California: Take One

We took two trips out to California in less than a month. The first trip was just a chance to get away after Scott finished Comprehensive Studio, which is the hardest class you take in Architecture school. (This is likely all you will hear about it, because there is little to nothing either of us want to remember about it. IT SUCKED).

We got to sneak away to Monterey, which we did a lot when we lived in Gilas, so it was like old times. After some tasty clam chowder at cannery row, we took a drive along the water and through Pebble Beach. We were there during the Classic Car Races, so it was super busy, and we got to see some really nice cars. At one place there were 2 Ferraris, a Rolls Royce, a couple Aston Martins, a Bugatti, 2 Bentleys, a Maybach, plus a Corvette and a Convertible Mercedes parked together in the parking lot. For those of you who don't know, thats like $6 million for 12 or so cars. Crazy. We took a pic with the camera phone, but it was sucky.

The water behind us was a really cool color that we don't remember seeing in Monterey ever before. It was almost turquoise.

Before we left, we took a few pics with Scott's parents. It was fun seeing them, Mark and Melinda's family, and Lamy and her boys. We missed Hollee, Paul and Jordan, though, because Paul was working and Hollee was stuck in Ceres.

Jimbo and Maggaroo

A little While back, Kristie's parents cam out to visit. It was fun seeing them. We took a trip downtown and over to the Denver Art Museum. Somehow we had never been there, so this was our first trip, too.

Kristie and her parents in front of the Denver Art Museum.

Jim and Scott at the bubbles exhibit.

Kristie and her dad in front of the State Capitol

Everybody in the big broom and dust bin sculpture in front of the museum.

This is the inside of the museum. Supposedly it makes some people dizzy.

Kristie and Jim outside on the what was called the "Sculpture Deck". There weren't any sculptures out here.

Here is Kristie under a giant chair with a horse on it.

My letter to Mandy Moore

Dear Mandy,

How can I improve my fantasy football team? I got beat by 45.5 points this week, and am now in 7th place. Its a td=6/ppr setup, and I need to find a W/R that will do better than Toomer(NYG) has so far. Any ideas? BTW, Crayton (dal) is taken. Also, do you think Lewis will miss more time with that ankle injury?

Scott (hoss)

Do you think she'll respond? I hope so, because I'm really tired of losing.

http://www.myspace.com/mandymoore - scroll down to comments

K-9's for the Cure

Lacey, in her pink sweater that we got her for the days when she is too cold and refuses to go outside. I know... she's covered in fur. Still, with this thing on she will go all the way out to the grass instead of peeing on the porch and running back inside. Anyway, I thought the pink was a good choice for her race pic.

This weekend is the Komen Race for the Cure in Denver.

Kristie, Lacey, and I are going to do the K-9's for the Cure race tomorrow. I'll post pics when we get them. Hopefully Lacey won't mistake "race" for "get tangled up trying to play with all the other dogs."

If you can't race this weekend, you may be in luck, since the races are held at different times in different cities. Go to http://cms.komen.org/Komen/NewsEvents/FindARace/index.htm to see what's coming up close to you. If you want to make a donation, you can do it at http://www.komendenver.org/site/PageServer?pagename=rfcd_race_k9forcure

Scroll down and click the "Donate Now" button on the right side of the page.

Wish us luck.

Florida Continued

We continue vacation photos from Florida.

This is Mr. Potatohead. He's all hands. I pressed charges.

We drove through a new urbanist community, (that's a fancy architecture term for a new development where everything is built to look extra quaint and perfect. Think Truman Show.) to see what all the hubbub was, and Kristie noticed that we drove by Wisteria Lane. (Just like in Desperate Housewives). The street had perfect little houses with perfect little lawns, and picket fences. I got Kristie to pose as the hot neighbor that moves in and obsesses over her yard, while secretly killing off people, and stealing all the other ladies' husbands.

Considering that both this place and ABC are owned by Disney, it's pretty likely that the set designers were driving through here and decided they liked the name.

Later in our vacation, we went to Kennedy Space Center. You know that one kid from your elementary school that sold the most candy/wrapping paper/ other assorted crap during the annual fundraiser. This is where he got to go. It's also where they launch the space shuttles and all the satellites. Over all, it was nerdy, but super awesome. We definitely think it is worth a day away from all the themeparks. Scott got to ride a Shuttle launch simulator on the first day it opened, and when we got back to Denver, it was on the news here. It was a VERY shaky, loud ride. It made his hearing go all wierd, and his eyes went out of focus.

Why spend 20 bucks on a green screen pic of yourselves in space when photoshop is free?

This is like the second biggest building in the world. Its so big inside that clouds form and it rains in there when its dry outside.

The rocket that they sent to the moon. When the rocket launches, you have to be like 4 miles away or the sound will make you deaf instantly. If you are within like 1.5 miles, it will kill you. Its huge. About 30 ft across and as tall as a 30 story building.

I'm sitting on a (very worn out) sign that says "please to not sit here"

Us, on top of the very windy observation deck. That is the space shuttle and all its assorted buildings and stuff between us. You can only see the tip because they're getting it ready to launch. It's only out there for a month before a launch, so were lucky to see it at all.

A closer view. The red tip is the huge fuel tank, and the shuttle itself is hidden by a massive moving clean room, where they work on the shuttle and keep all kinds of experiments that go on the trip.

These are the type of rockets that Kristie's dad, Jim, used to work on at UTC Pratt-Whitney just south of San Jose. Unfortunately, the one he used to follow here on the trains from San Jose (Titan II) was being refurbished, so we didn't get to see it.

While we were walking around, we saw this alligator, and a huge turtle (top middle).

Here is the Shuttle they let you walk inside of. The flag is backward because the shuttle is on its end when they launch it.

This is what gross pizza looks like in space.

Thanks for sticking it out.

Stuff you should know about stuff that is awesome.

We had a 187 at the 7-11, at the corner of 4th and Main." Ok. This is the first in a series of entries about stuff. Awesome stuff. Our initial subject:

COP ROCK!

What's to know about Cop Rock?
a. aired in 1990. Lives on in my soul.
b. filmed in the same town as Savannah Smiles
c. gritty crime drama
d. singing and dancing

Let's Pretend

.... that it is June, and Kristie and I got back from our vacation today. Actually, today would be one year since we got back from New England... so I'm not too far off. Sort of.

Wow what a whirlwind trip. We just got back and I feel like I need another trip already. This was the first time I've been to Florida, and Kristie hasn't been there since she was a super little kid (she was born there.) We came away totally impressed, but not so much that we'll ever move there. I generally say no to tropical storms, constant steaminess, and reptiles that eat family pets and small children if they are left unsupervised in the back yard.

We flew all the way out to Orlando, and where did we end up first? Tony Roma's. the Buffet is great if you haven't been. That night though, we had an odd Gilroy moment. We go to Chevy's for dinner, because we haven't been there since moving to Colorado (and we miss the pre-chewed mound of cornmeal stuff the give you with your meal.) and we see this outside the front door:

I'm sure other ex-gilroyans will tell you, that place follows you. When we moved into our first apartment here, there were pictures of Gilroy on the walls in the Clubhouse.

Ok, so we stayed at this really cool place that I have to give credit to Amy for because we got an incredible deal on it through thier vacation club thing, and it was awesome. I need to find the pictures we took of it, and I'll post em. Here is the only one I can find right now.

We totally tried to do nothing on our trip, but there was way too much stuff to try out. Still, we managed to spend the first two days hanging out around the pools, and getting to know Orlando. This place is basically the exact opposite of any other place we've been. We didn't eat in any little family owned restaraunts, and I didn't drag Kristie from famous building to famous building.

Even so, I think one of our favorite memories from the trip will be our regular trips to a coffee shop we found the first day we were there. It's called BAD ASS COFFEE, and by the end of the trip, Kristie was super addicted to it. I managed to find something there that tasted like candy every time we went. This place also had AWESOME cookies, and you know how that goes.

We went to Epcot first, because we read the books on when to go where, and they are totally right. We walked on to almost every ride... and then we spent the afternoon walking through the different countries.

This is the photo we will eventually use to "prove" to our "kids" that we really did "take them" to Disneyworld.

Our goal is to one day visit all the Eiffel Tower Replicas in the World.

Finding Nemo is Awesome. The Finding Nemo Ride is cool. Finding Nemo should have won Best Picture. I am one handsome fellow.

Shortly after this was taken, I was propositioned by several passing US Servicemen. Don't laugh. They ended up paying for most of our trip. Well, $4.72 of it at least.

The next day we went to Cocoa Beach, FL to relax and play in the water. This supposedly the surfing capitol of the world, and I believe it. The waves were big, and the rip tide was just crazy. The water was way warmer than anything I'm used to, being from CA.

If it looks like the beach just keeps going and going, that's because it does.... for like 70 miles.

In case you all wondered what I would look like with my mom's hair. Pretty, Huh?

The next day we took our sunburns to Magic Kingdom (aka Disneyland).

To get there, you take a ferry from the parking lot.

In front of Cinderella's Castle.

Guess who bought pirate swords for Amy's Boys?!! (I'm told it only took 5 minutes for Parker to come up from the basement crying in pain. Tyler followed behind him shouting apologies, and insistent pleas about it being an accident.)

Kristie loves Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

When Scott was 10, he fell out of his bunk bed. Upon landing, he smashed his nose into a lego. Consequently, he spent 45 minutes moving this thing "to a place where it can't hurt anyone ever again."

This was just before "the incident." I'm sure she didn't mean to hit that kid, but she has to admit that repeated ramming into him after he fell, then getting out and yelling "Quit Crying, You $*%# baby!" probably had something to do with our being asked to leave the park.

More to come...

I've never seen anything with him in it.

While taking a quiz from Dave's blog, I found this and couldn't resist. Here are my predictable? results.





You looove him. You really loooove him. You might've missed a question or two, but you never would have scored this well without the help of that special spot in your heart where you store Zac facts. You probably get angry whenever someone spells his name wrong (you definitely got it right when you spelled it out in glow in the dark stars on your ceiling), and you're tired of explaining to people that he can actually sing. You are so passionate about this guy that you're probably about to take the quiz again to see if you can get a higher score. Go for it!

So, Where were we?

It has become apparent that most people have no idea what an Architect does. I know this because people ask me a lot why I act like it's hard to do floor plans. The truth is that plans are just about the easiest thing I do, but even with plans, you don't just draw them. Architecture involves a long and rigorous process that begins well before a single line is drawn. Before the solution can be articulated, the problem has to be solved. Even before that, though, you have to figure out what the problem is. I thought I would take everyone through an atypical, yet revealing project to both show what I mean, as well as what I was up to from January to May, this year.

I took a really different (different = good + hard) studio in Spring, and ended up with a pretty cool project.

Our first assignment was to design a transparent opaque wall. If this sounds like an inescapable parodox, it is, unless you look at it a VERY specific way.

Not Quite...

This one worked. Of course, right?

So, why did we do this? The "simple" answer is that we were trying to create a human experience of "wall" as the result of an oscillation between opaqueness and transparency. Why? Because we were designing a cinema, and the experience of going to the movies involves a similar experience of space. I won't get into the details. I'll just suffice it to say we spent quite a few weeks identifying and understanding what were going to do, and this was an exploration in how to do that.

Our second assignment was to take the lessons of the wall, and create an infinite room. Similar paradox, similar solution.... Oh, wait, maybe not. I worked on the room for almost 6 weeks, for about 60hrs a week. Here are just a few of the revisions.

Now, if this progression isn't odd enough.... imagine that in the end this space became a movie theater auditorium for 200 people. The seats are broken into 3 sections, and face a screen on the right wall.

To give you a sense of the scale, the model is about an 18" cube. A person would be about 1/2" tall.

Ok, so we got a room, but where do we put it. That begins with the site.

When you take everything about a site(the existing buildings, traffic patterns, histories) and distill it down to its primary elements, you can understand how to respond to it. But you don't just make a building then. You have to block out your primary moves, or parti. Here is the parti for the cinema.

With elaboration and experimentation with the three dimensional aspects of the site, your parti transforms into a massing diagram on a site.

From here, you begin to look at the details, and form a building.

So, why are you at school so much? Because, before you solve a problem correctly, you often have to solve it incorrectly many, many times. Here's the analogy I like: Imagine you're taking a trip from Copenhagen to Beijing. You may speak the language occasionally,but there's no way you'll speak every language for the whole trip. You have a guide, but they can only give you a hint or two every so often. You can ask others for directions along the way, but they might not know what they're talking about, and might even lie to you for thier own purposes. Now, imagine you drive all night, only to have your guide tell you in the morning that you missed a turn somewhere along the way, and have to go back.

That's architecture School. Even with great planning in advance, you often finish a frustrating night of very little progress by having to turn around and go back. See the model I'm holding in the image above. I rebuilt that section 30+ times over a 2 week period, before it finally looked right. That's why I'm at school so much.

So, why stick with it? Surely there are other ways to make a better living that don't involve a lot paper cuts, or regularly stabbing yourself with a quilter's pin. Well, after building and rebuilding, changing and rechanging, ruining and trying to recover, you get to something like a final design. It's hard to explain the sense of accoplishment that comes with a finished design. Somehow, though, it's worth it.

Before Materials were added.

With materials/ finishes.

And then we make floor plans.

Why am I always catching up?

It seems like I am always about 3 months behind on this blog... sorry. I have a lot of pictures I want to post, but they never seem to be where I am when I have time to do this. Meanwhile, Elena, Mego and Hollee are super on top of it.

School ended, started, ended, and has started agian. We went to Florida and California, and I finally finished up the job I had. I'm trying to get the Hollister House finished, and hopefully, I'll be starting a new job soon. Almost all these things will be elaborated on in the next few days. Sorry, again. Hang in there. Oh, and I've made the bed every day for the last two weeks. Without being asked. Who continues to astound his readers with ever increasing levels of adequacity? I think we all know who.

Me.