I went home this weekend to get my laptop. It arrived last week. It's running Windows 7 which I can only describe as swooshy. Not too sure how I like the interface. If anything, I find it a little difficult to find things. Supposedly you can just type whatever program you're looking for into this search thing on the start button, but...well, I'd rather just do it through the big pop-up menus. Old habits die hard, I guess. The new laptop is a definite upgrade, but the video card really sucks. I tried out Assissin's Creed and it ran very slowly. Knights of the Old Republic runs pretty well, though, and the sound and movie watching quality is awesome. Considering I play video games once a week at most, I'm not too broken up about the lack of video card power. I only paid $800 for this thing and if I wanted a real gaming laptop, that would be at least $1500.
In other news, we had a wierd family lunch today. We were eating rice porridge and mom had cut up one of those thousand-year old egg things. At one point, Dad suggested I have some and I said no thanks. Yuck. May went, "Angela hates runny eggs, right Ange?" And I nodded. Then Dad went, "Well, just wait till she's pregnant. THEN she'll like them." What? WHAT? Where did that come from? I don't plan on getting knocked up anytime soon, thanks very much. And if I did want to get knocked up, well 1) I'd want to have my architect's license first and 2) I would want to have a potential dad who didn't just recently refer to babies as worm-like ugly things. No babies for me, thanks very much. I guess Mom and Dad are kind of freaked out that I'm dating Axel and seem to be in it for the long run. No babies. Ew.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Fancy Partay!
Last night, Karen and I went to a party an alum friend of mine invited me to. Karen and I must be the oldest young people in the world, or maybe she's just shy and I was tired from work, but we left at 10. In any case, the invite said the dress code was festive and after dithering for a while on what that meant, I decided last minute to wear a pretty dress I bought last year from Espirit, and I borrowed a festive red belt from my coworker Mallary. Add to that a nice black faux-fur bolero and bright red sling-backs. I was worried I was going to be overdressed, and I showed up and found out I was perfectly dressed. I also found out that Phillippe, who I was aware was wealthy, is VERY wealthy in that he owns a hedge fund. My guess is the nice older gentleman I met last year at the Presidential Debate Party (who sadly did not show up tonite) is similarly wealthy and probably owns his own hedge fund. In any case, all the people I met were in their late 30s to 50s and they either were hedge fund/wall street people, or worked for the UN or something similarly impressive. They weren't snobby at all though. In fact, if I were to ask Phillippe what he did, he'd be very reluctant to tell. Apparently they're all like that.
It's funny though, the general personality of the people there was kinda boring. A lot of awkward conversation that died quickly. Wow, you're an architect and you make buildings! Yeah. So... Soo........Hmmmm....
There were actually two young ladies that Karen and I spent a long time talking to. I think they're both around my age. On of the girls' mom is a lesbian who came out and dumped her hubby when she was 8, and her mom's girlfriend is her age. Funny, no? And she's comfortable enough with her mom that mom came along to the party. I would NEVER take my mom to a party with me.
In any case, Karen and I got bored and ditched the party at 10, went to Grey's Papaya and got hot dogs and pina coladas and then trekked home. Fun fun fun. :)
It's funny though, the general personality of the people there was kinda boring. A lot of awkward conversation that died quickly. Wow, you're an architect and you make buildings! Yeah. So... Soo........Hmmmm....
There were actually two young ladies that Karen and I spent a long time talking to. I think they're both around my age. On of the girls' mom is a lesbian who came out and dumped her hubby when she was 8, and her mom's girlfriend is her age. Funny, no? And she's comfortable enough with her mom that mom came along to the party. I would NEVER take my mom to a party with me.
In any case, Karen and I got bored and ditched the party at 10, went to Grey's Papaya and got hot dogs and pina coladas and then trekked home. Fun fun fun. :)
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Mosying On Up
God. I just got handed the responsibility card.
The office has lunch seminars once almost every week where people come in, present their product or teach a class. They bring food as an incentive to make people show up, though I find that a lot of people are just really rude jerks that just run in, grab food and run out, but I digress. The responsibility person who arranges all of this has a one year tenure and one of the bosses just came over and asked me to take over for the next year, and it'd be kind of awkward to say no and I think he knew that. Evil. That's a lot of work....and talking on phones....
Well, at least I know they aren't planning on firing me....
The office has lunch seminars once almost every week where people come in, present their product or teach a class. They bring food as an incentive to make people show up, though I find that a lot of people are just really rude jerks that just run in, grab food and run out, but I digress. The responsibility person who arranges all of this has a one year tenure and one of the bosses just came over and asked me to take over for the next year, and it'd be kind of awkward to say no and I think he knew that. Evil. That's a lot of work....and talking on phones....
Well, at least I know they aren't planning on firing me....
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Down in the Deep South, Y'all
I went on my very first business trip last week. It wasn't actually that they needed me, but it was more because I had been working on the project for a really long time and they thought I should see what I've been working on. Soooo, it was mostly like vacation!
I flew into Jackson with James' wife and baby. The baby is quite the screamer. She screamed during the entire flight and then she screamed the entire ride into town. I thought her eyes were about to pop out of her head. Fortunately, it was only 20 minutes to my hotel. I'm sure to the casual passerby, it looked like James was picking up his wife and child and that adopted daughter from a previous marriage.
The hotel room I stayed in was bigger than my apartment. I had my own personal foyer, balcony, gigantic bathroom, two televisions and turn-down service. Actually, I didn't like the turndown service because for some reason they always turned on the television and all the lights...2 hours before I got back to the room to turn it all back off... In any case, having all that room and not having to share was quite unsettling. I kept expecting a couple of people to show up at any moment to say that I don't get all that space to myself. The hotel was really nice. It's located in downtown Jackson where, surprisingly, nothing happens at all. Everything closes around 7 or 8 so when my flight arrived super late, I had to beg the innkeeper for a little food. She was kind enough to take me to the kitchen where I grabbed a bowl of cereal. Breakfast was great though. Grits are amazing, and so are freshly sliced and herbed tomatoes.
Day 1 was pretty much me following Hugh everywhere. I had breakfast with Hugh and his wife. Then we went to a meeting where they selected the artist that would have her work displayed throughout the courthouse. The first one had a really lovely presentation. Her work is very spatial, very architecturally imbedded into spaces. That's why we were all surprised when she showed us her proposal for the court house and it was just a rectangular chainmail curtain hanging over a stair case. The second prospective artist was a nice old man who made what amounts to steel mobiles. I think the court's qualm with that is that it looked like mobiles of little shiny knives. The last one was the unanimous pick. It was a colorful, frothy, happy looking cloud made up of strips of glass. After that, I had to sit in on a punchlist meeting - basically where the client and tenant griped about what they didn't like and what they wanted us to fix. By then it was the end of the day, and I went out to dinner at a fancy place called Julep with my former coworker, Mary, who just happened to be going to school in Jackson.
Day 2 was tiring. James and I spent the entire morning running around the building making a field observation report. Then we had lunch with his family (they were in Jackson for the 2 week stay as well). Back to the site, back into the building. At this point, my steel toe boots had become like shackles. They're tight around my ankles, so it keeps rubbing when I walk. Fortunately, we just had a quick jaunt through the mud (at one point, I got stuck because of the suction and had to pull myself out by holding onto the fence) and then we went to the roof and back to the trailer where I was released for the day. After going to my room to change into my comfy shoes, I walked to the local architecture school where Mary's class was giving final presentations. I liked seeing what their school looked like and what they were working on. Very different focus from CMU. I can honestly say I never poured a block of concrete in my life, nor would I really know how to begin. The presentations themselves were a little disappointing. All the drawings were really small and no one showed any process work. Ah well. I gave Mary a few suggestions. Don't know if she took them or not. In any case, after presentations were over, she took me to a Vietnamese place for dinner. Giant bowls of Pho for only $5.50!
The last day was the construction meeting. I sat between James and the guy running the show. It was pretty boring, just going through the schedule and making sure things are in compliance. At one point, the tenant freaked out at James for not updating our drawings to reflect what they changed and the client freaked out that we weren't giving the tenant what they wanted. James just blinked. I got a little riled up. The client forgot that THEY were the ones that told us not to make the changes. Ugh. The tenant also later criticized James for not thinking outside the box, and all I could do is write in my sketchbook, "So says the 'architect' with the baby soft hands and cushy government job." That guy hasn't even tried to think outside of the box in years. He can't even read shop drawings right.
Whatever...After the meeting, I hopped into a car with the security consultant and he drove me to the airport. The last stretch of flying from Atlanta to New York terrified me. Everytime we got turbulence, I'd break out into cold fear-sweat. Urgh, I hate flying.
It was a fun trip, but I sure am glad to be back in New York!
I flew into Jackson with James' wife and baby. The baby is quite the screamer. She screamed during the entire flight and then she screamed the entire ride into town. I thought her eyes were about to pop out of her head. Fortunately, it was only 20 minutes to my hotel. I'm sure to the casual passerby, it looked like James was picking up his wife and child and that adopted daughter from a previous marriage.
The hotel room I stayed in was bigger than my apartment. I had my own personal foyer, balcony, gigantic bathroom, two televisions and turn-down service. Actually, I didn't like the turndown service because for some reason they always turned on the television and all the lights...2 hours before I got back to the room to turn it all back off... In any case, having all that room and not having to share was quite unsettling. I kept expecting a couple of people to show up at any moment to say that I don't get all that space to myself. The hotel was really nice. It's located in downtown Jackson where, surprisingly, nothing happens at all. Everything closes around 7 or 8 so when my flight arrived super late, I had to beg the innkeeper for a little food. She was kind enough to take me to the kitchen where I grabbed a bowl of cereal. Breakfast was great though. Grits are amazing, and so are freshly sliced and herbed tomatoes.
Day 1 was pretty much me following Hugh everywhere. I had breakfast with Hugh and his wife. Then we went to a meeting where they selected the artist that would have her work displayed throughout the courthouse. The first one had a really lovely presentation. Her work is very spatial, very architecturally imbedded into spaces. That's why we were all surprised when she showed us her proposal for the court house and it was just a rectangular chainmail curtain hanging over a stair case. The second prospective artist was a nice old man who made what amounts to steel mobiles. I think the court's qualm with that is that it looked like mobiles of little shiny knives. The last one was the unanimous pick. It was a colorful, frothy, happy looking cloud made up of strips of glass. After that, I had to sit in on a punchlist meeting - basically where the client and tenant griped about what they didn't like and what they wanted us to fix. By then it was the end of the day, and I went out to dinner at a fancy place called Julep with my former coworker, Mary, who just happened to be going to school in Jackson.
Day 2 was tiring. James and I spent the entire morning running around the building making a field observation report. Then we had lunch with his family (they were in Jackson for the 2 week stay as well). Back to the site, back into the building. At this point, my steel toe boots had become like shackles. They're tight around my ankles, so it keeps rubbing when I walk. Fortunately, we just had a quick jaunt through the mud (at one point, I got stuck because of the suction and had to pull myself out by holding onto the fence) and then we went to the roof and back to the trailer where I was released for the day. After going to my room to change into my comfy shoes, I walked to the local architecture school where Mary's class was giving final presentations. I liked seeing what their school looked like and what they were working on. Very different focus from CMU. I can honestly say I never poured a block of concrete in my life, nor would I really know how to begin. The presentations themselves were a little disappointing. All the drawings were really small and no one showed any process work. Ah well. I gave Mary a few suggestions. Don't know if she took them or not. In any case, after presentations were over, she took me to a Vietnamese place for dinner. Giant bowls of Pho for only $5.50!
The last day was the construction meeting. I sat between James and the guy running the show. It was pretty boring, just going through the schedule and making sure things are in compliance. At one point, the tenant freaked out at James for not updating our drawings to reflect what they changed and the client freaked out that we weren't giving the tenant what they wanted. James just blinked. I got a little riled up. The client forgot that THEY were the ones that told us not to make the changes. Ugh. The tenant also later criticized James for not thinking outside the box, and all I could do is write in my sketchbook, "So says the 'architect' with the baby soft hands and cushy government job." That guy hasn't even tried to think outside of the box in years. He can't even read shop drawings right.
Whatever...After the meeting, I hopped into a car with the security consultant and he drove me to the airport. The last stretch of flying from Atlanta to New York terrified me. Everytime we got turbulence, I'd break out into cold fear-sweat. Urgh, I hate flying.
It was a fun trip, but I sure am glad to be back in New York!
