16 August 2007

Portland fun time

On Friday I caught a ride with my friend Laura down to Portland. It was nice to see that city again. I feel like I could live there.


Katie Risseeuw is moving to Austin. Here she is with some friends loading her "pod". Another Arizonan headed to UT. Dear god.



I also saw my good friend Dan Coates. Dan is a great bass player and human being. He's going to study systems science in the fall. I don't even know how to explain it. Obviously, he loves the maths and complex systems. We ate breakfast at an amazing vegan place. I had vegan biscuits and gravy. Mmmm fake meat gravy.

Last day with the Herlings

For the Herling's last day in Seattle we walked around downtown a bit. We went to the original Starbuck's and to a fancy candy shop. Both Ryan and Stephen got gigantic caramel apples. Stephen had just gotten his braces off and had been craving a caramel apple for 2 years. He got back into the game with the hugest caramel apple I have ever seen.

Stephen, Ryan, Aunt Ellen and Uncle Carl enjoying some Seattle sunshine.

Ryan apparently loves caramel apples as well.

Check this thing out. Caramel apple with layers of chocolate, marshmallow, rice crispies, and other sugar products. Insane sugar rush express.

07 August 2007

Bainbridge Island

My relatives, The Herlings visited Kate, Anthony and I this weekend in Seattle. They currently live outside Boston in Norwell. My oldest cousin, Ryan is about to start college at Vasser and Stephen is about to turn 16 and start driving. Ah, youth.

We took the ferry to Bainbridge Island, which was quite nice. There are all sorts of knick knack shops and the boys bought some fudge. Then we went to the beach but couldn't do a lot because we didn't bring our suits. Oh well, it looked really cold anyway.

I don't have a good picture of all of us together. Hmm. Maybe my Aunt or Uncle has a good one. If so, I'll try and track it down.



l-r: Stephen, Ryan, Anthony, Katie, Uncle Carl, Aunt Ellen.



Teatherball Action!




The Rock to Log Game

What to do on a beach, you say? Didn't bring a swim suit? No frisbee? Grab a piece of driftwood and start throwing rocks at it! A fun game for the whole (male) family!





Katie and I on the Bainbridge Island Ferry

If you couldn't tell, it was really windy on the Ferry back to Seattle from Bainbridge Island.





Seattle Skyline


Here's a nice shot of Seattle from the Bainbridge Island Ferry. On the right is obviously downtown and the hill to the left is Queen Anne Hill. Coop 15, where I work, is just about under those 3 cell towers.

04 August 2007

Dear Architects, I'm Sick of Your Shit

Well, this has probably been making the rounds among those in the architecture world but it is just too funny for me to not join in. Pretty brilliant and spot on. Sure, some people can argue that they don't know CAD shortcuts (me for example) or they don't like Rem Koolhaas or new condo towers. But architects do brag about things they shouldn't: how much they work, how little sleep they get, how little they get paid.

This is like bragging how fat you are or how long you spend in your car commuting to work everyday. It's sad, and you really should keep it to yourself.

Anyway, what follows is an
open letter by Annie Choi as originally published in PIDGIN:

Once, a long time ago in the days of yore, I had a friend who was studying architecture to become, presumably, an architect.

This friend introduced me to other friends, who were also studying architecture. Then these friends had other friends who were architects - real architects doing real architecture like designing luxury condos that look a lot like glass dildos. And these real architects knew other real architects and now the only people I know are architects. And they all design glass dildos that I will never work or live in and serve only to obstruct my view of New Jersey.

Do not get me wrong, architects. I like you as a person. I think you are nice, smell good most of the time, and I like your glasses. You have crazy hair, and if you are lucky, most of it is on your head. But I do not care about architecture. It is true. This is what I do care about:

* burritos
* hedgehogs
* coffee

As you can see, architecture is not on the list. I believe that architecture falls somewhere between toenail fungus and invasive colonoscopy in the list of things that interest me.

Perhaps if you didn’t talk about it so much, I would be more interested. When you point to a glass cylinder and say proudly, hey my office designed that, I giggle and say it looks like a bong. You turn your head in disgust and shame. You think, obviously she does not understand. What does she know? She is just a writer. She is no architect. She respects vowels, not glass cocks. And then you say now I am designing a lifestyle center, and I ask what is that, and you say it is a place that offers goods and services and retail opportunities and I say you mean like a mall and you say no. It is a lifestyle center. I say it sounds like a mall. I am from the Valley, bitch. I know malls.

Architects, I will not lie, you confuse me. You work sixty, eighty hours a week and yet you are always poor. Why aren’t you buying me a drink? Where is your bounty of riches? Maybe you spent it on merlot. Maybe you spent it on hookers and blow. I cannot be sure. It is a mystery. I will leave that to the scientists to figure out.

Architects love to discuss how much sleep they have gotten. One will say how he was at the studio until five in the morning, only to return again two hours later. Then another will say, oh that is nothing. I haven’t slept in a week. And then another will say, guess what, I have never slept ever. My dear architects, the measure of how hard you’ve worked and how much you’ve accomplished is not related to the number of hours you have not slept. Have you heard of Rem Koolhaas? He is a famous architect. I know this because you tell me he is a famous architect. I hear that Rem Koolhaas is always sleeping. He is, I presume, sleeping right now. And I hear he gets shit done. And I also hear that in a stunning move, he is making a building that looks not like a glass cock, but like a concrete vagina. When you sleep more, you get vagina. You can all take a lesson from Rem Koolhaas.

Life is hard for me, please understand. Architects are an important part of my existence. They call me at eleven at night and say they just got off work, am I hungry? Listen, it is practically midnight. I ate hours ago. So long ago that, in fact, I am hungry again. So yes, I will go. Then I will go and there will be other architects talking about AutoCAD shortcuts and something about electric panels and can you believe that is all I did today, what a drag. I look around the table at the poor, tired, and hungry, and think to myself, I have but only one bullet left in the gun. Who will I choose?

I have a friend who is a doctor. He gives me drugs. I enjoy them. I have a friend who is a lawyer. He helped me sue my landlord. My architect friends have given me nothing. No drugs, no medical advice, and they don’t know how to spell subpoena. One architect friend figured out that my apartment was one hundred and eighty seven square feet. That was nice. Thanks for that.

I suppose one could ask what someone like me brings to architects like yourselves. I bring cheer. I yell at architects when they start talking about architecture. I force them to discuss far more interesting topics, like turkey eggs. Why do we eat chicken eggs, but not turkey eggs? They are bigger. And people really like turkey. See? I am not afraid to ask the tough questions.

So, dear architects, I will stick around, for only a little while. I hope that one day some of you will become doctors and lawyers or will figure out my taxes. And we will laugh at the days when you spent the entire evening talking about some European you’ve never met who designed a building you will never see because you are too busy working on something that will never get built. But even if that day doesn’t arrive, give me a call anyway, I am free.

Yours truly,
Annie Choi




02 August 2007

Beard or No Beard?


What say you?



Seth and Laura's Wedding in Houston

The week after my trip to Chicago, I flew down to Houston, TX to attend the wedding for fellow architecture student, Seth Borland and his wife Laura. It too, was a lot of fun. I got to spend time with good friends, eating good food, drinking and dancing. Not bad at all. The wedding was held in a beautiful methodist church and the reception was at the MFA of Houston. The Mies Van Der Rohe Building. Pretty amazing. Some of the galleries were open as was the James Turrell tunnel that runs to the Rafael Moneo addition. The wedding band was kickin and the night seemed fun for all. Unfortunately, I didn't actually get a picture of the bride and groom. Damnit! Maybe I can snag one from some flickr website....

A pic of the main reception hall in the MFA. Amazing room.

Jack and I at dinner and before the serious dancing got under way.

A collection of weird UT Architecture students. l-r: Stephen, David, Greg, Elizabeth, Jack, Erica, Seth, Wade, Doug, me, Roman. Yes, we do love the devil.


Entrance to the MFA with these awesome Japanese sculptures. I wrote down the name of the artist but lost it. Damn it. I want these in front of my house. Hideous and amazing.

Later, after the reception wore down we went to a house party and danced until 3:30am. Good times but probably not the smartest plan for feeling chipper the next morning.

Jack, me, Erica, Elizabeth

Elizabeth and Jack cuttin' it up. Erica drinks.




Liz Rench!

I also got to hang out with my cool friend, Liz Rench. We ate food and walked around downtown Chicago. It was windy.


Then we went to H & M because I needed to get clothes for my friends wedding in Houston. I did find some clothes but I also got distracted by coats and sunglasses.

Liz also has a new car that she's really excited about. It's a Honda Fit and is pretty bitchin'. As you can tell, Liz is happy with it.




01 August 2007

I went to Chicago in July.

I visited Chicago in July to see as many friends as I could. The Pitchfork Music Fest was going on that weekend and I was able to score a few free tickets so I saw some music too. A pretty great weekend.

The first is a pic of my friend Karen with her daughter Opal.
Opal is the daughter of Courtland and Karen and she's about a year old now. Opal, not Karen. Karen is older than that, around my age. I stayed with Courtland and Karen when I was homeless before I moved to Austin. They are awesome people.


Next one is of my friend Joe. Joe goes to architecture school at UT Austin with me. I also spin records with Joe and our friend Ryan. We're pretty great DJs. We used to have a weekly gig spinning records but I don't know if that's going to happen anymore. Someday I'll get a picture of the 3 of us.

This might not be the greatest picture of Joe but I wanted to put it up because I
convinced him to drive up to Chicago from Lexington. We saw some live music and drank some drinks and did a little dancing at Danny's. But first he and his girlfriend wanted to go out for fancy sushi, which we did. You can tell by and the Asians with the funny white coats and fancy bitches behind us.


Last but not least: drinking PBRs on a warm summer day playing
kick ball on the roof of the Butcher Shop. I don't know if it gets much better than this.




I stayed with my good friend Rob (one of the guys playing 4 Square) and Sara and saw a bunch of other friends too (Kevin Mosier, Chris Connelly, Jeff Parker, Jason Ajemian, Josh Abrams, Kim Ambrez, Adriana Durant , Dante Carfagnia, so many people...)

On Friday night I saw Slint perform Spiderland, GZA do Liquid Swords and Sonic Youth play Daydream Nation. Each was amazing in its own way, though I have to say Sonic Youth killed. Kim Gordon just danced up and down for about the last 15 minutes of their set.

On Sunday I saw some more music at Pitchfork with Joe. Some of the highlights for me were Cadence Weapon and The Field. Cadence Weapon is, apparently, a Canadian and is also a great rapper. Plus he was wearing a Suns Charles Barkley jersey, which is pretty fresh.



Then The Field played. He is a Swedish DJ/Musician who makes epic minimal techno. That too was pretty great. He also apparently likes Flock of Seagulls and sailors.

Oh, and my sister's pregnant.

Yes, I will be an uncle. I can't believe it. She is due on October 2nd, which is pretty soon. The Sylvester and relations have October locked down. That's Oct. 2 for her, 6th for me and Ryan (Herling), 10th for Dad, 11th for Stephen (Herling) and 16th for Anthony. Libras kick ass!


Here are Kate and Anthony. They've been kind enough to let me stay with them in their basement (don't worry, it's finished) for the whole summer while I'm working at Coop15. They have a nice house in the Greenwood area. They live across from an elementary school, much like Alexis and I do now.

Their dog Boca needs lots of attention.


Katie was also pretty excited recently to start to set up the baby's room. New crib!



New House in Austin

I moved into a new place with a good friend of mine from UT. His name is Alexis Kurland and he is a lot taller than me. Like 6'5". He grew up in Oakland, CA and Albuquerque, NM before moving to Portland, OR. He majored in Philosophy but now is going to be an architect. He can talk smart. He also waits tables. I don't have any pictures of him but he took some of the house (it's actually a duplex) and cut them together nicely in Photoshop. I think I'll just use them instead of mine because he did a good job.




If you ever want to send me something--you know like a letter or even a present of some sort--I now live at:

1404 A Ashwood Rd.
Austin, TX 78722





Oh dear. I haven't updated this for a year.

Well, the summer is almost over. The time to return to Austin and UT is approaching and to be honest I'm filled with dread. Oh, I like school fine, I'm just not ready to go back yet.

Here are some pictures of Seattle. It probably would have been better to post these at the beginning of the summer but what can I say? I'm lazy. This really is like web sssssssppppppppppaaaaaaaaaacccccccceeeeeeeee log. Anyway, I've been here since late May. Summertime in Seattle is amazing. Probably the nicest summer (at least weather-wise) I've ever lived through).


Here's the office where I work. It is a small residential design company called Coop15. Don't ask about the name, I have no idea. Architects love words and like to think they can be clever with them. They rarely are.




Here are some pics of a few of my co-workers. They are all "intern-architects" officially. That means they've had a ton of architecture school but still aren't legally allowed to call themselves "architect." There's about 3 years of internship and a number of tests to take before that can happen. Ah, protectionism! The first is a pic of Zeke checking some drawings in the conference room. The second is of Steve and Trevor up to no good. The desk I sit at is in the lower foreground.



Here's a nice pic of the Queen Anne neighborhood. It is really nice and pretty fancy. It is also really white (like, I suppose, most of Seattle). That part is still strange to me. I don't think I've seen one black person here since I started work.

Queen Anne is on top of hill just north of downtown. My bike ride is brutal because I have to ride down Phinney Ridge, cross the Fremont Bridge and then ride back up Queen Anne hill. Then reverse on the way home. Usually by Friday of every week I need a break off the bike. I know, poor me. I think the bike ride to work is actually one of the reasons this has been such a great summer. What's better than riding your bike to work everyday when it is 70 degrees and sunny? OK. I better post this before it gets too long.... DS