Leaving Florida!

Hahaha! Well I know it has been a couple days, but just blame it on my school!

I have been finishing up my projects as quick as possible so we could try to do some planning for our trip... little did I know that even though I tried to finish up as soon as I could on my projects, we would still be leaving Tallahassee a day late!

But now Karen and I are sitting in the airport waiting for our plane to board AND WE ARE EXHAUSTED! These next 12 hours are most likely going to be the most relaxing hours that we have had in the last month! And trust me, I am not complaining about having to sit in a seat for that long.

And for those who didn't know about what we are doing now, we are on our way to Madrid for the start of our summer vacation. Our plans (as of right now) are to hit up Madrid, Seville, Granada, Valencia, Barcelona, and then back to Madrid. It is going to be a whirlwind trip through Spain... Sorry... Espana! I need to get it right!

Its nice to be back guys! I will try my best to get a hold of the internet while I am there so I can keep posting! Until tomorrow!

Oh PS - that picture is our plane! It just pulled up!

Drenched (Day 21)

Alright! Three weeks down!

And this is ridiculous! I forget whether or not I wrote it yesterday, but this work on sketchup is going SO slow. I have been working on it solid for 12 hours now... hence the late post tonight. The worst part of all that work is that there is still a good amount to do still! The image I have here is what I have done so far.

Even though I am frustrated that I don;t have that much done, I am quite pleased with the things that I did figure out today... one of them being the cool facade on the building in the center of the picture. It is this second skin that is applied to the building which will reduce the solar gain and make it a "greener" building.

Church went really well today also! Karen and my good friend Nicole was baptized today... the first one at our new church! Nicole, if you read this, we are so proud of you! It is so nice to see people get baptized so they can start their new life! I also like how Genesis (our church) calls getting being baptized here... they call it "Drenched". They do such a good job marketing everything there!

Now that it is 11:45 at night, all I need to do is force myself to stay awake to keep on working on my project. Because of there being so much information on that model for Jacksonville, my computer runs so slow. Simply saving the project takes a good minute to do. Sketchup always works fine until I get to this point - where I am adding the little elements like the doors, railings, furniture, windows, and stuff like that. Each one of those things has so much data associated with it, it just drags my computer to a near stop. To be honest, I decided to write this right now because Sketchup froze while exporting the rendering that I will be attaching to this blog. Its fun how it all works out in the end though!

Well thats about it for today, considering if I write for much longer it will be "tomorrow"!

Interior Design! (Day 19)

Hi everyone! Happy Saturday! I wasn't kidding when I said that I would be going to sleep right after I posted. I did wake up around 10:30pm to just end up falling asleep on the couch while Karen worked on her homework. From there I woke up at 10am this morning! I felt so crappy, though! I don't know if it happens to everyone, but when I get too much sleep, I feel sick with a headache... I may just be weird, who knows?

Until about 5pm today, my trusty homework companion (Karen) and I just work on our projects. And at about that time, we went to our neighbors housewarming party at their new condo off Thomasville Road. They had moved over here for the winter from their home in the Midwest. The snow was getting too much for them. They have an amazing house! Honestly, its as close to something that Karen and I would have designed for ourselves without actually doing it ourselves! But yea, the apartment is really nice with a second story loft, nice modern kitchen and bathrooms... it was a good thing that we got out of there when we did because otherwise they may have had a hard time getting us out tonight!

Our neighbors, Randy and Allen, are really nice. They have been working on interior designing for years and they also had their own business where they sold furniture that they found along their travels around the world. It is just a shame that they are leaving for their summer home this Thursday.

I can't be too upset though, because not long after they leave we are too! 10 days until we leave for Orlando and 12 until we get on the plane for SPAIN! Woo-hoo! We have pretty much decided that we are going to wing this trip - meaning not planning too much. As it stands right now, the only days that are set are the days that we have the plane tickets for.

But thats pretty much it for today, its about time for more homework! Until tomorrow!

Hotdogs! (Day 19)

Friday Friday, So good to me! I will just start out by saying that I AM GOING TO SLEEP! It was such a long week! Most likely the most intense week so far of this whole semester. I got more done on my project, but still not done!

The ASLA Week ended up really well with this really good cookout just behind the school of architecture at FAMU. It is really nice hanging out with the Landscape Professors (even though I am not in the program) They are really cool and more down to earth than the Architecture Professors! I did take most of them as elective so they do know me. I talked with Dr. Duke about teaching next semester and he confirmed what I had already heard about the Dean having a graduate student teaching one of the computer classes because of the budget cuts.

But that was pretty much it for today! Until tomorrow!

Almost Done (Day 18)

I am so proud of myself! Today has been a really productive day! I finally finished my floorplans for the housing project in Jacksonville. 190 ROOMS! And I had to work out EACH ONE! Next I get to work on some really cool landscaping for the plaza. Personally, I feel lucky that I have my own consultant on this subject - my AWESOME wife, Karen!

I also got to see a presentation of Photoshop rendering... Had a little chuckle with it, though . They had this woman come in from a local Landscape Architecture office because she was "so good"... I think knew just as much if not more about Photoshop and rendering. But hey, everyone else got something out of it.

This is actually something that Karen and I were talking about yesterday. One of the School of Architecture's professors, Derek Ham, is leaving to get his doctorate at MIT next semester. The only thing with this is that he is the only tenured professor at FAMU that knows about new technology and computers. He was the only professor that kept the school some-what up to date. But now, there is no one. Most of the professors don't even know how to use a computer! I end up telling them how to do even the little things in class. This being said, I was considering asking to teach a class on this next semester. I will keep you updated on this!

Well thats all that really interested me today! Until tomorrow!

For Men Only (Day 17)

Well, just to let you know, this post is not for men only! This is just the name of the guys night at my church. It really nice - we get together and the pastor gives a message for guys. This time it was about being leaders. I really miss these nights. The last time we met was about 3 months ago. I think it is a great thing for our church to have. Mostly because it gets A LOT of new people to our church. I think there could have been at least 5 guys I had never seen before.

After guys night, we had... another guys night! A couple of friends and I went to get some wings after church and then went to watch Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail. I know I have seen that movie 100 times, but it never gets old.

Short of repeating the same things, went to school and stuff, school was fun, but nothing new!

Until tomorrow!

WAIT! (Day 16)

Wow... Midnight comes so early now-a-days! Don't you with there was a "pause" button on a clock? It would make life so much easier.

So today was a great lazy day thanks to my new friend Zyrtec. It kicked my allergies quick! But it also kicked my butt, I was sleepy for most of the day. Although, I don't normally have a legitimate reason to fall asleep on the couch.

It is ironic though... Even though I have been sleepy and all, I have gotten a lot of work done on my design project. Strange. The part that I am doing now is a bit more fun than the rest. I have my overall design done, now it is just a matter of working through the circulation (where people walk around). There is so much to this project, but I enjoy it so much!

I don't know if I explained it earlier, but basically I am working on a project for AIA Jacksonville. We are designing a new riverfront community for the South Bank area in Jacksonville. The requirements are to have 50,000 square feet of retail store space and 190 housing units. This is all supposed to be on roughly a 3 acre site. Its pretty dense, but it is so cool! So far I have two towers designed, now I am working on the neighboring 4 story tall buildings that hold everything else.

I did take a break from this project for a while tonight and went to Diverge, our church's youth group. It was fun, even though I almost killed myself in the game time. I am so out of shape. We played this game that is like Ultimate Frisbee but with a kickball that we throw. Just three rounds where I run around for a couple minutes took me down to the ground! Sure did feel old watching these kids (6-12th graders) pass me up.

Well it is that time to get back to working on my architecture project! I have some rooms to detail before tomorrow morning. Until tomorrow!

Wiped Out! (Day 15)

Wow, yet another day of being sick. At least I broke down and purchased some real alergy medicine. That stuff has become so expensive lately! I dont know why! But I wont go on and on about that!

But anyways, the presentation on Celebration, Florida went really really well! And it was supposed to be 20 minutes long... and hit it right on the head! Slide 53 "Questions" right at 20:01! Not to shabby!

Now I am home and I get to rest. This last weekend really took it out of me - considering I really haven't done too much lately. Being a masters student and everything, I would have expeceted every weekend to be like this last one, but I am surprised! Not complaining though..

Well its time to go to class now. Sorry today's post was a little short - I have to recover a little! Until Tomorrow!

POWERpoint (Day 14)

Another day of nothing but homework, but it is worth it. Yesterday I had 40 slides... Basically doubled it today! This is going to be an intense presentation tomorrow morning. It is kinda unnerving though... this presentation is the one and only grade for this class. So if I bomb it, I bomb the class. Don't get me wrong, I put the POWER in PowerPoint! Its going to go great!

Church was great, the new series is really interesting! Dehydrated is basically about how the church is putting out more than it is taking in... in a sense dehydrating itself. I will post a link in the bottom to the site. After church, the Diverge Staff got together for a planning meeting for the upcoming months. We have so much planned for that youth group! I can't say too much, though, just in case one of them takes a look at this Blog!

Oh, I should probably explain that picture... It is not as obvious as the other days. That picture is from the book that I am studying - the basis of the presentation that I have been busting my butt on. The picture itself is really funny. The woman in the center of the image walked up to the the chair, sat down in it, stood up, moved it up ONE INCH, and sat back down. Its all about how people always have to feel like they can personalize their environment. Essentially, she did nothing by moving the chair, she just made sure she felt like it was her own space.

But thats all that really happened today so far. Just going to stay up really late and finish this project. If I finish early... MOVIE! Until tomorrow!

Links for today...

http://genesischurch.tv/

Flowers (Day 13)

Ooooh lucky day 13! Alright! Lucky for our friends Justin and Ashley, though! We were able to pick out their flowers for their upcoming wedding in July. This whole experience with them is pretty exciting and rewarding. The reason why we are working with them is that they were so impressed with the flower arrangements that we had for our wedding this last year.

Wow, and I am realizing my grammar is all over the place. It has been a really long day!

But anyways, we started out at the local flower wholesale warehouse checking out the different options. It was fun but I felt like my mind was going to explode with all the names of flowers... and I swear two of them had the same name... I swear!

Other than that, I have been working on the project for my plazas course all day. Originally I was worried that this presentation was set at 20-30 minutes. I was kinda freaking out because thought that was going to be a hard task... So far I have 40 slides and typically it is safe to say that each slide lasts about a minute... so you do the math! I actually have to cut it down!

Well that will be the task for tomorrow! It is about time to go to bed because we have the first day of a new series at our awesome church, Genesis. The series is called Dehydrated so I am excited to see what it holds for us! Until tomorrow!

Getting Ready (Day 12)

Today I got a taste of what we will be going through next year... I sat through my first thesis defense. It was actually quite amazing. I sat through one of my classmate's defense on Critical Regionalism or as what he called it "Critically Rooted Architecture". I won't go into it too much, you'll just have to believe me.

But other than that, today was a wonderful day. I woke up nice and refreshed and thank God I was not sick! Well after that much sleep, my body had no choice but to get better! A couple hours ago, though, my throat started to get a little rough again, just about the time that I was checking out of Walmart...

Walmart... oh my gosh... what a place on a day like this. IT WAS PACKED. And the strangest part is that it is just a Friday night. Why? I am wondering if it was because of payday? Who knows...

But happy Friday either way! I am home with my amazing wife which is the most important part. We both decided not to do any homework so we could spend some quality time together watching a movie! Not sure what movie yet... we have so many to choose from! Until tomorrow!

The Good Stuff (Day 11)

Wow, when I say the good stuff, I mean it! This could totally turn into a commercial for this... Have you ever had a cold where you are completely fatigued? What about a cold where every time you swallow or even breathe it hurts like the dickens? You should totally try TheraFlu! It is amazing, it takes care of all of that... and if it doesn't work for you, at least you will be knocked out asleep within an hour of drinking it.

So as you could imagine, that is night so far. It has to be all the pollen in the air. And on top of that, the temperature here in Tallahassee is all over the charts. As you might have seen a couple of days ago in my blog, the weather here is changing every day! This morning it was hot, then it got windy (knocking up all the pollen again) and then it rained for most of the day, then now its cold. My body just can't take it any more.... you know what, screw Tallahassee, I am going to Spain for a month! Lol

Well on the brighter side, I don't hurt anymore. Hopefully I can relax and get some sleep tonight! Until tomorrow!

Frosty Wake Up (Day 10)

Happy day 10! Wednesdays are so much fun, especially during Defense week for the masters students that are finishing up their thesis. For us in our first year of the MArch program, that means that professors' minds are somewhere else and we are basically off the hook for any intense material this week.

It is so crazy to think that I will be in their same situation a year from now - defending my thesis and everything. But at the same time, I am so looking forward to finally finishing up college... FOREVER. Even more than that, I am looking forward to having life on my mind rather than school. Right now it drives me crazy... it always seems like I have to feel guilty for staying at church a while after the service is over or staying long at a friends house. The excuse is always "Oh I have to do homework." Also my default answer to "whats going on?" is always "just killing myself doing homework.... I was up until 2am last night (or something like that)" I want to say "oh yeah, my wife and I did this"... or even "my office picked up a new project".

Time will bring this to me sometime! But for now I can just relax and know that life is great and I have a wonderful wife! So awesome in fact that she woke me up this afternoon when she got home with a Wendy's Frosty! She could totally have me wrapped around her finder now if she wanted to.

Other than that, still just chipping away on my design project. Tomorrow I plan to go to a coffee shop and work on my presentation for my public plaza course until I have it completely finished... that is at least the powerpoint. The poster and paper is not due for a couple weeks.

Seafood? (Day 9)

Another day! Wow, can't come up with a name for today! Should it be seafood? Karen and I did go to a really good seafood place in town today for lunch... can't remember the name of it. All I know is that it is right next to FAMU in this little shack. The crazy part is that it has been there for about 30 years.

Anyways, what else happened today? Gosh, today was a really slow day... Went to school then came home and all I have been doing since then is work on my design project that I wrote about yesterday. As an update, I did decide to go with what I wanted to. since this is the last project that I will be doing in school.

Oh yeah! I did just get home from Diverge, the youth group from my church. It was pretty fun tonight - pretty good turn out, mostly the normal kids, though. I am super excited because we are finally having a leadership meeting this Sunday. I have been bugging the youth pastor for a while to have us get together. The last time was about 4 months ago (if not longer). I think it is because we are starting a new model at Genesis called "Orange". It is basically something that integrates what happens at church with what parents can do with their children at home. Its a really good idea. When I find out more information, I will definitely write more about it.

But now that I am home, I need to start my homework... again. My big presentation for my public plazas course is coming up this next Monday and a haven't really started yet.

Oatmeal and Puddin' (Day 8)

Happy Monday! Well it may be a little late for that, considering its 11:15pm right now, but who's counting?

Well after a late night of working on a design for my architecture studio class, I get to start all over again (basically). You know, after 6 years of design school, you think I would have learned not to work too hard on a design that hasn't been approved by my professor! But it is okay. I am not sure whether or not I will change it. I really like the design! My classmate and I were talking about this today, actually. This is out last design project in school. Not only is it our last in school, but for a while, this will be our last project that we designed on our own! We might as well do what we like because it may be 10 years before we have another chance!

...and then 15 minutes pass while watching Lopez Tonight... Great show

So while fighting that whole internal battle of whether or not to stick with the design that I chose, I just could not help but to snack! Massive munchies while working on the computer lately. Perhaps it is my mind trying to keep fueled up because of all the thinking - who knows. But since Karen and I have been trying to eat healthy lately, there is no true "munchy" food in the house. Hmm, do I chew on a carrot? It is just not the same! So finally after staring and digging in the pantry for a whole, I came across the two closest things to that - instant pudding and oatmeal. Don't worry, I didn't eat the two together! Pudding came first of course. And my wonderful wife couldn't resist the temptation either!

So along with this design project that I have been working on, I also have a big presentation that I have to work on for next Monday! I basically have to teach a class on William White's book "The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces" and an analysis of the public plaza in Celebration, Florida (just south of Orlando) The whole idea of this project is really cool! We are basically asked to sit in a plaza, take pictures, and in accordance with my book, record how people interact with the plaza and the aesthetics and functionality of the plaza.

Not to bore anyone, but this book by White has been such a huge inspiration for me and my path as a masters student in architecture. The book is basically about behavior psychology and how it interacts with urban plazas. The way the writer, William White, studied the plaza is through film and time-lapse photography. The most amazing part is that it was all done back in the 1970's and he had to review every last slide or negative to get his data. All this being said, this will be the basis of my thesis coming up this next semester. To sum it up, I am going to take paradigm and test and prove it on our trip to Spain and then figure out what attributes should be taken in to places that are supposed to be designed like an urban area (specifically SouthWood here in Tallahassee for those who know about it).

Well I suppose it is about time to get back to work now. Until tomorrow!

Easter! (Day 7)

Wow! One week down... many more to go! It is cool to think about it like this - if I keep up the blogs once a day for a year, by the end I will have graduated with my masters degree in architecture! A lot of things can happen in a year - heck, even in a week!

Well obvious today was easter! There was a really great band there today to signify the official grand opening of Genesis Church - Julian Drive. Couldn't find a recent picture of them... The guy in the stripe shirt wasn't there, I guess he was the drummer. I would have taken a picture while they played, but wow, its pretty awkward to pull out your cellphone in the middle of church sitting in the front and center! The band had a great energy about them... so much that they were able to wake me up (considering I didn't get my cup of coffee this morning!)

The service this morning was really cool too! It wasn't the typical resurrection sermon, but it was more focusing on the sins that Jesus died for. Pastor Brian spoke mainly about the whole Adam and Eve fiasco in the book of Genesis. All in all, Pastor Brian has it down - that is having the right sermon for the right day. For the last couple weeks he has been mentioning that Easter Sunday is the most attended Sunday of the year. Why not have that one week be awesome and with a story that the people actually know about. There is nothing worse than sitting through a sermon where the pastor keeps pulling random scripture that no one has ever heard before - it can get boring really quickly.

That being said, it is also nice getting a new spin on the Easter morning service. For the first 20 years of my life, every Easter morning has been the same - get up for the sunrise service which my old church holds outside at 6:30am(ish), the same song gets sung by this old guy (and yes, he sang it EVERY Easter of my life), from there we would go out and get breakfast somewhere with the family. There was once where I had my girlfriend at the time come with my and some friends came with us to breakfast, but thats about it.

This year has been really new for me! Not only am I married now, but we also have a great bunch of friends up here in Tallahassee. A couple from our church, Mike and Becca, invited a whole group of us together to their house to have a wonderful Easter potluck dinner. And wow! There was a lot of food and easily some of the best cakes I have ever had! One of the guests brought a chocolate cake that was probably the most chocolaty thing I have ever ate (and it was GREAT). But still, the best desert had to have been Justin and Ashley's signature pie which we can never get enough of!

After a big meal like that, Karen and I came home to do homework (or at least that was our plan). We just crashed as soon as we got home and woke up around 7pm. Since then we have (surprise!) been doing homework. 3 weeks to the end of the semester, and boy we can't wait till its all over and we can finally go to Spain!

Sketch-Up (Day 6)

Wow, my computer has to be the architects best friend now-a-days. I have now been working on sketchup for a total of 6 hours today. I kinda of complain about working so long, but all I need to do is think about how long it would take to do the same thing with pen and paper.

But on a lighter note, Happy Easter as of less than an hour! Tonight, well technically because I haven't gone to sleep yet, we went to Genesis to see the really talented artist, Johnny Diaz, who gave a free concert for the holiday. It was really relaxed, unlike the typical concert with loud music and people jumping around. This one was an acoustic set with him and this other guy on a cello.

This was a great experience! Karen and I talked about how people typically see music artists - how they like the attention and the fame and how the attention shouldn't be on the band but on God. It was really cool because Johnny made it a point to center the concert on Him which both Karen and I were really happy about!

Catching Up (Day 5)

Wow! This could be a little harder than I had imagined! That is posting everyday. Well lets just go back and say that I will do my best to post everyday.

Yesterday was a lot of fun. Yesterday was full of presentations and lectures from FAMU School of Architecture faculty and visiting professionals. That means most of the classes were put on hold for the day so I got to go home early! I can never complain about that! My wife and I took care of some things and ended up at her favorite event of the month - First Friday at Railroad Square. It was probably the most busy one we have seen in a while. Now that I think of it, that is strange! Typically I would assume that the students would go home to see the family for the holiday weekend.

After that, we went to watch a movie with a friend - Where the Wild Things Are. Wow, that was a horrible movie. We had expected a normal children's movie - fun and exciting - but we all almost fell asleep so we just called it a night.

That brings us to today, so far, which I will post about a little later today!

Cross-Eyed (Day 4)

Well another day of staring blankly at my screen with a lack of inspiration for the newest architecture project. I got home from school about 12pm today and, for the most part, have been here since. Its a real pain! I would work on a design for a good hour or so... stare at it for 10 minutes... then delete it out of frustration. I finally come up with a decent idea a few minutes ago, thats why I am taking a break. See! Not only writers have writer's block!

Its has kind of been a unproductive day, needless to say. I did however find a way to take my sketchup model from this last project and make appear 3-D by looking at it cross-eyed. I was very impressed with myself! Basically to make it appear this way, you stare blankly at it until you see 3 of the images... the one in the middle will be be the one you will see in 3-D.

Karen and I are getting even more excited for the trip to Spain coming up. We spoke with one of my professors who travels to Spain almost every year for some tips and interesting places to go. She suggested Lonely Planet's guide to Spain. Now I have a choice... buy the 2009 edition for about $20-30 or the 2007 edition for $1.78. I cannot believe the difference in the price just for 2 years! I don't know about everyone else but I just feel smart when I go shopping for books. I think in my whole life I have only purchased 20 books or so. More often then not I leave a bookstore with a big cup of coffee and nothing else!

From the last four days of this page, I think I am going to set a goal for myself... try to blog for a whole year! Its kind of fun. You get to sit down and reflect of each day of your life. It will be interesting though while we are in Spain. I am not sure what the internet connections are going to be like while we are there. It may be like America where every single cafe has to have wireless internet or else they will not stay in business. I know where we will be staying in Barcelona there will be internet, but we will see for sure when we get there!

Until tomorrow!