passion of the architect

longest day of work

2007-01-03T13:02:00.000-08:00

so the longest day of work is supposedly the first day back from vacation.

yup. it's only 1 pm.

i could've sworn 8 hours passed already.

damn u brad....damn u!

2006-12-11T10:17:00.000-08:00

so what do give someone for his bday when he already has everything? how about a private tour of frank lloyd wright's fallingwater and a private catered dinner in his living room.

so apparently this is what ms. jolie gave to her man, mr. pitt.

Cara Armstrong, the curator of the museum, revealed that not only had the actor thoroughly enjoyed his tour, but had also surprised her, as well as the staff, with his knowledge about architecture.

what a kiss ass.

i mean c'mon....you got the girl, the job, and the money. now you wanna take over my territory. let it be brad....let it be.

then again, if brad loves architecture and design and can still "get the girl," then i guess that gives us cadmonkeys some hope.

not a lot dammit, but at least some.

Brad's perfect bday gift.

familiar face

2006-12-08T12:14:00.000-08:00

hey....it's mama siegal, my very first studio instructor.

clean your car

2006-12-08T11:29:00.000-08:00

so my fellow cadmonkey mentions to the office who's driving to our christmas lunch thing....

it's all quiet.

then the new guy takes it the wrong way and thinks that my buddy is actually telling him that he should be the one to drive.

so what does the new guy do....he goes downstairs and cleans out his car.

i give my buddy a hard time and tell him that he's so mean, forcing the new guy to clean his car like that.

my buddy mentions that he didn't mean it like that and i'm like whatever.

so i guess the new guy is driving.

ckeck the border

2006-12-07T11:11:00.000-08:00

so the b-dub (aka the pm) wants to get the client's logo on our border just right before we send our sheets out to print.

in actuality, i think it's fine, but b-dub wants doesn't like the gray shading showing behind the logo when you print.

so we spend all this time messing around w/ the image file, changing plot settings, sending test plots to the printers, etc. etc. etc. all this just to get the image just right.

so what happens. the printers give me call and tell me we can't seem to get the image right, but we did notice that you have a wrong phone number on your border.

so i check and low and behold, our address and phone number is wrong and who worked on the border...b-dub.

hmmmm....so we spend all this time fixing a damn logo, when we don't even have our right contact info on the border which is on every single drawing.

i wonder if i should mention this before or after we send out our 50 sheets to print.

after.

guessitecture

2006-12-05T10:11:00.000-08:00

so we can't seem to find as built drawings for this one project. so here's what i'm doing....

a while ago, when we did have the as built drawings, the man actually traced over it (with no dimensions called out) to have it scanned (see scantecture) and layed out on cad.

so i am now taking that hand trace of the as built drawing, that was scanned into the computer and using that image file as a background to trace over in autocad.

and to top it off, the man wants me to email him different schemes so he can give accurate square footages and dimensions to the client.

so i'm basically using this image file, that was started by hand, to guess accurate dimensions to give to the client.

as built to hand trace to scan to image background to cad trace to dimension to client= guessitecture.

so you want me to surf the internet.....what?

2006-11-29T12:06:00.000-08:00

so the past couple of days has been pretty cool. all last week and the past days of this week, the man has given me the okay to surf the internet.

yes, i said that right, okay to surf the internet! what?

well, the real reason is because we are currently redesigning our website, so he wants me to research on the net and get some ideas. nice!

i mean it's no different from what i do everyday. it's just that this time i don't have to hide explorer behind autocad all the time (c'mon, like you guys haven't done that before) and i can browse the net FULL SCREEN! 'iz very nice.

okay. gotta go back to work now.

no seriously, i have a lot to do.

happy turkey day

2006-11-22T15:19:00.000-08:00

turkey for me

and turkey for you.

i like to eat turkey

in my big brown shoe....

i can't believe i'm still at work. i gotta get out of here.

happy turkey day all!

thanksgiving mode

2006-11-20T11:59:00.000-08:00

so this week i am officially in thanksgiving mode...

this is very much similar to vacation mode, which occurs days before i go on vacation, and christmas mode, which starts the day after thanksgiving.

it is a happy mode, where i have little or no work to do. and if i do have work, i, of course, finish whatever i need to do quickly and efficiently, in order to spend some real quality internet time surfing and blogging (why waste a good work day).

come to think of it, as i look back, it seems to me i was in thanksgiving mode for quite a while this past year, if not, the whole year actually.

yah, it was a good year.

sorry

2006-11-20T11:56:00.000-08:00

so the b-dub aka boy wonder aka pm said sorry to me the other day for yelling at me.

that was nice.

managing the pm

2006-11-15T08:57:00.000-08:00

so i got yelled at the other day for trying to manage the project manager (pm). it was pretty funny....note to self....i should manage the project manager more often...

i realized that our deadline was coming up and we were no where near completion so i decided to step up and make that known, especially since most of the stuff still left to do on the drawings were the responsibility of the all high and mighty pm.

i guess he didn't take it very kindly that a cadmonkey was pointing out what should've been done by the pm, but wasn't...(see post "the art of creating work to get out of working").

yah, that was fun.

the art of creating work to get out of working

2006-11-10T12:09:00.000-08:00

so i learned a new thing the other day.

the art of creating work to get out of working. the basis behind this philosophy is creating work that you like to do, ie. renderings, emailing, reseaching online, etc., to get out of work that you do not want to do or don't know how to do, ie. detailing, redlines, etc.

for example...(keep in mind we are working on a tight deadline)

1. i need to do details, but instead, i will research where the best price is to get plotter paper.

2. i need to do details, but instead, i will play around w/ sketchup.

3. i need to do details, but instead, will work on another project, that involves me working on sketchup, that does not have an immediate deadline and is not a main priority.

4. i need to do details, but instead, will make a holiday calender on power point, yes i said it, power point, to figure out everyone's vacation schedule.

5. i need to do details, but instead, will have my cadmonkeys bail me out because i will eventually have them doing the work i was responsible for.

BOY i WONDER, if we'll meet our deadline.

math problem

2006-11-02T11:16:00.000-08:00

so a client is gonna move in to their new building that we are doing tenant improvements on in january. no biggie. adding a few offices here and there, completely restoring a gutted second floor, etc., etc.

we just started construction documents this week.

you do the math.

late lunch

2006-11-01T09:46:00.000-08:00

so yesterday me and my bud got in trouble for taking a late lunch. late meaning 1:30 in the afternoon.

apparently, the man wants us to take an earlier lunch when he is in the office so that he can give us work to be done before he leaves, which is usually around 3 or 3:30 pm.

apparently, what the man didn't know was that the reason why we took a late lunch in the first place was because my bud was printing out drawings for the man so that when he comes back from his lunch, he as something to look at.

as borat would say...."iz nice."

mysterious employees

2006-10-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

so for a while we've been wondering when we would hire more people in the office.....

it's funny.

we supposedly hired this one guy to start working here, but he "mysteriously" had to leave the country. i remember a while back, this one girl was suppose to start working here but her visa "mysteriously" didn't fall through.

hmmm.

and then, just yesterday, a senior architect guy, whom the man was suppose to interview, "mysteriously" didn't return his phone calls. so in the meantime, we are suppose to hire a contract worker, but the man "mysteriously" can't get a hold of her.

hmmmm. there seems to be a mysterious pattern going on here.

best damn week ever

2006-10-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

So let me recap my week….

Monday: had a meeting w/ some important people, apparently too important because I wasn’t even introduced to any of them. I’m just the token monkeyboy!

Tuesday: I found out why I was at the meeting w/ important people the other day. I was asked to prepare the meeting minutes. Yeah. that would be kinda hard because in order to write minutes for a meeting, you kinda have to be paying attention, which i clearly was not doing.

Wednesday: still trying to remember what happened at the meeting.

Thursday: i was pissed because my tivo didn't tape lost the other night, so i watched it online (and yes, i was totally working at the same time). the rest of the day i watched desperate housewives....no comment.

Friday: i had to draft my fantasy basketball team in the morning, then i had to catch up on all the work i was behind because i was busy funking around the whole week. whatever. i always got next week.

peace. i'm out.

lunch with former co-workers

2006-10-13T15:55:00.000-07:00

Having lunch with former co-workers is always fun. It may seem awkward for some, but for me and my ex-compadres it’s all good, mainly because we all share one common thing….talking smack about the man.

All of your frustrations, your anger, and your issues are all laid out on the table. This and this happened on this project, so and so isn’t doing their job, the man is a dumbass, etc., etc., etc.,

I then realized one thing. I was the only one doing most of the talking. That just shows how much better off my ex-compradres are since leaving the firm because they really had nothing bad to say about their current firm.

Nevertheless, times to vent does not necessarily have to happen over two and half hour lunches. I at least have this blog to share to the world and to my former co-workers and also to former co-workers of former co-workers (wink, wink….you know who you are) the wonderful world of architecture from one monkeyboy’s perspective.

So please continue to read and please comment and help keep the passion alive.

God I love my job.

ARE Exam Schedule

2006-10-12T16:43:00.000-07:00

so i'm starting to study for my ARE Exams. no, i'm not a sell out. i just wanted to see what it takes to blossom from a monkeyboy into a licensed monkeyboy.

i set an hour after work to study. here's my schedule so far....

monday: monday night football
tuesday: gym
wednesday: tivo night.
thursday: hockey
friday: it's friday....you really think i want to study before the weekend?
saturday: it's saturday, enough said.
sunday: hockey

as you can see, i'm off to a great start!

what a view

2006-10-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

just got this from a fellow monkeyboy....

Read the story below first before viewing pictures! This is what I call the ultimate in architectural creativity!

This is a true story. It happened in Utah and was on the news!

A city councilman, Mark Easton, lives in this neighborhood.

He had a beautiful view of the east mountains, until a new neighbor purchased the lot below his house and built.

Apparently, the new home was 18 inches higher than the ordinances would allow, so Mark Easton, mad about his lost view, went to the city to make sure they enforced the lower roof line ordinance. Mark and his new neighbor had some great arguments about this as you can imagine - not great feelings. The new neighbor had to drop the roof line - no doubt at great expense.

Recently, Mark Easton called the city and informed them that his new neighbor had installed some vents on the side of his home. Mark didn't like the look of these vents and asked the city to investigate.

When they went to Mark's home to see the vent view, this is what they found... (Now scroll down to see attached picture)

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clients in the office

2006-10-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

so yesterday we had some pretty important clients at the office.

so the previous friday we had to clean up our spaces and "dress up" the office w/ pretty boards that we did like 20 years ago to make sure our space is "presentable" to the clients.

we re-painted our desks, cleaned up the library, hid old drawings, and so forth. the man even had some people from our other office come in to make the office look "busy" i guess. the man even told us to dress it up a little.

funny thing though. the clients were in the conference room the whole time and were in and out and didn't even tour the office.

nice.

fantasy architects

2006-10-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

so all this fantasy talk got me thinking.

what if we could set up a fantasy team of architects and cad monkeys, who'd you pick?

of course, like the sports fantasy teams, the fantasy architect team would be judged on stats of productivity, like who'd work the most hours, got the most done, brought in projects, and stuff like that.

i'll tell you right now, i'd be a bad draft pick. and if i was drafted i should be benched.

unless there's a stat were they give points for internet time. if that's the case, i'm your man.

fantasy sports

2006-10-09T09:11:00.000-07:00

so let me sum up my whole week last week.

fantasy, fantasy, and more fantasy.

i was real busy setting up my teams for fantasy football. it's really hard work, looking up stats, and then covering up those stats quickly w/ autocad and then looking at more stats, and so forth.

i even somehow found the time off of my busy schedule to set up my fantasy hockey teams. that was fun.

i even was able to partcipate in live draft to set my fantasy basketball team. that took almost all morning, so lunch came by quick.

nevertheless, it was a pretty productive week for me.

employee defect

2006-09-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

so i had breakfast the other day with a ex employee who just defected to another firm.

he was telling me how hard it was to get back in the "work mode." he looked around him and no one was on the internet and everyone seemed to be working.

that sucks.

internet modem

2006-09-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

oh, relating back to the internet issue.

so all last week i was suggesting ideas to our "IT" guy here in the office of what we could do to resolve the internet issue.

apparently the modem we had in the office decided to give up and die on us 'cause it was "too old"....this was according the mr. AT&T guy who came in to check our system.

so mr. IT decided to go shopping for a new modem all next morning but couldn't find an adaquate "business modem."

the modem we needed would take a week to deliver. so i suggested that we should just get whatever is the most adaquate modem available at the store to temporarily set us up online so that we are not down for a week and return that modem after we get the modem we needed.

mr. IT shrugged that idea and said "oh, we can't do that. it won't work. we can't return a modem..." (this is when i start rolling my eyes).

then literally not even a minute later, our tech guy calls the office and tells mr. IT to go to best buy and get a temporary modem to at least get us online....hmmm sounds familiar, eh?

so mr. IT gets off the phone, looks over at me and says "so i guess we'll go ahead and use your method monkeyboy and get a modem for now and return later."...laugh haha.

dumbass.

most productive week ever!!!

2006-09-27T10:33:00.000-07:00

so it's been in a while since my last post. reason being, i've been working my fricken arse out. reason being, the fricken internet didn't work ALL LAST WEEK!

with that said, i had nothing else to do at work, but work. and you know what i found out...work is hard and tiring. i mean i was fricken dying last week. do you know how hard it is not being able to check your email at work, update your fantasy football team, read the news, check the weather, and all that other good stuff (porn) that you surf on the net for.

it was a pain that i have not experienced ever before. it was then, and only then, i realized how important the internet is in being part of my daily life, especially during work.

i don't know how many times i clicked on that little "e" icon only to see the "page not found error." then i refreshed. refreshed again. and again. unplug and replug the network cable. control alt delelte. control alt delelte. AHHHHHH!!! IT'S STILL NOT WORKING!!!

but it's working now. we had to get a new modem.

so it's cool.

whew.