May 2007 Archives

"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." -Rogers Hornsby

I love baseball. I am not sure how to describe it except that it has been a part of my life as long as anyone in my life except my immediate family. In all honesty, I had baseball before I had my brother. But, as people say, "baseball is just a game". The fact of the matter is that baseball is much more than a game. Baseball is a fever that you get inside of you and it doesn't let you go; at least it is for me. Baseball is the one sport that no matter how lax I am about following or enjoying I come back to every time and it puts a smile on my face. Some people say that a bad day fishing is better than a good day working. I think any day of baseball is better than both.

Anyhow, my friend Jessica bought tickets for the two of us to go to the Twins game on Memorial Day and I made a couple of off-color comments about other attendees. This basically led me to go through what I think belongs and does not belong at the ballpark. I thought it would be amusing for my readerdom to be able to share in this rant, so I'm piecing things together into a little manifesto on baseball interspersed with some of my favorite quotes and a few pictures of my Minnesota Twins. And no, for the record, it is not a dumb name. When we inherited the Senators from Washington, they couldn't very well stay the Senators. We're the Twin Cities and hence the Twins. It's better than the freakin' Wild!

Foods that belong at the ballpark:
1) Any type of packed meat... this includes sausages, weiners, brats, kielbasa, etc. and in buns please
2) Anything mentioned in "Take Me Out to the Ballgame". We're talking peanuts and cracker jacks people.
3) Anything that a player eats during a game (i.e. sunflower seeds, bubble gum, etc.)
4) Any food which you would traditionally buy at a fair or carnival such as cotton candy, hot pretzels, but not stick food, except corn dogs... as Mills Lane says: "I'll allow it!"

Foods that do NOT belong at the ballpark:
1) Ethnic foods. This includes pizza, nachos, any Asian food dish, falafel, etc.
2) Ice cream cups. Although I don't really approve of cones either, I really hate malt cups and lemon chills.
3) Salads. You want health food, save it for outside the ballpark, we serve sugar and heart attacks here.
4) Pulled pork, ribs, etc. Save the smoker and tailgaiting fair for the tailgate... or football season.

Other Notes:

1) Don't get so drunk you can't function.
2) Don't swear at the players/umps. Ballgames should be family events, treat them like that.
3) Participate in "the wave" it will help your team.
4) Don't get upset when people in front of you stand up to cheer. They are excited and they paid too. Stand and Cheer.
5) I don't want to hear "God Bless America" or "Proud to be an American". The only two songs that are allowed at the ballpark should be the National Anthem and "Take me out to the Ballgame".
6) Tip the vendors, they basically run stairs the whole game.
7) Don't answer your cell phones in your seat. If you want to make a call, go to the concourse or to standing room. You'll be able to hear and we'll be able to watch the game.

"I don't know why people like the home run so much. A home run is over as soon as it starts.... The triple is the most exciting play of the game. A triple is like meeting a woman who excites you, spending the evening talking and getting more excited, then taking her home. It drags on and on. You're never sure how it's going to turn out." ~George Foster, 1978

Quote of the Day (in honor of my ongoing tribute to the Sultan of Strikes):

"Every hitter likes fastballs, just like everybody likes ice cream. But you don't like it when someone's stuffing it into you by the gallon. That's what it feels like when Nolan Ryan's thrown balls by you." -Reggie Jackson

Yesterday was a good day. A very good day. I got a chance to get out of my apartment a good deal and see a good number of friends. Not only that, but I totally reignited my life long love affair with Baseball. But, this story starts in the morning.

I got up around 7 and took a shower then went and met up with my friend Molly Green who is studying for an exam associated with her career at Dain Rauscher. I myself needed to get out of the house and get some work done on my thesis book so we hung out for the morning at the Dunn Bros. on 6th and University which I really enjoy despite its massive lack of outlets.

Molly looks a bit ghostly, but made for excellent coffee shop study company

After working all morning, I met up with my friend Jessica and we went to the Twins game with tickets she bought me as a graduation present. We sat in the right field corner where I have never actually sat before and loved it! Not only did we win, but I got a chance to see one of the best catches by Torii Hunter or anyone else I've ever seen. It reminded me of Kirby Puckett out in center as he snagged a home run, on the run, over his shoulder. Damn fine catch.

Santana pitched an outstanding 8 innings and got the run support he needed for a big win

I went home for a bit and then headed over to Anderson and Stacy's downtown apartment and we cooked up some bbq fare and caught up. I also got a chance to see pictures from Luke and Katherine's wedding down in Mexico which was beautiful.

Anderson and Stacy and a beautiful pair of Margaritas

Finally, I met up with Melissa and watched Thank You For Smoking with Aaron Eckhart which is really an outstanding movie and very pleasingly designed. Really an A-grade movie.

And thus, Memorial Day drew to a close. Hope yours was as enjoyable.

Honoring the dead. It's strange to think of the day as a holiday. I don't feel that a whole lot of people even stop to reflect on the fact that we're honoring the dead anymore. I guess today I'd like to honor the living by saying a couple of words about my father. My dad served in Vietnam as part of the Air Force, and while I don't really care to regale you with any stories of his time in service to his country, I would like to say a couple words in service of him and his recent battles.

Over ten years ago my father was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Luckily he hasn't been affect as some are with deteriorating MS. If you've ever seen the West Wing, my father has the same type of MS that President Bartlett played by Martin Sheen had. It is called relapsing-remitting. Although unpredictable in its nature due to the randomness of the "attacks" it has only caused my dad one incident of double vision but remained otherwise passive in nature. Although this is a battle that has been an important one, there was a larger one to come.

After an MRI to check on my Dad's back and see how his MS was doing, his doctor found a malignant tumor in the early parts of this year on the right side of his brain. I didn't find out about it until I was already down in Biloxi, and my Mom downplayed the dangers of it. It wasn't until after the operation that she told me that it was cancerous and that my Dad would be going through radiation and chemo treatment. As I understand it, the tumor was high density which means it had a good chance of withstanding the first round of radiation.

I'm extremely happy to say that I got a chance after my semester down in Biloxi to take my Dad in for the MRI which told us that the radiation had indeed eliminated the tumor with the doctors only finding traces of scar tissue on the area where the tumor formerly was. As of now my father is doing really well and his blood work continues to come back with excellent results. He will continue with the chemo for the rest of the year but he has already made it through the first round this month and was feeling okay as a result.

Now, I know this isn't the traditional battle that we celebrate on Memorial Day, but I'd like to give thanks to my Dad for always being there for me, and continuing to be there for me in all my decisions.

This entry won't actually have anything to do with that, but it's okay. Anyhow, being home is weird. Especially when every waking moment is either focused on reformatting my thesis book to graduate school standards or planning on moving or packing for moving. It's a rather stressful thing, especially when I'm forced to decided to sell a great deal of my furniture and what not because I won't have the money or space to move it down south. To me, the most important things to bring south are: clothes, entertainment, and my books. Aside from that I will probably bring my favorite glasses and dishes, but other than that and my two Herman Miller chairs, I think the rest is going to go. If you are in the cities and are in need of comfy chairs, couches, a great love seat and chair, a drawing desk, a bed or anything else you can think of, feel free to inquire. Everything must go as the creepy guy on the liquidation ads say. Has it set in yet? No, but I'm sure it'll creep up on me soon.

Picture of the Day:

For those of you who don't know the art from this post and Anyeshka and the Red Man, it is from one of my favorite websites: www.explodingdog.com

Well, I made it to 100 entries which is pretty exciting. I know I still have some backlog to deposit, but I'm getting there. Today I spent the day working through another bit of my thesis and updating this bad boy as well as doing some financial planning for the move. I also went for a drive in the Explorer today and it's driving like a million bucks.

Tonight, I am going to pick up my friend Nick from work and then we're going to get some dinner and hang out. Is it an uneventful day for such an eventful blog? Probably.

I'll spice it up with a link to one of the photo projects I have compiled entitled: "I'm the one on the right..."

Anyeshka and the Red Man?

No, this is not the name of a children's parable, although it could be.

My today was uneventful. I got into Minneapolis, at 12:16 this morning way ahead of schedule and my folks were kind enough to pick me up at the airport. I got to sleep over at their house and have spent most of the rest of the day here. We are going to go out to dinner and although I love them to death, it was par for the course. They are always amazing and treat me tremendously well. I will save gushing for another time. Love you guys.

For now, I will recount the course of my evening at the Atlanta Airport where I met a most delightful fellow traveler named Anyeshka Pavlik, or "Yesh" for short. She too is in a stage of transition moving back to her hometown of Milwaukee after spending the last 5 years or so in Manhattan pursuing her degree and working. She is now on her way back to Milwaukee to pursue a degree at Marquette in Non-Profit Management (a girl after my own heart). So we talked about our work and what we hope to pursue in the future. Regardless, here is the beginning of the story since I seem to be getting ahead of myself.

While I was sitting at my gate waiting for my flight, I decided to take out my camera and set it up for some still video capture that I could speed up and play with. I love people watching, especially at Atlanta since it is such a large hub and always have something going on. But I digress.

After a couple of long takes with me checking in on the camera to see how it was progressing, I apparently peaked Yesh's interest and she asked me exactly what I was doing. I explained my idea and we got to carrying on about things. Like I mentioned earlier, we are both from the Midwest and have been adventuring elsewhere lately. It was really nice to meet someone so interesting in the airport. I'm sure chance meetings like this happen all the time, but we got along very well and Yesh certainly made the time fly by during the wait for her flight home to Milwaukee.

The moral of the story? New friends and new beginnings happen to be found in the strangest of places.

Fresh start boys and girls... Tune in tomorrow for Chapter 100!

Today draws Operation: Tuesday to a close and I want to say what a joy it has been to put into motions my permanent place on the coast and see so many great friends. I have to say that I haven't mentioned my friend Amanda (who is actually called Amanda) whom I missed by a matter of hours when I arrived last Tuesday.

Amanda was one of the sweetest people I have met on the coast and was a Grade-A ass-kicker out in the field leading crews with Brannon and doing really amazing stuff. I had to say that I missed her a lot but wish her well in her work back at Stanford and hope to see her back in the future.

My last day was pretty low key. I worked in the morning over at the center then headed over to Hands On with M who had to speak to the new AmeriCorps people. Alas, the pups had returned to their temporary home, so I didn't get to see them, but I did help Heath put up a big pen in the back for Sarah's dog Moxie so she wasn't so cramped up. Other than that, it was a pretty uneventful day. Two of the studio students from the semester are staying the summer so they were there for 'Corps training and made the exact same structure of blocks during one of the team building exercises... architects, go figure :).

Anyhow, I'll be leaving for the airport shortly for my last stay up in Minneapolis before the big move. My facebook network has been changed to Gulfport/Biloxi, and in modern times I think that spells the end for a time to my Minneapolis life. The next chapter is about to begin. Thanks for everyone who helped me turn pages to get to this point.

To start of this entry, I have to introduce you to the newly crowned Jessie/James plot to take over the world. It starts with theme parties (such as colors dressing as your favorite animal or alter ego, etc.), but will also include mix tapes to be played at the residence at different points in the day. The first of such mixes has been decided upon and will be Wake Up Music. Jessie's entries are forthcoming but she has made sure to let me know that a song called "King of the Carrot Flowers: Part 2 & 3" is on the mix which begins by a peculiar admission of love for the Christian savior Jesus which Jessie LOVES to sing along to at pretty much any time of the day despite her apparent religious ambiguity. I think it is due to the fact that the singing is mostly pseudo-off-key and occasionally annoying. Anyhow, I put in for a couple of Beatles favorites (I'm Only Sleeping & Here Comes The Sun) as well as "Wake Up April" by the Promise Ring. If you have others to add, feel free to send them my way. The thought is that each roommate gets 5 songs per mix.

On the way into the center we saw a car with a scooter on the back which had a "I'm not tail gatin, I'm draftin" which cracked me up.

Moving along... today the Minnesota Crew which is here for an M-term was in full force at the Center plotting and meeting with Bill and David and one another to get going on a design/build project for John Henry Beck Park. It is really good to see them all in town and ready to get to work on what we all hope will be another great project.

On the thesis front, I got another 20 pages or so reformatted today and worked for the afternoon on the Boost Home project. I also got a chance to have a great talk with Derek who remains one of the best guys I've met down on the coast and I am glad to see him staying down to help out with the M-term coordination. We talked on the way over to the Salvation Army tent which I am proud to say still serves the best free sandwich lunches in East Biloxi :) and enjoyed its redness along with my fellow Golden Gophers.

We also got a visit from Kate Stohr, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity which was a nice suprise since I thought she was going to be dropping by on Wednesday after I left. Anyhow, for a little background, Kate was down here with me and the group last Spring as part of the AFH/U of MN trip organized by her partner Cameron Sinclair who was the College's visiting professor of Architecture and one of my instructors last spring. It was really great to catch up with Kate as well as see her darling daughter who has grown a bunch since I last saw her in February.

Kate and Cameron in their "ass-kicker" pose from a Wired Article on AFH

After the afternoon of visits and work, I headed back to Hands On for dinner since it was my last dinner during Operation: Tuesday and the last opportunity to see some of my friends who would be gone by the time I got back in June. I was pleasantly surprised to see one of the kittens that were housed at Hands On back for a visit as well as a couple of yellow lab/chow puppies which were a bit sick and kept off of a transport to Denver for adoption. Prepare for egregious and shamelessly puppy and kitty pictures.

Me and Otis

Derek w/Coffee

Sarah w/Otis and Kaitlin w/ Coffee

Sid(ney) Vicious

Anyhow, we got to play with puppies until dinner and had a great time. One is named Coffee and I named the other two Gwen and Otis. I would love to adopt a dog during my stay in Mississippi and these guys definitely have me leaning towards a Yellow Lab, but we'll see. Deloris doesn't get along too well with other dogs, so that precludes me from getting a dog during my stay with Jessie.

Wrapping up the night after a lively dinner meeting which I hosted (and featured the Question of the Day: If you were a Pirate, what would your Name be?) we headed over to The Pub. Since this was my last night there and the last I was going to spend with Heath (who was leaving Wednesday to go back and finish his degree) we got together with G-Mo and a short-termer to play a couple of games of pool and later a game of Baseball on the ol' dart board which I won with a 9th inning rally of 5 runs! Anyhow, I may not mention Heath a ton in my blog, but I don't think I could enough. He ended up being on of my best friends among the long termers and really is a stand-up guy.

I wish you all the best in the degree Spartan, can't wait to see you in August.

...it should have been WAR EAGLE!

Alright, so I woke up this morning with all good intentions of going to New Orleans with the Amanda Gang. We crashed at Tim Boon's place last night and when I got up I called Jessie who didn't answer. Anyhow, Kendall dropped me off at Hands On and they took off to see a couple sites on the way to New Orleans and I was set to meet up with them later in the day either with Jessie or Heath. As it turns out I ended up staying at Hands On then heading back to Jessie's house and never making it out.

In retrospect, it would have been a blast, but I did get to spend some time with friends from NCCC groups which had left and I got another 40 pages of my Thesis book re-formatted. Also, I was there for Guillermo's "Mustache Day" which as you can see from the picture above (with my babyboo Arielle) was a can't miss event. Itsa me Mario! The rest of the day was pretty laid back as I got a chance to scope out the Sunflower Patch that Luc planted and am proud to say that the Shana/James Commemorative Sunflower is sprouting right up!

The end of the day was spent chilling out at Sweet's with Jessie and Deloris as the night was pretty dead. We helped clean up and then headed home.

Finally, Jessie got some new glasses on our trip to Tuesday Mornings to help out with the long days in front of the computer which are really Marion the LIbrarian and look cute on her. Please join me in cajoling her into wearing them on a more regular basis as needed!

Last night many of the ladies and gentleman of the GCCDS met up at the center and went out to S&B's for crawfish. While it wasn't the best I've ever had in terms of juiciness, it certainly was nice and spicy. Roll call included: Matt, Derek, Brandon, Christine, Kristin, Sarah, Jessie, Jenny, and myself.

Fortunately, Jenny arrived just in time for food, but too late for the picture taking extravaganza in Christine's fly red shades. Anyhoo, thanks to Christine and her magnificent flickr menagerie of photos for the links. After we had filled our belly's Christine, Jenny, Sarah, Jessie, Kristen, and I went to the Cabana which is a little tiki themed bar placed by a pool in Gulfport for a couple of margaritas. A lovely time was had by all and Jessie and I headed back to her place where Deloris was happy to see us and I promptly sacked out on the couch.

In the morning we got up and Jessie made some of her world famous banana bread sans nuts (just for me!) and we hung out for a bit enjoying the Saturdayness of it all. After a while, we met up with one of our new possible roomates Matt and his girlfriend Amanda (who both work at the nature conservatory at Gulf Shores) for another viewing of the Bangkok House. I am working on piecing together pictures to make an appendix, so keep on the lookout for that. We found a couple new things that we liked and a couple new things that we didn't like so we are all still on the fence about moving in, but it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity, that is for sure.

And in keeping with the title of this post, afterward, we headed down the block to Sweet's where they were having a delicious crawfish broil out back... 160 pounds of crawfish to be exact. Chris was on broiler duty and he did a great job cooking some of the best darn crawfish I have ever had. Cajun spices, corn on the cob, asparagus, sausage, mushrooms, onions, brussel sprouts, lemons and potatoes all went in the pot with the crawfish and provides some of the best eats the south has ever produced.

After our outing at Sweet's we all headed back to Jessie's and watched Idlewild, the film from the minds of Big Boi and Andre 3000, more commonly known as Outkast. I thought it was shot beautifully but really came off as a boyhood dream to make a movie manifest. Not that there is anything wrong with that. If I had the money, I'd make a whole slew of films. My favorite idea for a film is actually about an obsessive complusive that has it in his mind to take a road trip, but must get off at every exit due to his condition. Any funders? Let me know, I'll drop everything.

Anyhoo, Kendall from Blue 7 got back into town today and brought two Boston Beauties (tm) with her for the ride: Katy Shea and Amanda Quigley. Apparently, there are a lot of Amanda's up in Mass. and that is why they both go by their last names (Kendall is Amanda's last name, which most people don't actually know because she always goes by Kendall). So we met up and headed out to the Shed after Jessie headed out to work for some great string band jazz and bluegrass.

(l to r: Quigley, Kendall, and KatyShea)

We finally wrapped things up at The Shed and rolled over to meet up with Will and a couple of his friends back at Sweets for a beer and some local flavor which Quigley got a good deal of as she adopted a local family as her own. I'm pretty sure if she didn't have a beau at home she would have been a new resident of the south.

The lovely family w/ Katy who jumped out of the backseat after seeing the picture exclaiming "I gotta get in on that"

Today, the Sacramento team took off from Hands On for a week in Texas and then they are off to Key West. I will say that I really got along with the entire team and I'm going to miss them. I was planning on going over for breakfast at Hands On after my morning make-out session at Jessie's... with her crazy dog Deloris, but I guess their Team Leader Maureen moved up the departure time and I missed them! So to Mara (My Minnesota), Heather (My Lime-Aid Lover), Salem (Meow), Amanda (Kitchen Maven), Lindsay (Danger is her Middle Name, Mo (Don't call her Mo-Mo), and the other members of Gold 7, out on the road... take care and I'm going to miss you a lot. Come visit soon!

Secondly, for all of those who read my blog and have checked out the profile for the GCCDS and its many superstars, you will notice the extremely poor quality inflation of Kristin Zeibler's picture. Since I am now a flickr friend of Kristin and she was kind enough to post a picture of it, I give you the new and improved Kristin with the Kicky haircut photo. May you strike the former photo from your minds and replace it with this little ditty. I dub thee....

Photo of the Day!

Looking good girl.

Yeah, I have been on a Rocky and Bullwinkle episode title tear lately with the blog and I didn't really explain the secondary title yesterday. At Hands On we have had support from many large businesses and one of them is the Credit Suisse Group. They have come down a couple of times and done really great work and when they come into town they are usually incredibly great about treating the long termers to drinks over at The Pub which we refer to as "Getting Suissed". The flip side of that happened today once I finally got back over to Ocean Springs and saw the inside of the Bangkok House and then joined Jessie at the bar since she had to work for a bit. Having gotten "Suissed" the night before I decided to lay low and watch some sports at the bar and talk with Jessie about our mad plans for our new living quarters.

As for the rest of the title, I slept over at Hands On last night after hanging out with Woody and a couple of other people who are taking off for a bit of a break after a long stay here in Biloxi. I got up and had a chance to hang out with various friends from the Sacramento NCCC team that is leaving tomorrow for their next spike and then went to the pier out at the beach with Lindsay and her sister and brother-in-law for an hour or so. Afterward I got dropped over at the design center and did a bit of work before Jessie and I made our way back to OS to check out Bangkok and pick up Deloris.

I am looking forward to posting pics of the inside of the Bangkok House as soon as I get back and grab my chord. I realize now that it may be in my duffel bag that I brought my clothes in, so I'm going to check that out when I get back to the house. Anyhoo, the place looked really good. With the exception of some cleaning and the partitioning of a couple of bedrooms by building some built in pieces, it is really dope. I sincerely hope it all works out.

Lastly I had a chance to hang out with the GCCDS gang at Sweet's last night and play a bit of pool with Jenny, Sarah, Christine, and PotC which was good times. P had excellent choices for the jukebox (which is fantastic) as did the rest of the crew. Tomorrow we are all going out for a Happy Hour drink and then to Waveland for some S&B's crawfish action. *drool*

On that note, I give you the...

Retro Crawfish Photo of the Day:

My first day back for the third and final stay of the spring semester

Today I hung out with Deloris, Jessie's Huskie/German Shepherd mix at JZ's pad in Ocean Springs and worked on my thesis book formatting for the Graduate School so I can get that all printed and finished up when I get back up to Minnesota next weekend.

I also started a new project that I had a chance to discuss with David when I got into town yesterday which is an offshoot of my thesis project that is being called the Boost Home. It basically uses the logic that since you have to elevate your house anyway, why not pre-package a house kit similar to the old Sears Catalog Homes in the container with various pieces pre-assembled before shipping to minimize the on-site costs of construction making it a viable solution to rebuilding here in the coast. Since you are keeping the container intact it remains water-tight and able to safely house the belongings of the residents within. Despite it's modest footprint, it provides an ample arrangement of spaces for the displaced individual and is a cost-effective solutions to FEMA elevation guidelines. Anyhow, I'm going to continue to develop this while I'm down here and go grant hunting in the fall if I get it to shake out as I would like.

So, as I promised yesterday I planned on adding a story here or there in regards to the inside jokes of my graduation speech. I think instead I am going to create an appendix like I have for a couple of other subjects and just update it as it goes along with video and pictures of said incidents or an aforementioned textual anecdote.

Finally, I give you the one, the only...

Retro Photo of the Day:

Samuel is an Indian and I am Emily Long

Everyone who has seen my current status on ye olde Facebook has been inquiring as to the identity and details concerting what I have been dubbing Operation Tuesday. For those assembled I will spell it out presently:

Operation Tuesday is a one week trip down to Biloxi before the big move to work out details of my job through Mississippi State with David Perkes and to try and secure some housing. Jessie and I are looking at the Bangkok House on Thursday which should be fun and then we will try and figure out alternate plans if it isn't all we dreamed it would be and more. Anyhow, I was departing and returning on Tuesdays, hence the name.

NOTE: As I have forgotten the chord attachment for my digital camera, I will instead include the story behind each inside joke from my graduation speech as an anecdotal appendage to these visually challenged posts until I can get my photos up. Additionally, I will re-institute the Photo/Video of the Day to add to the visual exuberance of the entries. Look for bits starting in Chapter 92 and reference Chapter 89: Graduation is for Lovers for a complete Graduation rundown via video and transcript.

Video of the Day:
Check out number one there at the end. Nolan Ryan = Badass.

I was really fortunate to have a bunch of friends in town over the weekend one of which is one of my dearest friends Andrea Brown. After dating our friend Ryan for the past 4 or so years, he popped the question shortly before her trip. We had a chance to go and see our old drafting instructor Juris Terauds at Minnetonka High School today which was a lot of fun. The old drafting lab is in full force and they even have copies of Revit.

So in honor of Andrea, here's some pictures of us all out at Brit's tonight with Adam and Anderson & Stacy. We all took pictures with her exceedingly dope red glasses. Without further adieu, I give you Architects in Red Glasses.

Red Adam

Red James

Red Andrea

Our non-Red Posse: Anderson & Stacy

P.S. I got a chance to run into my friend Erika at Brit's who I was down in Biloxi with and she said she is going to try to get down for a bit this summer. So I have to toss out a "What up boo?" to E-roK. Hope you make it.

I am going to use this post to bolster my other grad posts with pictures and an explanation of the inside jokes for my friends that my not get all of those. Pictures will be first with the explanations of the jokes coming as I feel like recounting the stories.

Graduation Pics:

Inside Joke Explanations:

We've gone Behind the Architecture with Arthur and Bernard refers to a video we made as a farce on an assignment for the end of our first year, first semester. Arthur and Bernard were fictional clients and subdivided the semester into two conceptual design projects working with six parallel walls and a cube of space. We decided that doing a Behind the Music type documentary on the two brothers as the characters from televisions Perfect Strangers would be hilarious so here it is in its entirety. And yes, that is me as the narrator doing my best Robert Ferguson impression.

Walking the Walk

Talking the Talk

Reading the Talk:

As my fellow classmate and historian of the immediate future Phil Fossen once told me...
We are gathered here today to talk about tomorrow.
Yesterday is gone and tomorrow will soon be today.
I guess I’m really here to talk about the past and the future.
And as our esteemed professor of Gothic and Renaissance Architecture
Leon Satkowski has said, “history is where it’s at, or at least where it was� so I’ll start there.

Three years ago I was corralled onto a bus with a bunch of strangers and a few random acquaintances.
We were off on an orientation weekend to all get to know each other.
I’m sure you’ve all been there in one form or another.
Is a mandatory weekend retreat really going to bring us all together?
Is this any way to start a dynasty?

Now, I'm sure that many of my classmates in the Masters of Architecture program were thinking the same thing that I did when we got there...

Weekend away at a University we don't attend
Sleeping in dormitories
Going on nature walks in the forest looking at trees and plants
Making natural art using twigs and berries
No rip and tear modeling supplies in sight.

I think they sent us on the Landscape Architecture retreat.

But somewhere amongst the bikes in trees,
discussions of diets with faculty,
delicious cafeteria food,
crazy potters,
and Andy Goldsworthy-esque Exquisite Corpse exercises scattered throughout the woods of St. Johns
it happened. We had formed our family.

Now I'm sure a lot of you might be thinking that this is another
"what a wonderful family speech" and in a way it is.
But it isn't without its share of adventure and bickering just like any other real family.

Since the inception of our Masters of Architecture quest,
we've designed the most beautiful house in the world,
one of which looked suspiciously like Ryan Grunklee.
We've gone Behind the Architecture with the perfect strangers Arthur and Bernard.
We’ve learned that phenomenology is more than just a rose.
We've tried to work the most preposterous words imaginable into presentations. *point for phenomenology*.
We’ve exchanged the contents of the R-Factor’s desks by the cover of darkness.
We've engaged in graphing almost any activity you can imagine.
We've travelled to Chicago and learned the power of a handshake.
We've made decisions on how much to cut off of a site model,
which perhaps could have been handled more delicately.
We’ve contemplated the brickness of the brick.
We learned the importance of Horos, Topos, Kratos, and Manos.
We were witness to the death of tectonics and had classical revivals WITH victory laps around the balcony.
We've played all manner of ball sports indoors and have only broken a couch.
We've been treated to the finer things in life by our own French ambassador and his luxurious loft.
We've studied in Port Cities both foreign and domestic.
We have had delicious pot lucks and eaten more meatballs and ice cream dessert that you can fathom.
And most recently and importantly,
finished what we are gathered here today to celebrate with all of you...
the completion of our degrees.

I am proud to say that despite the difference in study and school
all of the graduates assembled here today are a far cry from the people we were when we showed up here three, four, five or more years ago.
For those who are outside of our program
I’m sure you have just as many stories and jokes you could tell to, with, and about one another.
We’ve all shared so much with our classmates
and that’s why this speech may sound so familiar.

We've lost a few classmates and gained a few classmates.
We have grown together and apart and together again,
but we have all grown.
We have made the decisions to steer our educations and our careers in trajectories that have been influenced by faculty and lectures and one another.

Our colleges have bonded together forming the new College of Design and are presented with the opportunity to push collaborative efforts between the many disciplines which it encompasses.
Just like the strangers who show up on the first day of orientation
I hope that this new College can continue to evolve and have its schools challenge one another in promoting a commitment to a sustainable framework for not only designing and building but for living.
Most importantly, I urge the college to share this framework and what it produces with the amazing communities outside the doors of academia here in the Twin Cities and beyond.

Finally, I’d like to leave you with a quote from Robert Terwilliger who said:

“Committing yourself is a way of finding out who you are.
A man finds his identity by identifying.
A man's identity is not best thought of as the way in which he is separated from his fellows
but the way in which he is united with them.�

Let's not all get so caught up with trying so hard to define ourselves as the next great individual.
Let's not sit in front of that desk for the next four or five years of our lives and think that that is what defines us. Let's allow ourselves to interact with the communities in which we design, and build, and live.
But let’s not only be designers.
Let's be artists and musicians.
Let's be advocates and teachers.
Let's be mothers and fathers.
Let's be friends and most importantly let's be family.

Thank you and good luck.

Well, I'm gearing up to give my speech and was relaxing by surfing the web for a bit this morning and stumbled across the Baz Luhrmann song "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)" in which he dispels a number of idioms concerning life's trials and tribulations released a year before I finished high school.

Anyhow, it samples a song from this Zimbabwean artist Rozalla Miller called "Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)".

Finally, I found a new love for the songs because of my *love* of the Venture Bros. series which features the earlier song on the first episode of their second season.

I guess that's kind of a spastic six degrees of separation exercise that is a prime example of how my mind is drifting on graduation day. Perhaps I've done a bit too much thinking lately? Not sure. Anyhow, I'll have an update later today or tomorrow with pics from graduation and maybe my speech on video. We'll see how it goes. Congratulations in advance to all my classmates who are reading this. The Dynasty is over. Long live the Dynasty.

==========================================================================================
P.S. Jessie, if you're reading this, I want you to know that I'm wearing the Rooster shirt you gave me underneath my duds. Red is my power color in terms of Chinese horoscope and Feng Shui and I know it'll give me that little extra boost I need on this big day. Thanks.

Well, the thesis signing came and went as the non-event I hoped it would be. All of my committee members signed off and barring a few alterations for the grad school publication requirements, my book, and my thesis as far as the University of Minnesota is concerned has come to a conclusion.

The real story is how many friends are in town, not to mention my grandmother. Patrick, one of my best friends from high school came in Wednesday night serendipitously for an interview on Thursday so I got a chance to go out to dinner with him Thursday night, along with my parents and grandma at the new Christo's (greek cuisine) in Minnetonka. We also went out and saw Spiderman 3, which despite it's fault of trying to do too much was great just for the simple fact that I got to go to my first movie since seeing 300 with Heath and Sam back in Biloxi (SPARTANS!). Anyhoo, we crashed out at my folks place and had a great visit then headed over to Psycho Suzi's for lunch. If you haven't been... GO! If you have... go again NOW!

Patrick contemplating the Tikiness of the Tiki

After Patrick and I parted ways, my friend Nick came over and we rocked out on some guitar hero. Now I have to say that while I love the GH, I love it so much that my original guitar is starting to fritz out on me. So if anyone wants to contribute to the "James really wants to buy a new cordless guitar so he can rock your socks off" Fund let me know. At some point, there may be a video showing me smashing it in frustration...

So Nick and I hung out for a while and were joined by my SundayBuddy(tm) Molly Green. After chilling for a bit, Molly left to meet up with her friend Katie (who apparently looks cute, even with straightened hair) for some dinner. Nick and I hung out for a bit more attempting to get more songs passed on perfect (three yesterday alone!) and then he finally took off.

Here's the kicker! Not only was Patrick in town and my other buddies out in full force, but Adam came into town from Chicago specifically for graduation and Mother's Day and the Larry to our Moe and Curly from our undergrad arch degrees: Ben Muller was in town from Pennsylvania so we all got to kick it later last night together. Not to mention that Adam got dropped off at my house by Anderson and Staci! It was a friendstravaganza.

So finally, I sit here totally excited and ready for the next chapter of my life to begin. I'm really thankful for all the support all my friends have given me over the years and it's been amazing to see so many friends here from all over, planned or not. Cheers. I love you guys.

Alright, we interrupt this regularly scheduled thesis book work time to bring you Billy Joel.

Long story short, I got tickets through my Mom's office and got to see the Piano Man with my buddy Nick. Here is the set list for anyone who cares. P.S. it was his birthday and the last date on this leg of the tour so it was a pretty sweet show. We all sang happy birthday to him at the beginning. Anyhoo, good times, but it's going to make this last day of thesis book work. Enjoy the pictures.

I'm not sure, but I think this is during Allentown

Big Shot with a Twins cap someone threw on stage.

Happy Birthday (Audience)
Prelude/Angry Young Man
My Life
Everybody Loves You Now
Lay Lady Lay
The Entertainer
The Ballad of Billy The Kid
Allentown
Zanzibar
New York State of Mind
Root Beer Rag
Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)
Stand By Me
An Innocent Man
Dont Ask Me Why
She's Always A Women
Keeping The Faith
River of Dreams
Oh, Darling!
Highway To Hell
We Did'nt Start The Fire
Big Shot
It's Still Rock and Roll To Me
You May Be Right
Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
Only The Good Die Young
Like A Rolling Stone
Piano Man

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Thesis cram.

*END TRANSMISSION*

This will be a short one because as the title dictates, I am doing a lot of work on a little sleep trying to polish off this thesis book. Anyhoo, I thought I'd show you what I am currently working on and show off the first piece of paperwork out of three that gets me my diploma. Cheers.

The beginning of a pull apart axon diagram

The "acceptable for defense" sheet from my thesis defense on the 19th

Here's the diagrams that Studio 4284 developed featured in a former post for some reference... I also just want to say that John Dwyer, Tom Westbrook, and the entire studio did an amazing job putting this studio together and really rocking it all semester. They are hopefully doing a time lapse video of deployment this week sometime and I'll link to the Solutions website which I hope will be hosting a feature. They also got a bit of press on Minnesota Public Radio. Check out this article and don't miss the audio interview!

For the next month, the design will be refined, tested and presented to various NGO’s, investors and other humanitarian agencies. After that, early in June, it will be shipped to its final site in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans where it will serve as infrastructure for an ethnobotanical garden.

I am hoping to be there when it gets delivered in early June... so, without further adieu, I give you Clean Hub.

Here are some pictures of the Clean Hub deployment from the other day courtesy of one of my favorite undergrads Sandra Wahba taken unceremoniously from her Facebook site.

Pre-deployment

Ramp deployment

Lavatory module deployment

Solar panels are now in place

Assembly of rain catch/roof armature

Interior water tank divider and foot pump sink

Entry to bathroom, notice the hot plexi stencil

A view from the back side of the Hub

Near full deployment

(Courtesy of Della)

Keeping Things Whole
by Mark Strand-1964

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

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

An Incomplete Manifesto For Growth by Bruce Mau, worth a read if you haven't checked it out.

It's been a crazy couple of days with a lot of Moveable Type Manual reading and a big help to lead me to some fresh code templates from my friend and editor of There Vol. 4 Aaron Westre (pictured below) but I finally got the site back to normal. I even added the banner I was trying to add on Thursday night as well as a Search function and some links to some of the websites I frequent.

Now that the blog is new an improved I can once again get back to posting. I just found out that one of the studio people Nadene is going to be staying in the area for this Summer! I am real excited to have Nadene around because not only is she a good designer, but she's a helluva person.

In other news, people are starting to head home from the Design Studio which has got to be pretty sad. It was hard enough to leave when I did, but I don't envy having to be down there as long-termers and studio mates are dropping like flies.

Finally, I wanted to, if any of them read it tell everyone that hung out last night that I had an awesome time and was very impressed with the veteran and rookie skills of everyone while thrashing on some Guitar Hero. Today I have totally overbooked myself with the race being at Richmond and under the lights tonight that I want to watch with my Pops, a birthday pint with Hans at O'Donovans, and some Wii playing with Scott and Co. at his place downtown. Too many fun things and all on one day. I wish people would spread out their social events so I wasn't so bored the rest of the week. Geez! :) Coming Soon: A report on the Solutions Vol. 1 event I attended... sneak preview: It was fantastic.

and one more thing... Happy Birthday to Chandler. Safe travels buddy.

So, I started playing with Movable Type and got my Links section all set up as well eliminating some dead weight from the sidebar. It was pretty sweet, let me tell you. And then I decided to play with the banner and I ended up messing something up. Figures. Anyhow, I'm trying out the logo in the previous post. Check it out and let me know what you think. Meanwhile, I am going to try and fix my Main Index template. Cheers.

I spend a lot of time here...

This morning, I finally had some time to work on some things that I've had on my "to-do list" for a while. One of which is the acquisition of the "up your architecture" domain. So, I am happy to announce that you can now enter "www.upyourarchitecture.com" and it will bring you straight to my blog!

In that vein, I have a really great day ahead. I have some time to work on my thesis book this morning then I get to go out to Minnetonka to have lunch out at the 'rents house and hang out with my Dad this afternoon and then have dinner at the new Christo's (a great greek restaurant) that just opened up in Tonkatown.

On a Biloxi note, my friends Jessie, Sarah, and Jennifer have been scoping out places down south for us to live as Sarah and Jennifer's Americorps agreement with Hands On only guarantees them housing for the first half of the term and Jessie would like to have some roomates and cheater rent :) Jessie recently stumbled across a former Thai restaurant in Ocean Springs (just east of Biloxi) that is a couple blocks from where she lives now and is for rent. It is really just a house with a tack on where the bar area used to be but it looks pretty cool and as four architects, it holds a lot of intrigue for us. Anyhoo, here is a link and a picture. We'll see how it all pans out, but this is just one of the many possibilities...

So I'm continuing to work on putting my thesis book together which means I am basically resizing boards, finishing other graphics and then formatting them so that they fit the University's standards.

Anyhow, this of course leads to me having something else going on to keep me sane such as a movie, trailer, music, or random clips I come across in my journey through the world wide web. To illustrate how much I am working on my thesis book, here is the list of movies playing in the background over the last couple of days:

Thank You for Smoking
Punch Drunk Love
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Old School
Amelie
Garden State
Clerks
Hellboy
Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind
Chasing Amy
Venture Bros. Season 2
Lost in Translation

So that's about it for the past week. I've also been listening to the Old Crow Medicine Show a lot. I picked up their latest album: Big Iron World which I have really been enjoying, especially the first track "Down Home Girl". Anyhow, this next week is pretty chalk full of events. Today I am acting as a critic on a design jury for my thesis advisor Ozayr Saloojee's Undergrad 2 studio and then this evening in the Twin Cities Solutions Vol. 1 mentioned in my last post. Tomorrow will be an all day, knock-down, drag-out book day with possible stop offs for lunch with my folks downtown and maybe a run. Friday will be more of the same, and hopefully I'll have a chance to relax with some friends I haven't seen for a while and play some Kubb. I will probably just post anecdotal events that I haven't mentioned since my time home or things that happened in Biloxi that I forgot to mention until I get my book done and have more to post from thesis.

Anyhow, I thought I'd leave you all with a quick little story. Back in February I believe, the folks at studio stuffed our buddy Phil Fossen's Tigger Halloween suit up, put a basketball for a head and put a beer in it's hand and sat it at my desk in studio where it remained for over a month and a half. Putting pictures on facebook of it and then telling me it's so good to have me back, but I should get more sleep and not stay at studio all the time.

Sooooo... when I got back and found the Tigger suit slumped over under my desk, I decided to put it on and have a little walk around the building in between some of the thesis reviews lunch break. All in all, good times, it was hot as a mother lover. Enjoy.

Jumping Jacks on the Balcony

Thug Life w/ Andy Part 1

Thug Life w/ Andy Part 2