency in buildings and hopefully reduce our dependence on oil. (Net Loss: Humanity, The Earth, dolphins, etc.)
“Privatize the Losses, Socialize the Gains”. Speaking of losses and gains, someone recently told me that there was a movement afoot to push this type of economic system in our country. And I have to express how dispiriting I think this is. I am overcome lately with the sheer number of people who are not doing what they are supposed to be doing, so many of whom are trying to take advantage of others, game the system, or flat out cause this country to fail. BP, Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, nearly every politician running for office this year…. It’s exhausting. I am amazed that anyone can even watch the news anymore. I can only watch fake news on Comedy Central and even there, I sometimes can’t handle it. So, that’s a little bit of where I’m at right now. (Net Loss: my sanity)

Anyway. That’s where I’m at. I will try to get back to you sooner, rather than later. Good luck everyone…

Crazy people, and brunch at Mother's

2010-05-10T22:28:00.000-07:00

Almost three years ago now, I started this blog as a way to keep in touch with family and friends as I made my way across the country and into grad school. I started off the blog - humbly, but enthusiastically - by writing about brunch, which I consider to be the best meal of any day. I wrote about every brunch I could get my hands on in Cincinnati before I skipped town, and I was joined by friends, and now one of those friends has a blog where she writes about brunch, lunch, breakfast, dinner and every meal in between. Liz's get in mah belly is an enormous local success and I shed a nostalgic tear every time I think of the good - and the utterly ridiculous - brunches she and I shared together that last summer before I left.

Liz, on the other side of delicious brunch

Three years later, and I no longer live in Cincinnati. I'm now in Portland, after getting my graduate degree in Los Angeles, and one thing has remained constant these past few years: my love of brunch.

Well, let me clarify that... actually, two things have been constant these past few years:

My love of brunch
Crazy people

My goodness, there are a lot of crazy people on the West Coast! How did this happen, anyway? Why do you think there is such an intense concentration of crazies in this particular time zone? I couldn't tell you, but what I can say is that they are out there, and I have had the dis/pleasure of experiencing them in a whole host of ways:

My favorite crazy person was, hands down, the gas-mask wearing individual who sat down next to me on the bus a number of months ago. It was a "vintage" gas mask, olive with solid metal fittings, and he sat down as calmly as anyone would sit on a bus. Except he sat next to me, and what I should have done was ask him what the plan was, or if I should be worried. What I DID do was laugh uncontrollably. I mean like shoulders-shaking, I-can't-get-enough-breath laughter. Oh and naturally I posted this all on Facebook in t-minus 5 seconds.

My least favorite crazy person - who shall remain nameless (you know who you are, Creeper) - was the one who sat there and stared at me while I ate my brunch recently. I actually found this less offensive than the homeless guy who laid down in the middle of the street outside while trying to lure people in so he could mug them. Seriously though, what kind of a nimwit accepts an invitation to brunch, drives 40 minutes, and then doesn't eat brunch?!? But stares at you while you do?!? Anyway.

With that thought, I would like to announce my intention to start blogging about brunch again. I've resolved to go each week to a new place in Portland, even if I have to go by myself, to try all the good ones out. I've found that I get seated sooner if I'm alone anyway, so this works out well for me. First up...

Mother's Bar and Bistro

I think it's appropriate that I start off by talking about brunch at Mother's the day after Mother's Day... even though I went a few weeks ago :o)

(Image courtesy of mmm-yoso.typepad.com. This is obviously a staged photo since Mother's is never this empty.)

I don't really feel like I need to say a lot about Mother's. It's a Portland institution, and every time I walk past it, there's about 80 people waiting outside for a table. Everyone knows about it, and that's because it's damn good. Observe (refer to brunch scale here):

Quality of food: 4.5
Quality of coffee: 4.0
Service: 4.0
Atmosphere: 4.5
Overall value: 4.25

The best part about my visit to Mother's was, I arrived by myself, walked straight past the 80 people waiting for a table, and got a seat straight away at the bar. There, I proceeded to make friends with some very nice, and not crazy, strangers. And the food was delightful! I can't remember what I ate because I was too busy talking about Project Runway, but it was some sort of scramble, and I ate every last bit of it.

My future brunch reviews from Portland will be much more scientific, less vague, and will involve pictures. Until then, Crazy People stay back!!! I'm on a mission for brunch and I won't be intimidated by your staring and sidewalk ranting...

Words to live by.

2010-04-23T16:33:00.000-07:00

I have this quote posted on Facebook page. After a recent purge of my page - due to Facebook changing its privacy settings again, and me being sick of it - this is one of the only things left on there. I'm not sure if Nelson Mandela actually said this, but if he did, it proves that he is a wise and wonderful person. I think it is worth repeating. Believe it!

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just some of us; it is everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." -Nelson Mandela

Now go forth and be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous!

Oh look, I have a blog

2010-04-18T21:45:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling a little sheepish because of the following:

I apparently made some promises (re: blogging MORE and generally being more interesting) that I couldn't keep.
In my previous post, I broke Internet Rule #1 which is, don't post pictures of yourself all over the Internet. (I will be fixing that)

Regarding #1 above, I had a good reason for not writing: it's because I was busy trying to finish this darned knitted beret that conquered my free time over the past month and a half. Pretty much every spare 15 minutes I had on the bus or sitting in front of the TV were spent working on this. Have a look:

Since it's a beret, it required me bumping up, or "increasing" the number of stitches from the amount that I started with. On the underside here, you can see the alternating knits and purls that create the stretchy opening band.

This is a view of the top of the hat. You can see the "decreasing" ribs that take the hat down from the bulky 156 stitches that form the majority of the middle section to just a few at the very top.
(Sorry for the terrible photo quality. I'm away from my good camera at the moment and the lighting was terrible.)

This is probably the best picture of the hat and how I intend to wear it, plus it shows the color more accurately, which is much more pinky-violet with hints of other colors, than the salmon it appears in the above photos. (Also this photos does not violate Internet Rule #1 - it's discreet).

So, anyway, this is exciting. I can't say with any certainty that my posts will increase back up to their previous, "glamorous" levels of perhaps 10 per month, but you can be sure that the number of hats I knit is going up...

Happy post-St. Patrick's Day 2010

2010-03-23T22:37:00.000-07:00

I like how I said I was going to try to be more interesting this month, and then I realized it was time for St. Patrick's Day again, and my best intentions went out the window. Anyway.

It was a lovely holiday this year, not the BEST weather but not totally disgusting outside either. It didn't matter much once I got inside the tent at Kells Portland though... the tent was HUGE! And it had a stage where the bagpipers ended up. Well you should probably just look at the photos:

This was the first bagpipe group to play. They paraded onto the floor, played there for a while, and then moved up to the stage, as you might be able to see in my next photo.

This was the second bagpiper band. Wow, these guys were AWESOME. Especially that guy on the end that looks like Patrick Stewart going on a safari. He was the MC. They were great.

I almost forgot to insert this picture. Probably because I was drinking that wine at the time I was writing this post.

OK, until the next time I have something of little value to say, ta.

Television. Sigh.

2010-03-06T15:49:00.001-08:00

People have been asking me a lot lately if I watch such-and-such a show. The answer is almost universally "no." I'll give you an example:

Friend A: "Do you watch LOST?"

Me: "No."

Friend A: "How could you not watch LOST!?! It's the best show EVER!!!"

Me: "Listen, I didn't say it wasn't a good show or that I've NEVER watched it. I just don't watch it now. I don't have time for it."

And so on. Lack of time to live my life is the primary reason that I don't follow most shows, actually, because although LOST may be a perfectly good show, I know people who do watch it, and get worked up over it, and how much time is, ahem, lost in that whole situation? I used to be an X-Files fan, I know how it goes. So, yes, I know The Simpsons is a great show, but I've only seen about 10 episodes out of its 20-year run; I know Family Guy is hilarious but also makes me cringe sometimes, so I rarely bother; and likewise I like the premise and the gist of The Office but I can't watch people embarrass themselves, no matter how funny it may be.

Which is not to say that I don't enjoy television at all. I watch one nerdy show (NCIS), one hilarious and brilliant show (The Daily Show), and one fabulous show (Project Runway). I will occasionally watch some sporting events and god help me if I start watching the Discovery Channel because I'm unlikely to stop watching it willingly. I like to think that most of what I watch is kind of "smart."

... Until I admit that I will probably watch the next season of Dancing With the Stars. I'll even admit that I think I watched the first full season of this show until, again, my life got in the way and I forgot to care. But it's dancing. And you get to dress up. And on the next season of DWTS, I will be watching specifically for these two dudes:

via @OGOchoCinco's Twitter page

In other words, I want to see how my favorite football player and a gold-medal Olympian do. I will call it "The Tale of Ochocinco and the Flying Hipster Guido". Chad Ochocinco (formerly Johnson), love him or hate him, just likes to have a good time, and I'm interested to see if his wide variety of end-zone moves show up on the dance floor. Even Lysacek ... well he's kind of a curious one, isn't he? I think he confuses me because he might be straight! AND he looks like a combination of a hipster and a guido, which makes my head hurt and it makes me giggle.

So, in conclusion: no judging. Let's all just watch our respective shows and then get on with our lives, shall we? :o)

A (Mini) Existential Crisis

2010-02-21T14:30:00.000-08:00

I have studied buildings formally for eight years of my life now. I have been in the field of building design for the last 13 years. It has always been a professional goal of mine to become a licensed architect.

But now, at this point in my life, I'm not so sure anymore.

I STILL believe that being a licensed architect would be the culmination of my studies. I STILL believe that it would lend me a certain level of authority that I cannot claim without it. And yes, I STILL would like to pass my exams and get that stamp. I'm just not sure if I want to do it RIGHT NOW.

There are several reasons why trying to take my exams this year (and probably next) seem like an attractive option: I just got out of grad school, this stuff is still fresh in my mind, I have the money to do it, it would be nice to put those letters on my business cards...

...er, IS it fresh in my mind? DO I have the money? And do I NEED those letters on my business cards?

Frankly, now I'm working for a company in which being a licensed architect is not necessarily value added. I am the only trained architect in a company of over 300, a good portion of which are professional engineers, which is necessary for our work. Consulting is only part of our business, but it IS a part. Designing buildings is not. I am valuable to my company because of my building science knowledge, of which there is currently no meaningful certification.

Despite all that, it was still a personal goal of mine, so I was pursuing it... until I started to feel like I was being ripped off. Getting your architecture license involves the following:

Being a member of NCARB who administers your records for $60 a year;
Paying to have NCARB send your record to a state;
Applying to the state to accept your record;
Paying the state up to $100 to apply;
Having the state send your approval to a testing agency;
Paying at least $200 to the testing agency to take your first four - or six - hour exam;
THEN paying at least $200 each to take each of SIX additional four or six hour exams;
After you get your license, there's the fees you pay to join the AIA, the fee you pay to get your stamp, the fees you pay to take continuing education credits, and other fees that I'm probably unaware of.

To become a professional engineer, you have to do the following:

Pay $20 a year to maintain your records;
Take one day-long exam (let's assume it costs at least $200);
Put the letters P.E. behind your name and move on with your life.

Soooo... I guess what I'm saying is, if this isn't necessarily value added to my company, why would I bother putting myself through this right now? Maybe I'm wrong and maybe my boss will tell me they want that, and if so, I guess I could put out the money for it, but that's a lot of dough to dish out for something that I won't necessarily be using anytime soon. And maybe if they DO want it, they can help me pay for it, which would be nice and a motivator. I really like my job, and I feel fortunate to be with the company I am with, so I'm willing to go the extra mile for them.

But this red tape I have to wade through is a real de-motivator. Especially when I feel like, "what have all these groups done for me lately? The profession is dying, unemployment among architects may be 50% and they don't even have an aggressive stance on green building, and I'm supposed to want to be a part of this group? And pay out the wazoo for it? WHY?"

Anyway, if anyone has an opinion on my mini-existential crisis, please leave a comment below. I could use the input and I love second opinions!

The Situation

2010-02-16T21:18:00.000-08:00

So, I need to talk about television for just a moment.

I don't watch much TV. Obviously I watch NCIS, and the Daily Show, and I also watch Project Runway (which, thankfully, is better this season than last). But I was recently informed that I was missing out on an important cultural phenomenon, and that is Jersey Shore.

It's not worth talking about really. It's 100% ridiculous. But there are some quotes from the show I need to share:

"The Situation said we had a situation here"
"I will cut your hair in your sleep"
"Look, I got HAM!!!"
(bleep) (bleep) bleepity (bleep)
And my personal favorite: "I don't want to work at a T-SHIRT SHOP. I'm a bartender, I do GREAT THINGS"

It's really funny. And YES, I am watching this on the internet instead of watching the Olympics on real TV. Oh come on, like you don't think Men's Figure Skating is played out, too?

PS. I just figured out that you can guido-yourself up on MTV.com here. Go, go now...

Being gainfully employed is rather boring, no?

2010-02-07T22:22:00.000-08:00

I was just reading some of my old posts from when I was unemployed - and just doing whatever the heck I wanted - last summer. Before that, I was in graduate school, and that was kind of interesting, I mean, enough so that I felt the need to start a whole other blog to talk to a new audience about it. But now?

Now, when people ask me how I'm doing, it goes like this:

Other Person: "So, how are things? What are you up to?"

Me: "I'm really busy at work! Other than that, not much"

... and that's pretty much the end of the conversation. No more fun stories about how I spent my day differently than the day before, because no two days are alike when you don't have someplace to go.

Yes friends, I'm gainfully employed and I'm boring.

Which is not to say that I don't love what I'm doing - I totally do, and I'm so happy with my job. It's just that all of the interesting stuff gets funneled into either my other blog or my work, and that's fine too.

A more interesting conversation, I have to say, starts when someone asks me what I actually do. My response is a jumbled mess that starts off with explaining how I am a "trained architect" without a license ("architect with a little 'a'") but I am now practicing the fine art of "building science" with an energy efficiency company. The inevitable "what's building science?" question comes next, and then I usually have to mention my Master's Degree, and I hate sounding like that. This conversation happened earlier today with a guy I had never met before and he paused and wryly said, "so you're impressive, then?" ... and I don't know if I blushed, but I said thanks and kept drinking my beer.

So, it's February and I've just realized how few posts I've been making since I got a job, and I've decided to make an effort to be more interesting. I mean, I'll do the best I can, which means I might go from 3 posts a month to 4, but at least that's one a week. And they will be interesting! Starting with now...

~~~~~

One of my goals this year is to become an adept enough knitter that I can do scarves and hats. Scarves are pretty much as easy as it gets... you knit on straight needles, back and forth, until you get a long knitted thing. Hats require more effort, but they are fun because they can happen on round needles. The tricky part comes when you have to switch to double pointed, and it gets a little ridiculous for an hour or however long it takes to finish the hat, but the result is worth it.

This is my first ever knitted hat ... I completed it recently for a birthday gift for a friend. Not bad for a starter hat, but I had some trouble at the end, so I switched to a crochet hook and just kind of took care of it.

Apologies for the poor photo quality, I've recently become a little too attached to the camera on my iPhone.

I plan to keep knitting until making a hat is like second nature, and then later, if I'm feeling REALLY crazy, I might try ... gloves! The final frontier is sweaters, which are just ridiculous.

Maybe this year I will even make it to crocheting! Whoa, I know, that's a little much but it's good to have goals, LOL.

Life on the 45th Parallel

2010-01-26T22:43:00.000-08:00

Um, yeah. I realize I haven't posted in a while, but frankly I just didn't feel like posting. I've been tired, really busy, and honestly a bit down. But I'm doing better now and I've taken a few pictures that I thought I might share.

Portland sits just above the 45th parallel, which is exactly half-way between the North Pole and the Equator. This, of course, makes for lots of darkness in the late fall and early winter, and lots of light in the summer (can't wait!). Following are a few photos from my adventures straddling this imaginary line on the map...

New Year's Eve was a lot of fun ... we went to a huge 80's dance party, and the songs were accompanied by their videos on giant screens around the hall, which mostly I remembered from when MTV actually played music videos.

The capitol of Oregon is Salem, just south of the 45th parallel (what is that, a couple of "minutes" or what?). Anyway, that big gold statue on the top of the tower is, in fact, called "The Gold Man", and although he looks to be a reasonable height, I was informed that he actually stands 6 feet tall - at the knees! That is one big Gold Man.

The main hall of the capitol is decorated with beautiful murals depicting Oregon's history. I think this one is about Lewis & Clark ... I should probably know these things, eh?

We went skiing at a place called Hoodoo in the Cascades southeast of Salem, a couple of weekends after I first visited the capitol. This photo is taken mid-slope, and through the trees you can see Mt. Washington. Several mountains in the Cascades were named after Presidents - Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Adams, Mt. Washington - but we're pretty sure there was never a President named "Rainier" or "Hood".

Here I am, in my Bearcat colors, at the summit of the Hoodoo ski resort. Shortly after this picture was taken, I went down what was called an "easy" hill at approximately 5 mph because one side of it was a giant cliff that went right off the side of the mountain. Uh, no thanks!

It's been starting to get much lighter in the morning and afternoon lately, which is a relief for sure. I can't wait until it's light at 9 o'clock at night!

We're Number 1, alright

2010-01-12T12:14:00.000-08:00

Sorry, again, for not regaling you with stories of my misadventures here in the Pacific Northwest. Often I think of something I want to write about and it ends up over there at my OTHER, more public blog. More stories to come soon, especially after I go skiing, which should be hilarious.

In the meantime, have a look at these links, which talk about how lonely it is to be an architect right now ... especially in Los Angeles.

Exhibit A: The 9 professions that saw most job losses in 2009 ... and Architects are at the top of that list. Well, frankly we had to expect this one. If you're in the architecture industry and you DON'T know someone who was laid off in 2009, consider yourself an endangered species. I know so many people that are unemployed I started hosting their portfolios on my Web site. Or at least offering to. Also it's probably worth mentioning that while I *am* employed, I am not working at an architecture firm. And that's fine with me.
Exhibit B: Los Angeles is the number one city in the country for job losses. ... Whoa. Now that's a distinction that nobody wants. And according to that article from LA's local NBC affiliate, 62% of locals are "sad" about that news. Well yeah, I guess so ...

In other words, if you're an architect, good luck, and maybe consider other options for living besides LA.

Happiness is catching up with my friends over coffee

2009-12-30T21:11:00.001-08:00

... or better yet, brunch! Either way, I've just returned from a whirlwind trip back to Cincinnati for Christmas, where my greatest gift was spending time and catching up with family and friends who now live far, far away. Perhaps absence does make the heart grow fonder, or in my case, it makes me realize the importance of my roots. Remembering where I came from was a theme that resonated throughout my 7-day trip to the Queen City, after having been gone a year - the longest absence I can remember in my life. Fortunately, the city of Cincinnati changes more slowly and more stubbornly than any of my human friends and family, so it's not too hard to figure out what I've missed and what's sprung up since I saw it last. I'm grateful for that much.

I was once accused of having the personality of a chameleon, a revelation which didn't offend me so much as it made me realize that I love to communicate with people, many different kinds of people. I like it so much in fact that I challenge myself when making new friends by associating their names with their incredibly rich stories, and I inevitably find something about them that amazes me. It's not hard to remember the stories of my Cincinnati friends though - their stories are my stories, since I spent much of the last decade creating my own history. It's absolutely SURREAL to me that I'm about to begin a new decade, with a new group of friends, and a new job, in a new and wonderful city. I mean, 2010? Where did that come from? I didn't see it coming at all. You'd think since I'm good at basic math, I'd have noticed that it was 2009 and been a little more prepared. But I'm not, not really.

In truth, most good people amaze me. And since nearly everyone I want to spend time with is a good person, most of the people I know amaze me. So by now you're thinking, "but wouldn't this mean that you walk around dazed all the time?" and the answer is YES, I do! Which is why I have to concentrate extra hard to get things done, and when driving. :o)

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the amazing people I saw in the last week; first, my entire family, including all of my aunts and uncles, my young cousins (all taller than me now, the buggers), my great aunt, my step-family, and my parents. And then my friends, who put up with me trying to see as many of them as I could and didn't mind my crazy schedule; Adam, Ryan, Clair, Aaron, Suzi, Ciara, Chip, Loraine, Lauren, Amanda, Patricia, Laura, Chris, Dan, Ron, Forest, Zak, a new friend named Josh, and Liz, who got food poisoning but still managed to come and see me for 5 minutes. Last but not least, my best friends, Katie and Caroline, who still enjoy kidnapping me whenever possible (and which they did this last week). I do miss seeing my other friends - including Scott, David, Steve, Abby, Andy, Gretchen, Miguel, Kendra, Erin, Jason, Ian, Gerad, Dana, seriously, there's too many to call out - but I know they are all out there, scattered, and doing good things, and generally being awesome. But I look forward to making new friends here in Portland, which is also full of generally awesome people, so that's exciting too.

So I dedicate this, my last post of the year, to all of my friends, both old and new. Happy New Year, Happy New Decade, and here's to hoping that 2010 is better than 2009. Because 2009 really sucked, right? Sheesh....

So apparently I have nothing to say when I'm not in school.

2009-12-19T20:14:00.001-08:00

...Although now that I am out of school, I am getting emails asking for money from my alum. Which I briefly considered, until I read through the rest of the email from the Dean of my graduate school, in which he said this:

In this difficult economy, we are dedicated to making our students the best prepared, most innovative in the nation. Competition for jobs has become more intense – and it's incumbent upon us to provide that vital edge to compete and create value in a global marketplace. And that means knowledge of digital techniques: parametric design, scripting, fabrication, digital communication, Building Information Modeling.

Even once our graduates have found a job, these are often the skills that will help them keep it.

There are many things that got me fired up this week - the health care fight in Congress and the Copenhagen Climate Conference among them - but my reaction to this email has been the most profound for my own life and that of my fellow professionals. Some of this has even been posted in other places because I keep refining my argument as I think more and more about it. As I wrote to my former professors immediately after I received this email,

"I appreciate what (the Dean) is trying to do for the school, but I am at a loss as to why he failed to mention energy modeling in his long list of "digital techniques" that the students should be learning. The profession of architecture is at risk right now, and from my perspective, I know I wouldn't have a job if I hadn't learned those skills (in graduate school). I do have architecture friends who can make a mean 3D model in Rhino or Maya... but they've been unemployed for the better part of the last year, with few prospects in sight. With the adoption of Architecture 2030 goals into building code as a real possibility on the horizon, architecture students need more of an idea how to make energy efficient buildings, and perhaps they should spend less time on making prettier, faster ones."

It's like this: there is going to be a time in the near future when designing a sustainable or energy efficient building won't be a choice... it will be required. And I am deeply concerned for my profession, because unless architects start to respond to this situation, we are going to be left out of the process. I can guarantee you that other professionals and other types of businesses will capitalize on architects' inability to respond to prevailing market conditions. I think it's absolutely imperative that architects become at least conversant in sustainable and energy-lite design strategies, so that we can manage the design of buildings properly and guide the process like we should, instead of looking like a deer in the headlights when our consultants and clients ask us for a greener building. Perhaps we can collectively find our way out of the forest before that happens?...

I support President Obama on Afghanistan.

2009-12-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

I know this isn't a particularly popular stance to take, especially in liberal circles. But I have always thought that Afghanistan is where we should be fighting, since it is the front line in the war against Islamic extremists, not to mention it is ground zero for the systematic oppression of women, who would still be barred from schools and treated worse than dogs had we not chased off the Taliban. I think the President knows this and instead of cut and run, as many in his own party wish him to, he is going to give it a real try, and devote the resources necessary to trying to win the hearts and minds of those most vulnerable to Al Qaeda.

Yes, I'm sure the President knows how much it's going to cost, and how much of that money could be spent on domestic programs. Yes, I'm sure he knows that many think it's a lost cause, and that Afghanistan can never be "conquered". And I am certain that Obama has considered the toll that it will take on our already-stretched troops. But that's why we elected him - because we trusted him to make the best decision with the information that he has available to him. Sometimes the best decision is a really hard one, and it's not pretty.

People that worked hard to get Obama elected should remember why they did so when, just 10 months into his young Presidency, he has to make a big decision they don't like. I learned yesterday that MoveOn.org spoke out against the surge in Afghanistan in an email they sent out - an email that I didn't get, and a position they didn't solicit my opinion on. I found this interesting since they spent so much time and effort asking for my money to support the health care fight only a week ago. I do agree with them on that, but I find their stance on the Afghan war to be self-serving and short-sighted. I will have to remember this when they ask for my money the next time.

Perhaps this surge won't work. Perhaps, in two years, when troops begin to come home, we won't have a clear idea of whether the war-torn country is going to make it on its own. But these are the moves that we should have been making 8 years ago, and I commend the President for having the guts to follow through and give it a try... even if it ends up being too little, too late.

Things I Learned About Life by Watching NCIS

2009-11-25T12:35:00.000-08:00

While unemployed over the summer, I developed an affinity for the CBS show NCIS. In the evening hours, when I was truly bored, I would turn on the TV and it would be on some channel, somewhere, at nearly every hour of the evening. So watching it while I was eating dinner turned into watching it in between dinner and The Daily Show; THEN I got caught up on last season and saw the season finale, so it was a natural transition to watching the new shows on Tuesday nights.

At the beginning of October, when I went to DC for the Solar Decathlon, I had a surreal experience that brought me a few degrees closer to NCIS. I sat next to my favorite plane neighbor ever, a guy named Mike who was a former Assistant Director of the REAL NCIS. Mike was a super-nice dude who told me all sorts of amazing stories about working as a Special Agent in his early days and later, how he helped set up a forensic lab in Iraq that assisted in catching terrorists who targeted our soldiers. Now I realize that Mike could have been pulling my chain, but he was an Irish-Catholic-Boston type, and he seemed like a honest guy with a humble outlook who was in awe of his good fortune. Anyway, we had a great chat and I was tickled by his stories of meeting Mark Harmon and the rest of the cast of the show when they came to his office. Would that plane neighbors could always be that cool!

And, clearly, because I wasn't nerding out enough on this show, I decided to dress up as NCIS's goth Forensic Scientist Abby Scuitto for Halloween. I was pleased to find that roughly half the people I encountered in Portland on Halloween night knew who I was (many fellow nerds, I assume). After posting a photo of myself in my costume on Facebook, I received a text message from my friend Lisa who was at a Halloween party in Los Angeles while I was partying in Portland. It contained a picture of Lisa with the fabulous actress who portrays Abby (they were at the same party together), thus cinching my loyalty to the show:

Therefore, without further ado, here is my fledgling list of Things I Learned About Life by Watching NCIS:

British people started driving on the left-hand side of the road because their horses originally rode that way; since most people are right-handed, it was easier to sword fight from their horses if their right sides were passing each other. (I don't know if this factoid is true but it sounds good, and Ducky said so, therefore I am going with it)
There is ALWAYS evidence at crime scenes. It is nearly impossible to NOT leave DNA evidence at crime scenes.
Nerdy, sensitive computer types are, in reality, quite a bit hotter than supposedly hot beefy jock types.
Do not mess with Marine snipers, aka "gunnies". *
If you are a female working for NCIS, your life will always be in danger, and you have a good chance of dying; UNLESS you are a trained Israeli assassin, in which case you are almost always doing the a**-kicking. The opposite is true for the men; male NCIS team members have a much greater chance of survival, while the male trained Israeli assassins have a good chance of dying a violent death.
A "Probie" is a probationary officer.
A "LEO" is a Law Enforcement Officer.
A "bolo" is an alert put out by LEOs to find vehicles transporting bad guys.
"SecNav" is the Secretary of the Navy.
Whereas the Army and the Air Force have completely separate "jurisdictions", the Navy and the Marines share many things, including NCIS, and the Medal of Honor (for the honorable few who get one).

*My ex-Army friend informed me that actually snipers and "gunnies" are not equivalent; apparently "gunny" is a nickname for the level that Gibbs achieved while in the Marines, and he just happened to be a sniper who was called a gunny. Thanks, Scott!

...I'm sure I'll figure out more. Post them if you have some! Nerds unite!

Current Cravings

2009-11-20T21:58:00.000-08:00

...Not necessarily in this order:

Sunshine
Fast Food
Driving my old stick shift VW
All of my books
A feather bed
Companionship

Yeah I'm a little cranky. Basically I miss my friends; I'm cold, tired, and feel like I need to hibernate; and I miss my books a lot (funny how you take them for granted when they are just sitting there but you want them when they are gone). But I haven't been back to Cincinnati in nearly a year, so I think some displacement anxiety is beginning to set in. I know it will pass - I'm making new friends, and I've got my space heater to keep me warm. While I'm waiting for it to pass, I think I will go take a nap...

Learning to appreciate the darkness

2009-11-15T11:50:00.001-08:00

Most of the past several weeks have been a combination of one of the following things for me:

Trying to stay warm. No, it's not THAT cold here in Portland, but it's colder than what I've experienced over the past two years so I'm trying to readjust.
Trying to stay dry. It doesn't actually rain CONSTANTLY here but when it does rain - which is often - it seems to stay wetter, longer afterwards.
Trying to watch football. I now have three teams to root for: the Cincinnati Bengals, for whom being a fan has been very frustrating over the years but who are competing effectively this season; the USC Trojans, who are normally very good but who've had a few awful losses this season; and the University of Cincinnati Bearcats, who, for all intents and purposes, have never really HAD a football team until the past couple of years. Watching football has helped me adjust to the changing weather and my change in circumstances.
Trying to get used to the darkness. Portland doesn't seem to have the same type of light pollution as some other cities that I've lived in, and especially since I'm staying in a place that is in the hills and surrounded by trees, it's really DARK.

That last one is especially challenging for me. Rain and cold, I can handle. Trying to watch football, well that's fun, even if I'm not always successful in finding my games on TV. But the darkness... well, it's not that I'm afraid of the dark, but I definitely prefer daylight, and I've always been drawn to the city partially because of city lights. Sometimes it's so dark here, especially when I get off the bus, that I can't see two feet in front of me. But then there's times when I'm riding around on my bike at night, and I'm lucky if it's not raining, but the Fall air is crisp and I make sure that I've got all my bike lights going, and the city is so beautiful. So as the title of this post suggests, I'm definitely learning to appreciate the darkness - or trying, anyway. I'm certainly looking forward to getting the next month over with so that, come December 21, I can start appreciating the increase in daylight that the Winter solstice brings. Because I don't have to learn to appreciate daylight... I already do.

Whoa, life!

2009-10-20T19:20:00.000-07:00

Soooo... obviously, I've been a baaad blogger. But I have a very good reason. Which is this:

I got a job!

Chances are, if you know me well enough to read this, you know this already, either through Facebook or email or something else. But honestly that's my excuse... I got the offer a day after my last post, and ever since then, it's just been a whirlwind of activity, between getting my Oregon driver's license and going to my friend's wedding, to actually starting the job and being told that I got to go on my first business trip the following weekend, to the Solar Decathlon in Washington, DC. Which was pretty awesome. And in between these incredible events, I went to Roloff Farms in Hillsboro, Oregon (as seen on TLC in "Little People, Big World") and I bought a new commuter bike as both my birthday present to myself and my "new job" present. Below are some photos of all of these fun things to hold you over until I actually have something important to say again.

From the wedding in Vermont, our lovely table settings...

...and an action shot of the garter throw.

At Roloff Farms, you can buy all sorts of goodies, including dirt!

Sitting in the "big chair" in the pumpkin patch.

Here's my new bike, Daphne! Darcy, the original bike and deluxe fold-up will be retired except for special occasions and visitors.

Proof that I can use a kitchen when I put my mind to it

2009-09-23T11:51:00.000-07:00

Perhaps some of you know about my lack of cooking experience. I did not grow up in a household that did a lot of cooking, so it's not that I don't enjoy doing it, it's just that cooking a meal doesn't come as naturally to me as it might to some people. Also, generally speaking, when someone does something cool in the kitchen, it's rather like magic to me. As all of my former roommates can tell you, I made them each teach me how to make something (whether I retained all of those skills is a different story...)

So I'm now living in a place that has a very large garden with lots of vegetables growing in it. AND, while I was in graduate school, I enacted a policy of not refusing free food; ergo, since I now have access to lots of free vegetables growing in this garden, I have not only picked them but I've been having a good time trying new ways of preparing them. The photo below shows some of the bounty I got from the garden, including Roma and yellow tomatoes, lemon cucumbers (those yellow things at the top left), zucchini, beets, and basil.

One of the more obvious meal solutions was to slice up the tomatoes, add the whole leaf basil, and pour some olive oil and balsamic vinegar on top, with a pinch of salt. Delicious! Another dish was a beet salad that I made with the majority of the beets you see in this photo. To be clear, there are many, many beets.

BUT, I wanted to make something up, so I decided to try a pasta dish, since I had enough basil to make pesto. I will now attempt to write out my recipe in case you would like to try it. I promise it was good!

Auntie Em's Pink Pasta (it has a ring to it, right?)
Makes 3-4 servings
Ingredients:

1 cup basil pesto (if you want to make it fresh like I did, combine 2 cups fresh basil, 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts, 3 medium sized garlic cloves - minced, and salt + pepper to taste in a food processor)
1 cup chopped zucchini
1 cup chopped lemon cucumber (or another light vegetable of your choice; corn would work too)
1 cup chopped beets (prepare the beets by boiling or baking, and skin them before chopping)
1 cup baby spinach
2 cups rotini pasta
1/2 cup-ish of romano-parmesan cheese blend

Here's a photo of the ingredients I procured from the garden after preparing the beets and basil pesto to get them ready for final cooking (unfortunately we don't grow spinach so I had to get that from a bag):

Boil rotini pasta in salted water until tender to your liking; drain, place into large serving dish, and cover. Set aside.

In a skillet, combine pesto, spinach, zucchini, and cucumber over medium heat and stir. Fry vegetables in pesto until softened and spinach is kind of wilty (like spinach is supposed to look when you fry it in a skillet). When the combination is almost ready, add beets in and stir. The beets have already been cooked, essentially, so they just need to be warmed.

Finally, mix the vegetable-pesto combination in with the pasta in serving dish. And yes, the beets will start to make everything pink (thus the name of the dish). It should look roughly like this:

When everything is all mixed up, dish it out and sprinkle romano-parmesan cheese blend on top and serve. Voila! Delicious pink pasta!

Whew. Bet you never thought you'd find a recipe here, huh? :o)

Things to do in the Pacific Northwest when you're unemployed

2009-09-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

...Well I'm not sitting still, that's for sure. It's probably easier if I just show you the pictures and tell you about them, rather than try to explain all of this.

1)My friend Laura came out to the West Coast to help me move my stuff, and also to enjoy some of the sights in and around Portland. First we went to Cannon Beach and saw Haystack Rock:

Here's a photo of one of the spiders that seems to be everywhere out here. Please, someone tell me this thing isn't harmful to humans...

And I saw a dog that I wanted to take home with me...

2)We also took a drive through the Columbia River Gorge to see Multnomah Falls, and later, the Vista House. Very pretty!

These are the falls...

...And this is the Vista House. So named for its amazing view, I would guess.

3) Later, after Laura had left and it rained a bit, I met a slug on the back patio. Look at this size of this dude!

4) And then there's this project that I'm working on: I'm sewing again. I hope this turns out better than the last time I tried to recycle a t-shirt....

Happy 09/09/09!

2009-09-09T23:44:00.001-07:00

In honor of the day's awesome date, I decided to do a Wordle, based on my del.icio.us tags. Voila! Happy nine-nine-nine everyone!

Scenes from dusk

2009-09-08T17:43:00.001-07:00

I haven't really been that interesting lately. Except for the part where I went down to Southern California - just a few days after the massive Station Fire started eating up the San Gabriel Mountains - to retrieve the majority of my belongings and move them up to Portland. I was trying to come up with a reason to blog, and I found it in a couple of pictures taken from my iPhone.

Observe: this first photo is taken on August 30, as the Station Fire raged just north of Pasadena. It looks like a volcano erupting, no?

...And now take a look at this photo, which was taken from my new bedroom. It's hard to tell (because the iPhone isn't exactly a top-rate camera) but the sun is framed by plants and trees. It's quite a lovely view.

So, yeah. I've definitely experienced a recent change in scenery. Not too bad!

Cheese and fish

2009-08-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

I think it's a testament to how much I love cheese that, despite being in Oregon for less than two months, I've been to the Tillamook Cheese Factory twice already. What can I say! It's a wonderful place. And cheese is awesome! So is this picture.

After Tillamook, Abby, Anna and I drove south to the Oregon Aquarium, which is located in an oceanside town called Newport. If you are from Cincinnati and you're reading this, you'll appreciate the irony of the "other" Newport Aquarium. One of the craziest things I saw there was this tank full of anchovy... no big deal, they show up in Caesar salads all the time, right? Well, I have never eaten them and probably never will, because they are fabulously beautiful little creatures. When they swim they open their mouths to eat, revealing multiple thin red gills that contrast wildly against their otherwise silver bodies. I know it's hard to see in this picture, but well done, anchovy!

Funniest exchange of the day at the aquarium:

Me: Did you pet the starfish?!? They were pretty cool.
Anna: No! Did you pet the little sharks?!?
Me: No! Did you pet the sea anemone?!? They grabbed my finger!
Anna: No! Did you pet the stingray?!?
Me: No! Because of Steve Irwin, you know.
(man in background overhears this, starts laughing hysterically...)

An Open Letter to Those Who Oppose Health Care Reform

2009-08-21T16:37:00.001-07:00

To those of you who compare Americans of any stripe to Nazis, or compare bills in Congress to that of policies enacted under Hitler in fascist Germany, I give you Barney Frank, and beyond that I'm not wasting any more of my time on you.

To those of you who somehow think that health care is not a "right" that should be offered, nay, mandated, for all Americans, can you please tell me why it's the law that we have to have our cars insured, but not our own bodies?

To those of you who actually believe in "death panels"... are you kidding me?!? What part of "living will" and "end of life planning" translates into "euthanizing grandma", exactly? My bad, the concepts of living wills and end of life planning are probably too complex for you to manage, so hopefully someone will come out with an illustrated version of the bill soon...

To those of you who think that we don't deserve nationwide single-payer healthcare, OK, fine. I don't suppose you think that we should make police officers or soldiers pay for their healthcare, and neither do I. But how about the roughly 2 1/2 million people incarcerated in United States prisons? Should we make them pay for healthcare? As Andy Borowitz puts it:

"So the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Baset al Megrahi, was sprung from prison so that he could receive medical attention in his native Libya, where he was given a hero's welcome today.

Let's leave aside the hero's welcome part for a moment - there are 47 million uninsured Americans who'd love to get the medical attention part.

So what do you have to do to get health care in 2009 - become an international terrorist? No, actually, every prisoner in US prisons gets it.
Excuse me, I've got to go rob a liquor store."

Mind boggling. Simply mind-boggling. We need health care reform, period. Can you crazies please let the adults handle it this time?

Asymptotically approaching zen*

2009-08-19T14:29:00.000-07:00

*(The title is an homage to my high school physics teacher, who, when we told her she was a "genius", replied that she was "asymptotically approaching genius levels"... i.e., getting close but never quite there.)

In the past couple of years, I've come to the conclusion that I might be at my happiest when I'm riding a bike. At the very least, the wind on my face and satisfaction of gliding along while taking in the scenery and actually getting places has proven to lift my spirits when I'm low, or calm me down when I'm anxious. And, of course, if there's even a small hill involved, it burns calories, and I could always stand to burn more calories.

Another constant in my life, whether intended or it's just something I gravitate towards, is bridges. As in, things that you cross to get over water. In undergrad, I liked them so much that I tried to slip one into every design project I had, and for my senior thesis I actually designed a building ON a bridge.

So imagine my immense pleasure when I discovered that, here in Portland, there's an annual "Bridge Pedal", an event where all of the bridges in the city are shut down to car traffic and opened up to cyclists. And in a bike-and-bridge-happy city such as Portland, this means that 11 bridges were shut down to allow the passage of no less than 20,000 people on bikes. That's a crowd roughly the size of the LA Marathon on bikes, crossing the river on bridges meant for trains, trucks, and even a couple of Interstates! Below is an image of a group of riders already on the highway "merging" with another group of riders who are taking an entrance ramp (on the far right).

Talk about exhilarating. This guy only looks grumpy because he just got done climbing a big hill like the rest of us. The reward is getting to stop at a rest stop in the middle of a dormant highway - note the I-5 signs up ahead.

This looks like a dream I had. About highways for bikes.

We had a drum group at this rest stop. Note the "Suicide Counseling" sign on the far right. We're WAY up over the river at this point...

The St. Johns Bridge was out of the way, but most certainly worth it.

Waiting for a train to pass in the Pearl District.

At the finish line, treats such as donuts and ice cream bars were waiting.

For a while now, I've been waiting for the Universe to tell me what to do or where to go. In the meantime, Portland stepped up and said, "hey, I don't know about the Universe, but we like you a lot, and by the way, there's this bike ride you ought to join us on..." So here I am. It's a relief to show up in one of the greenest, most livable places in the country and to actually be encouraged to stay. And it's remarkable to find peace in the instability of unemployment. So unless the Universe has any better ideas, I think I'll just keep trying to achieve zen here.

Someday, I hope I'll look back on this period of time and say, "wow, what a learning experience that was!"

Architects in Movies: A Definitive List

2009-08-10T11:12:00.000-07:00

Because I just saw 500 Days of Summer, and it was terrific; and also, because I'm a nerd who has too much time on her hands, I would like to try to compile a definitive list of Architects in Movies. Which is to say, a main character in a movie is depicted as an architect, whether or not he or she is working in that capacity. Luckily I can change these blog posts pretty easily, so as I figure out more, I'll just keep updating the posts. So, I present to you...

Architects in Movies: A Definitive List

the Black Cat (1934) - Boris Karloff
Mrs Miniver (1942) - Walter Pidgeon
The Fountainhead (1949) - Gary Cooper
Strangers when we meet (1960) - Kirk Douglas
The World of Suzie Wong (1960) - William Holden
Two for the Road (1967) - Albert Finney
Don't Look Now (1973) - Donald Sutherland
Death Wish (1974) - Charles Bronson
The Towering Inferno (1974) - Paul Newman
Falling in Love Again (1980) - Elliot Gould
Three Men & a Baby (1987) - Tom Selleck
The Belly of an Architect (1987) - Brian Dennehey
Jungle Fever (1991) - Wesley Snipes
Housesitter (1992) - Steve Martin
Fearless (1993) - Jeff Bridges
Sleepless in Seattle (1993) - Tom Hanks
Indecent Proposal (1993) - Woody Harrelson
Intersection (1994) - Richard Gere
One Fine Day (1996) - Michelle Pfeiffer
The Cable Guy (1996) - Matthew Broderick
Heaven (1998) - Martin Donovan
There's Something About Mary (1998) - Matt Dillon (pretends to be an architect/lecturer)
Three to Tango (1999) - Matthew Perry & Oliver Platt
My Life as a House (2001) - Kevin Kline (sort of, his job was a model-maker)
In the Bedroom (2001) - Nick Stahl (student)
Love Actually (2003) - Liam Neeson
Just Like Heaven (2005) - Mark Ruffalo (landscape architect)
The Quiet (2005) - Martin Donovan
White Noise (2005) - Michael Keaton
The Namesake (2006) - Kal Penn
The Lake House (2006)- Keanu Reeves
The Architect (2006) - Anthony LaPaglia
Firewall (2006) - Virginia Madsen
The Last Kiss (2006) - Zach Braff
Breaking & Entering (2006) - Jude Law (landscape architect)
Something's New (2006) - Simon Baker (landscape architect)
You, Me and Dupree (2006) - Matt Dillon
My Super Ex-girlfriend (2006) - Luke Wilson
Click (2006) - Adam Sandler and David Hasselhoff
500 Days of Summer (2009) - Joseph Gordon-Leavitt

Updated after my friend architechnophilia compiled a more complete list, 21 August 2009.

"Building character" in Seattle and Tacoma

2009-08-04T18:34:00.000-07:00

I came up to visit friends in Seattle for a week - when you're unemployed, it doesn't much matter where you go or for how long - and I picked a good weekend to visit. The last week in July / first weekend in August is when Seattle hosts Seafair, which is a celebration of all things related to their many waterways. In the weeks, and even months, before Seafair, there are parades and various events to build anticipation, and at the beginning of the week, several military ships arrive that are opened up to the public for tours. The highlight of the whole shebang is the air shows that take place over the weekend, interspersed with hydroplane boat races. Most of these photos are on my camera, so I'll need to post them later, but here are some pictures from Seafair and my other excursions to hold you over.

1. I brought my bike up here with me and I'm glad I did as I've had some lovely bike rides around the city. One took me around the top of Lake Union, past GasWorks park, and over a drawbridge into Downtown Seattle.

GasWorks park used to be some sort of industrial park, but they took it and made it into a lovely public park. The infrastructure of the industry that was here still remains.

The route around Lake Union took me past the Westlake marina district, which was full of all sorts of boats and houseboats.

2. Over the weekend, when I wasn't watching planes, I went to Tacoma to visit the Glass Museum. This adventure was worth it simply to sit in the glass-making workshop to see how they make glass. I probably could have sat there for hours.

Gratuituous architectural photo of the outside of the Glass Museum.

Inside the "Hot Shop", where they blow glass. It was, indeed, quite hot, but it was also really cool! (hardee har har)

3. This is the one photo currently available from Seafair. See the Blue Angels streaking across the middle of the photo, just above the boats? Awesome.

4. More gratuitous architecture photos. This is the Chapel of St. Ignatius, designed by Steven Holl. It's nice. That's about all I can muster right now, as dinner awaits me. More later.

5. Last but not least... I mentioned I brought my bike with me, and this allowed me the opportunity to take a long bike ride today on Seattle's famous Burke-Gilman trail. I took frequent stops because I got distracted, both by the need to hydrate and by the need to look at the lovely houses along the edge of Lake Washington, on the eastern side of the trail where I rode. I found this house right after I turned around in the middle of my 21-mile trip. Shortly after I took this picture, I took a rather nasty spill on a rough edge of the trail that kind of snunk up on me. I was lucky in that I just landed on one knee and bruised the inside of the other. I got up, made a tourniquet for the bloody knee, shook it off, and rode another 7.5 miles. I call these types of incidents - and the subsequent scars - "building character". I am sharing with you the photo of the house I saw but not the picture of my battered knee, because it's gross.

This house is obviously designed, but not lived in, by an architect.

Back to Portland tomorrow!

Recent escapades in Oregon State

2009-07-27T15:35:00.000-07:00

People in Oregon REALLY know how to enjoy their weekends! Although I am unemployed and not exactly swimming in extra cash flow at the moment, I have been able to join my friend Anna in some excursions that you need to see to believe.

1. I went to Tillamook, Oregon on Saturday to visit the cheese factory and then go to the beach. This beach visit looked more like a prelude to a horror film as the shoreline was socked in with a very dense fog. Fortunately all creatures at Cannon Beach - dog and human - meant no harm, and we simply wandered around in the mist for a while before retreating for lunch. Look at this though... creepy, right?

2. After leaving the beach we ventured North to Astoria, Oregon where we saw some cool stuff and I got to take my gratuitous architecture picture, of the Columbia River Maritime Museum. Lots of Pirates and such. Good times.

3. Astoria is also home to the "Goonies house", aka the house that was featured in the 1985 classic film "The Goonies". Apparently this was not the first time someone has sought out this house since we were greeted with the following sign.

Here it is! I heard it used to be in much worse shape, so I'm glad to see it it's doing better now.

Also, I loved this house, which was just up the street from the Goonies house. This is a good instance where having a zoom function on my iPhone camera might be nice. House = nice... extra stuff around it = not so much.

Anyway, I'm still doing well here in Portland, although I am headed up to Seattle this week to visit my friend Abby and hang out there for a few days. I will most likely be back in Portland next week to housesit and then... well, let's just say I'll keep you posted! I'm formulating a plan but I don't want to talk about it until I can hash out the details.

Hope everyone else is doing well!

Top Ten Things That Aren't So Bad About "FUnemployment"

2009-07-21T16:48:00.000-07:00

10a. With unlimited free time, I can blog as much as I want, and that's OK.
10b. With limited amounts of interesting things to talk about, I can blog as little as I want, and that's OK too.

9. Catching up with my Google Reader, celebrity gossip, and nearly everyone I know on Facebook.

8. .....whoops, sorry, I forgot number 8, I got distracted by the Huffington Post, and there's no one to yell at me for it! Woo hoo!

7. Hopelessness is somehow easier to bear when you know there are so many others out there dealing with it as well.

6. I can actually read books again. Ok, well, I still prefer Audiobooks. So, I can actually listen to books again!

5. I'm almost caught up on movies that I wanted to see, and working steadily through the rest.

4. I've always loved listening to NPR - specifically All Things Considered - in the car. Without a job I can sit in the car all day and listen to NPR, if I want.

3. Going to the park or a cafe, hiking or to the beach on a weekday are not only allowed, they are encouraged. And people who are "stuck" at work actually want to join you!

2. The sky is the limit! Well actually the map is the limit... what I'm trying to say is that being job-free" means, in theory, not being tied to a particular place.

1. Being unemployed means you get to start cool projects like the GDC Portfolio Project or start a club with a cool name, like the FUnemployed Architects of America (FUAA for short... OK maybe not).

Enjoying wildlife

2009-07-20T12:14:00.000-07:00

Since arriving in Portland, besides noticing how great they are with environmental issues, it's also come to my attention how good people in the Pacific Northwest are at enjoying wildlife. Not only are there parks everywhere, but going outside of the boundaries of the city and experiencing nature is something that people in this part of the country take a lot of pride in. Here are some photos from my recent trips to Portland's Washington Park and accompanying rose garden, and a camping trip to the foothills of Mt. Hood.

Looking up at the peak of Mt. Hood after riding a chair lift to the 7000' level.

An outside view of Timberline Lodge was apparently used in the movie The Shining.

Ramona Falls was the highlight of a 7-mile hike I took while camping!

Mt. Hood is a "dormant" volcano. Emphasis on the quotes.

I need to get back to sending my resume to anyone who will take it, but just a quick note that I've officially signed off from my Archinect School Blog and all future blog posts from me will either happen here or at the GDC. It's nice to simply my life a bit!

Portland is a warm fuzzy blanket

2009-07-14T16:31:00.001-07:00

Hello! Sincere apologies for not posting more often... frankly, my life hasn't been too exciting since I left Los Angeles last week, but it has been calmer and much better for my overall mental well-being. Well, except for the part where I got a letter from someone at a mental institution. No, really. See below.

So after reading about me in the LA Times, our friend General Fifth Sun (his words, not mine) looked up my Web site, found a reference to my previous employer, and then sent me a letter there. Oh, and the return address was a mental institution! For the record, no, I am not "one of those CIA student recruits", and I couldn't tell you if I was. I guess it's nice to know I've struck a chord with someone?! Eh.

Anyway, I'm now here in Portland and it's positively lovely. Blue skies, 75 degrees, green trees and hordes of people on bikes everywhere I go. I feel very much at home, which I imagine is a desirable trait for someplace I might want to call home eventually. I think part of it has something to do with the river... a river bisects the city from North to South, dividing it into two distinct areas, with a major East-West corridor (Burnside) further creating quadrants. Add to that the simplicity of numbered avenues and streets that run in alphabetical order in one direction (I'm not kidding: Couch, Davis, Everett, Flanders, Glisan, etc.), and I guess you have map heaven. And we all know that I am a big fan of maps.

Anyway, I know I glazed over my stop in Palo Alto, but my friend Kendra and I had so much fun while I was there that I really didn't have time to write. I have longer in Portland - hopefully a lot longer! - so look for more posts from me, provided I have something to say. In the meantime, all hail Dorothy, my new/old set of wheels, which got me safely past the roughly 1000-mile overall trip from LA to Portland, despite an apparent dislike for inclines. As I have lost my need for speed, this wasn't a big issue :o)

Thanks Dorothy!

Plan Q (or is it S? X? I've lost track....)

2009-07-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

(Parts of this have been sent out in emails to people, so apologies if it looks familiar.)

Greetings, from a Starbucks in Echo Park, Los Angeles, where they have copious amounts of coffee and delicious free WiFi.

It's been a roller coaster ride for me since graduation in May. I've been blogging, biking, and looking for jobs, but after several near misses, I'm still out of luck. The most recent was an interview I had with a Long Beach firm, who contacted me after seeing my name in an LA Times op-ed by Marjorie Miller. They seemed keen on the "idea" of hiring me but not so much on the reality. :o( As with the others, and for the sake of my sanity, I consider it their loss.

This is the last in a series of attempts to make plans for my life that have fallen through. I have tried to stop making plans, but I am a natural planner, so it is hard. So...I am now on what I am calling "Plan Q", because there have been so many variables that I've lost track of what actual plan I am on (plus, Q is a neglected letter). Anyway, I moved out of my Downtown apartment, put my stuff in storage, and I'm taking this show on the road! I just bought A CAR! It's a 1995 Ford Escort Wagon with only 27,000 miles on it that I got for a VERY reasonable price. Hilarious, right? I live in Los Angeles for two years without a car and I finally get one when I leave :o) I'm getting furry seats for it. Check it out here. My game plan, for the time being, is to go up the coast, visit friends, and look for work in San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. I mean, why not.

My sad, empty apartment in twilight.

Last pass of cleaning through the apartment. It looked smaller without stuff in it.

After getting rid of about 90% of my furniture and about 50% of extra "stuff" that I had, this is what my remaining belongings look like stuffed into a 5 x 10 storage unit.

I am quite excited to be going up the coast, actually. I get to spend time in Portland and Seattle, which seem like great places to be if you are environmentally-conscious such as I am. Plus I have never seen Portland in the summer and I hear it is gorgeous.

In my downtime, I have stayed busy; I think I mentioned this here already but I am working on a project in conjunction with my Web site called the "Portfolio Project" where I am offering free Web hosting for the portfolios of my under- and unemployed friends via sub-domains on my own site. Market conditions are simply TERRIBLE for architects and designers of all stripes right now, and I have many friends, besides myself, who are out of work or at reduced hours. I've gotten a lot of response to this so far, which will surely help us promote it more, but it's unfortunate when you realize how many folks are, indeed, out of work :o(

Anyway, I have lots of errands to run and the music in the Starbucks is starting to annoy me. If at any point in the future you wonder "Where in the world is Emily?", you can always find me here, follow my blog here, find me on Facebook, or find me on Twitter (yes I caved and joined Twitter).

Stay tuned! You never know when I'll move on to Plan R....

Radio silence

2009-06-24T21:09:00.001-07:00

It's hard for me to come up with something to blog about here, when I spend every day selling or giving away my stuff, packing, or generally just worrying about where I'm going to land a week from now. Things are getting crazy and I'm trying to stay both focused and calm. It's not easy not knowing if you'll have an address in the near future.

I did want to say a little something about some current events though:

Iran makes me so, so sad. My heart goes out to the Iranian people, many of whom seem like good, nice people and don't deserve to be beaten like dogs in the streets of their own country. I know there's nothing that we can do, but it breaks my heart to see the Basiji and the police forces going after innocents who can't defend themselves. It humbles me to think of those that gave their lives while doing nothing but protesting peacefully, including the lovely young woman they call Neda. Why doesn't the Iranian army pick on someone their own size?!? Iran deserves to have their election choices respected. Interestingly, this makes me that much more in awe of our own election system, and the peaceful transfer of power that takes place when we select a new leader.
What the hell is up with philandering politicians, anyway?!? This Mark Sanford thing takes the cake. The guy disappears from his duties as GOVERNOR of South Carolina for almost a week, comes back and says he went off to Argentina to be with his lover?!? And he has a wife and 4 SONS at home?! Talk about surreal. As a female, I cannot fathom why it is so hard for politicians to not cheat on their wives, let alone the mother of their children. And when they are in positions like that? To top it off, if Sanford was some crazy hippie who had an open relationship with his wife to begin with, I guess it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but as a Southern Republican, he certainly knew what he was getting into when he got married and ran for Governor of South Carolina. What a douchenozzle.
Anyone who still thinks that we don't need a public option in the debate over health care should read this article. Then, when you're done, if you still want to hand over your hard earned money unnecessarily to line the pockets of CEOs of HMOs, be my guest. I'm not interested, though.

Enough said. Back to selling furniture on Craigslist. I'll be posting a life update very soon, so stay tuned...

What I'll miss about LA

2009-06-18T22:35:00.001-07:00

Happiness is a plate full of delicious homemade desserts from the
awesome diner right next to your apartment building.

I'll definitely miss the Nickel Diner!

Making lemons out of lemonade

2009-06-10T09:26:00.000-07:00

If anyone is keeping track, I recently graduated from USC, and, having reached the end of my term as a "student worker", I am unemployed and looking for a job. I have been applying for jobs since February, and I've had a few interviews, but no luck so far. Yesterday I heard from the HR person at the last place I interviewed, in Denver, and while they were really impressed with me, they decided to "redefine" the position to be geared towards someone with a Physics background, which essentially eliminated me from the running. I like Physics! But my degrees have to do with buildings. Alas, I won't be moving to Denver just yet. :o/ They were so pleased with me, however, that they asked for my resume to pass it on to other firms they know of that had openings. Which is nice.

In the meantime, I am keeping busy. I'm cleaning out my apartment, giving away and selling things that I don't need anymore, and generally purging. I'm still applying for jobs, and I've gotten all my loans deferred due to unemployment. I also have some Architectural Registration Exam study materials on the way, so I can start studying for my exams in my downtime.

I've also been keeping an eye on the market in the building industry in general, and it's really terrible out there. I've got several friends who have just been laid off, so I know I'm lucky that I even got interviews. In the vast amount of free time that I now have, I've started an initiative on my Web site where I'm offering free Web hosting to my unemployed friends for their online portfolios.

And, because my summer is really open right now, I am flirting with the idea of getting a used RV and driving around the country. I've always really liked this idea, as it would allow me to see the whole country and get to the 8 states I haven't seen yet. Plus I wouldn't have to worry about being homeless in a month, since, well, I'd have the RV. Anyway, please use the comments section below to tell me why this is a bad idea. Otherwise I'm going to keep thinking about it...

Postscript to the Lament: Scary numbers

2009-06-02T01:04:00.000-07:00

I don't like to be a fear monger, but as if to put a giant exclamation point on my last post and its musings on the problems California is facing, please check out this recent post on Daily Kos. It has a massive amount of data regarding the housing bubble and why, quite possibly, this recession has only just begun.

...And it's really scary and has lots of charts and graphs.

And, mostly, I don't know what it all means. I am very glad to not be a homeowner, however.

Stupid housing bubble.

Lamenting Los Angeles: A Melancholy Manifesto

2009-05-30T16:24:00.001-07:00

You could say that I've been working on this blog post for nearly two years. It's taken me days to write. You'll forgive me, then, if its large length dwarfs that of my normal posts.

My days in LA are numbered. Whether I get a job or not still remains to be seen. What is not in dispute, however, is that I don't think Los Angeles is right for me at this time in my life. The following thoughts (or novella, perhaps) try to explain this feeling a bit.

~~~~~
When I got here in August 2007, my heart and my eyes were wide open; I'd lived in several of the country's greatest cities - New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, DC - and now I was going to give Los Angeles an extended try, by going to graduate school at USC. I'd never really liked LA in the several weeks I'd experienced it as a visitor or business traveler, but I was sure that living here would be different. In my first couple of months, I think I must have had an exuberance that only new people can show; everyone was nice to me, I smiled constantly, and I started to think like this guy.

A ferris wheel at one of USC's many on-campus events.

As it's well documented, I sold my car before I moved to LA. I did this because I am not one to shy away from a challenge; so what if LA is the "car capital of the country? They have a fledging subway system, I'll be fine. Plus I have my bike!" Frankly it made sense financially, too. By getting rid of my car before moving, I saved not only a couple hundred bucks a month in car payments, I also saved at least $100 a month for insurance, let's say $150 a month for parking, plus maybe $50-$75 a month for gas...not to mention how much it would cost me to move around the city, and pay for parking in those places. I've estimated that I saved at least $20,000 by not having a car while living here in LA. That savings allowed me to spend more time on school work and less time at a job, which led to more opportunities at school, which led to several extra lines on my resume. I do not regret my decision at all, and every time I realize how much hassle my friends go through trying to park and/or fix and/or pay for their cars, I feel a little relieved that I sold mine a while ago.

One of USC's many perks: football games.

What I soon started to discover, however, and what I still believe, is that, while I enjoyed my time at USC immensely, my school is an island. It's not the only one though. There are many, many islands in Los Angeles. Some of them have big tall buildings and cultural institutions, like Downtown or the Miracle Mile; some of them have lovely neighborhoods and bohemian attitudes, like Santa Monica or Venice Beach. On the other hand, some of them have blight and crime and poverty and gangs, like Skid Row, just next to Downtown; or "the Jungle" in Baldwin Hills, which I once rode my bike through without any idea that there had been a movie made about the gangs in the area. Other "islands" are as reserved and exclusive as if they were an actual island, like Brentwood or parts of the Hollywood Hills. And Griffith Park, which the city boasts is "one of the largest urban parks in the country", is so hard to get to it might as well be an island.

The Getty Center has some of the most beautiful gardens in the entire LA area. And they are free and open to the public! Well, except for the cost of parking. The Getty Center is definitely an island.

My thinking about Los Angeles as a series of islands came from my gut. This is a city without a center: Downtown is trying really really hard to be the center, but aside from a glorious confluence of public transportation lines (that I took advantage of constantly), it bears little resemblance to the city centers I know and love, like New York and San Francisco. Communities insulate themselves here. Whether because of trying to stick to the safety of their native / immigrant culture, or fear of other groups, or awful school systems, or who knows what, the norm for a lot of people in Los Angeles is not to interact with the unknown "other". People get around "other" people in Los Angeles by hopping in their cars and driving around them. The truth, of course, is in a city as diverse as Los Angeles, you can't really avoid people who aren't like you. At USC, we embrace diversity in a way that I didn't experience much in the rest of LA. I did feel uneasy in a lot of places in the city, however, in part because many signs were not in English, or the streets and sidewalks were so poorly maintained it was hard to walk.

This year's entanglement on World Pillow Fight Day in Pershing Square.

Which is not to say that I didn't have fun during my time here. When there was a pillow fight or a protest or a bike ride to be had, I was always out there. But I'm a fun-loving, happy-go-lucky person. My natural state is inquisitive and awe-struck, but cautious. I took initial joy in the drama of every day life in the city, and things like film shoots or festivals in my neighborhood were an adventure. But recently I had to walk 3 blocks out of my way to get home because of a film shoot, and frankly that made me cross. And I can hardly walk around my neighborhood now without dodging creepy people, or silently ignoring catcalls or unsolicited comments from some disgusting man on the street. (Why do people always try to talk to me, anyway? Do I have a sign on my head that says, "Please, crazy person, speak up"?) So after a couple of years of dealing with this, even formerly welcome surprises have lost their luster.

Prop 8 protest at City Hall, November 15, 2008.

The interesting thing to note here is that this is all my opinion, an opinion that was formed by a person who does not have a car in one of the most car-happy cities in the country. The irony here, too, is that LA has many neighborhoods that are walkable, including my own. It's just that everyone here knows that one's life isn't restricted to one's neighborhood. Would I have come to any of these conclusions had I also been a car owner, if I had taken public transportation less and disengaged from the life of a sidewalk dweller a little more? It's hard to say. But I know many people who live in LA who do like it, and it works for them, and I believe all of them are car owners. And it's not even that I am so anti-car that I wouldn't consider getting one; I just don't like the idea that my life in a particular place is incomplete without being permanently attached to a set of wheels. I used to live in Cincinnati, where having a car was even more of a necessity, but it was also affordable. In Los Angeles, things that are affordable elsewhere become much more of a burden.

Downtown at sunset, from a bike.

Which brings me to my next big problem: LA is the most overpriced city in America. Don't take it from me, take it from that article. This goes back to some of the issues I mentioned earlier. I think it's easy for communities in this region to insulate themselves, into what I think of as islands. This is a gross generalization, of course, and not everyone acts this way, but in the communities that do, I think you'll find a higher percentage of gang activity. And these gangs are really scary. Gangs are obviously a serious problem here, but of course they are not the only problem. There's an ecosystem of political and social problems that feed off of each other, that contribute to making life more difficult in the Southland. There's the budget problems, how California has the worst credit rating in the country, and how it's about to go bankrupt. There's the modern-day equal rights debate, being played out all across the state and in protests and counter-protests throughout the city. And there's the vicious cycle.....the distance between home and work for many people is exacerbated by the cost of housing and the availability of jobs; in turn, the distance contributes to a higher cost of transportation; the massive amount of roads required to get massive amounts of people back and forth from all areas to all other areas requires an equally massive investment in infrastructure; the need for infrastructure improvements creates a greater tax burden; taxes are strained even further as public services like the police and fire departments struggle to not only keep up with the distance between communities but the increased tension between them. In short - it's a giant hot mess. And it might - might - all be manageable, if it weren't for that pesky other problem we have to worry about: our environment.

View from the roof of my apartment building during the fires that surrounded the county last November. This photo was taken in the middle of the day.

When the San Andreas Fault and its little siblings aren't trying to shake us all to the ground; when fires aren't eating up chaparral and homes somewhere to the North, South, or East of us (quelled only to the West by the ocean); when the air pollution spewed forth by the imposing and unrelenting grid of buildings, the sea of autos, and the throbbing mass of humanity isn't trying to change our DNA; what we really have to worry about in Los Angeles, my friends, is the water, or lack thereof. This, too, is ironic since there's so much of it just to the West of us. We don't currently have the capacity to make that useful, however (desalination, anyone?), and we have been in a drought for three years and counting. Water conservation rates are going into effect starting June 1. The Southland draws water from two aquaducts that traverse the entire lower half of the state, but when will they dry up? The people that run the state have been asking that question for a while now. But we don't have an answer yet.

Ah, the beach.

If I think too hard about all the problems that face Southern California, it's enough to make me run screaming from the region. But the truth is that humans have been settling here for hundreds of years, and the climate is more than conducive to human activity. A little too conducive maybe....in the winter months, I noticed the tendency for people to bring up the "sunshine" and the "warm weather" in conversations more often. As if to say, 'hey, it may have taken me 90 minutes to get here in bumper to bumper traffic, and the cost of living is crippling, and there could be another atmosphere-wrecking wildfire or an earthquake next week, but at least it's not -5 degrees here like it is in Minnesota.' Yes, the weather is, as my friend Ian would have said, "unnoticable" most of the time. But I just wish the Southland would try a little harder to look at their long-term growth while soaking up the sun. Because I chuckle when people talk about how California is leading the green movement. In some respects, like standards and legislation, it IS a national leader for environmentalism, and good for it! ... But in many other respects, it's definitely not.

This is the only photo on this post that I didn't take. It showed up on MSNBC last fall during the fires. If I could sum up Southern California with a photo, this would be it.

With that, I think I've said my piece. I've decided that my two years living in Los Angeles was well-spent, and pleasant, but a challenge. I could probably come back, eventually, but only if the city evolves to reflect a place that offers the quality of life that its high cost of living already demands. I'm going to leave you with a few more photos that I've taken since I moved here, as well as some quotes from a recent Los Angeles Magazine article about LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Mayor Tony just got reelected to a second term (apparently; I sure didn't vote for him) and the article tries to give him suggestions on how he might salvage his time in the Mayor's office.

An Open Letter to Antonio Villaraigosa by Ed Leibowitz

"....Your successes can mask the truth: what you now lead is an administration in which politics is almost always trumps policy - where solvable problems become impossible to fix."

"We're still the gang capital of the world, with 40,000 members causing havoc. In 2006, gangs were responsible for more than half the city's murders. Crime rates have gone down, though try telling that to the elementary school students in Highland Park who practice diving under their desks in anticipation of live rounds, the way children in the '50's prepared for atomic bombs. By middle school, as much as 90% of the students in L.A.'s poorest neighborhoods will have been exposed to violence, with more than a quarter of them suffering post-traumatic stress disorder."

I love this picture I took of Downtown from the top of City Hall.

Andy Lipkis: "The critical problem the mayor should take on is water. Three factors are creating a perfect storm of water shortages in LA. First, although rain in most years could provide nearly half the water we need for all uses, we send most of the rainwater we receive into the ocean. Second, we are inefficient in our use of the water that is piped here from hundreds of miles away. Third, our traditional sources of water are being threatened by environmental degradation and climate change...."

Disney Hall, by Frank Gehry.

Lisa Watson: "With more homeless than any other city in the country, Los Angeles has the opportunity to be a national leader or a national disgrace. I hope that Mayor Villaraigosa continues to take on the challenge to lead the country in ending homelessness by providing affordable and permanent supportive housing to the area's 70,000 homeless people."

Umbrella building in Culver City, by Eric Owen Moss.

Bill Allen: "When compared with the rest of LA County, the city of LA has dramatically underperformed in the creation of jobs since 1980. From 1980, to 2008, LA added more than 1 million residents to its population while losing more than 50,000 jobs. The causes include the highest taxes on business of the 88 cities within the county, a far too complicated and political process for development, and an extraordinarily high rate of conversion of the city's scares industrial land to uses that accommodate population growth but not job growth."

One of my favorite buildings in the city is just up the street from my apartment: the CalTrans building by Morphosis.

David A. Abel: "It was urban theorist Jane Jacobs who said that a metropolitan economy, when it is working well, doesn't lure the middle class, it creates one. The most important challenge for the mayor is to attract, retain and grow middle-class jobs. Today LA is not only losing its middle class, it is without either a coherent, integrated economic strategy to reverse the trend or an accountable city department to implement one."

6565 Sunset Blvd.

Cheers, Los Angeles. I'll try to miss you.

Fighting for Equal Rights requires equal effort

2009-05-26T10:58:00.000-07:00

Of course I disagree with this morning's decision by the California Supreme Court to uphold the ban on gay marriage. I, like many people, want the gay community to have the same rights as the rest of us, and think it is unjust otherwise. I am, however, not surprised. I am glad that they allowed the marriages that had already happened to remain unscathed, but in case anyone forgot, there WAS an election in November and California DID vote to ban gay marriage. I didn't think that the courts would go against this public mandate, however disappointing it may be, and they did not.

Here's the thing though: this is a pretty serious equal rights issue. Does anyone recall the civil rights struggles of the 1960's? If not, you can go look at the statues erected of the civil rights leaders and protesters from the 60's to get an idea of how hard they had to fight to convince people that they deserved to be treated equally. Was it right? Of course not. It makes me sick to think that anyone was actually hurt trying to "convince" people that someone of color was equal to a white person.

Well, this is a struggle that reminds me of how the civil rights campaign may have gone in the 1960's. Except the people working the hardest are not the people who want equal rights for the gay community; the pro-Prop 8 people are working harder. Mormons, who we're all aware funded a large portion of the original Prop 8 campaign, actually give up an entire year of their lives to wear suits and nametags and go on missions to spread Mormonism all around the globe. Is anyone surprised by their efforts to defeat gay marriage? They are hard-working and persistent, and if we want equal rights for gays, we must be as well. I'm not suggesting that people who want equal rights for gays should give up a year of their lives to do anything, but this fight is going to require a lot more than strongly-worded Facebook status updates - it's going to require actual action.

Also the blame for this does not squarely lie on the shoulders of the California Supreme Court. They didn't start this and they won't end it. Fix the problem, not the blame, folks.

I mean, I'm trying to fight global warming and I went back to graduate school for two years. Global warming is going down, if I have anything to say about it! I hope for everyone's sake that there is a stronger effort in this struggle for equal rights in the 21st century. Otherwise, we might have to brace ourselves for more disappointments.

LA Marathon!

2009-05-25T14:40:00.001-07:00

Scene from the LA Marathon this morning at 7th and Flower in Downtown LA.

Graduation Speech :: USC School of Architecture :: May 15, 2009

2009-05-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

Following is the text from the graduation speech I gave to classmates, professors, friends and family at the USC School of Architecture graduation on May 15, 2009.

~~~~~
Good morning everyone!

I want to start off by thanking my classmates for inviting me to speak on their behalf today.

I also would like to thank all of our family and friends for supporting us throughout our entire time at USC, and also for joining us this morning.

Last but not least I want to thank the faculty and staff of the School of Architecture for challenging and encouraging us, and I'd especially like to thank the Building Science Faculty for mentoring me during my time here.

~~~~~
Now I'd like to address everyone here in the front, in the funny black hats: we picked a heck of a time to graduate, didn't we?

In all seriousness, though, these are very challenging times. Perhaps more challenging than any of us have ever seen. But I'm not going to stand up here and tell you what you already know. Instead, I'd like to use my time on this stage to give you a few tips that you can take with you when you leave here today. Without further ado...

"Emily's Top 5 Happy Thoughts for the Class of 2009."

~~~~~
NUMBER 5: Think positively and don't dwell on your fears. I started off with this one because there's a good chance that many of us are having negative thoughts about what the future holds. But just forget about that negativity. Let it go, it won't help. You've got goals; focus on those instead. So, plan out your goals, focus on them, and think positively about how you can achieve them, and they'll guide you through the challenges you face.

NUMBER 4: Remember your gifts. The number one gift you're being given is the piece of paper you're going to receive from this university. Yes, you had to pay for it so it's not necessarily a "gift"; and yes, the Trojan family and its network and the football games are all great, but not too many people have the opportunity to receive a world-class education like we did; take your experiences and what you've learned here with you, and it won't let you down.

NUMBER 3: Invest in yourselves. I must give credit for this one to Dean Ma, who so wisely mentioned it first at a lunchtime talk we had a few weeks ago. If, like many of us, you anticipate having some "down time" in the near future, use it to brush up on your skills. I made a major investment in myself when I quit my job a few years ago and decided to go back to graduate school. But I wanted to be a better designer and a better professional, and that's why I ended up at USC, and now I'm here giving you a speech, so I think I did OK! So, go out and learn a new program.... participate in competitions.... go to lectures or conferences or seminars....get out there and do whatever you can to make yourself a better designer and a better person. Which leads me to ....

NUMBER 2: Be exceptional people. Go out and do more than you've ever done before. Be "better" than you've ever been before. Be persistent and unrelenting in your pursuit of excellence. It sounds silly, but life is an adventure, and it will be an even greater one if you embrace it, open yourself up to new opportunities, and be the best version of yourself that you can.

And NUMBER 1: Create/innovate/instigate. Or to use a cliche, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade! Based on this premise, we should be able to make a LOT of lemonade right now...reservoirs, even. But maybe we can make a new kind of lemonade.... maybe we can drink it out of funny straws or mix it with pomegranate juice, or something. The point being, use your creative energy to try something differently, to look at problems in a new way, and to challenge limitations.

~~~~~
Ok, so I'm done with my list, which is good because I think my brief time is up. I realize that, as graduates, you probably thought you were done with note-taking, but I hope that something I said today resonated with you; I hope for all of us that we're able to go forth and make a difference in the world; on a personal level, I hope that each of us is able to contribute in a way that is helpful to the environment and to the Earth; and ultimately I'm confident that we will all persevere and succeed because we've been given the tools and the skills to do so. With that, I'd like to say, thanks again for having me, congratulations to my fellow graduates, good luck out there, and fight on!

Graduation Day

2009-05-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted with my Archinect School Blog....

My classmates and I graduated on Friday, in a grand morning ceremony with the Governator speaking, and then again at a "satellite" ceremony just for the School of Architecture. Literally I cannot believe how quickly the time has flown since I got here less than two years ago. Especially since last August....I feel like I blinked and it was May, and there I was in my funny gown and hood and hat. It's a strange and slightly scary feeling to be freed from academia again.

But enough about that, here are some photos.

Here is our flag, just before we're about to process into our seats for the main "all-school" ceremony.

The processional of school flags.

My view of the podium.

Arnold "The Governator" Schwarzenegger giving us a very funny commencement speech. Yes, he did say "I'll be back" at least 3 times.

A sea of graduates behind me. There were about 4500 students who graduated from USC on Friday!!!

My fellow Master of Building Science graduates, minus one, just before our ceremony.

Some of my M.Arch. friends.

More of my M.Arch. friends, + moi.

Dean Ma giving his speech at our School of Architecture ceremony. Just after this I gave my speech. Later, a total stranger told me that my speech was "the only one he could relate to", which I thought was nice!

~~~~~

....So that's pretty much it. I received two awards at the ceremony: the Alpha Rho Chi Medal for Leadership and the Master of Building Science Outstanding Thesis Award for the GreenDesignCollective and my thesis work related to it. Those were unexpected! But I am quite grateful for both.

Later when I have some time to calm down, I'll try to figure out what my future plans are so I can actually tell you about them. :o)

Life changes!

2009-05-13T10:45:00.001-07:00

I don't have much time, but the reason I've been quiet lately is because I've been swamped with cleaning, purging, writing, paying fees, and all sorts of other things involved with graduating, looking for a job, and starting to move. I am a bundle of nerves! To clarify, here is what's going on with my life:

Re: the move, I don't know where I'm moving yet! If I get a job and it suits me, then I'll move there. If I don't, then I'm going to stay in Hawaii with my man-friend for a while! I'm almost certainly leaving Los Angeles though, which is fine with me. More on that when I have time to breathe.
No, I don't have a job yet, but I did send applications and resumes all over the country, to every time zone. I had a couple of good interviews but nothing solid yet. The building industry is just really, really depressed right now. I'm extremely lucky to have even had interviews when some of these companies are receiving hundreds of resumes, and knowing that many friends have been laid off, furloughed, or can't find jobs - even with Target.
I'm graduating on Friday from USC. My degree is Master of Building Science. I won't receive that diploma for a few weeks, but I did already receive my Graduate Certificate in Urbanism & the Built Environment. It's pretty! Also, I was nominated by my classmates to give a speech at Friday's ceremony, so wish me luck! We'll try to record it and make it into a Podcast if anyone is interested.

Also, I wanted to mention that I am selling and/or giving away a bunch of furniture and other items. If you have any interest, please feel free to check them out on this Google Spreadsheet and leave me a comment here if something strikes your fancy. If you want it and I can ship it, then let's do it! Let's freecycle!

Whew! I'm like a tornado right now! Hopefully I'll have some good photos for the blog in a few days....

In Seattle

2009-05-04T11:21:00.000-07:00

Space Needle, Monorail, & Experience Music Project in foreground

Greenbuild 2009, here I come....

2009-04-30T00:33:00.000-07:00

Personally and professionally, this is probably one of the coolest things to happen to me, and a great way to cap off my short but incredible stint at USC.

I am pleased to annouce that I will be moderating a panel of “green blogosphere voices” for a session at Greenbuild 2009 in Phoenix in November. The panel was put together by my Archinect e-friend Barry Lehrman and my cohorts are as follows:

Cameron Sinclair (Presenter/Panelist): Architecture for Humanity / Open Architecture Network

Jill Fehrenbacher (Presenter/Panelist): Inhabitat.com

Quilian Riano (Presenter/Panelist): Archinect.com / gsd-ecologicalurbanism

Barry Lehrman (Presenter/Panelist): Archinect.com

Emily Kemper (that’s me) (Moderator) (Presenter/Panelist): Master of Building Science, USC / www.greendesigncollective.com

Very exciting! Stay tuned for updates on what we might discuss and what big plans we have for “green” blogging :o)

Random Los Angeles

2009-04-26T13:54:00.000-07:00

I'm catching up on all of my photo uploads and I've seen some interesting things while out and about lately. Most of them I captured with my iPhone. Here are some highlights from the past several weeks.

This is not a subway station. OK, well it is, but it's fake. It was planted down the street from me a couple of weeks ago for filming of a pilot for a TV show. On the other side, where the entrance would be, was just sidewalk. (Is this even a real subway stop? Can anyone from New York verify?)

This is the interior atrium of the Central Library in Downtown LA. It's a lovely building and it sits directly across from the US Bank Tower, aka, the tallest building west of the Mississippi. Apparently someone tried to commit suicide by jumping from the top level this past week. Luckily it was a few days after I had been there.

This is the new School of Cinematic Arts building at USC. It's ugly. In my humble opinion, anyway.

This is "S'mores Cake" from the excellent Nickel Diner, right behind my apartment building. It is utterly delicious. The blue light is a blowtorch, which they use to "toast" the cake ... the result is a wafting smell of S'mores throughout the diner!

Speaking of fire, there was a controlled fire on campus at USC the other day. Totally random! I found out later that it was a physics professor who was demonstrating some principles of heat transfer by firewalking. Cool! I want to take that class!

Speaking of heat transfer, yesterday my classmates and I went on a field trip to a solar farm way out in the high desert. There we saw fields holding 770 sun-tracking solar panels that produce a total of 1.9 megawatts of electricity per year. They supplement the electricity needs of a place called Bolthouse Farms where they help to grow carrots. Super cool!

Speaking of field trips, today I went with some friends to the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park. We went on a quest for a friend's birthday to find Blinky the Friendly Hen, and also got to see the gravesite of the MGM lion, as well as a number of other interesting pets, including this family of "Mitzis". We found it amusing that Ed and Bill had a succession of Mitzis but strange that they, from 1970 to 1982, had concurrent Mitzis. That must have been confusing for Mitzi(s).

So there you have it. Random, right? That's Los Angeles...

Shameless plug

2009-04-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

Oh, look, I just posted another blog post at my Web site, the GreenDesignCollective. I wonder what it is about...? :o)

(This is to say that as I finish up school, I will start posting all of my "environmental" blog posts on that site, while I will transition the wonderSphere back to being more of an extension of my brain and life happenings. Whenever I have an important "environmental thought", I will certainly let you know here, of course.)

Sacramento / I'm really tired

2009-04-17T16:40:00.001-07:00

Have you ever been to Sacramento?

I know I hadn't, before today, except maybe to get gas on my way from San Francisco to Tahoe, or vice versa. This morning, I got up at the ungodly hour of 4 am to fly to Sacramento to interview with an energy efficiency research firm that is doing some great work in the state of California and around the country. It was cofounded by a woman who "grew up with the movement" so to speak, after the oil embargoes and energy crises of the '70s. She is a peer to some of my most knowledgeable and respected professors, and I feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to meet her and her coworkers, especially after hearing how many resumes they've gotten (hundreds? over a thousand? who knows...). In the end, after conversing at length about my strengths and the work that the firm does, she acknowledged that the two positions they have available right now might not be the best fit for me, since they don't really do any sort of designing or even consulting with architects: their work is primarily number crunching - magic with Excel, if you will - and shaping the codes and efficiency standards that architects use and the utilities companies strive for. She THEN went on to refer me to about 10 other companies she thought of that I might be interested in working with, and she gave her blessing to use her name as a reference. Bonus! I mean, bummer that I didn't get a job, but I appreciate that she recognized that I have something to contribute (I'm also going to pretend that she saw a creative fire in my eyes that might be better used for something other than magic with Excel.)

The capitol looks like what a capitol is supposed to look like

But enough about that. Sacramento is an interesting place. No, really! The airport - whose free WiFi I am enjoying right now - reminds me of Anchorage, AK ... or maybe Lexington, KY. Not sure. The sunshine-y, fragrant, and green city center, around the capitol building, is quite lovely and brought me back to Honolulu's lush capitol grounds. Their light rail system reminded me of Portland ... the tree-lined streets and curious elevated homes struck me a cross between New Orleans and Philadelphia ... the flat landscape took me back to Chicago ... and the farm land surrounding the city proper was distinctly Southern Ohio. What a strange place! It's like a collision of every pleasant memory I have about our country. And the bikes! The bikes and bike lanes - not to mention the motorcycles and scooters - were all over the place. No wonder Facebook told me that I should live there after I took the quiz "What California City Should You Live In?" (I'm half kidding; those Facebook quizzes are usually rubbish but this one was unusually robust).

Looking back along the Capitol Mall from the statehouse.

Looking up into the statehouse dome.

Very California.

Just in case you thought we were kidding.

Never seen vernacular like this before....

So pretty!

Anyway, I'm exhausted. I'm going to go try and stay awake until they board my flight. Ta.

Façades on Film

2009-04-15T23:55:00.000-07:00

I wrote a post last year about a ridiculous frat party that I went to at USC, and in it, I talked a lot about façades.

Compare that to the picture that I snapped yesterday of a real-life building façade just down my street. Someone's been filming in my neighborhood again, but this is the first time I've seen a whole brick façade erected with a fake building behind it. The space behind that brick façade is normally a parking lot.

Crazy, right?

Death by Car

2009-04-14T00:06:00.000-07:00

I'm so saddened by of all the bad news about people getting killed in car-related accidents lately. First there was the story of young Adrianna getting hit and killed by a car next to USC ... the driver then actually pulled over so that the passenger could get out and push her friend Marcus off the hood. (Marcus, thankfully, is alive.) Then there was the story of Los Angeles Angel Nick Adenhart, who was killed by a drunk driver just a few hours after pitching the best baseball game of his very young life. Not to mention we've had at least two notable car chases here in Southern California in the past couple of weeks. (Apparently this is a regular occurance here.)

Naturally I'm feeling a little bit skittish around cars these days. Not having one is great for a number of reasons but it also means I have no control over the car I'm riding in, although I have definitely been a much more alert passenger recently.

So imagine my surprise when I just read this headline on the NYTimes.com: Study Says Small-Car Buyers Sacrifice Safety for Economy.

from left to right: Smart ForTwo, Toyota Yaris, and Honda Fit. Image courtesy of the NYTimes; please don't sue me, I gave you credit...

My immediate reaction to this was perhaps a little unconventional; "clearly," I thought, "this is a ploy by other car companies to prove that small cars aren't meant for American roads." THEN I kept reading the article, at which point I found out that the head-on crash tests were actually conducted at 80 miles an hour - 40 miles per hour per car involved in the crash. Well, duh! If you're crashing head-on with someone at 80 miles an hour, you're going to be quite lucky to survive in any situation. The article says that the midsize cars into which the small cars crashed "fared well or acceptably". That, I think, is even more remarkable. How much do these midsize cars weigh? How over-engineered are they so that they can absorb that sort of crash?

And ultimately my entire thought process has led me to this: the idea that the time of big, heavy and totally unnecessary oversized cars is over. We tried it, folks, and it just doesn't work. Sure, some people need those giant Ford F150s for hauling stuff to and from their farms; but when was the last time you saw a farmer going 90 miles an hour down the highway? I suppose some people, like the Duggars in Arkansas, could justify the use of a couple of big Expeditions, but even they use a recycled church bus or something. What I'm trying to say, generally, is that I think we pushed automobile technology to the limit and now it's time for us to pull them back to a place that is reasonable, fuel-efficient, and safe.

Case in point: motor vehicle collisions are one of the top ten leading preventable causes of death in the United States. This doesn't even occur as one of the top ten worldwide causes of death, however - the rest of the world is still concerned with things like malnutrition.

So I guess my point is, go ahead and read the article about the poorly performing small cars. But before you automatically jump to the conclusion "well I guess I'd better get a bigger car since it's safer" maybe you should pause, and instead think to yourself "maybe I ought to try to be a better driver and make sure I'm never in a situation where I'm going 40 miles an hour head on into another vehicle." Because the car companies have proved that they are utterly incompetent and unable to adjust the needs of a changing economy quickly enough to put more small cars on the road. Until that time, it's everyone for themselves, and young people are losing their lives.

Ergo ... get off the phone, stop texting, drinking, speeding, putting on makeup, playing with your dog, etc. Because if you hurt somebody with your car, you may as well have shot them with a gun - and you deserve whatever punishment you get.

Late to the game.

2009-04-12T22:19:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this is going to come off as a bit weird but I really never hold back too much on this blog so I might as well mention it.

One of the reasons why I've been slow to blog lately is because I've been listening to Harry Potter books on CD (ripped to MP3s). Books 6 and 7 to be exact, and for the second time. I realize I'm a bit late to the Harry Potter game, but once I got into it - by listening to Book 6 on my long drive to California two years ago - I was absolutely hooked. Bewitched, even (magic joke, sorry). I can't get enough Harry Potter! I think it has something to do with the imagination of it all. I'm completely in awe of the all-encompassing artistic vision of J.K. Rowling. The story of how Harry Potter came to her is almost as enchanting as the story of Harry itself, and it reminds me a lot of this wonderful TED Talk by Elizabeth Gilbert on the nature of creative genius. (Just watch it, it's awesome.)

In any case, I find myself consumed with Harry, Hogwart's, Dumbledore, etc. I love listening to the books because I can do that on the bus without getting motion sick. I always watch movies 1 through 5 if they appear somewhere on TV on the weekends, and I think I've seen the second half of the Order of the Phoenix on HBO like 6 times. And the other night, I actually dreamt I was an actor in one of the movies! OK, so maybe I'm a little bit obsessed but there's something just sweet and comforting about the whole series. It reminds me of how much I used to read when I was young, and how much I loved mysteries, and it's gotten me excited about reading again - and that can't be bad, can it?

Is it weird that I've been planning on seeing the 6th movie since they announced it last year? Yes? Oh well....

The Fiction Odyssey

2009-04-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while something worthwhile actually happens on Facebook, and today it happens that I saw this note on a friend's page, and it's a great list of fiction classics. The "Top 100" list was supposedly published by the BBC and they postulate that "the average person has only read six" of the books on the list.

A quick Google search has revealed that this list has made its way around the blogosphere and is a popular launching point for literary discussions. However, a detailed search of the BBC's Web site reveals that, while the BBC did publish a Top 100 ranking of the "nation's best-loved novel" as voted on by its audience, there is no such claim of people only reading six of them. In fact, the Top 100 list they give is quite different from the one below.

Nevertheless, I've been thinking lately about revisiting some of the classics, and this list seems a great place to start. Even if it did come from a false internet meme :o)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
x 4 Harry Potter series
x 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
x 6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
x 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch -
21 Gone With The Wind -
x 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace -
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
x 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
x 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
x 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
x 40 Winnie the Pooh -
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
x 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan -
51 Life of Pi -
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm -
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
x 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones -
x 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
x 66 The Once and Future King - T.H. White*
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
x 74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce -
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
x 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
x 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Eupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Aleandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

*There was no 66, so I added my own; it is a great book!

My average trip to the grocery store.

2009-04-07T18:20:00.000-07:00

I just mentioned this in an online forum, and I realized that I had probably never talked about it on here before, so let me just tell you a little bit about my average trip to the grocery store: it's kind of hilarious. I mean, I think if I ever saw myself roll up to Ralph's on my bike, I would laugh at me, anyway. Here's what happens:

First of all, I roll up on my bike (remember I don't have a car), and lock it to the bike rack.
Then I go into Ralph's, with my right pant leg rolled up (biker style) and all of my reusable bags (no plastic!) in my X-Large Timbuk2 bag on my back. Let's be honest, I'm usually sweaty too. At least that scares away the crazy people.
I usually try to limit my haul to a little carry basket, but, failing that, I get a shopping cart (especially if I'm hungry, I'm doomed...)
When I'm done, I then go through the Self-scan lanes, because frankly it's easier to bag your own groceries if you know how they are going to be carried.
Then I put what I can in my wee bike basket, on my back (that Timbuk2 bag could hold a couple of toddlers), and on my shoulders and bike handles.

...and Voila! Carbon-free grocery shopping. I've been known to bike home hauling over $100 worth of groceries like that! Which I guess from the Ralph's that I go to isn't a huge amount, but it's substantial nonetheless.

I know I know...I'm a nerd.

Just a suggestion...

2009-04-02T01:01:00.001-07:00

...to the State of California, written on the back of an envelope used to send in fees on a tax that I paid late (the fees were actually more than the tax itself)....

Spring Break, meh

2009-03-26T17:36:00.000-07:00

I know I've been quiet lately. I had Spring Break last week, which was actually rather boring and full of thesis paperwork. This week things picked up again, with the TEDx USC conference at USC on Monday, and then a breakfast that I had with CNN on Tuesday. I also just found out that I've been nominated by my peers to give a 5-minute speech at our graduation ceremony in May, which is very nice but a little nerve-wracking! I'm sure I'll figure out what to say.... I think it will probably include trying to be upbeat about our current financial situation and the gloomy job outlook that many architecture grads face this year. :o(

Still, it's hard not to think about the month I had last March, which started off with observing wildlife at a frat party, continued with a trip up the coast and a giant pillowfight, and ended with a glorious trip to Hawaii. Such are the realities of our economic situation...I'm hoarding what tiny amount of savings I've got so that I have a contingency plan after graduation if I can't find a job. Meaning, trips aren't in the cards for me right now (except for the girls' weekend in Seattle at the end of April that's been planned since last summer!)...

Next week the fun continues as I upload my final thesis draft and move into the final phases of planning a major event on campus with some of my cohorts. Plus some other surprises that I'll keep to myself for the time being...

Until then, please excuse my general lack of excitement, as I've got to stay focused right now. If anything really interesting happens, you'll be the first to know :o)

500 people on bikes.

2009-03-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it may have been 300 or 400, who really knows. But it's a helluva great way to spend a Friday night. Observe my hasty iPhone action shot:

Last night I went on my very first Friday night "Critical Mass"-type Midnight Ridazz ride. (I'm not entirely sure what qualifies a ride as Critical Mass but I guess the original rides had more shenanigans than the current night-time rides.) I've never been on one before and it was AWESOME. There were so many of us, all with our little lights blinking, and we basically took over a mile-long swath of road wherever we went. Some motorists were unhappy - especially when we did the unprecedented "double u-turn" in the span of one block - but for the most part, people were amused. The LAPD was awesome too; they didn't bother us at all and one officer even high-fived us as we went by! Lots of people took pictures and some residents came out on their balconies to watch us pass. Which, let me be clear, took a very long time. It was like watching a marathon; the leaders would go by, but then you had to be patient, because we just kept coming for the next 10 minutes or so. It was amazing.

And everyone in the group was cool too. Which was great since I didn't know anyone! (Seriously. I did meet a few nice people though.) We tended to run red lights a lot but frankly if each sub-group stopped at red lights then we would have blocked traffic even more, so there was always someone in the group to block the cars and make sure we passed safely. We also rode at a very-reasonable 10 mph average pace, and everyone was constantly calling out "rough road!" or "left turn!" There were guys with sound systems on their bikes, there were people on BMXs, people on beach cruisers, and people on road, hybrid, mountain and fixed-gear bikes as well. And then there was my favorite, the tall bikes:

This picture is obviously not from our ride, it's just an example, but every time one of the guys on the tall bikes went cruising past me on the road I started giggling uncontrollably. I don't know why I found it so funny, I guess it was just indicative of my joy in the event.

All in all, we rode almost 17 miles around Downtown LA and by USC and Exposition Park. Literally I cannot think of a better way to spend a Friday night, than cruising around with hundreds of other bikers, snarling a bit of traffic, listening to music, waving to pedestrians, and just enjoying the ride. I highly recommend it! :o)

Viewing the world through Shamrock-colored glasses

2009-03-12T10:05:00.000-07:00

Cross posted with my Archinect School Blog....

Sooooo.... I GAVE MY FINAL THESIS PRESENTATION YESTERDAY! Yes, that's right, final of the whole year! I still have to finish the document, which is due on April 1, but that's in good shape and I basically just have to make some revisions and finish the formatting.

(Note: I didn't get a chance to take pictures, unfortunately, as we were in a dark cave and frankly I was preoccupied anyway. Since I know you like pictures so much, I will therefore intersperse my post with some photos from St. Patrick's Day from years past to get you excited for the BEST DAY OF THE YEAR next week!)

St. Patrick's Day Parade 2008 in Downtown LA = kilts!!!

The presentation went well. I am pleased with the amount of work that I did and glad that I got some results in time for my presentation, and the response to my project was almost entirely positive. And, although I've given this presentation in some form three times already, I was actually nervous. I got dry mouth! That hasn't happened since undergrad. I think it's because this was the final final and I was all dressed up, and everyone was there and this was it, you know? No more. But I pushed through, and later my friends said they couldn't even tell. Awesome!

Random Irish Bunny with Hat

Also the general consensus is that this is such a good idea that I need to continue with it, and now I just need to figure out how. Of course, this might be easy if I can't find a job (sidebar: I need a job. I am available to work after May 15. I can do a lot of stuff, really. Please email me!) but that's not necessarily the scenario I am hoping for.

Watching the Young Dubliners on Pershing Square through Shamrock colored glasses

In addition to getting my presentation over with, I also started a new seminar with Leo Marmol from Marmol Radziner Architects/Prefab. And, as you might guess, the seminar is about prefab. Also, it is awesome. I am passionate about the idea of prefab to begin with but to be taught by one of the industry leaders, who himself is passionate about the subject, is a serious bonus. And we get to do a small design project of our own by sketching on paper in class. No computers! I think Leo must think I'm a lunatic because as I explained to him in class, in Building Science we do a lot more studying of buildings than designing of them, so I have a lot of "pent up design" in me and the ideas are flowing for this already.

Green bagel

On that note, St. Patrick's Day is on Tuesday, March 17, and I'm excited. What's that you say? Tuesday's a bad day to celebrate St. Patrick's Day? Just remember, it's always a good day for a Guinness :o)

Does the green dye in Chicago's river remind anyone else of Guinness flowing into the glass? No?

Words, beautiful words

2009-03-04T23:31:00.001-08:00

I rediscovered Wordle this evening and I got a little carried away but you would be missing out if I didn't share. I heard about Wordle a few months ago and didn't think anything of it, but tonight, on a whim, I decided to go. How fun! Essentially what Wordle does is it takes a bunch of words from any RSS or blog stream and it makes them into a "word cloud" which bumps up the size of the word based on how often it appears. I input the WonderSphere first and it apparently only looks at one whole page of posts, because the words it recognized as "most used" are not typical words around here:

Then of course, after I was hooked, I decided to try it with my new blog at the GreenDesignCollective. With Wordle you can change the shape, font, colors, and orientation of the word cloud, and I loved it when this cloud came up with the word "homes" at the left side of the arrowhead point:

Clearly at this point I had to find something else to Wordle. I went back to my dormant blog over at LILAWAC to see the word cloud it would yield. Voila! I especially thought this one was cool since I used a font called "Expressway Free"...

Anyway, if you love fonts and wasting time as much as I do, I encourage you to take your favorite blog and Wordle it. (Liz, I'm looking at you :o)

New Month, New Look!

2009-03-01T12:01:00.001-08:00

Fresh off the heels of my long walk yesterday, I felt energized enough to come home and do a little remodeling on the Wondersphere. Those of you who see this only on your Google Reader or what not may want to visit the blog itself so you can see what I've done to the look of it. Frankly I was just getting tired of the old look, and I needed some CSS practice. So here we are. Feel free to tell me what you think of it in the comments, I know some of you would anyway :o)

Short Month, Long Walk

2009-02-28T19:03:00.000-08:00

I complain about Los Angeles sometimes, but I must admit that it's nice to spend a day outside when most of the country is still in the throes of winter. Today, on this last day of February, K & G & I decided to take a hike, so to speak, or I should say a couple of hikes in the mountains on the West side of town. What began as a walk in known territory turned into a veritable "nature adventure" as we went from an easy jaunt in Will Rogers State Park to an extremely pleasant nature walk on an trail we'd never seen before, to meandering back to G's new Prius through the neighborhood of Pacific Palisades. By the end of our journey, we'd walked 8.3 miles without realizing it! But it was a beautiful day to spend burning some calories, despite the fact that we emerged at the end with legs turned to jelly and a pinch of sunburn. And, as a bonus, I got a great view of this wicked cool house on the way back to the car ... points if anyone can tell me who designed it:

Things that matter

2009-02-22T10:41:00.000-08:00

I've been busy lately. Over President's Day, I took a little trip to San Francisco to give myself a mental break and visit friends, and mostly what I found when I got there was rain. A couple of days ago, we had a job fair at school, and mostly what I found when I got THERE was not very many jobs. In other news, I was waxing poetic on the GDC blog about how nice it would be to have a house for everyone, considering there are so many empty houses and so very many people who could use them. But that's just some of the things I think about.

Mainly I wanted to write today to tell you about a movie I saw on HBO. You may have heard of it, it's called Taking Chance, and it's about the path that a fallen soldier's body takes home from war. I recommend that everyone watch this movie. It stars the always awesome Kevin Bacon as the Lt. Col. who volunteers to escort the soldier's remains back to his family from Dover, Delaware all the way to Wyoming. Now I'm not going to lie and say that I didn't sob throughout pretty much the whole thing, but I still think that everyone should watch it through OnDemand or when it comes to video or however possible. Having never seen a military transport or funeral of any kind, it was an eye-opener for me. Also it's amazing to me how big this country is, that in towns and cities in every state there are very young soldiers who have fallen in this ill-gotten war of ours. It reminded me that no matter how much we didn't want it, we still got it, and there are still good soldiers who have perished in it, and continue to give their lives for it.

To date, there have been 4247 Americans that died in Iraq. 4108 of those have died since Bush's "Mission Accomplished" announcement of May 1, 2003. And did you know that 18 service people have died since President Obama was inaugurated? I'm going to put a counter on my blog here so I don't forget about it, and hopefully you won't either.

EnviroHint #3d: ...Make it Work!!!

2009-02-12T16:46:00.000-08:00

It is with great satisfaction that I announce I have completed the bag project that I started several months ago and which I discussed in EnviroHints #3a, 3b, and 3c. Today I found myself with a couple hours of spare time, and in thinking about my trip to San Francisco this weekend, I tried to figure out what smallish bag I could take my computer up in. I have several bags and I have a padded sleeve I can use as well, but that sleeve opens on the long side.....if only I had a sleeve that opened on the short side. And I remembered my bag project! The truth is, it wasn't going to work in the reversible configuration I had planned for it, but when I broke it down and resewed a few key pieces, it worked perfectly as a short-side laptop sleeve. I put velcro on the top to secure it....it even has a pocket! Observe:

The only thing not quite figured out yet is the handle; as you can see in the photo, I took off the handle completely. I am wondering if I should try to sew it onto the sides, around it like a ribbon on a package, or not at all. If nothing else, it works well the way it is, without any handle at all.

The best part is that the work I had already done on the bottom of the bag makes it dense, which is perfect for padding the vulnerable short side of the computer if placed that way in another bag. All of this concern for the computer is, of course, a direct result of my misfortunes last Spring. But now I have a lovely laptop sleeve to protect it :o)

Musings on financial turmoil, beauty, and Chicago

2009-02-10T13:48:00.000-08:00

Cross posted with my Archinect School Blog....

Immediately following last week's launch of the Web site that is the product of my thesis research, I started getting feedback from people, which I do appreciate. However, if you didn't fill out a survey, I may not be able to collect your feedback in any kind of formal way for inclusion in my final report, although I will certainly take it into account for any revisions I attempt before my final presentations.

Another reason for the survey is so I could walk away from it for a bit. Several months of creating something like that, day in and day out, and your head just gets cloudy. So this last week has been my time to unwind a bit, to sort of press my own "reset" button. Naturally a plethora of thoughts has rushed to fill the void once occupied by HTML code, so I will now share some of them with you:

On financial turmoil:
Following my last post about this graph, we know that this recession is bad, and the truth is, it's getting worse for us architects. That article in BD describes a number of large architecture firms who have laid off workers recently, and I have friends at most of them, as I'm sure many of you do as well. Needless to say, I don't need anyone to tell me that it's going to be difficult to find a job after I graduate, even though that doesn't stop people from reminding me constantly. Which is getting a little old.

On "Worshiping at the Altar of the Almighty Awesome Aesthetic":
I don't know how or exactly when I came up with this phrase in my head, but I think it's evolved from my view that designers now need to do a lot more than just great design. We have to do great design with a purpose, we have to do it efficiently, we have to communicate with people about why we are doing great design, and we have to learn to live with budgets. And, perhaps, we need to resist the urge to worship at that altar that I mentioned above. You know all this already, but maybe it came up again because of the Neil Denari lecture at USC a couple of weeks ago; Denari is a name that I hear a lot out here, and although I've not met him, he seems like both a brilliant designer and a down-to-earth guy. But I confess watching his slide show with a bit of melancholy - I wanted his innovative designs to DO something. What? I don't know. Transform or something. Like "Optimus Prime Denari" - the building that looks great AND fights crime.

Neil Denari lecture at USC

On serendipity:
After releasing my Web site to the hounds last week, I decided to do something which I seem to never have time for anymore - read a book. Specifically I decided to finish a book I had bought a long time ago but never completed, Devil in the White City. Imagine my surprise when yesterday, while devouring the last half of this book without a break, I began reading the historical accounts of the massive financial distress that the country experienced during the time of the World's Fair and Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. At some point during a break from the book I happened to read Geoff Manaugh's BLDGBLOG where I saw the post, The Boom is Over, with this image of Beijing's TVCC building going up in flames:

...and THEN I went back to the book where, as most of you know, the White City, which was once referred to as a "dreamland" for its astounding beauty, went up in flames in 1894 after riots by unemployed workers got out of hand. At this point maybe I am droning on, but does anyone else see parallels here? The late 1800's must have been a rough time for our country: technology was evolving ... the car was being invented ... electric lighting started to appear in buildings. And yet banks were failing, their CEOs committed suicide, unemployment was high, and cities strived to be green and clean. Is it 2009, or is it 1895?

On my ramblings:
So I don't entirely know what I'm trying to say except to wonder out loud if there's anything that our profession can learn from our past as we trudge towards a slightly scary and unknown future. Maybe we should all come together again on the banks of Lake Michigan for a new "world's fair" - it's as good a place as any - so we can put our great collective knowledge to use and again produce a futuristic vision of the city, one that is not only aesthetically beautiful but that is sustainable, or biodegradable, or that has buildings that transform to fight crime, etc., etc. One thing I forgot to mention is that even in 1893, although they were unknowingly laying the groundwork for the climate problems we face today, the buildings of the World's Fair "had been designed to maximize the salvage value of their components." When was the last time you designed an entire project so that it could be recycled at the end of its life?

I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes, which I still think applies today.

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood.
-Chicago architect and Director of the World's Fair, Daniel H. Burnham

1000 Words

2009-02-06T20:42:00.000-08:00

Of course, it's not a picture, it's a chart, but still - this visual depiction of the job losses in the last 13 months compared to the last two recessions we've had, in 1990 and 2001, are staggering. Unemployment numbers haven't been this high since 1974. That's before I was born.

:o(

Q: What do the groundhog and my thesis have in common?

2009-02-02T00:19:00.000-08:00

A: Both come out of hiding today! And both tell us something about climate (although I think I've done more research...)

Well friends, Happy Groundhog Day! I decided last year to create a "learning tool" for my Master's thesis in Building Science; my goal was to teach people about alternative ways to save energy in their home, based on their climate. I know I've mentioned it here before, and it's now ready for viewing. Please visit! Specifically I hope you'll try out the "green your home" tool, and take the survey - I promise it won't take long, and then you can go back to reading your Google Reader.

www.greendesigncollective.com

(The survey link can be found at the bottom of each page.)

Also, please pass it on! If the Web site is to be successful, I'll need lots of user feedback, so have at it!

Thanks for your support. I have to go email this to everyone I know now....

Categories, Lists, and Labels

2009-01-24T14:32:00.000-08:00

I had a dream last night that I went on a retreat to some weird fort-like house in the middle of nowhere, and I was tasked with taking on a number of small science experiments. Naturally I signed up for nearly all of them (like I do with everything), and they included such gems as trying to grow grass on the roof of the house I was at and going on as many rollercoasters as possible until I threw up. In the dream, I was all for this, apparently.

At some point during the dream I realized I actually had to go to class this week and then I tried to figure out how I could complete all of my science experiments, go to class, and finish my thesis at the same time. When I woke up I thought, "maybe my brain is mad at me for trying to do too much," and it's true, I always try to do too much. I've been trying to simplify my life lately....but I just get so excited about things. I can't help it. I love learning. Case in point, my latest post on my Archinect school blog about the lecture I saw this week and the ensuing conversation with the lecturer. So cool!

I usually have to distill things in my life into categories and lists, and label everything just to get it done. My Archinect school blog, although a source of excitement, will cease to exist after I graduate, and my LA/bike/LILAWAC blog will cease to exist very soon (in some ways it already has). But I'll still be here, and my web site will be up and running soon, and that has a blog too...and it has categories! The fun never ends :o)

1.20.09 :: History

2009-01-20T11:22:00.000-08:00

Cross posted on my Archinect School Blog....

Where were you when Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States?

A lot of people in the media and news have been saying this over the past couple of days, as an indication that we should take stock of this day, and remember this moment in our country's history. I couldn't agree more, and it's one of the reasons I love blogging so much. Generally speaking, my long-term memory is horrible; so, if I get to blog about this day, and share it with everyone, perhaps I will remember a little better.

So, in answer to my own question, I was sitting on the living room couch at 9:05 am PST, in my loft apartment in Downtown Los Angeles, drinking water out of my Obama mug, and fighting back tears of pride.

view on my TV

Perhaps it's because I relate to this person so much, perhaps it's because since our introduction to him over 4 years ago, I really got what he was trying to say; and perhaps it's because not only did I get it, but I agreed with him, and I decided to trust him ... perhaps that's why I teared up and laughed at the same time as I watched the formality of the ceremony, the slightly mangled oath, and the "redman can get ahead, man" man. Here he is, OUR president - not only is he smart and competent and fair and capable, he's inspired all of us to stand behind him, and with this wind at his back, he's moved so many of us to service. Like the 30 or so people with rubber gloves and bags, many of whom showed up sporting Obama t-shirts, in Echo Park yesterday ... the people who, like me, came to clean up the park, but who ran out of work in about an hour with so many helping hands around.

a family helps to clean up Echo Park

It's a really special moment in our nation's history, and I hope that everyone got a chance to breathe, and take it all in. This is as valuable a learning experience as any design charette, or competition entry, or 10-page paper, or 3D model that you may be embroiled in currently. Because it begs the question, why do you do those things? Why did you go to architecture school, or any type of school, and why are you taking out those loans? What do you hope to accomplish in your life, with your skills, for your fellow human beings?

Downtown Los Angeles from Echo Park

I have answers to those questions, too; but today I'll ask for your patience, and soon, I'll ask for your participation.

Happy Inauguration Day, everyone!

Getting older stinks

2009-01-18T21:37:00.000-08:00

Ok, so the title of my post tells really only half the story. It's not that I mind the getting older part, per se, because I really don't; I'm in the best shape I've ever been in (theoretically) and I'm certainly pursuing work that I enjoy with a clarity that I didn't have when I was younger.

No, the part about getting older that I don't enjoy is the unexpected curve balls that my body is throwing me, namely, allergies to things that I love. In the past couple of years, I've apparently become allergic to at least two things that we know of:

Cats. I discovered this after I had had my own cat for at least 2 1/2 years. Initially when I got her, my hands broke out in a rash and my upper lip swelled. I thought this was a freak coincidence, since I had never been allergic to cats before, so I just started taking generic allergy pills every other day and forgot about it. I only figured out that I WAS allergic to cats last summer, when I decided to stop taking my pills - why was I taking them if I didn't know what I was allergic to? And then I took my cat to the groomer to get her shaved, and my arms broke out in a rash after helping to hold her while she got a hair cut. So that was a sad day when I realized I was allergic to cats, since I love animals of all kinds.
Wine. Another sad day was when I realized that wine very well might be causing the wretched migraines I have had infrequently over the past couple of years. I had never had problems with it before, but I can count 3 occasions in the past 15 months where I've ingested some wine and then been down for at least the next 2 days. I went to the doctor and he said that I was experiencing a "classic migraine presentation." Then he gave me a big long list of foods I "might want to avoid" and I laughed, since I consume most of them - but I'll admit, I've been afraid to try wine ever since then.

So I'm mentioning all of this because it irks me, and also I feel like I might be doing a little bit of a service to anyone else who may experience strange symptoms from allergies they've never had before. When I went to the doctor after getting my cat and I told them that I had a rash and a swollen upper lip, they A) thought I was nuts and B) failed to mention that you can develop allergies as you get older. And with the migraines, I've always had headaches so it took me a while to realize that the 48-hour ones I was having might not be normal. (With the wine allergy, some research suggests that a sensitivity to sulfites is what actually causes the headaches. I haven't had the time to stock up on painkillers and test this theory, however.)

Anyway, I'm coping. I'm looking for sulfite-free wine and still taking my daily allergy pill - after all, we have a new little friend in our apartment and I'd much rather sneeze a little bit than evict him. (Any suggestions towards a strategy for dealing with Che the growing kitten are appreciated...)

photo courtesy of Che's owner, my roommate

Participate!

2009-01-17T11:10:00.000-08:00

I am a serial participater when it comes to anything civic or social or, well, basically anything. I'm a doer. So when I heard about this opportunity to interact with our new President, I knew I needed to talk about it.

Called the Citizen's Briefing Book, it's a way for you, me, and everyone to suggest our ideas to President Obama. Basically you log into the page on Change.gov, you suggest an idea, and then people vote on it. The highest rated ideas will be compiled into a book that is presented to Obama after he is sworn in, and then on a regular basis thereafter.

I am already plotting what my first idea will be: something related to my thesis, perhaps, or another idea about the environment? I will figure something out. In the meantime, I encourage everyone to give it your best shot, and actually participate in your government for once. With any luck (and barring the devolution of this exercise into a popularity contest), this will become a real and extremely useful tool in the new administration.

So go ahead and participate!

Distractions

2009-01-13T12:20:00.000-08:00

A while back I wrote a blog post about my favorite things, citing my love of photography and of taking pictures. The fact is that I have a lot of favorite things that I nerd out over on a regular basis, and they keep me sane and amused, which is helpful when I have to stare at code all day for my thesis work (stay tuned on that...).

Three of my favorite things are recycling, maps, and bags. A few days ago, I wrote about recycling. I don't know that I've brought up maps yet, but I had to share this map that I saw online the other day... it's a map of the United States with states renamed for countries with a similar Gross Domestic Product. Awesome! (For additional awesome-ness with regards to maps, check out the Strange Maps blog.)

I'm almost positive I have never talked about bags, because seriously, what would I say? It's hard to explain but I just like to be organized, which means I have a bag that can carry nearly everything I own. Anyway, the reason I'm bringing up bags now is because of a lovely gift I received over the holidays. It combines these three things - recycling, maps, and bags - in one item. And voila! You have the recycled subway map clutch bag from Ecoist:

My bag looks kind of, but not exactly, like this.

Anyone else have some favorite things that, when combined, equal awesome-ness? I'll give you an example: Will Smith + zombies + the apocalypse = Hollywood blockbuster, aka I Am Legend. Discuss.

My bank sent me a check for $.03.

2009-01-09T13:21:00.000-08:00

In honor of my 200th post here on the wonderSphere, I just wanted everyone to know that my bank saw fit to send me a check for 3 cents after I closed one of my savings account there. Don't get me wrong, I like my bank a lot, especially since they didn't invest in a lot of crappy home loans and fail, but ... a check for 3 cents? Really? You can't just put it into one of the other accounts I have there? Jeepers.

EnviroHint #4: Freecycle

2009-01-06T12:16:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! Now that it's 2009, I've decided to start shedding all of the extra "stuff" that takes up space in my apartment for no reason. If and when I decide to move again, getting rid of this extra stuff will lighten my load significantly. Besides, if I haven't worn those shoes in 3 years, chances are good that I won't be wearing them again any time soon, right? In any case, I'm purging, but I'm trying to do so constructively. Here's some thoughts for anyone else that might want clean their home out in the new year:

Give to Goodwill. I take it for granted that this is everyone's first choice. There are other places to go too, like St. Vincent de Paul and what not. But Goodwill is closest to me. However, when I have something like a box of tile grout that I figure no one at Goodwill could really make use of, I .....
Freecycle! If, like me, you have a lot of stuff in your closet that isn't really worth enough to put on Craigslist but it seems like a waste to give it to Goodwill, try Freecycling instead. The Freecycle network is national, and most major metropolitan areas have chapters. You can sign up for your local network and then, when you have stuff to give away, you simply post an entry with a description and there's a good chance someone will snatch it up. The good news is, you can get stuff that you need through others' Freecycling as well....and of course, it's all FREE.
Give to the homeless. It make take a little more effort than giving to Goodwill...or maybe not? Your local homeless shelter may be closer than your nearest Goodwill. For me, giving to the homeless means putting something conspicuous in the alley behind my apartment building and waiting for it to disappear.
Make your favorite t-shirts into rags. If you are also like me and you have a hard time parting with favorite t-shirts (see my last 3 Envirohints), make them into rags. You will smile each time you use them since A) you still have them and B) they are saving you money that you would have spent on Swiffers.
Create a re-gifting pile. OK, so this one requires a bit of strategery. Clearly, you can't give stuff that you don't need or use to people who gave it to you or to people who know them, since you could be foiled. But, frankly, I have a small but significant pile of stuff that's never been used and is fine for others, but just not for me. This is the start of my regifting pile! I can't wait for the next person I know to have a birthday! :o)

I am still finding stuff to get rid of but the last few days have been quite a flurry of Freecycling and giving. Go ahead and try it, it's liberating!

Can I ask a favor?

2008-12-30T21:28:00.000-08:00

In this, my last post of 2008, I am going to ask for your help on something that I really think is important. I am reposting this from an Archinect thread that I started earlier and an email that I sent, so some of you are going to see this more than once. I realize it's been a bad year, but if we can look forward to innovative ideas like this in 2009, then I think next year will be much better.

So, can I ask you guys to vote for this?

The 2030 Stimulus Plan

It involves you going to Change.org, signing up (it's free, of course), and voting. It's pretty simple. Normally I wouldn't bother everyone but the goals of this plan could be a game changer....briefly, here's a description:

Essentially what happened is Architect Ed Mazria (a dude behind some important work on climate change initiatives in our profession) went to the Obama transition team and laid a simple idea on the table: what if we give mortgage rate reductions to homeowners if they agree to drastically improve the energy efficiency of their homes? In my opinion, the idea is pretty awesome - it ultimately lowers expenses for homeowners while providing jobs to thousands of people who work on the renovations. Check out the example they cite in the plan, I think you'll be as impressed as I am....

So, if you don't mind signing up for the Obama Change machine (which is cool in and of itself), please vote! And please pass this on so it will make it to the next round. (I should mention that if you are tempted to vote for any of the other "Global Warming" ideas on Change.org, that basically cancels out your vote for this idea....)

Thank you for your time, and I hope everyone has a great 2009!

Seat Warmer

2008-12-29T14:50:00.000-08:00

Since I've returned home to Cincinnati for Winter Break this year, there have been a few themes:

Getting to see everyone that I don't normally have the money to see the rest of the year.
Actually getting work done! Achieving pre-determined goals = awesome.
Catching up on movies I wanted to see, and movies I didn't know I wanted to see, and movies I never wanted to see....

That last category is really a great time-waster. Since arriving, I've managed to see...

The Incredible Hulk: Good. But I'll watch anything with Edward Norton.
Burn After Reading. Do NOT believe the ads! This was not great, it wasn't even funny.
The Spirit: Terrible, but Gabriel Macht is sweet and full of potential.
Slumdog Millionaire: Great, but perhaps not as super-great as the ads say it is.
Shutter: Not as bad as the 7% it got on Rotten Tomatoes but borderline laughable.
The House Bunny: Awful. Just awful. This one was against my will.
Marley & Me: Very cute, with a wonderful story, but if you are prone to crying, you should bring a whole box of tissues. Seriously.

There are still movies that I want to see, and a whole bunch that I missed this year that I'm still trying to catch up on, so if there's any on video that you want to recommend, let me know. This list includes:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It's supposed to be good, right?
Valkyrie. I'm hoping to see this without paying for it so I guess I'll have to wait.
Australia. I'm a fan of Baz Luhrman.
Milk. Yep.
Quantum of Solace. Argh! How did I miss this?
Tropic Thunder. Was it really funny? Not Burn After Reading, faux-funny?
Hancock. I know, I know, I'm way behind...

I can recommend a few myself....if you have not seen these, in my humble, movie-fan opinion, go...

The Dark Knight. Duh.
Ironman. This was such fun.
I Am Legend, from last December. I know some people didn't like this but I thought it was totally amazing; maybe it has to do with the portrayal of the intersection of Manhattan and nature. Also it both scared the crap out of me and was compelling enough to see a second time in the theater. The only other movie I've ever done that for was Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and, well, Strictly Ballroom. But I digress.
The Departed. Ok, so I know this is old but I just watched it a couple of months ago and it was great! I was so surprised. Especially since I don't normally like gangster movies and I really dislike Jack Nicholson. But this was great.

And then there are the movies that have yet to come out that I want to see, namely, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Why won't they just release this already!?

Anyway, that's how I'm spending my time here. I'm trying to enjoy it because I'm fairly certain I won't have any days off in 2009...

Why am I still talking about this?

2008-12-22T19:34:00.000-08:00

I realize it's not a popular position to take - I'm a progressive who's not terribly bothered by the Rick Warren invocation thing - but this Huff Post blogger puts it in perspective pretty well. Also, I think it's strange to throw the President that everyone worked so hard for, and who I expect many great things from, under the bus before he even takes the oath of office. We have a LOT of huge problems in this country, and I just wish - for once - that we could put the culture wars on the shelf and work to get some of them done. Because at the end of the day, Rick Warren's beliefs are his beliefs, and everyone else has their own, and unfortunately, the ones starting this round of cultural battles are on my side of the aisle. The culture wars will not be won or lost over an invocation - but we might actually achieve peace in the land once we calm down and talk to each other. You can't argue with Melissa Etheridge, can you?

Pick your battles

2008-12-18T21:12:00.000-08:00

So I'm back in Cincinnati for the holidays, and I'll be in the Midwestern "tundra" until the new year. Before I left LA, I shipped my computer to Apple for repairs, and they received it, repaired it, and shipped it back to me in Northern Kentucky in the same day. It was a 5-day turn around. And it was totally covered by AppleCare!!! For the record, I cannot say enough good things about Apple. Spending time on Vista in the interim reinforced this opinion.

Anyway, I'm sitting here worrying about things, like I usually do - I mean, 2 million jobs lost this year. An economy in shambles. The job market crumbling. High-powered investors bilking charities and towns for 50 billion dollars. And just today, a real stunner - the United States, under the "leadership" of "still-President" Bush, has refused to sign a declaration presented Thursday at the United Nations calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality! And I'm sitting here, worrying, and yet all I hear on the television or on various blogs is how progressives are disappointed in Obama's decision to invite Rick Warren to give the invocation at Obama's inauguration.

Rick Warren - probably less douchey than the evangelicals in Borat: image courtesy of ocregister.com

Seriously, is this as far as we've gotten since the election? This country is faced with gigantic problems created largely by the most incompetent and corrupt administration in the history of our country, and people are hemming and hawing over what preacher Obama invited to the inauguration!?! Has everyone forgotten that Obama ran on a platform not only of hope and change, but of bringing the country together? Last time I checked, there were a LOT of evangelicals in the country - more so than there are gay people, possibly - and Obama needs to reach out to them just as he needs to reach out to a lot of different groups. This doesn't mean that he agrees with Rick Warren, but as far as evangelicals go, the guy's less offensive than many. And according to Wikipedia:

Including the results of the 2008 general elections, two states (Massachusetts and Connecticut) allow same-sex marriage, five states recognize some alternative form of same-sex union, twelve states ban any recognition of any form of same-sex unions including civil union, twenty-eight states have adopted amendments to their state constitution prohibiting same sex marriage, and another twenty states have enacted statutory DOMAs.

That means 40 states either ban same-sex unions outright or adopted amendments to their state constitutions prohibiting it. 80% of the states in this country are currently on the same side of the issue as Rick Warren! Does that make it right? No, of course not! It just means that there's a heck of a lot of work to do, and attacking your new shiny President-elect for reaching across the aisle, or calling this preacher names, is not productive - it's self-destructive. It's subscribing to the same cynicism that left the Republican party in "rebuilding" mode this year. Lucia Brawley recognizes what Obama is trying to do in this situation, and I agree with her when she suggests that "if we can enfold (Rick's) numerous followers into our political dialogue, let them get to know us of all stripes, perhaps we can begin to wear away some of the myths and misconceptions that disconnect us."

I understand that the gay community is hurt by this. But we face many huge problems in this country, and we need all hands on deck, so I hope that people learn to start picking their battles. Gays and lesbians should and will gain equality, with time, and with understanding, because it's the right thing to do.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to worrying, probably about global warming, and the snow that it's causing in Malibu, Seattle, and Las Vegas. Especially since I just watched a Discovery Channel show about tornadoes. Tornadoes have become more and more destructive in the past several years ... in fact, while you've probably heard about Greensburg, Kansas and their efforts to rebuild the town with "green" buildings, I'm sure you've never heard of Manchester, South Dakota. That's because it's now a ghost town after a tornado totally wiped it out on June 24, 2003 and its inhabitants never came back. They never came back! How can we go on fighting about things when global warming is already wiping towns off the map!?! Hello!

Needless to say, I'm picking my battle ... with carbon emissions!

the tornado that destroyed Manchester: image courtesy of silverliningtours.com

Calling in Gay

2008-12-10T10:22:00.000-08:00

It took me a while to figure out something fun to write about again ... after all, my last indignant episode was crushed almost as soon as I wrote about it. Plus last week was a little crazy for me. But this is just cool.

Today is officially Day Without a Gay, the day that gay people are encouraged to call into work to protest the state of gay civil rights and do some community service instead. It is being referred to as "calling in gay", and if I didn't need the money for Christmas gifts, I would have totally called in "gay-friendly". Alas, I am here. But I have a gay coworker who called in!

Next up, I will be pushing for a "Day Without a Thesis Student". It probably won't go over well, but I can try...

What a bunch of turkeys.

2008-12-01T10:39:00.000-08:00

I would like to thank my friend Jason for giving me something to be indignant about on this otherwise quiet Monday morning.

Apparently the Cincinnati Zoo has entered into a joint marketing agreement with the Creation Museum, and the two entities are selling "combo tickets" to get into both for one price.

(UPDATE! Monday, 3:25 pm, EST. Wow, that was fast. The promotion has been pulled due to public outcry. Most of what I said here still applies though, sans the Zoo-boycotting part.)

A lot of things came to mind when I first read this:

Maybe the Zoo was enchanted by the live nativity at the Creation Museum.
OMG! Thayne Maynard is a crazy Christian!
Is this a joke, or maybe a blog rumor gone wrong?
Seriously though ... WHAT were they THINKING?

Unfortunately that last one is a bit hard to answer. Mainly because entering into any agreement with the Creation Museum requires a certain lack of thinking. Either you believe that the Earth has been around for billions of years, OR you don't. Either you believe that dinosaurs walked the Earth millions of years ago, as evidenced by the carbon dating of their fossilized bones found in the ground, OR you think that they hung out with Adam and Eve 5000 years ago (cough cough Sarah Palin cough cough). Either you agree with all known scientific teachings about biology, or you don't.

This is what has always struck me as completely incomprehensible about fundamentalist Christians. From what I understand, they take the Bible at face value, rather than interpreting it as a series of lessons or instructive stories, if you will; and then, often, but not always, they try to force these views on everyone else. Sometimes it comes in the form of seemingly innocuous entities like the Creation Museum, which I have no intentions of ever giving money to (and don't need to, thanks to Clair). But it's really more insidious than that. Their rejection of science, and their propagation of fairly ludicrous concepts presented in the Bible is, to me, not unlike the strict adherence to the Koran practiced by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The difference, thankfully, is that the Bible's 10 Commandments list "do not kill" amongst them, or else the fundamentalist Christians might go around killing and terrorizing for their cause like the Taliban. But do fundamentalist Christians still believe in slavery, as the Bible says? Or in stoning people who commit adultery? And how about those Mormons out in Utah with their multiple wives, just like the dudes in the Bible? Has anyone asked them lately, how closely they follow the Bible? Or should we just wait for the "Old Testament Museum" and exhibits devoted to the oppression of women to pop up?

I like to believe that most fundamentalist Christians are well-meaning, if misguided, people. But I'm a science nerd and frankly I'm going to side with my fellow science nerds pretty much all the time. And in this case, that means boycotting the Cincinnati Zoo. (And Utah, too.) C'est la vie.

On a side note ... I like animals enough to eat them, as I did with a turkey that I helped prepare on Thanksgiving a few days ago. Turkeys, as most of us are aware, are probably descendents of pterodactyls, which were giant flying creatures from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods millions of years ago. Our turkey was 12 pounds and was only scary-looking after we carved it:

I'm sorry I'm so boring.

2008-11-25T11:25:00.000-08:00

I really haven't been doing much lately that merits a blog post. The things I have had to say have all related to school, which is why I put them on my school blog over at Archinect. You might find that interesting. Otherwise, it's just been me, here, at my computer, working on my web site for thesis, and freaking out about all the jobs lost in the architecture world and beyond in the past couple of weeks. Has anyone you know lost a job recently because of the economic downturn? By all means, let me know, I like to maintain a healthy level of anxiety, it keeps me motivated.

And I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! We'll be making turkey and all the fixings here in my apartment, despite partial nausea induced from watching the Governor of Alaska give an interview in front of a turkey being slaughtered. Blech. Anyway.

Firestorm

2008-11-16T15:24:00.001-08:00

I debated for a long time over the title of this post. I thought about using the line from "Total Eclipse of the Heart" ("...living in a pony keg and giving off sparks...") and then I thought I might use the word Flaming, but neither of those addressed the seriousness of the situation.

So here's what's been going on in the City of Angels these past few days: yesterday morning there was a huge protest in front of City Hall against the passage of Prop 8, which essentially wrote discrimination into the California constitution with the words "a marriage is between a man and a woman". I tend to try to be a moderating voice in this conversation: I am not gay, but I support my gay friends and their desire for gay marriage, and obviously they are very offended by this passage. However, I think people's reasons for voting for the Proposition in question might have been a lot more nuanced than the gay community realizes. Nonetheless, I was disturbed by the fact that the Mormon church poured so much of its money into the Yes on Prop 8 effort, including people taking money out of their savings to "benefit their children's future"? Huh? By taking money out of their college fund? Also, I was angered by the fact that it affected the state constitution, in that even if people need time to warm up to the idea of gay marriage, well, tough, because it's already in the constitution! Can't change your minds ... or can you? The legal challenges abound here and I suspect the issue is not anywhere near being resolved. Here are some photos....

Lots of people, probably more than reported

Good sign

At least the Times staff didn't have to go far

Mayor Tony came to the rally and spoke, and when he was done he said he had to get back to the fires. "What fires?" I asked. I thought he had gone up to Santa Barbara to help them out. Then I heard....more fires broke out overnight in someplace called Sylmar. And then there were some in Orange County, and someplace else. I heard that there were hurricane force winds and that the fires had jumped a couple of highways. With a high of 95 degrees on Saturday November 15, a relative humidity of 9%, and a dew point of 21 degrees (you'd have to freeze the air to get any moisture out of it), conditions were ripe for a fire. You might even say we're living in the greatest pile of tinder in the United States, and once you add the Santa Ana winds into the mix, you get what we got: a firestorm. Many fire chiefs have been quoted in the news as saying that the fires never used to be this bad, or this often; well, I suspect it never used to be this dry, either. But that's what global warming has gotten us. Here's some photos of the air around Downtown LA today, November 16 - it's absolutely awful, it stinks of smoke, and my eyes are burning a little. Notice how blue the sky is in the photo above, just a day earlier.

No this is not smog, it's smoke

This is in the middle of the day! 1 pm! Not early evening as it looks....

This is normally a much nicer view. Today, yuck.

July 4, 2009?

2008-11-12T14:29:00.000-08:00

Look at what they were handing out on campus today....it looks and feels like a real, albeit very short, New York Times. A classmate brought this into studio a little bit ago, apparently he got it from some random people on campus (near Tommy Trojan!). Basically it's supposed to be from July 4, 2009, and it has a bunch of great headlines for events that haven't happened yet ... but it might be really great if they did! At the bottom are stories about how Bush is being prosecuted for war crimes, and about how the oil industry is funding climate change initiatives. Other headlines read, National Health Insurance Act Passes, All Public Universities To Be Free, New York Bike Path System Expanded Dramatically, and my personal favorite, American Evangelical Churches Announce New Policy of Sanctuary for Iraqi Refugees.

It also has fake ads inside, like one from DeBeers, that says "You know it ... we know it. Your purchase of a diamond between now and 2026 will help fund the creation, fitting, and maintenance of a prosthetic for an African whose hand was lost in one of that continent's brutal conflicts over diamonds." An ExxonMobil ad says "Peace. An idea the world can profit from."

I don't know what group did this but ... wow. It feels so real. Seeing this on a newspaper, even one from July 4 in the future is jarring. It may be better than getting the real thing from the day after the election. Wouldn't it be great if we could actually get some of this stuff done?

I'm going to go read some more fake stories now.

FAKE NY Times: "All the News We Hope to Print"

***Update*** The Huffington Post has a story about the folks behind this massive prank. Good stuff, if I ever meet one of these dudes I'll give them a high five ...

Party's over ... Is it time to panic now?

2008-11-10T10:33:00.000-08:00

Obviously I am still excited about Obama being elected last week. However I decided it might be time to think about my own life and future plans again, which, for me, inevitably leads to blogging:

About my transportation options
About the (abysmal) job market in my profession

Oh and if that wasn't enough, I started another blog. Crazy, right? But this one will be affiliated with the web site that I am working on for my thesis and, as such, I will be intentionally cagey about it until it is ready to go. So you can't see it yet! But you can see a picture of my roommate's new kitten, who is ADORABLE. Cheers.

November 4, 2008: History

2008-11-05T08:20:00.000-08:00

Wow! Remember yesterday ... it's a day that will go down in history as the day that America stood up and rejected the politics of division, of cynicism, and of fear. With our new leader, President-Elect Obama at the helm, let's see if we can't all band together and work harder to make this country energy independent ... let's see if we can make health care a right for every American, not just a privilege ... let's create more jobs, reconcile with our allies, and promote peace around the world. Yes, we can and ... yes we did!

Here are some screen shots from major news outlets last night, after it was announced. Absolutely amazing. Happy history day, everyone!

NY Times

MSNBC

CNN

LA Times

Update: Here is a web site displaying most of the newspaper front pages from around the world for Wednesday, November 5. Awesome!

Please vote today.

2008-11-04T09:05:00.000-08:00

So I don't have to go into therapy. Thank you.

RIP Hootie, 1994-2008

2008-11-03T20:02:00.000-08:00

I turned 30 at the beginning of October and I can't say that this age has treated me very well so far. Three years ago on my birthday I brought home a feline fluffball named Hootie; she came to me from an acquaintance who was moving to Ireland and couldn't take the cat with her. I knew next to nothing about Hootie except for her name, her presumed age (11?), and the fact that she came with two litter boxes (but no Blowfish, thankfully). I brought her back to my apartment in Over-The-Rhine in Downtown Cincinnati where she promptly hid in one of the many nooks and crannies of this loft space and did not emerge for a week. This was OK because the morning after I got her I had to go on a business trip for four days, which later became the "how I got a vacuum cleaner in Boise, Idaho" story.

Hootie was a great cat. She was low maintenance, aside from that two litter box thing, and aside from the fact that she peed in places that she shouldn't when she didn't feel well (like the roommate's suede couch!). She was also loyal and would often follow me from room to room and just sit there because I was there. She hated to be held or to sit on my lap, but she made up for this obvious cat deficiency by BEING INCREDIBLY CUTE and very photogenic.

Kitty yoga

The annual ritual of getting Hootie shaved for the summer months proved to be comedic relief for nearly everyone involved. One hour of discomfort for her yielded days and days of laughter and photos for the rest of us. It was called a "lion cut" because she looked like a tiny lion when she was done. A tiny, very peeved lion. With boots!

Before

After

This year, right before my birthday, Hootie started peeing in all the wrong places. I took her to the vet and we got her some anti-biotics for a urinary tract infection. I also found out that she had kidney disease, and that this struck persian cats at a high rate. She had also lost almost half her body weight, which scared me. Things started getting a little hairy after that. She wasn't eating regularly, and she wasn't going to the bathroom regularly. She wouldn't eat the prescription food, then she wouldn't eat her regular food, then she wouldn't even eat her favorite food - peanut butter - in the tiniest amount. We tried to give her fluids, we could tell she was dehydrated, but she just deteriorated quickly from there. She stopped drinking water and she started wailing constantly. It was heartbreaking. So I had to make the excruciating decision put her down.

Hootie stretching out during a nap

I don't know why this cat affected me so much. Maybe it's because she kept me company in my last three apartments and made the gigantic move to the West Coast with me, a long ride that she handled like a champ, even when we dragged her to the Grand Canyon. Maybe it's because she was so fun to take pictures of ...so fun, in fact, that she is now internet famous because I've plastered her picture all over the place. Or maybe it's because she was just a great pet.

Hootie at the Grand Canyon!

In any case, she's gone now and I'm a wreck. She may have been just a cat, but she's been there with me for the last three years, through thick and thin. And today I'm really sad.

This blog is an outlet for me and a way to communicate with many people that I don't see very often; most of the time, I'm thinking about issues that relate to my studies or those that I just find important. Today, I'm just really missing my cat and putting up pictures of her here made me smile. Rest in peace, my little kitty.

Country vs. City

2008-10-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

I'm just returning from an unexpected trip to a rural area of the East Coast - aka "Real America" - near the state line of Maryland and West Virginia, and I wanted to share some observations that I made while I was there.

First off, I am impressed with and amazed by the connection to the land that the people who live there forge. Really you don't have a choice ... if you grow up there, or if you make the choice at some point in your life to move away from civilization, you are confronted with the trees, animals and earth nearly every time you step out of the house. It is breathtaking. And you have to improvise as well. Every time we wanted to go somewhere, we had to cross a one-lane wooden bridge over a large creek that many people I know would simply balk at. But there it was, and it even had a toll booth.

That said, I feel a little wiser for the experience. What troubles me about these rural inhabitants is that no one is truly disconnected from the grid, and drawing resources so far out in the middle of nowhere, I feel like many of these dwellings are doing a disservice to the landscape. I wish I had seen a house that was really integrated with the land, that used solar power or wind for energy, that collected and filtered its own water, and that had its own thriving vegetable garden for food. Unfortunately I did not see such a house, and few of the homes I did see were actually attached to farms. I don't think I could ever live so far away from civilization without making my home completely self-sufficient. We have infrastructure for a reason and until we can figure out how to make these types of self-sustaining homes, the fringe-dwellers are only stretching our already-thin resources.

I come back to my idea of living in the city then (as if I had ever left). And I love cities, many of them, for reasons such as those presented by this article in the NY Times, which discusses an "an election contingency clause" presented by the owners of two condo developments in Manhattan which allows buyers to back out of contracts signed between now and Election Day if Barack Obama fails to win the presidency. No, I'm not kidding. Does anyone else think this is brilliant? I mean, fair play to their marketing department for getting themselves free press in the New York Times, not to mention facing reality.

So upon my return from the "Real America", where I did see many McCain-Palin signs, but also many Obama-Biden signs, I thought I would give a shout out to all of my people in "Fake America" who know that life will get better for ALL Americans if Obama is elected. Seven days before the most anxiety producing election I have ever known, my fingers are crossed.

The Awesome Obama HQ in "Real America", aka Cumberland, MD

Sea change

2008-10-21T11:16:00.000-07:00

sea change –noun

a striking change, as in appearance, often for the better.
any major transformation or alteration.
a transformation brought about by the sea.

I like that last definition. I think we can change it to read "a transformation brought about by the sea of people".....

I wish I could vote today. This Presidential election has gone on entirely too long, and caused me entirely too much anxiety. Especially when I'm in the middle of trying to complete a Master's thesis. For someone as interested in politics as I am, the excitement of this campaign has been a heady distraction from my thesis work.

But it has also awakened the country from its complacency and exhaustion after 8 years of enduring an incompetent Commander in Chief. And it's caused me to put some things in perspective:

For a long time, I've been having a lot of angst about the generational gap in the U.S. I look at Bush, Cheney, and that whole band of loonies and think, "my goodness, their generation ruined everything...and what it didn't ruin the first time, it's trying to ruin now." And I've been thinking that my generation has been trying to make things right again all by ourselves. But that discounts my own parents, who are good, hardworking, sensible people; and, although they have never aspired to the presidency, I think that they could have run this country a hell of a lot better than the current administration. They, like many other sensible parents, are looking forward to sea change in this country.
This campaign has also caused several of my friends who previously had no interest in voting or even talking about politics to both register to vote and to talk about politics. Imagine my surprise when I'm having political conversations with those close friends who have never breached the subject with me before! They, too, are looking forward to sea change in this country.
What disturbs me most about these final weeks of the campaign is the ugliness and latent hatred that is starting to come out on the other side. It's also made me realize how glad I am that I know so many good people who reject this type of hatred. The "win at any cost" approach is pretty much the opposite of what this country needs right now as it faces down economic turmoil like we have never seen in my lifetime. And because of this economic challenge, the country desperately needs a sea change.

All of this leads me to reiterate that which Jon Stewart mocked so freely in last night's Daily Show: the idea that somehow, some parts of this country are "anti-America" because they do not support the McCain-Palin ticket. Governor Palin's comments last week, coupled with the lunacy of Minnesota congresswoman Michelle Bachmann declaring that members of Congress should be investigated as to whether they are pro- or anti-American, and McCain's top advisor Nancy Pft-whatever-her-name-is saying that southern parts of Virginia are "real Virginia," are completely and utterly disturbing. Not only are they divisive, the last flailing desperate remarks of a campaign that has watched all of its other cynical campaign tactics fail, they are dangerous. They suggest an America divided and hearken back to the passion that I imagine was felt on both sides of the country during the Civil War. Those of us who support Barack Obama and Joe Biden do so out of a hope that this country can be repaired, re-energized, and rebuilt, and comments like this threaten not only our hope, but they threaten us personally. If I'm anti-American because I've sacrificed a few dinners out so that I could give some of my meager graduate student's budget to support the best hope of my generation to make this country better a better place, then so be it. But the truth is, I'm not anti-American. My thesis, my life's work for the next year is dedicated to teaching people - in America - about how to save energy in their homes. And no, I'm not dividing the information between people in some parts of the country and people in other, "more real" parts of the country.

The truth is that the McCain-Palin campaign is spiraling into a pattern of fear-mongering, latent racism, and divisiveness that we, as a country, need to put behind us, once and for all. The U.S. is not only ready for a sea change, it is hungry for it. One needs only to see the staggering $150 million that was donated to the Obama campaign - during the month of September alone - to understand that.

So these are just things that I've been thinking lately and I needed to get them off my chest. I will leave you with a video of General Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama which I found to be eloquent and inspiring. That is not stopping the lunatics on the other side from using racist remarks to smear the General (a 4-star general, for god's sakes), but it's worth watching, nonetheless.

If even a decorated war hero, formerly of two conservative administrations, is ready for a sea change, I think it's time.

Update, 3 November 2008: Even MSNBC agrees with me ... sort of.

Taking off the rose-colored glasses

2008-10-16T12:48:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles is such a strange and funny place. A year ago, my internet buddy Geoff wrote an ode to Los Angeles that I love, but that I have come to disagree with to a certain extent. To be completely honest, I don't think I would have moved here on my own, on purpose, had it not been for graduate school, and the school that I ended up in was not my first choice originally ... until I visited and discovered USC was pretty great.

And so I did move here, over a year ago now, and it was such an exciting journey. I got to see so much of the country that I had not seen before, with a good friend and my cat in tow. It was tough but really wonderful, and the rewards have included not only going back to school and finding so many new opportunities, but also realizing that I have another great friend - in addition to some existing really awesome ones - that I can rely on.

This is where the "but" comes in. BUT ... now that I've been here a year, I feel like I have some perspective. There is something to be said for first impressions, and while they are not always appropriate, my first impression of LA, on my first trip here in 1999, was that it was a massive, dangerous, and generally unpleasant. And of course the city has changed so much since then, with new development, improvements in public transportation, and real inroads into making the city a more sustainable place. But, the longer I live here, the more I start to see evidence of that first impression creeping back.

The thing that I find most amazing, in my own experience, is the similarities between LA and the city that I left behind, Cincinnati. On paper you might not find a clear comparison. But on paper, you might not find a person that has lived years in transitional Downtown areas of both of these cities, as I have. Cincinnati, like LA, had race riots, and both cities struggled to heal from those tumultuous times. Cincy and LA have both recently seen efforts to resurrect the residential districts of their Downtowns that suffered greatly after "white flight" to the suburbs decades ago. Both cities have intense vehicular traffic and public transportation systems that should be functioning much better than they currently do because of their reliance on the automobile. And both cities are trying to remedy that, each with its own version of resistance.

The part where it gets amazing is when you look at the scale of these cities. Cincinnati is a city of around 350,000 with a metropolitan area of 2 million. Los Angeles is a city of 4 million with a metropolitan area of 15 million. So the problems that I saw in Cincinnati are multiplied, theoretically, by a factor of roughly 7 in Los Angeles. And the thing that troubles me the most in this scenario is in the issue of evolving race relations. Cincinnati still has lingering issues with race relations, more than 7 years after its race riots. The primary source of conflict, in my opinion, was the distrust of the urbanized and typically less-well-off African-American population by the middle-class, suburban white population. There were good people and many misunderstandings on both sides of this debate in Cincinnati when I lived there. Most of what I saw had to do with perception and misconceptions.

I wish I could have brought some of the trees from my old street in Cincinnati with me to LA. It's too dry here for them, I think.

Fast forward to Los Angeles, and my life a few blocks away from Skid Row. The thing that troubles me here is that there is not just one cultural group that may experience conflict with one other group ... it's that there are so many cultures, and when you increase the number of cultures, you increase the potential for conflicts. The way NOT to handle this, I would say, is by insulating yourself from other people who are your neighbors, as the Latino community did last weekend in Downtown LA. Regarding this event, Blogdowntown wrote "And if I am allowed to dream on a long weekend; in a city that boasts cultural diversity, why isn’t there a parade that gives everyone a chance to be represented on one day, on one street? Parades are segregated. There is no Cultural Diversity March that has, say, two entries from the best of L.A.’s ethnic and holiday parades." I don't know why this particular situation struck such a chord with me, but it led me to write this post, and I think it's indicative of the state of cultural relations in this city. And this is where I start to really have problems. Because even Cincinnati - little, sometimes backwards Cincinnati - knew how to throw a parade, and a festival, and a block party that included everyone.

Over-the-Rhine, just north of Downtown Cincinnati, threw darn good block parties.

So I know this is really super long and kudos if you are still reading, but this has got me thinking a lot lately. I could be wrong but it doesn't seem like other major cities in the U.S. experience these issues, or if they do, they deal with them a lot better. It just seems to me that if Los Angeles wants to survive and not render itself functionally obsolete, it needs to encourage its citizens to live with each other, not just next to each other; to work together, not apart. And in return, these citizens need to learn to take care of their community, and eventually give back. Since LA's problems are multiplied by a factor of 7, it's got a lot more at stake. Geoff Manaugh writes in his ode, "... the huge irony is that Southern California is where you can actually do what you want to do; you can just relax and be ridiculous." But how much longer can LA continue on its current path before even relaxing becomes ridiculous? I may just be asking the question now, but LA needed the answer yesterday.

Back from hiatus

2008-10-12T11:12:00.001-07:00

In my last post I talked about things that keep me up at night. It turns out that wasn't even the tip of the iceberg. Today I'm going to talk about things that keep me away from blogging, or, "where I've been the last two weeks."

So, I had this birthday. It was a milestone as far as birthdays go - 30. I've been waiting for it for a few months, most of my friends are older than me so I was prepared. They tell me that I am now allowed to do whatever I want and my excuse will simply be "because I'm 30." I am fine with this.

I am able to forgive those of my best friends who forgot my birthday because they were probably too busy watching the stock market tumble off a cliff. A year ago on my birthday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit an all-time high - over 14,100. Two days ago it was below 8600. That's a loss of 40% of its value. I believe that they said this translated to a cash loss of trillions of dollars.

And as far as the market goes, I'm sure we all took a hit somehow. The same day it closed below 8600 I received a piece of paper from the financial firm that manages my 401k. Thinking it was my new statement, I opened it, and expected to see losses. What I didn't expect was a bunch of negative numbers and a zero balance. Turns out that my account was transferred to a different company (they forgot to tell me about this) and this terrifying piece of paper was simply a reflection of the money being transferred. My 401k is still there! Smaller, but still there. Thank goodness.

Meanwhile at home, my cat has been sick. Sorry, this is probably a totally bizarre thing to discuss in the midst of a financial crisis, but coming home every day to the question of "did she or didn't she pee on my bed" will have an effect on how you live your life. It wouldn't have been so bad but she lost a lot of weight and that was a little scary. In fact, like the stock market, my cat lost 40% of her value. She went from 10 pounds to 6! I think she is now on the road to recovery. Jury is still out on the "pee" question though.

So the cat has me worried, the state of our economy and our future in the world as a result has me worried, and oh by the way, a generation-defining election is in its last rounds right now. Has anyone been watching the debates? Of course you have. My mind was made up so long ago that they have done nothing for me but I am amazed to see that people are still deciding and that these debates have an effect. I am also glad to see that many people are starting to come around to what I said when she first appeared on our TVs six weeks ago....

Last but not least, I participated in an exhibition on Friday with an idea that I have been working on that is tangential to my thesis work. I blogged about this on Archinect so I won't repeat myself but I will point you to that post. It was a beautiful day and I got a lot of great feedback, and who knows, I may be turning it into something sometime soon.

ANYWAY ... I'm still here in Southern California, just trying to get through the year. Drop me a line when you get a chance. Cheers.

Things that keep me up at night.

2008-09-29T08:06:00.000-07:00

The following issues don't REALLY keep me up at night...but they are good motivators.

So, in case you missed it, our greenhouse gas emissions are actually accelerating. This is surprising - and ultimately quite scary - because a lot of people thought that the economic downturn would result in less energy consumption. Nope! We are barreling toward the point of no return even faster now! And more than half of carbon emissions are now from developing countries ... which will be even harder to slow down.

If you want to see proof of climate change, watch this time-lapsed video of Alaska's northern coast eroding. Also, we already passed Earth Overshoot Day...I would try to explain it myself, but just visit the link.

So the world is facing a big crisis. In the meantime, one of our presidential candidates nominated a VP so grossly underqualified, and so wildly embarrassing that I can't stand to watch this interview myself...it's like watching a Ben Stiller movie. It makes me cringe. It reminds me of the time Bush tried to dance with that tribe in Africa. Jeez.

Oh and there's that whole "the sky is falling credit crisis" thing. We're damned if we do pass the $700 billion bailout package, and we are ROYALLY SCREWED if we don't. So I guess we'll pass it then, huh?

All I can say is, I hope the rest of the country comes to the same conclusion as this small paper, who is endorsing the Democratic candidate for president for the first time in 72 years. Because if things go the other way November 4th, I forsee many sleepless nights ahead.

Ranking the 50 most sustainable cities in the U.S.

2008-09-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

This has been getting a lot of play in my online circles recently so I thought I would share it with anyone paying attention here.

A group called Sustainlane, the "people powered sustainability guide" has recently ranked the 50 most sustainable cities in the US.

....And the winner is.....

ding ding ding, Portland, Oregon. Big surprise! I like this quote: "If you live in Portland, you might want to think twice before complaining about the 40-plus inches of rain dumped on your head every year. It might be the only thing keeping the entire country from moving to your city by the Prius-load."

The cities were ranked by a number of factors that contribute to urban sustainability including air quality, innovation, commuting, local food and agriculture and more. It's disappointing but I guess not surprising to me that my old neighborhood (Cincinnati) doesn't even show up on the list, and my new 'hood (Los Angeles) is ranked 28th. It's nice to see that all my friends are living in sustainable places though (Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, New York). It's tough trying to lead a sustainable life in a less-sustainable place. But I think I deserve an A for effort!