Twitter

I am thinking in Twitter-length posts lately.  Probably because my mind is more scattered and busy, with starting school.  Though I also realize that it was a way I adapted last year and have immediately taken on as the way I need to be, and maybe I need to rethink that.  Could actually feel my mind and pulse race on the first day.  Just not necessary.

Twitter, ps, is like blogging except in 140 characters or less, but multiple times throughout the day.  Its a way of keeping up with people's thoughts and daily activities.  Yes, it sounds boring or invasive or both, but it turns out to be kinda addicting, for some anyway.  Once I get an iPhone, I'll be posting to it like mad, because I have lots of one-line thoughts that I wish I could tell someone or put somewhere.

Like:

How many department chairs at this university wear bright blue plastic watches?

This year I get to see the Trump Tower be finished out my window!

This damn chair's squeakiness is driving me crazy.

I don't have time to meet all these new people.

How is it that practicing and teaching architects can have such mastery of design software and still be so inept at using the basic functions of their computer?

And so on.  Twitter.com.  You can sign up and "follow" me, and then see who else I'm following or who is following me, and add them as well.  Another way of networking, which people love these days.

As you may have surmised, I've started school again.  I have a new studio (upstairs) with a balcony behind me overlooking the old one, and a window in front of me looking at the skyline instead of into my director's office.  I have 47 or so classmates, instead of 18.  All of whom I think are either younger than me or exchange students.  I have four less hours of class this year, and probably more than enough extra work to make up for it.  I no longer have 8am classes.  But I have class until 6pm every day.  There are already three party-ish things happening this weekend, all which I'm missing.  Oops.  My butt is already sore, I'm waiting for a new iPhone and laptop to come out, and I already knocked off a hefty to-do list the past couple days.

Year two is underway.  Damn this squeaky chair.  Everyone hates it.  Next week I start running again and start learning Spanish.  T-minus one year until Barcelona.

Tiffany started class too- Human Anatomy.  She gets to learn all the stuff Jenny did.  Til 8:30pm, Mon/Wed, all semester.  Wow.  Time for me to go and do something useful.

Another Side Note

One thing I've thought much about recently is future plans.  Tiffany and I have talked about her grad school a lot- where that would be, what it would be, etc.  She wants to go to Houston for school to be near her family.  She also wouldn't start until next fall.  So if she has a two-year program (the first semester of which I'll be in Barcelona for school anyway) then presumably I'll be moving down to Houston when I graduate.  That's when I'm buying my Mini Cooper.  Hopefully at that point we'll only need one apartment.  

After SHE graduates, we've talked about moving to Dubai, if jobs are really as plentiful as they seem, and if I could make enough money in a year or two to save up a bunch, and get an employer to fund flights home for holidays.  Thankfully her (our) friend Shubair shook hands that he'd move there if we did, since he has family in town there and his dad might move there for a job.  So at least we'll have someone to keep us company.  Chris said he'd come if he could :)

So it'd be nice to be able to come home from Dubai with enough cash in the bank to buy a house, or better yet build my own.  I'd also like to buy an electric car by then- unfortunately currently, they're at least 80 grand, if I bought a Tesla or more for a four-door Fisker Karma.  We'll see about those plans.  Where this house would be is the next question.

Its gorgeous though check it out:

http://www.fiskerautomotive.com/index.php/vehicles/features/

Going Home

We slept in, we got woken up by housekeeping (housekeeping, are you checking out today? housekeeping, are you checking out today?  housekeeping, are you checking out today?) and rode the train downtown just to have lunch at a waaaaay expensive German beer hall (shoulda just gone to "Innn-Out Burr-jah" and Jamba Juice), and then stopped to check out a water fountain TIffany recommended.  The weather was great again, I really enjoyed this city.  The only other place I've been besides Chicago and NY with a genuine real worthwhile large walkable downtown and extended city-scape.  Not Houston, LA, Denver, Atlanta (though they have a decent downtown) are that seamless to be able to walk 19 miles and seeing stuff the whole time.

Then we got back on the train, and after a million people took their time getting off so we could get on, the train driver decided to shut the doors and leave halfway through people boarding, so my dad and some girl also going to the airport got left on the platform while Chris and I drove away on the train.  Ridiculous.  They literally snapped shut between us.  Lame sauce.  The airport better have free wireless.  (Yeah as you can see, it didn't- dammit).

Last Day (ish)

So our last day was full.  Of walking.  According to my phone pedometer, 19.1 miles.  Rockin.  A trip record.  Due mostly to my destinations around the city- thankfully Chris was mostly in agreement and my dad assuaged to my plans.  Not only did we see Thom Mayne's Federal Building (more hideous than I had expected) and Daniel Libeskind's Comtemporary Jewish Museum (less interesting than I had hoped, but still cool) we got to see a small Frank Lloyd Wright building, built after The Guggenheim both in time order and in design aesthetic, the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park by Herzog & de Meuron, and across the way the new California Academy of the Sciences by Renzo Piano, which I forget was even here until I saw it.  That was a close one- almost missed it!  

We also walked through Japantown, where were underwhelmed by the pagoda thing but pleasantly surprised by a sweet Catholic Church (St. Mary's) across the street, and walked way way down Haight St. and saw miles of hippies and hookah shops and record stores.  We even saw the SFLBC in Golden Gate Park.  Yeah thats the San Francisco Lawn Bowling Club.  Old people wearing all white playing sort-of Bocce on a putting green surrounded by fence. 

I also found out this morning that we literally walked right by my friend Amy's work, BCV Architects, yesterday in a place called The Cannery, right near Ghirardelli Square in the Wharf area- I remember seeing the office and thinking hmmm, thats nice, I bet this is a cool hip area for lots of architects' offices- I wonder if Amy works around here?  Turns out YEAH.  

We also saw some other churches, and found out that while the streets are on a grid, the addresses are not so much, because while they follow a linear pattern, if you follow a street you might see a 2300 on the cross street at one block and then 2200 at the cross street of another.  Stupid, hard to find addresses that way, and hard to understand the map.  Oh well. 

Lastly, we went to dinner with an old employee of First Response, a good friend of my dad's.  And her husband and son.  We went to an Italian place called A16, had appetizers, pizza, pasta, wine, and wine, and then proceeded to a pub in Oakland to have a Belgian beer.  Tasty, and perfect for us weary travelers.  By a recommendation we're also gonna have lunch and possibly a beverage at a pub before scooting outta town tomorrow.  And hopefully finding wireless and seeing the Ferry Building that Tiffany told me to see.  

Now its time to give Chris a sensual back massage for his messed up shoulders, and go to bed.  Oh Motel 6 I shall miss you.  And sleeping on the edge of the bed while Chris sleeps in the middle with his grandma knee-pillow in my back...

Victory!!!

I'm not so much relishing my being correct as I am amazed and excited by the fact that I was indeed correct and it happened once again.  We ran into someone we knew.  I was just thinking earlier today that the trip was almost over and we hadn't seen someone we knew yet...and then out on Fisherman's Wharf we crossed paths with Mitch Walorski, the dad of one of my old grade school friends (who I've also run into in Chicago when he was with my cousins).  And I thought back on all the minute choices that has us walking right through there, right then, to have the opportunity to run into him.  Unbelievable.

Today was swell, aside from failing to see the one thing I'd wanna see in SF.  We found out the Alcatraz tickets were sold out until Monday.  The night tickets were sold out months ago and we never got day tickets ahead of time.  Punch myself in the crotch.  We got lucky with a room in Yosemite, but not so with Alcatraz.

We had already had an interesting morning- after Chris spending an hour last night and us spending another hour this morning, trying to figure out where to stay in SF, we ended up literally driving into the street and back into the next parking lot to the Motel 6 and spending half as much for a room.  Its clear you get what you pay for- but still not bad all in all.  The BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit- train) goes from a mile from our hotel, in Oakland, to downtown SF, in like 20 minutes.  Just as good as walking to a damn hotel downtown SF, without the price.  Our hotel is right by where the A's and Raiders play.  Kinda a junky looking stadium.  We did have a decent free contintental breakfast this morning, highlighted by the magical drink Very Vanilla Silk, which they had in weird tall little juice box type things.  Yeah I took three.  Its the nectar of the gods.  One of them is still on ice here with a leftover piece of pizza, since this ghetto-ass place doesn't have a fridge.   Yeah we left the white-people hotel last night and came to the black-people hotel tonight.  Sorry if I offended anyone but look outside and tell me it isn't true.  Its like night a day, from one parking lot to the next.

What I don't get about this whole place is first, why Oakland is a separate city and not just an extension or suburb of SF (though I guess the same applies to St. Paul, MN) and second, how the hell does Oakland manage to support, and NEED, their own baseball and football team?  I don't really get it.  Oakland is a decent sized city and all, but its literally right across a bridge (albeit a 2+ mile one) from SF.

We got to see The Church of Christ the Light before we left Oakland this morning, once we made our accomodations decision, and that was sweet, since its the most expensive Catholic Church in American history (200million I think?), and isn't finished, and we got some lady to walk us into the building.  Its pretty inspiring inside.  We then got to drive to SF and across Golden Gate Bridge before ditching the car and starting the hiking portion of the trip again, up and down and up and down the hills of San Francisco.  The stories weren't kidding.  We even saw the Crooked Street, which was pretty sweet slash ridiculous slash sweet.  It'd be cool to live there.  Golden Gat was so foggy we couldn't see half of it and couldn't see jack once driving across it, and the fog was visibly drifting rapidly.

Fisherman's Wharf and all that came with it, was like Navy Pier times a thousand, and was lots of people, shopping, food, and repeated identical camera shops and trinket shops.  Seriously, the exact same yellow sign saying "Convert Memory Cards to CD" in three stores, in one block, exact same displays in the window.  How is that possible.  We also saw over 200 sea lions chilling on the docks.

Chinatown was quite...Chinese, and hopefully we can see Japantown tomorrow.  Its farther west along with Haight and Asbury and Golden Gate Park.  We shall see.  We had lunch in some place with some Tsing Tao beer.  Tasty.  The weather is temperate and breezy, high of 63, and we got to wear pants.  The breeze feels great.  Was sunny too.  We walked around and saw a few churches, Little Italy, and ate dinner there, ACROSS from a more expensive place Tiffany recommended called The Stinking Rose: A Garlic Restaurant.  

We also saw Crooked St., climbed up and down a million ridiculously steep streets, and generally marveled at the weather, the hills, and the architecture.

Tomorrow we see all the cool buildings on my list (okay 2-3 of em, cause we already saw TransAmerica) and then have dinner with First Response's former HR person Bev, who loves wine.  Friday our flight is at 4:20 but checkout is at noon so then we have our bags and probably unfortunately just go to the airport and chill.  Nuts.

Day Number Tuesday

And what was awesome about last night is that our windows actually succeeded in sucking so much AC upstairs that Chris and I woke up in each other's warm embrace because we were so cold.  Well no but we were pretty cold.  Then we went to breakfast buffet and stuffed ourselves full of calories to get us up our climb today.  Drinks costed extra.  Yet they had milk, which had a sign saying it was for cereal only.  Ridiculous.

Time to digress though.  FIrst, it was pretty interesting going from Hollywood to Yosemite in one day.  Five hours even.  Being at Warner Bros. reminded me though of this my intense yearning at times to be part of a movie, to be an actor, to be famous, or something.  I'm not exactly sure where it comes from but when it strikes it strikes strong.  Like the momentary thought of wondering if I could really become an actor and be in movies if I tried.  I'm guessing no.  I think the desire is somewhere in between wanting to do something big, wanting to be famous, and maybe wanting to be in the fantasy world that is depicted in movies, with people being rich, famous, happy, or at least Batman.  I dunno.  

But it overlaps with the feeling I got when I arrived in Rome a few years ago, the feeling that struck IMMEDIATELY and then slowly subsided.  It finally dawned on me suddenly the first day I was there that this was really a separate country with a separate language and millions of people with a rich history and culture, that in many ways had nothing to do with or no knowledge of anything American.  It was overwhelming and cool, because when I extrapolated that to the rest of the world, I began for the first time to barely grasp the fact that there are 5.5 billion people in the world that lived in countries and existences other my own.  While you might think its easy intellectually, I think experientially its very hard to truly get outside of your own head and really see the entire world from a perspective other than from behind your own eyes.

This almost frighteningly overwhelming feeling of being one person in 6 billion immediately transformed to the desire to and realize that I could, travel the world for the rest of my life learning new languages, cultures, histories, and geographies.  And then I realized that was crazy.  Though it felt like a really fun idea.  So back to reality.

I get a similar feeling in places like Yosemite- wanting to travel the world climbing mountains and seeing sights and such.  There's a very simple macho task-oriented goal-driven feeling I get when hiking- your brain almost actually shuts down and shuts up for awhile while you completely focus on the next few steps in front of you, and though you feel as if its just for a few moments, its thousands of those moments strung together for hours on end.  Until suddenly THE TOP! and you feel an immense sense of completion and accomplishment, the desire for which has been pushing your feet the whole way up until that point.

Unfortunately I didn't quite get that feeling today, because two hours up our hike we made the mistake of asking someone how far it was to the top of Upper Yosemite Falls (which we had already found out from the rangers was COMPLETELY dry this time of the year- bollocks) and we found out it was another hour.  Our time was shorter than it shoulda been due to getting up at 8:30 rather than 7am, which was an executive decision I made based on the fact that we slept bad cause we were cold.  So we chose to be satisfied with our view of Lower Yosemite Falls, currently a barely-moist stripe down the face of the mountain.  Bridalveil Falls was also reduced to a trickle that basically blew away in the wind as soon as it reached the edge of the cliff.  We got down in an hour what took us two hours to climb, and made our way to the car.  We managed to procure views of El Capitan, Half-Dome, and Glacier Point, and of course each of the three of us took far too many pictures with our respective cameras.  

I might mention that our hike didn't begin for about 45 minutes of driving and jeffing around because we were trying to figure out how to get to a good trail, how far it was gonna be, how much time we had, and most importantly, where to park, which took us to innumerable parking lots looking for something that didn't need a pass of some sort, and almost had my dad jumping out the window.

A 45 minute journey later and we got to the south edge of Yosemite (where we should have gone first yesterday maybe) where the sequoia grove was.  Yosemite itself had giant coniferous trees everywhere and so did this.  And then suddenly there was one, two, five giant GIANT DINOSAUR red trees as wide across as the length of a large truck and 300 some feet high.  I've been wanting to see these things as long as I've known about them, right up there with the pyramids (which we almost saw instead this trip).  They were cool.  Especially the one you could walk under.  Yosemite is definitely worth coming back to (which Tiffany will be happy to know).

We still have a rockin couple of days in SF seeing some sweet architecture and landmarks and things, and a family friend and hopefully my cousin Rachel's old roommate Amy, and hopefully we'll all get stoned off our ASSES at Haight and Asbury.  Right.  Just trying to experience San Fran...

Next Day.

Did I mention its legal in California to drive motorcycles in between lanes on the highway?  Ridiculous.  Whether we're going 80 or sitting in bumper-to-bumper, they're flying by in between cars.  Is this a car chase scene or something?

Today:  Movie sets!  El "Pal-o" Loco!  Yosemite!  This morning we went for a two-hour two at Warner Bros. studios.  Yeah could have done Universal, but we also coulda gone to Dinseyland and we didn't do that either- no time, too much money, not the interest.  WB was just a tour, no rides and garbage.  We got to be on a golf cart most of the time, we got to take pictures *some*, and we got to see a lot.  All the cool stuff of course couldn't be on film.  We saw costumes from Dark Knight, The Matrix, Harry Potter, I Am Legend, 300, and other older movies I didn't care about as much, and tv shows like Chuck and Pushing Daisies (a personal favorite of me and Tiffany in a Tim Burton/Big Fish kinda style with a narrator, on ABC).  We got to see the "Buy More" (Best Buy) set from Chuck, as well as the tallest sound stage in the world, where the whole final 15 minutes of Indiana Jones was filmed.  The original set of Central Perk from Friends.  Saw lots of open street sets and backdrops that were changed and used for many things over the years, including currently for ER, with El tracks reminding me of Chicago (its set in Chicago if you didn't know).  

All this before lunch.  Which turned out to magically delicious Horchada drink again.  Then we drove (or should I say Chris drove) to Yosemite.  He got cut off four times in ten minutes on the day, by people weaving in and out of dense fast-moving traffic, like it was gonna get em somewhere.  Jacks.  On the way from SoCal to uh, "Nor"Cal (stupid), I saw lots of groves of something- oranges maybe, and some were walnuts, and smaller trees maybe cherries or something.  I dunno.  Also saw another dust tornado- saw a few of those outside of Vegas.  They're little things no more than ten feet across just spinning away.  Bizarre.  

We've got Tue-Wed-Thur and half of Friday- tomorrow will be Yosemite things, Wed-Thur will be SF, as will Friday.  Then I return only to find my girlfriend gone to Houston and my grad school starting in two days.  Rude awakening.  

So we called ahead and actually FOUND a room like 8 miles from Yosemite Nat'l Park, after being told by three people in LA that we were CRAZY for not having a room already, in some lodge of a bunch of rooms, a pool, an overpriced diner, and equally overpriced restaurant and gift shop with some food and drink.  We got some pizza that didn't stick around for too long and then some beersssss for tonight and PowerBars for tomorrow.  We drove 2 miles down the road to find our particular little house we were staying in.  It has a little deck, two sets of stairs, a small kitchen and bathroom, and an upstairs loft with a ladder.  It has two different AC units and apparently no exhaust or return of any kind, because the front door gets sucked shut and the window was squealing because it was sucking air so hard through its gaps to the outside.  Now its time for bed in the hot loft- at least we realized how hard the building was being pumped full of air cause we opened the window and its sucking hot air to the outside as fast as it can.  

Ps.  We're in the mountains, with no cell service at some sketchy lodge house thing miiiiiiles from anywhere, down a detoured road across a one lane bridge, because a rock slide covered the real road.  I'm pretty sure we're getting murdered tonight- so if you never hear from us, the guys with the banjos got us.  Oops.  I will say that I miss Tiffany more lately, especially with seeing and doing so much without her- but also not having cell service this evening does make me feel far away.   And I know she'll worry about me.

Day Number I Forget. Its Sunday.

The magical thing about this post is I actually wrote it the day I'm posting it.  Neato.  Cause I need to put up my pictures.  So today we went on more of Carl's wild goose chases.  It started by going to the Ferrari and Lambo dealerships.  Who can point out the million dollar car?

Then we went to the Gamble House early this afternoon (after mass, brunch, and driving we got there at bloody 2pm) and the place was pretty sweet.  Seeing architecture for me, at least stuff I've heard of and studied that rocks, is like seeing the Coliseum for some people.  I mean seeing the Coliseum was like seeing the Coliseum for me too don't get me wrong.  But Gamble House was pretty rockin.  

Seeing and experiences spaces like that that were so meticulously designed with certain ideals in mind is really inspiring to see what is possible- especially for a home.  I want my eventual home to be a place that takes my breath away and makes me smile from ear-to-ear like a kid at Disney World, the way places like this do.  They give you inspiration in so many ways.  Its an Arts and Crafts House built in 1908 for the Gambles of Proctor & Gamble fame.  It was all wood inside (apparently 17 different kinds) and meticulously put together.

After touring Gamble House for an hour, we headed to the Getty Center in LA.  (We saw the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on the way).  Getty Center is the second museum built to house the collection of J. Paul Getty- his first collection is housed in his original villa.  I don't remember how he made his wealth, but coincidentally it was his grandson that was kidnapped by my mafioso relatives in Italy in the 70s, in Plati where Chris and my dad just were.  So anyway, the Getty was ridiculous sweet.  They had a tram from the parking garage to the actual center, along the side of the foothills.  The center was on top of the hills.  Overlooking LA.  Rockin view.  The center turned out to be a complex of buildings, half of which we couldn't even go in.  Oh and it was built by Richard Meier, I guess it only opened in 1997.  Geez.  It had a huge waterfall/water fountain that led down through this amazing green lawn fit for putting, down this hill where people were laying on thin linens (provided by the center for free, as was admission) and listening to live music.  The whole place was just really cool.  Huge, white stone and plastic panels, very rectilinear with occasional sweeping curves, and stunning views of the city.  Oh and you could see the brown smog over the city- glad I didn't miss that part of LA.  

We missed our plan to go to Venice Beach/Malibu/Pepperdine because we went to visit Chris' friend Jess and her new husband Tim in LA, near the Getty.  Saw their new apartment, talked about how Chris is flying out to LA for the third time this year for the USC game (the first time was for Jess and Tim's wedding).  Then suddenly we realized it was like 8pm and we had an hour drive ahead of us.  Oops.  But we also found out we have an extra day because we don't need to go to Sequoia Nat'l Park because Yosemite has redwoods.  So the trips getting repositioned for the nth time.  Hmm I have funny things to say about Chris but I've been typing too much.

By the way today, we went to In-N-Out Ber-jer again.  Got it "animal style" this time.  The dude taking our order was stoked that we knew the inside scoop on what to order.  It was tasty-ish.  But the funny part is just driving around with Chris constantly mocking Karen for giving us stupid directions, pronouncing things wrong, etc.  That and he just likes yelling and people in cars and being weird making faces and weird voices.  I'll need some video (since I already have pictures of him sticking his tongue out plenty).