Why Architects Drink

Necessary evils

2012-01-26T05:41:00.001-07:00

I was recently asked to assemble a program for a small hospital in a rural Western town, much to my delight. I like talking to the users (the people that actually work in and use a space/department/building) and then putting together a list of needed spaces and how big the spaces should be. (That list is called a program.) It's a funny thing to break down something as complex as a hospital into a simple list of rooms and sizes--these spaces all work together in different ways, depending on the size and type of facility. One hospital needs the surgery pick-up near the inpatient nurse station so that post-surgery patients can be watched by the after-hours staff, while another hospital needs a completely separate surgery pick-up from the inpatient functions because they have the after-hours staff to monitor it and don't want to creep out the visitors coming to visit any inpatients.

So having met with the hospital nursing staff, I go back to the office and start assembling the program. I go through the notes I took during the staff meeting. I'm working on the program for the emergency department, which is a department in which truly life-and-death decisions are made and work is done. I look at the notes: body holding room, 80 sf. Not everybody makes it out of the ED on their feet or to a patient room. Sometimes it's too late where they get there. Sometimes they arrive at the ED only for the staff to find out that they have a DNR* order.

A holding room, also in my notes, is different from a body holding room. Not everyone comes into the ED with all their faculties and can explain where it hurts, what happened when the pain started. Sometimes the chemicals--legal or not--flowing through their veins make it impossible to calm the patient down and solve the problem. Sometimes they have to be left in a room they can't damage while the chemicals run their course. Sometimes the problem isn't chemicals but the lack thereof--someone stops taking his or her antipsychotic meds and is suddenly threatening their 75-year-old mother with a knife, accusing her of working for Al Qaida.

I notice the words social worker office in my notes. Not everybody who comes to the ED does so because they fell out of a tree or have appendicitis or a possible heart attack. Some people come in with black eyes and bruised arms, and the only explanation the staff gets is, "she fell" or "he tripped." Sometimes a random x-ray reveals that a leg has been fractured several times and set wrong, no one treated the fractures. It's a vacant look, a healing split lip, a bruise covered by a sleeve too late to be hidden from the triage nurse, a flinch when the person who brought the patient in talks loudly or gestures broadly. The staff exchanges looks and nods, like third base coaches wearing scrubs, looks that say to each other silently: not on our watch. A call goes to the social worker, and then they get the cops on the phone.

When I draw and design these spaces later, the details emerge: locate the body holding room near a back corridor to the ED, provide impact-resistant drywall in the holding room with lockable cabinets, provide one-way glass from the social worker office into the playroom/conference room. We'll talk with the staff some more in a few months and hear the details of how they deal with the worst days of someone's life, over and over: we need to make sure they can't break the light fixture and stab someone with the light lens; we need some shelves to put stuffed animals on for pediatric patients; can we get a shower in this toilet room? Sometimes women have been...assaulted, and they need to, um, take a shower after their exam. And we need a cabinet to store some clothes in, because we have to give their clothes to the police. We need a quiet room for them to wait in for someone to pick them up. We can use that same room for bereavement, when someone comes to identify a body in the holding room.

For now, these are simple room names, two or three words with a number next to them: 80sf, 100sf, 60sf. A cost estimator will think about the finishes and quality of materials in these rooms. They'll be priced and added up, and the hospital will be told what it will cost to build their new facility, and the hospital will figure out if they can afford it or not, or how much can they afford right now. They will have to remove the emotion from the program, from the project, in order to make good decisions for both the short- and long-term. They'll meet and discuss the building in abstract terms in a conference room, and then the staff will go back to the ED to stitch up a suspicious cut over an eye, back to the patient wing to change a bedpan for a helpless father of four, pack to the imaging suite to explain to a woman and her husband that there's something bad about the lump the mammogram picked up, back to the clinic to say that we need to run an HIV test on your 14-year-old child...

...back to tell the grandfather that he can still do woodworking if he takes his meds and does his physical therapy, back to see that the 17-year-old's kidneys appear to be working since the surgery, back to tell the couple with four miscarriages that this one looks like it's staying and she's made it to the second trimester...back to looking at the worst and the best of the average daily human experience.

*DNR = Do Not Resuscitate: do not give life-saving measures to a patient or try to revive them if their vital signs fail.

Monday Visual Inspiration: You can't medicate me in my safe house

2012-01-23T05:24:00.000-07:00

Hazel recently had her teeth cleaned at the vet's office, which means that she had to be knocked out with anesthesia and given an IV. You can't see it because she's got it tucked under her, but there's a shaved spot on her front left leg where they ran the IV. They had to pull a tooth because of a cavity, but overall she did well, and the vet couldn't stop talking about how incredibly cute and sweet she was during the visit.

Hazel decided to hide in her house a little this weekend to avoid being given her antibiotics. She hates the meds being squirted down her throat, but she's gotten to where she doesn't run around the house when it's medication time. She's done with the meds either today or tomorrow, and I'm sure that'll make her happy. It was tough to medicate her as well because of all the hours I've had to work at the start of this month. We had four master plans/conceptual designs due with in a week of each other this month, so it's been pretty unrelenting since the holidays ended. Things should slow down a bit here for the next week or so, but I'm sure we'll get busy again soon. In the meantime, I'll go clean the house and take a nap.

Emergency help for a fellow blogger

2012-01-19T16:32:00.002-07:00

Syd needs help finding a home for her kittehs in the Southern California (LA County) area! Go to her page here and see if you can help her find homes for good kittehs STAT!

Newty B Goode, 1946-1997

2012-01-16T05:51:00.002-07:00

Today is 15 years since my father died. I don't suppose I have anything original to say about losing a parent, and I don't have anything new to say since the last time I thought about him being gone, which was probably about...yesterday. It's nearly every day that something reminds me that he's gone. Christmas reminds me of that fact, especially, and then the new year doesn't really begin for me until January 17th. So today, I'll have a glass of wine at the end of yet another busy day and think of all that Dad has missed. Though for all I know, he's been watching the whole time.

I love you, Dad.

Cash money Pixie

2012-01-09T06:03:00.001-07:00

So I realize that this raise thing is huger/more huge than even I thought at first. I continue to marvel at what's about to happen to my paycheck. Tax brackets and all aside, getting a 16% raise and being at salary is a huge deal.

But Pixie, I can hear some of you saying: you're going to be hourly now, which means no more overtime pay. Doesn't that bother you that you're going to be robbed of the time-and-a-half pay? It's a valid concern, but the answer is: no, not a whole lot. The reason for this is twofold. One, I'm still eligible for bonuses, which are based on performance and based on the profits made by the project. Now that I'm back working with Howie, who is very good with managing his projects' budgets (almost to a fault), I'm not worried about the bonuses.

The second part of my lack of trepidation is that I still stand to make more on salary than I did as an hourly person. In 2011, all my straight time plus overtime plus bonus was only a few hundred bucks more than my 2012 salary is about to be. Whether I work 35 hours or 45 hours or 60 hours, my take-home paychecks stand to be the equivalent of my 2011 50-hour week paychecks every week. Most of my workweeks these days are 40-45 hours a week, given my new responsibilities. And neither my bosses nor I are worried about this, because they know that I get a lot of shit done in 40-45 hours every week. This is partly due to the fact that I know what I'm doing after 11 years in da biz, and it's also partly due to the fact that I'm no longer a production person: I'm a manager. Eight hours of my time spent redlining a set of drawings keeps two people busy for 40-60 hours each. Fifteen minutes spent discussing a layout for a surgical suite with me gives an intern good direction for three or four hours of drawing in Revit. My job is more and more about directing other people's efforts on the work rather than producing the work myself. Because I'm not producing it all the time, there's no point in me showing up on Saturday and Sunday to help with the drawing and detailing of a project's DDs or CDs. And if I'm not in every Saturday and Sunday doing those drawings...there's no need for overtime.

Yes, there will be times (like right now, actually) where we have two or three deadlines in a short span, and I'm going to have to work a few nights and weekends (LOL at Scarlett's desciption of this as the "Sprint Plan: 2 cents a minute all week, nights and weekends free"--BAAHAHAA!!). But overall, the bulk of the time--the production time--on nights and weekends is spent by other people these days. Further, I'm getting to work on the things I really like doing: programming, facility planning, laying out departments (and sometimes even laying out the rooms in the departments). Doing the stuff that you really really really like to do makes a difference, regardless of what your paycheck says.

Not that I'm not going to enjoy that paycheck....

Next on The Life of Pixie: Drama, rumors, and a little better pat on the back, Part 2

2012-01-05T05:38:00.003-07:00

Just before Guy and I left for Christmas, I finally got my yearly review. Howie and Sven were involved, as well as another architect and manager I'd been working with on Gestalt, a fantastic designer and overall good fellow named Charlton. Howie and Sven went on and on about how great I'd done on Gestalt during the past year, and how much I'd grown as an architect and a manager over the past year, and how great it would be to get me working with Bosley again in 2012 on some small hospital projects. I thanked those present for their kind words and for the opportunities for growth that I'd been given int he past year, and I reflected that I was looking forward to working on the small hospitals as well. As much as I liked working on Gestalt, I felt like working on full-on hospitals in the next few months would help me (re)sharpen my design and project management skills. I appreciated the compliments and was looking forward to doing more for Design Associates.

Then, the money conversation. Sven reflected that according to the stats that the firm had been looking at, architectural salaries were flat in 2011, but they wanted to give me a raise and a little something extra because they valued me. So, my new promotion was to be Senior Architect, and my raise would be 5%.

The Pixie was Not Amused.

I then explained to the attending partners and managers that, while I appreciated their efforts to reward me, I believed that my efforts in the past year merited a 10% raise, and that the 2011 AIA Compensation report backed me up on that. My 2011 base salary was below the bottom quartile salary for those at my level in the Denver area (meaning that more than 75% of the architects in Denver that did my job made more than me), and a 10% raise would put me closer to the median salary. There was a moment's pause--lo, it was only half a second, maybe less--but the pause was there. Howie's face froze, but his eyes flicked. The flick told me everything, told me just what he was thinking:

She's onto us.

Howie explained sheepishly that the AIA's numbers weren't totally accurate because of how and who they survey, and DA uses this other report over here because it's more accurate, etc. but I think the damage was done. We talked a while more, and as we left the room amicably enough, Sven said, "So, you were looking at...?

"10 percent," I replied calmly.

Sven nodded. "I'll see what I can do and get back to you."

I seethed over the holiday break. I seethed because I had every indication that the people who had direct knowledge of my skill were trying to underpay me yet again. I've heard it over and over again for eleven years: things have been tough, we're not sure what the market is going to do, there's some instability or uncertainty.... Fair enough, but at some point, you're going to have to pay for quality if you want to keep quality. And I seethed further, knowing that Sven, for all of his many good qualities, was not a particularly tough person or partner. I doubted deeply that I would see any change in my raise, began to wonder where else in town I could work that had DA's environment but paid appropriately.

The day I returned to the office from Christmas, Howie called me into a conference room and said, "So, you asked for more at your review, and so the partners talked, and starting on January 1st, you'll be on salary at a 16% raise--" I looked at the paper in front of him; there was a huge number on the salary line.

It was my turn for my face to freeze and for my eyes to flicker. "Um, wait, salary? And I got 16%?"

Howie looked up from the paper he was looking at. "Yeah, salary," he said brightly. "The, uh, partners talked and..."

"I'm not complaining, believe me!" I said, trying to catch my breath. "It's just that when we talked last week, I was still hourly and..." I blinked, still not comprehending.

"Well," Howie explained, "you and Laura and Elliott are getting promotions to Senior Architect this year, and the partners talked about how best to pay you three in this new position, and then it was mentioned that you had asked for more money in your review--"

Sven. Sven had brought it up. Sven had stood up to the other partners. I would never doubt that man again.

"--so, you're getting 16%, which is--" and pointed to the amazing number I had already seen on the sheet of paper in front of him. I thanked Howie for the good news and told him that this was more than a raise for me--it was validation that the work I did was important. I told him that this was motivating and affirming and elevating, this raise and promotion. It was the culmination of so much effort for me, and I really appreciated the recognition. Howie smiled and his shoulders relaxed. I don't think he's used to being thanked; I reckon it doesn't happen much.

I went back to my desk and emailed Guy, then texted my sister about the good news. Then I whipped out a calculator and ran the numbers just to confirm the math: I had just received a 16.4% raise, above and beyond the 10% I'd asked for in my review. Good God. I then texted Vinnie, my erstwhile antiques-dealer-turned-psychologist pal to see if he wanted to do happy hour before I went home for the evening. He and I met shortly after work, and as I finished recounting the story to him, all he did was shook his head and smile. "Pix," he mused, "well done. You scared hell out of 'em. They knew they had to do better or they were gonna lose you."

"I'm not so sure about that," I replied, swirling my Riesling in my glass and looking out into the unseasonably warm late December streets. "I suppose it--"

"Pixie," Vinnie interrupted. "You came in there with ammo, research, and you asked for the first time in your whole career. You let them know that if they weren't gonna take care of Pixie, Pixie was gonna take care of Pixie." He drained his highball glass. "I don't have to be in that room to know what was said around the table."

Looks like 2012 may be getting off to a pretty decent start.

Next on The Life of Pixie: Drama, rumors, and a little better pat on the back, Part 1

2012-01-02T05:12:00.001-07:00

So Happy New Year and Feliz Nuevos Anos and all. I know I haven't been good at keeping y'all up with the goings-on at Design Associates recently, but the fact is I've been busy as hell just doing my job and trying to fight through some holiday/end-of-year irritation. Let's see if I can sum things up with any grace or coherence as we move into 2012.

I wrapped up the construction documents and a couple of addenda on Gestalt's Uber MOB right around Thanksgiving, and Jesus Mary and Renzo Piano was I looking forward to a slower December. But alas, 'twas not to be. So I had to go out of town for a three-day series of meetings that involved being away from Guy and home and kittehs and being with people who were for some reason rubbing me the wrong way. We added a new healthcare planner (and licensed architect) to our ranks earlier this year, and while I'm trying not to feel threatened, I feel, well, threatened. I felt like at times during those meetings that I was having to prove my skills and abilities and even the right to be at these meetings once again to a new person, and it pissed me off. I think Bosley's goal of putting this other planner and me on the same team is to get a sense of consistency in our healthcare planning processes, but it just felt sometimes like there was no point in including me on this. It felt like there were too many cooks in the kitchen.

And dammit, that pisses me off, that feeling of being extra and feeling like I have to prove myself yet again. Not only have I been at DA for more than a decade, but I think I've proven myself time and time again. I've gone above and beyond the call of duty and overdelivered. I'm done proving myself...and at the end of 2011, I found myself increasingly ready to ask for, if not demand, a promotion and a raise. Not just an "oh, well, things have been tough this year" raise, but a raise commensurate with the kind of work I'd been doing for the past year-plus. Howie and Sven and I had discussed a possible promotion for me a few months ago, and I had reached the point where it was put-up-or-shut-up time for DA's leadership.

Speaking of leadership, DA's partners hired a management consultant firm to talk to select members of DA and ask about DA's culture and management styles. They wanted to know what was working and what could be improved. And guess who was one of the people who got interviewed?

Oh yes. C'est moi.

So I shared with the consultants what worked (there was room for a variety of styles and goals of people to perform at their best, there's a lot of flexibility in the office culture that allows people to be themselves, the firm does good work and gives everyone a chance to contribute), and I shared what didn't work (roles and steps needed to achieve promotions are incredibly unclear and ill-defined, management is so nonconfrontational of problems and crappy people in the firm that they're just about avoidant of what are obvious issues). So they thanked me for my feedback and sent me on my way. Now, what you'll notice is that I didn't name names, but...some other people did.

Specifically, so many people mentioned Gregg, Guy's old boss, as a problem in the office that the management firm came to the partners and said, "Look, we gotta interview this guy. Too many people have called him out as a problem that we can't avoid it." So, they finally got a hold of Gregg (just as he doesn't respond to his team's entreaties for an answer or some input, he didn't respond at first or even at second to the consultant's requests for a meeting) and had a li'l chat. However, I have no info on the results of that chat, and I'm frankly a little despondent that anything might come of all these meetings. But part of my brain tickles on this whole process--if I were a betting gal, I'd bet that the partners do want to get rid of a few people, but they're so nonconfrontational/avoidant that they won't just say, "You suck, GTFO of here." Instead, they'll hire some management consultants and get them to collect the data that allows the partners to get rid of the person. By doing so, they can kinda shift the blame onto "them"--"other people" in the office, and the consultant. Regardless of the outcome, it will be interesting to see, what, if anything comes of this.

Next: time to pay the Pixie.

Gone to St. Louis, brb...

2011-12-21T14:04:00.002-07:00

WAD will be on hiatus while Guy and I drive to the heart of Kansas tonight ahead of the Impenetrable Icy Wall of Death that appears to be bearing down on Denver and the Front Range tonight. We'll stay in Kansas tonight and make the rest of the drive tomorrow ahead of the snow. Yes, we'll be careful. Yes, we'll call when we arrive/make landfall both nights. yes, I got Guy a cashmere sweater from Nordstrom's for Christmas. Yes, it fit. No, I didn't misjudge his size and buy him a large, which looks like a skintight "skinny" sweater like I usually do, rendering him hipster-like and forcing him to hide it in the back of his closet until we make a Goodwill run.

Back next week with more surprising tales of gossip, rumors, performance and pay reviews, and general mayhem.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Shopping with Mom at Thanksgiving

2011-12-19T05:31:00.000-07:00

I know, I know--I'm busier than a cat covering crap on a terrazzo floor right now, but I had to post a few pics of being out with Mom at the local mall during the post-Thanksgiving shopping hullaballoo.

Me: Ooo, that's cool! Can you make that?

Mom: The fuck you mean "can I make tha"...of course I can make that. I just have to adjust a pattern I bought in 1985.

Me: Those are big words from a woman wearing a stocking cap that looks like cat ears.

Mom: Bite me. My head's cold.

Me: Yeah, well, can you make that?

Mom: Nah, it's a knit, and you can't sew a knit. You have to knit a knit.

Me: Can't really wear a bra with that dress, can you?

Mom: And it's a thin knit. So it's a knit for nitwits.

Mom: Now I can make the hell out of this.

Me: Ooo, wonder if we can find that fabric at the fabric store tomorrow!

Mom: If we do, Imma get my sew on.

Me: [looks around] That saleslady is looking at us funny.

Mom: Act like you're taking a picture of me but get the jacket in the picture. You buy me the taffeta and you can have this.

Me: Mommy, look! Formal shorts!

Mom: [sighs] Christ almighty. An abomination.

Me: I bet I could rock those formal shorts.

Mom: [looking at me as I snapped the photo] Your short ass should be so lucky.

Me: What? I have nice legs.

Mom: Yeah they're nice, but you have the inseam of a dachsund.

Me: [mock offended] Mommy! How could you say such a thing to your dear Pixie?!

Mom: Cuz I'm the mommy, that's how.

Back after these messages...

2011-12-12T21:24:00.001-07:00

Sorry folks, I'm on my way out of town for a business trip and haven't had time to collect my thoughts for a decent post lately. More when I return...

Well, so much for that break.

2011-12-07T05:31:00.000-07:00

I posted recently about how I was looking forward to being back at 40 hours a week for a month or so, but recent events leaving me not so sure I can get the break I've needed. I was put on a small hospital project to do some conceptual and clinical design on the front end, but then another project kicked loose with an extremely accelerated schedule for conceptual design/early SD. Last week, we were given the go-ahead on conceptual design for two more small hospitals. Guess who's slated to work on at least one of them?

I mentioned to DA partner Bosley, with whom I'll be working again, that I have over a week of vacation time that I'm "supposed" to burn off by the end of the year, to which he replied, "Oh, don't worry, I'll make sure Accounting carries it over." Um...that was meant to tell you that I was really hoping to not be in the office for a week, ummm.... [shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other] I really was hoping for that last week off so that I could take that time to do a few things around the house, plus just unwind during the shortest days of the year. It seems so odd that as architects we design for our buildings to respond to the climate and the seasons, but we don't allow our own bodies to do so. It's been a helluva year with Gestalt's Uber MOB, and I needed a month of just doing what I had to and going home so that I could start right back at it, 90 mph, in early January as I knew I would have to do. But alas, early January has leaked into early December.

If you're wanting to comment on this post with something along the lines of "well, many people would love to be as busy as you right now, count your blessings, those are the breaks with moving up the ladder like you've been this year," you can save it for someone who isn't burned the fuck out and exhausted from having lots of responsibility and little to no authority. I need to put my oxygen mask on before assisting others. I need a little rest now and again, and spending one week out of 52 in Yellowstone isn't going to cut it. And regardless of whether I'm an intern or an architect or a project manager or a partner, everyone needs a break now and again. There's nothing wrong with admitting one's humanity and occasional need for rest. The earth rests, and sometimes humans need to rest too.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Thankful indeed, but always looking up

2011-12-05T06:00:00.000-07:00

From the trip home to Georgia for Thanksgiving:

One of the new kittens is thankful for Lenny. Here, they both sit in my lap while the kitten puts her wee floofy tabby paw on Lenny's big white one.

Mom is thankful for the new kittens, ReeRee and Dot. Here she snorgles Dot (I think) while showing me the beef jerky she bought Guy for his Christmas present from a Pilot store.

Shirley is thankful for her squeaky mousey that she has claimed as hers whenever she comes in the house, which is now everyday. We're all thankful for Shirley, who has made a near-full recovery from getting hit by a car a couple of months ago. (An SUV barreling down the road clipped Shirley straight on the side of her head and knocked her over. El Seebeno saw the accident happen and was able to take the pup straight to the vet, where they gave her some anti-stroke medicine that probably saved her life. The SUV that hit her didn't even slow down.)

I'm thankful for Guy's new project and for the fact that Design Associates has started hiring again and has several new projects in the house and in the pipeline. While I'm glad for what I have (and for what I've been able to hang onto over the past few rough years), I'm also thankful for the confidence to ask for more: a raise, a promotion, a new role on projects. I've asked Sven and Howie about making some of these things happen, and it seems like some good things might be coming my way, but I won't be holding my breath or betting on it until I see it (I don't want to jinx myself).

Being thankful, I'm finding, means that you can appreciate what you have but not be complacent about having better, about receiving new/more blessings that you deserve or have earned. It means to acknowledge and embrace the goodness you have in your life, both materially and spiritually, knowing that in some ways that's enough. But gratitude also means accepting more into your life--being willing to accept good things that come your way, even if sometimes you have to ask for those things. Fingers crossed that everyone else out there has these kinds of blessings coming to them as well.

Monday Visual Inspiration: (Funny) signs o' the times

2011-11-28T06:19:00.000-07:00

There are plenty of websites that make fun of and showcase funny signs (WIN! and There I Fixed It come to mind), but while Guy and I fly back from Georgia today I wanted to share a few I've seen recently out and about. Little moments that make me laugh--some unintentional, and some meant to be clear and yet funny).

Restroom in the Cherry Creek Library. Meddle not in the affairs of English majors, for thou art ignorant and do not possess a red pen.

Sign on the door of a coffee/pastry shop in Cherry Creek. Fine, I'll go go poop and pee without paying in the Whole Foods across the street, then.

Sign on some paints in a craft shop in a historical district in St. Louis. Gotta watch out for marauding bands of historical sticklers....

Happy Thanksgivin', y'all!

2011-11-24T05:50:00.001-07:00

Guy and I are getting on a plane today to fly to Georgia for Thanksgiving (a Thursday flight was the only way to get the ticket price to a reasonable amount). We considered not going to Georgia for the holiday because Thanksgiving flying is more painful than sitting front row at a Miley Cyrus-Justin Bieber double-bill concert, but a) I like as well as love my family, and b) my sister hasn't been able to fly out to see me for nearly two years. So in order for me to enjoy my peeps and for Kitty and me to spend some sista-time, I must needs get my behind on a plane.

An unintended good consequence of flying on Thanksgiving is that we have our Thursday festivities on Friday, effectively bowing out of the Black Friday nonsense. Guy gets to sprawl on Mom's sofa with three cats on him and watch some football, and we annoy Mom in the kitchen while El Seebeno putters around in the yard with the dogs--not a frenzied shopper or overpriced plastic-thingy to buy in sight. Later in the weekend we might leave El Seebeno and Guy at a bar while we gals go doodling through a fabric store (again, mostly to annoy Mom) and then hang out at the farm to make Christmas cookies. Should be a good time, indeed. Here's hoping your holiday is a good time too, wherever and with whomever you may be!

Funblocked

2011-11-21T05:29:00.000-07:00

We recently had a web-blocking/censoring-thingy type of software put on all the computers in our office. The idea was that the partners of DA and the head of IT/Dungeon Master wanted to make sure that we capped access to anything potentially flammable (political sites and porn sites, but then I repeat myself), and they wanted to prevent streaming of data so that the internet had bandwidth available for when we needed to download something from an FTP site. Overall, it's not terrible, but it's pretty annoying. For starters, we were working on a job for a commercial client (a distillery), and we couldn't even access their website because it had to do with alcohol. Excuse me? We're architects--everything we do has to do with alcohol. We also are unable to access YouTube, which means I can't watch my sister's chicken and kitteh videos, but those in the office that use SketchUp can't access the tutorial videos that SketchUp posts on YouTube. So much for trying to learn something.

Because sites like Twitter and Facebook are also blocked, we on the front lines think it's not just about bandwidth but also about funwidth. It would seem that one of the goals of this is to stop access to websites where people might waste time, but apparently whoever installed this software has forgotten that people have been wasting time at work long before Facebook was invented. The internet screening software has a fancy name, but we in the trenches call it Funblocker.

Picture the scene: a Friday afternoon with Pixie, Intern Kimmy, and Ingrid, a fellow architect who also happens to be a lesbian (a fact that will be more meaningful in a moment).

Ingrid: Kimmy, when you build models in SketchUp, where do you get your site from?

Kimmy: Um...Google Earth is your best bet, but it might be blocked.

Ingrid: 'Kay. I wonder if Funblocker will...[mouse clicking] you gotta be kidding me!

Pixie: Seriously? Is Google Earth blocked?

Kimmy: Yeah, I've had that experience too. But you can click that button and file a request to have the site unblocked and they'll unblock it for you.

Pixie: What, are they worried you're gonna spend half your day on Google Earth or something?

Ingrid: The hell would I do on it? [clicking through various windows on Funblocker's appeal website]

Pixie: You could play a helluva game of Farmville, I guess.

Ingrid: Okay, it's asking me to label what the site's content pertains to...[scrolling] Accounting? Advertising? Alcohol? Oh, if only...wait, "Homosexuality?"

Kimmy: That's a category?!

Pixie: [looking over Ingrid's shoulder] Ooh, say that Google Earth can be categorized as "Homosexuality"!

Ingrid: Hell yeah! [pretends to type] "I want...the gayest mapping site...I can have. MapQuest isn't...gay...enough!"

Pixie and Kimmy: [doubled over laughing]

Ingrid: [still pretending to type] "I would...like to use...Google Queer...to import a site...into my model which...I am modeling in FlameUp."

Monday Visual Inspiration: Things are looking up

2011-11-14T05:30:00.000-07:00

Skylight in the shower in a guest room at the Amargosa Hotel and Opera House, near Death Valley, CA.

After having finished my CD deadline and a huge addendum deadline for Gestalt's Uber MOB, I'm finally feeling like I'm coming up for air. It looks like I'll be doing some design work on a small healthcare project we just scored, plus I'll be working on some big overall stuff for Design Associates' healthcare practice (some marketing, some organization of a database of all of our healthcare projects under a certain size, etc.) I'll be hopping in and out of the CA on Uber MOB as questions come up about the departments I worked on, but mercifully I won't be leading the day-to-day CA on the project. While I'm excited to work on all these things, it also looks like at least for the next couple of months, I'll be back at about 40 hours a week. That is strangely the part to which most I look forward. I need a little break as we wind down towards the winter solstice and I start putting my efforts towards a few visits back home as well as taking better care of the house and myself (and my two evil kittehs, one of whom appears to have put on a lot of weight in the past year).

O yayz! Iz Kitteh's Birfday! Lolz!

2011-11-08T05:44:00.000-07:00

From http://icanhascheezburger.com/, naturally.

YAYZ! It's mai sister's birfday! Wishing luv and lulz and kittehs and a better job than what she's having to do now and a munniez and naps and MOAR KITTEHS!

Next on The Bachelorette: Pixie cleans the house

2011-11-07T05:26:00.001-07:00

Guy left Sunday for a week-long trip for work, and I suddenly found myself in a quiet condo--no football on TV, so beeping and clicking of playing a video game on the computer, no shuffling through the house occasionally to get some Kool-Aid from the fridge or see what I was reading/doing/fiddling with. After I kissed him goodbye following a quick breakfast at Einstein's, I was met with a wall of strange, discomforting silence. So I did the only thing that felt right--I called my sister and started cleaning the house.

Guy has gone on business trips before, but it's been a long time (maybe two years, at least?) since he's been on one. Usually, those business trips are overnight--gone on Wednesday, back late on Thursday. I was now staring Guylessness in the face for five days, which was practically unthinkable for some reason. It was almost embarrassing to admit, especially since I had initially greeted the news of his trip with some relief. I figured some time apart is always good for us, since we do spend a lot of time together, snuggled down in the TV room every evening and within 20 feet of each other most of the weekends. I figured, with him out of the house for a stretch, I might get some cleaning done (me and my cleaning fetish!) and I won't have to watch whatever nonsense is on TV--sports, science shows, more sports, or the latest aliens/Doomsday show on History Channel, which has of late become enamored with alien-based and apocalypse-based programming.

So I talked to my sister for a while, and we went over everything that has happened to us in the past two weeks, and I cleared a great deal of clutter from the main areas of the house, even the TV room. I mopped and swept and Swiffed the hardwood floors and wiped down counters and put dishes in the dishwasher. Then I called Mom and painted my nails while we caught up on what all the critters, young and old, were doing around the farm. I polished off an entire book in one sitting (well, three sittings if you include getting up to go pee twice)--it was Beautiful Unbroken: One Nurse's Life, and it moved me to tears many times. And as I put the book down finally after finishing it and got up to feed the kittehs, I realized that the house...was still heavily quiet.

So I took a shower, heated up some leftover Chinese, and watched Sunday Night Football while waiting for Guy's call to say he'd made it to his hotel room all right. Sunday is a day for comfort, after all.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Halloween 1981

2011-10-31T05:14:00.001-06:00

I found this while flipping through some old photo albums. It wasn't the Halloween pic I was looking for, but it's still a good one. Kitty (left) and I (right) were ready to go trick-or-treating on a chilly October night in our Mom-made costumes. Halloween in rural Georgia usually means being driven door-to-door by your parents to the seven or so houses of your neighbors (all at least a half-mile apart). Stopping at my grandmother's was the evening's highlight--homemade sugar cookies and a chance to chat with her by her always-roasting-at-twice-the-temperature-of-hell fireplace. Sweet tea and sugar cookies...how did I ever get to sleep?

Monday Visual Inspiration: The tragedy of the poorly-planned toilet, Part 2

2011-10-24T06:06:00.002-06:00

Poorly-designed toilet rooms make me sad. I'm sad because it's a waste of resources and building materials. I'm also sad because a poorly-designed toilet makes difficult for some of us the most basic and private of functions: going to the bathroom. Below is yet another example of an improperly-designed/built toilet room (photos taken at a gas station toilet room outside Estes Park, CO). Comments are below each photo.

Over and over, I see the same error: add some grab bars and the toilet room is now "accessible". There's nothing farther from the truth. Making a toilet room ADA compliant involves a series of space and fixture layouts and dimensions of various accessories in relation to each other and to the floor. The above shot shows some of these problems: the toilet paper dispenser is way too high above the grab bar, and the sink is located within the required clear space of the toilet. Also, the seat cover dispenser is way too high and it's above the toilet--both are no-no's. Further, the trashcan (albeit movable) is located within the toilet's clearspace. If you come in here in a wheelchair, pray you can roll up and hoist thyself onto the throne.

Here's the door from inside the toilet. The pull on the door is okay--it doesn't require grabbing, twisting, or pinching--but there's a metal box of some sort that seems to be in the way of the required 18" clear space on the pull side of the door. But what about that little locking mechanism above the pull handle? Well, it does require grasping, pinching, and twisting, which is not ADA compliant.

Mom is standing by the door to make another point about the door lock. Mom is 5'-4.5", so the door lock is maybe 8"-9" below Mom's head, making it about 56" above the floor. Unobstructed forward reach for someone in a wheelchair is 15"-48" above the floor, which means that not only is this door lock hard to operate if your hands are incapacitated in some way, but you'll have a tough row to hoe in your in a wheelchair and you pop in here for a quick dooky.

Scenes from a project, Part 1

2011-10-20T05:48:00.000-06:00

Pixie, Contractor Sid, and some surgery staff members are in a conference room, discussing the layout of a pre-op and post-op suite.

Nurse 1: How big is that patient toilet?

Pixie: It's 7'-2" by 7'-6", a little over 50 square feet.

Nurse 2: Wow, it looks...big.

Nurse 1: [to Nurse 2] Our toilets at Bierstadt Building aren't ADA, that's why this looks so big.

Pixie: Correct. An ADA-compliant toilet is so big I can breakdance in it.

Nurse 2: Oh, okay, well that's fine. I wanna go back to the pre-op bays, though--

Contractor Sid: [looks up suddenly from his laptop] Wait, I wanna go back to the toilets. How did we all just miss Pixie breakdancing?

Pixie, Sven, Contractor Sid, and two Gestalt project managers are talking after the radiology user group meeting.

Pixie: So, the radiologists want to redesign the entire department to have the front desk towards the west instead of the east.

Sven: Aren't we a month out from the end of SDs?

Gestalt Mgr 1: This is a lot to change so close to the deadline--

Gestalt Mgr 2: But if these changes need to happen and the department won't work without it, then... [throws hands in air]

Pixie: Well, look: how about I take just an hour or so to see if what they want works?

Sven: Can you do that in an hour?
Pixie: Well, maybe two. Depends on what you [gestures at Gestalt Mgrs 1 and 2] want. Do you want me to see if it can really work, or do we just want to be able to say 'yeah we tried but it's not gonna work' to the radiologists?

Gestalt Mgr 1: Well, I suppose, um...

Pixie: I can make this plan work or not work. What I'm asking is, do you want me to use my powers for good or for evil?

Monday Visual Inspiration: By God, if one is good, then two is better.

2011-10-17T05:41:00.000-06:00

Vault toilet at the Mud Volcano area of Yellowstone National Park.

Guy rolled his eyes when I took this, but it cracks me up. It's like whoever was installing the grab bars said, "Listen, we're gonna make this sumbitch even more accessible! The only way this gets any more accessible is if we put a lift and winch in the ceiling!"

Grab bars do not an accessible toilet make. There are fixture heights, clearances, overlaps of clearances, door handles and hardware, and so on. This whole toilet is just....wrong. It's just wrong.

[throws down microphone in disgust, walks offstage]

The deadline: close, but no cigar.

2011-10-12T18:22:00.003-06:00

(A quote on a whiteboard in the Canyon Visitor Center at Yellowstone National Park. I'll wait while the grammar/spelling sticklers among us finish twitching.)

We wrapped up our 100% construction documents (CD) deadline for the Gestalt Uber MOB on Monday. I took today off to get a delayed break from the weekend I worked through, and many of my colleagues on the project did the same today and/or yesterday. But we're not done.

Generally, the architect has to produce an addendum (and sometimes multiple addenda) a few weeks after the CDs go out as a response to questions coming in from bidders on the project. However, the addendum/addenda are sometimes used to capture additional items that need to be coordinated but that couldn't be coordinated before the deadline. Also, the addendum can be used to revise the drawings to include last-minute owner-driven changes, of which there will be many in the Uber MOB.

The question we get sometimes, even from engineers and up-and-coming architects, is this: if we're gonna do an addendum anyway and it's a given, why don't we just move the CD deadline to when the addendum would be due? There are two reasons, one practical and one philosophical. The practical reason involves permitting: the CDs are complete enough to take to the city and/or county and start the process of getting a building permit. Since a building permit can take a fair amount of time (generally about a month for most large municipalities), the contractor wants to get that process moving with the CDs while the architect uses a little extra time to work out details or tweak scope in the drawings. The only reason to delay the CDs to match up with the addendum would be if the addendum would include info or drastic changes that could potentially affect the permitting process. The other (philosophical) reason for not moving the CD deadline to the addendum deadline is that this sort of delaying process could go on indefinitely. CDs are never really done--every architect can look at a set of CDs he or she has worked on and see four or five things they wanted to detail/fix/tweak/do better/differently. If we moved every CD deadline to match the addendum, it would get easy to delay it for just a few days or week more, then a few more, then the owner woud hear that we have extra time and say hey if we have some time, let's redesign the so-and-so to look like this and then we'd be forever tweaking the drawings.

So, I have an addendum due in about three weeks. But first, I need a manicure and a nap.

Happy birthday, Dad!

2011-10-05T19:02:00.002-06:00

If my father were still alive, he'd be 65 today. That's old enough to retire legitimately, not partially as he intended to do when he was 52, or inadvertently as he did when he was 50. I often wonder what he'd be like now. Probably somewhat optimistic and mildly cantankerous, talking to me about Gestalt's Uber MOB and to Guy about his time in the Army and about investing and what Missouri is like. We went to dinner tonight (Mexican, one of Dad's favorites), and we'll have some chocolate cupcakes later this evening.

I love you Daddy, and I still miss you.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Yellowstone, the Building Edition

2011-10-03T05:24:00.000-06:00

Again, I appreciate everyone indulging me with the constant photo-posting while I get through this deadline. I took strangely few photos of buildings in Yellowstone, mostly because man-made built stuff takes up less than 2% of the area of the park. However, a few buildings were really cool, and I did get pictures of that which struck my fancy.

Gas station near the Roosevelt Lodge. What a wonderfully throwback early 1950s building.

Restaurant at the Canyon Lodge. Another wonderfully throwback 1950s A-frame building. Those light fixtures look custom...and original.

The lounge of the Canyon Lodge restaurant. Same light fixture with different bulbs in them. I'm amazed at how much of the original architecture and finishes are left in the buildings at Yellowstone. As someone who spends a lot of time facelifting buildings and interior design that's only 15 years old, I effing love this stuff.

The front of the Old Faithful Lodge at Old Faithful. Built in 1904, this building was made from actual lodgepole pines. As in, they cut down a big-ass tree, sat it up on the foundations, and braced it to some other lodgepole pines, and used them as the columns for the lodge. Check it, yo:

This is the main atrium inside Old Faithful. Architectural. History. Squee.

Cool acoustical baffle-cloud-thingys in the theater in the new Old Faithful Visitor Center.

The lakefront side of the Lake Yellowstone Lodge. This was the original lodge in the park (late 1800s), and it was facelifted about the time the Old Faithful Lodge was built (renovation overseen by Old Faithful's architect). It's a weirdly-nice building, though it reminds me of the Overlook Hotel in Kubrick's version of The Shining.

Each lodge also has a small general storage inside or near it. Some of them even have gas pumps, which is smart because doing the figure-8 loop of Yellowstone is a couple hundred miles. This was the old general store and gas station at Lake Yellowstone. It's boarded up now, but I love the forlorn nature of this building, photographed on the eve of our last day in Yellowstone.

Your indulgence, I beg it

2011-09-27T18:56:00.003-06:00

I really appreciate everyone's patience right now. The construction documents for Gestalt's Uber MOB are due in two weeks, and I'm slammed busy. There's a lot to do, review, check, draw, markup, and fret over, and my team and I have our work cut out for us. Because of this, I haven't had the energy or even time to really do a good post or two for y'all about architecture, life, or anything. I check/email/review stuff and answer questions all day in a state that is super-busy bordering on frenetic, and I come home and collapse and read magazines because I don't have the energy to read a real book.

So, I keep posting about Yellowstone and coming home and resting. I'll be able to do better in a couple of weeks, but for right now I'm just posting pictures and apologies.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Yellowstone, the Critter Edition

2011-09-26T05:21:00.000-06:00

OMG anipals! Half the reason I do anything in nature is to see critters whose cuteness rivals that of my own kittehs. Yellowstone certainly did not disappoint in this respect.

Smuffalo! We saw eleventy million buffalo in Yellowstone (bison, really--all pure buffalo are now gone, and all that are left are buffalo with a little bit of domesticated cattle genetics in them, hence the name bison). This one was a just a few inches shorter than our 4Runner's top. yikes. People have actually been killed by buffalo because they think they're a combination of teddy bear and moo cow. No and no.

Wee little bird in the super-hot waters of Mammoth Hot Springs. No idea how he stands it.

OMGPONIES!!1!!! We went horseback riding to a chuckwagon dinner our second night in the park. I'd like to go back sometime when I can ride with many fewer people and have a little more control over the horse. These were pretty well-trained trail horses who spent most of their time walking nose-to-butt with the other horses.

A heron in the early morning fog over Alum Creek.

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore. Or maybe yeah, I dunno. Do you have any crackers or granola?"

Elk! We saw a fair amount of elk as well, mostly mamas and a few half-grown fawns.

You can barely see the coyote in the middle of this picture, but he's there, I promise.

We saw a few pronghorn antelope in the park, but most of them we saw outside of the park. They were not playing with the deer, but we also did not hear a discouraging word.

Oh my squee: chibbik. "Chibbik" is the word my family uses for "chipmunk", for whatever reason. We saw so many chipmunks that week that even Guy started saying "chibbik". They were always pesky/cute, but often they wouldn't be still enough to let me take a decent picture. This one, near Natural Bridge, was one exception.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Yellowstone, the Water and Geyser Edition

2011-09-19T05:55:00.000-06:00

More images from the trip; commentary for each photo is just below the image.

Mammoth Hot Springs, from the top of the springs. Gallons upon gallons of steaming water burbling up from the depths of the earth and spilling over the edge of this natural infinity pool, leaving behind small deposits of minerals, leaving its trail marked in red, orange, white, and green.

Mammoth Hot Springs, from the bottom of the springs.

Part of the Norris Geyser Basin. The blue of this water is so heavenly it seems as if the rangers come out every morning at 5:30 to dump food coloring into the geysers and spring pools. That's why they tell you that the pools are 200 degrees at have sulfuric acid and arsenic in them--so you won't step in and find out that it's just food dye. (Note: water boils at 198 degrees in Yellowstone due to the elevation. Also note that they're not kidding about how hot these sumbitches are--you'll sweat while walking around the geysers on the elevated boardwalks, as the ground is over 200 degrees in some places.)

Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River. Even from this far away, there's a loud roar from the water.

Downstream from the Imperial Geyser Basin, which has sulfur in the water (hence the red-orange coloration in the stream). I touched the water here, about 150 feet downstream (which is technically a no-no), and the water was well over what I use in my shower, probably 140-ish degrees.

Old Faithful, of course!

The view of West Thumb Geysers from Yellowstone Lake, during Guy's and my kayak trip.

The shores of Yellowstone Lake, near a rock outcropping that is supposedly home to scads of marmots (though we saw none).

But it was a bargain!

2011-09-15T05:50:00.000-06:00

Seen in the parking lot of the Mud Volcano Geyser area.

"Look, Debbie, I know it doesn't quite fit the truck, but it was only $20! And just think--when we sleep in back while we're camping, we can just hang our butts over the tail gate and go pee! No shoes required!"

Monday Visual Inspiration: Yellowstone, the Landscape Edition

2011-09-12T05:22:00.000-06:00

There is much to say (and show) about the Magic and Wonder That Is Yellowstone, so I'll try to break up our week there into little themed chunks that are at least mildly interesting and possibly won't bog down your old computer and too-slow internet connection (Mom, I'm looking at you, and I know it's not your fault). Info on each photo is written below the image.

The basalt cliffs at Sheepeater's Cliff. Evidently, all the Native American tribes in the area thought the Tukudika folk of present-day Yellowstone were some bad motherfuckers, because they chased down and ate bighorn sheep and lived above 7,500 above sea level. Straight gangsta.

The white travertine formations caused by the geysers and springs at Mammoth Hot Springs.

Lost Lake, near the Roosevelt camp and cabins. Some large animals took a group crap near this beautiful vista--other than that, it was a great view and a really good hike.

I think this is near Fairy Falls, but I'm drawing a blank for some reason. It was just a great shot with the sky and clouds and little trees there in the shade.

The view north(ish) from a hill/small mountain we hiked up to get to Monument Geyser Basin. Extraordinary views. You see a lot of dead trees interspersed with the little green pines--that's from the fires of 1988. Those fires were the first to happen after the National Park Service (NPS) decided that, while it would protect buildings and people, it would no longer try to put out every single fire that started in its boundaries, whether it was human or natural in cause. 37% of the park burned that summer, which had seen record high temps and record low rainfall amounts. While folks were horrified to see the trees burned to crispy black sticks, it turns out that lodgepole pines actually need fire in order to reproduce on a real, grand scale--some of their seed cones won't open up unless the surrounding temperature gets over 150 degrees. What we now have is mile after mile of 6'-12' high green pines everywhere. Letting the 1988 fires burn themselves out was a controversial decision at the time, but we have to remember that forests work on a 20-50 year cycle, not a 1-2 year cycle like much of humans' timetables.

Mountain range in the Lamar Valley, towards the northeast entrance of the park.

Natural Bridge, near the Lake Yellowstone campground/hotel/cabins. You used to be able to walk across it, but you can now only walk around it. Probably a good thing--Guy does not need to tote my clumsy ass out of the forest after I fall off of something like this.

Reflections on Yellowstone

2011-09-06T19:20:00.002-06:00

Pool from a geyser/spring at Mammoth Hot Springs, northeast portion of Yellowstone National Park

We're finally back from a week in Yellowstone National Park. First of all, if you haven't been to Yellowstone, and you like seeing amazing things, then get off your ass. Every time you turn around in YNP, you say the same thing: "Oh my God, did you see that? That's amazing! Take a picture!" By the end of the week, Guy and I were almost sick of carrying our cameras around, but you didn't dare leave the sonofabitch in the cabin, because you'd miss something else amazing. I don't mean that sarcastically. I mean, it's like going to the Moss Isley Cantina of Amazing and Beautiful Natural Wonders, and you dare not miss a one.

I'll post more later, as I'm trying to a) play catch-up at work and b) figure out how best to post about the week in smaller, digestible bits over the course of the next few weeks. The most important thing from the whole week was that Guy and I spent six truly relaxing, healing, wonderful days together/alone in YNP. We hiked probably 6-10 miles a day while there, saw some of the most unbelievable sights, and spent what I think experts mean when they say "quality time." No TVs (anywhere), no phone, no internet. Just us and nature. (And lots of cars and some other people, but not bad--it was the week before Labor Day, so all the kids were gone. It was just us and the old people and the foreign tourists. God, at the Germans in the park.) We went to bed and got up with the sun, which might be some of the most sleep I've gotten in...months? years? It was really relaxing.

And fun. Guy and I made up some pretty ridiculous stuff, some of which will hopefully translate into the blog. Phrases such as "jealousy stop" and "knock-kneed prairie dog" shan't leave our lexicon anytime soon. And we laughed and had a few good drinks, ate well, slept pretty well, and toured well. Plus, the whole weekend was fairly affordable; it was way less than flying anywhere, and of course camping as well as bringing food for breakfast and lunch saved us a bunch. So, a good time was had by all.

I'll post more later. Just gotta get my head back in my project, as well as revel in the fact that we asked for and were given two more weeks of time before our deadline. Score!

Going to Yellowstone, brb, kthxbai

2011-08-29T05:36:00.000-06:00

Guy and I off to Yellowstone for a week of camping and staying in lodges and hotel rooms in the park, plus a lot of hiking and taking pictures and just enjoying nature and each other and not being able to use our cellphones or the internet. So there. Gracie said she'll hold down the fort and keep my spot warm on the balcony/porch for me til we return. Our pal Elliot will stop in and check on the kittehs a couple of times while we're out, no worries. Back in a week, kids!

Do you want to know what the Matrix is, Neo? It's annoying.

2011-08-24T05:41:00.000-06:00

I've been having a helluva time figuring out what to post on these days, the whole anonymity thing notwithstanding. I think what's making it harder to post is that what I do for a living is so all-consuming that I can't get out of it. I can't turn it off, I can't stop thinking about it, and it's so big and all-encompassing that I can't even figure out how to explain it anymore. Just as Morpheus told Neo that it was easier to show him what The Matrix is rather than explain it, I have a hard time explaining how anything and everything going on in the world affects and is affected by architecture.

Today at work, some of us were discussing the repercussions of bariatric design. Bariatrics is the branch of medicine that deals with treating weight management issues, usually those who are overweight or obese. Because more and more Americans are becoming overweight and obese, everything in the buildings we build (or remodel) have to be designed to hold heavier people--beds that are five feet wide and hold 800 lbs, steel toilets that are two feet wide in order to keep flab from falling over the sides of the can, chairs that are the size of small sofas made with steel frames. We hear about wall-mounted toilets getting ripped off of walls in existing facilities because extra-large people sit down on them. Here's the thing: the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) design guidelines require that the centerline of toilets be 18" from the sidewall with grab bars, but you can't locate a bariatric toilet that closely to a wall, and frankly no grab bar will hold someone who is pushing six bills. But, ADA is a federal law--so who wins when I build a patient floor that treats bariatric patients? Reality or federal codes?

I don't mean to pick on the super-obese; this just happens to be a conversation that I had today with a few fellow healthcare architects. But you see my point: everything that happens in the world affects architecture, and the things I do affect how people live their everyday lives. Modern architect Richard Neutra used to say that he could design a house that would cause a couple to get divorced within a month of moving into it. If that sounds far-fetched to you, try getting ready for work every morning while sharing a single sink and vanity in a cramped bathroom with poor air circulation and no humidity control. It'll have you thinking "Divorce, hell--bullets are cheaper."

My job entails looking at my drawings and understanding all the pros and cons of actually building what I just drew. Because I spend my day troubleshooting and understanding what does into a space or a building, it's a skill that I find I can't turn off. Everywhere I look, I know what's in the walls, what's making the water go through the espresso machine, how much that glass window costs, what that stain is on the ceiling, why the flooring is bubbling, and so on. Even sitting on my balcony at night, just resting, I can look into the apartments across the way from us and watch people fumble over poor ergonomics in their kitchens, adjust the furniture in their living rooms, wrestle with computer cords at a desk placed for some ungodly reason in front of a west-facing window. The world is a never-ending barrage of built flotsam and jetsam, put together in endless combinations that make sense in their efficiency as well as their inefficiency.

Being an architect is like being able to see The Matrix. And when you can't just shut it off, it makes you want to drink. Pass the Riesling.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Strrrrreeeeeeetch!

2011-08-22T19:32:00.003-06:00

Gracie sure knows how to live. Thirteen months after being adopted from the shelter to her forever home, she's lolled on a cushion in the living room in the sun, simultaneously taking a bath, rolling over, and stretching. Or as she calls it, multitasking.

I'm trying to get a bunch of crap done before Guy and I leave for a week in Yellowstone National Park next week. I'd say I'll keep my tens of readers posted, but what the hell would I keep you poor folks updated on? My lack of posting? :-p

Next on Dr. Phil: architects that rarely draw...but can they sketch??

2011-08-18T06:08:00.000-06:00

I've been noticeably mute on my Uber MOB project lately, and indeed on anything architecty. Partially it's because I'm trying to find a way to talk about my work while keeping it anonymous but also helping my tens of readers understand whatever it is I'm complaining about. Talking about architecture to the non-architects (aka, normal people with lives and hobbies) is, I've noticed, a lot like teaching someone how to build a building--you have to have a real project in order to learn. So it's hard for me to talk abstractly about "a project that has lead shielding" or "building that is built on a hill". I really need to say "this project I did in Wheatlands, Kansas" or "the Henderson Replacement Facility." The other reason I'm quiet about it right now is that I'm getting worn out on it.

My Uber MOB project is now in CD phase. CD stands for "construction documents", which are the drawings and specifications that we make to give to the contractor so he/she can actually build the building. The Uber MOB is about a quarter of a million square feet, so we need about three months for each phase:

SD - schematic design, where we figure out basically where which rooms go where in the departments, what spaces are needed, what spaces we forgot to account for (figuring out where the departments go in the building is also done during SDs, but on a project this size it was part of a separate pre-SD phase)
DD - design development, where we confirm room locations and then being working out how the building looks, inside and out. We also confirm with the building's users where the cabinets and sinks are, what equipment goes where, and so on.
CD - construction documents, where we start drawing all the little details in earnest and really work through how all the building's systems work together. (Some of this coordination happens during DDs as well, but now it's Gotta Be Done.)

We're about halfway through CDs right now, and I'm finding that as you move up the food chain in architecture, the less drawing you do. Over the past few months, I find that I spend a lot of time writing meeting notes and doing paperwork for Gestalt (deliver me), researching products, reading code books and writing code studies, reviewing and marking up drawings and specifications, coordinating systems with engineers, and generally just answering questions. My job becomes less about "do the work" and more about "make sure other people have what they need to do the work." It's also my job to poke further on any question or request: you say you need me to lower my ceiling to 8 feet because of your pipes? What's keeping your pipes so low? Where do they run to? Oh, they're for that room/area? Perhaps they can run over here instead and I don't have to lower that ceiling and make this waiting room feel like a shoebox? Excellent--thanks.

But what I notice is that I rarely draw in Revit these days. I spend so much time writing and reading and marking up and making phone calls and talking that I find that I'm getting less familiar with the computer drafting/modeling nuts and bolts of the project, and I'm getting rusty on my skills. This frightens me for a couple of reasons. One, it means that if we even need as many hands as possible to draw a lot for a deadline, it's not entirely safe to have me in the model. (As I've described before, Revit is different from AutoCAD in that one person can delete something and it goes away everywhere in the project, not just in that drawing. This means you can fuck up a lot more in a short amount of time.) I'm also slower in the model once I get in. But the second reason it creeps me out is that being able to use drafting software is something that a lot of architecture firms demand when looking for a position. It's not that I'm looking to change firms, but rather it's that I'm recognizing that I'm losing a skill that everyone seems to find important.

Yet throughout the project, I've been sketching. I go in and print something out of Revit and start tracing over it or marking it up or doodling, thinking about how to make it better. Perhaps an intern brings me a plan or elevation that he can't figure out how to make work, and I doodle and sketch and work it out. That's the part I'm good at--having had to stomp countless floor plans that don't work into plans that flow effortlessly, the sketch or doodle or scaled linework over a printout is the kind of drawing that someone at my level does best. So maybe I do draw. It's not in the way I'm used to drawing in an office, but strangely, it's similar to the way I was used to drawing in school. It's the circle of life, Simba.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Still life with tomatoes that are actually growing

2011-08-15T05:56:00.000-06:00

Though the tomato plants are a little wonky and not as big as usual, they are indeed here and producing, on a fine August morning in Denver. I got busy for a couple of days and forgot to harvest, so you can see some red (and ready) cherry tomatoes on the taller plant on the left and a few Romas on the short bushy plant on the right. At least something in my care is producing. usually I can either maintain a little (like the basil and the lavender) or it falters (as did the new gardenia when I forgot to water every thing for a few days in a row--sorry, Mom). I suppose we'll be making some chili or tortilla soup soon so we can put these lovely 'maters to good use. Not bad for growing five stories off the ground, eh?

Monday Visual Inspiration: A quiet moment with a cup of coffee

2011-08-08T05:26:00.001-06:00

It seems weird that much of Western society "relaxes" with a caffeinated beverage. Eric Bogosian once joked about how no one relaxes with coffee--they actually spend a frantic amount of time trying to procure coffee so they can get home (or wherever) and drink it. In that light, the to-go cup may be the most appropriate invention for the enjoyment of coffee. If you're going to drink rocket fuel first thing in the morning, you might as well have a little rocket-shaped stainless steel cylinder to put it in so you can take it with you when you hit low-earth orbit.

However, the photo above was taken at The Eggshell, a brunch place in Cherry Creek North, when I was out with Mom a couple of weeks ago. Light was filtering down into the restaurant through the atrium of a shopping complex which The Eggshell abutted and leaked into a bit for Sunday seating. It was a nice little Zen moment--white paper on the table, off-white coffee mug, perfectly dark coffee, shiny silver spoons, and a Mom. It was a good reminder to be mindful of all the little moments in life that feed us and ask nothing of us, such as birdsong in the middle of a city or a kitteh turned upside down on a rug on the floor looking cute. It was these moments while hanging out with Mom in July that made me realize that I really did need to try cultivating a habit of daily meditation again. (Sarge, stop laughing--I can totally do this.)

And so, I've been practicing for the better part of a week now, usually in the mornings but occasionally in the evenings. I'm doing about ten minutes a morning at this point, right after my workout, which is a bit of a squeeze for me. Hopefully the promise of time for meditation will spur my lazy ass out of bed a little sooner in the morning in order to get that pause. See, the morning is generally a fast time for me--get up, workout for 40 or so minutes, cool down and stretch, then in the shower get dressed eat breakfast brush teeth do makeup run out the door. A ten-minute pause for meditation in the middle of that seems to be making a difference, maybe kinda almost. With the exception of sitting through a 2 1/2 hour meeting on Friday morning, I've been mostly calm at work. That's especially surprising given the pace of the Uber MOB project right now. I even had a moment where I was surprised and then worried that I wasn't nervous or worried about the deadline and workload (yes, I know...), but I think it's because I'm taking a few minutes each day to radically slow myself down.

Friday mornings I do yoga, and I'm up earlier than usual because I have to be at work before 8 to prepare for my Friday meetings. Because of the extra-early arising, I make coffee the night before and turn it on about halfway through my yoga practice. At the end of the practice, I have a few minutes to drink a cup and either look at my plants on the (five-stories-up) porch or yet again meditate. There again, I find myself in the situation of "relaxing" with a stimulant. And yet it makes sense: if you're looking for energy, why not calm energy? It feels good to pause long enough to enjoy the flavor of whatever you're consuming, so that you actually enjoy and savor its ingestion and to some extent digestion, and then breathe, and then look around and just observe everything.... I'm certainly affected by the caffeine, but not in a strung-out workaholic yuppie kind of way. I get to thank all the people and processes involved in making this coffee and bringing it to me by really sitting down and enjoying it. And being thankfully and blissfully quiet.

Monday Visual Inspiration: A week with Mom, in pictures

2011-08-01T05:34:00.000-06:00

I don't always snuggy a kitteh, but when I do, I prefer a floofy one. Stay pesky, my friends.

Pixie, you need a new kitteh--this one's borked. It won't even play with a 'nip mousey with a jingle bell on it.

You wanna turn this frown upside down? Go pour me a glass of that white zinfandel we got from the corner liquor store yesterday, and use those crystal glasses from Tiffany that Dame Judith gave you for your wedding.

Ahhh, a relaxing cup of coffee at a lovely Cherry Creek brunch place...it makes me nostalgic. Did I ever tell you about the time I nearly beat a man to death with my 22-oz Estwing framing hammer?

Man, I've been wanting to come to the Denver Botanic Gardens for about five years now. It's the only place I can get my horticultural nerd on....Jesus, how do they keep these bromeliads alive? In Denver, no less?!

The sign in these plants labels them as "Right Oregano". Is that why they're planted on the right side of this path? And this is Colorado--where's the "herb" garden labeled "kind bud?"

The Momness 2011: and a good time was had by all

2011-07-27T20:27:00.002-06:00

I put Mom on a plane this afternoon to head back to Georgia, sad as always to see her go. (Chanel bless her. As we made our way to the airport, she was riding shotgun and hand-sewing the snaps on my latest gift: a tea-length twill coat with a satiny brown and blue lining. Her parting words on the sidewalk at the top level of DIA were, "Bye, I love you, I had a good time, have a good day, and when you're tired of that dress you're wearing, save it--I want to make a pattern out of it.") We did a great deal while she was visiting (which explains why she was sewing as she went out the door), and yet we weren't all that busy.

There were moments while she was here that I would get antsy and would think, "I need to get Mom dressed and out the door so we can do w, x, y, and z." Yet when I think about all that we did together, we had a wonderful time that overall was neither packed nor stressful. We were a little overscheduled on Friday, but after that it was: get dressed sometime in the morning (usually by noon) and then mosey out for brunch and then to shop or walk around a Denver landmark of some sort or other or even just do some gardening on the balcony or go lay by the pool. I realized how ungodly fast I move on a regular basis, sometimes in the name of efficiency and sometimes, I think, just out of habit. When I mentioned this to Mom when she called me upon landing in Atlanta, she commented, "Well, I thought you might like to do a whole lot of nothing on your days off."

That Mama--always thinking of the chirren, even when it's her vacation.

Ask Mom: Mile High 2011 Edition

2011-07-26T19:22:00.005-06:00

That's right, errbody: The Momness is in, and is about to drop some knowledge on my playaz up in here. Let's see what kind of questions we have:

Dear Mom: My basement windows have window-well covers that are those cheap plastic kind and they've gotten shredded in the past couple of years from the kids and the snow. My ex had screwed them to the concrete blocks below the siding and when I was trying to unscrew one of the bolts, I banged the screw-head up badly and now I can't unscrew it because there's nothing for the drill to catch on. I do have a set of Grabit drill bits and was planning on using those to try to get the screw out. Is there something I can do to make replacing the covers easier in the future?

Two bonus questions - how do I get rid of chipmunks, i.e. kill 'em good and dead? In the past I have left out poison packs in the garage for them (they dug up through a crack in the slab! and through the frame! in multiple spots!) and while the special candybars all disappeared, the little bastards are still alive. I probably can't sit on my deck with a .22 rifle and they're too quick for a shovel. Ideas?
Second bonus question - I'm having an ant problem in the house. I had sprayed the outside where I think they may have gotten in but they're finding other entrances. Is there a good way to uninvite them, i.e. kill 'em good and dead, without paying for an exterminator?

Signed, Nancy

Dear Nancy: Windows, chipmunks, and ants. Wow, how fucked can one woman be? Let's take these one by one.

To remove the screws from the concrete block, use a tool called an "Easy Out". You drill through the top of the screw (it's VERY hard bit) down through the center of the screw, then you put another tool (heh heh, I said "tool") into it and twist and pull it out. If you want to go cheap, just cut the heads off of the screws with a cut-off tool (they have them for drills) and cut 'em flush. The cheapest way to fix it back is to drill an oversized hole in the mortar between the concrete blocks, put a soft metal anchor in the hole, and then put the screw into it. The anchor will allow the screw to come back out if you ever need to remove it.

Chipmunks: well, my dogs kill 'em. One of my dogs is a short-legged varmint dog, and she kills them 'til they die from it. Cats are also a good idea: get a mama cat who has already had kittens, get her spayed, and make sure she's got enough to eat--she's got to have strength to hunt. She's gonna hunt, even if she's not hungry--she can't help it, she's a mama. But you're not gonna kill 'em with poison or guns or traps. The only way I've ever seen is to close up their holes to keep them out of the house or any buildings (with metal flashing), and then get one or more predatory pets. They will Fuck. Them. Up.

Now, ants: you have to barrier spray. Not just where they're coming in, but the whole exterior. The spray stinks, but spray the entire perimeter or foundation. The granules are good--look for the ones that say "barrier" in the name or description, and shake 'em around the house in a path about three feet wide. At the exterior doors and windows, spray all they way around. Put your sugar in the fridge, and put your kids' cereal in airtight Tupperware--don't give them any sugar to draw them inside. If you have pet food sitting out, set it in a ring of diatomaceous earth. If you eliminate what they're eating, you eliminate the final thing element that draws them inside. (Even Twinkies--they're deadly to humans, but ants will still eat them.) Another good way to get rid of ants: make them fight each other. Get a scoop of two different anthills and dump them on one another. You'll see a decrease in population--Armageddon. Works best on fire ants and Congress.

Dear Mom: Can you describe some fashion Wins and some fashion Woes for us girls whose chests are able to hold a place setting for 6. I have the damnednest time finding things that don't make me look like I'm either a street walker or a carnival tent.

Hugs from your Alabama niece in Las Vegas, Scarlett

Dear Scarlett: One word, and it's not plastics. It's tailoring. Go up to the larger size and have it altered. Nothing makes you look better than clothes that actually fit. Who gives a fuck what the number on the tag says? A corollary to this is good editing: don't have a closet full of clothes that kinda fit, but go instead for a small number of clothes that totally fit. you really don't need a massive closet: render unto Tyra Banks' what is Tyra's.

What else? Oh, stay away from wide belts if you're short (i.e., under 5'-6", rly sry Pixie) and ruffles regardless of height: 1734 called and it wants its jabots back. Also, the bit about no horizontal stripes is true, especially on the top. Avoid satin unless you're Calista Flockhart--satin stretches in the most unappealing ways across even the most luscious body. It shines and makes round things look rounder, so if you have a little tummy, you look like you're seven months along. Oh, and for God's sake: stand up straight. Nothing make tits look worse than trying to hide them.

Sadly, most off-the-rack clothes just aren't made for a woman with titties. And that's gonna get worse as America gets heavier--it's like fashion wants us to hide under muumuus. Learn to sew or make friends with someone who can (or find a good tailor). A good seamstress can make a $20 dress look like $1000 with a nip and a tuck.

Dear Mom: Elebenty years ago I made Roman shades out of silk fabric just like that. And for almost as long I've had the pieces for a shell for me cut out of the remnants. I'm stuck because I want the lines to go crossways [I'm flat-chested] and I haven't settled how to deal with the unravelling problem yet. How would Wilderness Gina handle it?

Signed, St. Blogwen

St. Blogwen, Wilderness Gina would start by laying the fabric on the sewing table and pulling the pattern out and staring at the two. Then she'd put the pattern away and take it out again a couple more times, maybe once a week. Then she'd put all of it in a closet for a few weeks, out of sight and out of mind. Then, the solution would come to her after a couple of months of this game of couture chicken. She would then acquire a fifth of vodka and a serger.

A serger (or a zig-zag pattern) at the edges is really your best bet. If you're not going to do that, you'll need to use twill tape in the stress areas, like around the armholes and neck, and that shit takes some getting used to wrestling with. You could use Fray Check (or that's what they call it at JoAnn's and Hancock in the South), but it will change the color and texture of your fabric in some cases. Try it on a corner of the fabric to see how badly it's affected before you get too goo-happy.

Any more questions? Send 'em on, kids: The Court of Mom is always in session!

While Shopping with Mom: Fabric and Loathing in Las Vegas...um, Denver

2011-07-25T20:25:00.008-06:00

At Allyn's Fabric Store and Millinery Store.

Pixie: Okay, so, what do you think you can make from this...?

Mom: Umm...well, this embroidered organza is nice but...

Pixie: What kind of fabric are you looking for to make another wrap dress for me?

Mom: Do they have anything more...whorish?

Mom: This is more like it.

Pixie: Hell to the yeah! It's an ombre shiny jersey! Can you make a wrap dress out of that?

Mom: Yeah, I think so, I'd need an extra yard or so, though, to lay it out right.

Pixie: [Beavis and Butthead voice] Huh huh-huh huh, you said "lay".

Mom: [absentmindedly] Yeah...you could probably get laid in a dress made of this...

Pixie: Huh-huh-hu---ewwwwww!

Pixie: What in the name of Coco Chanel are you going to do with green and black-and-white plaid taffeta?

Mom: [slowly and menacingly] Anything...I...want.

Mom: What about a shirt for Audrey made of this green taffeta?

Pixie: Totally! Wait--what's up with the hat?

Mom: You need this hat. We'll get a button or a feather to put on it and make it all spiffy.

Pixie: But I don't wear hats!

Mom: [walks away holding hat] You do now.

After buying elebenty million dollarz in fabric, Pixie and Mom go get a snack in Cherry Creek North and then engage in a little window shopping.

Mom: Oh good Lord, what is this happy horseshit?

Pixie: Well, I'm betting it's a Lanvin, maybe a Chloe or Narciso Rodriguez...?

Mom: Hmph. I'm sticking with Horseshit.

Pixie: Mom, look! It's a--

Mom: No.

Pixie: Well, I bet it's an Yves St. Laure--

Mom: No.Mom: [sarcastically] Gee, I wonder why this is on the clearance rack?

Pixie: I think it's a Lanvin...[checks tag] yep, Lanvin. Usually those are kinda streamlined outfits, but...

Mom: Jesus, I can't even figure out...[moves the shirt around on the hanger] how is this made...?

Pixie: [lisping theatrically] "I am not...an animal...I am...a shirt!"

Mom: Good Lord, it's on the hanger inside out! That's a shitty outfit if you can't even tell it's inside out or not?

Pixie: Can you make this dress?

Mom: [snaps photo] Shit yeah. I just have to amend a pattern I already have. But no belt. And no pockets.

Pixie: No belt? And no pockets? Why not?

Mom: It gives you saddlebags. No woman needs that.

Back at the Happy Kitten Highrise...

Mom: How do you like the lining of your camelhair-looking coat?

Pixie: I like it! Can I have a dress made out of it?

Mom: I can do this. This [holds up part of the lining] is fashion worth having, not shapeless $1300 pieces of viscose, Narciso Rodriguez or not.

Rly sry, partying with Mom, kthxbai.

2011-07-22T15:56:00.003-06:00

Put down the goddamn camera, put your shoes on, and let's go--there's a margarita somewhere in this town with my name on it.

Mom is here, and we're having a marvelous time. A spa visit followed by Cheesecake Factory lunch, then off to dinner and drinks with Audrey, and then some shopping (both real and window) plus sewing and goofing around for the next few days. This is why I'm ignoring this blog, folks; I'm having real fun in real life.

Thanks for all the questions for the Mile High Edition of Ask Mom. I'll be getting those posted in the next couple of days, and I'm sure they'll be packed with rich insights. (About time something on this blog was informative.)

The Momness in T minus 20 hours

2011-07-19T20:39:00.002-06:00

I've been ignoring WAD for the past several days so that I could get some work done at the office plus prepare for Mom's arrival tomorrow. The work involved having to work yet another weekend in order to get through my DD set and make redlines and notes for my trusty and excellent interns to work on while I'm out for most of the next week. I'm at an offsite meeting for Uber MOB with Gestalt (we're reviewing the DD set with their headquarters via web conference back east) for two days, and then I'm out of the office playing hooky and having a good time with Mom for two days. Thank God for a long-ass weekend and a cool-ass mom.

In an effort to provide maximum Momness, I'll be attempting another "Ask Mom: Mile High Edition" in the next week or so. (See an example of Ask Mom on my sister's blog here.) Perhaps you have a burning question for my mom, or maybe you'd like advice from a woman who can assemble formwork for cast-in-place concrete just as easily as she can assemble a pattern for an amazing vintage replica dress. Whatever the case may be, feel free to ask a question, either in the comments or via email over on the side. Meanwhile, there will be plenty of other drivel and photos from our always-entertaining (at least for me) shopping and on-the-town excursions to share.

Down with the Momness

2011-07-14T06:18:00.000-06:00

"They want $1100 for this piece o' shit? It's single-ply sweatshirt material, and it's not even hemmed!"

Mom will be here for a week at the end of July, and thank God for it. She was last out in October of 2010, and we wanted to get her out here when she might be able to enjoy better weather, i.e., weather in which we could go for evening walks after work without being wrapped in polarfleece. Supposedly she's making me a dress very similar to the one she's mocking in the above photo, but we'll see. Not that I doubt her desire or skill, but she's been working on some commissions as well as some baby blankets and clothes for some relatives, so she's been busy. While we do still have her sewing machine here at the house (it hasn't moved from where she left it in 2010), I don't want her working like a galley slave or sewing like a 10-year-old Malaysian the whole week. It's her vacation. So far on our agenda for her visit, we have:

A visit to the Denver Botanic Gardens
A spa visit (massages and facials and pedicures, oh my!)
Happy hour with my boss (and one of DA's partners), Audrey
Fabric shopping at the legendary Allyn's on 6th Avenue
Window shopping/heckling in Cherry Creek North

We also have the baking of a turkey planned. I know, it's July. But taking the time to bake a turkey and eating well, plus having some turkey left over for other recipes...well, NOM. Plus, I'm sure we'll have some material for an Ask Mom, Mile High edition. Even better news: my usual Friday morning meeting got canceled for the Friday she's here, which means it looks like I can work out a four-day weekend with her. SQUEE!

Monday Visual Inspiration: Mile High Gardening 2011, or looking like a fool with m plants on the ground

2011-07-11T05:26:00.000-06:00

As with everything in my life lately, my balcony garden has suffered due to a combination of too much work and too little energy to do anything else. I've resigned myself to the fact that a lot of this year's balcony bounty will just have to involve annuals and/or sacrificial perennials as accents to the band of usual suspects that I drag in and out of the house every year, much to Guy's chagrin. In this top photo of the 2011 Mile High Balcony Garden, you can see a few of those Mile High mainstays, including my two Chinese evergreens on the right, several pots of pothos and some sort of arrowhead plants in the midground, and the massive arboricola in the background that we've named Feed Me Seymour.

Shooting the other way, we fully absorb the fact that, on the right, I've killed a boxwood and have yet to pull it out of its pot. I'm calling it a golden boxwood; Guy says I've just made an example out of it to the rest of the plants. Either grow or die, but don't fuck around. At the far end of the balcony/porch, we see a few new herbal additions to the garden that, God willing, will survive to join the rosemary and parsley plants in the kitchen come October.

First new addition: Greek basil. They're both blooming, whatever that means. (I'm always amazed when I see plants bloom in my care. I never know if it's because of or in spite of me.) So far, it smells good if you touch it and it tastes great on a pizza.

Next up, a veteran from last year: the Virginia creeper. I thought I'd killed it during the winter by letting its roots get exposed, but one branch/tendril of it managed to burrow its way out of the cold, hard potting soil and arise yet again. In keeping with my habit of giving my plants inappropriate monikers, we're naming the Virginia creeper Jason Voorhies.

Oh, look, Pixie finally bought a lavender plant, about 12 years after everyone else put one in their garden. She's so innovative with her gardening, such a visionary. Well, at least it's blooming.

And the tomatoes, which we always do for pizzas and chili/soups. This year, we're doing a cherry tomato (left) and a Roma tomato (right). Not sure why the Roma is so bushy. Should we tie up the branches or just let them get spidery?

And finally, no porch garden, and indeed no porch, is complete without a porch kitteh. Hazel like to snuggle up in a wee ball of tabby indifference whenever I'm outside. She lays pretty still while Gracie runs laps around the porch, into the kitchen, back through the dining and living room, and back out onto the porch again. Hazel only leaves when Guy comes outside to hang out.

When I talk about my balcony garden, I say "balcony" but think porch. In the South, you put plants on your porch and sit out on it to watch the world (and your neighbors) go by. My grandmother covered her screened-in porch with massive ferns and would sit and watch cars go by on the country road about 200 feet from her house. If an ambulance went by, she'd get up slowly and go in the house to call a friend down the road: "Hester, they's uh am-bulaintz comin' yo' way; lemme know whey it's goin' to." If someone pulled into her driveway, the heavy foliage on the porch gave her ample cover to run in and put on a better dress or apron in case it was someone she wanted to talk to. Further, the porch gave her someplace nice to entertain surprise visitors in case she hadn't cleaned the house. It had ceiling fans and the cooling effect of just-watered plants, and the cushioned wicker furniture (which was so old I think it was 40 years' worth of paint that held it together) and glass-top coffee table allowed her to bring out sweet tea in heavy glasses and some Nilla Wafers on a paper plate laid in a wicker plate holder (holla if you know what I'm talkin' about) and set them down and chat with her guests. In a way, my grandmother saved herself a lot of time and energy by investing in her outdoor space. The house's interior didn't have to be cleaned spotless nor air-conditioned heavily when she kept 100sf of her 200-square-feet of her porch tidy, that 100sf being the area to the right of the front door as you stepped onto the porch.

I think there's something be learned here, assuming that I'm listening.

Sorry, did I catch you at a bad time?

2011-07-06T17:49:00.002-06:00

Gracie in an inelegant moment: "No one's making you watch, you know."

After my deadlines on June 24, June 27, and June 29, I was deadlined out. I also managed to do something funky to my left knee while out running June 27; it's a little swollen, but not really sore, and I can put weight on it just fine (thank God for King Soopers-brand ibuprofen and ice packs). Amongst these events, I decided it was time to just sit down and rest. Hence the utter dearth of posts.

Well, I could post, but it would be a lot of complaining, and there are plenty of other sources for that on the internet. I'm at the point where I know I need to do something else/new/different/better, but nothing much appeals to me. Any new hobby or interest or activity sounds like a lotta-damn-work, as my dad might have said. But how useful is just sitting around and reading, on what few evenings and weekends I do so, when I'm not blogging or going for a walk with Guy or doing laundry and other assorted forms of housework? I checked out the book The Not So Big Life by Sarah Susanka, the architect and author of the Not So Big House series of books, which were all well written. Her latest tome on reprioritizing and living a better life, one that matters? Occasional good ideas interspersed amongst hokum. I was disappointed, to say the least, as her other books have been brilliant. You're better off getting a good book on Buddhist or yogic philosophy, maybe Jack Kornfield's After the Laundry, the Laundry, or perhaps the rather light but helpfully philosophical Stretching Lessons by Sue Bender. To me, a self-help/philosophy book is useless if its principles cannot be applied in a useful way to a working-class or low-income person. If the questions being asked rely on you having a nice chunk of cash that's easily liquidated or lots of volunteer opportunities to turn down or resign from in order to attain enlightenment, then it's less philosophy and more navel-gazing for white people. And while I'm pretty white, I don't need more navel gazing.

The fact that I don't need more navel-gazing is pretty clear from the above rant, I would say--it's entirely possible and probable that I think and muse and ponder too much. Perhaps, I have wondered to myself, an interesting opportunity for this summer is to not achieve anything and in fact be anti-achievement. Clean the house once a month if that, order more takeout, don't write anything particularly intelligent or useful (and if you read anything I've written on this blog, you can safely say "mission accomplished"), and spend more time at the pool and doodling around. Could I, in fact, spend a great deal of time being inefficient and unproductive? That would be a good challenge for me, as I'm not sure I could be either for more than a day or so. (On a side note, I once told Guy that I wanted to attend a silent retreat sometime, and he laughed so hard at the thought of me attempting to be quiet for more than a couple of hours that he nearly fell out of his chair.)

So, as ever, I'll do my best to keep up with this blog and share architecty stuff with y'all when I think it might be of interest (and not compromise my clients' confidence and anonymity), but I will also attempt not to bore or annoy y'all either.

In other good news, Mom is coming out in late July for a week. Let the games...BEGIN!

Monday Visual Inspiration: Last stop, the graveyard

2011-06-27T05:52:00.000-06:00

I know, I know, eventually I'll run out of pictures from my New Orleans trip. Here's the last round, I promise.

For whatever reason, I love graveyards. I find them absolutely fascinating--the space we humans give over to the dead, the way locate it either close to or far away from where we live, the way we care for it or neglect it...it intrigues me. I've found that the disposal of a body is for hygienic purposes--we must eliminate risk of contamination or spread of a disease. One way to prevent that contamination is to bury the body, to cover it in dirt away from our homes and cities and potable waterways. But the burial process, the ceremonies, and the enclosures of these mortal coils left behind are interesting in that they reflect culture, geography, and spirituality. most of all, we have to remember that burial is for the dead, but graveyards are for the living. With that in mind, Guy and I visited the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, the oldest and coolest cemetery in New Orleans (and the only one that's ever been used in a movie: Easy Rider).

New Orleans' soil is sandy and constantly sinking and moving and boiling around. Its earliest Western inhabitants were Catholic, who believed in burying folks underground--none of this cremation nonsense. Unfortunately, some of those early burials didn't take--one good rain and Oncle Francois le mort was slooshing down the street or nearest waterway, as if Death could not stop him from enjoying a Slip N' Slide one more time. Hence, the good Catholics of Nouvelle Orleans began entombing their dead in marble vaults. Your family gets a vault in the cemetery and takes care of it in perpetuity. A body has to stay in a vault for one year and one day--not just a traditional time of mourning, but also it seals up The Funk through a summer. The stone and brick vaults in NOLA's cemeteries reach temperatures of about 400 degrees inside in the summer, which literally bakes a body "clean", killing all potentially-dangerous microbes inside. Once the year-and-day has passed, you can scootch the previously-departed's bones down to the back end of the vault and pop in a newly-deceased loved one. But remember what I said about the ground sinking? Look at the bottom of the vaults in the above photo. That bottom vault was usable in 1930, but it's now sunk to the point you can't get into it.

The resting place of Marie Laveau, the "high priestess of voodoo" in New Orleans. Volumes have been written about Laveau, but the verifiable facts about her can fit in a small pamphlet. Some recent historians believe that her psychic powers can really be attributed to her day job: hairdresser. Back in the day, she visited all the fine ladies' houses and did their hair, and the hair of their friends, while all the ladies sat around and gossiped and talked. By the end of each week, she knew everybody's business. So when she received her clients seeking psychic help, she was easily and reliably able to say, "oh, a close business associate will betray you in a month" because she'd just heard that associate's wife talking about some new deal her husband had going on. The three X's on her tomb (which is actually another family's tomb who supposedly asked that Marie be buried with them) are of varying provenance. Some say that it's the sign of Father-Son-Holy Ghost, some say it's a means of calling upon a voodoo saint that would interpret between the worlds of the living and the dead, and some say a cantankerous caretaker marked her grave with three X's so everyone would leave him alone and not ask him where she was buried.

Put enough bodies in a vault, and you'll run out of room on the marble name slab in front. When it's full, you put the front on the side of the vault and get a new slab. On this tomb, the front slab got full and broke as well. The name at the bottom was of one sister in a family who despised her other sister. The other sister died second, so the full name slab got moved to the side of the tomb with the first sister's name at the bottom, while the despised other sister got a brand new slab with her name at the top on the front of the tomb. Their cat fights must be otherworldly.

Alas, we have to have us some architecture. Both the Neoclassical Revival architect Benjamin Latrobe and his son died of the yellow fever in NOLA, three years apart to the day. They were buried in the small Protestant section of the cemetery, but no one knows where. This marker was mounted on the wall. (Funny, races are buried in amongst each other in this cemetery, but not religions. Homer Plessy, the black man who took his Jim Crow law complaint to the Supreme Court in the 1898 case of Plessy vs. Ferguson, is buried amongst the whites because he was Catholic.)

And finally, a lovely tomb was built for all the Italian immigrants in the Italian League here in NOLA. Many nationalities had Leagues in NOLA--they would help you find a place to live and a job, learn the languages (English and French/Creole), and generally get around and live. The Italian League hired a NeoClassical Revival architect to come from Italy and design and build the League's tomb, into which members could be buried and their tombs cared for in perpetuity. The Italian architect hated NOLA--hated the weather, the people, the smell, the everything. When the tomb was finally finished, he attended the ribbon cutting...and died of a heart attack two hours later. He was the first person to be buried in the Italian League's tomb--the very thing he designed in the town he hated.

Death's a bitch, ain't it?

Relentless

2011-06-25T11:41:00.003-06:00

...is what the pace of work feels like lately. I was hoping that just having Gestalt's Uber MOB as my one project to work on (instead of five like I had last fall) would make things a little easier. However, I'm at the point where it feels like there's no slowdown in speed and effort and there's no end in sight. I'm just worn down from the speed and quantity of stuff to do. Architects reading this blog may say, "well, yeah, Pixie, that's what we do." But really? Did we all slog through six years of school and ten-plus years of work and a nine-part ARE just to have our daily work lives get reduced to lists of tasks on Post-It Notes and a constant stream of phone calls that almost all begin with the words "Hey, what were we going to do at...?"

This is just a sample of my days leading up to the DD set going out: Sit down at my desk at about 8:10am and look at my list of tasks and phone calls and the stack of progress drawings that I need to review and mark up before Friday; do triage. Ask the intern in charge of the doors: did the door hardware consultant send us his spec and hardware schedule yet? does he know our deadline is Friday? make sure he knows. Email Gretchen, the project manager for Gestalt (I can't call her because her voicemail is full) and ask if we have information on the mobile storage system going in the central sterile department, and if not can I just have the storage consultant's email or phone number and I'll call him myself. open the set of progress drawings and look at the ceiling plans, because Intern Jake is going to need at least two days to get through them. We should have these equipment booms located on these drawings (and dear God, I just remembered as I was typing this that I didn't tell the structural engineer about the ceiling-mounted injectors in the MRI and CT and PET CT rooms), so make that note again. Oh crap, the toilet partitions in the main public toilets should be ceiling mounted--mark that, then start composing email to structural engineer about all the things he needs to know about (equipment booms, toilet partitions, the recessed floor at the MRI room for the RF shielding). Phone call from Intern Max--are we showing the lead thicknesses in the walls of the imaging rooms. or is that for CDs? It's for CDs, but that reminds me that I'm not sure that I've sent the lead shielding reports to the contractor or the structural engineer (crap, and as I typed that I remembered that I need lead shielding in the ceiling of two scan rooms, about which the structural engineer knows nothing). Now to email the appropriate parties about the shielding report. A phone call from the plumbing engineer--the plan doens't show the right thickness of walls at all toilets; these are floor-mounted back-fed toilets, and they need 13" out-to-out to get the pipe out and down through the slab. Can you send me a list of where you're seeing these discrepancies? Push ceiling plans aside and start looking at floor plans--I can see where this needs to be done, but I--wait, ceiling plans first, Intern Jake is going to need those. I have to pee. I look at the clock on the computer monitor: it's 9am. Only 50 minutes have passed, and I've accomplished shit all. And I didn't even hit send on the email with the shielding report.

This is why I'm spending the weekend on the balcony with kittehs and plants.

Belated Monday Visual Inspiration - Riverboat trip down the Mississippi

2011-06-22T18:46:00.002-06:00

I have a deadline this Friday and another the following Monday, so I forgot that I hadn't posted. Here are a few shots from our New Orleans trip back in May. Top to bottom: A house/building on the site of the Battle of New Orleans (fought during the War of 1812 against the British), the Domino Sugar factory, two octagon-shaped "steamboat" houses built during the 1800s, a ship yard, and a military ship that is used to move really big vehicles and equipment around the world.

Monday Visual Inspiration: The Big Easy, night and day

2011-06-13T06:17:00.000-06:00

New Orleans is not without its charms outside the French Quarter. All throughout the main part(s) of town, including the part with Tulane on the west/north side and the central business district on the east/south side, streetcars run pretty regularly to get you around. While it was reliable, safe, and comfortable transportation, it didn't appear to be quite as expedient as a bus system. The poor drivers seemed to spend a lot of time explaining to tourists that they need exact change and here's how you put the ticket into the fare-system-thingy, and so on. We saw mostly visitors on it, but locals not in a big hurry (i.e., running late or on a tight schedule) also used it in decent numbers. I'd say the tourist-local ratio was about 70-30 in the city and 40-60 in the outlying areas.

The rest of the city has a distinctly different feel than that of the French Quarter. After the Louisiana Purchase, the Catholic French/Creole/Haitian citizens of NOLA were annoyed at the now-in-charge-sorta-kinda English-Puritan WASPs showing up to rain on their already-humid parade. Canal Street, the setting of a couple of the photos below, is the western/northern border of the French Quarter, and it is the point at which the flavor changes. All the street names change, like from "Bourbon" and "Chartres" and "Royale" in the FC to "Carondelet" and "Camp" and "St. Charles", respectively.The buildings take on a distinctly more modern look and feel, though I mean "modern" in terms of "from the past 80-100 years". New Orleans doesn't know or care, it seems, what year it looks like there, as long as it's not a year before about 1998. It threw me off, I think, to see so many buildings and spaces from the past without any real allusion to the present. Of course, I was also in the more touristy areas, which may have something to do with that look and feeling

I don't like to repeat gossip, so I'm only going to say this once

2011-06-09T05:44:00.000-06:00

So while I've been whining and caterwauling about how tired and busy I am, stuff has been happening at and around Design Associates. First of all, we got a bunch of new work. Most of it was healthcare, but there's been some additional projects that came in regarding multi-use/multifamily as well as some commercial work. This means that we are one of a handful of offices hiring again in and around the Front Range, so we're not having to advertise too much to find people--we just let the interns in our office know, and they get the word out for us. One of the biggest pushes we've made is hiring people that we laid off in 2009 and 2010. Anyone that got laid off during that time, so it seems, is someone we only let go of because we couldn't afford to keep them. Hence, once we had the work to keep them busy and to pay them again, we hired them back. This includes a few interns and an architect or two...including Elliot. You remember when Elliot was laid off, right? Well, Elliot had been working at Acme with Guy for about 6 or 7 months, when Howie went looking for him. Seems Howie has a lot on his plate and has a project that he needs Elliot to just flat out take over and run with, and Elliot accepted the offer and came back. Here's funny(ish) part: he's making less than he was at Acme, but more than he was when he was laid off from DA in 2009. Well played, sir, well played. (This also gives me ammunition for a discussion regarding my own income discrepancy, but I digress.) Howie is also much happier back at DA--his boss at Acme was a total tool, such that even when Howie is at his micro-managing worst, he's still better than where Elliot was. Again, well played, sir.

Meanwhile, Wayne, who was let go at the same time as Elliot, has been only mildly employed during this time. He hooked up on a contract basis with an old boss of mine from DA, but the rest of the contract employees for that boss got the boss to fire him, as he wanted to be Mr. Managey McManager all the time and not actually draw or do anything. Recently, Guy found out that he interviewed at Acme for a contract position and was offered a job but had not yet accepted. Evidently, he was trying to get another job at the same time and wanted the other job more, so he was stringing Acme along just in case he couldn't get the other position. Acme got tired of it and gave him 72 or 96 hours or something to shit or get off the occupational pot, so he has to make a decision either today or tomorrow. I asked Guy what he thought of the whole situation, andhe just sighed and rolled his eyes. "Well, it's for a contract position, so if they hire him and see what a waste he is, they'll know that contract was the right way to go. Or maybe he's mended his ways...well, probably not."

Also, the new crop of interns we've been hiring have given me new perspective on folks I used to know. Mikhail, an intern that was let go in early 2008, was perhaps not as sharp as I'd thought before. He certainly acted like he cared and wanted to learn, but according to the interns I've been working with recently on Uber MOB who went to school with him, he wasn't that good. He just didn't have it to be an architect. I suppose it wasn't a total loss that he's evidently now into construction management or accounting or something similar. Architecture is like sushi--it's not for everyone and sometimes it'll make you sick.

What else? Oh, at one point in the downturn, Gregg, Guy's old boss and Wayne's protector at DA, decided he didn't want to buy in as a partner, which Howie is in the process of doing. However, Gregg got to keep his assigned parking space, which infuriated a lot of people, and rightly so. Partners and associate partners get assigned parking spaces in our lot so that they don't have to search endlessly for a parking space when they return from meetings. But keeping his space would have made Gregg the only associate with an assigned parking space...an amenity which several higher ranking non-partners wouldn't have had. When someone mentioned that Gregg was going to get to keep his space, Orville (who is a delight to be around but hard to work with when you have a fast-paced deadline) then commented brilliantly, "No one here has the balls to tell him no, and he doesn't have the ethics to turn it down." When I hear this, I spit coffee. Oh, but now that work is picking up and things are getting better, guess who's ready to buy back into the company, hmm?

Further scuttlebutt as conditions and energy warrant. I have yet another deadline at the end of June, which will leave me good and wrung out just in time for the July 4th weekend. I'll do my best to muster up some energy for a decent post or two--patience please, and any suggestions/ideas for posts are always appreciated.

Monday Visual Inspiration: At home in the French Quarter

2011-06-06T05:53:00.000-06:00

This will have to be the first of three posts regarding our trip to New Orleans last month. It was a nice enough town, but I think I saw all I wanted to see of it for a while. Maybe if I hadn't smelled sewage the first morning I woke up there and then gotten food poisoning at one of the nicest restaurants in town, I might have had a better impression of the place. I'm sure plenty of people have worse opinions of Denver.

So...the houses in the French Quarter. Amazing. I don't know what the insides look like, but the outsides are pretty cool. Evidently, New Orleans' soil is so sandy and geologically young that structures sink and settle constantly (more on that when I show you the graveyards). There are entire businesses in NOLA that do nothing but help you replumb your house when it settles so much (and so unevenly) that a door you shut yesterday suddenly gets stuck against the floor, four inches away from its frame. You might be able to see some of those uneven window and door frames in these images. Also interesting was how close everyone's front door/windows are to the street--they're always closed with blinds. What gives? Guy and I wondered. A tour we took later on in the weekend provided the explanation: back in the 1700s, the streets on which we (and the early settlers) walked were the "back" of the house. Your real front door was the courtyard in the inside of the city block. Many of these houses had little gates and paths that you used to access the real "front door" of the house. What is now the street was a muddy path wide enough for a couple of horses to slop down, lined on each side with a narrow raised wood walkway, much like you can see in photos (and movies) of the Old West. Today, occasionally a homeowner has acknowledged the shift between front and back, public and private, but many have chosen to leave their homes' access and arrangement as it was nearly 250 years ago. (And the fact that any of this is standing is a bit of a surprise to me, between the humidity and the hurricanes, but we also learned that the French Quarter was built on the highest land in NOLA, which allowed it to survive floods better than any other part of the city.)

Happy Memorial Day, from Mile High Pixie and a graveyard kitteh

2011-05-29T07:40:00.002-06:00

This kitteh was hanging out in the shade in the St. Louis Graveyard #1 in New Orleans when we visited a few weeks ago. It seemed semi-feral; not afeared of us hoomanz, but not really into being snuggied (rly, sry, Miss Kitty). I snapped this photo and traipsed on to look at more dead people, which seems to be one of my hobbies when on vacation or out of town in any capacity.

I got back from presenting at an industry conference in NOLA to find that there was a lot to do before our user group meetings on the Uber MOB for Gestalt. So after only really about two days off (two were spent at the conference), I pulled a 7-day workweek and had some pretty decent meetings. That leaves us with one month to finish DDs for Uber MOB, which is going to be pretty damn tight.

But alas, 'tis Memorial Day weekend, when we remember and give thanks to all those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. So, I'm going to go to brunch, then to a Rockies game with Guy (where we shall see if his beloved Cardinals can get revenge for the 15-4 drubbing they received last night from the Rox), and then go home and hug my beloved Cardinals-loving veteran and thank him for being brave enough to join the armed forces in the first place. May you all enjoy a moment's rest and thanks this weekend!

How much doing nothing is enough?

2011-05-18T05:16:00.000-06:00

Just got back from a convention in New Orleans; the long weekend was not nearly long enough. I spent a couple of days at the convention, then a couple of days doodling around the French Quarter. It wasn't until the morning of the day we left that I really felt calm-ish. Looking for a bit of breakfast before our cemetery tour (details and photos to follow), we found a little sunlit cafe with fantastic breakfast biscuits and a wonderful cafe au lait. I sat in the sun indoors and sipped my coffee (spring in NOLA is reportedly the best time to visit, though I was a little chilly the whole weekend despite temps being in the high 70s). I realized that we'd (Guy and I) spent the last two days just wandering and looking, not having too much of a timetable, and it had been good. Would that the entire weekend had been that way--no convention involved (for me anyway), just wandering around and seeing what there was to see.

Guy commented that he felt we'd spent about the right amount of time on vacation--he hadn't done a lot, and this was just the right amount of do-nothing time. Frankly, I could have spent five days just wandering from shop to bookstore to cafe without batting and eye or getting bored. Guy, however, wants to go see and do stuff. Compare that to home, though: I'm constantly in motion, going and doing and cleaning and fixing and writing and tweaking stuff, and Guy watches sports and surfs the web and generally chills out. So, of course Guy's bored and I'm overstimulated when it comes to vacay activities. (Camping trips tend to be our best chance at balancing activities and rest/nothing time, and we do have a long trip to Yellowstone planned for the end of the summer.)

When I lamented about wanting more downtime, Guy commented "Well, you can do nothing at home for a lot cheaper." I shot back, "You can do nothing at home for cheaper; when I'm home, there's always something to clean or write or check or do." Upon mulling this over more, the obvious (and mildly-oversimplified) answer to the predicament is to get Guy to help me around the house more and spend more time chilling out at home. But would I even really rest if I had more free time, or would I fill it with yet more things to do? (e.g., now that Guy's swiffing the house, that gives me time to clean out the junk drawer!)

Either way, I hit the ground running with my hair on fire when I got back to work this week. We have a lot to do before our user group meetings next week, so looks like at least one day of my weekend will be spent doing something at work as opposed to something (or nothing) at home. At least kittehs were happy to see us when we got home.

Architect frantic, please stand by....

2011-05-09T19:50:00.002-06:00

Trying to tie up a bunch of loose ends before I go out of town to an industry conference where I'm making a return engagement, meeting up with some folks, and eventually taking a break. Then it'll be back at it with a vengeance for an end-of-month deadline. I just have to hold on for six more days and then I can breathe. I'll try to post something decently interesting in the next week or so--hang tight, my tens of readers!

Man, I was creativer when I was younger

2011-05-02T05:33:00.000-06:00

I was recently going through some stuff my Mom had given me from her house, and I found a few pieces of pink construction paper with some childhood drawings on it. I found myself laughing and blushing as I reviewed the drawings, some in pencil and some in crayon, marker, and colored pencil. I was amused, cheered, embarrassed, and a little bit in awe of what my eight- or nine-year-old self had come up with during a spare afternoon during one of Mom's custodial weekend visits.

Believe me, this isn't one of those "oh, remember how wonderful childhood was, how innocent and fantastic and how everything was so much better when we were kids" kinds of commentaries. Childhood tended to be pretty chaotic for me, between my dad trying to block Mom from seeing us or dragging her into court, or my sister Kitty and me trying to defend ourselves from the neighborhood girls that started the rumor that Kitty and I were "devil worshippers". Frankly, being an adult is fucking awesome, and I wouldn't trade it for any overly-romanticized view of childhood that the occasional nostalgia-waxing email forward tries to pawn off on its readers. But I found myself considering something while looking at the images that had tickled my brain recently in a quiet, non-architecturally-induced-panic-filled moment. I realized that, as a kid, I was pretty damn creative and bright.

I would make up stories that had sequels and soundtracks. I made up musical bands and singers, and I would write their entire album's songs and even sing a few of them (just the singles that were released, not the B-sides) out loud. I drew the band's members, and even some of the bands and singers I made up had feuds, and I think one of them lost their drummer to breast cancer after I entered high school. (That's the thing--even after I stopped actively engaging that part of my imagination, it would still return to me now and then, and I'd do a VH1-Where-Are-They-Now with those imaginary characters.) At Mom's house, my Lego set spread out over my room (and also into Kitty's room and down the hall when it suited us and in the basement when she had one), and I made up more characters to populate my own version of Legoland. My Barbies started their own rock group too, kind of a fancy-schmancy white-girl version of En Vogue. (Then, Kitty and I took the Barbies out in the yard and threw them up at the power lines that ran across our front yard, trying to zap them and make them melt. I never said we were normal children.)

I drew a great deal, but I never wrote much down, per se, as it always seemed like my mind went so much faster and farther than my hands could write. Those who have seen my handwriting can attest that writing (as opposed to typing) is a laborious task for me. But their names remain in my head like it's 1983: Botae, a multi-talented woman; her dad Oz, who looked like my mom's Dad in Michigan and was born super-old and nearly died at birth (about 29 years before I'd ever heard of Benjamin Button); Oz's dogs Junior and Bunior (okay, I wasn't that creative); and Mr. Invy, who was mayor of Legoland and somehow allowed Devo to move into the neighborhood and drive around in their red-and-black van, which my sister named "Devo-Machine" and would dead-pan narrate its thoughts and voice. (I'm actually laughing so hard I can't type as I think about her narrating the Devo-Machine. I can't express the utter hilarity of my 11-year old sister saying in a robotic tone "Devo-Machine is getting ang-gry, Devo Devo Devo.")

I didn't tell a lot of people about these characters, as I seemed to know/feel even as a child that imagination would be mocked. I kept my drawings to myself, mostly, although Kitty was really good about encouraging and adding onto my ideas ("If you're drawing clothes, then you should draw jewelry and shoes to go with the fashions, Pixie! And your store should sell neon shoelaces!"). So now, here in the light of day, who were your imaginary friends and creations? Tell me while I muster up the courage to post some of these pictures I drew.

Some post-Earth Day thoughts

2011-04-25T05:57:00.000-06:00

Yeah, I know, an architect musing on Earth Day and the responsible use and preservation of the environment. Building construction uses exorbitant amounts of energy and resources, and we're all looking for ways to be more environmentally-conscious with what we build and how we build it. It's the kind of thing that makes me think about my Mom.

My mother is possibly the most unintentionally-environmentally-conscious person I know. She had fixed and repaired cars with her own two hands over and over. She has repaired small appliances and mechanical items numerous times, scavenging parts from one machine to fix another. She gave my sister a vacuum cleaner back in the 90's to use in her college apartment. When Miss Kitty took it to a repair shop, the technician informed her that it was actually made up of three different types/brands of vacuum cleaners--behold the FrankenVac. (At Mom's and El Seebeno's farm, they mow the lawn with FrankenMower and Bride of FrankenMower.) My mother used wood scraps off a job site to make beds for Kitty and me when we were young (after she and Dad divorced and she had little to no furniture), uses other scraps of wood and tin from home repairs and roof patches to make sheds, doghouses, bird feeders, and St. Thomas knows what else. She uses fabric that other people give her to make clothing and linens for herself, her family, and for anyone else who might be looking for a particular garment or other cloth item (tote bags, tablecloths, etc.). She and I have used the same cardboard box to ship stuff to each other twice each. (She finally put the box in the compost heap when she received it a few weeks ago. It was pretty beat to hell.)

The thing is, Mom did all of these things out of economic necessity. Driving into town cost time and gas money, and buying another yard/sheet/box of something was more money. If she could make do with what she had, be it fresh or leftover materials, then she would. She was and is the ultimate recycler/repurposer. I think about this as I look across the room at my pitiful exercise ball, which Someone Furry With Sharp Little Claws decided to pounce on last week while I was doing crunches, causing it to release air with a sickening wsssssh as I tried to polish off three more reps. An online search for repair materials revealed that an exercise ball repair kit is $24, while a new ball is $19. Really? So it's cheaper for me to put this ball in the landfill rather than fix it? Are you kidding me?

It's the same thing with a blender I've had for about 13 years now. To get it fixed, I have to drive to the nearest KitchenAid repair shop in Denver, which is a twenty-minute drive via interstate and four-lane city roads (they won't ship you repair parts). The last time I had it fixed, the repair guy said, "Okay, I've patched it up again, but after this...I dunno..." REALLY?! I'm driving way out of my way to bring you some business (however small it may be), but you might even refuse to fix it when it messes up again in three or four years? There's a mall within walking distance from my house where I can go and buy a new KitchenAid blender--is that what you're implying I should do, sir?

Until our culture and economy makes it cheaper to fix rather than replace, we're going to be hard-pressed to really embrace Earth Day every day, not just on April 22. The saying is "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle." I'm trying to reuse as much as I can, but it's awfully hard when "Replace" is so much less expensive and less hassle.

Hey, architects: Don't cheat me, bro!

2011-04-20T05:37:00.000-06:00

Okay, in all fairness, I found this on Lulu Brown's blog for architecture interns, but as an architect I love it. This guy/group of people/whoever has started a blog that calls out architecture firms that advertise unpaid internships. Here's the thing about internships: if you do work from which the firm directly benefits and that firm is not a nonprofit, you have to be paid--it's the law. Architecture firms will occasionally try to hire interns to do drafting and/or 3D modeling for them and not pay them, under the guise that "any work is some experience to put on a resume", but in most cases it's illegal. (If you get college credit for the work, then hey don't have to pay you. Other rules apply--check the Department of Labor's website for details.)

While work is slowly coming back for us architects (some places slower than others), I'm still a little fearful for my colleagues, especially the newest among them. When they need just a few more months' worth of experience hours to sit for the ARE, they'll be sorely tempted to work for nothing just to get those last hours of experience. And why do my fellow architects even do such a thing as ask interns to work for free? Is it avarice? Is it not charging enough for their time and expertise in the first place? Is it thinking that the architect is so amazing and skilled that the newest of our profession should be leaping at the chance to simply bask in the light of the architect's countenance? I imagine it's a combination of all of these and maybe more.

Architecture as a profession has a weird culture, seemingly based on the Taliesin model set up by Frank Lloyd Wright. In Wright's model, the apprentices were paid little to nothing and lived in tents on the architect's property (at Taliesin West, anyway) and barely got by in order to sit at the Master's feet and absorb his (and always a his) philosophy and skills. Wright himself was a brilliant designer and engineer but a piss-poor businessman, always seemingly going into, coming out of, or on the brink of bankruptcy. It seems as if even those of us architects that might revile Wright's work still live in his shadow when it comes to the business side of our profession. We undercharge for one project in the hopes that it gets us another project with that client (or with a bigger client), and perhaps that second project will pay for the first one...but it seems that payback never comes. We can barely bring ourselves to ask for additional services when asked to do work outside of our contracts, saying yesyesyesyesyes ofcoursewecandothat anythingyousayOmasterwiththecheckbook without reminding ourselves now and again that we do live in a capitalist society and money is a form of respect due its members for skilled services rendered. As my friend Eric over at Blue Architecture says, "Architects are so focused on helping the world and 'being noble' that we forget that being able to pay your bills and make a decent living is 'noble' too."

Hey interns and architects: take this survey, please!

2011-04-19T20:35:00.002-06:00

So, Lulu Brown over at Intern 101 needs every architect and intern within the sound of my voice...um, I mean with access to the interwebs, or something...to take a survey for the seminar she's presenting at this year's AIA Convention.

If you're an intern, go take this survey.

If you're an architect, go take this survey.

You can find out more about Lulu's project here. Feel free to send your friends, licensed and unlicensed, to the surveys. As long as they're either architectural interns or licensed architects working in the United States, they're eligible to take the survey.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Signs of Life

2011-04-18T05:20:00.000-06:00

Spring in Denver is a weird time--the weather will be 75 and sunny one day and then 40 and a rain/snow mix the next (which is what happened last week--they actually had to reschedule a Rockies game on account of snow). But the climatic weirdness is welcome because it brings buds on shrubs, leaves on trees, and children's toys to front yards. Just when we thought things would never be good ever again, life returns to the Mile High.

It seems the economy is slowly picking up as well. Here is an empty lot on a major street near Cherry Creek in Denver, which has been empty for over a year now, just some dirt moving around occasionally.

Oh, what's this? Someone's building some condos/lofts/townhomes on the empty lot? Well well well.... I'm not sure I'm sold on the street facade just yet--feels like the windows are a little haphazard to me, but for all I know they have some lovely internal spaces. (Though what do you want to bet that each unit will run over a million bucks each? Stay tuned.)

Cherry Creek North, a great if somewhat-expensive place to go window shopping, is slowly turning the economic-recovery corner. Empty buildings and storefronts are filling back up, including this one next to a spa/salon. I have to say I'm liking this renovation/redo. You can see the old window openings in the early 20th-century brick facade behind the new butt-glazed display window/projections. This store will evidently be something of an upscale vintage boutique. (Miss Kitty, plz to come visit so we can roodle through this store, kthxbaisumthing.)

And of course, I can't stop looking at the clothing displays. The window of the Adornments store showed off this little number, in look-at-me red, no less. Rich, joyous colors are back, and not just in the flower beds, but even on Mother Nature's human children, no less.

Monday Visual Inspiration: The Goose Wears Galoshes

2011-04-11T05:56:00.000-06:00

The concrete goose near Cheesman Park is ready for April showers in her pink raingear and brilliant yellow umbrella. It's hard to be a pessimist when I know that somewhere out there, someone is dressing the goose in their front yard once a month to reflect the weather or coming major holiday.

And now, time to hold our breath

2011-04-04T05:35:00.001-06:00

Last week, the Uber MOB team wrapped up its schematic design submission to Gestalt HMO's main facility planning committee. When you do a project for a healthcare facility that's part of a bigger health system, it's not just about doing the drawings and having a contractor price them (although that's included)--the health system has to review the project too. Healthcare systems/entities have their own sets of standards that projects have to meet that include (but are not limited to):

are the construction materials the kinds that they, system-wide, know how to clean and maintain?
are the materials used in the building the best-priced ones that can also do the job?
are the rooms and spaces in the project too large or too small to deliver good care?
does the project account for expansion in the near and not-so-near future? Does it also account for any upgrades or small renovations (e.g., adding extra offices, building out more exam rooms or ORs)?
does the project make the best use of the site, views, etc.?
does the project have everything it was programmed to have (e.g., ten pre-op bays for five ORs; one doctor's office for every two exam rooms) that will allow them to deliver cost-effective care?
and finally, is it under budget, and can it be built on schedule?

These extra reviews can be a pain in the butt, but they add an extra layer of checks and balances to a project. If I can't defend why I, the healthcare architect, can't make a certain group of rooms or a department work the way the health system says it "should", then I'm the one who's wrong. However, if I can make a case for doing something unusual or making a room larger or smaller than the powers-that-be say it "should" be, then I may be able to get them to accept it.

This is also the part where I end up defending the users' requests to the owners. The owners are the healthcare system: in this instance, Gestalt HMO. The users are the doctors and nurses that will be treating patients in the spaces. There's a balancing act between these two groups, as they're not always on the same page.

For example, the owners may say that a GI/endoscope procedure department should only have a 75 square foot break room/kitchenette in their department. The reasoning is that the department's staff shouldn't have a full-on "break room" where they can hide from patients; they should use the building's main break room. The users, however, will argue that they do need a proper break room that's closer to twice the programmed size. The case the users make is that in order to make scope procedures make money (and therefore be worth having in a building), they have to run a case every half hour for nine hours a day in six procedure rooms, which is a lot of staff. Plus, running a case every half hour doesn't leave a lot of time for lunch or a real break. If a gastroenterologist and her two procedure nurses only get a half-hour break for lunch between cases, that's not much time to heat up a lunch and eat it without getting heartburn. And at least the physician can go to her office to eat, but if the GI suite is on the fourth floor and the main building break room is on the first floor, the two GI nurses lose nearly ten minutes going downstairs and getting back upstairs, leaving only 20 minutes to scarf something down and try to recover from the awful case they just had where they had to tell a 40-year-old father of two that he has tumors in his colon.

So all the staff for this busy department needs somewhere close by but off-stage to eat and take a moment to recover from the pace and the mental strain required to do a good job every time all the time. So they really really really want a 130-sf break room. And if I can get one to fit in their department, I'm going to do it. And then the owners will tell us that the users aren't our clients, the owners are. And then I remind the owners that if a user works in a building and a department that prevents them from actually delivering good care, they'll leave a facility and go elsewhere and tell everyone they know that XYZ Health is a joke and run by morons, and that Mile High Pixie chick isn't a very good architect either. Good facilities not only deliver good care, but they also help with staff recruitment and retention, which is a big deal in healthcare.

So, we've sent off our drawings and all our documentation to Gestalt for their review, and we're holding our breath and waiting to exhale like Whitney Houston. And I still have work to do on some other small projects for Gestalt, but that's another post.

If I can't see my deadlines, they can't arrive

2011-03-30T19:40:00.003-06:00

This picture of Hazel (taken just after Gracie arrived at the HKH last summer) illustrates just how I feel. I just wrapped up one deadline only to have another hanging over my head. Forgive the lapse, dear WAD readers--I'll be back in proper blogging form next week.

Someone call Glenn Frey, because the heat is on.

2011-03-24T05:14:00.001-06:00

It was 73 yesterday this weekend in Denver, but I wouldn't have known it since I was in the office. Spring makes for an uncomfortable time in large buildings here in Denver. Our spring weather has multiple personalities--it's 60, then it's 40 and raining, then it's 70, then it's 35 and snowing, and my ass has been through so many freeze-thaw cycles that I think it's just going to give up and fall off. Well, at least then maybe I can find some jeans that fit. Anyway, many large commercial and residential buildings are designed such that going from heating to cooling is a major undertaking--it isn't something you just flip over every other day as you feel like it. Once you flip the system to heat, the HVAC system is going to pump out warm air until sometime in late April or early May, at which point we will switch the system over to cooling, and then the system will pump out cool air from May to October. So if you get a hot day in March or a cold day in August, you're just gonna have to deal. Hence, we've had to turn the heat off and open the doors in the Happy Kitten Highrise condo here lately, and the kittehs are enjoying the sunbeams and fresh air and the change in weather.

The warm-up is making for an interesting office environment, too, and not just because we haven't switched over the HVAC system. Part of the reason that we've been so cold the last couple of winters is that there haven't been as many bodies and computers in the building, what with the layoffs and recession. But lately, we've been a-hiring and now the office is filling up again with bodies and computers and activity. I actually broke a sweat the other day just walking around the office. It seems that work is picking up, and we're getting some projects in finally (mostly healthcare, to be fair, but work is work, and of course I prefer healthcare over anything else).

But back to me being in the office on a lovely, sunny, 73-degree Saturday in Da Mile Hizzle: wtf? Well, one of the largest (and busiest and most profitable) departments in Gestalt HMO's Uber MOB came to us furious back in January. They didn't like where they were in the building, and they didn't like their layout at all, and we better fix this right away. So, having to revamp the entire floor on which they were situated put the project behind schedule, especially the interior part. In order for us to make up time, we're having to separate out the core and shell from the tenant infill. This means that the exterior, structure, floors, and roofs as well as the stairs and elevators and main toilet rooms on each floor and utility rooms will be released to the contractor before the tenant infill (i.e., all the departments of the clinic) will be released, and that core and shell will start construction first. (Note: this happens a lot when building a big building. I've done it in buildings as small as 60,000 sf.) But it also means that we're having to work fast and furious to squeeze as much air out of the schedule as we can and to make up the month-long delay as best we can between now and the end of the design schedule this fall. And that means working some nights and weekends. Hence, Shorty's in the office on a Saturday.

And Gestalt Colorado is getting pressure from the home Gestalt office in the midwest: deliver this building on time, at or under budget, on schedule, and not over-sized. Gestalt National told the local Gestalt Design and Construction crew that the building's total area on all five floors can be no more than 241,313 sf. Fine. However, in the process of laying out the building as well as making it look good on the outside and allowing for easy expansion later, we've found that the building needs to be 242,524 sf. And Gestalt National is having None Of It: get the building down to 241,313 or it's not happening. And they're putting pressure on some very reasonable folks about this, and the pressure is turning these wonderful people into unreasonable folks who fly off the handle at the drop of a hat. Howie and Sven and I have gone into meetings with these reasonable local Gestalt folks who suddenly start shouting and refusing to even hear us out on an idea of how to possibly fix the square footage issue without compromising the building's function or look.

So, yes. We're about to jump through some flaming hoops over an extra 1,211 sf in a nearly quarter-million sf building. We are arguing over five-thousandths of the building's total area.

It's a bean counter issue, not an architectural issue. Probably, someone who is good at estimating initial cost but does not fully understand construction costs, engineering, and making a clinical space actually work has set this 241,313 in stone and refuses to let anyone else budge from it. Sadly, in order to fix this short-sighted imposition, we'll either have to take a few inches off the outside of the building all the way around, or we'll have to engage in some engineering dynamics that will cost more than just letting us build the extra 1,211 sf. Plus, depending on how the 1,211 sf is taken out of the building, it could affect the flow of staff and patients through some very busy departments, including the one that we've been redesigning a whole floor for. Are we really "saving" anything here?

So, we have to figure out how to get this extra area out without hurting patient and staff flow or making the building look funny. And it takes a lot of time (which we don't have) and effort (which we do have, but it's easy to get burned out when banging your head against this all day). So, I'm working weekends.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Teh Qte and Teh Annoyed

2011-03-21T06:16:00.000-06:00

It's been 9 months since Gracie came to live with us, and Hazel could not be more annoyed. Or chagrined. Or put-upon. Just look at this: a couple of weeks ago, both kittehs managed to coexist on the chaise together, but only because there was a pillow between them, which obstructed their views of each other.

Gracie's workin' it for the camera, and Hazel's all, "*sigh* Do you see this camera whore on the chaise with me? Embarrassing."

Oh, but Gracie's not going to stop working it. Not when she knows she has Mama's full atten-shunz. Lulu in the background wants none of this, unless maybe there's some tuna involved.

Oh, oh, OH! I'll see your rolling around on the chaise and raise you a rolling-over-on-top-of-my-head maneuver! I need a belleh skritch NAO!

Hazel, unaffected, snores quietly, just beyond the fray.

HAPPY 62ND BIRTHDAY, MOMMY!

2011-03-14T06:02:00.000-06:00

Hooray! The amazing Mom (aka Wilderness Gina) turns 62 today! Here she is working at the sewing machine during a visit to the Happy Kitten Highrise in October 2010. Yayz for the Momness!

Monday Visual Inspiration: Scenes from a Vegas weekend, Part 2

2011-03-13T10:21:00.004-06:00

Okay, so after Death Valley, we drove back to Vegas proper to spend the night at a little resort on the edge of town known as La Casita del Four-Footed Dictators. The proprietess of this establishment, Scarlett, welcomed us with open arms, open wine bottles, and the most amazing mini bundt cakes I've ever seen and tasted. The staff and service at La Casita was exceptional, to say the least.

Baxter, the concierge, was ready with a mini tennis ball, after which he would chase with such zeal when it was thrown across the room. He would Tokyo Drift into a wall to get that thing mid-bounce.

The bellman, Thomas O'Malley, checked our bags.

Security was provided by Tinkerbell. Formidable, that one.

After a night good food and drink and the Carrot Top show (whose birthday is on our anniversary, by the way), we were off to a little outlet mall shopping (I know, how American) and then our hotel. The Aria has only been open for about 14 months or so, meaning that it's still mostly in good shape, and we scored a great deal to stay there. To get to the Aria's self park, you have to access it off of Las Vegas Blvd (most places you can access their self park decks off of the back roads running parallel to the Strip). As we drove past City Center (the complex in which Aria is located), I snapped this photo (I think this is Koolhaas' building, but I'm not sure).

After checking in, we had tapas and then headed off to see the "adult" Cirque du Soleil show, Zumanity. (Not for children or the prudish, that's for sure.) I snapped this photo just before the ushers got on my case about no photos in the theater at any time madame, are you from Oklahoma City or something?

Our room was fantastic. Even though we didn't look at the strip, we had a great view and amazing amenities. Even the bathroom felt futuristic--the toilet was in its own frosted glass enclosure.

[middle of the night--Pixie and Guy awake to the sound of loud sex next door]

Pixie: [groggily] Is that someone's TV?

Guy: [not moving] No, it's our neighbors getting it on. It's coming through the door between our rooms.

Pixie: Well, it's almost 2am: he can't be that good at this hour. She should get an Oscar.

The next morning, Guy went off to play poker (where he was one of two left at the table and split the pot with the other guy) and I went to the spa. The entry to the spa was amazing--I'll post more photos of it later. The black monoliths below are fountains--water slowly and barely audibly pours over them. Oh swoon!

My aesthetic reverie was broken by a personal trainer who nearly killed me while I went through a workout with him. (Yes, I got a personal trainer while on vacation. I'm not normal.) However, the workout made the stone massage and facial afterwards feel that much better.

The next morning was our departure day. Here are a few shots of the 24-hour dining establishment at the Aria. I know--their "everyday" cafe looks like a Michelin five-star establishment anywhere else. Those glass-looking cones are heavy plastic discs cut and stacked on each other. Of course, Guy and I scratched and picked at everything to see what it was made of. Being an architect is like being an alcoholic--even if you're not a practicing one, you're still one. You can't stop wanting to know what everything's made of and can we do this on a project at home?

Just an amazing space, one of several dozen amazing spaces in the Aria. Unlike the Amargosa Opera House and Motel, I think I could get Guy to go back to this one.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Scenes from a Vegas weekend, Part 1

2011-03-07T05:45:00.000-07:00

We did a lot over our anniversary weekend, so in order to do it justice I really need multiple posts, rly sry.

First, we landed at the Vegas Airport (McCarran), which is designed like a casino--shiny, overwhelming, and with little natural light. This photo does not do justice to the chaos.

Then we drove about two hours to the Amargosa Opera House and Motel, which is on the edge of the Death Valley National Park and is supposed to be haunted. The rooms were spare and old school--no TV or phone--but okay overall. I would go back to them; Guy, not so much.

The skylight over our shower.

Note the original early-20th-century bathroom tile and fixtures.

Hand painted murals on the rooms' walls.

If a room wasn't occupied, the door was just left open so you could walk around in it. This room was supposed to be haunted. I stood in it for three minutes and didn't hear anything. I'm a pretty shitty ghost hunter.

The Amargosa Motel in the morning light.

Then it was off to Death Valley. After breakfast at the Furnace Creek Inn, we headed to the lowest point in the U.S.--the salt flats. Standing on them at 282 feet below sea level, you could look up to a mountain right next to the flats that was over 11,000 feet above sea level. Talk about varied terrain.

There's a sign on this rock face waaaaaay over your head that says "SEA LEVEL". How cool is that?

Salt, salt, and salt. It's effing amazing.

Me: Is the ground salty?

Guy: I dunno, let's check.

Me: [leans over and licks the ground] Crap, it is!

Guy: [holding a piece of salt in his hand, standing upright] You know, you could have picked up a piece and licked it like a normal adult.

Just before this part of the road along Artist's Drive, the sigh says "DIP". No kidding.

Natural Bridge Canyon.

Closer to the parking lot in Natural Bridge Canyon.

Along Mosaic Canyon's hike.

Also along Mosaic Canyon's hike. The rock was so smooth you could slide down it.

Back and into the fray

2011-03-02T19:40:00.002-07:00

We got back Monday afternoon and have been back at it ever since. Despite the fact that last week was supposed to be Sign-off Week for the Uber MOB, there are still a bunch of changes that have to be done and a couple of deadlines to work towards. Then, a colleague of my sister's (and colleague and friend of mine) is coming to visit at the end of this week (she has another friend in Boulder, and she and I are getting together for dinner). (...oh Lord, I need to clean again...) The break was good, and yes, I owe y'all photos, which I will get to shortly--we went to Death Valley and stayed in a haunted motel, then stayed with Scarlett, then stayed at the Aria where a small sadist masquerading as a personal trainer kicked my ass. Good trip, good shows, good food, great company...fantastic trip!

Happy 6th anniversary!

2011-02-25T05:18:00.000-07:00

We're in Vegas, loving and living it up. We're actually spending tonight with our friend Scarlett, then tomorrow and Sunday nights are at the new Aria. Lots of photos and stories will follow upon our return. Word, my peeps!

Picture frame at a shop in historical St. Charles neighborhood in St. Louis, MO, at Thanksgiving 2010.

Monday Visual Inspiration: A little window shopping in Cherry Creek North

2011-02-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

We leave on Thursday to go to Vegas for our 6th anniversary, thanks heavens. I nearly had a meltdown at work on Friday, but then Sven took me to lunch and we chatted about how the project was going (decently), how things were going with Howie (still kinda annoying but not nearly as obnoxious as before), and what my future was like at Design Associates (decent with a chance of promising). I had work to do this weekend so that I wouldn't be completely behind when we got back from Vegas, but I did take some time to go window shopping in Cherry Creek.

Mom, I nearly went in the store and bought this just so I could give it to you to make a pattern out of...

*sigh*, It's so involved being a wig model. Just a head on a post, so boring and avant garde...

What do you mean, "don't waste another step"? How is any step in most Americans' days wasted? So, if I'm not wearing these retarded-looking shoes and I walk five miles, I just "wasted" steps? Sure. Or I could buy those shoes and waste $50.

This sweater dress leaves me feeling conflicted. I love the slubby, knit feel, but then she's wearing leggings with it. Is it supposed to keep me warm or not? And why must I look like Lindsey Lohan when I wear this? And why do I suddenly crave a pair of leggings?

Dear Scarlett: This just opened in Cherry Creek North. We could totally make $30,000, easy.

Valentine's Day, Shelter Kitteh Style

2011-02-14T05:46:00.000-07:00

Many of you may recall the arrival of Gracie in July 2010 here at the Happy Kitten Highrise. In the past eight months, she's decided that she does indeed belong here and has staked her claim on a few pieces on furniture as well as anywhere on Papa's side of the bed. I swear she spends half the day looking for Hazel, and Hazel spends half her day avoiding Gracie. The Floof just wants to play, but she does occasionally for no apparently good reason light Lulu's head up with a flurry of floofy-pawed pitty-pat-pat. However, being only about two years old, we love to bat at and play with strings. Papa gave us a long, elasticized string that we actually tote around the house now and again. Here she is, playing with Papa in the living room.

OMG STRING!!!!

nnrarryhggghnyarrrghhnyaarrrggh!

...let's take this over here where I can attack it better....

..huh? did I hear a treat bag crinkle open...?

What do you mean "you have to go pee?" Get back here and finish playing wif me!

Architectural grocery lists

2011-02-10T05:26:00.000-07:00

In the recent hubbub of finishing SD for the Uber MOB, many of the departments find that the programs for their departments are wanting--some rooms are too small, others were left off the program, and now and again there are too many of some rooms. So as we're making sure the departments flow properly, we're also having to do this addition, subtraction, and massaging of rooms and spaces.

A program is like a detailed grocery list. First, it lists what rooms and spaces (and how many of each of those rooms and spaces) are needed. (Space doesn't necessarily have walls on all of its sides--it might be a wider area in a hallway, or it might be an alcove tucked in off of a hallway but open to it as well, or it might be an open area inside a larger room, which has walls on three or four of its sides and often, but not always, a door.) Then it tells you how big each of those rooms needs to be (square feet), and sometimes the program will indicate a minimum dimension for these spaces. (For example, a CT scan might be specified to be 350 sf, but the program might also indicate that the room must be at least 14 feet wide.) If it's a well-written program, it will also provide details on how the spaces relate to each other: do some of them need to be close to each other or accessed directly from one another, or do some need to be as far from each other as possible? Do some of these spaces need to account for a huge piece of equipment or need to have direct access to the outdoors? Finally, a good program will also account for things like circulation (the space needed to get between the rooms and to move around in open rooms with lots of smaller spaces in them, as well as stairs and elevators), walls and structure, and utility spaces (tele/data rooms, electrical rooms, mechanical rooms and shafts, housekeeping closets, elevator machine room, etc.).

While these programs for Uber MOB were put together almost a year ago with the users and the higher-ups at Gestalt, there are now more users in the room when we go through these plans who weren't involved in the initial programming. Some of these users are the ones treating patients every day, so they have a different perspective on how many of what spaces are needed. These daily users are the ones who provide us with real, useful information like, "the reason we can function with three exam rooms now is because we use two of [neighboring department]'s exams on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We really need at least five exams, preferably six, if we're not gonna be able to share exams with someone else." Or they might say, "By the time a patient gets to us, there's no need to weigh them--we'd rather use the patient weighing/vitals alcove for equipment storage." We the architects then make notes on the program and send those user-requested changes to Gestalt National in the mid-west so that they can approve or disapprove of the changes.

It would be easy to get mad at the users (and/or the client) for underestimating a department's needs, but programming is a gift that architects sometimes take for granted, I think. It's our job to take users through the course of treating a patient and get them to think about the spaces they use and need. It's out job to help a client think through if they do something a certain way now because it's how they want to do it or if there's something about the existing building that makes them do it that way. It's our job to help a client understand space and really know what it means to have a 7'-0" x 14'-0" storage room. So instead of getting pissed when clients say, "Oh, good Lord, we need another four exam rooms and a lab!", I try to remember that they're having to play catchup to the way I already think, just as I probably remember important symptoms at the last minute during visits with my own physician.

Everybody wants to rule the world

2011-02-07T05:56:00.000-07:00

As we're coming into the final stretches of schematic design (SD) on the Gestalt Healthcare's Uber MOB project, we have dissent in the ranks. At least two of the user groups (that is, the groups of people representing a department and helping us design it) have flatly stated that they don't like where they are in the building. At the last round of user group meetings, they were adamant (and sometimes quite emotional) about how they needed to be on a lower floor/different floor/up a floor/on the west side/closer to the front door/on the other side of the building or they needed to have more windows/direct access to the outside/direct access to the front door/direct access to the back door. They want to be located somewhere else in this building. Now.

Um, to quote Austin Powers, that train has sailed.

When we design multistory buildings with a variety of tenants in them, we do what's called blocking and stacking. We use a program for each tenant (or in this case, department) to tell us how many square feet each tenant should be. We take those tenants and figure out where they should be in the multi-story building. And when we do that with a healthcare facility, we do that with the owners (Gestalt HMO) as well as the users (people who run or have run these departments). So we did blocking and stacking last summer with the Gestalt management as well as a representative from each of the departments, and now six or seven months later, the locations of their departments is un-acc-eptable! Really? You just figured this out now?

I suppose this wouldn't be as hard to deal with if the design and construction schedule for Uber MOB wasn't so aggressive. Any major changes in the plans at this point are a big deal and will cost us at least a month if not more. The Gestalt higher-ups are talking amongst themselves to decide if we're going to do all these big flip-flops, but I strongly sense that the answer is no. Why? Because beyond the schedule, beyond the meetings, beyond all of it, is a simple truth that project manager Gretchen articulated: "Everybody wants to be on the first floor, no matter what their department does or how big or small it is. Everyone wants the first floor, facing the Rockies to the west."

And that's the truth. And it's not the truth because nurses and doctors are rude or selfish--it's because they care about their patients and want to make sure that they aren't walking long distances when they're sick, and they want to make sure that if a patient suddenly codes (has heart failure and needs CPR or other resuscitation) in a department that they can be taken easily to an ambulance. And they want to make sure that when you tell a patient "you have cancer," that the patient isn't in a dark room in the basement but is perhaps able to look out a window at the mountains and think well, I have some options on how to deal with this instead of dear God I have cancer and I'm in a cave. And yes, being on the first floor would also benefit the caregivers and staff--less travel time from the parking lot, a nice and refreshing work environment to see the same inspiring vistas that the patients see--but it is ultimately about the patients.

Alas, land is finite. We have to build vertically so that we can get all the needed departments in one building on one site and still have land left over for parking and loading docks and the possibility of future buildings for when Uber MOB expands in 10 or 20 years. So not everyone can be on the first floor facing the mountains. Someone has to look at the Eastern Plains. Someone has to go on the top floor. Someone has to go in the basement. And we've all done the best we could to get people where they might best serve their patients while also bearing in mind that we can't build a Super-Walmart building for this MOB. So, it's probably not going to change. But if there's anything we can do to mitigate the pain of having a less-then-excellent location in the building, then we'll do it.

A moment's pause....

2011-02-03T05:50:00.000-07:00

2010 was an unbelievably busy year for me, especially professionally. Yet I find myself in the early days of 2011 feeling like I've worked my ass off for ten years only to achieve the mediocre goal of not getting fired or laid off. I've been rewarded by being given a big chunk of the interior planning on Gestalt HMO's Uber MOB, and I now find myself sitting in contentious meetings with clients who have been looking at the same floor plan for almost three months, and now all of a sudden they don't like where they are in the building and they need to move to a different floor now! and I find myself thinking is this really what I set out to do? My brain tickled with this a few weeks ago when it was announced that three associates in our office were being promoted to senior associate. I don't begrudge them the advancement--they're good, hardworking folks, but what of the rest of us? As my good pal Norman (who is an associate) mused, "The partners say they're worried about office morale, so they promote three people who are technically already promoted?" It then made me wonder what do I really want out of work, out of my architectural career. Do I want to be an associate? Do I even want to keep doing this? I never imagined, fair WAD readers, that I would be an architect until I was 70, but do I even want to be one when I'm 50? 40 (which is in five years, by the way)?

I suppose that now might not be the best time to muse on these things, and not because I have a job and many people don't have one. I've seen architecture when it's good, and it's not good right now because the economy's hard. And when the economy is hard, it frays everyone's nerves, even the nerves of people that have jobs. And those frayed nerves come into my user group meetings and leak out onto Howie and me when people are furious that Gestalt National didn't program their department with a vitals alcove for weighing patients and getting their blood pressures and temperatures, or they're pissed because their department is in the back corner of the basement and they feel like they got the short end of a stick that technically they were holding when we and Gestalt National put them in the basement four months ago and they acted fine with it. So for me to judge how I feel about my profession when things are hard for that profession would be like judging your entire marriage on the one day when your spouse is in a super-foul funk caused by five different horrible things at once.

But still, it feels like the learning curve on what I do every day, every week, every month is leveling out to near-flat. I'm doing different iterations of the same thing, the same tasks. To paraphrase George W. Bush, is our architect really learning? It doesn't feel much like it. But then I consider the whole notion of happiness: while work shouldn't be miserable and shouldn't make you miserable, should it also be euphoria-inducing, or should it just tolerable with momentary patches of small victories and small defeats? Am I asking too much of my job, my career, my profession? I don't think I am. There have been many many times between June 2000 and September 2008 in which I really liked my job and found it interesting or at least tolerable, with comparatively fewer moments in which it sucked canal water. Knowing that I've felt that before makes me think I at least need to be patient with this dissatisfaction I'm feeling. I can acknowledge it and deal with it, but I'm not going to act on it--architecture is fine for now, and I'm sure it will improve as the economy improves. However, I'm not going to push this feeling aside either. It means that I'm finding a lack of something not just in my life but in my profession, and improving things is always motivating for me.

Failing that, I could reorganize my closet.

Monday Visual Inspiration: These boots are made for walkin', and washin', and everything else

2011-01-31T05:18:00.000-07:00

Back in September 2010, Guy and I spent a weekend in Manitou Springs, CO. While there, we visited a few impressively-curated historical places loaded with frontier ephemera. I've been lax in posting on that trip (or on anything around here for that matter), and I found myself excited and intrigued yet again upon rediscovering the digital photos from that trip.

When I was a wee Pixie in Alabama back in the day, my parents bought us all 15 volumes of the Childcraft Library. One of the volumes was on places all over the world, and my favorite chapter in that book was on "Scary Places". It described haunted castles, the misty Scottish moors, the creepyness of the unstable ground in the Everglades...and this incredible phenomenon known as "ghost towns". It took a while for my brain to wrap around the notion these places were not complete towns settled by ghosts, but rather by actual humans pursuing gold or silver and then suddenly abandoning those towns only ten or fewer years later after building them. I remember thinking, even as a four-year-old, "Man, I want to go see on of those."

Now I live in a state full of ghost towns. If you have a decent four-wheel-drive vehicle, you can see many of the settlements that were part of that early drive to settle the Western Frontier. It furthermore blows my mind when I stop and realize that I actually live in the place once known as The West. It blows my mind even more to know that women--with their East Coast and European traditions--had to live out here and make do in this weather. I can barely stand to wear an Ann Taylor pantsuit during a Denver summer, never mind a hoop skirt and full sleeves. So I present to you a few images we took of women's clothing and accessories during our Manitou Springs trip to the Ghost Town Museum and Miramont Castle.

Hooray! The internet's back!

2011-01-24T05:16:00.000-07:00

Guy and I just switched over to Qwest and DirecTV for our cable and internet, which means we suddenly have a crapton more channels, reliable wireless internet, and DVR capabilities for about what we were paying for Comcast. What this means is that we have 500 channels and not much on, but at least we can DVR Robot Chicken and The Ricky Gervais Show as well as some good standup, which means we may be able to cancel Netflix, at least for a while.

Meanwhile, we have a bunch of meetings this week with the user group for Gestalt HMO's Uber MOB. (O Holy St. Renzo of Piano, deliver thy humble archispazz from meetings.) I still need drafting help for all the departments I'm working on, but Sven and Howie have yet to pluck some unlucky soul from the madding crowd and assign him/her to me.

Also meanwhile, one of the kittehs here at the HKH has giardia, so we're having to treat both Hazel and Gracie for it just to be sure. This means taking a pill twice a day, or rather having a pill shoved down our throats twice a day. I was spoiled by how well Maddy (RIP, Big Girl) took pills, and so now Guy is having to play Nurse Ratched and dispense all medication in the house. Also, Papa bought us a bunch of fun toys, like a feathery fishpole, a refill for the Turboscratcher, and one of those arched emery-board Turboscratchers. Gracie is finally playing with the regular Turboscratcher, but she fears the Emeryscratcher, and she is utterly paranoid of the Feather Fisher, though Hazel wuvs it and played with it (and Papa) for twenty minutes straight last night. As Guy said afterwards, "I don't think I've ever seen her that active in the ten years I've lived with her."

I'm slowly going through my closet to organize and clean it out, as Guy bought me a closet organizer for Xmas (which I asked for, don't get offended). I want to paint my closet before he installs it though, so I'm a) thinning the herd and b) girding myself mentally to overhaul my closet, right now when I can barely make myself Swiff the house and do laundry. Updates will be provided as conditions warrant.

...technical difficulties....

2011-01-19T12:48:00.002-07:00

Sorry folks, our home internet is horked temporarily, so I'm having to post on a borrowed machine. It should be back up later this week, and I can post some nonsense again.

Wish in one hand, draw with the other

2011-01-10T19:19:00.002-07:00

As my colleagues and I slide into the new year and move forward with the big new 250,000-sf medical office building (MOB) for Gestalt (which they're tentatively calling Uber), we face the most rewarding and yet most frustrating part of designing a building: working with the users. When architects work on a project, sometimes the owner is the user: a single-family home or a small commercial building, for example. However, we quite often work for a client who is not the user. The obvious example of this is when we design a spec building for a developer to lease or sell to other tenants, be they residential or commercial. Less obvious but just as frequent are the local projects we do for a national company, and Gestalt is a prime example of this.

The owner of the Uber MOB is Gestalt HMO. They will pay for the building's construction (and all design and construction team fees), and they'll hire the doctors, nurses, specialists, and other staff members that treat patients in the MOB. However, the users are the teams of people who might or will work in the building, and/or who are in charge of the existing departments in Gestalt's other MOBs. For example, when Howie and I are designing the ambulatory surgery center for Uber MOB, we show and talk through the proposed floor plans to the surgery director and the head of nursing at Gestalt's Bierstadt MOB. With their feedback, we know better how Gestalt's staff will use this department (and all its other departments) and can design accordingly.

However, Gestalt's headquarters, based in the midwest, have their own set of rules and regulations and list of program for each of these departments. They even have diagrams and sample plans to show how each department should ideally be laid out. However, Gestalt Colorado does some things differently than Gestalt Headquarters, and it causes some friction. Some departments say that they don't need a consult room, or they need two consult rooms instead of one. We're not supposed to vary from the program that Gestalt HQ sends us, as those programs are based on meetings with those same users that we're now meeting with, but often the head of a department can change between setting up the original program and finally having the design meetings, and just as often the users will realize that there's an error in the program. Either they asked for something in those early programming meetings that didn't get filtered down to us, or they realize now that they see their needs put onto paper that they've forgotten something. Sometimes, the users just get drunk with power: we have a brand new building, and we're gonna make it awesome!! It is at this point that we have to explain that we're architects, not sugar daddies.

So while we're figuring out what spaces the users do or don't really need, we have to design the outside of the building along with the inside. It's a real balancing act to get the outside to fit the inside and not go over the square footage that the owner--Gestalt--mandated, while also making sure that each department inside the building is the right size for both the users and the owner, and that it flows well for the users. So if a department is undersized or oversized, it's not a simple matter of let's-stretch-the-building-to-the-north-four-feet, because that has repercussions on other floors--it might make the first floor work great, but now the second and third floors are hosed.

We're putting together a list of all the changes that the users have asked for, and we're going to submit it to Gestalt HQ at the end of the week. We might be able to talk them into some of the changes the users asked for, but we, and thereby the users, might get shot down. I have my fingers crossed, because there's really not much we can do short of a drastic redesign on some of the departments.

...aaand we're back.

2011-01-04T18:17:00.003-07:00

I returned to Design Associates after a two-week break with a sense of anxiety and foreboding. First of all, I had practically forgotten what I'd been working on: schematic design on various departments in a quarter-million square-foot medical office building for Gestalt HMO, plus an ongoing remodeling project at the Bierstadt Building for Gestalt. After spending some wonderfully lazy and unproductive time in Georgia with my mom and sister, Guy and I got back to Denver for half a day in order to take Gracie to the vet (where she was pronounced pesky and healthy). We then spent the weekend at Copper Mountain for New year's, where those of you who watch the Weather Channel like it's SportsCenter know that the high was -10 on New Year's Eve and about 3 on New Year's Day. And guess who went cross country skiing in it? (Look, anything below about15 feels the same to me, so what's another 15 degrees?)

After lots of rest, wine, good company, and fun, I remembered how stress-inducing work had been, and I dragged myself into the office, only to find that Ingrid (a longtime colleague and awesome architect) had worked on my project and had kept it afloat and going well in my absence. Later on Monday, Howie called Sven and me into a conference room to let Sven know that I had been the subject of a colleague's hissy fit two weeks ago, and that it wasn't right that a) that colleague acted that way towards me and b) I shouldn't have to deal with that kind of crap, as I had too much to do. It was really a compliment, in a way, that Howie had been thinking about the hissy fit for two weeks and wanted to let Sven know that This Crap Shall Not Fly. It was also a relief, as I didn't feel like I had walked into a hornet's nest when I returned.

Here's hoping that 2011 will be busy but not horribly hectic, not just at work but in life in general. I don't really make resolutions (any change I've ever made that was substantial and stuck with me was made at some random point during the year, not on January 1st), but I have decided that this would be a good time to start setting some limits and rationing out (and saving) my energy a little better than I have in the past. And here's hoping that everyone reading this also has a balanced year: a little busy, a little quiet, always good.

Mile High Lazy

2010-12-20T16:25:00.002-07:00

We were told just before Thanksgiving that we needed to use all of our 2010 vacation time or we were going to lose it. Now, technically, they can't take it away from us if we've earned it. However, we all understand that they need to get that "debt" off the books before we traipse into 2011. Funny, many of us haven't been able to take our vacation time this year because there's always something else to be done. But with this end-of-year mandate, we in the ranks are having no trouble using up our remaining days...Da Shorty included.

Turns out that even after taking off time for Thanksgiving, I still have eight days. Ergo, I will not be at work for the final two weeks of the year. Hell to the yeah. Today was spent running a couple of errands with Guy, and the rest of the week will be spent visiting with a good pal of mine, practicing meditation (at which I am terrible), walking and doing yoga, vegging out a little with some TV, drinking coffee and reading anything and everything, and just generally resting. We leave for Georgia on Christmas Eve for a few days' visit, and afterwards we'll be spending a few days in the mountains skiing in the New Year. And I won't be giving a crap about architecture. (I mean, I like architecture, but we see other people.)

So, posting will be spotty for the next couple of weeks (like it hasn't been for the past couple of months, derp!), but I'm getting some well-earned rest. Peace!

Thank heavens for small favors

2010-12-15T05:20:00.000-07:00

So I finally had my review. Sven was present, as well as Howie (which I didn't understand--I really hadn't worked with him a lot in the past two years). I explained to them how worn out I was, and that one of my goals for 2011 is to learn to ration my energy a little better, set some limits, and get better at either turning down some requests and delegating others. At first it was almost like I had to defend myself--there was the inevitable attempt at an analogy by Howie: "well, I look at management as like being in a boat, and I can kinda steer the boat, but the other people in the boat can move it as well, and I can't always stop the boat from hitting the banks--"

"Fair enough," I replied, "but on my four projects, I'm the only one in the boat, and I'm dragging three more boats behind me, and I have to keep getting into those boats to steer them, too. I'm not 'managing' four projects; I'm working on them--I am those four projects."

Sven got my drift (no pun intended) instantly, but it took a little more for Howie to concede my point, ever begrudgingly. We talked about the nature of management and leadership and the internal changes it demands of people, and we talked about how my job has and will be changing, and then Howie said the most extraordinary thing. He had in front of him the Design Associates, Inc. Company Checklist of Traits and Behaviors That We Think Are Valuable In Our Employees, and he had checked "Excellent" on all of them on the checklis with my name on it, but I noticed that one of them had two checks by it. "I gave you double-checks for 'Promotes a positive work environment'," he said. "Your conduct with everyone and the way you treat people is so supportive and helpful, and you really make work a fun place to be."

So, after a lengthy discussion and a few pats on the back, I got a 3% raise. Which sounds sucky until you remember that not everyone got raises this year, only those who had either gotten licensed or done something really cool or whose job description had changed significantly. It was nice to be recognized, even a little bit, and I appreciated the kind words for sure. As we left the conference room, Sven suggested that he and I go to lunch in the next couple of weeks at some point to just talk. Well, how about that.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Now this is a bathroom sign

2010-12-13T05:18:00.000-07:00

Taken at a gas station/convenience store somewhere in Kansas on Thanksgiving Sunday, 2010.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Dear Mommy, please make me these outfits

2010-12-06T06:03:00.000-07:00

Rather than complain yet again about how tired and burned-out I am, I figure instead I'll show y'all a few shiny taffeta-ish-looking tops and dresses that I want Mom to make for me. Fire up the sewing machine!

First two pictures: pre-Thanksgiving window displays at Molly's of Denver.

Next two pictures: Xmas window displays at Adornments in Cherry Creek North

I can haz moar vacashun?

2010-11-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

My Thanksgiving was great, and I hope yours was too. I didn’t check email—any of my accounts—for five whole days. I think my blood pressure actually kinda went down to a nice, normal number. However, I could have used a few more days of it, just doodling around and not drawing or fretting or tolerating nonsense. I got back to work Monday, and while the day itself wasn’t awful (most of my bosses are out of town on business for most of the week), I still found myself getting reflexively irate in the early evening when I realized I was out of enchilada sauce, and I found myself weeping at the nice sentiments on t-shirts and plaques in the Signals catalog. Results not typical for a Pixie.

However, I’m enjoying my fantastic new Zoya nail polish (including some matte colors!), and I woke up nicely to my lemon body scrub this morning, both early Christmas gifts from La Mama de Guy (thanks again, La Mama!). And it was nice to discover that I actually enjoyed working on some space plans today; it’s something that I’m really good at, and it’s rare that we architects get to do space planning to the extent that I’m doing it—about 40,000 sf worth, at least. I figure I need to start looking for some good moments to take some time off and get my mojo back, so maybe that’ll be my Christmas present to myself—guilt-free time off.

Thanksgiving...and not a moment too soon

2010-11-22T05:52:00.000-07:00

This two-day workweek is right on time, my peeps. After coming down off of my deadline with Orville, I have found myself feeling full-fledged burnout again. I thought I had conquered this over the summer, but I evidently only tamped it down enough to keep working. I should have spent my half-day last week painting my nails and doing nothing, but I spent it cleaning which, while necessary, also just added to my exhaustion. I went back to work to face Howie, only to find that now Sven wants me to move upstairs to sit closer to the rest of the Gestalt team (whom I find to be decent human beings but half-ass architects, so I'd really rather not move). Plus, once I expressed anything even remotely resembling tiredness, Howie asked another architect in the office (non-healthcare) to help me with the SD layouts that I was supposed to be doing because, and I quote because I heard him over the wall on the phone with the architect, "She looks like she's kinda struggling."

Yes, Senor Fucktard, I am struggling, because as soon as I get done with one big-fast-monumental-do-more-than-you-were-originally-supposed-to-do-on-this-project deadline, there's another one right on its heels, and I have no time to rest or recover or anything. So I design an ambulatory surgical suite in 90 minutes or so, then I go in the bathroom and dry a few tears and pray for 5pm so I can just go home and not do anything and not serve anyone or have to humor anyone. It's been a long month and frankly a long year, and I can only describe the feeling as burnout. All I want to do is stare at the wall. I'm supposed to take all my vacation by the end of the year, but how am I supposed to do that when everything I have to do from here on out is one deadline after another and maybe you can take a few days right before Christmas but I really need to take the days now before I throw a grand mal hissy fit at work?

So, Thanksgiving has come at a good time. I'm actually looking forward to the drive to St. Louis. Being in a car with Guy for 12 hours is pretty good, really, as he and I generally have some great conversations and make each other laugh the whole way, and sometimes we're just quiet and Guy lets me be quiet and in my own little world for a bit. Indeed, I'm quite thankful for him.

Prepare for decompression...

2010-11-15T16:18:00.002-07:00

I wrapped up my deadline this morning with Orville and Intern Devon, and then I left the office by 10am. Having spent at least one day a weekend in the office for the past five weekends in a row, I'm kinda over it. Plus, if I have to start working on space planning a specialty clinic with Howie tomorrow, I need a break. I ended up getting some errands done around town as well as some cleaning done around the house. Now it's time to paint my nails and wait for Guy to get home and cook dinner. Tuna Helper for everyone!

In better news, we got an email today saying that the day after Thanksgiving would be a paid holiday this year (as opposed to being a furlough day like last year). That was welcome news indeed and makes the holidays look a little better this year.

Who watches the Watchmen? Part 2 of 2

2010-11-11T05:07:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I mentioned the MRI project with Will. Since Will is a partner, he usually isn't that involved in the day-to-day management of a project. Therefore, an associate is the next level down at my office (and at many firms across the country) who would actually manage a project. For the MRI project, Will assigned Orville as the managing associate, me as the architect, and Intern Devon as the intern/drawing-and-printing lackey. It's a small project, really--we're putting in an MRI into an existing space and renovating some nearby offices as well. What makes it tough is that the project has to be built on a really fast schedule so that research group that's going in halvsies with the research facility can move into the MRI suite in March and start doing their research. Like big research. Like they're-on-the-cusp-of-curing-three-major-diseases big. Oh, and did I mention that we haven't even finished the construction documents for the project, and they're picking the contractor in December? And they want all this done in less than three months (Jan-Mar)?

I'll wait a moment while all my architectural readers twitch and convulse regarding those last few sentences.

So, Will puts me on the project because I've done four MRIs in ten years, three of them in the last five years. Will brings on Orville presumably to run the project and because he has a lot of construction experience and has done two MRIs himself. However, in the past couple of months, I have found that I really like Orville as a person and loathe him as an architect. I'm having to get all the engineers in the room for coordination meetings and and run those coordination meetings as well as the meetings with the users and basically run this project. Orville has done the specs for the project (eventually), but hasn't really reviewed the drawings at any point that I can tell. He comes in at ten am and calls me eventually to ask "hey, did uh....did you see...........this...this email from So-and-So...?" And my response is almost always, "Yeah. Go up in your email about five or six exchanges to where So-and-So responded at 9:34 am and you'll see our solution to the problem." Dude wasn't even in on Friday, and these drawings are due this Monday. While Orville has had some interesting comments and suggestions on how to fix things, it's like his head isn't even in the project most of the time. Even riding in a car with him from the research facility back to our office is unsettling and time-wasting--there's a quick exit off the highway that takes you straight to our office, but he's wandering all over the back roads of Denver's industrial fringes and has-been neighborhoods.

This is my fear, as un-PC as it might be to say or write it: I think Orville is going senile.

He's 67, and several years ago he had some work done on his heart (stents or something), and according to my dear friend Vinnie the psychologist, having your heart worked on in such an invasive way can really slow you down both in terms of physical speed and mental processing capacity. And I fear that's what's happened to Orville. He is quite literally acting too slow to be on this project with Devon and me. So on a project in which I'm only supposed to work about 4-8 hours a week (which is what Will told Sven), I'm working more like 20 hours a week because it's the only way to make the project even stand a chance of being successful.

So here's my question, faithful readers: is it wrong of me to express this concern to Sven? I feel like I'm being ageist if I say something like "Orville is too slow to run this project", but I feel like I need to explain to Sven why I'm not able to fully keep on top of the four Gestalt projects I'm running for him and why I've had to work overtime for the past couple of weeks. Further, I'm hearing from other folks in the office that they've had similar experiences in working with Orville (e.g., the interior designer who had to suck it up and run the client meetings because they no longer had the patience for Orville's constant non sequiturs, jokes, and random stories of his childhood growing up in Leadville). At least people like him (which is more than Howie can say for himself at the moment), but working with him is frustrating and unproductive.

Thoughts?

Who watches the Watchmen? Part 1 of 2

2010-11-09T05:29:00.000-07:00

Rumor has it that we're actually getting reviews this year, and there's a remote chance that we might get a wee li'l raise. We'll see on the latter, and I'm even a little wary of the former. What I'm mostly concerned about is how reviews are performed, as in, are they done across the board? Who reviews the higher-ups at Design Associates? It gives me pause for two big reasons: Howie and Orville.

Howie has always been intense and had really high and exacting standards. In general, this has been a really good thing. Those who work with Howie for at least 6 months tend to get really good at architecture, not just the actual architecture part but also the writing-good-emails and asking-sharp-questions and doing-good-research parts. You know, all the parts you can't really learn in school because you don't have a real project that's getting built. But the past two years appear to have taken their toll on Howie. His behavior and intensity are to a point that no one who works for him--and I mean no one--can tolerate him anymore. Ingrid is exhausted, Interns Kimmy and Tara are anxious-tired, and even a group of architects across the office who are working with him on a replacement hospital project are tired of and furious with him. He has gone from just insisting that people do their job with a high level of accountability, accuracy, and quality to treating architects like two-year interns and interns like children. No one takes it personally, per se: he treats everyone with the same level of grand mal douchebaggery. I've had him treat me like that last year while working on a project with Intern Timmy, and having him push and micromanage me the way he's been doing says two things about him:

One, he doesn't trust anyone to do a good job, even though architecture is all about trusting other people to do a good job. After all, if I've made it through five rounds of layoffs, I presume that I'm doing pretty well at DA. All of us who are still here after five rounds of layoffs ought to be pretty good at what we do. So what's with all the micromanaging? And if he finally buys into DA and becomes a partner, does he really think he's going to have the time to micromanage us the way he does now? The second thing this behavior says about him is that he clearly doesn't trust his own training of his staff. Many of us with whom he's worked closely over the past several months to years know how to do a good job, and we do it. I dare say that we present and recent-past members of Team Howie are the best architects and interns at DA because of his excellent training and mentorship. The fact that he's stepped up his micromanaging tells me that he doesn't trust us to do our jobs, the very jobs he trained us to do.

The reason this sucks is that it's making him impossible to work with. His coworkers and employees are exhausted, furious, anxious, and sometimes even to the point of tears after dealing with him. Sven told me recently that I would be working with Howie on a project, and I pulled Sven aside and explained that I'll be glad to work with Howie as long as Sven understands that I might have to have a li'l heart-to-heart with everybody's favorite Svengali-come-lately. I explained to a first-puzzled-then-surprised Sven about Howie's behavioral changes in the past two years. Sven (God and Renzo Piano love him) actually thanked me for letting him know about this and said that he might be able to help me smooth this out a little bit when Howie and I finally had to work together. We'll see how that plays out. But I am a little fearful that Howie's unbearable behavioral changes might get swept under the rug as profits start to expand in 2011 and as things get busier. Will anyone remember his douchery in even a month or so when we have reviews?

to be continued....

Iz birfday LOLZ!!!!

2010-11-08T05:34:00.000-07:00

Today iz birfday of mai favorit sistur EVAR!!! Miss Kitty over at Educated & Poor is thirty-mnndghfs, so hop on over and wish her a happy birthday full of kittehs and doggehs and chikinz!!