i forgot to post this pic earlier. christina is singing me 'happy birthday" with my makeshift birthday cake; the cake is a pint of haagen-das, and the candle is a match stuck into the ice cream. by the time she was done singing (and prancing), the match was going out. c gasped to get my attention (i was taking this picture). i lowered the camera and saw the flame dying, so i lunged towards the flickering flame and at the same time blew out a quick puff of air. i got it just in time. then we died laughing.

The state education department of the university of the state of new york has informed me that i "have been found eligible" to take the 9 tests of the architect registration examination. i guess i'll be studying my way through most of 2007! yeah to me.

maybe i'm just tired, but i'm really not looking forward to this. it seemed like test taking was over for me a long time ago. and for these tests i really have to study to pass. however, i am hopeful that studying will help fil in all the gaps in my knowledge in the myriad aspects of architecture and the profession.

wish me luck. i need it.

I Hate T-Mobile 's Unfair Policies

My stolen phone saga continues. To review: When i realized a couple weeks ago that my phone had been stolen and called T-Mobile to freeze my account, the rep told me that the thief had already racked up $130 in international calls. Whoa! sucks, right? but it could have been worse.

I got my phone bill today, and it wasn't $130. My bill is for $590. I had a lengthy conversion with a customer service rep, and the superviser, Sam, and they insist they can't do anything for me. Actually, when i said that i can't afford to pay this, he offered to try and set up a payment plan for me. But not now. He wants to call me back closer to when my bill is due.

It is their policy that the customer is responsible for all calls, even if stolen, up until you call and freeze the account. Everyone i tell about this doesn't believe me, and once i convince them that it's true, are shocked and disgusted at the unfairness. this policy applies to you too! and there's nothing you can do about it.

i told the customer rep on the phone that it's disgusting that T-Mobile is profiting from my misfortune. my phone is essentially a credit card with which one can buy calls all over the world, surf the web for a fee, and buy all kinds of downloads (my thief bought $72 worth of ringtones.) But a credit card company would not make you pay for fraudulent charges. How can we make this true for cell phone companies too?

Thankgiving giving is next thursday! and the day after the official start to the christmas shopping season. So PLEASE let me know what you want for christmas. I really need help with ideas. This is assuming that 'you' are someone that i buy presents for.

If you need some ideas for me, i have racked my brain to think of some stuff i want. You can access the list by clicking the green link on the top right side of this page. Easy, right? I'll keep updating it as i think of additional things.

Christmas is in 38 days!

reasons that it's a good thing to have your phone stolen:

6. You get to spend days shopping around for a replacement phone: stores around town, online, ebay auctions. It's so exciting!
5. You get to reenter all your contacts... again.
4. You avoid all those pesky calls from friends and family.
3. You get to pay full cost for an overpriced cell phone that will probably break as soon as you drop it.
2. You get to help out a bunch of strangers with their international calls to Colombia, Venzuela, Panama, etc.
1. You have two chargers; one each for work and home.

so... some people just suck. like my neighbor who plays his music so loud that it was making it hard to hear our tv earlier this evening. or the person who swiped my cell phone and racked up a fortune in international phone calls. or the telephone company that is going to try and make me pay for it all. Jesus wants me to love these people, but it's hard enough to just not hate them.

now, do i fork out the cash to get the fancy phone again? (say yes.) either way i have to pay for a phone, full price, without the incentives you get when you sign up for a new plan. why not pay a tad more for the good phone? it's hard to go back once oyu have the good stuff. since i just started my plan, i can't get a discount from the store... yet. they thought if i would wait a month i could get a discount. but the discount price is basically what the phone is going for on ebay. crap i forgot to bid on the phone! two good auctions just ended 10 minutes ago.

whatever, i'll put it off again for another day.

Here's a great distraction for y'all. Go to www.jacksonpollock.org and create art just like the master painter/dripper/splasher.... move your mouse around on the blank screen, click to change colors.

here's my creation!

have fun.

mac or pc? everyone has an opinion, and frankly, i'm sick of the whole conversation. but i bring it up because i have a solution: both. i don't mean that both are better, i mean get both!

we got new imacs at work last week (mac). but we use a program called parallels to allow us to run windows xp(pc) in side a mac window. so we use mac for everything except pc-only programs, autocad in our case. and i love it!

there are a few quirks though. for instance, my number pad keys won't work in windows, and right now i can't delete anything in windows. that could be a problem pretty soon, but for now i just put all my trash in a single folder until i figure out the problem. perhaps it's just a faulty windows installation problem. anyway, it tells me that the path to the recycle bin is not valid or something.

all this to say that i played with the built in web camera and photo booth program to make these pics. they have built-in effects that are pretty fun to play with when you just need a break from it all.

my bosses curated an art exhibition for their friend that opens tonight. Christopher Adams makes these amazing sculptures that are unlike anything i've ever seen; you can't stop staring at them! They are reminicent of something biological, although neither plant or animal similarities really explain it. Some are beautiful while others are scary or squirmy. Different pieces cause different reactons depending on the person. Also, they really look best in groupings, whether thematical or seemingly random. That's just a tip in case you end up buying some. The show is at the Ricco Maresca Gallery, 529 W 20th Street, 3rd floor. click HERE for a sneak peak; I took some pictures while they were finishing the installation.

being low in the money category, i've been really good this year about not shopping and buying clothes and other stuff. but my phone is 3 years old and lacks lots o' technology, and my shoddy black shoes have cracked soles that let the water in, so i got these beauties shown here: nice, right?

the phone was basically free, but not quite; that's after rebate and not including some made up setup fee. i wanted to upgrade to the black model with a 3Mp camera, but i promised myself that i wasn't going to spend money for a fancier phone. but this one is great. i love the slide!

the shoes came from the puma store. i got fed up with shoe shopping for something i liked and could still wear to church (choir dress code). i decided to give up on the wear-anywhere shoe and just keep a pair of dress shoes at church, and buy what i wanted for work and play. these shoes are finally a break from my last 3 pairs that all looked the same.

now i just need... (it never ends, right?)

I went this morning to meet a friend because i'm helping with his house addition project. I needed to go over some concerns of mine and try once again to pry closely guarded details from him. But we didn't really talk much about the house because i met him first at his friend's bike shop where i saw this beautiful bike.

This bike is his gift to me for my help so far, and i'm sure as an incentive to work faster on the project. It's a Trek full-suspension mountain bike just loaded with carbon fiber (seat post, entire rear suspension frame, handle bars, even brake levers!). My favorite feature is the grip-mounted lever that allows you to "open" and "close" the front and rear suspension on the fly. So cool!

We tinkered with the bike at the shop, i picked out some shoes for the clip-on pedals, took some test rides down the street, talked a little about the house, and then drove to a bike trail to break in the new bike. I was laughing the whole ride because it was so much fun; the difference from my old bike with no suspension to this is quite extreme. You should be jealous now.

Success! after a lot of phone calls, faxes, stress, early mornings, long lines, and patient waiting for mail, i've managed to register my car in new york. why does doing the right thing have to be so hard and expensive? the shady way was so easy... but no regrets.

my next task is to alter a fence. my car needs to get past it so i'll have a place to park when i'm not driving. once i come up with a plan of action, i'll get to pull out my toolsand do some sawing and drilling and screw.... we'll see how that goes. i have more experience telling other people how to build than actually doing it myself. but i'm confident.

my house mates are out of town for 10 days. you know what that means! wait, i don't want to know what you were thinking. but i'm sure i'll miss them by the time they return.

if you're looking for me tomorrow, i'll be at the beach.

welcome back! that's what you should say to me as you read this. lately i've been taking a break from this blog mostly because i've been too busy to do anything worth writing about. this hasn't changed, but I thought I should break the dead spell.

summer in the city has been hot (like everywhere I hear) and busy (I'm running at least four projects at work, and more potential jobs keep popping up that always require immediate attention). despite this, i've managed to make it out to the beach a three times so far. last past weekend was the best, with great waves for body surfing.

on the downside, my car has been giving me problems. maybe it's crying out for attention? maybe it wants to give up the fight? it's just that i'm not quite ready to let go. First there was a flat tire that involved really tight lug nuts and a lug wrench that sheared in two! that was a debacle. Next was a dead battery. I got jumped four times that day before my friend David helped me install the new one. (he did most of the work.) Lastly has been the battle to legitimize my car registration, which involves getting insurance in New York, exchanging my out-of-state driver's license, bill of sale + transferring the title, new registration, and vehicle inspection. I managed to get auto insurance after selling my left arm and right leg, but I somehow lost my social security card, thus preventing me from doing the rest. this morning I went to downtown Brooklyn to apply for a new SocSec card, but I won't get it for two weeks. So since my car registration expires today, I had to get my car off the street this weekend. But my parking spot on long island was so long vacant that my uncle has fallen in love with having it for his own use. makes sense since it's his driveway. now I have to think up a way to get the car through a fence to store it past the driveway (technically in the back yard). I guess i'd better get out my tools and my drawing pencil!

I've posted a few "sketch" renderings of the current design for a retirement house for mom and dad. It's just first floor interior shots to help everyone get a feeling for what the design is like in 3D. There's really no materials on anything yet, but most of that hasn't been decided anyway.

let me know what you think. that's a lot of glass in the living room, huh? all the furniture - sans the corner cupboard - is from Knoll since i have their entire product line in digital files.

My bosses designed the sofa facing the wood burning stove so i thought i'd put that in.

click on the picture to see the renderings or here if that doesn't work.

what did you do memorial weekend? yeah? that's nice. i became an uncle on sunday! thanks, it took a lot of work and... oh, i guess i had nothing to do with it. anyway, here's a pic i got from the happy parents of Lincoln Davis Emerson. someone told me his name sounds very presidential. although there hasn't been an Emerson president, maybe this could be the first.

So congrats to me, and to Chris and Holly, and my folks for becoming grandparents. I can't wait to see the little guy!

so do you think these scary looking flowers are a natural phenomenon? or maybe you don't think scary, but rather something softer, like furry. whatever, they're pretty neat-o.

in the background is a new stainless steel kitchen. would you believe that most of it came from IKEA? not too shabby.

this is what's in my peripheral vision while i stare at my computer monitor all day long at work. nice, huh? On the left by the cranes is Renzo Piano's NYTimes building going up. Between the Empire State Building and the One Madison Avenue tower you can just make out the top of the Chrysler Building. it all seems a lot closer in real life, and moving around you can get a better view of certain buildings. But we don't get tto see the sunsets anymore. i can't wait to move back into the office once renovation is complete. but they just started.

Allergy season has KILLED ME for the last month! It's been miserable. a few days ago a friend hooked me up with some great under-the-counter medicine, and now i'm feeling normal again. Thank God and Hail Cesar!

I felt so great today that i went out for a bike ride over the bridge, across lower Manhattan, and up and down the lower west side. the parks over there are great. i took a rest out on one of the piers turned into a park. great views of the city, new jersey, and up and down the Hudson... even the statue of liberty. i laid on a wide, curvy bench and people watched and watched the water taxi come and go.

I also rode up to see New York's first Gehry building going up, as pictured to the right. I think it's his first all-glass building as well. at first, from far away, i thought the bottom part-the glass- was a billboard rendering of the building. but no, that's it. Frank's buildings always look great half built, when you can still see all the different layers. but i look forward to see how the curves continue to the top and terminate. From the south side-not this view-the bottom completed portion looks pretty regularized and uninteresting. Perhaps the top gets a bit more funky.

guess what came in the mail yesterday? (well, via DHL actually.) my new monitor! ain't it a beaut? i've been looking to replace my CRT monitor for a while now, but it was never something i needed to do.

when i found this deal listed on firingsquad.com, i saw it as my opportunity. dell had the monitor on sale, and the site above gave me a coupon for additional money off. and there was free shipping... it all came together!

i don't know what to do with all my newfound desk space!

(update: the price has dropped again! you should buy one!)

3:12 pm
boredom has set in.
brain is in hibernation mode.
eyes want to shut.
head has become suddenly heavy.
...and it's only tuesday.

today is a slow day at work. no big deal, right? i'm good at making up projects, thinking of things i can do, or otherwise entertaining myself. the problem is that it's 70 degrees outside. i don't like the fact that i can't enjoy the beautiful day even though i'm not really accomplishing anything in the office. well, at least i thought of an errand i could run that got me outside a little bit.

sorry for the whining.

Sorry, but I'm a little slow in getting back to normal after my journey to Argentina. Besides an extended return trip, I had a few late nights at work, a cold, a surge of spring allergies, and an overall desire to be lazy. I've been spending most of my time unpacking and posting pictures from the trip (about halfway done).

Argentina was amazing. It was such a busy trip that I can't seem to summarize it. There's just too many details and stories to tell. Another problem is that I'm the contemplative type; I prefer to mull things over and ponder before coming to any conclusions. This is why I often answer questions with an "I don't know" or "whatever" or the like. or maybe i'm just slow in the head or kinda dim-witted (or lazy). think of me what you like; I can take it. anyway, i'll have to write about argentina later, probably in small chunks over time. but it was a great trip.

I will, however, tell about the trip home. aye! Getting home involved a 3.5 hour bus ride from Rosario to Buenos Aires, and then a direct flight to JFK, about 11 hours overnight. BUT, my bus driver decided to take a different route and even run a personal errand involving a pitstop in an out-of-the-way town with lots of traffic. Add in traffic and road construction and we had a 5.5 hour bus drive. We pulled into the terminal about 7:30 for our 8:20 international flight. so , yeah, we missed that flight. too close. flight is closed.

Lots of waiting, announcements, general confusion, list making, baggage assignments and baggage hauling later, the 30 of us left behind are at the booking counter while our travel coordinator Sarah figures something out for us. We're told something about getting onto a flight leaving soon for Dallas Texas. okay, it's somewhere in the USofA... we'll take it. But I think it ended up being too soon, because that came and went without any movement on our part. The booking counter is right next to the check-in counter, but there seems to be a lack of communication between them. When we finally get tickets handed to us, it's for a flight to Miami leaving soon after. (I noted that this was funny since I had been shuttled there after missing a connection on another missions trip.)

Yeah! we're USA bound. It's all going to work out! We grab all our luggage and carts of multimedia equipment that we have to check with us and head to the adjacent check-in counter. Person #1 is checking in... excellent: I begin check-in... I answer security questions, proceed to the next counter... wait, stop everybody; the flight is closed. It's too late, they say. All the young people working the check-in counter grab their bookbags (sitting ready in a pile) and go home. AHHH! what the heck?

Our travel coordinators collect passports and work for a while with the booking agents while the rest of us chill out and eat various snacks that didn't get consumed during the week. it's a great time, really, considering that we have no idea how or when we are going to get home. Some of the group even shop the airport souvenir shops. When we finally see tickets in the hands of our 'leaders', they don't want to tell us what's going on right away.

That Miami flight was the last flight for the day for our airline (AA). So we load up the luggage again and cross the terminal to a baggage storage room. We separate out stuff we need to last the night and store the rest. After some more confusion and waiting around, we're told that we're hopping into ten taxis that are waiting outside and driving to a hotel 30 miles away where we'll stay the night and have dinner. Whoo-hoo!they could have easily had us stay at the airport all night, like those 7 and 9 hour layovers on the Zambia trip.

Somebody brought us various empanadas and water (sin gas and con gas) for dinner at the hotel, and we crashed in our cheesy 50's style hotel rooms. but a two star hotel is so much better than a bench at the airport! We had hot showers, bouncy beds, and a nice continental breakfast in the morning. Taking no risks this time, we were told we would be leaving for the airport at 3 pm, well in advance of our evening flights. And lunch would be provided at the hotel.

So we had the morning to see Buenos Aires. Free hotel, food, and transportation, unlike the rest of the folks who had to pay to see the city (the ones who actually made it on the flight the day before.) I took a taxi with some of the group to see the main government buildings and cathedral downtown. We saw some sights and shopped some shops. My group by chance met up with a few other groups from our crew at an ice cream shop. ha, ha. same thing happened all the time all week in Rosario.

Anyway, lunch was surprisingly very good at the hotel, and we made it to the airport extra early. We had plenty of time to spend all our pesos at the airport shops. All 29 of us got on our flights... four different flights, actually, and 6 or 7 people made it from the standby list.

My crew of 5 was in charge of all the multimedia bags, 21 extra bags/boxes/crates of video equipment. It involved lots of carrying and carting stuff around... overall, a big hassle, but what choice did we have? Well, when we checked in for our flight, we were told that once in Miami, we had to claim our luggage, go through customs, check it all back in again, and go back through the security line... all in a layover of about 75 minutes. :) as you can guess, we missed that next flight too.

At this point, we're all pretty whippy. My crew of 5 has been joined by a group of 3 from an earlier flight. We're overtired and overtravelled and pretty cynical about everything. We have a lot of good laughs about missing our third flight and hauling all this stuff around with us and other jokes that were really funny in the moment. We're just going with it; whatever happens is okay with us. At least we're in America now. We can speak English and use cell phones!

After recovering some bags that were missing for a while (they shut off the carousel before all the bags had come out!) we got tickets onto a later flight into Laguardia airport instead of JFK. Whatever... close enough at this point. All of us make it to New York, and so do all the bags. We hire a helper and a bus back to church. the end. sorry, i'm too pooped to write a conclusion, but i'm sure you've had enough as well. I'm still recovering.

so i'm off to Argentina tonight. all that packing and shopping is finally over and done. maybe now i can get some sleep... hopefully on the plane.

i tend to be an overpacker. my aim is to plan for any plausible situation and to then pack the corresponding clothes, shoes, medicine, snack, gadget, entertainment, toiletry item, etc. that may be required. this leaves me with a big pile of stuff to bring with me. that's why 2 am last night found me going through piles covering my entire bedroom trying to figure ut what i actually needed....

uh oh, gotta go. finish this when i get back?

it's snowing in New York City! well, more sleet than anything. The best part is that it had to warm up in order to snow, so that's a plus.

On my way to work on Tuesday i saw that the farmer's market in Union Square was running, which was weird because it only operates on M/W/F/Sat. Well, whatever. But when i went over at lunch to pick up a snack (i'm addicted to these Amish/Mennonite pretzels), i saw that the market was just a movie set. The security had a heck of a time convincing people that they couldn't go in and shop because the market was full of people buying stuff (movie extras), and it looked like all the usual vendors were there.

It's too bad because i really wanted those pretzels.

c... can't... stay... awak...e....... and i'm only 7 minues into office hours at work. how am i going to last the day out? too much late night autocad. i WILL go to bed early tonight. i keep saying it, but tonight's the night. maybe...

i have momentous news! instead of buying something at the Barney's Warehouse Sale today, i paid off one of my student loans! granted, it was the smallest one, but it's gone forever. i got my federal tax return back yesterday and i saw that i only had about $500 left on the loan, so i thought, why not? thanks mom and dad for your help.

over the weekend, new york city got it's biggest snow storm ever: 27" of snow! did i get out of work? church? did the schools close? NO. everything still happened because the subways never stop. No snow days for the kids here, but i guess they make up for it with all their religious holidays. church on sunday was pretty empty, but a lot of people came despite the fact that the blizzard was still happening until the afternoon. it was kinda funny to see times square in a blizzard and to walk in the street to avoid the snow.

i wish i hadn't missed the strangest part of the storm. My friends at church said that there were thunder and lightning during the blizzard. No one had ever seen that before, including my pastor from canada.

This week and next is restaurant week, and i took advantage of it monday night with some friends. the idea of restaurant week is that you get a chance to try out some of new york's pricey restaurants with a three-course, fixed-price lunch($20) or dinner($35). That's usually much cheaper than you'd normally pay, and you still get to choose among three items for each course. The 10 of us tried out a sushi place in greenwich village (sort of). the food was pretty good, and dinner with friends is always fun, but it wasn't the best meal i've had. it was, however, one of the pricier ones. and i was stuffed.

and that was the last food i ate. now it's thursday, and i'm reaaaaallllllllyyyyy hungry. but the 3-day fast ends tonight after church, so i should make it another 5 hours, right?

i've been reading about the auto show going on in detroit right now, and i wish i could be there to see all the new designs and outrageous concept cars. but just walking the streets of new york you get to see lots of stuff. i always see the newest models, sometimes even before i know they've been released. and with all these wealthy people around i see the high end stuff too: corvettes, big BMWs, Mercedes (SL's, the new curvy CLS, lots of AMG too!), and Audi A8s. Sometimes they're even tricked out. Yesterday i saw a huge Maserati. A while ago i saw a Maybach parked in an outdoor lot, which didn't make sense to me. yesterday i also saw a recent Acura NSX. two weekends ago a yellow Lamborghini Gallardo drove by as i was shopping. It's been a while since i've seen any Ferrari's... maybe when spring comes they'll be out.

obviously i didn't resolve to post more often in the new year. but it's my blog, and i'll blog if i want to. wow, that sounded so... anyway, the site was down for a while. okay, it was only like a day. whatever.

winter finally came to new york city. last week we had temps in the (high) fifties, and then suddenly it was gone. now it's frigid, and everything is snow and ice-covered. it's a good thing i bought a new winter coat! i was getting tired of wearing all black like every other new yorker, so i found a jacket in bright blue. it's really bright. it's a water-proof shell over a zip-in down jacket. you should be jealous. thanks mom and dad and holly and chris for the cash to buy it. yes, it took all that! but it was on sale, so that makes it okay in our family, right?

FYI: i don't know if i'm going to make it through today. i didn't have any chocolate in my lunch today, and now i feel like i'm starting to freak out. i didn't really realize i was such an addict. maybe i can fake an errand and leave the office to pick some up. hmmmmm....