Shameless Self Promotion

This is a project I have been working on for the better part of the last two and a half years.  It's finally getting built as we speak at the corner of Broad and South Streets in Philly.  This was in last week's daily Metro Paper. Look for it in the press.  Right now it's just a hole in the ground, but the foundations are going up quickly and should be out of the ground in a month probably.  The project is called Southstar Lofts for Dranoff Properties.

awkwaaaard

A few weeks ago a saleswoman came into my office to do a lunch and learn for a faucet company she represents.  She was touting the benefits of the faucets; their durability, their good looks, all the good applications in which to use them, and especially the water saving characteristics.  As she was making a good example of the water saving characteristics, she told the story about her fifteen year old son taking all those long showers.  "He'll take these twenty minute showers  and I'll ask him why he takes so long, and he'll just say for the first ten minutes he's just standing there.  And so with this little plastic limiter, we saved 120 bucks a year."  I wanted to be like, "come on lady....seriously?  you just discredited everything you just said with that statement.  He was just standing there?"

JKRNoir: BENCH!

I've never "reblogged" something, so i am not sure if this is going to work. Regardless, this was posted from my company's blog and hopefully it translates to this blog. It's a competition that the graphic designer and I worked on for a bench design for a local neighborhood group sponsored by AIA Philadelphia. We didn't win/place or show but it was still fun nonetheless. Check it out.
JKRNoir: BENCH!:

More Shameless Self Promotion

I did these drawings for work a month or so ago. I was pretty pumped that I was able to do these renderings in this particular style. It isn't often that we get those opportunities anymore. Makes me feel like an architect. Anyway the project is for Philabundance. If you don't know what Philabundance is, it's a local food bank that provides underprivileged families food at little or no cost. The task was to show how a building they already own could be turned into a supermarket. Basically these were done to raise some money so they could show investors and hopefully get the project built. I'll keep you updated. You should click on the images to make them bigger. They're worth taking a look at.

Wife Beaters

Not sure if I posted a picture of this years work softball uniforms which I was the mastermind behind but, I was thinking about having my work softball team wear tank tops as their uniform next year. (My dream is still to have our softball team wear those long beach shirts with a womans body in a bikini drawn on them) I think it would be hilarious though if we wore wifebeaters because none of us are in good enough shape to look good in them. It'd be pasty, undefined white dudes showing off their non-existent "guns" and hopefully their tubby stomachs. I'm picturing Dangle from Reno 911.

It just made me wonder when the tank top became known as a wife beater. It's like the hooded sweatshirt becoming a hoodie. It just kinda happened overnight it seems. It's a shame that a tank top turned into a degrading fashion name. And to think we probably all have a black and white picture somewhere of our grandfathers in their white tank top undershirts doing yard work. But I was thinking that women need to come up with a derogatory term for an article of womens clothing. Like the husband leaver or something. The affair skirt? I don't know what those would look like but I'd love to find out.

Interns

We've got two new summer interns at my office last week. It seems like they are both good people and will fit in pretty easily with the rest of the crew. But man, I couldn't help but think of how they must feel right now. It's that first day of work awkwardness. When you arrive at an office twenty minutes earlier than everyone else and people forget you are coming that day so you sit around awkwardly waiting for someone to show you what to do, where to sit, what forms to fill out. Then you fill out the forms, get toured around the office, and you try desperately to figure out which people are going to be worth befriending. Sit around awkwardly again just staring at the papers you just filled out... pretending to pour over them like you even understand half the 401k jargon. "Just looking over these documents here... Looks like I am going to have a loooong, and prosperous career here...this pie chart is showing significant gains in our long term mutual funds and Brightside has given it it's highest ranking. This is really going to be great." Meanwhile you have no clue what Brightside even is, or what that pie chart is telling you.
Then you sit there until the dreaded noon time rolls around and it starts to feel like your first day of classes at college when you don't know who to sit with at lunch. There's the group of kids that are probably too cool for you which have already gone to 3 more parties than you and probably hooked up with more girls than you are going to hook up with in your college career. And there's the one kid that was probably home schooled but sat in front of you in philosophy class which you kinda feel obligated to sit with since you already had a conversation with him before class. Hopefully they take you out to lunch so you don't sit there like an idiot not knowing what the protocol is for lunch. Poor kids. And then someone will inevitably come over around 3 o'clock and ask "everything going alright? All settled in? Going to come back tomorrow?" and the reply will inevitably be an enthusiastic "yeah, its going great so far!... Definitely be back tomorrow!...har de har har" And really they are thinking, "I have no clue what's going on..."
Unfortunately I think I have become the guy who is in his early thirties, who thinks he is cool, but really he just has all the dumb goofy action figures at his desk. F---.

work injury

The guy who sits next to me at work (you might remember him from earlier blogs as the guy who plays the trumpet)was telling me about how he hurt his knee recently. The guy is your average mid to late forty something. He's as active as a mid forty year old gets. Likes to play soccer in a mens league. Rides bikes. You get the idea. We were talking recently and he said he had hurt his knee and had an appointment to see the doctor. So naturally I ribbed him a little saying he was getting too old to play soccer and that he needed to take it easy. The funny part is, he didn't hurt his knee playing soccer. He hurt it on a business trip. And he probably goes on one business trip a year. As architects we aren't usually put in dangerous situations. Maybe we survey an abandon building every now and then, but nothing physically demanding. He tweaked his knee at the hotel... While sleeping. The story goes that the bedsheets were tucked in too tight. He slithered in from the top and went to sleep under the covers with his feet splayed out like a "T". You see where this is going... He tried to roll over and couldn't move his feet. Pulled something in his knee. Poor guy. Alone in the dark....Covers too tight. Busted Knee.

Blind leading the blind?

The guy that sits next to me at work plays trumpet in a band. It's not like a band like Chicago or anything, but he plays in a big concert band playing stuff like Sousa marches and patriotic songs. Anyway, he was telling me that his band just got some new members, an older husband and wife duo. He said they are both really great players and that the wife who also plays the trumpet happens to be blind. So when they get new songs to play, she can't read the sheet music, but if she hears the song once or twice, she can figure out the notes and play the song back from memory. Pretty cool. So anyway, I guess he is in charge of distributing the sheet music, so he sends the woman the mp3. In his email he says whatever he needs to say and then asks me if it's wrong to close with "see you tomorrow". He decided not to go that route, but I thought it was probably fine, but still not worth making that oversight. Wow, that was a really bad unintentional pun. Anyway, he closed with "I hope this helps". She responded back with "Thanks Dave, See you tomorrow." Amazing.