Monday, April 29, 2013

Pull off another miracle? Sure, why not?

So, St. Ermagerd has been understaffed for almost a year, the client continues to make changes two weeks before the construction documents deadline, and right after the hospital's CDs are due, my team has two weeks to take 76,000 sf of adjacent St. Ermagerd clinic space from DDs to CDs?

Piece of cake.

[chugs half a bottle of Riesling]

Monday, April 22, 2013

Technical difficulties

The photos fromthe last few posts aren't working, which is what I get for trying to post things from my phone to my iPad Im' coming up on the first of three retarded and impossible deadlines for St. Ermahgerd, so myposting for the next few weeks is going to be spotty at best and absent or incoherent at worst.  Plz 2 stand by, kthxwhatever.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Transplanted history


This is the actual piece of brick wall against which several gangsters were shot and killed in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago in 1929. Apparently, when the actual building was being demolished in recent times, a private citizen purchased the portion of the wall with the bullet holes and blood spatter from 1929. Upon his death in the early 2000s, the collector's daughter took the wall/bricks and eventually sold them to the Mob Museum in Las Vegas.  (We toured it on our most recent visit to Vegas in February 2013--totally worth the ticket price, I might add.)

A piece of building constructed before the turn of last century captures pieces of a horrible moment in time in its bricks. It's taken apart and moved to another location. It's taken apart and moved again over 2,000 miles away to share that horrible moment with people who weren't even born when that moment occurred. Le Corbusier said that International Style architecture was meant to be relevant anywhere and not connected to any particular local style--it would carry its own meaning wherever it was built and viewed. Can we say the same for this piece of wall from Chicago? Does the meaning of this moment in time change when we take the wall out of a Chicago warehouse and reconstruct it on the third floor of the former Las Vegas Courthouse? The bullet holes are circled, just in case the audience can't figure out its meaning, after looking at so many exhibits of tommy guns, bootlegger's cases, and FBI bugging and recording devices.


Monday, April 15, 2013

Monday Visual Inspiration: All you need is love, and a Cirque de Solieil ticket


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The entry to the Beatles LOVE Cirque du Soleil show at the Mirage in Vegas.  Great show, amazing visions and interpretations of Beatles' songs, and wonderful acts and choreography.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

GracieWatch 2013: I have no need for your bourgeois bandages

Neither do I have a need for your so-called "cone". I'm a busy kitteh...busy looking cute and batting my bandage around on the floor.

By the end of Monday, Gracie had peeled off her bandage and starting batting it around in the floor like a toy mouse. Shortly thereafter, she peeled her Cone of Shame off and threw it across the room. I was going to leave it on her, but she couldn't get through the cat door to the litter boxes. I've left the cone off of her for 36 hours, and so far she's left her mouth alone. She's snoozy and sweet and is doing okay with her meds.  She also looks surprisingly normal, even with part of her lower jaw missing. 

More updates to come. Thanks everyone for the good wishes!




Monday, April 8, 2013

Monday Visual Inspiration: Paws crossed for Gracie

Gracie's surgery to remove part of her lower jaw is today.




My hope is that we can get all the cancerous tissue but still leave her with a mouth she can eat with and, dare I say it, a face we can all live with. The vet dentist seems to think that she'll do quite well--apparently cats heal a lot faster than dogs.  Paws crossed, everyone!

Monday, April 1, 2013

Monday Visual Inspiration: Goldfield Hotel in Goldfield, Nevada




I first heard of the Goldfield Hotel in Goldfield, NV on a show called Ghost Adventures on Travel Channel. Three guys from Las Vegas investigate potential paranormal activity at various locations while being locked in them overnight. They got their show through a two-hour documentary that culminated in filming a flying brick in the basement of the Goldfield Hotel. Those last few moments of the show are worth finding on YouTube if you can--it's two of the three guys talking while holding the camera, and then the brick flies across the room, then it's just darkness and the two guys screaming and uttering "Jesus!" over and over for five minutes.  They eventually jumped out of a second-story window to get out of the building into which they had begged to be locked a few hours before.

The building is closed to tours and the public. It's creepy as hell.