I had a strange dream last night. I was watching a newscast. The report was being given by an anchorwoman. I didn’t know her name. There was also an anchorman. His name was Jim. The anchorwoman, with frightening urgency, was giving a report on how retail employees, especially cashiers, do not look people in the eyes anymore. “It’s getting to be a real problem, Jim!” she would say. During the dream, this news was cause for a crisis – it was an ordeal of nightmarish proportions. In my subconscious, around 3:00 AM, I was frantically worried about finding a way to solve this problem. Now, awake, I’m just mildly annoyed.
Because of the vastly increased amount of free time I've had during the past few weeks, I've developed a new feature here at Jcarroll.net: What I Am Playing With Right Now. I think the title says it all. I'll just add this: I'm going to try to update it every Sunday. Try. I certainly play with enough things to keep it updated weekly, but I may at times be constrained by other life requirements. So, no promises. But, for now, enjoy the regularity.
Twelve hours later, today’s road trip is over. A few highlights:On the way there we were followed for quite some distance by a big black truck with the phrase “The Black Night” menacingly displayed on the front of its hood. The Black Night also had menacing black fuzzy dice hanging from his rear-view mirror.
I came to the following realization: It really doesn’t matter, in any substantive way, what day it actually is. What matters is what day it feels like. One exception: If it feels like Sunday and you suddenly discover that it is indeed Saturday, this does matter, since it is beneficial. You’ve just gained one entire day.
“There are just way too many things in this world that beep.” Truer words were never spoken. Uttered by Beth, a young artist we met tonight in a Corning café.
Thinking About Cars
At various times over the past four years I’ve gone for long stretches of time when my living/working situation was structured in such a way that I wasn’t dependent on a car. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this. In Cleveland, I first lived in Tremont, which is a very walkable neighborhood with restaurants, galleries, coffee shops, convenience stores and the like, all within a quarter mile stroll of my apartment. I took the bus across the river to where I worked downtown.
Then I moved downtown. This was fantastic because I lived in the heart of the city, on Cleveland’s (formerly) glorious Euclid Avenue, and had a mere one-block walk to work. I would step out of my door, get coffee at my favorite place (which is now gone) in the Old Arcade, walk down the street and be at work in approximately ten minutes - if I felt like moving that fast.
After living downtown for about a year, I changed jobs. I began working in a small, first-ring suburb of Cleveland called Lakewood. Now, Lakewood itself is a nice little city – it has an active downtown and great neighborhoods of its own. It was enjoyable working there because there was so much to do within walking distance of my building. The problem is, I had to drive to work since I still lived downtown. Admittedly, the drive was only fifteen minutes, but it was more than I had done in about two years. I noticed over time that even that little bit of a commute began to stress me out.
My next living situation was determined by the fact that my wife and I got married (well, actually, we eloped, but that’s another story). I moved into her apartment, one block away from Shaker Square. Shaker Square is a wonderful neighborhood. It has great vitality, a plethora of shops and cafés, and one of Cleveland’s three light-rail lines running straight through it. It was great for Rosie, because she’d just hop the train downtown to get to the office. As for me, well, I was still driving to work.
Now, we’re living in Ithaca, New York. We live on The Commons, a pedestrian-only street that has been closed to automobile traffic since the 1970s. Pretty much everything we need is within walking distance, with the exception of a major big-box grocery store. Cornell is up the hill (which is a half-mile long, 40° San Francisco-style hill), but the bus runs every ten minutes for the majority of the day. I almost never use the car – in fact, when I do I find that it takes me five to ten minutes to adjust to driving again. My wife doesn’t drive, either. It’s a great situation.
There is a point to this long, boring history of my living/working/commuting life. The other day I had some errands to run that required the car. So, I got out of bed at 7:00 AM, went down to the lot, moved the car to a parking meter, and went back to bed. (This slightly obscure behavior is necessary to avoid some nasty overnight parking fees.) At 8:30, I got ready, started the car (ah, that’s a nice sound) and went about my business. As I was driving around town, I was thinking to myself, “Wow, this is really the way it should be!” I was thoroughly enjoying my motoring-about, and I’m sure that it was because I really don’t drive much anymore. My mind went to images of the first grand boulevards in America – those vast, tree-lined roadways that ringed many of our major cities, and were designed with the intention of being used for recreational motoring. You know – Thurston and Cynthia would dress up the children and motor about for several hours on a fine summer Sunday afternoon.
Yeah, that’s the way it should be. It’s really too bad that we’re now slaves to the car because, in many ways, it really represents America’s spirit. I mean that sincerely – there is a true romanticism that surrounds the car – a notion of unabridged freedom. Just read On The Road. This romanticism is manifested, more that anywhere else, in the idea of the road trip. A road trip is a truly wonderful thing – and the longer the trip, the better. I know; I’ve taken many in my short tenure on this earth so far. It’s about exploration, curiosity, freedom, discovery, and giving your mind some idle time. Idle time helps you keep in touch with yourself. A road trip with someone you love deepens the relationship, forces a renewed honesty.
Let’s free ourselves from the car so we can begin to look at it in a positive light again. They’re not evil – it’s just that the way we’re using them right now is.
Yay! Friday night! It used to mean Hunan Coventry, the best Chinese restaurant in Cleveland. Now, it means Sticky Rice, the second best, and first cheapest Thai place in Ithaca. (But tonight we're trying something different.) I luv Fridays. Movie: Fast, Cheap & Out of Control.
A couple of things:
a. Rosie and I have played Scrabble™ now three nights in a row, and she has beaten my ass by at least one hundred points each time. It’s not funny anymore. Tonight we play chess.
b. I am wrestling with my tendency to get caught up in nostalgia by attempting to maintain a firm grasp on the modern.
Pretty flower. It's an Amaryllis. It grew something like 8 inches in one week (!) and then bloomed. I like it. Now, already, more sprouts are growing up out of the bulb! I assume they'll bloom as well. Rosie is taking care of it. It's amazing!
- You know what I miss? Long, obscure web page URLs.
- You know what was a good time? When a bunch of us went to Chuck E. Cheese’s a few months ago for our friend Jileen’s 2Xth birthday party. Video games and skeeball. Yum.
- I grew up in a small town called Columbia Station. There is a story about a guy who was decapitated by a telephone-pole support cable while riding a snowmobile. That’s a story for another time.
Our Weird Neighbor
Just down the hall from the apartment in which my wife and I reside lives a young woman who hangs a straw doll from the doorknob of her entry door. This is the only visible ornament in our building’s corridor – the décor of which consists of smoke-stained ceiling tiles, chewing-gum imbibed carpet, and walls the color of that stuff the janitor used to spread over the floor when some kid vomited in elementary school. “That’s great,” I used to think to myself, “here’s someone with a little bit of self-expression.”
As I have come to learn, self-expression is something that this woman has been blessed within an over-abundance of. After having lived in the building for only a few weeks, I discovered that she has a charming habit of praying out loud, at the top of her lungs’ capacity, two or three times a day. Now, I don’t know if this is a requirement of her particular religious beliefs or simply her own personal preference, but the praying can be distinctly heard throughout the entire floor.
One day, as I emerged from the stairway onto the third floor, I heard her pray something that struck fear in me and immediately made me begin to tiptoe my way back to the apartment: “…OH GOD, PLEASE HELP ME REMEMBER TO BUY MILK TODAY, AND ON THOSE DAYS WHEN I FOGET TO TAKE MY MEDICATION, PLEASE HELP ME TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF MYSELF…”
Oh my God, we’re living with a lunatic, I thought. I hurried back down the hall to the apartment, praying my own prayer that I hadn’t disturbed her.
Now, it should be noted that this woman’s apartment sits right next to the door accessing the main stairway of the building. I typically use this stairway three or four times a day. So, unless I want to take the rear stair and follow a path that doubles the distance I must walk to reach the street, I’m stuck with confronting this door every day.
One time, as I was passing the dreaded doorway on my way out, I heard her doorknob begin to unlatch and saw an ever so slight swinging movement of the evil straw doll, indicating that her emergence from the prayer-den was imminent.
Now, I had interacted with this woman several times before. The last time, my wife and I had passed her in the hallway. When my wife said “Hi,” she just stared at us, eerily. And in the time since then, I’ve learned enough about her to strive to avoid all contact. I half expect her, at times, to pull out a dull letter opener and attempt to stab me to death.
So, of course, this time I wanted to pass her door unnoticed. I hurried my pace, the stairway door just seconds away, but to no avail. She stepped out of her threshold right in front of me, stopping me dead in my tracks. I almost peed my pants.
“Hi!” I said shakily. She just stared at me with those huge eyes through enormous, perfectly round glasses, sitting securely on her pale, pudgy, perfectly round face. She stared at me like a deer caught in headlights – and gave no response to my greeting. “Ok, then,” I said as I made a quick loop around her and booked it for the stairway.
I entered the stair, and just as the door was about to close behind me, I heard her yell “HI!” in that kind of loud, flat, scary voice that villains in movies use as they tell you the special method they’ve concocted for your death. I heard her grab the door before it closed, and enter the stairway. “Aarrgh! She’s after me!”
She wasn’t really after me, but at that moment I sure was thankful for only living as high as the third floor. The mind fills the gaps that reality leaves, and sometimes our perception of what is really happening at any given time is wildly inaccurate. Needless to say, with my imagination running full-tilt I made quick work of the staircase and ran out onto the street, where there were lots of people and she and her evil doll couldn’t get me, no way.
Home for the Holidaze
Home: where is it? Is it where you are? Is it where your friends are? Is it where your family is? Ah, yes, now we’re back “home” from visiting our loved ones in Distant Lands. But even though most of our loved ones are There, this feels like home. So I suppose that settles it – this is home.
Everything changes when you do the long-distance-travel holiday thing. No more popping in and out, no more quick runs from one family’s house to the other. No, the holiday visit must be a carefully scheduled and regimented orchestration – contrived to ensure that all friends and family receive a democratic share of your holiday time. Well, let me tell ya, this is a sure recipe for a heightened sense of anxiety. Especially when it comes to the families. Don’t get me wrong – the time spent this Christmas with our families was wonderful, when we weren’t worried about a timely arrival at our next destination, that is. And, you know, people are people. They aren’t perfect. People (myself included) sometimes have unreasonable demands and expectations. People get let down, and then they get cranky. So I’ve decided – I have a new holiday traveling philosophy: Roll with it. No matter what, roll with it.
Yes, the family time was wonderful – but too much more and a person could simply go mad. (Have you ever seen “Home for the Holidays” with Holly Hunter?) Our saving grace was our friend Suzi, and her lovely little house on the Frozen Lake. Peace, calm, friends, fireplace, reading, eating, party, writing, cozy, hobby-time, comfy chair, no demands, no expectations – look out over the enormous wilderness of the lake and see the fractal geometry of the frozen waves. There is chaos, but there is most definitely order. The lake reminds you of order, calm, stability. It says, “Be peaceful, and do not worry. Everything will be fine.”
All in all, it was a wonderful, warm Christmas – friends and family and ourselves included. (And Rosie got me the best present ever.) Just a little insanity, and hey – a little insanity is good for anyone.
Salvation Army Strategies
So, here in Ithaca, we live in an apartment building that fronts a pedestrian-only street known as “The Commons.” The Commons is lined with little shops on both sides, and is graced with classic 70s-modernist landscape architecture down its center. (Is this a good thing? Well, it depends on whether or not you like classic 70s-modernism.)
Now, it is Christmas-time, and being Christmas-time, there is a volunteer representing the Salvation Army ringing a bell, soliciting donations from the many pedestrians passing through the Commons who are no doubt engrossed in their holiday shopping endeavors. The location of the bell-ringer is described in the following sketch:
I’ve had a theory ever since the bell-ringer appeared on the Commons this season (around Thanksgiving, I think). My theory is that his/her placement is all wrong. There needs to be a bell-ringer collecting donations on both sides of the street, rather than only in the middle. You see, everyone walks down the sides (because classic 70s-modernist landscape architecture prevents them from walking down the middle – see sketch above) of the street; therefore they rarely pass the bell-ringer of their own accord. And, you know people: they don’t like to go out of their way for very many things. Pedestrians behave just like water – they take the path of least resistance. People who would ordinarily happily drop a buck in the SA bucket tend not to because they subconsciously are thinking, “Hey, that’s too far out of my way. I’ll just pop by tomorrow instead.”
Anyway, that’s my theory. And I think it holds water because I’ve not seen one person deposit money in this particular donation station (I walk the Commons three or four times a day). But today I noticed something a bit peculiar. Today, there was a bell-ringer operating at the very same location as all the past bell-ringers; but this bell-ringer was equipped with more than your standard-issue ring-a-ding bell. He had a bell that you could actually play a tune on! And he was indeed playing a tune. Now, get this: in the time it takes me to walk past the bell-ringer (about 60 seconds), I saw no less than four different people stop and put money in his pot. I even heard one of them say, “Wow, it’s nice to hear one of you guys actually playing something.”
Just goes to show ya – a little love for what you do goes a long way.
Once again, an old truism returns to guide me: “Don’t ever assume anything.”
In 1994, on a flight back to the United States from Brussels, I remember watching the in-flight movie “The Hudsucker Proxy” by the Cohen Brothers. It’s a great film. In it, there is a particular scene in the newsroom of the newspaper for which Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character is a reporter. In this particular newsroom, a character is manually assembling a crossword puzzle on a large magnetic board. At the time, I remember thinking to myself, “Boy, those were the days – back when people actually put crossword puzzles together. I’ll bet that’s all done by computer now.”
That was my assumption, and ever since then I’ve just gone on assuming that crosswords are produced largely with the assistance of a computer program. Not so. No, no, no, not at all. You see, today I had an interesting conversation with a middle-aged shopkeeper down the street who, while I was browsing in the store, was in the process of creating a crossword puzzle – by hand, on piece of blank paper. He’d even drawn the grid himself, in pencil. No graph paper for this guy. No technological assistance of any kind. I said to him, “Isn’t that mostly done on a computer these days?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “At least not if you want the crossword to be interesting. You know, I’ve sold three puzzles to the New York Times already!”
Strangely enough, this little discovery (and the correction of my misguided assumption) really made my day.
Yes. For a long time, I've referred to Opensewer as "the enema of the information age." And day by day it's becoming more apparent that, indeed, the information age needs a good cleansing.
Video games played an important part in my development as a child (I’m a real textbook case, I know). So this article, while not directly applicable to the market segment of which I was a part, was particularly interesting to me. In fact, I found Signum as a whole quite well-written and interesting. Do take a look. (Via Megan via Backup Brain.)
As Rosie and I sit here and work on our various tasks (I, studying; she, earning some money), we are deeply engrossed in some good music. I am reminded that music, at its best, can invoke a state of higher being. I remember a Moby concert two months ago – an event so intense, so emotional, so sincere that it was almost transformative. I remember a “weekend with the guys” last year where spontaneous drumming (on cans, buckets and such things) ended up lasting for hours and generated a true emotional connection among us. It was the only meaningful thing that happened that weekend. I remember the band I was in during my undergraduate years. We weren’t much, but what we did, we did pretty well. Seven (!) of us: Four acoustic guitarists, one electric, one bass and me on drums. The guitarists all sang and harmonized quite well – we were a sort of folk/rock thing. I’ve been out of that world for so long. But what a feeling it was …
Aside from the fact that I just took a final exam and my right hand is about to fall off (from writing), today was a pretty good day. Nothing particularly special, but I was reminded of some of the reasons why (because there are several reasons why not) Cornell is a pretty interesting place.
Reason number one: Cornell has a bell tower, there are real chimes in it, and people play them, by hand, every day. We're not just talking about two-chimes-means-it's-two-o'clock here, either. These are songs, and they are long and complicated. Today, I was walking across campus to the tune of "Walking in A Winter Wonderland," briskly broadcast from McGraw Tower through the gently falling snow. I have so far attended two Institutions of Higher Learning that had artificial chimes which were pre-recorded; the only feeling you would experience when they would play is "Wow, I go to a school that can't afford real chimes." And then sometimes the speakers would crackle, reminding you again that it was a recording, and man, then you really felt lame. Real chimes are, without question, neato.
Reason number two: On the bus I rode home today there were eight seats (it was a small bus). The seats were all full, for a total of sixteen people, not including the driver. Here's the part I like: I counted conversations in six languages: Russian (I think), Hindi, German, Korean, Chinese (the loudest), and English. Love it.
Problems in The Shower
As many of you already know, I have scale problems from time to time. I get so overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude and complexity of everything, and my place within it, that I am driven to mindless rambling and vast consumption of Life™ cereal.
So today, I was in the shower, thinking. (I know this is rumored to be one of only two places men usually think, but I assure you, I have a mental life outside the bathroom.) I was thinking about the fact that when I lived in Europe, I only took showers about once per week. Having lived in America my entire life and now long re-adjusted to its particulars, I take a shower nearly every day. So I was thinking, “Man, what a luxury. I mean really – that’s a lot of water!”
I thought of the water I used, and then the water used by all of the showers in my building, then all of the water used by all of the showers in the entire region, then the state, then the country… I stopped at the country because we take more showers than anybody else. Like I said, scale problems. But think about it: taking a shower really is a luxury – there are many other ways to maintain your hygiene. We have so many things ‘round here that we take for granted, which are truly luxuries in many parts of the world. I know this sounds like a typical “I’m feelin’ guilty today for being an American speech” that everyone is so sick of hearing, but oh well. If it bothers you then go away. I’m having scale problems and I don’t want to be disturbed.
In the 1950s, over 15 million homes were built in the United States. Most of them were in the suburbs. This is their story.
Observation No. 6
You cannot be sincere and hip at the same time. Being sincere prevents you from being aloof. If you're not aloof you cannot be detached from everything in that oh-so-fashionably-careless kind of way. If you can't be detached - if things matter to you - you can't be hip.
A bit of circular reasoning, I know, but hey, it works for me.
On Being A Generalist
Just sittin’ here, eating a donut, drinking some coffee, taking a break from the studies, ruminating about being a generalist. Here’s to the generalists of the world… the ones who a) can’t make up their mind about what they want to do with their life (aka “what I want to be when I grow up,” b) get bored to tears when they are committed to doing anything too specific for any significant amount of time, c) are interested in so many things that they always feel like there is something out there they are missing and d) keep switching their focus right when they’re getting good at something (taking care to do it just before they become adept at the task at hand and actually have something productive to offer society).
We generalists just can’t get too much of that good ol’ big picture. In fact, we try to keep stepping back until everything makes sense. The irony of this activity is, everything will never, ever, ever make sense. And if it ever did, it would probably be too much to handle and it would blow our minds. So generalists get frustrated a lot. We look for behavior that ties these crazy beings called humans all together. And yes, sometimes we find little hints of it – of “the truth,” the universal. But more often than not, human actions confuse us so much that we want to quickly assume the fetal position and weep like a big fat baby.
“Things” in this world do often fit together in fascinating ways – mathematics, ecosystems, human behavior, economies, etc. But life, as a rule, seems to be about the confusion of the day-to-day getting in the way of our clear view of reality. And maybe that’s a good thing. In fact, if society didn’t have things like eating, reproducing and not-dying to worry about, it would spend all of its time doing things like soul searching, creating art, discovering the meaning of life, etc., and humans might eventually figure this crazy existence out. And then, what would be the point? We’d pretty much be all done then – let’s turn out the lights, put the Earth in cold storage and go to sleep for a few millennia until our collective memory loses track of everything again.
No, that particular course of fate wouldn’t make any sense. In addition to survival, it’s a good thing society has lots of other things to distract it, such as: handing little bits of green paper back and forth, putting food on the table, creating neat personal websites, finding new ways to “add value,” getting a ski rack for the VW, and paying off credit card bills. Figuring things out should be left to the poor saps who can’t focus on one thing long enough to get their mind off everything.
Leave it to the generalists, the poor bastards.
Rosie and I saw Best in Show last night with some friends. Result: laugh till pain. I'm biased, though. I think I'd like anything that Christopher Guest and the Spinal Tap/Waiting for Guffman crew put out. I eat that stuff up. I used to know a guy who, when I asked his opinion of Waiting for Guffman, responded with, "That kind of humor is just completely lost on me." Man, that's too bad. I mean, really, too too bad.
So Opensewer Ithaca was last night. The gathering went until about midnight, and lemme tell ya, I was really hungry when we left that bar. When a human is hungy, that human tends to gravitate toward the nearest place with available food. That place, in this case, happened to be "Wendy's." I went in, purchased some fast "food," as they say, and came out to find the scattered few remaining intellectually exhausted Opensewer attendees laughing at me. “You’re eating at Wendy’s right after we just spent 5 hours talking about misplaced values and homogenization of products? Way to be consistent, Jason.”
Hey, man, I was hungry. Brain drain.
Some Thursdays are better than others for me. Thursday is the day that I’m on campus from 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM. It’s a long day. But today was a pretty good day. Today, I had a great conversation with some (very helpful) friends about something that I can’t tell you about, but if it turns out well you’ll find out soon enough, oh yes you will. Also, today I had a conversation with another graduate student and the Professor of this class, and I actually felt as if I knew what I was talking about (which is a major step for me in this particular class). You see, I almost dropped the class (although it is important) because it dealt with material that was so foreign to me, it sounded like the professor was, literally, speaking another language when he lectured. Well, eventually it sunk in (and I worked my ass off), and now I must say that I actually quite enjoy it. Isn’t life funny that way?
Also, Opensewer Ithaca (the one that Rosie and I are attending) is tomorrow and I'm pumped...
Ok, so I'm just a little bit pist. I can't believe it, but Opensewer has been plagiarized again. Now, I know I shouldn't even acknowledge these creeps by linking to them, but I'm going to anyway because they should be exposed. The most recent violation is here, and you can check out remnants of an older thief here. Send 'em a friendly hate-mail if the urge grabs you.
Why does this happen? Come on people, it's really not that difficult to come up with your own stuff! I suppose that once a site starts getting decent traffic and exposure, things like this are expected to happen once in a while. But it's not like anyone on the web is doing anything so creative, so unique, that it simply cannot be surpassed and so it must be copied! I remember almost a year ago when this happened to k10k. Now it's happened to OS twice, and I have to tell you, it really hurts. It feels like a violation- something that you put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into and then part of it just gets ripped-off and re-used. It's so sad- these people don't even do a good job of hiding their transgressions.
So I suppose we'll send them the standard cease and desist letter, and try to put an end to it. Has this ever happened to you? I'd like you to tell me about it...
Rosie and I both posted new feature articles over at Opensewer. You know, it's really an immensely liberating feeling just to lets things off your chest once in a while...
Ithaca, New York: Where more Wall Street Journal's are wasted, lying on the front porches and in the yards of enthusiastic undergraduates ("Yeah, I'll subscribe to the WSJ - that's professional!"), than any other city I've ever seen. Some of these students' houses have scattered piles of yellowing WSJ papers twenty or thirty high in the front yard. They look like dandelions that need to be mowed away.
On Becoming An Architect
(An Incomplete Theory)
(An Incomplete Theory)
Okay – I think I have a few things figured out about becoming an architect. Time has changed things. It has changed the definition of an architect, and the influence that an architect has. I'm going to attempt to address this.
When a person first dreams about becoming an architect, he dreams about the things he can build. However, it is quickly realized that he has no real say in what gets built. Someone else decides that – someone with money, someone who is an entrepreneur… someone who has taken a risk and gone out on a limb, possibly putting his or her own well being in jeopardy in order to place something on the earth.
So, a theory about the path one must take to become an architect – in the old sense… the master builder sense.
First, one must undertake training in design. Training in design is critical to develop a keen eye that truly sees the world. Training in design is needed to relate humans to buildings (things), and buildings (things) to the earth. It is irresponsible to mark the earth without having a firm, holistic understanding of design. However, much of what is placed on the earth is done by those who lack this understanding. Many people who mark the earth understand economics, but not humanity. This is dangerous.
Secondly, perhaps concurrently, one must undertake training in business and economics. This part of the education cannot be avoided, since money is the lifeblood (for better or for worse) that enables ideas to manifest themselves in this world. The lack of this training in designers is problematic. Why are the ones who define the environments that relate humans to the natural world so apparently unconcerned with the prevailing method a valuation that society has chosen for itself (money)? How can you design if you don’t understand the resources that it takes to physically manifest something?
Architects must reposition themselves into the role of the one who decides the essence of a thing. This is what we’ve lost over time. This is where our frustration comes from. When your training and experience includes a sophisticated understanding of design and a sophisticated understanding of economics, then you can be in a position to give birth to ideas that you yourself can implement. You can truly CREATE – not just give form to other peoples' ideas.
And Speaking of The Supernatural…
Last week on campus, walking from Econometrics class in the Ag Quad to Sibley Hall, I passed a woman, ordinary enough from a distance, walking opposite me on the sidewalk. As I approached her, I noticed that she had an absolutely horrified look on her face, and she was staring up at the sky, darting her eyes in different directions. She did not notice me. As soon as I passed her, I got a bad feeling, what could almost be described as an aphysical “pain” in my chest. It was not real pain, but some psycho-spiritual thing that had just gone down. For the next few minutes I was literally afraid – I kept watching my back. I passed through the music building, where I knew someone would be playing the piano, and this would make me feel better... mitigate the effects of what had just happened. Or at least that was the theory. I did feel a bit better after passing through, but I kept eyes in the back of my head for the rest of the day. I’ve never been superstitious, but this was genuinely strange.
Things That Are Real
Lately I've been thinking about that which is "real." The questions in my head go something like this: What is real, exactly? What does it mean to us these days? Is the internet real? Does real necessarily mean physical? Probably not, but...
Right now, I'm studying real estate. As you may imagine, there are bundles of legal definitions that attempt to identify just what constitutes "the real."
Personally, I like to think of real as things you can feel, things you can kick, things that have roots in the ground. No matter how involved I get in the study and creation of "intellectual goods" (websites, academic papers, blogs), I can't escape my desire to place physical things in the world.
Architecture Is A Way of Seeing The World
I have some bad news for the consulting and IT professionals of the world: the word “architect” is not a verb, and you’re not allowed to use it. There is no such thing as "architecting" a solution. And contrary to popular belief, you can’t "rearchitect" a server. Using these words in front of your peers or your boss my make you appear credible, but to the rest of the (literate) world, it just makes you look silly.
I was told last night that I will always be an architect, no matter where my professional endeavors lead me. This happened during the course of a discussion I was having with a (former) architect who had become a project manager for a large real estate asset management company. “You never lose the world-view that training in design and architecture gives you,” he said.
Architecture is a way of seeing the world. It is a type of training, experience and inherent talent that enables individuals to truly see the physical and experiential realm (space, both real and conceptual), and understand its implication on human existence. Architecture manifests itself when people design things- buildings, interior spaces, exterior spaces, products, and graphic communications… nearly anything. With respect to what I said earlier, the design of less obviously related things such as the development of strategic plans for companies, or the creation of peace treaties, can indeed approach something that could be considered “architecture.”
However, you can’t understand architecture unless you are trained and experienced in design- in the creation of ideas where there were no ideas before. And you can’t understand design until you understand how to see the world with uncluttered eyes.
Secrets of Brewing Coffee Using A Drip-Type Coffee Maker
- You MUST start with whole beans- none of this Maxwell House crap. And don’t grind the beans until you’re ready to brew the coffee- they’ll stay fresher that way. Store the un-ground beans in the refrigerator or freezer.
- Measuring: I use 1 teaspoon of un-ground beans for every 6 oz. cup. This makes strong coffee. I like strong coffee. If you don't like strong coffee then you should drink, like, chocolate milk or something. (BTW- make only as much coffee as you need. Never reheat cold coffee and never re-brew coffee.)
- Grind the beans thoroughly, until the coffee has a fine texture. Don't leave big chunks in the mix.
- Use a cone-type paper filter (you must have a coffee maker that takes a cone-type filter). The cone seems to concentrate the flavor. Melitta #2 or #4 are the best.
- Use cold, filtered water (don't use distilled water). Remember, 6 oz. (1 cup) of water for every 1 teaspoon of un-ground beans. Your coffee maker should have measurement markings.
- Brew the coffee. Hopefully, you own a coffee maker with a long brew time. Longer is better.
- This is the most important step, and if you don’t do this you’ll screw everything up. If your coffee maker is the type that has a burner to keep the coffee warm, let the brewed coffee sit on the burner for 3-4 minutes after all of the coffee has finished brewing. THEN, POUR ALL OF THE COFFEE INTO AN INSULATED CARAFE. This will accomplish two things: a) It will keep the coffee from getting scorched on the burner (which will ruin the coffee), and b) it will properly mix the coffee so it has equal density throughout.
You see, when the coffee is brewed into the pot, it is sort of “stratified.” It has different layers of density throughout, and different flavors. When you pour the first cup, it will taste different than the last cup. If you pour the finished coffee into a carafe, the coffee will get mixed well and the entire pot will have a consistent taste. Thermos makes the best carafes.
Like I said, if you skip step 7, don’t even bother making coffee, you pathetic loser. Go buy a cup instead at your local, non-chain coffeehouse. Coffee is an acquired taste, right? So if you don't like it, if you don't love it, then don't bother going through the trouble. Of course, this whole discussion has all been about Cafe Americano, the watered down version of true coffee. But that's something we'll just have to address later. Enjoy!
Ok, so I have certain things on my mind. Now, when one "vents," one vents about the things that are currently occupying one's consciousness. So, with that thought under consideration, here is the Word of The Day (and I apologize in advance): Heteroskedasticity.
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