YO.

I'm back again.  Geez.  Lots of posts lately.  One week of school down, 15 to go.  Monday off.  Nice way to start the semester so far.  First semester out of four now that has started uneventfully-

Fall 07- Tiffany moves here a week before I start school.

Spring 08- Grandma gets sick.  Etc.

Fall 08- I move.

Spring 09- NOTHING GOING ON!  At least nothing life-changing with repercussions for months on end.  Its pretty nice. 

I have four classes, three of which I was able to choose the professors for(and thus the topics).  So I have a Tech class called Optimize/Maximize, that will work in conjunction with my Studio design (multiple unit housing, this semester, on 5 Chicago lots- 125'x125') and a program called Revit that is a 3D modeling program- I can design a building for example with a specific wall construction (choosing types of insulation, etc.) and find out how well it insulates, and change the insulation for the whole building on the fly to see what the change in energy use and material cost would be.  Sweet.  We get to take material cost, energy use, size, shape, etc into account and decide what is important to us and how to get the most from the least- say I want a big building with minimal energy use.  So I make a box- less surface area, less heating/cooling costs, less material.  Etc.  So that's cool.  

My other two classes are theory.  One is Pacific Northwest Modern Housing- gonna be pretty cool.  Frank Lloyd Wright and a few other Modernists, very good at getting the most from the least, very interested in articulating spaces within homes to make them interesting, usable, cozy, dramatic, whatever.  Being taught by a guy who is old and studied under Mies van der Rohe at IIT, where I could have gone to school instead.Ludwig Mies van der Rohe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  He's important, especially in the Modernist world, especially in Chicago.  All the big black steel and glass buildings he either designed or had copied off of him.

Last class is called The Flattening City, and its about the relationship between the city and the suburbs, particularly here in Chicago, but in all major cities in the US.  Not a "suburbs are bad" kind of class, but just an examination- how to bring aspects of the suburbs to the city (where's a WalMart when I need one?) and how to bring aspects of the city to the suburbs (what do you mean, "Public Transportation"?).  Its awesome as well.

So that's it for now.  Except not, cause there's another post coming.  Except its above this one, so you probably already read it.  Whoops.

Unbelievable!

My friend Paul is smart:

You burn one rope for 15 minutes and snuff it out. You now have a rope that will burn exactly 45 more minutes. 

The rate at which the rope burns, the infinite matches, and the second rope are all red herrings. 

SCHOOL. DUHN DUHN DUHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNN

Today is Day One.  Like boot camp.  Thankfully I didn't have class until 2pm.  But I still got up to start doing things, like my portfolio which is due Friday, which I purposefully put off during break because I had other things to do and because I didn't wanna do school over break.  Success.

Plans for this week and the new semester:

I did get every single thing done on my list of things in the apartment, the last of them finished last night, cleaning up my desk.  Just yesterday we also got a real dinner table and three interestingly painted chairs, from Craig's List, just in time to have a family dinner of tacos, Tiffany's suggestion, Josh's favorite.  

Since we only have three chairs, we'll hafta pull out the folding chair when his girlfriend Andrea visits.

I was and am excited to start my new classes, and one day in, am still in good spirits.  New Years Resolution for school this semester is to not take it too seriously- I could feel the shroud of consternation and determination being slowly drawn over me as I made my way to school, and I could actually feel the different person I was when I got there, and that's only the beginning.  It made me realize I'm not very light-hearted during the semester :)  I'll try and stave that off, starting with running tomorrow.  Its been awhile.  Twice a week should get to me a 5:15 mile by the end of the semester.  Bang!

Look What I Made!

I'm more excited just because I can post it on here and cause I can get it on my iPhone.  A ringer.

by audiko.net — ringtones.

A Riddle

Thanks Ashley Lawther for this one:

You have two ropes. Both of them take exactly one hour to burn, but do not burn evenly (i.e. they will speed up and slow down the rate of burning). If you are given an unlimited number of matches, how can you denote exactly 45 minutes? 

"A Long Wandering and Eventful Journey"

Well it certainly was long and wandering, but I'm not sure I'd call it eventful.  I haven't seen a story that much about nothing since The Catcher In The Rye!  

Yeah today, I watched 2001: A Space "Odyssey" for the first time.  The first time.  The last.

There was more dialogue in Fantasia.  There wasn't a spoken word for the first twenty minutes of the movie!  Long and wandering is right.  More of a movie making odyssey if anything.  The soundtrack of course is landmark, and the visuals were stunning.  Which is why it'd make a better screensaver than a movie.  

I'll now be Googling things to see if there was a deeper meaning and story behind twenty minutes of apes jumping around a black obelisk, a self-aware computer who sings a song before he dies, and a pre-birth infant the size of Earth in a giant bubble.

Floor

October 1st- Moved in to new apartment, knowing that bathroom and kitchen floors needed to be redone and would be done in a couple weeks.  They tried saying they weren't taking renters because of the floor though we had already said we wanted the apartment. 

November 1st- Floors promised to be started.

Post-Thanksgiving- Floors finally started.  Kitchen finished a week later.  Its okay, I'm not stressed or anything, I mean I'm hardly home because of all the school work I've got but certainly when I do come home its nice to come home to a construction site.

First week of December- bathroom promised to be started next Tuesday.

Tuesday December 9th- bathroom quite notably NOT started.

Some time the following week while I'm in Indy- floor torn up.

Some time after Christmas- floor MORE torn up.

Tuesday, JANUARY 6th, three months after the floors would be done "in a couple of weeks", days before my Christmas break is OVER, three weeks after the bathroom was started, and a week after the maintenance guy was last here- bathroom floor finished.

Time to clean up all the dust and put some things on the walls.

Busy Relaxing

I'm almost done with my eight-day tour here at home in South Bend/Niles.  I've watched a good number of movies, which will be recapped at the end of break when I have a final tally :)  I've eaten plenty of sweets and other food and sweets.  And had probably as many beers as I had during the whole semester, which is like five.

I've accomplished lots of silly but useful things on my computer rearranging and organizing photos, music, contacts, etc.  Part of it is a means of further organizing data for use on my iPhone.  I've downloaded some apps too- so I now have German Spanish and Italian dictionaries and phrasebooks on my phone in anticipation of Barcelona.

My vacation really consists of three parts- roughly 5 days in Indianapolis, 8 days in Chicago, and the remaining 13 ish days in Chicago (save for a day and a half of coming back to Niles for family type stuff).  So I'm almost to the Chicago part- which is the toughest, because my Chicago to-do list is the largest.  First and foremost is finishing really moving into my apartment (unpacking, decorating, etc.) and spending time with Tiffany (out to dinner, watching movies, etc.).  Third is my to-do list, for school, my computer, life, whatever.  Thats for during the days.  

I've heard from a number of people recently that they actually (!) READ this blog, so it'd be nice to get more comments.  I guess what's to comment on, since I'm just blabbing, but feel free.  Maybe I should start posting questions or riddles or something.  Who knows.

Movies During Christmas

Movies Watched Since/During Finals (including some while I worked on models):

19 in total.  Only two of them had I seen before.  Success!

Get Smart

Journey to the Center of the Earth

XFiles

The Happening

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Robots

Cars

Casino Royale

Dark Knight

Wanted

White Christmas

Cinderella Man

Quantum of Solace

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

21

all the bonus discs from The Matrix Collection

2001: A Space Odyssey

THX 1138

The Great New Wonderful

No Country For Old Men

Oops This Never Got Posted

My favorite website, as of late.  

This is kinda what my brain is like sometimes.

Hold your mouse over the comic for a sec when you're done reading it.

http://xkcd.com/439/