Tim: What are you drawing, Cheese?
Me: Swiss Cheese.
I'm learning to use Vectorworks. It's much friendlier than Autocad, which i've been used to using now for 10 years (and more!)...especially when it comes to loading graphics into flat elevations, 3D drawings, etc. Well, i've survived the first 2 days, and i've drawn alot of Swiss Cheese, and my head feels like puffed wheat left in the milk too long.
John here brought his laptop in so I can run Vectorworks training CDs while I work (on swiss cheese), concurrently, on a desktop. It's effective; i'm learning alot fast. I'm not even able to use my swanky new computer yet, because the software isn't loaded yet. Hopefully Thursday I'll be able to sit at my own desk, in the lovely garrett of the dairy barn here, with the other designers. Currently, I'm below at a part-time designer/production assistant's desk who isn't here until after lunch tomorrow.
This place is very busy, everyone seems to juggle alot of work all the time, and many work beyond 7 pm (its 6:45 now, and I'm leaving). Everyone is very friendly and very helpful. It is a tradition here for everyone to participate in some way in welcoming/mentoring/breaking in new staff, and I have to say it IS effective, because I'm getting to know nearly everybody already.
There are office birds that chirp everynow and again, and everytime i hear someone bust out in an unrestrained, loud laugh, it makes me think of Janice. Well, more to come on the pleasures of working for a great company. And more to come on my new environment after the weekend, when I'll finally get net service at home and can blog unencumbered, unrepentant, and ad naseum.
We went to the New High today to get lost for a while, while Jackson had our open house. We went with Dr. Li and her family, Fred and Lisa. Lisa is a freshman at Walton now, and plays basketball, and is into HIP HOP MUSIC...I couldn't believe how much she has grown up since I last saw her like 2 years ago. Anyway, back to the story: I've always been a fan of Renzo Piano, and the addition at the High is really spectacular. In a way, I think choosing him for the addition is a bit of an irony...in so many ways his addition is a non-building that simply defers to the original and the life within the whole, as opposed to the 1982 building (the original) that I think is a monument to Richard Meier's ego. Not in any overt way, of course...but the simple matter of the High being one in a chain of nearly identical buildings Meier has produced in his career attests to the fact that HE thinks he's really on to something big. Piano, on the other hand, has been successful realizing that lots of different CONTEXTS--that he (little he) has given expression to--are the something big. Every project has been different, and all have drawn their inspiration from his own unique relationship to each project and understanding of each culture in which it unfolds. Besides the spectacular beauty, simplicity and plastic ease of the eggcrate-like 1000 "light scoops" that illuminate the top floors, the nicest part i think is the expressed joy of the machine aesthetic. It is all honed, polished, and erector-setted in such a pleasing and efficient way. And the stairs are totally unpretentious minimal expressions of beauty...in simple cheap materials, like concrete and painted, exquisitely-detailed shiprail. And the current exhibition on Piano's Office is really cool...full of beautiful models, drawings, slides and ephemera all arranged in a way that suggest the viewer is in his studio, free to rummage through all his toys, books, slides, drawings, etc. Ok, enough gushing about the High. Y'all go see it! Oh, and by the way, one thing I do like BETTER about Meier's original is the sqeaky floors. The new buildings have wood floors also, but in this age of engineered wood, they are completely silent. A minus, I feel.
Allegedly, i'm home this weekend to work on the house and get the last few things done before our agent's open house tomorrow from 2 till 4. 2 of 3 sliding doors need replacement screens (thanks to Sir Trots Alot), 3 more doors still need paint...but here i sit "blogging" at almost noon. I'm posting this pic that i paid $9.99 for a year ago, to have Steven's pic converted to an ipod ad. Since he is outside doing all the work right now: raking leaves, fixing the gutter guards, replinishing the moth ball caches on the roof to repel demented squirrels...in general, doing all the hard work. I told my new coworker John yesterday that basically, I'm coming back for the long weekend to paint 4 doors, because I don't trust Steven enough to be carefull with the paint job. Pathetic. OH geez, there goes the vacuum cleaner. So many chores, so little motivation! Oh, we need to go to the farmer's market to get some artsy fartsy flowers for the frog on the table! I can handle that.
