on the daily: 2013

31 December 2013

Thirty-One Days in December

Catch up on this project of mine at the links below if you're new to the blog.

Thirty-One Days in March (Part 1)

Thirty-One Days in March (Part 2)
Thirty Days in April

Thirty-One Days in May

Thirty Days in June

Thirty-One Days in July

Thirty-One Days in August

Thirty Days in September

Thirty-One Days in October

Thirty Days in November

Sunday – 01 December 2013

In an effort to do the opposite of what I've always done at Christmas, I decorated – bought a little tree and lights and everything. It's as close to a Christmas card photo as this family will ever get...Belle seems unsure about all of the nonsense (and I share her hesitation) but it's worth a shot, right?

Song of the Day: Father Christmas - The Kinks

Monday – 02 December 2013

Beautiful rainy ATL Monday morning.

Song of the Day: Naive - The Kooks

Tuesday – 03 December 2013

The inevitable delay of a scheduled meeting with a code official this morning gave me a rare opportunity to just wander about. A rainy day in Savannah is better than a sunny day in the office, all day. Everyday.

Song of the Day: Red's Song - The Jayhawks

Wednesday – 04 December 2013

The view from the first Holiday party of the season.

Song of the Day: Default - Django Django

Thursday – 05 December 2013

I took a minute this morning to just be quiet and watch the world be still.

Song of the Day: Southern Rain - Cowboy Junkies

Friday – 06 December 2013

Vickery Creek begrudgingly dragged out and slumped into her drab winter coat this morning.

Song of the Day: Creeque Alley - The Mamas and the Papas

Saturday – 07 December 2013

What's that Lou Kahn thing I'm so fond of saying – one cannot appreciate light without darkness or whatever?

Song of the Day: Prison Bound - Social Distortion

Sunday – 08 December 2013

I thought Autumn would last forever until I walked out to pick up the Sunday paper this morning and realized that all the color was gone. There is, however a specific beauty in the remaining contrast that's not lost on me.

Song of the Day: Brother in the Night - The Weeks

Monday – 09 December 2013

Where once there was a skyline, now there is a blurry cloudy mess. I think I'm starting to exhibit the first signs of early onset Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

Song of the Day: Desolation Row - Bob Dylan

Tuesday – 10 December 2013

That's a blue sky! I was starting to believe we'd never see it again! December is looking up.

Song of the Day: Kodachrome - Paul Simon

Wednesday – 11 December 2013

I punched one of our projects on the south side this morning, had a wonderful home food lunch at The Green Manor in Union City, did actual work for at least a split second this afternoon and had an eye-widening night cap at a gallery opening in Poncey Highlands. I always tell people to look up. Nobody looks up. I look up.

Song of the Day: Vehicle - Ides Of March

Thursday – 12 December 2013

Client Christmas Party in Buckhead, AKA the Ninth Circle of Hell (especially during the holidays).

Song of the Day: Who Is Going To Save The World - The Generators

Friday – 13 December 2013

Office shenanigans.

Song of the Day: Poison - Alice Cooper

Saturday – 14 December 2013

Perfect Butch show.

Song of the Day: The Weight Of Her - Butch Walker

Sunday – 15 December 2013

A day of rest with my ace.

Song of the Day: Groovin' - Booker T and the MGs

Monday – 16 December 2013

It was Monday. All. Day.

Song of the Day: Not My Time - 3 Doors Down

Tuesday – 17 December 2013

Christmas in Atlanta is starting to wear on my last nerve – I'm out of focus.

Song of the Day: Couldn't Get It Right - Climax Blues Band

Wednesday – 18 December 2013

My least favorite necessary part of the job – business development lunch...what was that I said about looking up earlier this month?

Song of the Day: What's Left of the Flag - Flogging Molly

Thursday – 19 December 2013

The nerve-wrenching layout, last chance for the buyer to flake and bounce before closing the deal. This pic doesn't do the piece justice. I'm humbled by the interest and believe the sell will def open some more doors. Today was an incredible day – so much so that I left this big deal detail out of the story.

Song of the Day: From the Ritz to the Rubble - Arctic Monkeys

Friday – 20 December 2013

The moon, ladies and gentlemen.

Song of the Day: I Lost It - Lucinda Williams

Saturday – 21 December 2013

29 December 2013

In Section

Last Friday night or some other one, I dreamt that it was the first day of and I was late for college. (That phrase would be a helluva lot funnier if you had been a fly on the wall watching my brother and me discussing the ridiculousness of Bruce Lee movie dialogue a thousand years ago on a random jobsite.)

I had forgotten my backpack where I had stowed my course schedule. Instead, I wore only my tool belt and cut-off jeans shorts, Doc Marten boots. So, I just randomly showed up at different classes around campus for the professors to berate me, saying things like, There's no place for a blue collar man in higher education. For the record, when I finally started college way back when, that I had been a simple carpenter prior to admittedly (irrationally perhaps) vexed me for sure. I was older than the typical freshman and a helluva lot more strange for a variety of ridic reasons and circumstances.

I woke up after the dream to the sound of what I assumed was gunshot and malfeasance. In the sunlight, it turned out to be hammering and Spanish – my across the street neighbor's house was being re-roofed. It's funny (telling) how my unconscious mind reconnected these two realities of my past with the accepted whatever of my present. When I did that work back in the day, old dudes in overalls always seemed to stop by and say dumb shit like, Boy howdy; I bet it's hot up there. Or, Hey, hippie. Are you sure everything is plumb and square? I hated those guys and I promised myself that when I got old, I would stand around and give people who were working for a living shit for no obvious reason. As it turns out, I'm old now apparently. All I did that Saturday was berate my Spanish brethren for the supposed subpar job they were doing. And though it made me feel like a tool, I was satisfied that I had finally exacted my revenge (however misguided) against those rednecks who once disrupted my daily.

A friend of mine sent me a link tonight, said it reminded him of the Biesty and Macaulay drawings he’d seen as a kid. The images in the article are beautiful amazing things and I relate to the so this is why I’m an architect nature of them. I to remember similar images from my childhood, but mine were worlds that I had created alone, inside of my wandering mind. One of my first cogent memories is of scotch taping notebook paper together so I could have sheets large enough to draw cross sections of coal mines. It must have been after a family trip to Mammoth Cave or something like that – I needed another way to see what I had just seen, I guess. Regardless, at (8) years or younger, I was consistently drawing longitudinal sections of this thing or that. Stalactites and stalagmites make more sense in section? Who knows why, I just knew that I would see more if I could see it a different way.

One of my assignments in architecture school was to draw a 1:1 wall section through the building I’d designed. I learned more about architecture with that one lesson than I did through any other aspect of the intervening six years it took them to declare me worthy of pursuing a license. It reinforced what I already knew – that seeing is the only thing that matters.

We are all naturally drawn to the surface of a thing, right? I’m as seduced as you are by the shimmering exterior of an amazing building, a beautiful girl, an epic sunset. There’s value on top for sure, but the truth is found within. How amazing can a building really be if that perfect cornice detail allows water inside? How beautiful is that girl, if her heart isn’t open to new ideas or closed by judgment? How epic is a sunset, if there’s a tornadic thunderstorm buried in her perfect red clouds? It is always in the details, and that is what we too often miss.

Perhaps, there’s an end of year reflection type of deal at play here, but I don’t think so. I’ve always acknowledged and accepted my path or whatever but I may never have embraced it as much as I thought I have or as I should. Clearly, given these recollections, I’m doing exactly what I was meant to be doing with my life. It certainly hasn’t played out as I had imagined or as I had originally drawn it up, but it’s right, now. As the year comes to a close, I know that I’m exactly who and what and when and why and where I should be. This is my life, and I love it.

I know that because I see in section, not surface.

22 December 2013

“…In The History Of Earth”

In keeping with recent Christmas tradition, I took my studio out for dinner and drinks Thursday night – a small thank you for their year’s work. It was a good time as always.

I started these studio meetings a few years ago during the recession as a sort of morale booster. Those were dark days for our profession. Our firm, just like most every other, was forced to make hard cuts and no one was immune. All of my mentors were gone; some had left of their own free will, some not. At any rate, we, the studio was in many respects a ship without a rudder. And though I was no more likely to keep my job than they were at the time, they needed someone to look to as the leader. I assumed the role out of necessity, a long time before that title could be recognized officially. I have benefited from that decision greatly.

Perhaps because of the manner in which I came to be Studio Leader, I’ve never thought of myself as their boss per se and I still don’t really. Before I get into this, it should be said that I’m aware of the unavoidable fact that I am a damn sight more emotional than a grown ass man should be. Knowing this, I didn’t read the Christmas card that they had all signed until I got home that night.

When I did finally read the card, I was blown away...on the floor actually. Apparently, in spite of the fact that they are forced to endure the eclectic musical mix of Billie Holiday and Anthrax and Marshall Tucker Band spilling from my office, they still think I’m a good boss. Even though, I’m nearly silent for days at a time because of whatever weirdo shit is in my head, they see me as an inspiration. They even manage to correctly interpret my bizarre tangents of criticism of their work as the vehicle that I do, one that will make them better architects and designers.

It’s astonishing to me that I am so lucky to be surrounded by such a group on the daily. I literally never have had occasion to interact with a more solid collective of human beings and I damn sure have never taken the time to say that to them. We’re all different; from all over the country, from all different backgrounds, all ages – Texas, Chicago, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, Tennessee, nowhere. We all have our thing, right? We’re all interested, almost every single one, in a different aspect of architecture. But we all have a common goal; to contribute to the success of this firm and that is what makes us strong. (If I’m a leader at all, I should recognize and develop that individual interest, and I haven’t always done that.)

Also on Thursday, coincidentally, I interviewed two early graduates for a potential opening we might have in the New Year. They were bright kids; full of energy and ideas, their belief that architecture can change the world still intact, untainted by the bullshit they’ve yet to encounter. It certainly wasn’t that long ago that I had sat on their side of the table fielding similar ridiculous questions from this side. As I gave them the nickel tour I couldn’t help but remember mine. For me, and I’m sure them, it was like I had finally stepped onto the threshold. I was overwhelmed with the opportunity that was in front of me. I was concerned that I wasn’t good enough. There’s a “full circle” type of deal that happened Thursday that I am trying to, but not yet articulating very well.

Everything I just said stands in stark contrast to my idealized view of my career. It’s not supposed to be personal – it’s supposed to be me against the world, right? Interpersonal relationships should receive no quarter as I perceive this profession. Make no mistake; we are at war, at least in a philosophical and intellectual sense. That I now see the value of friendship inside of that construct is nothing short of a Christmas miracle.

They also, just for the record bought me a Blick gift card. That in of itself is way more than the perfect gift for me. I suppose, just to send me into a different orbit, it was signed as follows:

To: The Boss

From: The greatest studio in the history of earth.

I couldn’t agree more. That you said it that way warms my old strange heart – my ridiculous nonsense verbal idiosyncrasies have taken root in your normalcy!

This likely won’t happen again, so pay attention. I learn as much, more from you on the regular than I could ever teach. If I am a good leader, it’s because of you. You make me question my professional reality everyday and that is a good thing. Yes, there is an intellectual war on between us and them but we are on the same side. We are, you are the greatest studio and we are going to absolutely kill it in 2014.

Merry Christmas and thank you! You are as much my family as my actual family is. I dig that about y’all.

Peace.

11 December 2013

What Is

I started writing this piece the other day/night, earlier this year while in a random state of mind. For whatever reason, I thought better of it after the fact so I deleted it (twice). I censored my own thought. There was a previous personal, possibly even public commitment to self that should have prevented that transgression – I suppose the security isn’t as tight around here as it used to be. It remains a ridiculous self-absorbed collection of narcissistic sentences struggling to coalesce into paragraphs, but here they are again, uncut.

God bless her. She doesn't get it. How can she? She is just a dog after all. We've talked about it multiple times…too many to count, really. But none of those conversations included the word ball so she has been less than interested, certainly not motivated, until recently. Is it so much to ask, that your one eternal companion understands the gravity of a simple statement? Maybe.

Maynard got it. Yes, I’m aware of how close to the edge it makes me appear and possibly proves that I am that I put (continue to) so much stock into the conversations I have with my dogs, but that’s what is. He did get it though, and that’s probably why I miss him more than all the others. I've spent a lot of time proclaiming to be living in the is, not the was. That was our thing, Maynard and me. On the front end of our relationship, that was all we had and that was unfairly personal to me. On the back end of our relationship, in the months before he died it was personal to him for a host of different reasons. There was a recognition of unavoidable facts in his case, and that was the gravity that kept he and I in the is. That’s weird. I’m aware. I never saw the front end with any specificity until maybe right this second. We never discussed or imagined how it would be, how I would be when the unavoidable happened. That’s on me, not him. We both had a lot to deal with those last few days and I don’t fault him for not entertaining my personal pitfalls. Maynard was my oracle, but he was just a dog. I never thought about who I would talk to after his curtain closed. I should have.

What never occurred to me during my long, sometimes epic counseling sessions with either of my dogs was that they had no idea what I was saying when I said a thing to either. They just listened. Until recently, at least as I assess the current this or that through the filter of my superb bourbon addled intellect, I never saw what was. I sure as hell never saw the illusive is. In hindsight, I suppose there was always at least a metaphorical chance, with all of the players who have done time and subsequently been benched and / or traded to a better team from my yester life. What I never saw until post production, is that the is that I was always so jazzed about on the day-to-day was the never could’ve been in reality, in almost every single scenario since 1987. There’s a big fat pill to swallow, if you want one and something I've honestly been unable to come to terms with as of yet. I'm the original it's not you, it's me asshole, but I've rarely had the balls to say it in the moment.

Living in a supposed is that is irrecoverable is a hard thing in of itself, right? Realizing that the unavoidable associated was never had a chance of being the is is devastating. That’s the thing I chose to ignore since jump of my life, to my own detriment.

This, I think more than anything, is why I’m a dog person more than a person person. Dog’s are simple – humans suck. Throw the ball, I’ll bring it back. Give me food, I’ll love you forever. That’s living in the is, right?

So. To that question I mentioned earlier, that I never really asked. It’s not even a question so much as a statement. It is a statement however that has never elicited the reaction that I require, and quite honestly expect and deserve. I love art. If you don’t understand that about me, then you don’t understand anything about me. It’s not even about actual art – it’s about what I see life to be. It’s about possibility. No human being that I’ve ever known has taken the time to decipher why I say those three words, or even ask for that matter. It should be, and is likely obvious why Shangri-La has yet to show up for me…at least in the way that I need it to. As it turns out, being dedicated to a quest for an illusive existential truth of one fashion or another is an off-putting and seemingly pointless endeavor to most people. Who knew, right? I'm not so naive to assume that anyone understands that which I pursue, personally, metaphysically or otherwise. I am however shocked that a modicum of respect isn't thrown my way out of simple courtesy, but okay. Fine. Again, with the big pill thing, right?

But, that’s what is. Until I find an organism of such merit, or even a mediocre caliber facsimile of the same, capable of that unrequited but essential unspoken return (and a million more ideas and thoughts and actions and expectations that would be impossible for a single human being to live up to) I’m a solo act. I started writing in my mind the other day an essay about the difference and sameness between perception and reality. That probably would've been a positive exercise to go through before writing this one. Oh well. This thesis remains intact. Had that piece found a way to be written, me and it would have found ourselves at this same conclusion:

Glancing around this hovel and epiphanously realizing that all that is my life doesn't suck, doesn't suck, right? There is a warm glow here, there’s a lifetime on these walls and in this heart, there’s Rob Zombie on the stereo and another lifetime to discover come morning. My sweet Belle is posted up like a champ on the couch, chillin’. I’m sitting at a table and in a chair that I made with my own two hands. I’m surrounded by what these two hands have done…what I know art, what I know life to be. There are certainly some cracks in the plaster that I should patch, there are definitely some walls I shouldn't have painted in the manner in which I did, but I have no regrets. Tomorrow, I will get up and go do my thing...snap a couple of pics, pick one and try to convince you it matters. This is my perfect life, however I define it.

Tonight, right before bedtime, I’ll say what I say to Belle every time I see her face in my face. “You’re my best girl, Belle.”

That’s what is.

I think that's enough.

30 November 2013

Thirty Days in November

Catch up on this project of mine at the links below if you're new to the blog.

Thirty-One Days in March (Part 1)

Thirty-One Days in March (Part 2)
Thirty Days in April

Thirty-One Days in May

Thirty Days in June

Thirty-One Days in July

Thirty-One Days in August

Thirty Days in September

Thirty-One Days in October

Friday – 01 November 2013

Some mornings call for extended flake-out time when I sit down at my desk. Today was thus.

Song of the Day: Idaho - BoDeans

Saturday – 02 November 2013

Chili Cook-Off + Bluegrass Festival + Exceptional Autumn Weather + Back-in-the-day-friends back in the A for the weekend = Perfect Saturday.

Song of the Day: Bright Sunny South - Allison Krauss and Union Station

Sunday – 03 November 2013

Fall is still happening and I can't get enough of it.

Song of the Day: Real Enough For Me - The Mockers

Monday – 04 November 2013

Commiserating the first work day after the end of Daylight Savings Time.

Song of the Day: The House We Grew Up In - The Weeks

Tuesday – 05 November 2013

At a site visit up in Adairsville this afternoon, I forced myself to look at the thing and not the color of the leaves on the trees or whatever nonsense has been distracting me lately. This is the second factory that we have designed and rebuilt after being destroyed by a tornado this year. There is a satisfaction in helping to put men back to work that I can't quite describe.

Song of the Day: Slave To The Grind - Skid Row

Wednesday – 06 November 2013

I always love this time of year, until I realize that I'm going to be driving home in the dark until Spring breaks.

Song of the Day: Nothing For You - T.S.O.L.

Thursday – 07 November 2013

We competed in Canstruction with some of our engineering buddies tonight down at Colony Square. It's a cool thing I think, for us to recreate a few of the most iconic buildings of the ATL skyline via the unpredictable media that is canned food. Plus the cans are donated to the Atlanta Food Bank at the end of the event.

Song of the Day: Jet City Woman - Queensryche

Friday – 08 November 2013

The firm visited a small, local pre-cast concrete shop at lunch today. Interesting process, cool people but I became fixated on the workbench. I covet that.

Song of the Day: Fatlip - Sum 41

Saturday – 09 November 2013

What happy looks like.

Song of the Day: Lump - The Presidents Of The United States Of America

Sunday – 10 November 2013

I landed at Hobby and arrived at the rental lot just in time to bear witness to a wonderful sunset.

Song of the Day: Bittersweet Heart - Soul Asylum

Monday – 11 November 2013

Final walked a two site Texas project today – Woodville and Port Arthur. The client is a German company that harvests pine trees and turns them into pellets for heating fuel at the facility in Woodville; stockpiles and ships them to Europe out of Port Arthur. I was admittedly more interested in the port than I was the project. I like big ass ships.

Song of the Day: Simple Man - Junkyard

Tuesday – 12 November 2013

The post-apocalyptic beauty of a Houston oil refinery.

Song of the Day: Up Jumped The Devil - Izzy Stradlin

Wednesday – 13 November 2013

First frost.

Song of the Day: Hallelujah - Ryan Adams

Thursday – 14 November 2013

I final walked one of our projects in Tuscaloosa this morning. It's a factory for another German client. This one manufactures exhaust systems for Mercedes Benz. It's a successful facility and will add a little punch to our manufacturing portfolio.

Song of the Day: Personality Crisis - New York Dolls

Friday – 15 November 2013

After our fall retreat, the firm went to the Marietta Museum of History this afternoon. Down with history as I am, I was stoked. Interesting fact: the majority of Andrew's Raiders lodged here the night before they stole The General back in the day. Sweet.

Song of the Day: Demon Host - Timber Timbre

Saturday – 16 November 2013

Patiently waiting and watching.

Song of the Day: I Buried A Bone - Blind Pilot

Sunday – 17 November 2013

I paused for a moment this morning...before they all fall down.

Song of the Day: Moon In The Water - Dawes

Monday – 18 November 2013

It's a new beautiful ridiculous Monday morning...let's kick this mule.

Song of the Day: Paralyzer - Finger Eleven

Tuesday – 19 November 2013

Crappy pic of an epic sunset.

Song of the Day: Barbary Blues - Nicki Bluhm and The Gramblers

Wednesday – 20 November 2013

I had my first site visit to a recycling center that we designed down in Montgomery today. She's got good bones, no? A decidedly Southern lunch at a fish shack on the banks of the Alabama River after was an unexpected bonus.

Song of the Day: Out Of My League - Fitz And The Tantrums

Thursday – 21 November 2013

It was a cloudy depressing morning until I saw these wonderful fiery ladies marching along MLK.

Song of the Day: When I Fall - Steve Earle

Friday – 22 November 2013

The little cactus blooming in the kitchen window this morning reminded me (yet again) how important it is to always be aware of the hidden silver lining.

Song of the Day: Miss Williams' Guitar - The Jayhawks

Saturday – 23 November 2013

Color.

Song of the Day: Electric Worry - Clutch

Sunday – 24 November 2013

Post first-time-at-church-in-forever lunch. It was a good day.

Song of the Day: God's Gonna Cut You Down - Johnny Cash

Monday – 25 November 2013

I'm as conscious of the passing of seasons this year as I may ever have been. I dig that.

Song of the Day: Tower Of Song - Leonard Cohen

Tuesday – 26 November 2013

Perfect, lazy, rainy day with my dog and a book.

Song of the Day: Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35 - Bob Dylan

Wednesday – 27 November 2013

Belle reluctantly assumed Maynard's vacated co-pilot duties this morning for the Thanksgiving trip to Mississippi. I gave her a fancy new pink coat for her efforts, so she was cool – looks like a superhero, no? It was the first time we'd traveled as a family since he passed so we listened to little man's favorites for a bunch of miles out of respect.

Song of the Day: Don't Stop Me Now - Queen

Thursday – 28 November 2013

Thanksgiving morning post-breakfast walk around. Food. Family. Football. Repeat.

Song of the Day: I Got A Name - Jim Croce

Friday – 29 November 2013

Somewhere in Mississippi.

Song of the Day: Seven Months, Thirty-Nine Days - Hank Williams III

Saturday – 30 November 2013

Backdoor sunset.

Song of the Day: 7 O'Clock - London Quireboys