Yelling in The Basement

Newt-Cicle

2012-01-19T15:28:00.000-08:00

A fellow blogger ‘The Voice of Reason’ posted this on Facebook today. He took the photo and was asking around if anyone knew what it was. I guess it was kinda like ‘Encounters of the N’th Degree’ or something like that movie. Well, I looked closer and did a spectrum analysis on it and found the likeness of Newt frozen inside.

This “Newt-cicle” must have come from another dimension, nearest thing I can figure. I know we’ve been seeing this guy a lot lately. Maybe this is a future thing sent back to the past, or, like, now. Like in Back to the Future.

So what the hell happened in the future to cause this Newt-cicle to land in a residential cul-de-sac here in the northwest? I just have no idea. His expression looks like he’s surprised, turning and saying, “Hey, don’t freeze me into a big popsicle dick and put me into space!”

Maybe he was elected president. Wow.

I know that tricky Dick got kicked out of the White House and sent home on a helicopter. Clinton too, well, almost. And God knows what’s going to happen to Obama. But just imagine – the first president to get sent into space as a big frozen phallus. Wow. I can hardly wait for the future!

It’s always something…

Nation's designers unveil a "peek into the Grey"

2012-01-17T15:02:00.000-08:00

Designers in New York showcased today a "peek into the grey" for 2012, based on Benjamin Poore's new colors. Shown in the previous article, the new colors have arrived in the nick of time to give designers a pallette of non-color destined to dampen even the most obnoxiously cheery spirit for 2012.

"With the new presidency of Mitt Romney and the Republican takeover of Congress this year," explains Mr. Poore, "We will see the disappearing middle class in need more than ever of depressing colors to help them ease into darkness."

It is thought that with ever increasing numbers of Americans stepping up into that coveted 1% that there will be more employment and indenture opportunities for the middle class as they enter into the robust and competitive servant class. "People will be working more than one job and won't have time for grousing." says Mr. Poore. "Moreover, they will be able to see the lives of the 1% more closely as the indentured class takes its role in society, most certainly providing the inspiration one needs to succeed in serving."

Mr. Poore declined to muse on the destiny of the Democratic Party, "...but with the ever increasing power of the 'SuperPac', it seems certain we're headed for a one-party system." He added.

Nation's designers welcome in the new 'economy-inspired' paint colors for 2012

2011-10-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Poore Introduces 8 New Hues

For the New Economy

Already offering you designers more than 3,000 shades, Benjamin Poore says its new 8-strong Color-less Stories collection not only reflects your clients' zero options for a bright future but also introduces a whole new concept in paint science by doubling the number of failures in each formula to create a full spectrum of color-less hues.

Benjamin Poore says it's re-created the can with its new Color-less Stories paint line. The collection's nine palettes contain 240 hues of what the company calls an incredible array of dull-spectrum non-colors, which are achieved by omitting five to seven pigments rather than the usual three and celebrating the more depressing black and gray tints as filler. The company claims the paint is richer and the darks have more depth, emulating our less than vibrant economy and the deep despair our government is providing us, especially with elections coming up in 2012.

The pigments being blended to create these nuanced hues have no volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Because the company makes its own colorants it can ensure that when pigments are mixed into low-VOC paint the total VOCs remain under 50 grams per liter. This has less meaning considering a quicker death nowadays by starvation instead of breathing in fumes but is progress nonetheless.

The overtones generated from careful blending of no pigments will be readily apparent to builders, architects, designers, and homeowners who have all but lost everything they ever owned. Natural versus artificial lighting will affect dynamic changes in the paint's otherwise drab characteristics throughout the day. "With Color-less Stories there's a complete lack of complexity and compromise to the color experience that is amazing," states Jay Romez, Benjamin Poore's director of color marketing, in a release about the new line. “This new color line accurately represents what our Congress and House of Representatives is truly providing the country now – a total lack of leadership and a total failure to act fostering a complete lack of trust and hope for any kind of even dismal future for this country” he goes on to say, “the colors are right on target”.

The palettes assembled to debut this new paint mixology include an array of un-inspired shades of grey with individual colors ranging from a muted gray called sea salt to the vivid grey of the certain approaching Great Depression II . Each palette evokes a different place or mood to give the collection a personal feel—earthen blackish hues, elemental light greys, fiery blacks, fluid black-greys, black dead fields, naturally neutral, shades of gray and 'forclosure pewter' an uninspiring hue of a sickly national grey.

"And after all..." says Jay,"....the country WAS only black and white during the depression."

It's always something...

Big Ben Leans - but which direction?

2011-10-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

Big Ben is leaning. I’ve heard about this too and decided to look into some British history to see exactly which way it might actually be leaning.

With some help from Wikipedia, I fount that prior to the mid-19th century politics in the United Kingdom was dominated by the Whigs and the Tories. These were not political parties in the modern sense but somewhat loose alliances of interests and individuals.

The Whigs included many of the leading aristocratic dynasties committed to the Protestant succession, and later drew support from elements of the emerging industrial interests and wealthy merchants, while the Tories were associated with the landed gentry, the Church of England and the Church of Scotland.

By the mid 19th century the Tories had evolved into the Conservative Party, and the Whigs had evolved into the Liberal Party. In the late 19th century the Liberal Party began to pursue more left wing policies, and many of the heirs of the Whig tradition became Liberal Unionists and moved closer to the Conservatives on many of the key issues of the time.

The Liberal and Conservatives dominated the political scene until the 1920s, when the Liberal Party declined in popularity and suffered a long stream of resignations. It was replaced as the main left-wing party by the newly emerging Labour Party, who represented an alliance between the trades unions and various socialist societies.

So it seems that it’s really leaning in the direction of your point of view.

From the bridge the Conservatives claim Big Ben is leaning to the Right. From the other side, the Labour Party claims Big Ben is certainly leaning to the Left.

It’s not leaning much yet. Experts say 1.64 feet (9 mm per year) this is 1/16th the lean of the Tower in Pisa. They conclude:

"Our resident expert believes it will be between 4,000 and 10,000 years before it becomes a problem. They don't know what's behind the acceleration, however, and say that there's "No real proof what has caused it"."

An American entrepreneur has suggested moving Big Ben to Washington DC to solve the problem of which way it’s leaning and, hopefully someday to fix it.

This was not approved, however, since experts estimated that the Administration, Congress and The House would not be able to agree on this for at least 15,000 years. Big Ben would then share the Mall Reflecting Pool with the Washington Monument in its horizontal resting place.

It's always something...

Unstable Eddie

2011-09-23T17:42:00.000-07:00

Dinner at O’Hare only takes up so much of a 3 hour lay over. Especially when there is no one to share it with. So I dragged my carry-on around and around. I finally tired of the endless trek up and down and retired briefly to gate 28, flight 871 to Seattle. A four hour flight to be sure, but I just had to sit for awhile.

Across from me sat a middle aged woman and a man-boy kind of person - not sure if he was her son, or grand son or what. She was having an animated cell phone conversation and he was immersed in some sort of video game. He was doing something on a screen which I couldn’t see, raucously poking it and shaking it, making odd faces of pain and occasional joy. He became really agitated now and then and his mom (?) would just tap his arm to stop his stomping feet. I noticed one of those medical alert dog tags around his neck. I blew out some air and glanced sideways at an imaginary camera filming this (kind of like on ‘The Office’).

I sat there for a moment or two more and noticed the woman had one of those ticket pouches some folks carry around their necks who take cruises and such. Their boarding passes were neatly tucked inside. The clear plastic allowed the seat number to be seen. 8F was on the top ticket. Uh huh. What was MY seat number I wondered. Yeah, I checked. Mine was 8D. which is an aisle seat. 8F is a window seat, which meant, yes, the hidden ticket - HIS ticket, had to be 8E. which was NEXT TO ME. Holy God! No. PLEASE, no. I was sitting next to Unstable Eddie.

I had another hour to brood about this and wondered if I should go have another martini. I elected against that, having just had two plus a large glass of wine. Maybe I could maintain my altitude.

They announced that our airplane had a mechanical malfunction and that it would take too long to repair (like maybe re attaching the left wing or something) so we all did the Bataan death march with our belongings down to gate 23. Mom (?) was extremely annoyed at this but Unstable Eddie found it somehow entertaining. Added to the melee was a gaggle of what looked to be an African refugee family, or perhaps a small village in Somalia, queuing up behind their sponsor who was confused about ticketing and paperwork. I swear to God the little kids looked like they had just got off the photo take at CNN, wearing dusty ragged clothes and such. This was just weird. They all got on the plane and I never saw them again.

We boarded. I had to, of course, get up for mom (?) and Unstable Eddie as they put all their crap in the overhead and clambered into their seats. Eddie crash landed into his seat and began arguing with mom (?). He got out the video game along with a packet of tablets, a syringe case and some sort of blood tester thing from his Darth Vader Space bag. His mom (?) opened a book. Eddie spilled some pills into his hand and quaffed them down with a gulp from the 32 ounce Diet Coke he had brought on board. Then he tested his blood. Then he opened the syringe kit, took one out and stabbed his stomach with it. His mom (?) turned the page.

I gave a long sideways glance into the camera that was surely filming this.

As soon as we were airborne Eddie got up, made an uncomfortable scene struggling past the beverage cart and went to assumedly drain 20 ounces of fluid in the first class toilet. (we weren’t in first class). Fifteen minutes later I had to get up and let him repeat the process. His mom (?) flipped another page. Eddie returned, finished the 32 ounce Diet Coke and ordered two more from the Attendant. Then he passed out. His mom (?) flipped another page.

I looked at my watch. Two more hours to Seattle. And Eddie would awaken soon.

It’s always something.

Good to Go

2011-06-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

Watched a report on the status of “Good To Go” on TV by Robert Mak a few days ago. I’ve got my little G-T-G thing on my windshield, as demanded by WSDOT. Looks like this thing won’t start now until late July, right about when Seattle gets its two weeks of blistering, sultry hot 78 degree summer. Well, I’m ready, by god.

Yep, a toll for all seasons it’s touted to be. There’s a different charge for different times on different days – and – if your car happens to be blown off the bridge midway, you won’t be charged for the trip! How cool is that?

Mak interviewed a State Legislator who was making some noise about maybe this toll isn’t enough. Maybe they should toll BOTH frickin’ bridges. Yep, you just wait. It’ll happen. In fact, hell, maybe they ought to just toll the beegeezus out of every route to anywhere. We HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY.

I’ve done a little map to help the lawmakers who can read get a jump on this idea and trump it up down in Olympia.

Note also that we go “out” to Issaquah…”over” to Redmond…and “up” to Monroe. Kind of a Seattle thing I guess.

So, we’ll pay a toll everywhere we go. The next step is for the State to tattoo a barcode onto our foreheads and we can pay tolls for, say, sidewalks, public buildings and stairways, the waterfront…..just imagine the possibilities for sorely needed State Revenue.

A barcode that has stopped moving on the street could signal a death possibly by a mugging or being hit by a car, maybe passed out from inebriation, any number of things. This way, aid can be directed to the toll payer in hopes of saving them so they can continue to provide revenue. Nothing wasted.

It’s always something………

It's almost here!!

2011-06-14T16:29:00.000-07:00

It’s coming next week! June 21^st! The first day of summer for us folks north of the hemisphere. The Earth sort of tilts this way and that. And when it’s on the backward (or is it forward?) tilt that means the northern hemisphere does a leaner towards the sun.

The sun, as we remember from 8^th grade science class is 5,778 degrees Kelvin, 5,5505 degrees Celsius, or just more commonly known as 18 bazillion firkin degrees. This is really, REALLY hot, fusing something like 620 million METRIC TONS of hydrogen each second. Almost an equivalent of the amount of oxygen Sarah Palin’s ignorance sucks out of a room.

We don’t burn up, of course, because the sun is damn near 150 million kilometers away. What we DO, is set out the barbee, put on our shorts and sandals, our SPF 45 and hit the beach. That is, everyone but Seattleites. (I still think of little beeping, orbiting people when I see the word ‘Seattleite’).

No, Seattle is different. This year we had measureable rain on 87 of 131 days through May 11. That’s like, 66%. Now, counting the days when we had a TRACE of rain the statistic jumps to 104 of 131 days with rain (wet is wet whether or not Mr. Peabody measures it at the airport). F’ing ridiculous.

Anyone watching the weather channel can see the problem here. What apparently happens is that THE ENTIRE PACIFIC OCEAN evaporates each year, travels up, swirls over Washington and condenses, falls and runs back to fill the ocean back up. WHO the HELL would want to LIVE in a place like this? Just ask the little beeping, orbiting people.

I wouldn’t want to live in Alaska though. No oxygen.

It’s always something.

I Gave My Life for You

2011-05-30T12:15:00.000-07:00

I gave my life for you, Continental Army so you could defeat the tyranny of the British monarchy.

I gave my life for you, Marine Corps so you could take the island and step closer to winning the war to keep our freedom…

I gave my life for you, U.S. Army 4^th Infantry, so you could take the beach at Normandy…

I gave my life for you, Caen Canal Bridge so our troops could use it in the quest to defeat the Nazis who threatened our freedom…….

I gave my life for you, guy at the LA airport, so you could have the freedom to spit and call me ‘baby killer’ when I got home on leave from

Viet Nam

…..

I gave my life for you, media, so some of you could keep the right to berate our presidents…..

I gave my life for you all, so you could choose to hate or love and be free to express yourselves…..

I’m still on the battle fields where they could not find me to bring me home, at the bottom of the sea, in the dust in the air and, here, in Normandy where I lie in pristine rows at peace with my brothers and sisters, that eternal peace which passes all understanding……

Remember me.

COWBOYS SOUGHT HIM

2011-05-11T14:46:00.000-07:00

I'm researching and writing a chronicle on my mother's family history in Salina, Kansas. Just starting it. I have a newspaper clipping on the death of my great grandfather written in 1910 or thereabouts. I have copied it here. How writing styles have changed..........this has run on sentences run amok. I guess the newspaper folk in Salina Kansas in 1910 considered themselves lucky finding anyone who could write at all............

as written --

Andrew Stockenberg, who died three weeks ago of leakage of the heart and dropsy, at his home on south Connecticut, was known as far back as forty years ago as the neatest cobbler on the plains, and drew many cowboys and not a few Indians to his little shop on south fifth street to have their chaps and gauntlets mended and their shoes and boots made as well as the Indian’s moccasins. He was known for miles around as the best man for the cowboys to have to fix their leather upholstery because of his reputation of his neatness.

At that time even an occasional buffalo would come grazing around the small village of Salina, almost into the main streets as if in search of the neatest cobbler to mend its boots which were worn and cut on the sand swept prairies.

Indians were numerous who visited the little shop either in search of new moccasins or repairs for the old ones. And all liked and greeted with good cheer the neatest of cobblers who made their leather goods look as good as new, their Indian moccasins soft and pliable and artistically trimmed, with new designs on the cowboy’s high stout boots which fit so well, and soft new leather well arranged in the seats of their well worn chaps.

As time went on and the buffalo disappeared and the Indians became a rare sight, and the cowboys fewer, the men up and down the dusty wooden shack lined street came more often to the little shop in search of the neatest of cobblers to see if he could make for them a couple of pairs of shoes. Many times during those years the cobbler toiled far into the night to supply the demand for his handiwork in shoes and boots. No “boughten” boots for those men with this cobbler so willing to work, who could make such soft boots that fit so well and wore so long. And no patches seemed as nice as those put in by this cobbler, none mended so neatly into the worn places of the boot or shoe and none had so few rough spots.

Through all but the last six years of the forth seven years of his life in Salina, Mr. Stockenberg continued as a business this work of making shoes, and in these latter years many prominent business men would visit his shop that was moved to to his home on South Connecticut to have him make their shoes.

Mr. Stockenberg was a foreman in a big store factory in Chicago and bought a farm although he had never before seen it out near the Salemsborg church.

He had made up his mind to leave Chicago and farm, in peace and quiet the rest of his life, so leaving his family he came to Salina and went out to his farm, but at the close of the first day declared it was too much peace and quiet and came back to the small village that was known as Salina. Then he decided to open a shoe shop, after listening to the arguments of the cowboys and residents regarding the need of one. His family, composed of his wife, two sons and two daughters, joined him although lacking considerably in enthusiasm of the wild nature of the country.

it's always something

Excitement about the Smallest Things can Make Your Day

2011-04-28T17:23:00.000-07:00

A high point in my day has become getting the mail delivery. It’s true; we get mostly bills and an endless jetsam of advertisement waste. The great thing about all this crap you get in the mail is – it’s bulky. What’s so great about that, you may ask? Well, it means that the postal carrier has to put a rubber band around it. And, the rubber band is FREE!

Hot damn, yes, you heard right – free. Now, I’ve been diligent about saving these over the years and have a collection such that I never have to go to Office Max to buy rubber bands. Going to Office Max as many have heard about lately is a hellish venture for some.

The Post Office rubber bands come in a variety of shapes and wear. Many of them are pre-discolored with newsprint that tells folks “this person is a recycler; a consciences consumer, always reconsidering something used instead of crackin’ open a new pack of stuff.” Gives me a sense of pride.

I’ve got lots of rubber bands nowadays. Our architect business is down to the nubs and we don’t have any plans to roll up and secure with a rubber band. They have other uses though. They held up our plants until they all died. You can use them to keep the sole of your shoe from flapping. And you can use them instead of expensive file folders to hold repossession and past due notices together so you don’t lose them. They can even serve as a fastener for button less jeans.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s bundle.

It’s always something.

Shingles - More to 'em than meets the eye

2011-04-26T14:50:00.000-07:00

Where to begin with this? Got back from Kansas Tuesday April 5th at midnight. I had spent two full weeks with my mom, cooking, taking care of her and watching all the programming fox network provides its minions. Got a HORRIBLE cold the 2nd week there in Kansas. Couldn't tell at first, what with a combination of the good ol’ Midwest hay fever resurrected in my sinuses and the constant smoky haze of Marlboro 100 lights (that's light, as in - hey this will kill perhaps just a teensy bit slower than the regulars). Geezus frick-a-monda what misery.

I noticed a rash on my face the night before my flight back to Seattle. Tuesday flying all day I checked it during trips to the flying can and at layovers. I was becoming disfigured. By the end of the day my face was swollen on the left side and I looked like I had just lost a prize fight, gone out into the alley, got mugged, and then shot in the face with a shotgun. I think this is why folks were giving me lots of extra room at the airport. Next day I went to the doctor. He said I had the Shingles. And, yes, it's as bad as it's advertised to be. In my case the virus had awakened from its slumber and found the jail cell door wide open, as all my antibody cops were fighting the cold and no one was in the jail to keep guard. These malevolent little virus bastards, now fully awake, found themselves on 'John's face nerve Ave.' and decided to make up for the lost time since they had participated in my Chicken Pox so long ago.

My teeth felt like I was having constant dental surgery with NO NOVACAINE. This lasted for 3 days, even with the Vicadin. My eye was swollen shut. My mouth and chin were swollen so I couldn't eat except through a straw. Then I got sick on my meds. Come to find out the pharmacy mis-typed the instructions and I was taking 6 times the normal amount. Medicine vomit is a curious experience. There’s no real substance, no volume. Nothing floating to survey as to what it might have been before partially digested.

I'm better today - just mild pain - and the wounds are healing on my face. I’ve gone past the ‘frightening little kids’ stage of facial disfigurement. It’s been nearly a month and I still can’t sleep comfortably. I have this ‘St. Elmo’s fire’ thing wafting over my face all day and my eyes still hurt. I’m hoping I don’t have the ‘long term’ version of this which I’m told can last forever.

If you have had the Chicken Pox and are getting’ on to 60 then I’d suggest getting the Shingles Vaccine. (I kept seeing the advertising for this and for the longest time wondered why one would need to be vaccinated against being single.)

It’s always something..

here's some good information...

http://www.shinglesinfo.com/index.html

Back when the world was black and white

2011-03-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

Well, Internets, I’m in Salina, Kansas this week and next. My mom is 90 years old this year and still living on her own – sort of. She’s needing more care and my brother’s family needs a break so I’m here for awhile.

Mom was the 7^th kid, born 1921. Ten were in her family. Six girls, two boys, mom and dad. In one house, four bedrooms, one bathroom. Kitchen had an icebox and a wood-fired cook stove/oven. You put a big cardboard sign in your front window on the day the ice man came by, with the amount of ice you needed; 25, 50 or 75 pounds of block ice. He would pull the block down with tongs, go around to the kitchen and heft it up in the top compartment of the ice box.

The stove was fired with wood. I don’t even want to know how difficult that was. No hot water (they heated buckets on the wood stove). Washed the clothes that way. No dryer. You ran the clothes through a wringer and hung them outside. Six girls, two boys must have made wash day interesting.

For baths, same drill. Heat buckets of water from the pump on the stove; carry them through the dining room, living room, boy’s bedroom, mom and dad’s bedroom to the one bathroom in the corner of the house. Take a bath. Drain the water into the yard. Put on your clothes from the clothes line after ironing them with an iron heated on the wood stove and you’re all set to go out and walk to wherever you need to go. The boy’s Sunday shirts and dad’s shirt were starched with a mix that mom would make on ironing day.

Their dad had the car all week, traveling in western Kansas selling china and crystal for an outfit in Kansas City. They couldn’t order stuff on line.

This all sounds like geezer-speak, but danged if I haven’t been impressed with all the things my mom’s family didn’t have. What they did have was a closeness that you don’t see too often these days.

All except for my mom they’re all still very close – in the dirt about a mile from here. And as one may or may not choose to believe, now in a better place with more conveniences.

It’s always something.

That dang Comet Elenin

2011-03-17T11:43:00.000-07:00

So I'm thinkin', was the Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan recently due to this comet thing? (see last blog below). March 15th came and went and nothing bad really happened, other than another usual tragically bad day for me. Gee.....maybe....dooya think?

It's always something.

Mark your calendar - March 15

2011-03-02T14:40:00.000-08:00

In the interest of passing along life-saving information I am putting this on my blog. Of course, I "snoped" it and found it in an article on "bad astronomy". So, here are links to You-tube posts I found interesting. If you're reading this blog it stands to reason that, 1) you're a professional time-waster and 2) you are interested in occasional humor (which, I admit is only occasional here in my basement).

This stuff is classic. I just love "the truther girls" I've become a follower....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hfo0RLxMrA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVJ3ETfSDtc&feature=related

it's always something

Another One Bites the Dust.....

2011-02-21T11:36:00.000-08:00

Well, Johnny Nitro sailed off to the Big Gig last Saturday night. Never new the guy. He was a cousin of a friend of mine, guitar player, from San Francisco living up here. Sounds like he, as many musicians, led a few years of ‘dog life’. That’s when you age 7x faster than you should. I figure B.B. King has to be what? 150 – 185, somewhere around there with this factored in? He had to sit down for Obama’s gig, but who can blame him?

I’ve been reading the obituaries more often in the Sunday paper. I don’t know, it just seems interesting now. Kind of like when you’re in line, nearing the row of windows you sort of start looking left and right to see how short the other line is. You can count the people to the window easier in the other lines than in your own line. Yeah….I check the years of birth and sort of am relieved to see more in the 1920’s and even 1930’s than late 1940’s. But still I check. Kind of morbid I guess.

Every now and then someone born in the 1960’s kicks it (yeah, and the guys I knew who went to Nam) and I think “man, they came and went and here I still am…”

I swore to my family the other evening that I didn’t want them to leave me in a vegetative state – to be dependent on a machine and fluids from a bottle. They came over, unplugged my computer and threw out my wine.

It’s always something

Your Fortune Awaits.......

2011-02-13T16:26:00.000-08:00

February 3 was the date heralding the New Chinese Year. 2011 is the year of the Rabbit, according to the neighborhood bulletin board in the Chinese/Cantonese restaurant down the street. Canton is supposedly in Southern China.

I guess southern Chinese food is like chop suey with grits and ribs maybe, or perhaps Barbeque sauce on the side.

It all tastes much the same to me. But then I’m not an affection-ado of Chinese cuisine. I do like Sum Dum, that type of meal where a horde of wait staff wheels around carts laden with various cooked (mostly are cooked) things. Some of the really fresh entrees have not died yet and other entrees seem to have been dead quite some time. Almost all of them, dead or alive, are slippery and elude the novice chopstick. I usually stab it with one stick and eat it like a corndog. This makes some of the staff frown and gives them something more to talk about in the kitchen. Did I say talk? I’m sorry, yell. I’ve never been in a Chinese kitchen but all seem to have a certain constant din.

My favorite thing about a Chinese restaurant meal is the fortune cookie. A simple mixture of egg white, vanilla extract, unbleached flour and sugar, the fortune cookie can be just a cookie or a new life. They’re usually positive and chime in along the lines of astrology in their significance. All depends on the reader. They’re fun when they make you think you have friends and will get rich. I’ve grown to depend on them from time to time, being an architect.

So there’s this guy in Missouri who’s down on his luck and he has purchased 365 fortune cookies and is living each day by what they say. Here, check it out for yourself…

http://www.mydailyfortune.net/

I don’t know. I think I’ll just keep enjoying them whenever I have Chinese. Every now and then you open one that makes you think twice, however.

It's always something.....

Weather Rodent

2011-02-02T17:29:00.000-08:00

My friend, Mr. Cranky, posted this li'l fellow on Facebook today and I can't leave my post without passing this along.

Seems like Punksutawney, Pa. isn't the only town here in the U S of A that has this ridiculous tradition. They have one of these in Wallingford, a neighborhood of Seattle. "Wallingford Phil" lives in the crawl space under the Safeway on 45th St. Having survived being eaten by the homeless, ol' Phil has been faithful, coming out on Feb. 2nd every year.

Feb. 2nd traditionally is the midpoint between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. In Seattle it's darn hard to tell where the middle is, especially between two equally cold and grey periods of time. Thankfully, Phil knows, and his emergence helps reset the clock.

Folks in Seattle can't remember a time when ol' Phil has not seen his shadow on February 2nd.

"...yeah, it's usually cold and freeze-ass windy around these parts come the first week of February..." chimes in Fred Mortz of Wallingford. ".....dang if it ain't sunny though.."

And danged if it doesn't always come true in Seattle. 6 more months of winter. The skies break sunny for a week or so, right after the annual soaker on the 4th of July. Then it's time to shake it of and hobble back to the crawl space.

It's always something.......

Getting Ready for Summer in Seattle

2011-01-23T22:18:00.000-08:00

I was rummaging around in my basement the other day looking for our lawn chairs. What started my search was seeing the sun come out. It was only for five minutes or so. This is quite an event in Seattle. Folks take the day off early, the floating bridge traffic snarls due to blindness for drivers and one can see some of the Northwest mole people out on the wet grass, shirts off reading their articles on green living recycling in the balmy 45 degree filtered sunlight.

Sure, I know it won’t be nice until summer. But I was excited – and just couldn’t wait until July 15^th, the first day of the week-long Seattle summer. With only a week of summer I figured I would get the drop on it by repainting my lawn chairs now with Rust-oleum. They would certainly be dry by June. Plenty of time to get them ready to run out to the yard and use them for the summer week.

I found the lawn chairs finally. They had accumulated a bit of rust. Looked high and low for my can of Rust-oleum but it wasn’t in the basement.

I went out to the garage and found it on the shelf. The irony of the condition of the can was not lost on me. I’m heading out to Costco to get some green spray paint. Maybe I’ll see if the summer furniture is on sale yet.

It’s always something…

Pause for Reflection

2011-01-16T20:54:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you see something that is just so stupid it grabs you. I saw this in a New Yorker Calendar last month.

It’s always something

A centuries-old argument

2010-12-19T23:44:00.000-08:00

There have been squabbles in Catholic-Jewish relations for centuries. And as recently as two years ago disappointments arose again, this time from text in the

Vatican

’s Good Friday prayer. One can research this, but the holiday season of good cheer and all that has inspired me to write of the wonderful story that happened about 400 years ago.

Back then the Jewish folks had a modest residency at the

Vatican

. This had been on and off again over the centuries. One day the Pope had words with the Jewish delegation and decided to once and for all evict them from the

Vatican

. This caused uproar with the Jewish Community such that the Pope agreed to a deal. He would have a religious debate with a member of the Jewish Community; if the Jew won, the Jews could stay; if the Pope won, the Jews would leave.

The Jews realized that they had no choice. Attempting to catch the Pope off guard they picked a commoner among them named Moishe to be their representative. Moishe asked for one additional rule for the debate. To make it more interesting, neither party would be allowed to speak during the debate. The Pope was skeptical but willing to go along and he agreed.

The day of the great debate came. Moishe and the Pope sat opposite each other. For a full minute they were motionless; then the Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers.

Moishe looked back at him and raised one finger. The pope then waved his fingers in a circle around his head.

Moishe then pointed to the ground where he sat. The Pope looked at him and quickly pulled a wafer and a glass of wine from his ornate satchel. Moishe pulled out an apple from his paper sack.

The Pope was dumbfounded and stood up, raising his hands saying, “This man is too good. The Jews can stay.”

An hour later, the Cardinals gathered around the Pope asking him what had happened. The Pope said; “First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there was still one God common to both our religions. Then I waved my finger around me to show him that God was all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground, showing that God was right here with us. I pulled out the wine and the wafer to show him that God absolves us from our sins through His Son. He pulled an apple from his sack to remind me of Original Sin. He had an answer for everything!”

Meanwhile, the Jewish Community had crowded around Moishe. “What happened?” They asked. “Well,” Said Moishe, first he indicated to me that the Jews had three days to get out of here. I indicated back to him that not ONE of us was leaving. Then he indicated that the whole

Vatican

as well as the city would be cleared of the Jews. I let HIM know that WE were staying right here.”

“And then….?” Asked a woman.

“I don’t know,” Moishe said. “He took out his lunch and I took out mine….”

Inner Peace Discovered

2010-12-10T13:33:00.000-08:00

I saw this awhile back on Dr. Phil. I don’t usually watch him but I had just thrown a paperweight across the room in a fit of uncontrolled rage watching a brief segment of Hannity on Fox News (which I had stopped on while surfing the cable). It shattered an expensive vase and damaged a lamp. I was about to throw the remote through the TV itself. Picking it up, my thumb hit the buttons and Dr. Phil popped up. I saw this as a divine intervention.

I feel compelled to pass this along via my blog because I found it to be the best advice I’ve had in some time.

Dr. Phil proclaimed “…the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started – but have never finished…”

So, I looked around my house to see all the things I started and hadn't
finished. I made a resolution right then and there.

Before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, a package of Oreos, the remainder of my old Valium prescription, the rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos, a box of chocolates, and a half bottle of scotch.

You have no idea how freaking good I feel right now.

Pass this on to those whom you think might be in need of inner peace.

Pat-down alternative

2010-11-21T22:08:00.000-08:00

You’ve probably heard of this, so go on to the next blog if you have. I just thought it was so ingenious that it needed to be passed along.

Airport screening. E-gad what a mess it is now. Full body scans or, your choice, a nice touchy-feely pat down. Everyone is up in arms. Well, not really everyone as the press loves to intimate, but certainly another step in the invasion of privacy in the quest of safety. And, just recently, some poor guy with a Foley Urinary Catheter bag full of urine had it ruptured by an aggressive TSA employee such that he had to endure a trip home smelling like he just came off a New York subway. Now THAT would piss you off.

Not to worry, citizens. Not to worry. Someone has come up with a solution. Everyone would still need to be screened, but this steps back from a feeling of invasion towards a more high-tech, sterile approach.

Yes, it’s still impersonal. The solution is to provide a walk-through container operated by airport security. Your luggage would accompany you in the chamber. Once the traveler securely inside, the agent would flip a switch which seeks out and detonates any explosive device in a bag or on the person of said traveler. The explosion chamber resonates with a muffled “whump”, security staff goes in, flushes out the debris, and the process continues. The threat is compromised and the 77 virgins of Islam welcome yet another suitor for all eternity.

A bit harsh? Possibly. Taking the worry out of the friendly skies? Priceless

It’s always something

2010-11-20T12:32:00.000-08:00

While recently in New York City we saw this play, and I have so say is the best one I’ve seen in a great while…..

… I’ll not bother here with detail of plot, what it is - what it is not, though I’m sure it will be some time before I see another play so well written in rhyme.

The following I took from the web site and have paraphrased it since it didn’t sound right. American playwright David Hirson's rollicking 1991 play, La Bete, is a comic tour de force about Elomire (David Hyde Pierce), a high-minded classical dramatist, quite the pessimist, who loves only the theater, and Valere (Mark Rylance), a low-brow street clown who loves only himself, on which he will incessantly expound.

When the fickle princess (Joanna Lumley) decides she's grown weary of Elomire's royal theatre troupe and its theory, he and Valere are left fighting for survival in her court as art squares off with ego in a literary showdown of retort.

At first one wonders just what is it about the clown who blunders his way through the first 30 minutes of the play. But the script so eloquent mesmerizes the listener to such extent that one cannot help but be swept in. Mr. Rylance has a cadence so rhythmic and seemingly unending that it builds the humor - sending the audience into a trance.

How fun it must be to write completely in rhyme that I myself might try it sometime. One who has knowledge of couplet and verse may think this play possibly worse but as for me it was delightful to see it.

It was something

Jesus at the Metropolitan Market

2010-11-17T23:23:00.000-08:00

I'm always grumpy in the morning. The other morning I was heading to the office, hungry, pissed that I was both hungry AND out of bed. I decided to stop by the Metropolitan Market for some yogurt, pissed that I was hungry, out of bed and had to eat something I really didn't want because eating a donut makes me fatter. I pull up, get out of the car and hear a woman's voice crying "Oh, no...OH NOOOOO!". Good Lord, what? A robbery at 7:30 AM?
No. Apparently a stylishly dressed woman was tendering to her stylishly dressed kid and had spilled a $7.50 grande, decaf, double shot, no-whip, mocha-yoka coffee drink inside what appeared to be brand new champagne colored Cadillac SUV mega land-yacht. I surveyed the scene, chuckled to myself and walked into the store, happy that something bad had happened to some hoity-toity rich person.

Then I remembered reading recently again about someone commenting on those W.W.J.D bracelets. What Would Jesus Do? Shit, c'mon, God, don't lay this junk on me right now, I'm sleepy and hungry and in nooo mood.
I started singing this little jingle..."what would Jesus do? what would jeeezus doo, do, do..." and I thought, "well, I suppose He wouldn't have had pleasure from someone's misfortune, now would He?" No, I suppose not.

Then an apple rolled across my path. I picked it up and took it over to the guy stacking them unsuccessfully at the fruit counter. His face lit up as he thanked me. He put it back in the stack. Note to self - this is why we wash apples before eating them. Anyway, it sorta picked me up and gave me a bit of a Jesus is walkin' here strut.

I walked past a depleted bread shelf and, feeling like Jesus, waved my hand over it to see if I could make more bread appear like in that Cecil B. DeMille event 'feeding the 5,000'. Didn't work. The bread was as sad and empty as before. Ahh, WTF I thought. It was fun while it lasted.

I back track to get something and pass back by the bread shelf, now resplendent with fresh new bread, packed to the brim. I have to saay I did a double take and looked at my hands. I went back outside to get in my car and noticed that the SUV had departed with only a small puddle remaining. Then I saw a bread truck leaving the parking lot. Uh huh. I think i might get one of those bracelets anyway. It's entertaining.

It's always something

Catch the last train home - Got to get on it

2010-10-29T11:33:00.000-07:00

This describes what I am feeling this morning as I come to the office on a Friday. We're out of work, or nearly so. The train has left the station. Whatever it was that I had planned to do has passed on. I've been a traveler on this life's journey as an architect, running to catch the next train - sometimes not the train I wanted, but a train that took me to the next town, the next pay station and the map that shows "you are here" on a map in the lobby.

The lobby is empty. Everyone made the train but me this time. There is a cold damp wind out here on the platform as I peer down the track and study it as it disappears into a point. This is one-point perspective you see, and I understand that and know how to draw it and even teach it. It's what I've done for 30 years. But this morning it only reveals a distance into which I won't go today. I've missed the train.

I sit inside the station where it's warm. Even the ticket windows are closed. I look at the light reflected in the windows. It's dark outside and the play of light inside and out, the distorted and reflected colors and shapes are intriguing. The floor is at least 100 years old and has a marvelous patina to it. The shadows play in and out on the stacked equipment in the corner. I think about my work, all the buildings completed - some not so great, some quite satisfying. I take out my sketch pad and pencil and start drawing, thinking about a composition of shapes I see in charcoal or maybe oil. Maybe both.

I look down the track again but this time it's not with a lament of things missed. It's looking for a train to come my way, one on which I will ride to a new destination of adventure, art and expression of who I really am.

A weekend in Westport, Wa

2010-10-17T17:23:00.000-07:00

I first saw Westport when I was about 5. It was all black and white back then. I don't remember much about it but it was really strange and quite frightening riding there in the back seat with my mom and grandparents and seeing the world change to black and white as we went through Aberdeen. My grandpa scared me a little when he got out a bottle of whiskey as we drove into town, took a big swig and chortled in a pirate's voice "...arrgh, we're in Westport, matey...". This had set the tone for that day back then.

My friends and I visited Westport last weekend. Coming back after 50 some-odd years we found that it not only flickered into black and white now and then, drinking seemed to be still quite the pastime. We were pretty hammered that first afternoon when we went out to see the sights. Nothing was in focus, no matter how I tried to take photographs. This....THIS, by the way, is THE TALLEST light house in the State of Washington just so you know. We went up to it and by God, it is.

We found our way back to the car and went over to Ted's IGA to get some supper fixin's. The parking lot was pretty vacant, however, there was a plethora of various dilapidated bicycles parked all around. Walt explained that most everyone in Westport has lost their driver's license due to a DUI so they ride bicycles. I didn't get a good photo of one (mainly because these scruffy folk seemed to take their rides seriously and being new in town I didn't want to wear out my welcome.) I managed to come up with a facsimile here in what may just be a Westporter's dream ride.

Riding a bicycle isn't without risk, however. This me-lee occurred last summer on the main drag when a newcomer to the town who had not yet had a DUI plowed into a group headed down to Ted's to take advantage of a two-for-the-price-of-one sale on Mike's hard lemonade, as long as supplies lasted.

"Geezus H. Christ," One witness said, "It was something like I've never seed. They was bodies lyin' all over." Miraculously no one was hurt. Doc Adams said later he thought that the .34 alcohol levels of most of the riders contributed to this.

Every weekend during most summers a tour boat heads out to spot the drunk floaters that wash up on Saturday and Sunday mornings on the jetty just out from the tide flats. They get their photos and then fish them out, back slapping high five-ing. Then its a memorable boat ride back in as the tourists get treated to the tallest tales ever imagined (or hallucinated). Progressive town that it is, Westport has a "hike 'n bike" program where folks like the floaters and others can borrow a bike and return it to another station around town. Eventually they come across where they left their own bikes.

I'm looking to another trip to Westport next year for sure.

Fine Print digressions

2010-10-10T23:29:00.000-07:00

I don't have a tevo and don't have time to plan out what i want to watch on cable on the remote thing, which means I usually end up watching TV in real time. I don't like most programming on TV. I do watch 'Modern Family', as described earlier in this inane blog. Watch the news. Watch some PBS. This 'n that. C'mon, we ALL watch goddamn TV, even the channel 9 snobs. Admit it, you righteous gluten-free, wheat grass-eating sons a bitches....you like Judge Judy. And you eat cheetos when you watch it.
However, I cannot tell you how much I loathe commercials. Honest-to-God, given the choice of PAYING for watching TV without commercials I would do so. Yeah, I contribute to PBS. PBS doesn't have the really shitty stuff I like to waste my time on though. You know, those times when you just want to sit down and watch some worthless shit on the networks.
The price you pay to watch this worthless network shit is having to watch commercials. 20 minutes of this flotsam for every 40 minutes of programming. AND, I don't know how they do it, but the networks have gotten together and TIMED this barrage of flotsam so that you can't switch from one shitty program to another shitty program without watching a commercial. So you are completely immersed in shit.
Now that they have you where they want you, these hawking bozos insult you further by telling you one thing and completely denying every word they have promised by putting it in the SMALL PRINT. I recorded some of these and went back to read this. It takes quite an effort to see it, even on pause. NONE of what is said in the ad is actually true. It's like watching political ads all year long. (don't get me started).
I went on Google to research some of this and it IS true. fine print disclaims most of what is said. And nothing can be done about it. It's all legal.
Politicians, advertisers, they ALL take us for idiots with I.Q.'s of under 40. Every one of us Amerikens. Damn, maybe it's true.....

Sacrifice for a cause

2010-10-09T23:19:00.000-07:00

The windows are almost all in and the siding is going on, starting in the back. I chose to do mitered siding for the corners of the house. It will cost extra. That being so, it is nonetheless priceless. It requires cedar planks without big knots. It's the way houses used to be built. It was the way the original house was built. I am staying true to that spirit. Yep, I probably caused the death of at least one big cedar tree somewhere.
Wait 'till you see the corners.

'Kitch' wins out in Salina, Kansas

2010-10-03T23:41:00.000-07:00

I'm back from the Midwest. And I think it's only fair that I share some of the awesome feats of design that I found returning to my home town of Salina, Kansas. Take this house for instance. I drove around the block, parked, dodged the traffic on Crawford Street to take this photo. I've tried to analyze and understand this and it is still baffling to me.
This...this is something that perhaps would win an AIA award in a town like, say Seattle, where avant-garde stuff done by 'playful' and 'kitchy' architecture firms get the nod of approval from their narcissistic friends in high places.
So - Miller Hull...Mithun...you oh so very cool designers, eat your hearts out. And start copying your next design award material.

Day 8 in the Heartland

2010-09-29T20:14:00.000-07:00

One more day and a wake up. Tomorrow I wake up, put my sandles and shorts in my bag, get out my coat and sweater and head back to Seattle. I have many stories to tell - many photos.
Tonight we had my big send off at my brother's house with take-out BBQ and some white reisling wine. White wine goes ok with BBQ in that it serves to provide much needed alcohol to the system.
We spent some time at dinner discussing "Modern Family". My sister-in-law's son is best friends with Eric Stonestreet, actor who won an Emmy for supporting actors on the show recently. Mom had never seen it. Well, she had seen it, but at my brother's house. She hadn't actually watched it as a matter of choice at her house. Her TV is hard-wired to FOX.
I went home with mom to spend my last night there and we were going to watch "Modern Family" on our own.

"What channel is Modern People on?"
"ABC mom what."
"What?"
"ABC what."
"What?"
"ABC."
We get to the show and turn the volume to 29.
"Well, I just am not getting this."
"Stay with it awhile and watch what."
"What?"
"STAY WITH THE PROGRAM AWHILE AND WATCH."
"Ok. The people are talking too fast."
So, I explain who is related to who, and which one is Eric. And we watch for awhile. The windows are open in the house and driver's by outside on the street look for the drive-in theatre which they can hear through their closed car windows but can't see.
The show concludes.
"Well, I just didn't get any of that."
"You might have to watch it more to get into it, mom what."
"What?"
"YOU MIGHT HAVE TO WATCH MORE OF IT TO UNDERSTAND."
"Well, I just don't get any of that."
We see "Cougar Town" start and I tell mom that it's a lame show and I don't like it and she says 'Oh," and continues to watch it. I didn't say anything and endured the first 10 minutes of it.
"Well, I'm still just not getting this. Now they've changed some of the people, it's just confusing."
"Mom, we've been watching 'Cougar Town' what."
"What?"
"WE'RE WATCHING ANOTHER SHOW NOW."
"This isn't Modern People?"
"No, it's 'Cougar Town' what"
"What?"
"IT'S COUGAR TOWN."
"Oh. Well, do you like it?"
"I thnk it's lame what."
"What?"
"I THINK IT'S LAME."
"Well why didn't you say you wanted to watch the game?"
We watched a few innings of the KC Royals game and called it a night.
I leave in 10 hours.

It's what we did

2010-09-28T20:46:00.000-07:00

This place used to be a beehive of activity back when I was a kid. Dad would drive us north of town to watch the "wheat dump" in late June early July. Acres and acres of wheat harvested, put into trucks, put into boxcars and transported in great steel wheeled trains to the town's grain elevators. Late into the night it went on, screeching, groaning metal bin doors vomiting out tons of grain down through grates to be conveyored up into the cylindrical cathedrals.
It was cool. Cool to see, but also to be out at 11PM at night in the summer of 1957 when you were 10 years old.
None of this is used anymore.
About a quarter mile down the tracks stands what's left of the Salina train depot, a red and white brick building sporting knee braces and wide eaves that said goodbye to my dad and uncles boarding the train for WWII years ago.
I sat on a large stack of creosote railroad ties and pondered the weight of time slowly lumbering through this place much like the ponderous boxcars that once moved through as well.

Just a thought

2010-09-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

They painted this 100 year-old building recently in Salina. They said the building now only looks about 25 years old.
If I painted myself would I look 15?

Politics in the Heartland

2010-09-26T20:46:00.000-07:00

I have learned a great deal about How our country is in the fix it's in, and where it should be going during my short visit here. I hope to learn more.
First of all, I didn't know that all, not most, but all of our problems we have in this country today are the cause of liberals. I don't have room here to list all the facts, but I'm told it's true.
And - the reason the GOP, when elected back into power has such a hard time correcting the course of the nation is because the liberals always leave it in such disarray. In fact, the country is STILL reeling from the FDR administration! Holy cow. I had no idea.
It takes more than two successive GOP administrations, (8 years of power) to right the wrongs of a liberal administration. How many terms...we don't know.
It was suggested to me that, this being the case, the two party system should be done away with and candidates for office be elected out of the one true party, the GOP. Leadership would be strong and consistant and we all would come to know what is expected of us to exist as a nation.
Government would be limited to a body that offered the capitalist regime not laws, but only a suggested guide on how to operate. Government would not interfere. Goodness and right would emerge and all citizens would be expected to pull their load - do their share. The lazy and indigent would be left to the fruits of their own ineptness and would perish on their own accord, not on the State's. Those not willing to go along with the rest would be forced into labor camps and eliminate the need for illegal immigrant workers who presently plague our great nation.
No more lazy people, no more folks who choose not to make it on their own.

This is what I have learned so far. I'll keep you posted.
Oh, and if you're not white...you're fucked
Zieg heil, mein kampf!

Sarge's Apartments

2010-09-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

Drove out to the former Strategic Air Command Air Base in Salina today after lunch with my old friend Bert. Salina used to have a SAC air base back in the Truman/Eisenhower days - the cold war days. You wanna talk about fear. This terrorist shit is lame compared to instant thermal Nuclear annhilation at 5,000 deg.F. Salina was home to several B-52's with nuculear bomb storage bays spread over acres of old farm land converted to government property. Yeah, we had a special spot on the Ruskie's missle target charts.
I used to have nightmares as a boy walking through the Kansas Van Gogh-yellow sunflower fields with periwinkle blue skies - and all these magnificent white plumes, lines of missle vapor trails, converging on our town hoping to get us before we got them. Time for one more breath. Maybe two. Yellow flash. Then white. Then heat. Then - silence after my body goes microscopic, atomic.
Our teachers taught us to get under our desks if there wasn't enough time to go to the bomb shelter. WTF? It would have been better just to all go outside and PROUDLY give the decending white plumes the one-finger salute...a last futile act of defiance.
But I digress.
Sarge's apartments. My very first job as a licensed architect. They're still standing, those magnificent converted SAC barracks I so lovingly turned into sad boxes of cheese for sad cheesy people to live in. They still do. And, Sadly, they were better off in 1975 than they are today.

It's never too soon to panic.

Haaaaaaannity in the Heartland

2010-09-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

Geezus H. Christ, who the hell thought it was a good idea to give this cretin a microphone and airtime? This guy has everyone in Salina on the edge of their seats, clamoring for more vitreolic diatribe so they can go back to their closets, get out their voodoo dolls of Obama (well, any black faced person will do), and them gay-o-phile people.
"there, you damn n*****, take THAT!"
I have a week to go. Oh, they're nice enough back here. And I'm a home-town boy and all that. But baby - watch your back. Especially true of the jayhawk ilk.

It's never too late to panic!

In the heartland

2010-09-21T20:51:00.000-07:00

yes, indeedy internets, i am back in the heartlands the next two weeks or so. Spent some time pondering this on the plane today. Much to write. so little time. I'm stuck in limbo without my crappy, crash-test dummy computer with all my programs on it so I can't work on the house.
I can only visit with my mom and my brother, watch Fox news, listen to the hatred of Obama and the sainted virtues of Glen Beck (geezus I can't believe I actually typed those letters that spelled the name) and newt gingrich.
a good friend of mine recently compared her family to a circus act and her fiance's family to a funeral reception. My family was in-between. Well maybe is.

I am a twisted individual. Ok, i'll share the thought i had today waiting for my flight.
I watched this poor old bent-over guy walking, no - lurching, with assistance down the airport corridor. So, when they eventually bury him, do they have to make a kind of 'bent' coffin, or maybe one with a raised section like a camper? Do they just flatten him out with some weights? He wouldn't feel it I suppose.
No, I sat there and thought about this for some time.
I dunno, maybe it was the coffee or maybe it was my cell phone rattling down in the urinal while I tried to answer it earlier that morning. (what is it about urinals that stimulate cell phones to ring?)
I answered it since it wasn't that pissy. It was Dino Rossi asking me to vote for him. Now THAT was pissy.
and remember -
It's never too soon to panic..........

no building code in 1906

2010-09-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

Our remodel is basically a rebuild. We've filled all the concrete blocks in the foundation with concrete, we've added about 12 new columns and beams in the crawl space and added these huge goddam metal brackets that are designed to hold the house down in case of an earthquake.
What baffles me is just how did this house survive 104 years on this earth without these code upgrades?
The project moves on. More progress photos to come.

Opinions are like assholes - everyone has one, and they all stink

2010-09-17T22:24:00.000-07:00

I'm by myself often. It probably explains why I think too much about stuff. I like to write and would like to become better. I've had 'writer's block'. I don't know what that is but if it means you just don't give a fuck about writing sometimes that's what I have. I'm sorry about using expletives here, but at my age using them in a sentence is the closest I will come to ever having the actual experience again. (Being fucked as a tax payer doesn't count.)
I'm sitting here tonight watching Glen Beck. Just finished The O'Reilly Factor. I discovered that it is better to watch these programs with the sound on mute. Why, you say - why on earth are you watching these programs? Well, I'll tell you. I'm going to Kansas next week for my 45th high school reunion. I feel I must prepare myself for the immersion back into Fox Network Land. I grew up with these values, but they have worn thin out here on the left coast (that's the oh, so clever way the west is described by those in the heartland). My old values drilled into my psyche throughout childhood have eroded out here. I still harbor virulent hate for those who are not exactly like me, but it has receded pretty far back after 30+ years.
So I am preparing myself for a two week stint in the heartland and an existence with family gathered around the sacred Fox Box every night after dinner where we will engage in lively facist conversation and what to do with the liberals, blacks, gays, chinks and kykes fouling the system. Grab your coat, get your hat - leave your worries on the doorstep....life can be complete, on the far right side of the street.....
Good night and good luck

new roof sort of

2010-08-20T22:57:00.001-07:00

There isn't much left of the original house. We left the front roof because a portion of it is in the front setback. The house was built before the set back became part of the building code. I'm just glad they didn't make us tear down the "illegal" part.

Went out to buy our appliances last weekend. Went by to check on a detail before we actually purchased them and found the store had gone out of business. Just like that. There was a woman standing at the door reading the notice when we came up. She had purchased appliances last week. She's out of luck. Everyone says what a great time to build if you can afford it. Actually, no one has anything in stock anymore. And it's hard to find the simplest things.

My parents grew up in the Great Depression. I missed all that. All those 'good ol' days'. But we have some of our own now. Yeah, we've got our own. Back then I heard much about people helping their neighbors, helping each other. This Great New Depression, however, has a streak of meanness running through it. A great river of hate flowing through the nation. Who the hell am I, to be building this house, when so many have so little?

Sifting through the potsherds

2010-07-20T22:32:00.000-07:00

It is somewhat cleansing going through the process of throwing away your files. Our attorney suggests saving any files within 10 years. So, we have been fastidious about that. But I'm thinking, what is the point, really? The whole reason that drives a lawsuit is to win it, NOT to determine the truth. there is no room for truth in our justice system. In fact, it really isn't a 'justice' system, but a 'legal' system. Truth is the LAST thing you want if you're trying to win a lawsuit.
So I'm thinking, why not just throw everything out? I probably will.
I've run across several projects that for some reason all the design sketches were kept. I go through them like an old man looks at early photos of his now grown or deceased children. Why am I so emotionally attached to this shit? I guess that's why I never was a good businessman. I had a heart. Business requires lack thereof. It's why I failed. I tried to help others rather than help myself. And to think I started life as a conservative from the Midwest. Bloodless heartlessness wins every time - Oh, the shame.
Goodnight Pen.

Watching your friend die

2010-07-19T23:01:00.000-07:00

I decided to lighten things up from the foibles of house demolition and remodel. My friend is almost dead. Her name is "my career". She has been a friend for all these years, troubled at times, unfaithful at times but an old friend nonetheless. I hooked up with her in Junior high school. She wanted me to come with her on a journey. A quest of trying to find something within myself that remains elusive. Architecture is a cruel maiden. She will not be tamed or held as yours for long. She is fickle and will betray you while yet savoring a kiss. But she is finally leaving me. And I am sad. I was not a worthy suitor and so she goes on. I search to find another love. Goodnight, Pen.

What will go wrong next?

2010-07-12T22:42:00.000-07:00

I haven't been keeping this up. I care about this house. I care about it a lot. But it has beat me to shit. The building department has beat me to shit. I suppose there will be some fun in this sometime but right now i just can't see it. I remain manic depressive. I remain unemployed. I spend my days trying to find something for employees to do, figuring out how and when we will finally close the doors, and working on the house. I have never ever felt so low and without hope.
Good night

demo

2010-07-08T23:31:00.000-07:00

no Photo

2010-06-28T23:50:00.000-07:00

You can't take a photo to replicate my state of mind tonight. I've become more manic-depressive lately. Listening to Imogen Heap tonight has helped. Egad, what an artist.

This will not make any sense. I am lost. I am found, and lost again. It is elusive. Shit. I have to go to bed soon - to waste 6 hours in a process of dying yet regenerating for another day. How perverse it is. And, my God, the waste of 6 hours saddens me so.

I have not been drawing. I so need to. I've mostly just sat in a stupor, joining my fellow americans who do the same each and every night. Watching their hate-of-choice. Watching their heroes of caustic retoric. the politics. the waste. The venom filled place this country has become....the enormous hypocracy and despair.

fuck it. good night.

2010-05-23T22:46:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have been in our house may recognize the stained glass sailboat window. it used to be over the bath tub in the downstairs bathroom.

We discussed doing things differently than we had originally planned this weekend, now that the space is opened up. But the planning is sound and we keep coming full circle to the design we have chosen. We've been planning this for about 4 years now.

I am considering entering this remodel in a local Seattle competition. more on that. I want to share and show that the world doesn't need big, new houses - that small can work, and better yet, small saved and reused. It's folly to think one cannot leave a carbon footprint but wise to walk softly on the earth.

More demolition

2010-05-19T11:02:00.001-07:00

Having your house demolished, or at least the insides and the adjacent buildings, fence, etc, is a clensing experience. The house really doesn't look the same on the inside today. Lots of lath and plaster. Lots of 1 inch by 6 inch wood sheathing slats on the sides of the house. They didn't have plywood in 1906. In fact, I would guess most of the original lumber and materials used to build our house in 1906 were brought to the site by horse drawn cart.

Carpenters made about $2.00 per day in 1906. That was in New York. Who knows what they made in Kirkland, Wasington? Power tools? I don't think so. Fork lifts and Genie loaders/haulers? I don't think so. No, the guys (and it WAS only guys) showed up around sun-up with their wooden tool boxes, hand saws, planes, etc. They sawed the planks, planed the edges, nailed them in by hand. They even were able to build from drawings done by hand as well, AND without computer generated dimensions down to 15/16ths of an inch. These men were true builders. Of course, I say that and am yet reminded every time i walk by the 1888 brick house down the street with the crooked brick window header that "oh, well, got 'er good 'nuf" said at day's end echos to this very day.

Things have changed. For the better? Perhaps. Perhaps.

our house is a very very very fine house....

2010-05-18T23:30:00.000-07:00

Well, here we go. Week no. 1 of 52 weeks until completion. the house was built in 1906 and we have chosen to refurbish and restore it rather than to tear it down. I'm an architect. The house belongs to my wife and me, although it is her money which will restore it. I basically am unemployed and have absolutely nothing to my name. I chose that I suppose, choosing architecture as a profession. I've been kicked in the teeth and had my guts ripped out on a daily basis for 30 some odd years. Thank god for my wife who loves me in spite of all that i am and am not.

Most folks don't understand what architects do. the other folks just don't care what they do and developers, well they despise what they do. You see, you need to have an architect "stamp' drawings for permits. developers hate that. what a waste of profit!

Anyway, we have decded to restore this house rather than tear it down and build a large, over designed stucco behemoth with windows and crenilations of monstrous propostion that currently grace Kirklands's architectural landscape.

But I digress. And, since no one is ever going to read this it really doesn't matter. someday someone will find this log of the construction of our house and say, 'WTF was THAT all about?'

My cousin died of 3,000 poison dart stings

2010-04-19T23:44:00.000-07:00

Have you ever just couldn't wait to tell someone about something that happened to you? something really quite remarkable, or bad, or well, just about anything you think is worthy of comment?
I sat this morning, patiently wading through the morning's conversations at the office. Last night some one broke into my car and stole my GPS device. I wanted to tell. I waited. Then a pause, and my chance. You tell your story. there. Ahh, completion, satisfaction, wait for the response. the anticipated response. and.
And you hear about all the times stuff was stolen from someone else and all the horrible things and this and that and my uncle one time had his whole fucking spleen, heart and lungs stolen - right OUT OF HIS BODY. And my friend like, had their house stolen while they slept and the thieves moved it to like, Pennsylvania of all places overnight and then they, and then they.... yada, yada.
Geezus H. fucking Christ. Ok, yeah, boy THAT sure was worse than what happened to me. For sure. Really? Boy, what tough luck.
What the fuck is up with the fact that every time EVERY TIME you tell someone something that caused you grief, well like your brother died of cancer, and the person says something like "gosh that's awful. My sister died of 3,000 poison dart stings while walking through the amazon on a guided tour for 'saving the forests of earth' project last year.
Give me a break. Ok. I get it. i am supposed to just listen.

Paradise Lost....an interview

2010-04-15T10:08:00.000-07:00

Nancy and I go to plays. We've been doing this over 30 years. It has been one of the adhesives in our relationship.

We recently saw "Paradise Lost" at the Intiman. This is an interview with Lori Larsen, actor in the play, by Stephanie Coen of the Intiman Theatre. I am reprinting it here to share with you all.
________________________

In “Paradise Lost,” playwright Clifford Odets dramatized life in the 1930s. In her performance, actor Lori Larsen makes those long-gone woes feel part of the present

Apr 14, 2010, Vol: 17, No: 16

These days, it’s hard not to compare our current economic state with an earlier one that befell the world 80 years before. Many draw parallels between the Great Depression – with unemployment hovering above 20 percent, with personal income plummeting 33 percent or more – and today, when reports that banks only repossessed 79,000 homes in a month amounts to good news. Comparisons between then and now only gain strength when some in the media refer to our current era as the “Great Recession.” But how did people in the 1930s view their situation? And what can we, in the present, learn from the stories of the past?

Several days a week, since March 26, Lori Larsen has been trying to figure that out while others watch. That’s the night Larsen, and a cast of 14 others, opened in Intiman Theatre’s production of “Paradise Lost,” by the playwright Clifford Odets (1906 – 1963). Set in the early ’30s, Odets’ Depression-era rendering imagines what life might have been like for working people, in that period that’s known to most of us from history books or iconic photographs. In the play Larsen plays Clara Gordon, the matriarch of a family that, over the course of three acts, has the screws put to it: bad business deals, foreclosure, homelessness, chronic illness, death, mob dealings. You know: drama, of the type that graces the stage. And as the screws tighten, Clara tries her best not to flinch, to remain present and address each problem as it arises. Sitting in the audience watching Larsen’s performance, it’s hard not to be drawn in, to want to sit down at her kitchen table and admire – and sometimes fault – the ways she tries to get out of every bad situation that seems intent on pinning her down. She’s got the practical “I’ll-take-care-of-it” mother thing down.

But since waltzing onto stage and sitting down with the actor is usually frowned upon, sometimes you have to settle for another option. In this case, sitting down to lunch with Larsen, to talk of the play and economic hard times. It might feel incongruous, then, to have this conversation at the Grill, Nordstrom’s basement restaurant. Larsen herself admits she only knows it because a friend played piano there. But what better place to chat about depressions and recessions, homes owned and lost, money gained and squandered than in a store where, 10 yards away, a basic t-shirt can be had for $55 or a pair of sunglasses can set you back $450? There, Larsen described what it means to be a poor, yet happy, actor in a little-known play.

You grew up here.

Yeah. I was born on 71st and Greenwood, in my grandmother’s house. John Bastyr delivered me. [Laughs.] I grew up on 17th Street, in the University District. You know that chestnut-lined street? I grew up on that street. It was a very normal middle-class upbringing. I decided, when I was 17, to become an actor and I’ve been an actor ever since.

But I’ve never made much money. I’m in your lowest poverty level group [she laughs], which is fine. I had the good fortune, in 1976, of buying a house for a very small amount of money. A very miniscule amount of money. In those days, nobody wanted to live in Seattle. It was $2,000 down and $150 a month, for 30 years. You know, I paid it off. I still live there, in the C.D. I’ve had some, you know, tough times: There was the crack epidemic in the neighborhood. It’s changed a lot.

I’m so fortunate: I make between $18,000 [and] $22,000 a year every year, and that usually includes about five grand of unemployment. I mean, I just live really low-key. And I watched the real estate go up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up, and the real root of our economic crisis [is] housing is unaffordable. There’s no working class anymore. You’re either [at] Real Change or you’re a yuppie. What’s in between? My [property] taxes are $5,000 a year. I can’t wait to be 62 when I get a break, for being poor, on my taxes, because they’re killing me.

How would you describe “Paradise Lost?”

There’s been a lot of emphasis on the recession and Depression, but I think of it as a family story, a story about a family and family dynamics.

One of the things I was so struck by was [the cast] read some Studs Terkel–

Yeeess.

—his Depression-era writings. I read a lot of the interviews he did. And these people were talking about all the hardships they experienced during the Depression. But every single one of them, to a person almost, had nostalgia for the sense of community that existed during the ’30s, that got lost in the war era, when the men all left, and then in the ’50s, when everyone flew to the suburbs. As affluence grew, existential reality grew. And the sense of being there for others, the interdependence of people, was something that almost everyone was nostalgic for. You know: Some guy doesn’t have anywhere to stay, the furnace man, you put him in the basement. You’ve got a neighbor, you used to have a pretty close friend, he comes over all the time, you feed him. His daughter marries your son and then he moves in with you. And yeah, you’re exasperated at the time, but then [you’re] looking back on that time with incredible nostalgia for all the ways that human beings helped each other.

There are a lot of economic stresses on those people. And they have no safety net in those days: There’s no Social Security, there’s no old age pension. There’s nothing. If you lose, you gotta start over. There’s no unemployment. The safety net was created out of the suffering of those people.

There was this one guy who came and moved all the furniture out of people’s houses, in the Studs Terkel [interviews], and they would go back to the people who had hired them and say, “Well, the mattress was filled with bedbugs, we couldn’t take it.” And the mattress was fine, but they just wanted to leave it there for the people, so they would have something to sleep on. And people were always finding creative ways of helping each other out: While the system was trying to pull people apart, people were stepping up. So I was really struck by that.

One of the things that happened to me while I was doing this play was my wallet was stolen. I was in a restaurant, my purse was open likes this [she unzips it]. There wasn’t anyone around. And I went over [she stands up and pretends saying to wait staff, ‘Hey, you forgot to bring me my soup,’ then sits back in chair] and when I came back, it was gone. Stolen. And it was right during tech week [the week before opening night]. I had to get new credit cards, the whole [shebang]. But I noticed that when my wallet was stolen, I felt lighter. Of course, it was sad and all that, but there was also this sense of lightness for a whole day, two days: I didn’t have any money, I didn’t have any credit cards, I didn’t have any I.D. I just had me. I felt this weird sense of lightness and [Buddhist nun and author] Pema Chödrön says, “The closest you get to enlightenment is when you’re feeling completely groundless.” It helped me understand that there’s a light side to losing everything. It’s not to discount the suffering involved, but there’s also another side to the coin, which I’ve been exploring in my performance and it’s much more accurate to the truth, than always being so unhappy. I don’t know if you run across that in the homeless people you know, this kind of lightness.

It varies: I think for some people, it’s very heavy. But for other people, they feel they don’t need it: Why do I have to have all this stuff weighing me down? I can just do what I want, and go where I want and be who I want, and I don’t have these tethers.

I think the value of this play is that you look at this one moment, when they lose everything, and then you can reflect: What would I do? How would it come down for me, if I had no place to go, with nothing left? How would I respond?

You mentioned the Great Depression and right now, we’re in the so-called Great Recession. And there are all kinds of news reports about what’s going on: people losing their homes, becoming homeless, health care. How do you think drama allows us to investigate something like economic reality that may not come across in journalism or news reports?

Well, Obama sort of got over the last health care hurdle when he took that little boy and told his story, remember? [Marcelas Owens, 11, from Seattle, stood next to Obama when the President signed health care legislation on March 23. Marcelas’ mother died of complications from pulmonary hypertension when Marcelas was 8. His mother had been denied health care coverage.] A story, which has emotional content about real people and what they actually experience, is the only way we are capable of experiencing empathy. We need a story. That’s why we tell each other stories: to shore up our compassion, shore up our empathy. When you tell a story, you’re absorbed by the drama of it and that drama enables people to feel empathy, which is the key to being human. It’s really the key. A dry story in a newspaper, with statistics: It’s hard to put a human face on that. You could extrapolate “Paradise Lost” for anybody who’s facing foreclosure.

Compassion and empathy are quite sophisticated contemporary notions. It’s been a long evolutionary path for us to get to the point where the Dalai Lama is the big celebrity that he is. It’s been a huge evolutionary path because compassion requires the ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes. And drama has that capacity. It’s the miracle of movies. And the theater is even more immediate because it’s right there.

So you’ve got this great scene –

Where I lose my moral compass.

Could you set it up, what you go through?

Well, [my character and her husband, Leo, have] lost everything and the business partner proposes that we burn down our business to get the insurance to save our skins, and my husband says, “No,” because he’s got a strong sense of integrity and morality. We’ve lost everything due to criminality of the business partner and when I find out that’s what went down, at first I’m appalled. And then I’m reflecting on it for a moment: “Well, since there’s no other way out, maybe we should go for that.” And I have a moment of moral turpitude, a lapse, where I ask him to think about the idea of maybe [burning down the business] and he gets mad at me. I realize I’ve stepped over the line and that’s what makes our relationship so strong: that he’s a moral compass for his wife.

So she has a moment where she goes over to the dark side, just out of desperation, and he reins her back in right away. They’re saved from doing anything stupid like that. But as a result of that moment, the spiral down to having absolutely nothing begins. She can see the writing on the wall. But their relationship is such that he’s foolish and he doesn’t act when he should, and as a result of his inability to act, things fall away from them in ways that could have been prevented. Women in those days couldn’t really step up and run things, husbands were in charge. She says, “I wanted to go for [a] loan myself, but Leo says it’s a man’s job.” And by the time he goes, there’s 48,000 [people] in line ahead of him.

There’s also a parallel with health care.

We’ve got this son who needs health care. And with no money, no business, we can’t provide for our son. So that’s part of where her desperation comes from: It’s not just losing her house, but they’ve got this child, their last surviving son, who’s dying, who needs help, who needs care. Imagine changing his soiled pants, trying to feed him – Did you see the movie “Awakenings?” Same disease [encephalitis lethargica, which can debilitate someone until he can’t speak or move] that Robert DeNiro had, that’s what [the son] has. There was an epidemic in the late teens, early ‘20s that sort of swept through the United States. He’s one of the vestiges of that epidemic and it’s a horrible, horrible thing.

So yeah, they’ve got a lot of difficulties and to behave heroically in the face of all those difficulties is not something that most human beings can do. It brings out the worst in people. It certainly brings out the worst in Clara.

Are you familiar with many playwrights of that era?

You know, I’m not. I mean, the patois: the rat-tat-tat-tat of that. The faster the better. Clifford Odets is a true genius in terms of making it easy for the actors to flow with the lines. I’ve been really, really impressed, having done a lot of plays, of what a great wordsmith he was in making dramatic situations. He was a master. He was only 28 when he wrote this.

And when does it close?

April 25.

And when is your [60th] birthday?

April 23. I’m playing that night. I’m pretty happy about it. It’s a perfect thing to be doing. I love working. It really makes me happy. You know, I don’t work that much. I don’t work as much as I’d like. It’s just hard to get a job. It’s really hard.

Stephanie Coen

Director of Communications I Intiman Theatre

206.204.3320 I stephanie@intiman.org

www.intiman.org

2010 SEASON
Paradise Lost I The Thin Place I Ruined
A Doctor In Spite Of Himself I The Scarlet Letter

Table in partial light

2010-04-06T22:55:00.000-07:00

I am just fascinated with light and how it makes an otherwise uninteresting subject come into its own life

Stuff to do when I'm Dead

2010-03-31T23:45:00.001-07:00

Being an unemployed architect and all, I've had some time to think of the future. And what would a future be without being dead? A bit macabre I know, but it has an element of truth to it. I would want to be eco-dead, of course, and would not want to take up too much space. Cremation is the eco-ticket. But before my dust particles settle into wherever those who knew me think I would like to be scattered - I'd like to finish a few things I started here on earth.

What to do when you're dead? One thing I thought of was to go wait for a building permit. Doesn't matter what town.

Then I think I'd wait for an elevator for awhile. But one would come and the fun would be over. Better chance for an eternal wait to go out to the street here in Seattle and wait for some nice weather.

Then I think I'd go to our old office in Bellevue and wait for something good to happen. Now THAT would be some serious eternal waiting. Not one fucking good thing ever happened in the 30 years or so I worked as an architect.

Eternal waiting gets boring I suppose, even for an urn full of cremated dust, so off i might go to a local airport, get myself transferred to some Tupperware or something and jump out of an airplane without a parachute. That might be kind of cool.

I might go over to Seattle and go to an AIA meeting. Or better yet - go to one of those fucking self-appreciation, mutual admiration AIA awards dinners. Jesus, I don't think I could stand that though, even being dead. What a bunch of insufferable pricks!

Oh hell, after the AIA one would have to have a gigantic dose of civic awareness, so I might go over and wait for the new tunnel to be built along the Seattle waterfront. This of course will never happen in ALL of eternity and I'll need to find something else to watch.

On to Washington D.C. Well, sonofabitch! I've been elected a senator! NOW I'll get some stuff done!

Filling out the Census

2010-03-16T23:37:00.000-07:00

“Hey Angelo, how many people we got in dis house?”

“What?”

“How-many-fuckin’-people-we-got-in-dis-house?”

“Who wants to know, Man?”

“Dis fuckin’ thing we got in de mail wants to know.”

“Who sent it?”

“I dunno, some government ting or something.”

“We goin’ get arrested, man?”

“No, man, we ain’t getting arrested. We gotta fill dis out is all.”

Shit, man I dunno. Like when?”

“NOW, man.”

“No, I mean like, when do dey wanna know when the people are living in here?”

“I guess like sleepin’ and stuff like that.”

“Well shit, man, count ‘em up.”

“Ok, but is your ol’ lady livin’ here now?”

“Fuck, man, who knows? It’s up to her like we talked about the other day. Count her like half time I guess.”

“Ok, what about Grampa?”

“Ain’t seen him for awhile, man.”

“Well, is he like, living here?”

“Shit, I dunno. Is he like living at all?”

“Well his shit’s here.”

“I know, but his shit is everywhere. Sometimes he sleeps down under the freeway.”

“I know. So you ain’t seen him?”

“Not for a couple a weeks.”

“Ok, I count him as here, but in another place too. Dey got a box for dat. What about your kids?”

“What about ‘em?”

“Well, they here or not?”

Tony is living with his girlfriend Angelina upstairs and Miguel, shit who knows where the fuck dat punk sleeps?”

“Ok so two then, counting Angelina but not Miguel.”

“He might come home.”

“Too fukin’ late, man I wrote 3.”

“We count the baby?”

“What fukin’ baby?”

“Dat baby your sister got now.”

“Oh, shit I guess. They here now?”

“Seen ‘em this morning, man.”

“Tell her I want to talk to her.”

“Ok. We count the baby?”

“Shit I dunno. Maybe like a tiny person or something.”

“Naw,man dat’s likle a midget. I’ll count it as ½.”

“How many we got?”

“About 7 ½. or so”

“Shit,man, that’s a lot.”

“Hey, dis ain’t MY idea.”

“Yeah, maybe we’ll get more food stamps.”

“Yeah. I’m makin’ it an even 9.”

It is what it was

2010-03-13T22:50:00.000-08:00

Try as I might to be loose with charcoal I seem to gravitate towards the blended, the shaded - and detail. I never drew headlights before and so this exercise was fun. damn if they don't look like headlights. This is a larger drawing and I was hoping to just get into the quick interpretation of this car image. but then i got fascinated with it. Fascinated with what someone did 80 years ago with this steel form and the details of it. I guess i like the tension that I'm trying to convey. An industrial work of art really. it caught the eye of the consumer initially. It was in vogue. it was used. consumed. and here it is now in the weeds.

I'm feeling akin to this old fellow these days. I'm an architect who doesn't use Auto CAD. Never learned it. It was a choice then and still is. I have resources, others who do it. And no, I am NOT going to be one of those old, insufferable fucks who cling to the past. fuck the past. But sometimes there is lament in its passing.

We are remodeling our old house this year, finally. My studio is going to be in the rebuilt garage. I plan to immerse myself in my art. Soon. The calling of it is becoming strong.

My friend joined the circus..

2010-03-10T23:57:00.000-08:00

A good friend of mine just recently joined the circus. I didn't think people still did that sort of thing but there she was, on the poster - LZ The Great. It was a sudden thing I guess. LZ had gone through a string of unbelievably bad luck and her health had become a comedy of errors. She was fainting on a regular basis - her phone was constantly dialed to 911. How anyone could live with this is beyond me.

I do know she was recently cured and I think that is what may have inspired this life changing venue. Her C-L hubby went with her and has put his massage skills to good use what with the bruises, broken appendages and the like that go with the life of the trapeze artist.

They haven't sold the boat yet, figuring there may be an opportunity to put newly acquired trapeze skills to good use high flying from the mast on opening day of the boating season, just around the corner.

LZ still keeps books to make ends meet. She has found several clowns who need her services, not unlike her former life.

Well, godspeed, LZ! May your career take off to new heights!

Zen and the Art of Smudge

2010-02-28T23:08:00.000-08:00

This last weekend I smudged our office. Yes. Smudged. It is a native American cleansing ritual employing sage smoke and a methodical rotation through the room or series of rooms.

Our architectural firm is $40,000 in debt, out of money, out of work and nearly out of hope. Our newly hired half-day-a-week bookkeeper suggested this. I consulted some friends who told me to go for it, so we did.

I thought it was so much hokum. Hey, I'm a Christian and we just don't do this kind of thing. But we started, and the sage smoke reminded me of the Orthodox Christians and the high church Episcopalians who use incense. Smelled JUST like it in fact. Now, I don't have a big ass bejeweled fancy schmancy robe and hat that the Orthodontic Christians wear, and am not ordained or anything, but by golly it was a religious experience nonetheless.

There are some theological problems with calling spirits and the like. I believe there is but one God. But ya know, I just don't know all about this God I've believed in all these years. Now, some folks DO know him - lotsa Catholics and protestants know God personally. THAT is way cool and I wish I was that privileged, but alas, I'm an Episcopalian and don't know shit. I just figure that God is here in this stuff somewhere and, well, smudge on, brother.

I felt pretty good when we were through. During the exercise I remembered all the schmoes who had worked there and who had brought me down so much. I remembered all the wacko office managers we've gone through - the ones who stole directly from us. The ones who nearly ruined us by their inane, blatant stupidity. (but for LZ - the one shining light amongst them all). I remembered that bad stuff and sent it out with the smoke - forgave it - let it go.

I don't know if it "worked" but I felt better that day and still do. I practiced my drums later that day and had a defined clarity of rhythm and groove. It was almost zen. I do attribute that to the cleansing. Tomorrow is another day and there will be more negativity anew. I hope I have found another tool now to deal with it. a thanks to AC and LZ for inspiration.

Ain't no hope, cowboy

2010-02-11T23:02:00.000-08:00

This photo most closely represents the job outlook for our architectural firm for 2010. I am a manic depressive personality these days, waiting for the inevitable. There is no hope. There will be no more jobs. We're done.

I have to say I am relieved in some ways. The specter of liability will stay hovering over my head for awhile, but even that will soon fade. Folks who sue you are interested in flesh. When there is no flesh, the carrion and their attorneys fly on to another distressed carcass.

My art will survive as long as I do. It's what I do. Architecture has just been a career, seen as a wide-eyed youngster eons ago with more emotion than sense. I suppose that is still my mantra, now as I trudge up the 18th fairway, over par but not wanting a DNF on the score card.

I dread the coming months of finishing/cleaning out/throwing away all the hopeless, meaningless flotsam that has piled up in miserable garret. I fear I just don't have the energy.

I am as down as one can get. Down.

Cold hearted orb

That rules the night
Removes the colors
From our sight
Red is gray and
Yellow white
But we decide
Which is right
And
Which is an Illusion

- Moody Blues

Valenstein's day

2010-02-07T23:12:00.000-08:00

I wanted to be more informed about Valentine's Day so I went to my web search engine and found some interesting bits of history. This is quite fascinating. I can't relay all I learned, but here are few highlights worth sharing.

In Ancient Rome February 14 was a holiday honoring Juno, the Queen of Roman gods and Goddesses. It was an innocent child's game at first but soon came to be a pagan dating ritual. So much so that the soldiers were getting laid right and left which made it difficult to force them off to war. This didn't set well with Emperor Claudius II and he banned the practice.

A Jewish Levite named Valenstein felt pity for the soldiers. "True, there's no sex after marriage but, what, these young boys get no courtship even?" Valenstein said, shrugging his shoulders. So he started secretly arranging courtship for the soldiers and marriages if they wished. This pissed off Claudius and in 270 he had Valenstein beheaded on, of all dates, February 14.

People felt sad about Valenstein and started commemorating his death by sending each other love messages every February 14. Hallius Marcus, a Roman business owner, got the idea to capitalize on all the guilt men had in relationships between them and their loved ones so in honor of Valenstein started a greeting card business the very next year. This grew into a multi-national firm and his descendants eventually moved to America and founded the shortened name, 'Hallmark', which exists today serving the needs of men who have no fucking idea whatsoever on how to patch things up and get laid.

Ahh, necessity, the Jewish mother of invention......I haven't a clue how it was changed to valentine.

A Reverse Image

2010-02-02T22:19:00.000-08:00

A reverse Image. I've had more time these days to reflect on my life. Had lunch with a good friend last month. She's half my age and often asks me advice. It's pretty cool to have a friend half your age. The ease at which my answers come astounds me sometimes. But it is true. I've lived to an age that I never thought I would be. But here I am.

I recently came upon a photo of me when I was 5 years old. I was playing with a toy train set. I was black and white, well dressed, nice shoes and well, heck just a nice little boy. I didn't have a clue. I didn't know poverty. Hunger. I didn't know racial prejudice. Kansas had very few 'Negroes' in 1950. I grew up in this kind of bubble. Everything had a schedule, purpose and method. You did the next step. that's what you did in Kansas. Always the next thing, and we all knew what it was and life was pretty simple.

Pretty soon it was time for college. That was the next step. I had become enamored with drawing using rulers and straightedges and thus had decided in Junior high that I wanted to be an Architect. The next step, then, was to go to architectural school and that's what I did.

Press that little rectangular key with the double arrows on it. That's the fast-forward key. Forwarding. Forwarding.....a little more. This may take a few minutes. There. Here I am. I have skated through life with but just a few bumps, nicks and emotional bruises. Been through downturns. Made a living actually as an architect. And now, for the first time in my life I have hit a wall. Something not perceived as a next step. something off the track. I have come to face with The Great Depression II. That's what it is. People don't want to recognize it, but that's what it is. I'm out of work. Coasting with no fuel. The engine has stopped and now there is but to find a place to pull over, get out and look for a phone booth.

I'm feeling fucking shitty. And then I think of the people in Haiti. geezus. (guilt-trip) And the people in Afghanistan and Iran and on and on. (Onandon - sounds like the next country America will need to 'stabilize' to ensure our western economic interests are preserved).

I'd like to think that I did things right and followed all the next steps. I'd like to think I was prudent and didn't spend beyond my means. I would have liked to retire with more than two dollars and ninety eight fucking cents to my name. What the fuck happened?

A reverse. A white-to-black. my art is the only thing now. Art.

Pastel and charcoal

2010-02-02T00:11:00.000-08:00

This is a really quick study throwing some pastel into a charcoal drawing. Not too successful but it still has depth. the colors get muddy. sometimes that's ok. much to learn - much to learn.

2010-01-26T23:52:00.000-08:00

I have an art-store set of pastels which have lain dormant in my drawer for god knows how long. So I had this photo of a green car and a red tail light. I sat down and sketched it. I have probably used every completely wrong technique to do this, but I did it nonetheless. Used some white for the highlights. Seemed to need it - and, there was a white pastel chalk in the box so I used it. The paper is from some ancient colored paper pad I had. Price tag said $.75 on a pad of 24. I don't even want to know how old it is. I imagine it's old, since I myself was born just after the 17th century.

It's inanimate. Without feeling really - I think. I'm still fascinated with drawing what I see and, goddammit, the architect in me is ever dictating this inane, wanton perfection of form. Begone, you anal beast of reason and purpose!! I need to free myself and catch more emotion in my work. I draw and sit back and say "ah, yes, that's what it looks like..." My architect, resplendent with bow tie smiles at the accomplishment. I want the wild man to snatch the pencil and leap to some outburst of feeling, sit back with tousled hair and say to the architect. "What about THAT, dude?"

Yeah, what about that.

Plains, Trains and inverted cones

2010-01-23T13:02:00.000-08:00

Internets - Here's a classic. I did this about 15 years ago after a trip back to Kansas, where I spent my first day on Earth. I don't remember much about my first day but growing up in Kansas gave me plenty to remember.

One of the things they do in Kansas is grow grain. They replaced all the buffalo with cattle, who eat the grain and graze on the grass that is everywhere else grain isn't. When the settlers first got to Kansas there were these people living in inverted cones who didn't wear shirts. They were a nuisance so were gotten rid of. Some of them are still around today (you see them sleeping in malls and underneath highway overpasses) and everybody kind of feels bad about what their deceased relatives did but oh well. It's a harsh life on the prairie.

So they have all this grain and need places to store it (so cattle, thieves and any remaining natives can't get it). They built big concrete tubes and put the grain in those. They need to move it around so they built tracks for trains to haul it from one place to another. Sometimes this happens at night.

That is what this picture is about.

The 'Salt Shaker' '57

2010-01-22T16:58:00.000-08:00

Internets - I don't remember if I put this one on or not. Got into drawing cars and chrome a few months ago. Charcoal is great for this. the perspective is a little off, but i think it's cool anyway. gives you the idea anyway. an unmistakable icon, the '57 Chevy.

There was something magic about the car models every year through the 50's and 60's. The models were unique every year and easily identified. American auto makers were at the peak of their craft it seemed. Nowadays you can't tell one car from another. That's a stretch, I know, but humor me. And besides, who am I kidding? I'm just yelling in the basement here. Nobody will read this, much less GAF.

This sketching stuff is much more satisfying than doing architecture. I don't get paid for it, but neither did I get paid as an architect - plus, I was liable for other people's mistakes (electrician, plumber, you name it). Good riddance. John Q. Public, you deserve every bit of it.

An Old Car Study with light/dark

2010-01-15T23:33:00.000-08:00

Here's another more recent sketch using charcoal. I'm still learning what works, what doesn't. The charcoal forces me out of the detail and more into light/dark, which is what I need. I get tangled up in the detail which you can do with graphite. Oh, the blacks! ain't it rich?

A street in Lefkara, Cypress

2010-01-13T22:49:00.000-08:00

This is an older drawing I did about 14 years ago when I was in Cypress. It's pencil and has always been too light. That's why I have started using more charcoal. I love the deep, blacks. Can't get that in pencil. I photo shopped this and intensified it. It's a little faky like that, but pops better.

You can see I was hung up on detail back then. I'm evolving away from that. I'm more into shapes, mass-void stuff now. I really don't know jack shit about what I'm doing and should take some courses. Ain't got the time or money now. Put most of my life into my architecture career which at best, has left me penniless. Plus, most architects have cobs up their collective, self-admiring asses. I pulled mine out and it feels much better already.

Yeah, Frank, you were great - but c'mon, your buildings leaked and fell down. You were better as an artist.

Paris Metro - 1997

2010-01-12T10:36:00.000-08:00

Life is a much to quick transition from where I came from to where I'm going, neither of which I understand or know nothing about. Before i catch the first train home, I sketch. it's what i do. enjoy.

Sometimes ya just have a good day

2010-01-03T16:33:00.000-08:00

Well, Internets, had a good day today. The real highlight was finding a high quality plastic twisty from an electronics power cord gizmo that I thought I had discarded. I used to keep all this stuff but lately we've been trying to cut down on the pack-rat horde, so now I always untwist the cord and throw the tie away instead of tossing it in my toolbox tray. It's a small step, but you have to start somewhere.

My shoes started becoming unraveled about a year ago. This was upsetting since I was hoping to get more than 15 years wear from them. I noticed my right shoe had become looser and sure enough, the dang thread had broken. You can see by the photo that the stitches are well done. I wanted to repair it in a non-invasive manner so I got out the Elmer's carpenter's glue I had used a couple years ago on the toe of the shoe to glue it down so it wouldn't flap when I walked. The threads were too short to tie back and the glue made a nice fix inside the shoe. The glue broke soon after and then I was too embarrassed to take them in to a repair place, having honked them up with the glue. Not wanting to experience the baffled, incredulous expression from the cobbler I used a grocery store paper wrapped wire tie as a second fix.

This was great for awhile but the wet weather frazzled the paper and I was left with a mangy looking shoe, what with the former glue blob and now this ratty grocery store tie.

But today - today my luck changed. I am now sporting a new tie, resplendently encased in black weatherproof PVC, looking rather sporty in its twisted application.

It's always something and sometimes, well things just turn out for the best.

Pink mist

2009-12-23T17:32:00.000-08:00

Ok, internets, my financial fraud case is underway. And by the way, if you are thinking of switching banks, switch to BECU. Dang if these folks don’t come through for their customers every time. Yessir, they put my stolen dough back in my account. I spoke to one of their deputies today as he was saddling up to ride out to catch the varmints. More on that later. ANYONE living in Washington state can put their money in this credit union. I sure would recommend BECU. I suppose even state workers could too, though they have the WSECU.

I checked up on some statistics and found that there are about 6,600,000 folks living in Wa. State. About 112,000 of them work for the state. That’s FTE (Full Time Equivalent) so, if say, two people were working part time, that would be 1 FTE. In the case of Seattle City Light it would take about 5 folks to come up to 1 FTE. Usually there’s absolutely no traffic on President’s Day, and I always figured it was because every other person here worked for the state. That’s not true. I’m still trying to figure that one out.

Anyhow, internets, those guys at BECU are hot on the trail of the perpetrators. Seems they got my card number and made their own little card, complete with that magnetic strip and everything. You don’t need a PIN number if you use it for a credit card so when you go to Fred Meyer and buy a big flat screen TV you just schlep the thing to the checkout stand, give the card a swipe (great description for this action by the way) and the brainless, witless cashier smiles toothlessly back and says “Have a nithe day”. You walk out to your 74 Olds Cutlass, strap that baby on top and drive away to your Federal Way casa. Ouala! I just bought the mofo a new TV!

The BECU detective didn’t tip his hand but it sounded like they were reviewing videos and may just have these little rodents in the crosshairs. God I’d love to squeeze the trigger and see that pink mist explode behind their head before they go down.

Toothless in Federal Way

2009-12-20T23:52:00.000-08:00

POS Withdrawal FRED-MEYER 33702 21ST AVE SW FEDERAL WAY WAUS

$875.99

POS Withdrawal FRED-MEYER 14300 1ST AVE S SEATTLE WAUS

$985.49

With Christmas just a few days away I went on line to see how much I had in my account so I could do Some Christmas shopping. I went to my on line banking statement and was immediately reminded that I really had no money. It will be a week or so before it’s all sorted out. In the meantime, what I DO have is the two posted withdrawals from the Fred Meyer stores where the thieves who stole my debit card identity shopped. They’re printed out above.

See, I really don’t have much, but what I did have someone stole. They bought $1,861.48 worth of shit at Fred Meyer. Tonight as I ruminate on what I might have bought my family members for Christmas I wonder what the thieves bought. What would a thief buy at Fred Meyer? Well, first of all, they’re at Fred Meyer. That means they’re going to buy cheap shit. Brand spanking, gleaming new, mind you – but cheap shit. Things that will wear out, break, fade, fizzle, rip, tear , warp and eventually stink. But then, that’s what you have in your house or apartment, isn’t it, Mr/Ms. Thief? A house or apartment full of cheap crap. Crap that matches your car outside and all the shit your extended family owns who live down the street. Your cheap lives filled with cheap, worthless crap you all bought at Fred Meyer. But it all fits. You all never got a break, really. That’s what it’s about. Now me, well, I’m a fucking fat cat with damn near two thousand dollars. I should share it with you shouldn’t I? Damn straight. I deserve to be robbed.

Well, hey, just you all have a merry, merry Christmas, ya hear? I do so wish I could sit down with you all and watch you open your presents. But I don’t have enough money for gas down to Burien.

Twice, now

2009-12-17T23:36:00.001-08:00

Yes, internets, twice now I have been a victim of identity theft. The first time I could see how it could have happened. I was at my home in Kirkland. It was a nice early summer day and I had the doors open. People do that in the great northwest after 9 months of sodden greyness. I was working on my laptop in the dining room and had taken a break in the kitchen for some dinner. Heard some noise in the dining room. I looked up to see the back of someone bolting out the door with my laptop. Yep. They came in, saw my computer sitting there, ripped it out of the plug and took off with it. They took off down the alley and were gone before I could get after them.

I keep a baseball bat by the back door now, in hopes of being able to use it on the next thief. Of course, thieves have more rights than I do, and when challenged in court the ACLU musters defense for these types of folks whose rights are just continually violated.

I digress. About 3 months later I started getting calls from collection agencies on the bills I had rung up on credit cards I had taken out since the summer. Seems I had opened a Target Account, an account at Old Navy (yes, I'm 62 and buy almost ALL my fucking clothes at Old Navy - gotta look hip), and several other accounts. About $20k in all. It took me about a year to recover from this and my credit report is STILL not clean. It takes 7 + years to rinse through the system.

Theft number 2 has just happened. Somebody used my debit card number (not the card - I have the card) used the number and my PIN number to empty my bank account. They did it at two different retail stores in Seattle. My bank is working with me to clear the debt.

At first I thought it was some low life street bum or some such person. Now I'm thinking it was probably someone with some savvy. Probably some banker who got shorted on his bonus this year from federal TARP funds who needed to make up for the shortfall in his income, now that he can't make loans to people who don't have the money to pay them back. Or - maybe a Boeing machinist who can't strike for a few more years.

It's always something...

2009-12-09T21:51:00.000-08:00

Internets:

They really are all around us. The insufferables. It's been creeping up on me, this notion that they were out there. Why I haven't noticed before I don't know. I nearly succumbed today. Yes, internets, I nearly met the fate experienced by this poor fellow here, head exploding. Coffee in hand this morning I browsed my news connections on line. Who hasn't seen all the stuff about the 4 fallen officers in Seattle - and I wanted to ruminate a bit more on the final chapters on this event, namely the memorial service et.al.

I wandered down the page and came upon the comment scroll. I read a few. Some folks were going on and on about why the fuss? Why all the expense? They're dead!! Why all this for these and nary a blippo on all the needless deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan? Ble bla, bla, yammer, yammer...hey I'm a veteran why ain't I got this? Oh, and there was this one guy (I assume a guy) who called himself "thanx4the exhaust" or something like that. HIS beef was all the exhaust fumes being expended by the cop cars 'n such while that Omamma-bama fella was over in Europe on this global green warming conference, yammer, yammer. What - The - Fuck, buddy? WTF? And it dawned on me. He was an insufferable. My head was turning red and my eyes were popping - and I nearly fell into the trap. Some folks did. they had quite a little rant - a- rant, tete-a-tete going on. God!!

Well, on with my work, and the encountering of my share of the other insufferables who will cross my path today. Cross my path. Today.

Insanity beckons me

2009-12-08T22:18:00.000-08:00

Internets -

A friend of mine recently sent me an Imogen Heap music video and said their life was like that. I downloaded Imogen and have fallen in love with her music. And, yes. I can see 'Take the Next Train Home' as something that relates. Got me to thinking. What describes my life these days. roller coaster. I have become a manic/depressive. I'm an architect. That means I've basically searched for work ever since I got into this inane profession. You wait, die, kill for any kind of work. To find anyone who will pay you do do a design. That's all over now. Greed took over. And we're going through a "period of adjustment" now, getting back to normal. Bottom line is, all the bankers have pulled credit in tighter than a guy's balls who just jumped into the north sea.

I love/hate the profession. And I just want out. Then I get a prospective client and hope springs. Then they go away. Of course, we submit for the public work around Seattle. Libraries, city halls, senior centers. If you're lucky you get about 1 in 100 projects. Competing with all the self serving, self proclaimed great, narcissistic architectural firms around Seattle. What a bunch of insufferable dreamers. Design for the client? No way. Design for the AIA award. Design for the coffee table book. Design for your place as an AIA fellow. I truly hate them all. Myself included for thinking I could ever, ever be as good as the awesome, talented, yes, even God-like Seattle architects. I bow in humility. I just want out. And they will say "good riddance" to me. I'm a piece of dirt under their tables. and I will say. I will just say - goodbye. BANG! Dark.

A passion discovered

2009-12-01T21:33:00.000-08:00

Internets:

I'm a drummer. Or...I have become one. Or, actually, I have always been a drummer and now it has come upon me. I'm like, 60+ frickin' years old and have been hearing, listening, memorizing absorbing beat and rhythm ever since I started listening to Buddy Holly late at night on KOMA and WLS in the 50's. Gee-Zus! I have the drum tracks of almost every rock song on the charts since 1962 - in my brain. It has been an unrealized obsession.

Education? Nope. Can't read music to speak of. Training? Nope. I took 3 months of lessons in 2002 from a cool guy who played for Lou Rawls and others. Too expensive so I faded that out to black. I just do it. And, yeah, I've come to the opinion that I am not good enough - yet.

Things that have held my passion throughout my life have always driven me to an obsession of mastery, precision and perfection. There have been three of these. One, art. Two (chortle if you must) bowling, and three, my drums. My spouse and daughter will attest to the fact that there are absolutely no other things I have ever done that the words mastery, precision and perfection come close to describing. I suck at pretty much all else.

So, yeah. I bought a drum set in 2002. Always wanted one. You remember the one crystal that superman laid into the crystal control panel in that ice palace or whatever the fuck it was up on the north pole? and all this shit started moving and melting and happening? That's what my drum set did to me. It is still doing it. I am obsessed with rhythm and how you can paint the music with it. And how precise it can be.

I've started doing studio track recording now for one of the bands I'm in and it had elevated me to a new plateau. Oh, god, the perfection you can achieve. Can achieve. Not always. And I listen to music I've heard for 40+ years and hear the drum tracks and marvel at the perfection - and yeah the mistakes I can now hear. Subtle, but you can hear them.

I play in 4 different bands now. Some more active than others. It has come upon me and I am swept away in it.

Rock on.............

Grandma still enjoys her scotch

2009-11-28T22:58:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know - two posts in one day. So much yelling. But listen, I just got back from thanksgiving III (my son in law's birthday dinner) and have to share some things with you internets. I sat next to Grandma tonight at dinner. She's my son-in-law's grandmother. And she is a hoot. How could someone NOT like a woman who still drinks scotch on the rocks at 89? How can you not? Red hair. No, flaming red hair. Fashionable? well, she is always the best dressed person at any function I've ever attended. I'm just drawn to her. She doesn't get much attention from most of the family but I tell you, she is quite the fascinating person and I thoroughly enjoy conversations with her. She's like this little withered child-size personage sitting inched above her dinner plate and she's carrying on a conversation with references back to a time I only knew when I read Encyclopedia Britannica when I was a kid. It kinda blows you away.

I mean, we're talking about Amelia Erehart and she pipes in, "Oh, my yes, I remember seeing that in the news. Wasn't that something? Flying to Paris?" Well, ok, so it get's mixed up a bit with Lindberg, but it's amazing nonetheless.

I told her a bit about my 91 year old uncle who flew the Hump in China-Burma-India and she knew all about that. I tell ya, some of the gems one can find on life's journey are precious beyond measure.

It's always something....

2009-11-28T11:51:00.000-08:00

Hello John,

Your December 2003 Best Of 2003 plaque is still available from American Registry and this month we're making it really simple to order your plaque.

I can send you the plaque and invoice you if you just email me back to confirm.

This month your plaque will cost just $99 with our special $60 discount, expiring on November 30th.

Shipping is $12, so your total invoice will be $111.

I hope you decide to promote your success this way - the plaque is gorgeous.

Best,

Riley Bloom
Account Manager, American Registry - Recognizing Excellence
(P) 866-964-0866 x 2
(F) 201-221-7770

Award: Best Of 2003
Publication: Northwest Construction
Publication Date: December 01, 2003

Dear Riley,

No, I do not want your fucking plaque. While I must admire the simplicity in ordering it, I just do not feel we deserve it. for one thing, I have no idea just what the hell it's for. 2003?

It just says "Lewis Architecture - Best of 2003" WTF?

We didn't do shit in 2003. In fact, 2003 began our long decline into the depression racked state our business has become. We've sold all our furniture just to pay our straggling employees and are eating the fucking cardboard from all the other offers we have received in the mail just to keep fiber in our stomachs.

$111 dollars, huh? Well, if I had that much money I sure wouldn't spend it on THIS piece of shit. Sorry, Riley, you've struck out here. Try me again in a couple of years. Maybe I'll be dying of Lyme's disease and be in a better mood.

not yours,

John C., AIA (so far)

Hory Crap

2009-11-24T22:52:00.000-08:00

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Strong rink found betreen Chinese drywarr and corrosion

The federar Consumer Product Safety Commission reports that it has found a "stlong association" betreen drywarr made ina China and the corrosion ofa metar fixture and erectrica rireing (boy tly to say that thlee times!) in homes wrhere it has a been instarred. The agency arso found a prossible connection betreen hydrogen surfide gas emanating from the product and compraints of hearth probrems by homeowners. The report said that hydrogen surfide, wrhen mixed writh formaldehyde, also found in many new homes, can cause the symptoms of irrness that many homeowners say they experienced. More than 2,100 officiar compraints about Chinese drywarr have been fired in 32 states. Most compraints came flom southern states that have aseen intensive rebuirding after storms. "The rear suspect can now be confirmed," said a spokesman writh a firm contracted to study the probrems.

Air Leakage and what it can mean to you

2009-11-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

Internets, this is not my article. I copied it out of some of the Master Builders flotsam that bobs along the little information creek flowing through my office. It's about the energy code. It's about air leakage, which we all know is not a good thing, especially after tacos and broccoli. No, this is more about making your house tighter than a dentist with 2 dollars to spend. This is about (I guess) affordability of housing? No, it's about bureaucrats, more and more of them. More and more.......

Last Friday, the Washington State Building Code Council (SBCC) adopted the 2009 amendments to the Washington State Energy Code (WSEC). It did not go well for the construction industry; however, our association's involvement in the debate did help reduce the cost of these changes from what was originally proposed.

Everyone agrees the economy is struggling right now, and everyone also agrees that long-term energy efficiency is a good thing for Washington and the world. The crux of Friday's discussion focused on the question, despite the stressed economy, should bold new energy requirements be approved that have a costly price tag to the consumer in the near term, but recover the cost long term?

The SBCC's vote will increase the cost of housing by $5,000 to $10,000 per single-family home, beginning on July 1, 2010. The original figure of more than $10,000 per home was reduced as a result of our association's efforts to expose the damaging effect such changes would have on the industry.

Some of the changes that passed include:

Air leakage testing will be mandatory for all new homes beginning next July.
All buildings will need an energy meter beginning next summer.
When replacing lighting, 20 percent must be high efficiency.
The value of Energy Star is lost.

Neither our association, nor the larger construction industry opposes energy efficiency, but the timing could not be worse as the economy continues to struggle. One council member actually suggested it was the perfect time to implement the changes because nobody is building.

With these changes, Washington State will continue as one of the greenest, if not the greenest, states in the union. It's too bad such a title comes on the back of the new homebuyer rather than retrofitting current construction, which would save infinitely more energy.

Driving on a planet

2009-11-21T23:58:00.000-08:00

That you are headed to Kansas City from the west probably is not the first thing one may notice about this photo. It might be driving to Wichita. But that, as we have read earlier, is much more of a straight line. No, the drive to Kansas City is more varied. The skid marks here may well have been from the poor chap used to driving to Wichita. He may have tied his steering wheel down and set the alarm for too long, hence waking up to notice that he was careening off the road.

You may notice the lack of trees, or the lack of really just about anything. There is a sign just ahead telling you how ridiculously far the next hint of civilization is, where you might eventually find food or petrol, or perhaps letting you know that someone famous came from a town down around the draw and over the rise. Kansas is a place where folks are from for some reason. Eisenhower grew up in Abilene for instance. Kinda just sits there, doesn't it? Yeah. Profound.

Amelia Earhart and Buster Keaton were from there. Ron Evans and Steve Hawley were astronauts from there. Not very many people actually got famous IN Kansas. Except maybe for John Brown or the guy who murdered the Clutter family in cold blood. I was going to google it, but decided I don't give a shit who it was.

Kansas is a good place to drive because it reminds you that you are actually on a planet. In the winter it especially reminds me of the Ice Planet Hoth. Driving in the winter conjures thoughts like, "Holy Mother of God, what am I doing on THIS planet?", or "Depending where you're looking at the planet from space, I could very well be UPSIDE DOWN this very moment - how the fuck am I sticking to the road??" Well, not to worry. You are sticking to the road primarily due to the suction emanating from this part of the United States. Yes, you may hear 'this place sure sucks' quite a bit, but thank goodness it does, or you would float off into space for sure.

Driving while on hallucinogenic drugs isn't a good idea either in Kansas. (college days). It's entertaining to be sure, but hazardous when you think your quarter has timed out and you decide to get up from the video game and leave the store. This is bad because once you've started rolling in your car there is nothing to stop you - except the sign telling you who was from here.

Perspectives

2009-11-16T20:51:00.000-08:00

It's really quite amazing discovering the dusty corners of your memory. I've spent a bit of time with my aged mom (88) and my brother this last few days in the town where I grew up. I have come back annually now for some time and relive some of the things I've remembered each time. This time I used my digital recorder in several discussions with my mom. I did this so I could write it down for my daughter. I have learned things about her life I never knew. It has been in many ways, an epiphany. The two grave yards in town have come alive for me, as they harbor the earthly remains of people now more interesting, more colorful, more meaningful to me and I see my connection to all this in a newer light.

My mom was 6th in a family of 8. She is the last survivor. There is no one left but Bob in Iowa, who will be 100 in 2010 and Richard, here in town, who she will probably never see again for reasons too lengthy to explain here. Last one standing. All the others are a mile down the road in earthen containers arranged for us to find on Memorial day with markers announcing the most basic information of life's journey, etched in stone- Who you were, when you came here and when you left here.

My brother and I began to talk about our house where we grew up. The memory slots in my brain fired up, as did his. We fed off each other, filling in missing pieces. As each new piece came in several loooong forgotten ones emerged and it was a cornucopia of memory. Rather amazing. Long-term memory is the most indelible. The access to it is somewhat easy and the reward is almost overwhelming. The new detail brilliant and sharp as if it were yesterday.

I am writing this, internets, so that you can maybe find it for yourself someday when opportunity presents. Don't pass it up. And, if you've a mind, write it down.

Mr. brain comments

2009-11-15T21:13:00.000-08:00

Mr. brain is asking mr. body to type this tonight. Mr. brain has almost had enough of this shit. Mr. brain has been riding around in the cranial cavity supplied by mr. body for over 60 years now. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed the ride and the places I've directed mr. body to take me. And, tonight, mr. body (and by the way, my god you've let yourself go down there!) mr. body has dutifully gone to the kitchen and has imbibed enough gin to satisfy my need for the soft, quieting, gin-induced fog through which I can exist after another day in Kansas.

We're all basically our brains. Without them, the body just lies there like a suit of clothes waiting to be put on for the day. Nope, brains make you breathe, eat and do all the things that enable support, energy and transportation for the brain. We are really just wrinkled, grey cortex matter with sensory equipment to relate to one another.

My brain is in Kansas right now and wondering just how much more it can take watching the bodies and talking heads on Fox News babble and bluster WITHOUT brains guiding them in their endeavors. It's like watching beheaded chickens running around the barnyard. How did they come to lose their brains and what in god's name is propelling them? My brain has watched this for several days now and is puzzled beyond measure.

No! my brain isn't superior. far from it. But the body called what-? - Hannidy or something like that? My god, it's from some other planet.

Mr. brain would go on but the transport device has expended itself for today. More tomorrow.

Failure as a Lifestyle

2009-11-14T20:51:00.000-08:00

Big game day. Three codgered architects meet at the alma mater to view another drubbing of our football team. We have attended one of these games every year now for, what? Going on for 12 years or so. We expect our team to lose, and they seldom disappoint. The game isn't so much as important as getting together. We went through architecture together, through the 'Nam' years together in the Army National Guard, and through our careers - since the internets anyway- via daily email. Friends with as much history (44 years) are fairly rare. But the strongest glue, the common thread, the salient element in our relationship is our sharing of three things that are designed to beat you down into the dust of utter failure - architecture, military and K-State football. And we have excelled in it. The fact that we are also men and, moreover, husbands also helps this formula for disaster. Let's face it, no man, much less husband, can ever hope to amount to much of anything. Add to that architecture, military National Guard and KSU and, well, we stand proudly accused.
So it was with bittersweet aplomb that we watched our team self-destruct today before our very eyes. Unravel. Implode. Weave all over the field and, yes, fart itself to death. Good Lord!
We will soon go to Kansas City for our annual Failed Architects Reliving Traditionally Expected Disaster (F.A.R.T.E.D.) dinner, departing to our failed lives the next day. Stay tuned.........

Driving to Wichita

2009-11-12T20:44:00.000-08:00

Nothing really cool to report from the heart land today. Drove down to Wichita to pick up our kid and her hubby. Driving in Kansas requires: cruise control, 4 feet of rope or cord, long range army field artillery binoculars, small battery powered alarm clock with a suction cup attachment for the dash. (No, the rope is too short to use as a suicide noose, though I suppose it has been tried). Use the rope to secure the steering wheel after achieving a straight path at 74.2 MPH. When the vechile is stable, check the road ahead with the field binoculars. If the road is clear alll the way to the horizon - in YOUR lane- set the alarm clock for about 15 minutes and take a short nap. This works generally each time and you can get your much needed sleep 15 minutes at a time. You will need sleep, due to nightmares from Fox news in EVERY TV in your house 24/7.

Hitting a cow or some other 1,500 pound object will seriously disrupt your nap and possibly damage the alarm clock, so make sure there are no cattle near the road on the horizon. (and, hope Clem, the guy in Newton, has completed his daily trip to Piggly Wiggly across the highway for snacks, pork rinds and diet pop.)

You shouldn't try this at night, for obvious reasons. It's when the blind folks drive.

Family history

2009-11-11T20:11:00.000-08:00

A Kansas trip would not be complete without family dysfunction. It's why one goes to Kansas to begin with. Family. No other good reason to be here. My mom is a saint. And my brother and his wife are right up there. They care for her. She's been through the Great Depression (which has now returned), WWII, Post war boom and all that reckless hope everyone had, 3 husbands - now with their maker - 2 boys, one successful and one an architect, and the 88 years that have left her wondering why the hell Mr. Maker has left her here with this fucked up body.

Oh, did I mention the families of husbands 2 and 3? No, I didn't. Husband #2's family, once inherited by SM (sainted mother) consists of one dead kid (eye-out in beer bottle fight, death via alcholism), another obeise and soon-to-be dead kid, now fat, also drunk and living on the State dole, two other normal kids, just greedy and fucked up otherwise.

And did I mention the families of husband #3, recently dead? No, I didn't. Well, these clowns top old hubby #2 head and shoulders. Hubby #3 inhereted about $1M bucks from wife #1, dead from emphysema, kept the money, gave it out to the needy (Yes, by god, Mr. Maker is proud of this one for that at least). Well, hubby #3's family couldn't stand the codgered old fucking dick so when SM married him they all shouted allelieua and said how WONderrrrrful SM was for taking care of him. Geezus, she all but saved him from certain neglect and death had the kids anything to do with it. Give the old Tonto a fucking blanket, a skin of water and banish him out on the prairie - worked for the indians.

Yep, hubby #3's dead 'n gone...kids split with the cash (Yes, it WAS legally theirs), and SM hasn't seen hide nor hair of 'em since. (except the one still poor one who lives nearby). Hey, thanks for taking care of 'Dad'. yeah, we all sure meant it. We ain't giving you one fucking dime of this and moreover, ain't replacing the carpet in your house on which the old fuck snuffed out the nearly 575,980 cigarettes he smoked in there.

Well, tomorrow's another day.....

What the Hell is the Point?

2009-11-10T20:57:00.000-08:00

A trip to Kansas is always, well, always. I have a couple of old friends that I usually visit. Pen, he's living near where I am on the west coast and Bert still lives in the college town where we all three first met each other, nigh on 45 years ago.

We usually go to a foot ball game, engage in a tailgate party, watch our team lose, sometimes have dinner, then go home. Pen and I usually stay overnight in Kansas City, then he and I go back to the left coast and Bert goes back and we spend the rest of the year on email complaining about how our team did THAT day and the rest of the year. Other teams are always better, not so much because they ARE better but because we are bad. We suck, in fact.

That brings me to the first point I suppose, if there is a point. Notice the use of 'we'. We have learned to associate our entire net worth, our self esteem, our very sacred honor (that's the shit that was in the declaration of Independence I think)...yes, all that on the success, or lack thereof, of our football team. I have been trying to figure this phenomina out all my life - a considerable time now - and have no answer with which I am satisfied.

two days and a wake-up to game day. to be continued....

Flotsam and Jetsam

2009-11-06T23:31:00.000-08:00

Internets, I went down to my basement today to sit. Just sit. Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits. Well yeah, we've all seen that poster. Friend of mine came over today and visited our office. It hasn't appreciably changed in the five or so years since she worked here. Got me to thinking as I was showing her all the stuff that was still there, piled up like so much flotsam against rocks in a stream, that I too was becoming flotsam. Flotsam. Piled up. Stuck. And, instead of willing myself out or doing something I remain, complaining loudly. Annoying. And, yes one could say a stick-in-the-mud.

I have enjoyed being an architect. But oh God, the price. Ain't rich. Far, far from it. In fact if it weren't for my spouse I would be living in a cardboard box somewhere. I absolutely do not have shit. And somehow by the Grace of God I have not been sued - successfully. Plenty of threats and still plenty of liability out there waiting to be exploited by a junk dog lawyer, should one come trotting down the alley. I fear them. The attorneys who are dogs. You know who they are. Many are indeed knights representing fairness - but there are the dogs.

Some days I feel strong and good and some days I can just pour out creativity and it feels good. But those days have dwindled. My creativity now finds other outlets. Music. Art. I suppose architecture is art. Been told that alot. I suppose art can be architecture too. But I have to say I'm so tired of wringing myself out, pouring my soul out, trying to create things for people who just flat do not give one shit about aesthetics, beauty or quality of life. Just money.

I am pathetic I suppose to think this way. Look at how I've been blessed. I have no right, no right whatsoever to be this complaining, whiny grumbling edifice of humanity but yet I am.

Don't know why I'm sharing this with you, internets. I'm just yelling in my basement.

Tomorrow I'm going over to sell some of my art so that the proceeds can go to thirsty, miserable people in Africa who need water wells. Hooray! Pin a little shining star on me. G'nite.

A WWII Story

2009-10-31T23:03:00.000-07:00

2nd Lt. Richard Carl Nethaway, drafted in the Selective Service drawing in July 1941, sworn in at Leavenworth Kansas, 15 July 1941. Yeah, it was before Pearl. That did come along later that year.

I’m going to tell you a little about my part in WWII. It was a small part. Although most GI’s said that. Everybody had a small part. A small slice of it that was maybe inconsequential. Maybe not. Me, I flew airplanes. Transport airplanes. In China-Burma-India. The ‘Hump’.

There were lots of other jobs to do in WWII. You could go across North Africa, up to Italy. You could be an armorer, mechanic or cook or a sailor deep in the bowels of an aircraft carrier. Under attack, the decks above would be on fire, explosions every minute. Sheer terror. You fight fires, close watertight bulkheads, secure munitions, Hold a sailor’s hand as his life slowly ebbs out in a pool of blood. You could be on a submarine with depth charges death rattling your small fragile encased world of light and oxygen fathoms below water’s surface. I could have been one of those guys in the Normandy invasion, seasick, landing with bullets whizzing past, seeking to enter my body and end my life in agony. Then the hedgerow fighting, man-to-man, day upon day. Cold. Wet. Never dry. Never clean. Months. How can you not stand in awe of these men?

But like I said, I flew airplanes, had hot meals, slept in barracks.

For what it’s worth, let me tell you what I did.

To be continued -