I am starting a new thread that is about other threads. You can talk about other discussions taking a place in Archinect and make cross references to a particular link, picture, response and whatever else you deem necessary or entertaining or thought provoking about the other thread. thus the name: Thread Central

here are some examples of comments that comes to mind:
* hey did you read on --------- thread ------- thinks frank gehry is good. hahahaharhar..
or,
*i can't believe he said that. how stupid of him. asshole.on top of it he is got hundreds of posts. gimme a break.
or,
* this is the best thread.. fuck the others..
or,
*****Thread Alert******
read the -----thread yet??? there is a dog fight going on between ----- and-----.it is about gondolas and pollution in Venice..see you there.
or,
* yeaah, i don't read that thread either. its kind a boring.
or,
*i am thinking about starting a discussion about ------------- ---- ---- will you guys in Thread Central post in it and say wow it a great thread?. it was about time 'somebody' (insert my name please) picked up on it.. and discuss it?

like whatever..

Damn that quiz, holz! I got a 92% (missed the first one) and challenged my husband to do better. Which of course he did: 100%. I'll never, ever hear the end of it.

As for the lost motivation: I'm feeling it bad, bad, bad lately. I don't know what the say except keep working. I feel good when I accomplish things; even if I'm not terribly proud of the things themselves, it just feels good to mark them off my list.

ha. yeah, i've got a fetish for judd (almost literally) and unfortunately it's not just limited to his furniture.

thanks for the advice. i guess part of it is just an ovewhelming sense of not fitting in where i work, not having types of projects i felt i was hired to work on, not being able to progress on the 'green' front beyond what i'm teaching myself...

counseling helped for a while, ms. holz is unbelievably supportive as are my friends.

but damn, i seriously don't know what it will take to get me out of this f*ckin funk.

whoops, that's mrs. holz.

Argh, that's what is so annoying, I love Judd and have seen at least some of those pieces in real life. I missed that first shelving unit, so embarrassing.

It's probably not a good time to be looking for a new job, is it? (I've been dreaming of the Arch for Humanity South Africa job for awhile. Not that I could do it, but i can dream!) Can you talk to your boss(es) about doing some research into green practices during some office slow time?

ha. yeah it is. i only knew he shelving unit from the desk he did further down. but it's scary how similar some of the poorly built wal mart furniture is.

now is probably not a good time to be looking/moving on. and i'm not sure anyone would really hire me w/ how badly my skills have regressed. i used to be decent at detailing (thanks to ze germans), but it's been over a year since i've done any detailing whatsoever (literally)

i did the arch for humanity/arch without borders thing, and that helped for a bit.

regarding talking to the bosses - maybe. i've talked to them about my struggles a few times, and it's great for a week and then nosedives back down. when times were better and we were bringing in green, ground up work - there were some promising conversations. but scheduling, etc and those all went elsewhere. now it's just bad work, interior remodels and yeah... combine that with being the only person in the office to lose multiple (promising) projects to the economy - it's been a tough year.

i've been doing the research into green practices on my own for a while, but with no way of incorporating into projects i'm working on - the learning can only go so far. my only outlet has really been competitions - and that's kinda run its course as well.

good times! yo yo-ing sure ain't fun.

anyway, thanks for le advice.

Argh, got the drawings done and trying to upload them to the printer but keep getting an error message that says "You may be having technical difficulties. Try again later." What?! I'M not having technical difficulties, YOU are!!

Whatever, I'll send them tomorrow morning. It's just nice to go to bed secure that the files have been sent off. Goodnight all.

Funny about the Donald Judd quiz. I got 67% but I don't feel so bad on the ones I missed. The really funny part is that I never made the connection between with his sculptures and furniture. I remembered being completely engaged with hi work on loan at the Raphel Vinoly designed Cleveland Museum of Art. The work had a curiously repetitive humility to them on a wall just a 100 feet from century old Picasso's and there they sat not trying to be smart, but just being. I like when art, or design for that matter talks to you that way.

Holz hang in there. I think that funk is a necessary transition towards "master architect." I figure they had to get there someway

Weird, there seems to be rampant lost motivation lately -- not just around here but amongst many of my archi-friends in real life as well. Just had some long talks trying to cheer up one of my best friends who's also suffering. As for me, I am feeling more motivated than I have in YEARS -- I am psyched about life, about what my career might have in store for me, etc. I think this has a LOT to do with being unemployed, and I feel really badly for my friends who are trapped in ill-fitting firms but can't leave because you can't quit at this kind of time unless you are lucky and get laid off and can receive unemployment. I know that sounds horrible but that's how I feel -- I feel lucky to be laid off. I have been able to be much more active in the local architecture scene (taking advantage of all those free lectures / exhibits / talks / tours that you always MEAN to go to while employed but then, well, there's always that one last deadline you have to meet... and you'll just skip it tonight and promise yourself that you really ARE going to the next lecture next time...) anyway I'm finally DOING all that. And going to the museums and sketching again and everything. Frankly it's a joy just to be able to keep my house clean and cook home cooked meals every night. And being an outsider for once is really giving me a vantage point onto how fucked up this profession can be. (CAN be, not always is, for those of you who are about to jump on me.)

i feel ya holz.

just heard a story about another famous architect who made his career on his connections and his wifes connections and the money he was born with, and added him to the list of people i respect who got to the clients that let him do the stuff I totally want to do not because he was just that good, but because he was just that connected...i can learn to be that good, but hell if i can work out how to be born rich. that kinda bumbs me out.

but i figger, hell, i coulda gone to jail when i was a yoot, and then ya know i wouldn't be wondering about any of this shit...so i might as well just pretend my office is going somewhere...and then maybe it will.

and that is how i get up in the morning and get ready to take on the world. naive and silly, but why not.

i gotta 100%, but that is expected when you can push boundaries.

manta, i agree with you, unemployment gives me the opportunity to do the things i like, reading, thinking, working on business plan, and moving on some ideas. the biggest thing it does for me though is making me consider the value of going back to a large firm. the other thing it's helping with is giving me confidence again to trust my instincts...

my new favorite character.

Holz .
Loosing motivation due to the general funk of uninspiring or satisfying work is a mega-drag. I have been there off an on for the last couple of years. Mostly because i ended up in IT after graduate school and I had plans for Peace Corps, community development work and teaching.

The upside is I have been making enough money to be real close ( less than 4 grand) from being debt free.

I have been able to console myself these last few years with the thought that i will be moving on to the things i want to do when i am not worrying about paying off creditors.

Lets hope that comes true otherwise i might be be in serious need of some counseling. I find talking with friends and family helps me to get some perspective. that and the unemployment numbers :0


Morning everyone else..

I agree, manta, that everyone seems to be in a funk. I'm so, so glad to hear you are taking advantage of it! I'm envious of going to all those talks and exhibits and whatnot.

nam, yay for getting debt-free! I'm working on it too.

just for the record, i'm not in a funk. i'm still awesome. probably always will be too. my advice is to watch more football...a professional enterprise who's manipulation of both tradition & innovation is something that architect's might be able to learn something from.

praise to the forward pass. praise to air conditioning.
all hail brett favre, peter zumthor, mike leach & rem koolhaas

Sports talk grates on me exactly like religious talk grates on some people.

lb, i will always be in your debt!

speaking of sports talk, there was an incredible movie just put out about a guy who's a parking attendant and lives with his mother, but is a sports talk radio legend. awesome movie...big fan

sports talk usually grates on me too even though i love watching sports. is it saturday yet?

has anyone else noticed this bartlett thesis project? I absolutely love the model - the process is interesting (a little out there - but I understand where he was going), however, the drawings and the model are just really beautiful pieces of craft and art.

I'm a sucker for models that veer towards collage... it makes the models seem more alive, IMO...

for me the funk comes and goes on an almost daily basis - it's like a hour by hour roller coaster of hopefulness, wretchedness, pissed-off-ness, excitement, panic, boredom... maybe i need to lay myself off.

toaster, i love that project. it's difficult for me to conceive that someone with that level of craft and creativity. he's insanely genius, someone to admire and be jealous of at the same time.

yeah, toaster, i love it too. i was going to post it somewhere but ... well, forgot, honestly. thanks.

some inspiration from thom freidman today:

[L]awyers who were used to just showing up and having work handed to them were the first to go because with the bursting of the credit bubble, that flow of work just isn’t there. But those who have the ability to imagine new services, new opportunities and new ways to recruit work were being retained. They are the new untouchables…

As the Harvard University labor expert Lawrence Katz explains it: “If you think about the labor market today, the top half of the college market, those with the high-end analytical and problem-solving skills who can compete on the world market or game the financial system or deal with new government regulations, have done great...”

Got two lecture to give and a review to sit on - gonna be a busy busy day. okay, back to imagining new opportunities for my students!

agreed the models for the project are sick.

Almost seems like they should be part of some sort of D&D type game..

But tk, Friedman then goes on to tell people not to use architects! But yeah, I like the thrust of the article very much.

jafidler, I saw a preview for Big Fan a few weeks ago and it's like a car crash - I can't look away, the movie looks so awesome and so totally painful to watch. The main actor (forgot his name) looks ah-mazing in it. I'm terrified to see it but think I may have to.

Steven, that roller coaster makes me think I'm manic or bipolar and should seek some medication. But the fact that you feel it too makes me feel better! I'm about to go get in my convertible and drive under golden leaves and a blue sky to a meeting that will make me feel powerless and under-appreciated. Then the same joyful drive back home...thus is life, I guess - enjoy the good with the bad and all.

lb, big fan was directed by the same guy who wrote the wrestler. it has a very similar mood and ambiance about it, kinda like buffalo 66. the lead in it is good, but michael rapaport is absolutely hysterical as his sports talk radio nemesis. probably not to everyone's taste, but still worth seeing.

Lb, opps, I missed that.

Off to the first of my two lectures:
Measuring Ecological Urbanism  Parameters, Limits, & Potential l

then the usually scheduled feature for my class, today the episode is:
wind and solar infrastructure

tk, will there be a web video feed or later posting of your lecture?

Ooh, tk, I think you should do a live webfeed so we all can wath your lectures. Would that be too much?

Abram is playing with the wine bote opener. You know, the lever style... I wonder if I should take it away.

what friedman says is exactly what we are trying to do. it is the only way we are going to survive. it is not easy, because we have to learn an entire new profession as we go along. interesting experience though, and to be honest, i think there are few architects out there with the knowledge we been picking up over the years. still doesn't make things easier/safer/saner. or not yet anyway.

i am perfectly content if a contractor designs and builds a kitchen (or whatever). it will probably look like it was designed by a contractor too.

contractor-designed projects are great advertising for architects.

what i like more from that quote is that he thinks architects job is about communication. absolutely true.


the bartlett project is charming.

hey gang. I gave a tutorial today to a bunch of wide eyed first years. It was one of those that I picked from the guy resigning, who really isn't resigning - yea go figure, I'm confused too. Anyway we spent an hour and a half drawing and labelling different parts of Greek and Roman temples. No brainer stuff, but I really enjoy the abstract way you can record things and still communicate it to fresh architecture students.

And the word for the day is CARTOUCHE - a carved medallion, usually with the insignia of the family placed in series on the entablature

LB - Trust me... you do NOT have Bipolar Disorder.

I'm still kickin'

jump, I agree on the architect's job being about communication. When I started getting into information design, after a bit I started thinking that it was nothing new, really, because most of my job before that was not actually to design buildings, but to make drawings that communicated to a very specific audience how to make the building that already existed in my head.

yes, that too rationalist. i can believe that 100%.

i was thinking more about verbal communication. we spend very large part of our day talking to people - clients, brokers, contractors, engineers, city permit-giving people, future clients, and just people we think it is cool to talk with in a day. the drawing part of work is not such a large part of our job. very small actually. which why it is so strange that it is so important if we are going to make all that talking worthwhile...

I remember the day in my final year of undergrad when I was ruminating with a friend on the essence of architecture, and it occured to us that architecture is communication. For me personally that means the building itself; not just the act of creating it, but the form even. All of it. In the years since I haven't changed that view.

funny.

i try to go through my day communicating as little as possible.

at least, with product reps, clients, owner reps, contractors and permitting officials...

funny thing is, i told my shrink that i am tired of explaining my ideas to people, i want the work to speak for itself. i want the viewer to find, struggle and mis-underestimate the image/drawing/text for themselves.

Architecture is Definatly communication. A building is just a building unless it says something.

Ok. Wasn't somebody here expecting? I can't remember whom. Did she have it? Did I miss something?

Got my mothers guestroom finished. Still working on her office. Maybe I'll post a picture later. It's not cool and clean, but she likes it.

Adrian Forty wrote a brilliant book about communication in architecture called Words and Buildings...

Morning all,

SH, wasn't strawbeary expecting? I think....

Also, i found ten dollars in my shirt pocket this morning!!!

Oh I LOVE that 'found money' feeling. You feel lucky like you just won somehing, though you know it was yours all along.

Looks like an interesting book.

Design is rapidly spreading from "posters and toasters" to processes, systems and organizaiotns.

my lil dawgie, Twinkle, is a chihuahua. You can tell my mawm but she already knows.

Skippy, that's hot!. I bet you look totally awesome in that kilt. Tell me, do you wear anything underneath?.lol.

Nam & SH et al, my lecture slides & notes are available if you email me. They will be featured content on my website, if I ever get infrascapedesign.com up and running. Web casting would be fun, but the classrooms aren't wired for this (yet).


LB- had a weird dream last night where you were a juror for a studio review for me and you insisted on getting spaghetti with cheese whiz (must be a philly thing) and parmesan from a can before you'd review the student's work. All this was up in some skyscraper and I had to keep riding the elevator up and down to the kitchen...

verbal communication is important, but the stuff with the pretty packaging is the stuff that gets noticed (even if the ideas behind them are really stupid). That's why we place such a high value on drawing.

anyone else enjoying aaarg as much as i am?

Beta, I couldn't get the site to open, but could be an iphonething.

Music class has been cancelled for today. Shame. Time to make a blanket tent!

portfolio tutorials on youtube??? it's a miracle that any of us made into & through school before the internet. an absolute miracle.

and my post above was a cut & paste accident. i don't have a "dawg" and i doubt that skippy "looks hot" in a kilt. i was just trying to use an example of valley girl talk for something else, complete different?

had another class (the same as yesterday), then it rained. I love this time of year. It is so simple, the place smells fresh. Makes you want to curl up and ooooh.

SH I couldn't get that arggg site open either. And I'm not iphoning it.

thats true toasteroven. until you have to not only make the buildings but find the people who want you to make them too.

then most of your day is about communication of an entirely different nature. very strange reality to digest. i believe the pictures are important and the spaces are really important but the most important of all is the talking with the strangers and the people who you want to meet. its like being a politician. in our case its also being a property manager a real estate agent and all other kinds of silliness that really are predicated on communication with others on 5 minute intervals. then we put it all together and sit on it with a pile of drawings and see what happens....

the starchitects i have met have all been charming so far. i think that is part of the typology for success in that field...



adrian forty is very interesting read. we are using some excerpts from that book for course i am teaching on modern architecture. we didn't read his stuff in archi-school but wish i did. goes perfect with kenneth frampton and william curtis...

not to sound daft or anything but did I completely miss this article that everyone is referring to? I feel like the little island boy in the corner that no will talk to because he smells like butter. Sigh

speaking of architecting-as-communication - and as a completely different thing from designing buildings, i spent hours with a client group today in a meeting to build strategies for how to accomplish a project.

the full project budget is available, all of it earmarked for this project. but it comes through multiple funding sources, each with multiple strings attached. getting the thing built will require parcelling out the project so that some monies can go for some things (meeting the conditions for that money) while other monies can be applied to other pieces - all with their own reviews and schedules for releasing the money.

"designing" phasing/delivery strategies based on complicated funding packages: not something you learn in school.

aaaarg

this one?

I hear you, SW. There was a point when I had the requirements for low-income housing assistance memorized because I was in charge of making a project funding-source-compliant. And my main reaction was... WTF. The majority of the stuff doesn't make the housing any better for the occupants, some of it actually conflicted with local building codes, and it was generally diverting my attention from the ultimate users' needs.

I was actually thinking about this today, that I very rarely got to think about what would be best for the users when I was in architecture. It was all about what would the city like, were various funding sources requiring, what would my boss like? Thinking back, I may have stayed in architecture a lot longer if I was able to carve out more time thinking about the end user, instead of all these middlemen. Bleh.

any read the Fast Company article about architects and our apparent [url=http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/michael-cannell/cannell/does-architecture-have-foot-fetish]foot festish?[url] *m no laughing at me

I'll just laugh at myself for misposting the url foot festish?

sounds fun steven. we had to do similar for large projects from govt that were intended to be economic stimulus deal in the 90's.

in some cases was a bit like what rationalist describes. i didn't mind except for one project intended to be environmental pilot project, which was in the end mostly for show. bureaucracies can be self-defeating some times....

Yeah for bureaucracies!!!

Also, here is too Friday.

i suggest everyone read:

the designful company by marty neumeier
six thinking hats by edward de bono
a whole new mind by daniel pink
and anything by anyone affiliated with IDEO.

Jump, is it true that Smitherines are people fro
smithers in Canada? Just heard it on Wondrous Words. Since you're the only Canadian I know, you get to field my questions.

Morning. Gonna be a ling day here. Abe woke up at 545. Ugh. It's supposed to be in the 50s and I can't find the sweater I want to wear.

Found it!

5:45 is early......

i often wake at 5:00 to go running. it may be early but it's also gorgeous.

Puddles, I talking AM not PM.

did someone say Smithereens?

"this video is not available in your country due to copyright restrictions", says big uncle on my youtube connection.


no smithereens for me.

i have no idea sarah. i always thought that was where things got blown to when there was a large explosion.


up early here too, but for me is chance to get work done while everyone sleeps. my prediction is the quiet will last for about 45 seconds more...but i LOVE mornings. the best time of day is 4:30 in the morning. fresh air and quiet. running at that time of day sounds awesome puddles. especially since you live in gorgeous part of world anyway, don't you?

Great song, great group Emilio.

Atechno - I'm not laughing AT you per say, just laughing NEXT to you. Ahhh shoes. I have a love hate relationship with them. There are so many awesome ones out there but my stubby fat feet can't fit into many. I try to go up one size and they're too long :o/

Anyway, tonight I'm going to go see the Capitol Steps. Can't wait.

i was talking about am...5:00pm is 17:00 on my watch

it is gorgeous here in the tropics, but not so much for running. the heat, the hills, narrow roads & lack of sidewalks & frequent rum-induced hangovers make serious training difficult...even though i still try.

i preferred it when i was living up north in michigan. pre-dawn runs are often surreal during wintertime...first tracks in the snow, nobody around and the air can feel so cold & still that you almost believe that the only thing keeping the entire world alive is you own beating heart. summertime is great too as the cool air provides relief before the sun scorches the earth. fog can be a great feature too.

part of the problem with the tropics is that not only do we lack the seasonal variations but, because we are close to the equator, days & nights are about the same length all year. dawn & dusk also happen really quickly. the sun comes in & out, hard & fast. we never get those long, lingering transitions between night & day that are characteristic of the sun's soft landings in the north. the gradual transitions & long shadows are definitely something that i miss and are difficult to appreciate while you have them. christian norberg schulz, by the way, writes very nicely about such things in his book of scandinavian architecture called 'nordic nightlands'.

sounds perfect puddles. even if it is hot.

strange question, but can you see the stars at night? we can see venus here but that is about it.

watch out for botflies, puddles!

I'm back two days early form my long weekend. The plan was to drive to Milwaukee, take the ferry across the lake to Michigan then drive up to Traverse City. but the ferry was cancelled both yesterday (when we had our original reservation) and today. So we came back home. It really kinda sucks, though I have so much work to do I guess I might as well be at home instead of in my inlaw's house. Grr.

The best part of the trip was just getting some time in Milwaukee. What a fun, smart little city! It's really lovely, feels like a real downtown, very funky, has both hills and the drama of the lake, and friendly. Plus lots of beer. We're seriously considering a move up there in a few years if my research is positive.

The Calatrava was OK. It's really a hat trick, and I did take a picture of how embarrassingly badly it connects to the existing Saarinen. But it definitely is thrilling to watch those big wings open up, and the interior vistas are elegant and controlled.

hat trick as in getting 3 goals in a single game?

where the f do you live puddles? Always thought you were a midwester. NEways, hit two partes tonight, am all kinds of dizzy. Amazing friends, love them all, fu this shite. Pce out.

liberty! i went to the calatrava addition too, a few years back, and all i could do was complain to my wife how horrible the connection was to the original museum. where's the celebration? the collision? it just kinda of thud.

for the hat trick...



i've been bouncing around the lesser antilles islands for the past few years (building a secret lair for my evil empire)...but i sneak back into detroit frequently enough to keep an eye on things.

milwaukee a nice town, except that it's on the wrong side of lake michigan.

Lb, that is the single most succinct and perfect description of that museum I've heard. I completely agree with all of it. You might even add that the space under the butterfly is kind of underwhelming, since they go to all that trouble to build this amazing, sculptural element and then put... nothing underneath it. It's basically one big overly-large entrance space. And then you get shunted to the side through this too-small, horribly detailed and awkward entrance to... the REAL museum, the Saarinen (which is underrated in my opinion).

I wish I could have been to the museum before the addition, because I'm curious how the entrance worked for the Saarinen portion (they way he designed it). Probably would be a much better experience of that side of the building.

I kind of feel like the city of Milwaukee should have just built a separate, stand-alone cool Calatrava building, if that's what they wanted, and had it as a cultural center w/ rotating functions and small exhibits under that roof.

i don't know if there's been much coverage of the flu in the united states at the moment, but i just saw this map at wonderblog and i'm willing to bet that it will be the story of the upcoming week

a milwaukee tradition! gone awry....

slowly we are getting closer and closer to pin point the puddles lair.

It's a hazy day today, to the british anglophones it's a dossy day - overcast and lazy. But to make things brighter I'm sipping on a little rum punch (quickly made without the fresh lime and sugar - but hits the spot). I think I may take a nap

Tis Saturday late afternoon and I'm on the phone talking with a Client about project cost. Damn it is painful when something comes in over budget! So I guess I will spend Sunday thinking about where the big cost are in this project and not relaxing that is unless I head out to the Packie....and get a big bottle of Rum or Single Malt Whiskey or do the, "Absolute Thing" Naw I better behave and
"getter done." I'm a bit like Liberty these past few weeks. I'm having a hard time accomplishing much because I have been using the Shot Gun Approach. I told Mrs. B it might be easier to be an Insurance Salesman.....Guess I'm feeling that sucking sound. I would rather be designing, but that isn't what is happening. The big crunch has been all those other exciting things such as shop drawings, cost estimates, working drawings, haggling clients for payments, and Planning and Zoning meetings. Oh ya and paying
taxes. Any yowho...I'm going to go take the evening off with my slim beers..

Exactly, snook. It's been one mundane fire after another for the last few weeks. None of it the interesting stuff! I took today off and went to the Friendly Haunted House with Angus then bought his Halloween pumpkin, the thing is huge of course!

Also, treekiller, your dream is hilarious and so Phily, but of course I never went to either Pat's OR Geno's because I don't like whiz!

mantaray, the crazy thing about the Calatrava exhibit space is exactly that it's not sued for anything. And isn't the whole justification of the wings that they can modulate the amount of light coming in and thus protect the art, in the tradition of Kimbell etc.? But they don't use that space for art, so what is the point of the wings?!

The Saarinen building really is under-appreciated. I went there 17 years ago for the Agnes Martin retrospective, but I don't recall what the entry sequence was like. Must have been too hung over. The vista from due west of that building through it to the lake beyond is stunningly beautiful, and also totally controlled, but not sterile.

Morning all,
i worked for a friend doing some catering last night. Under the table, cash in hand and i made 175 for about 7 hrs work.
Not bad huh at least fr this still living in a college town boy.

I also am enjoying the seemingly here to stay fall weather. Although this being north florida it is probably not meant to last.

if you like U2, they are live now from the rose bowl pasadena.
http://www.youtube.com/U2official
(edit) beautiful stage theatrics and sound. they even had the commander read a poem from international space station, live.!
(edit) they said viva mexico in vertigo and crowd went crazy.. la is a mexican city in a sense...
(edit) i remember them giving a free concert from a rooftop in downtown la. things have changed quite a bit for the band and the production. bigger budgets and bigger voice in the world stage. power of rock and roll comes really alive with this band.
(edit) now he is getting into iranian business. watch it bono.. hmmm, be careful.. sunday bloody sunday..? (edit) he is a great messenger, earlier describing himself as somewhere between arnold schwarzenegger and danny de vito !?







crowds aren't leaving.. there might be second encore..

yep they came back bono as electric horseman.;.)



theme of the concert: what time is it in the world?

(orhan out) 11:10 pst

Nice report, Orhan, and thank you for reminding me of how much more personal this was.

I love U2; once went to a what was supposed to be a quiet concert for a bunch of stuffy managers on our north coast, only to have them perform I remember standing about 2 feet away from them singing every song I knew at the top of my lungs oblivious to everyone else in the room. But on a serious note that last image looks more like Robin Williams

going to chi-town in 2 wks, car rental or public transit?

for those of you who were interested in the detroit real estate market, i just read this via yahoo.

oh, & yeah, i can definitely see stars here. lots of them, in fact, since there is very little light pollution here. it's like being in the middle of the ocean.

beta,
i would say public transportation. That is how I was always able to get around when visiting Chi-town but i suppose it depends on your itinerary.

Orhan, that last image kind of scares me.

Morning everyone else.

nam, how is your sister doing? i want to do public, going to house of blues, so i guess i'll be in the loop area??

for artiste types

i like u2 as long as they don't play anything post achtung, baby. they are so by the book though. very little, if no spontaneaty.

beta i certainly wouldn't rent a car in chicago. you can easily walk from house of blues to the loop. and the redline will get you within walking distance of anyplace you probably want to go.

My first designed and built occupiable structure. I am presenting to all the Archinect LEEDers for approval. I think it qualifies for platinum status since its built entirely of non-toxic and recycled materials.



Built all of ikea boxes from doing my mother's office. Damn. I forgot to photograph the guestroom while I was there.

Morning all.

What the hell.



And in case that doesnt work, here's the link

Its an iPhone image and doesnt have .jpg at the end. Is that why it wont post?

i want to see stars again. i love tokyo but miss that my children don't get the picture of the milky way that i did growing up, especially when we went out to the farm. seriously the only star in the sky is a planet. that is too weird...

never been to see u2. concert looks very impressive. i liked them back in high school when they seemed much more rowdy and cool (don't remember if they actually were). impressive they kept up and are still making pretty good music...

Sarah, you can just add the .jpg to the end of it -- trust me on this one. It's kind of a weird trick.

Beta -- are you going to be staying in a hotel IN the city? Or are you going to save money and stay in the burbs? That's really what makes the difference. If you're going to be in the city, do NOT rent a car. Not only is the public transit extensive (and helps you see the city better), but parking is limited and very expensive, not just in the loop anymore but all over the city. (Mayor Daley SOLD all of our parking meters to Merrill Lynch and they immediately raised the rate to $4 an hour in many places, and they run the meters 24/7 when they used to be only days from M-F. And the city gets none of that extra money. Great move, Daley.)

hey Sarah that is very cool!! I like it! Neat and crisp.

Actually Beta even the car rental itself is expensive in Chicago. And they say on TV that we have the highest gas cost in the country (not surprising).

i'm staying at the airport, a sheraton, 50 a night, and figured transit would be better publico. do they have passes instead of buying tix daily?

found it 14 bucks for 3 days, nice.