Visitation Hours

Buongiorno mi amici!

This weekend, my bro and his lady will be in town. Ashley and I seem to be entertaining family and friends every other weekend, and I love it. It does however make it difficult to spend enough time on my school work, which has been a struggle for me in general this semester. In comparison, I averaged two all nighters/week working in the studio through the four years of undergrad, but up until now I have not stayed in the studio all night working. I can make the argument that I am more efficient with my time now, but in any case, I don’t think I am spending enough time on my school work. The few times that I have invested a couple hours into developing an idea or investigating a concept it has been worth the time I put in. Also, I somehow forgot about the collaboration that occurs when you work in studio. Just last night I was able to get past a stopping point by talking through the hold-up with a classmate [and he was able to get past a block as well]. All-in-all, I plan on spending more time in the studio, and I need to be very intentional with time so it is not wasted.

So, back to the best man and a Lexus. We think we are going to have a relatively chill night, due to the fact that they are getting here kind of late, and we want to do stuff early in the morning. We’ll probably get some cheesecake at the Diner. In the morning, we are going to do a little exploring of the city, and venture downtown for some breakfast. Tom said him and Alexis wanted to see the “real” Atlanta [as you should do in any city] instead of just the suburbs outside of the perimeter. Maybe we can ride around a little bit on the MARTA. After the morning expedition into the city, they will be leaving to go see our grandparents and to have dinner at the best restaurant in Georgia: The Dillard House. The last time we were there as a family, I absolutely destroyed Tom in an eating contest, so I’m sure he feels pressure to eat a lot. 🙂

I would also like to briefly talk about direction our country is going in [and where it will be going in a couple of years].  It seems to me that in the past 3-4 weeks, there have been several things exposed to validate all the jokes from a few months ago that President Obama would turn The United State into a Socialist nation. I feel that it is no longer something we can joke about, and probably something we never should have. I may just be that I recently found the conservative talk radio station this week, and listening to Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh exposes you to the extremes, but its seems the extremes are becoming more and more prevalent. I would have to say the one thing that makes me the most nervous is the public school system. It appears that the President will be giving speeches via the internet/C-Span directly aimed at the students. This does not sound entirely bad in theory. I would have loved to hear the President [I suppose Clinton] give a speech that was made for me, but on the other hand, it provides the potential for what is being called “indoctrination” [a little too dramatic I think]. The President will have the direct ability to make an impact on students, student who are young and very mold able. It will be imperative that parents talk with their kids more than ever about the hot topic issues that they will be hearing about in class, so they can have an understanding of whats going on, and not just a knowledge.

Article in favor of the speech.

Article opposed to the speech.

Here is a sneak peak at what was accomplished last night in the studio while missing out on the best night of TV [NBC].

Rainy Sunday

Good morning to all, and to all a good day. This weekend was a mix of rain, wedding planning, rain, church, rain, Braves baseball, rain, and dinner [rain]. We had a great time with Chad and Nancy at the Braves game, and really got a chance to talk with them and get to know each other better. Ashley and I were both encouraged by the conversations we had with them.

We made some more progress on the wedding planning this weekend, all the while getting blasted for telling family members about the converse shoes on the groomsman.

All to say, it was a great weekend for Ashley and I, and we are excited for the next few months [<3 months] until the wedding, and even more excited for being married.

Dueces. God Bless. Be Excellent.

GSU ENCM

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to let everyone know that tonight was the first meeting of the Campus Ministry on GSU’s campus. We had one student and 6 people in total. It was a great discussion about the first Habitude: The Iceberg. We focused on the fact the the 90% of the iceberg below the water represents your character, and almost all problems come from neglecting this and ficusing on the 10% that is showing [your skills]. I leader must first change himself/herself before they can truly expect to effect change in their community.

The example of Jesus was brought up when we talked about the amount of preparation that goes into leadership. In today’s world, we spend 4 years in college for 40 years of a career. Thats 10% of preparation time. Jesus spent 30 years preparing for 3 years of ministry! Thats over 90% of his life put into preparing for his “career.” It made me think about how much effort should go into learning and developing before you can become an effective leader.

Jackets Win!

Its hard to believe its been more than a week since my last post. So much has happened since then, so I’ll try to recap as much of it as I can.

Last Friday night, Ashley and I were visited by J Lee and the future MacKenzies for a weekend of camping, amoung other things, but before thet got here, Ashley and I had a pretty deep conversation that revealed more of my insecurities about my past.

They didn’t get here until about 4am Saturday morning, and I picked up Kev and brought him back to Cole’s house to go to bed, but we ended up talking until 7am [bad move]. We woke up just before 11am and headed to “the girl’s” house to pick them to go on the Silver Comet trail and then for breakfast.  The trail was fun and peaceful, and IHOP was good as always. Ironically, we also had breakfast for dinner, making pancakes with spoiled milk that made Kevin a little sick. David graced us with his precence as well, and we all had fun eating and talking. After brinner, we went to this bar where people play board games while they drink. Cole had heard about from Rhiannon, who also joined us at the bar. We didn’t really play any games because we couldn’t get everyone to agree that monopoly and Risk are the only two board games worth playing.

In the moring, we went to the movie theatre [sans J Lee] to meet up with the church for the service project. We worked with the Seven Bridges Ministry handing out bag lunches to the homeless living under the Interstate bridges. It was amazing to me to see how set in place people seem there. They had sheets and beds with chairs next to their area.  These people had accepted their position in society, and for the most part, weren’t trying to do anything to improve their situation! There was one man I met, however, who was doing everything he could do help himself. He was 75 and supporting three people, his social security information was locked down by the CIA [who thought he died in ’71], and he was cutting grass with lawn equipment he pulled behind a bike. He really encouraged me.

After we finished the rest of the bridges, we went home to eat lunch and pack up for the camping trip. We made it to Stone Mountain in under and hour, and started setting up camp and cooking dinner so we could make it to the laser show with fireworks. After struggling to fully cook the chicken legs [which I thought tasted great!], we finally made it to the laser show. Its a pretty cool mix of laser graphics in the side of the mountain, music, and fireworks. It was good times. After the show we went back to the tent to start our epic fire and cook marshmellows for smores. We all got a pretty good nights sleep and got ready to go hike up the mountain. The hike up was fun [for me] and we got a lot of good pictures.

It was a great weekend, and we really enjoyed seeing people we know are going to be good friends for many years to come.

God Bless. Be Real. Be Excellent.

Criticality + “Post-Critical”

Let me preface this post about architecture theory by saying that I have not completely decided where I stand on this issue, and most of what I will bring up are the opinons of architects and critics in an effort to start a conversation/debate amoung those that are interested. Any and all opinions I have will be shared at the end of this.

The discussions in my Contemporary Practice Theory course, for the past two weeks, have been centered around a controversial topic in contemporary architecture:  “Criticality.” The discussion was started by K. Michael Hays in 1984 when he wrote an article for the Perspecta architectural journal for its 21 issue, and in it he sets the stage for two different related dicussions. The first asks whether architecture is an instrument of culture or is it autonomous, “advocating the proliferation of interpretations based solely on form.” The second evaluates what constitutes critical architecture and what roles it plays in society using examples from Mies Van der Rohe. These two discussions have provided a platform for 20 years of back and forth positions from architects and critics alike regarding the definition of critical, the role of theory in practice, and the relationship of architecture to culture verses autonomy.

Sometimes you get what you ask for…

This will be quick because I still have work to finish before class, but I was continuing my reading in 1 Samuel [after a week and half hiatus] and got to the chapters when Isreal starts calling for a king to lead them so they could be like the rest of the nations around them. I’m not sure if that sounds as stupid to you as it does to me, but I read it and was like, ‘wait, did the people who were being lead/protected/ruled/provided for by God just ask to be like everyone around them?!?!’ God sent Samuel to tell the Isrealites what would happen to them if they were ruled by a king [1 Samuel chapter 8:¹¹ He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. ¹² Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. ¹³ He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. ¹⁴ He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants.¹⁵ He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. ¹⁶ Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle ^[b] and donkeys he will take for his own use. ¹⁷ He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. ¹⁸ When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day.”] but they did not listen to him. So do you know what God did? He listened to the wishes of his people and gave them a king, and all the things that Samuel said would happen, did. What I see in this is a need to truly examine what we desire to see if it is of God or of ourselves, and when God sends a seer [oracle] to tell you about how destructive a choice will be, we need to listen.

God Bless. Be Real. Be Excellent.