The Long Walk Home Due to a Busy Mind

It's that time of year everyone!!! Free time is nearly gone. Truly the last of it shalt be squandered here in mere days before the crazy mess of studio work overtakes my life. Enough of the future, it is not determined by any sort of ballyhoo-ery that I make at this instance.

Fall has hit the gorgeous ISU campus!!! Trees are changing colors and my favorite time of year is upon us!!! FALLLL!!! (with four llll's) I am improving greatly in each of my Spanish classes, probably due to a greater degree of immersion than in years past. This is one thing I learned in Italy. You learn a new language real quick once you are forced to use it, and it is difficult and embarrassing to make mistakes in common situations. The other day I answered a question right, but later in class could not understand what my teacher was asking me whilst checking for homework. He was just asking my last name... Yeah...

We have one of our site models done and dusted, but it is only the smaller of the two pieces that we need to make for our final presentation in December. Lots more laser cutting and assembly and glueing to go. My group is just starting to make conceptual models about our site and we are slightly behind where I want us to be, which is ahead of the other groups in the class.

In more disheartening news I have to redo my student website because my teacher neglected to tell us that we needed to use HTML coding instead of Flash coding while making it. Guess which one I chose? I spent a lot of time on it making a rather handsome and well thought out page that is now useless because ISU's computer labs can't handle the file. So now I have to redo it all by next Tuesday... And he just told me that today. (Various explitives here...) Good thing is that I am living with Drew and he is an HTML wizard, so I already have some bones to flesh out. Unfortunately I still need to get some more coding in to make the site work more efficiently and look good too, because the things we were taught in class look like websites did back when Clinton was still President (long time ago in the Internet years.)

Anyways, I have two models I want to make tonight plus two poems to read and analyze in another language... So long for now! There shalt be more on Thursday!!!

More From Boston!

Long time, no talk... Things have been busy as all get out here. I am in studio now pumping out schematic design ideas for the 'ole Symphony Orchestra hall in Boston (Jazz only, to a degree). My what a brutal list of conceptual necessities it has. We are starting slower than I expected, but I really need to get something going, but our teacher and class model (the one we are building) are really getting in the way. Look for updates on pictures of these things in the next week, as they will be really sweet. But back to Boston!

The first night in town I went around to the three sites with two of my professors (one is my studio professor the other teaches my graduate level class). It was actually nice to hear their input on the sites as we visited them for the first time together. My group ended up choosing a site near the Rose Kennedy Greenway (the Big Dig) right downtown in Boston. After visiting said sights we went and got food at the Quincy Market. I ate a bowl of Chowda' with a kosher kielbasa chili dog. My one professor went upstairs for a pint and bar food whilst we dined on the cheaper fare of the market. When we went looking for him we stumbled upon him at the New England Patriots Cheerleaders Calender release party... Pretty dang lucky but awesome (and a terrible night to have left my camera back at the hotel... Damn)! After much jaw dropping and stuttering conversations with gorgeous women, we booked it back to our hotel stopping on the way for a pint of Samuel Adams (the most prominent and Bostonian thing imaginable, an actual identity to the city that people have massive pride in.)

The next day I toured the ICA art Museum on the waterfront for its collection and architecture, followed by dinner at the nearby Barking Crab and a tour of two Arch firms that afternoon. In between I tried to make it to MIT, but caught up with Steve Jobs speaking on the street. Drew and I would later go back to that campus and even meander through the campus of some school called Harvard. I really can say that I liked MIT and its similar sort of identity to ISU (at least the engineering and sciences portion of the campus that really felt like an ISU transmuted as infill into the Boston Harbor). I hated my trip to Harvard. If a person could make a collegiate university into a Disneyland-esque park where you walk around and gawk at buildings and placards of famous people... That is what Harvard is. There is also a preening arrogance to the students we saw sitting out enjoying the masses of Asian tourists photographing them as they "studied and read and chatted" in the Yard. It just left a bad impression on me, even though I dearly hope it was just a portion of the student population. I did thoroughly enjoy the brutalist architecture present at both campuses (ala CY Stephens and Fisher Theatre). Stark, severe and brutally effiecent buildings by Kahn and Pei (plus a Vander Rohe set that could count in this context...) that truly made the trip worth it.

On Sunday I went to a bookstore near the Boston Green and ate at the infamous Union Oyster House. I got the plate of fried seafood (scallops, clams, oysters, cod, shrimp, kalamari and octopus) smothered in fries... That was pricy and greasy but amazing to taste seafood that amazingly fresh and good. The rest of the trip was walking around, a Red Sox game and documentation of the site we chose... Things that are rather less interesting to write about, but here are some pictures and videos!!! (More pictures to come later again...)

Baahstein!!! (A Preview)

Lots to do in Boston, and not a lot of time to tell it. Here is a taste of a photo post to whey your appetite...

NO SLEEP 'TIL BROOKLYN!!!!!! (Oops... Boston)

Yeah I'm sleeping, don't get all worked up. That phrase will become commonplace after this wee though... Sadly. Got me a Red Sox game on Friday night at seven pm eastern (televised?) and tours all over the dang place in the city. I signed up for the art museum and firm visits... That in addition to our mandatory downtown tour and I have an eventful several days before me. It's really going to be weird to fly and not have to speak a different language than I am used to or to have to change money etc. There might be some culture shock to the east coast way of thinking (Red Sox & Tom Brady are two of my least favorite subjects) but there shalt be fantastic seafood!!! May grab a lobster or something (followed by McDonalds or grocery store food for the rest of the trip) fishy to tide myself over in the landlocked area that Iowa is. Just sayin', our seafood is terrible because it is frozen and shipped for like 5 days to get here... Minimum.

I need to finish packing. I shalt text thee a photo of me in Boston assuming I'm not roaming like crazy.

Much love...

Much to do About Nothing...

Not a whole lot going on here... My Spanish Homework is all I really have that has been constant since my 2 reviews last week over the chocolate boxes and the acoustics slideshow. I do need to get that dang video posted on my YouTube, Thelast thing somewhat exciting in school news is the Rome Exhibition. We set up our work and had a gallery for this last Friday that included "Italian" snacks and such to go with it. Things went very well and a modified version of the exhibit will be set up for the next two weeks.

(Scratch the YouTube comment from above, that baby is good to GOOOO!!! I'll link it at the bottom or something...)

I am trying the old blog thing out on just a temporary Tuesday and Thursday basis just to see if I can get more use out of it, because it is actually something I really enjoy doing! This is randomly kind of tossed into two more exciting topics, but hey! Some of you may be confused with the new look and the lack of contact. This is kind of a lull for me from the busy like 10 days straight I had from last week. All I really know is that this semester will be madness!!! Followed by random lulls in the action.

Go Cyclones!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Unless you have been living in a televisionless hole for the last month, you may or may not have known that the Cyclones beat some random team from the east coast of Iowa. No bid deal right... More importantly we have not done something like this since I was an adorable little freshman! (That little cutie) Next week ISU takes on Big East champs UConn and I have friends renting vehicles in Boston to drive out on Friday to watch the game live as opposed to TUNING INTO ESPN2 FRIDAY NIGHT. This is our free night in the city of seafood, Cheers and people who heckle Yankees fans. So I will hopefully find a sports bar somewhere (Irish themed of course) and watch the game to a couple of pints of Guiness and fish and chips whilst wearing a viewtiful ISU cardinal and gold T-shirt. Tune in for more Boston business before next Thursday (leaving at 4 am for DM Airport.. BOO!). Hopefully I will post some details of our trip and such.

Behold! Chocolate Melting to Thelonius Monk! The last 30 seconds is the desired final effect that I was hoping to achieve from a form standpoint... Enjoy!