February 2007 Archives

Well, I'm heading home for midterms, but I wanted to share a couple of pictures and views of the inside of the machine shop that I've decided to use for the studio component of my design.

Inside with Earnest Parker

Another interior view looking towards the front office

***UPDATE***

I had a great trip back up north, even though it was an unappealing idea to go back. I guess we're supposed to be getting some snow over the next couple days. From the time I loaded up in Biloxi to landing in Biloxi, there was a 40 degree temperature difference. Boo-urrns. We'll see how it all shakes out tomorrow I guess.

For the Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Biloxi (which is the largest in the South besides Atlanta) Hands On built a float that sat on the back of a flatbed trailer that was in essence a scaled down "front porch" that we had a couple people sit on and anyone else who wanted to be in the parade could walk behind. Anyhow, afterward, the porch has sat near the back door of Hands On and as I found out that nothing was going to be done with it I asked if I could have it. I was told if I had some idea for it, I could have it, so at my abode out in the bike tent, I sawzalled out the "door" of the float and planted the planter box and it is now my front porch. I put it up on shipping palettes so that I would have a little step up and I must say it's pretty sweet. Here's a couple of pictures for readerdom...

Cutting the door

Chilling post-cut with Chandler on the new porch

In addition to fashioning my new porch I also had a chance to go out and see the second race of the season over at The Pub. I may watch it by myself, but Gordon won the pole and then went on to finish second so it was a great day for racing. Here's a view from my perch in the back of The Pub.

So there's a little place out on Hwy 57 in Ocean Springs that serves the best damn BBQ I've ever had called The Shed. They have little signs all over the interior that they have dubbed "Shed Philosophies" which are mostly just the comments you get in e-mail forwards from Mom, but they're pretty funny for the most part.

They have a great little outdoor music area which will be opening soon.

As it stood the music indoors was totally great. It was this good ol' boy Watermelon Slim who totally wailed on the harmonica and guitar.

They also have an outdoor fire pit that they light to keep it warm outside late at night. They're only open until 10 which actually makes for a great night out after dinner and still getting in early enough to get some decent sleep or stop by The Pub. Anyhow, here's a couple of pictures to show you what it's like. And yes, I do want to ride that fake horse...

This will be a new feature where you get to know all the Hands On peeps through their interactions with me in various social venues in Biloxi... Enjoy!

John

Luke

Yvon

Dartmouth Josh

Dartmouth Alex

Erin

So I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but there are two groups of Americorps NCCC members at Hands On and one of them is leaving us at the end of their spike and heading to California for their last spike. For those of you who don't know AmeriCorps NCCC is a program for 18-24 year olds that gives them an opportunity to serve different communities around the United States for 10 months in teams of 8-12 people. They have 5 spikes of approximately two months a piece. Anyhow, the teams are leaving tomorrow and as I'm sure you've seen through pictures in earlier blogs, especially Mardi Gras in New Orleans, we've gotten to be really good friends. So for their last night we all went out to Just Us, a gay spot which also sports karaoke on Tuesday and Thursday nights. It's a totally sweet spot and they really like the Hands On folks that come down there. Anyhow, I'm really going to miss all these guys and gals. I guess the next spike period we're getting three teams, but they're not going to all be here until after I come back from presenting my Thesis midterm progress. So, to all my NCCCs, I love you. Have a safe last spike!

Guillermo and Dan rocking the

The crew belting out some tunes

Deubs, Woody, and George singing some Stones

Red Beard came to visit Nadene... so cute!

We got to sing the last song of the night. Scott, Heath, Me, PubRat (tm), and Dartmouth Josh

Soooo, Mardi Gras is kind of like a debauchery-laden version of Channukah minus the religion thing (although don't tell that to the South, they basically treat it like a European religious carnival). It lasts for a long time. We not only had that pre-Mardi Gras-Mardi Gras parade in Biloxi, but then through the Mardi Gras long weekend in New Orleans, all the cities along the coast have their own Mardi Gras parade. Biloxi, Gulfport, Ocean Springs, and Pass Christian each had a parade on a different day over the long weekend so that each town can go to each other's parade.

All in all, it's pretty sweet. I ended up running into Al D'Orville again at the parade. Unfortunately, he starting feeling ill and had to sit down. Now if you know Al, he goes out and collects beads and then uses them for Knights of Columbus or sells them back penny on the pound. Anyhow, we collected a ton of beads and I got the idea that everyone at Hands On will have a ton of beads that they don't need or want to keep so we're going to do a "bead drive" for Al. So if you're reading this and you have beads to donate, we're collecting them over by the architecture table inside on the pew by the projector screen. Bring them on over. Without further adieu, here's the snaps!

A totally sweet Nascar float... Go 24!

The Dragon float was totally awesome although their float peeps were stingy with the beads

He's got big balls...

Ahh, marching chicks. Sweet.

Shriners = Comedy Gold

Part of the Crew with Yvonne on the way back after the parade

This is Jody Rater running from a picture. Just outside the frame is Jennifer one of the new people at the GCCDS who has a similar deal to Sarah with Americorps as I understand.

Today I drove Ozayr out to Ocean Springs, and then out to Waveland and back along the coast to show him the range of damage and rebuilding that we're dealing with in the region. Afterwards we stopped by the Waffle House in East Biloxi near his hotel and talked through a lot of design issues and made some big and exciting decisions about my thesis for about three hours or so and drank enough sweet tea to float a boat.

Due to some holdups with funding, we decided to push the infrastructure piece into a relationship with the studio and housing aspects of my thesis and let the construction portion happen if it happens, but otherwise over the summer with funding that I've been discussing with some charities in East Biloxi this summer.

Anyhow, I'll give you a quick rundown of some of the other decisions that were made...

After waffling on the practicality of the shipping container here and there in terms of how dominating it should be in the project, we discussed the container's strengths and weaknesses in terms of programmatic availability.

We discussed the development of Studio 4284, an undergraduate offering at the University of Minnesota which is developing the Clean Hub, a design of studio leader and Shelter Architecture principal John Dwyer. It has been one of the precedents for the infrastructure piece of my thesis and I got the opportunity to sit in and critique a preliminary design presentation and discuss my ideas and the ideas of the studio in developing an intermodal, infrastructural solution using a shipping container. Some of their ideas were very interesting and many raw, but with excellent potential.

After reviewing the possibilities for my site selection, and despite having permission to adapt a container on the Hands On site, and the idea of using the St. Louis site is enticing, but the old machine shop at Division and Brown which I actually highlighted quite some time ago was brought up and Ozayr and I actually decided that it would be the ideal site in which to highlight the interaction of the industrial aspects of the local and global economies I am interested in. The site which is zoned B-2 will hopefully allow me the opportunity to explore the mixed-program of my three headed studio project. The studio is starting to explore the zoning in East Biloxi and I'm hoping that they will be able to help me understand some of the issues they're coming up against.

All in all, I couldn't be more thankful for Ozayr coming down for this visit. I am really focused at this point in my Thesis and I am feeling absolutely content and confident about the work I am doing down here and the people I am working with. That about sums it up for this round. Stay Classy.

Our lunching destination: Evelyn's Place

So Ozayr is here in Biloxi for a long weekend visit to check out what is going on with my thesis and scope the lay of the land to better understand what the Gulf is like at the present time. First night out we took him to S&B's for some crawfish.

Matt and our usual server Jessica, the sweetheart of S&B's!

Tomorrow we decided to head to New Orleans with some of the studio as well as Andrew or "Google" as he is affectionately known around base. He is part of Blue 7, an Americorps *NCCC group that was based in St. Bernard's Parrish just outside of NO for their previous spike. He's going to act as a tour guide through the Parrish and 9th Ward and then we're going to hit up some parades. Enjoy.

Well, we stopped by the Parker House today which is the first in the series of model homes being built in conjunction with Architecture for Humanity. Anyhow, seeing as how it is being constructed by all volunteer labor we have had Mennonites whom are ridiculously fast and effective at kicking butt. We got a chance to see them put up about half of the trusses on the smaller of the two pieces of the house with Mike Grote giving some commentary and lending a hand...

...afterward a couple of us explored more of East Biloxi while looking at the sites for the studio project and another opportunity that may be used for Spring Break when we happened upon this amalgamation of a house. Makes you wonder why we have to go through so much crap to fulfill building code when stuff like this gets put up without being penalized. I like to think of it as early Frank Gehry meets crazy Rural Studio with a strong dash of Tony's Cajun Seasoning. Anyhoo, we found some random swag sitting inside that Matt and I totally had to pose with. Check it.

Finally, after a grand day of adventure we went to see Pan's Labyrinth which I thought was amazing visually, and had a pretty good story, if not rather simple. Anyhoo, here's us rocking it out. Ozayr Saloojee, my thesis advisor is coming down to visit for the long weekend, so I will probably update after that occurs with a mega-blog.

Stay ginchy.

Some people may celebrate their love by having a sweet walk on the beach, or dinner at the spot of their first date. We have a design review. Which totally reminds me of the "hockey love" skits by Mitch Hedberg. "Architecture Love" abounded as the studio prepared for reviews and I set up my own "office" upstairs in the EBCRC, before their afternoon review.

Tomorrow we're going to go and check up on the Parker House and see what's up with the Mennonites who are doing the rest of the framing and work on the roof.

Introducing the Players:

Matt Huntress:

Conor Gibson:

Chandler Overcash:

Scott Emison:

Omar Hakeem

Here is the best of my abilities to acknowledge the Americorps NCCC teams that are here. AmeriCorps NCCC is a program for 18-24 year olds that gives them an opportunity to serve different communities around the United States for 10 months in teams of 8-12 people. They have 5 spikes of approximately two months a piece and as a mandate, two of those spikes are in the Gulf. So here's my introduction to my N-Trips. I have access to more Charleston pics, but hopefully a bunch of the Sactown kids are going to be in New Orleans for Mardi Gras so we'll take more pics then...

Sacremento (Red 3):

Kym

Emily

Nikki

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Charleston (Blue 7):

Blue 7 kicking it gutstyle

Out for a night on the town in New Orleans sans Google (l to r: Jo, Mike, Corey, Megan, Emily, Kendall, Shannon)

The Team with Andrew "Google" Shirley at the left of the picture

John Wildeman Presents: Dance Fever

Ali and Anne Presents: A Day In The Life of Ali

Blue Cheetos Productions Presents: When Moldie Met Sally

Mike and Michelle Present: Sex, Lies, and Sheetrock

So at Hands On we have all sorts of fun as a community and one of the things that we did recently was have a film competition that came about as a result from one of the framers (who is from Australia) wanting to document his work on film. In honor of him the awards are called the "Woody". We all hit America's Thrift store or any other number of fun places to buy clothes and got dolled up.

The Woody Committee went so far as to create a red carpet from some black tarp and spray paint as well as roping it off with some heavy duty rope and road sign posts spray painted gold. We all got into vans and drove around front and then up to "walk the red carpet".

Appropriately, there were fashion Woodies and film Woodies. The whole gang looked great for the ordeal. Petey Pablo brought home a Woody for "Best Dressed AFH" in his Fred Rogers get up, and Derek won a Woody for his "Impromptu Performances".

P came over and whipped up a Mexican food spread that went over huge. After dinner we had the Fashion Woody Awards given out then screened the films on the screen we made for the Super Bowl which has taken on. I will try and get them up on YouTube if they will fit after I get a copy of them from our digital Guru: Andrew "Google" Shirley.

Finally, Michelle and Susanne, both of whom are the sweetest girls you can meet led us in the camp favorite "Wagon Wheel". I'm not sure who it is by, but everyone seems to know it, and I love that we all sing it together... is that weird? Anyhow, check out the video.

Picture of the Day: I suppose I don't have a whole lot of pictures of myself on here, so here's a Zissou for all my peeps.

Well, Friday was kind of a wash with Grote needing to get a bunch of stuff done on deadline so we mostly worked on our own and did a bit of kick ball on the beach. We also picked up a bunch of scrap wood from some sites and what not to make some shelving for the people living inside. I moved outside recently after cleaning out part of the secondary storage tent and Sambo staked out a summer house there as well.

Today we got up and framed the smaller of the two wings of the first AFH Model home in East Biloxi, took a break for lunch and the parade and then headed back and finished up. I will give it to Biloxi, they throw a helluva parade.

Things are really progressing over at the new Coordination Center and we stopped by and took pictures. We expect to be in there around Spring Break. I promised pics a couple of blogs ago, so here's a couple of how it's going. The first is of what will be a case worker office and the second is of the community meeting room which is currently taken over by insulation for the entire complex.

Picture of the Day: I am the Leprechan! (who doesn't love Wayne's World?)

So until the new Center is ready at the old St. Louis parrish building, we are holing up in the old East Biloxi Center for Relief and Redevelopment Agency building upstairs next to the case worker offices.

As you can see from the pictures our offices (which we have all named: Two Spoon Design Studio, Studio Desperado, Sugar and Spice, etc) are quite open air and accessible.

Anyhow, we're heading out to S & B's tonight and are going to be doing some framing in the first AFH Biloxi Model House on Friday which is being built completely by volunteer labor. Get your hammers ready boys and girls!

Picture of the Day: Bonus from yesterday's Tabletop crop featuring Shana Payne

So while we have been down here, we invented a game we call "Tripong". It basically consists of three of the round tables that we have at Hands-On along with a triangle net that was constructed from some 1x6 lumber we grabbed from the dumpster. It has a pretty big following at the camp and we even got David and Mike to play with us after seminar today. The classes that the studio have are pretty sweet. The building methodologies class with Mike Grote from AFH is a amalgam of building systems and pro practice at the U only with examples from the Gulf Coast. Anyhow, the pancake contest continues, but I'm pretty sure we're all getting sick of it, so I think it will end soon.

Saturday is the Mardi Gras season kick-off parade in Biloxi, so look for pictures from that this weekend. Cheers.

Picture of the Day: Another from my ongoing series of table level pictures from our "lecture hall"

I learned that in my absence, these chumps proved their chumpitude with only Sam Carlsen stepping to the forefront and leading the charge into the lead, but only by ONE pancake. It looks like I will regain my ground at some point this week. I'll keep everyone posted...

Pancake King: Sambo...for now.

I forgot to get Matt's keys this morning, so I'm going back to enter all my journals I have been keeping track of, but negligent in entering. Here's an update for today though... it's 57 degrees in Biloxi and 0 degrees in Minneapolis. Goodbye fried walleye, hello fried chicken! It's been really fun to re-acclimate down here and see the progress that has happened at the Design Studio in my absence. Today, there was a crew from Hands-On going to help sheet rock the auxiliary building that the student studio will be in. Meanwhile, the studio guys and girls are detailing and building the large sliding doors that will separate the Design Studio from the rest of the Coordination Center. It's a neat little project that has a lot to do with weaving materials. If I remember, I will take some pictures of it tomorrow when I'm over there and toss them on. Anyhow, enjoy reading the backlogs and I will talk more later...

Picture of the day:

P.S. S & B's has a mess of crawfish coming in on Wednesday. Who's happy? I'll give you one guess. He's got two thumbs and they're both pointing at *this guy*.

Well, after going out and shooting the darts with the gang last night we got up and scarfed some breakfast down before heading over to Wal-Mart. I needed to grab some contacts and we also needed to stock up for the game. We gathered a fair assortment of snacks and what not then stood in line for what seemed like ages. When in line Andrew, one of the Americorps guys and I advocated the cold soda from the fridge at the checkout seeing as how we only had warm soda in our cart. We won a few converts then went home to rig up the sweetest Super Bowl setup I've ever witnessed.

Using the small existing sheet which was folded in half, we cleared the wall of banners and began our quest for superior Superbowldom. Matt has a thing called Slingbox on his computer which lets him tap into his own cable box at home in Minneapolis, so we rigged that into a projector and gave birth to a really rockin' show. The Mississippi State boys cooked up some Rotel dip and we made up some pizzas to add to our goodies from Wal-Mart.

The Super Bowl itself was a bit sloppy, but I was happy to see Peyton Manning pull it out. Congrats must go out to Malea, who has been a staunch supporter of her Indianapolis Colts ever since I've known her. Anyhoo, I'll toss a couple of pictures on, especially the half-time show with (REPRESENT!) Prince kicking it with his hits and even covering a little Foo Fighters while he was at it.

Well, after getting up at the butt crack of dawn this morning for my 7:05 flight and barely making it due to an oversight on my part for forgetting my camera cord at my apartment, I had a smooth flight and sat next to two rather delightful people on both the leg to Atlanta (which I slept through most of) and on the puddle jump to Biloxi. I got a bit of reading done on the way to Biloxi and it was a good thing I got the book out because we had to circle once over the Gulf so I got in a bit late. The high point was probably the Victory Lane burger joint sponsored by Miller Lite and sporting all sorts of NASCAR paraphernalia across from my gate in Hotlanta.

Anyhow, Matt picked me up and I met up with the crew to catch up. I'm going over to the pub with Conor and Sam in a bit so I'm sure I'll have some dart throwin' pics to toss up tomorrow. Also, the Super Bowl is tomorrow, so if you can out do our Super Bowl idea, I will give you a cookie. I'll take photos of it tomorrow after we go shopping.

In safe with approximately 3400 air miles and 1500 road miles so far this semester. More figures coming. Cheers.

So I'm leaving for Biloxi tomorrow, but I wanted to do something a little special for what could possibly be my last regular season game coaching for the Golden Gophers. Scott, Nick, and Russ stopped by and we ordered pizza and fired up the PS2. Today we were playing for not only the win record, but a little brass pig named Floyd of Rosedale against the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Long story short, I won in convincing fashion moving ahead of Joe Paterno on the all-time college football win list. In the end, the game strangely enough did not recognize my record which I have already e-mailed EA about, but let me share with you the festivities. 337 baby!