Shopping

I finally have internet at my house! My busy schedule, and the busy schedules of my roommates Tim and Jaime, have made the whole "moving in" process drag out over weeks. There is still art leaning against walls waiting to be hung, the odd random box in a corner. My room still seems half empty. I'm determined to be very picky about the rest of the things I put in my room. I've got my first big kid job, and my first big kid apartment, so I feel the need to be deliberate about the things with which I furnish my room. Shopping around for furniture and things, I can tell how much working for Tsao & McKown has influenced my thinking. I've got a vague notion about the type of things I like - antique lights, wingback chairs, anythings Eames or Wegner or Juhl,
heavy things made of metal, old wooden things, paper things - and I want my room to reflect my tastes. Its sort of a micro-project, a mini-commission for myself. Right now, the contents of my high-ceilinged room are all I can control. (Look out Cheapo Ikea Chair and Boring Ikea Bookcase, you're getting the boot as soon as I meet someone who I like better!) It'll be a slow journey.

But! Just up the road is a set of the metal shelves at the top of this post that Lydia and I tried to buy at the Brooklyn Flea a few weeks ago. Segue to a funny story! (Lydia, I actually haven't told you this yet.) So Lydia and I saw those awesome shelves, and we were totally sold, we wanted them whatever the cost. But the owner of the booth was nowhere in sight. We decided to keep browsing around the other booths, and circled back in 15 or 20 minutes...still nobody around to sell us the awesome shelves. We walked some more, browsed around, and came back a third

time. No owner! No joy! So Lydia and I leave the flea market and go have brunch. A week or so later, I was tlaking to my friend Georgia at work. She was telling me about the cool, huge metal mirror she had bought at the Brooklyn Flea. She was telling me what an ordeal it was, she bought the mirror from the vendor, and the guy helped her carry it to her car. But alas, it would not fit! So then the guy starts haggling with some random guy with a truck, and after ten or fifteen minutes of negotiation, they agree on a price to deliver it to Georgia. So now Georgia and the vendor have to follow this guy to his truck, and they finally get it loaded. By now, they've been at it a good half-hour. Georgia is telling me this story, and then shows me a picture of the mirror, and it suddenly hit me! The booth with MY metal shelves is the same one with the metal mirrors! Georgia had been off with the owner the entire time Lydia and I had been huffily stopping by the empty booth! Such a bizarre coincidence.

Lunar Geography

Yesterday I discovered one of the coolest Internet resources I have ever seen! Conner and I are researching for a competition to design a cultural center on the moon. In the course of our research, we started searching for any maps of the moon. I was expecting to only be able to find a few aerial maps made up of satellite flyover images. It's the moon, how well mapped can it be? Ha! I stumbled into a treasure trove of moon maps! Extremely high resolution, detailed maps at a huge range of scale. The coolest by far are the geological maps, with their incredible rainbows of rock types splashed out of impact craters and sprayed all over primordial moon oceans. Absolutely amazing maps! It is so cool to see such concrete evidence of our scientific exploration of the moon. There are also incredible aerial images of the moon landing sites from each of the Apollo missions, with detailed diagrams of where each photograph was taken. I find it so infuriating that conspiracy theorists can stare blindly into the face of such overwhelming, amazing evidence of man's greatest exploratory achievement.

Notable Contrasts

Talking to friends and family back in Texas, I keep noticing the differences between city life and Texas life. Maybe its part of being freshly removed from Texas and freshly planted in New York, but things are sticking out to me.

Talking to my friend who is in law school in Lubbock, I was telling him about my new place in Brooklyn: how fresh and nice it is with the remodeling, how close it is to work, how large it is, etc. When I mentioned that it was just one easy train ride from my house to work, he laughed and said it was just like the movies, getting on the subway and going wherever you want to go. And that is one huge change that struck me. In Texas, riding the train, much less the subway is completely foreign.

I have one friend in Dallas who used to ride the DART, but other than him, no one I know has ever ridden a train in Texas. I remember it being so strange to walk into Grand Central Station for the first time and see the tunnels leading off to the LIRR, the Amtrak trains, all the subways, and seeing a huge message board listing the dozens of places that you could reach from this one huge terminal. I love going into those big hubs, it makes me feel like I'm back in the grand old age of train travel, back before cars, when trains were the fastest things in the world! I like to picture the tunnels and tracks spreading out in a gnarly web, diving underground, popping up above-ground, dipping into stations, cars emptying and filling back up.

The drawings in this post are some of my favorite section drawings ever, I love the idea of all these different levels interacting. To me there is something utopian and thrilling about the idea that all these levels can be so harmonious and happy together.

Back in New York City, cont'd

Week one, in short.

Sunday, flew in, dropped bags at friends house, went to meet potential roommates. Interview/speed-dating went great, arranged to meet second roommate next night. Exhausted from a day of travel and passed out early.

Monday, up at 5:00 to catch three trains to meet coworkers, drove upstate, had meeting, drove back. Went into office about 2:30, hugs and smiles and greetings all around. It was great to see everyone. Looking forward to seeing Colette and the boss-men when they return from their respective vacations.

Tuesday, onto a new project, familiarizing myself with a new set of drawings. I read the contract documents, client interviews, etc., which was a tad dull. These are some of the overlooked parts of being an architect. And an earthquake at lunch! The building was gently swaying, we ran to the window to look out, (I feared it was an explosion) and then we went back to work. About an hour later, two coworkers who had been out of the office came back and asked why we didn't evacuate with the rest of the building! Whoops.

Wednesday, anxious about finding an apartment, hoping to hear back from potentials. Then I got a wonderful text from one of the brothers who I'd met last weekend telling me they wanted me as a roommate! Very very exciting!

Thursday flew by, it was quickly happy hour time! Because Shane was moving back to Texas, it was a Hoedown-themed happy hour: chips, pickles, flannel shirts and country music.

Friday was the day I moved into the new place (which meant simply throwing my meager possessions in a pack). But before that, the whole office was nervously watching the progress of Irene all day. Several people who lived in the flood zones left early to try to prepare, and I went searching through filing cabinets finding crank-powered emergency flashlights (with radio and alarm functions) and distributing them to people in the office.

Saturday morning I bought some last-minute provisions from the newly-opened supermarket just up the street (talk about a grand opening) and sat around reading and chatting with Jaime and Tim most of the day. Waiting for the storm to hit was pretty dull, and all of Irene's might that we witnessed was a bit of wind and bit of rain. I woke up Sunday morning with the power still on and the sun shining between clouds.

A pretty packed week: First week of work, a new apartment, my first earthquake, and my first hurricane! Hopefully this week will be peaceful.

Back in New York City

Its as if I never left! Long line at the cab stand at LaGuardia, surly driver who didn't want to drive to Bushwick, great Chinese food in Williamsburg!

I woke up extremely early Monday, yesterday, to take the train to Jonathan's house so that we could pick up Shane and drive upstate a ways to visit the house I worked on last fall. It was such a beautiful drive up, about an hour and a half north of the city. Things turned green and idyllic really quickly once we left the city. Parkways are my new favorite road system; no commercial vehicles, just cars!

The site of the house was beautiful, forested and green. We got out of the car and it was so fantastically cool, it couldn't have been 60 degrees! It was great to jump back into work with a field trip, and it was edifying to see all the things I'd been drawing last fall starting to emerge from the ground. The project was not as far along as I'd thought; delays with the permitting had pushed back the start date. They told us the foundation walls will be poured Wednesday. It sounds like I might get a chance to go see the progress a few more times too! Shane is leaving this week, so I am going to be taking over his role on the house, which at this point is basically to just troubleshoot any questions the GC sends us. (Thats some architecture/building industry jargon right there, GC=General Contractor. Clever, eh?)

This is going to have to be a post in two parts, as it is now time for my second day of work. More to come later, my followers few!