my parents put me to work while i was in wisconsin last week. just what everyone likes to do on vacation, right? well, i never mind it much.

My dad needed me to figure out why some of the landscaping lights weren't working. after searching in vain for my original wiring diagram, digging up the yard, and testing wiring combinations, i figured out that he had the wrong kind of bulb. the solution? he needed low voltage halogen bulbs, not line voltage (12V versus 120V). so then i had to put the yard back together.

The bigger task was for my mom; i had to sort through my childhood. See, at our house, you never through anything away. instead, you just put it up in the attic. we had virtually unlimited storage up there, and you never know when you might need another shoe box. and it seems i saved everything growing up. but it was fun to dig up photos and mementos that trigger happy times growing up.

all that to say that i found this slide in my desk, which i tried to scan but did horribly. i'll have to find a better way. This is my architecture school picture that we tried to take one year at Washington University. being architects, they asked us to wear all black for the picture. We heard later that the art student taking the pictures messed up the film or something, but one of my friends snapped this picture and i ended up with it.

if you're looking for me, i'm sitting in the top window just over the last "L" in GIVENS HALL looking to the side.

good bye twenties. you were lots of fun. we rocked out in a praise band and went on fun spring break trips to florida. we finished out college at a fancy university in the cushy part of St. Louis. to accomplish that, we worked summers at a factory and even delivered mattresses for extra cash. that helped since we got into a real ivy-league graduate school. As a result, we traded in the midwest for the east coast and lasted through all three years of architecture school, with a masters degree to show for it. This included great summers exploring New York City, plus a few trips to places like Los Angeles, Upstate New York+ Connecticut+Pennsylvania, London, and all over the Netherlands. we struck out into the work force and learned a ton from two design firms while working on houses, apartments, showrooms, and offices. we started and finished the minimum 3-years of internship hours and passed the first few exams on the way to becoming an honest-to-goodness professional; we're 2/9th of the way there! we found a great church in times square, joined the choir, and sang on Broadway three times a week (in church services, of course). This took us to South America, the heart of Times Square, and twice to parts of Africa. thanks for the adventures.

thirties, top that!

just saw a great-looking film. i never heard of it before, never saw the trailer, nothing. it's from 2006. the rental store didn't have anything else that interested me in the new release section until i saw this on the shelf. it promoted itself as a sci-fi thriller, and it has what i thought was some sort of combination of animation and live action. but perhaps it's all animation? the black and white is a really great look. and i'm not talking gray scale. it's pretty much black of white. i'm glad i gave it a shot. hey, why don't you try it?

site of the day, via keith:

http://www.whatjeffkilled.com/

Jeff is a cat who kills stuff. the site shows you all the gorey pics! gross and funny.