αÏ?χιτεκτων tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2009:/montg155/architecture//7750 2008-05-12T19:29:50Z Movable Type 4.25 Service Learning tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2008:/montg155/architecture//7750.128182 2008-05-12T19:14:58Z 2008-05-12T19:29:50Z I volunteered at Volunteers of America and had a wonderful experience. I was able to help adults and peers alike to learn addition, multiplication, division, and conversion factors. There was an initial cultural and language barrier which was not hard to get over. I consider math a whole language of its own and once a person can learn it, you can transcend all other differences. I love math and find it like a puzzle. Working with people that are a completely different ethnic background as me i found that math was the easiest to teach. It was great, i would help a student solve a 'mathematical' puzzle and it would feel amazing. To see the smiles on their faces when they did finally figure it out was better than getting 'the grade'. The students and i would have a blast getting through the assigned packets and they seemed truly grateful.... Monty ;D I volunteered at Volunteers of America and had a wonderful experience. I was able to help adults and peers alike to learn addition, multiplication, division, and conversion factors. There was an initial cultural and language barrier which was not hard to get over. I consider math a whole language of its own and once a person can learn it, you can transcend all other differences. I love math and find it like a puzzle. Working with people that are a completely different ethnic background as me i found that math was the easiest to teach. It was great, i would help a student solve a 'mathematical' puzzle and it would feel amazing. To see the smiles on their faces when they did finally figure it out was better than getting 'the grade'. The students and i would have a blast getting through the assigned packets and they seemed truly grateful.

]]> I would like to thank the math teacher that was one of my supervisors. He was helpful when i had forgotten a step in a process. He would supply me with pencils and paper when i had none. The funny thing was that i had learned this stuff so long ago i really didn't know where to begin. The calculus and everything else had overwritten it, it was a learning experience for both me and the students at times.

I would like to apologize to the organization for the lack of hours i was able to complete. Having night classes 4 days a week limited the time slots i was able to make it in. Being a night class volunteer session (5-8pm), i think i would have been better off working during the day. Also, i came down with mono midway through the semester which crippled me. I was stuck in bed, sleeping between 16-19 hours a day for about a month. I was on the verge of dropping out of school, but decided to stick through it. Sadly volunteering took a back seat due to the amount of biking needed to get over there and the amount of time i felt well enough for studies during the day. The training sessions filled up quickly at the beginning of the year through the university, so i got a late start to begin with.

I hope if i ever have to take another service learning course that i will be able to come back to VOA, it was a memorable experience. Thanks so much for being flexible with as stated events and schedule conflicts. I wish you all good luck and you're doing a great service,

Andrew Montgomery

]]> MDG Presentations tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2008:/montg155/architecture//7750.127738 2008-05-08T21:16:16Z 2008-05-08T21:25:19Z I think that our presentations where somewhat lacking. We were not able to use a power point and were only given 5 minutes. I think that a lot of ideas were expressed during the presentations, i just feel that if there was more visual stimulant it would have been more entertaining. Our group focused on the policy issue of goal #7 where other groups did other aspects. I found it interesting to see what other groups accomplished with the architecture side of the assignment. Here is the tale of last Wednesday night! :o... Monty ;D I think that our presentations where somewhat lacking. We were not able to use a power point and were only given 5 minutes. I think that a lot of ideas were expressed during the presentations, i just feel that if there was more visual stimulant it would have been more entertaining. Our group focused on the policy issue of goal #7 where other groups did other aspects. I found it interesting to see what other groups accomplished with the architecture side of the assignment. Here is the tale of last Wednesday night! :o

]]> The first group i will mention did a pretty good job. Our group was the only group that had a legitimate hand out, but this group did have a good visual. I feel that there are two aspects of a presentation: IT MUST BE ENGAGING, while at the same time have a plethora of good information. I feel that the group with the presentation board did an amazing job keeping my attention. Also, they were waving around their neatly bound final product around like a homeless man walking away with a free turkey on thanks giving.

There was also another group starring 'GO-BAD' that slipped us these neat little sheets of paper that had cute drawings on them. There really isn't anything like cute drawings to liven up your day :D They had some funny ideas: like feeding fish bird poop, lol.

Having no finals this year i have been very 'presentation' oriented in most of my classes. Due to lack of a projector i found that this presentation had restrictions unlike my other classes. This was disheartening and think it would've been a much more interesting time if there was one present.

Happy end of the semester! YAY YAY YAY!

]]> MDGP cover pages tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2008:/montg155/architecture//7750.127129 2008-05-06T18:29:24Z 2008-05-06T18:43:02Z This week we were asked to develop some cover pages for our project. As I'm terrible with image editing software i was able to create some via MS paint. As many know MS paint is an awful program used by pre-teen children wasting time in their computer lab class. This first cover page was integrated into my individual paper due with the project. I used small index cards and did an ink-wash. After the ink wash i biked over to Regis Center for art and used one of their fancy computer labs. Here is the outcome:... Monty ;D This week we were asked to develop some cover pages for our project. As I'm terrible with image editing software i was able to create some via MS paint. As many know MS paint is an awful program used by pre-teen children wasting time in their computer lab class. This first cover page was integrated into my individual paper due with the project. I used small index cards and did an ink-wash. After the ink wash i biked over to Regis Center for art and used one of their fancy computer labs. Here is the outcome:

design slide1.JPG

]]> The cover page that was used for the project was done in an image editing program simular to photoshop. I supplied the image and i think it turned out quite well. The image that was used is:
miss_river_delta.jpg

Overall i think that the project came out very well. We were able to go to Kinkos and have a wonderful coversheet laminated to the front with each page having an image. I would like to that my soils instructor for supplying so many wonderful images, it really made the presentation pop.

While I'm on the subject i would like to also share with you our handout for our presentation. The picture is the amount of pollution from nitrogen in each area of the country. As you can see the corn belt is polluting the most non-point pollution:

present.JPG

]]> Style $.$ tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2008:/montg155/architecture//7750.120331 2008-03-31T22:35:51Z 2008-03-31T23:29:43Z When creating a presentation a person whats to have the right amount of style and formating. Too much style can take away from a presentation and when dealing with the Millennium Goal Project one wants to keep the emphasis on the goal/issue/topic at hand. When looking for inspiration i found this amazing competition (from Core77) : People use a provided software to create intricate and highly complex scenes. These scenes are riddled with design elements and principles. The highly knowledgeable people creating these designs are putting many hours into the complex scenes (which must be completed around a sphere).... Monty ;D When creating a presentation a person whats to have the right amount of style and formating. Too much style can take away from a presentation and when dealing with the Millennium Goal Project one wants to keep the emphasis on the goal/issue/topic at hand. When looking for inspiration i found this amazing competition (from Core77) :

People use a provided software to create intricate and highly complex scenes. These scenes are riddled with design elements and principles. The highly knowledgeable people creating these designs are putting many hours into the complex scenes (which must be completed around a sphere).

spheres.jpg

]]> This is truly amazing and i think that its a great way to get a community of people to come together. I would like to use this same concept to get people to help Goal #7 to design a proper presentation.

Here are the rules:

1) The design must not be too flashy. The issue at hand is a serious one and a person does not want to take away from the issue at hand.

2) The design should relate to water pollution in a graphic way in terms of a power point presentation.

3) The structure should relay information easily to the reader. Should present the information in sections, partitioned into slides which relate to one another with transitions between them.


These are the goals of the presentation that one would have to take int account. The information is up to the researcher, but the way it is presented can make or break a project. Hopefully we will have many great submissions and to create an incentive to the community we will offer a $5.00 gift card valid at local Jimmy John locations.

Pick any of the delicious and well made sandwiches from their gourmet menu:

jimmyjohns.jpg


]]> Designed Environment Downfall tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2008:/montg155/architecture//7750.117602 2008-03-11T18:22:20Z 2008-03-19T17:03:24Z GRRRR!!! O.K. First off "upload file" jerk face thing can really make me angry! I just typed this thing up and i wanted a nice little picture and boom, new entry started and my existing one gone. Soo, here we go /end rant Are we better off living in todays society? Are we better thinkers, are we less corrupt, and are we better people? As we walk through gratuitous amounts of concrete are we subjecting our mind with unnecessary confrontations and situations? What is it in todays society to survive out in the iron jungle? And as we walk through it, does our subconscious record things that will shape us into different people? There is a string of hard questions dealing with the unseen, the unknown. These are hard questions because we cannot talk to subconscious, it sits and takes in information, but can affect us greatly. The subconscious can be a good thing, it makes us hungry, thirsty, and gives us sex drive. Not bad eh, but it also makes addicts want more drugs and smokers to want more cigarettes. So here we go, if we want to search the hidden subconscious... Monty ;D GRRRR!!! O.K. First off "upload file" jerk face thing can really make me angry! I just typed this thing up and i wanted a nice little picture and boom, new entry started and my existing one gone. Soo, here we go /end rant

Are we better off living in todays society? Are we better thinkers, are we less corrupt, and are we better people? As we walk through gratuitous amounts of concrete are we subjecting our mind with unnecessary confrontations and situations? What is it in todays society to survive out in the iron jungle? And as we walk through it, does our subconscious record things that will shape us into different people? There is a string of hard questions dealing with the unseen, the unknown. These are hard questions because we cannot talk to subconscious, it sits and takes in information, but can affect us greatly. The subconscious can be a good thing, it makes us hungry, thirsty, and gives us sex drive. Not bad eh, but it also makes addicts want more drugs and smokers to want more cigarettes. So here we go, if we want to search the hidden subconscious

snakes-white-big.jpg

]]> Now we are on the same wave length lets think on how human beings were designed. Do you believe we were destined to take over the world and dominate over all other beings? In most cases kill them and take their land? I feel like clockwork has faltered here. There must have been a turning point back in history were something went horribly wrong. I'm not one to guess when that was or how drastic of a change it would have to be. But i believe that the overall values and beliefs that human beings can dominate and not coexist is bad news bears. On our current track maybe Aldous Huxley (brave new world) will be hailed in the future for being such a genius at predicting the outcome of the human race, i hope not. Maybe I'm going crazy from CO2 dumping cars and building-ed horizons. We all need a vacation, yeah. The sound of leaves in our ears and the smell of wind coming off of water.


Lol cats, as promised


*I do not endorse the use of ANY illegal drug use.

]]> Sustainability tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2008:/montg155/architecture//7750.115602 2008-03-05T21:41:22Z 2008-03-05T22:10:09Z As human beings we take our environment for granted. Society in general believes that the earth is so large that it can contain and deal with our species short comings. Obviously we were wrong. I don't want to get into global warming and all that jazz, because i feel as if that topic has been beat to death. So lets talk about oil:... Monty ;D As human beings we take our environment for granted. Society in general believes that the earth is so large that it can contain and deal with our species short comings. Obviously we were wrong. I don't want to get into global warming and all that jazz, because i feel as if that topic has been beat to death. So lets talk about oil:

oil_gas_petro_petroleum_production_prediction_price.jpg

]]> The above figure illustrates oil production in the world. What happens when we reach the peak? There is going to be an oil crisis (period). Lets take a look at oil discovery:

discgap.jpg

As you can see, oil discovery has become less and less. We are finding less and less oil because we are good at finding it. We have found the large quantities out there, but there are only small fields left. After we stop finding new ones and others go dry there will be no more oil to drill for. Then what? Alternative energy sources? What about public transportation? Or just TRANSPORTATION!?? What are we going to do? There isn't much time, supposedly there will be a crisis within 20-30 years. Can we design and engineer other ways of transporting a nation?

Transportation is not the only issue that we will run into when the oil runs dry. Look at any man made object and there is a very good likelihood that it was built from petroleum products. The computer you are viewing this page from is made of 90% plastic which is an product of oil. Your car is mainly plastic, most containers are plastic, you entire environment is surrounded by oil products.

So i leave you with a thought, what can you do to reduce your dependency on oil? Condition yourself, because the end is near!

-offcell: pinback
-micah: russain circles
-last day of winter: pelican

Lol cats #4

]]> Hey can you... tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2008:/montg155/architecture//7750.113364 2008-02-26T07:13:58Z 2008-02-26T07:14:23Z 26... Monty ;D 26

]]> Schwincere tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2008:/montg155/architecture//7750.113015 2008-02-25T04:41:29Z 2008-02-26T07:07:48Z The bicycle, one of my personal favorite inventions. Consequently, I love working on them. In a perfect world I would be able to move into a third world county and help fix and donate bikes. The bicycle has been around since the 19th century and is the most widely used vehicle at 1.4 billion in use. In a third world county a bicycle can widen ones horizons and allows the owner to cover more distance more quickly. Owning this mode of transportation where there aren't many cars could be life changing.... Monty ;D The bicycle, one of my personal favorite inventions. Consequently, I love working on them. In a perfect world I would be able to move into a third world county and help fix and donate bikes.

The bicycle has been around since the 19th century and is the most widely used vehicle at 1.4 billion in use. In a third world county a bicycle can widen ones horizons and allows the owner to cover more distance more quickly. Owning this mode of transportation where there aren't many cars could be life changing.

]]> Bikes have so much potential as personal transportation. They do not run on fossil fuels so the rider is not harming the atmosphere by burning carbon. In New York city there is nothing faster than a bike in Manhattan. AND, it is also a good form of exercises:

Chart.a

^My goodness look how obese America is^

Aesthetically bikes are extremely beautiful and i think that everyone can have an appreciation for well hand made crafts. If i cant make it to Africa I may find myself hand crafting something like this:

7.jpg

71.jpg

In the end, by building bicycles or helping people in third world countries will help the environment. In western countries i could help create a more healthy populous. Or, in a third countries I could help communities become more mobile.

lolcatz#3

whats your blog rating?

]]> Graffiti tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2008:/montg155/architecture//7750.111287 2008-02-18T18:41:02Z 2008-02-18T19:10:57Z Art form or not graffiti is wrong when it is done on public property or on private buildings without consent. I pass train cars everyday and enjoy looking at the works that are done there. Rarely i think of the people that have to clean it up. Mineapolis law states: "If the graffiti is on your property, it’s your responsibility to clean it up. You will be notified by mail after the graffiti is photographed. If you don’t clean it up within ten days of being notified, the City may remove or paint over the graffiti for you and you will be billed for the cost of the cleanup."... Monty ;D Art form or not graffiti is wrong when it is done on public property or on private buildings without consent. I pass train cars everyday and enjoy looking at the works that are done there. Rarely i think of the people that have to clean it up. Mineapolis law states:

"If the graffiti is on your property, it’s your responsibility to clean it up. You will be notified by mail after the graffiti is photographed. If you don’t clean it up within ten days of being notified, the City may remove or paint over the graffiti for you and you will be billed for the cost of the cleanup."

]]> How do these people deem graffitit as ok? Why is it that they are aspired to do it? These questions must be taken into context of 'illigal" practices of graffiti. There are many answeres here. Many find it a way to connect to their environment. Or a way to spend time in an artistic/creative way. Some think of it as "sticking it to the man", while others want a reputation. Once case on campus has started to arise and its the use of sharpie markers on bikes:

"She asked him what he was doing and he muttered something like 'uh i'm tagging bikes blah blah blah gotta make a name for myself blah blah blah'. If you see a young, male, white, college student near the U looking like he's writing on bikes with a pen, he is. Go over there and bitch slap him."

Minneapolis's website clarifies and says that:

"If you see graffiti or any other vandalism in progress, call 911. If you are able to identify the persons involved and it leads to their arrest and conviction, you could qualify for a reward."

I would assume that 'bitch slappin" is going to be more of a reward than the city can probably give you. So please, if you see this behavior show him how strong yo pimp hand be...

On a lighter note, I enjoy graffiti. I believe it can add to buildings in certain areas. But it comes down to the people that either have to put the work in to remove it or pay out the nose to get it removed.

So those who do graffiti...STOP. The "man" is dead, reputations get you caught, and find a better artistc/creative outlet. That or stay/become a rail car rat because trains ship out fast and once they do its not minneapolis's problem any more.

please enjoy some lolcats: View image

]]> Introduction tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2008:/montg155/architecture//7750.108595 2008-02-07T17:47:35Z 2008-02-07T18:28:47Z Hello, Being my first entry i though i may introduce myself. My name is Andrew Montgomery and i am a university of Minnesota student. I am a sophomore and I'm taking the designed environment class to get a general understanding of architecture. This week we had some readings which were interesting. The first reading had to do with designers and if they are responsible for the work that they create. This brought to mind McDonald's ads. If you were to design an ad for McDonald's would you feel guilty making it look so delicious and like an 'active lifestyle' meal? Also, if you were the designer to develop the Panopticon, would you feel bad about making prisoners go insane?... Monty ;D Hello,

Being my first entry i though i may introduce myself. My name is Andrew Montgomery and i am a university of Minnesota student. I am a sophomore and I'm taking the designed environment class to get a general understanding of architecture.

This week we had some readings which were interesting. The first reading had to do with designers and if they are responsible for the work that they create. This brought to mind McDonald's ads. If you were to design an ad for McDonald's would you feel guilty making it look so delicious and like an 'active lifestyle' meal? Also, if you were the designer to develop the Panopticon, would you feel bad about making prisoners go insane?

]]> During the week Tom Fisher came to our lecture and discussed architectural education. This went along with our weekly readings which first discussed how architects are becoming viewed as less in the building process. He then talks on work study and internships. This troubles me in that the majority of the students in my class will have a hard time getting reasonable internships. Fisher discusses that firms do not want to train inexperienced students to eventually have them go to another firm. He then states a few ways in which universities can help give students the experience they need. Tom suggests that universities work with firms to create a database which will hold projects that the firm is working on. For a fee the university would be able to access this database to give students real life project examples. Lastly, he stresses that Architects are not given enough time to complete their work. Architects are being forced to create high quality work under horrendous time constraints. Can creativity be summoned?

Thats it for now,

Monty

p.s.

lolcat of the week.
Lolcats#1

~ Revision:0

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