howard's rock

If you're not going to give 110%, keep your filthy hands off my rock.

Word of the Day: Capo - Head

Capo means head, boss, chief, leader etc. Which is where we get our American word capital, as in, Washington D.C., our nation's head/chief city. I recently moved to D.C. because I found a real architecture job, with a salary and benefits and everything. I even get business cards. The firm specializes in large commercial architecture, which is one of the things I like most about it (so far). Nearly all of their projects are quite large, several stories, a few hundred thousand square feet, and in urban areas. After attending KSU, I've really started to BELIEVE in cities. Sure, before I visited cities, and most of the studio projects were in cities, but KSU really forced me to think hard about cities, and what they mean, and how they work. I've taken classes devoted to cities, and lived in and visited cities strictly for academic reasons. Where we could see what worked and did not work in cities, and then why. Because of all of this, working for a firm that helps to create cities, and does not (or at least rarely) contributes to suburbia was something I was really looking for in my job.


So far, Washington, has been a really great city. Technically, I don't live within the "District." I'm out in Maryland, but my office is located dahn tahn, and it's been really nice. I find that everyone talks about locations as "within the district" or "out of the district" to be quite pretentious. Nobody calls the city Washington. It's either referred to by its full title, Washington D.C., or "the district". It's obnoxious, and I'll try to fight it, but referring to thinks as being "in the district" can be quite catchy some times. Although, I will say when I lived in South Carolina, I thought in "y'alls" occasionally, but I never let them out. So this may be a similar thing happening. I must suppress this funny speech. 


I think its strange that I suppress typical cololquialisms such as y'all or "the district" but I actively try to say silly picksburgh things like, "picksburgh", and dahn tahn, and yinz. I think I like to draw attention to Pittsburgh's annoying habits as a way of being passive aggressive and annoying to the city. 


So, i've been rambling a bit so far. But I moved recently to America's capital and its been HOT. It was so hot this week, that it broke the metro (and yes the line that I like to ride). It was over 100 degrees yesterday, and it caused the rails of the metro to expand so much that it actually buckled the railroad tracks. So the metro was really really late on Tuesday because they only had one working track (for both directions to use) between Takoma and Silver Spring. Sara told me about it and so I rode the bus. But the first 3 busses passed me by because there were too many people on them. It was frustrating. And I was waiting for busses as they passed me in 100 degree weather. Believe it or not, I survived and made it home safely. Anyway, I haven't blogged in a while, and I suppose I lost my blogging skill because I find myself blindly recording my stream of conscious. I'll wrap things up here before I stray too far from the topic.
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Word of the day: occhiali - glasses

Hey everybody!

So you may or may not know this, but I had to renew my driver's license recently and found out that my left eye is significantly weaker than my right eye during the vision test.  So I went to an optometrist and got a prescription and have been on the lookout for a sharp pair of eyewear ever since.  I found a website that will send you up to 5 pairs of glasses through the mail for free.  After you try them on for 5 days, you ship them back.  And finally, you only pay if you decide to purchase a pair.  So I've been trying on a few different pairs of glasses and I might eventually purchase one.

Word of the day: unicorno - unicorn

So Halloween was a few weeks ago and Kent State is quite proud of their Halloween festivities.  Evidently, people come from all over Ohio and western Pennsylvania to experience Kent State Halloween.  From what I hear the bars are so obnoxiously crowded with people it's usually not that much fun.  However, I have some friends who are 1. not capable of being embarrassed and 2. creepy.  Therefore, Halloween in Kent was quite memorable for them.  For Halloween, my friends wanted to go out with a bang, and therefore used this guy for inspiration.  If you search "unicorn guy" in youtube, it's the first video.  So my friends found the unicorn masks, a few banana hammocks, and of course white body paint and transformed themselves into this:

They went out to bars like that.  Halloween in Kent was about 40 degrees.  Furthermore it gets better because their costumes elicited this missed connection post on the Akron/Canton Craig's list:

Now, my friends have not yet responded to the post.  I truly hope it's a legitimate post and not one of my other friends doing it as a joke.  Either way, its pretty awesome.  And if the person who posted this is reading my blog, the answer is yes, I am friends with robots.

Word of the day - Uomo - man

So this is a story from highschool.  I was a freshman on the varsity baseball team.  Ben was a senior, a captain, and the centerfielder.  And, the ladies loved him.  He never shaved, he was always super scruffy, and the ladies liked him even more because he didn't seem to try.  Anyway, this was before practice or a game, i'm not sure, and he's eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  And I could tell that there was a ton of peanut butter and jelly on his sandwich.  So I said, "man, that's a ton of peanut butter.  I don't like my pb and j's to have too much pb."  And then he said, "i don't like it either.  but this is what men do.  they need a man's size serving of peanut butter."  From then on I have doubled the amount of peanut butter on my sandwiches. 

Ben - uomo.

Word of the day: oibu- whoa/something to say when you're surprised

So oibu is what old Italians say when they are surprised, similar to whoa, wow, or jimminy crickets. 

i.e. oibu! c'e "potted meat" a il mio posto!
Whoa! There's potted meat on my chair! 

Summer studio has been consuming my entire life this summer.  Besides David's wedding, I've had precious few breaks.  I've been working in studio all day.  Besides breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I've pretty much been in studio trying to focus.  When I haven't been working, I have actually installed my dartboard on one of the corkboards in studio.  We've been playing a lot recently.  I've got a little timer and I work for 75 minutes at a time, and then play a game or two of crickets with my friends.  We've been getting really good and the games have been getting faster and faster.  Unfortunately I'm a notoriously streaky shooter, in darts, basketball, bowling, beer pong, everything.  It's been a lot of fun though.  I've played more darts this summer than I have in a really long time.  And, I've been playing very regularly.  So that's always fun.

As our project has progressed further, the anger towards our teacher has grown.  Furthermore, people have been spending more and more time in studio, and less and less sleeping.  People find strange ways to pass the time.  Recently, one of my classmates Rachel, bought some potted meat.  it's a canned meat product that cost $.35 per can.  It's the gross meat that is stuck to the bone, that then gets ripped off mechanically.  It's kind of like spam's ugly cousin.  She raised up Andrew's chair so it was really tall, and then smeared some potted meat on the pneumatic handle.  When Andrew got back to his desk, he sat in the chair, and reached down to make it the appropriate height.  Of course he put his hand in the potted meat and was horrified at what it was.  It kind of smells like cat food, but really wet and gross looking.  So he chased Rachel around studio for a while, but she's on the track team so he couldnt catch her.  Andrew, washed his hands and Rachel went back to work.  Andrew then took some of the potted meat that was left in the can, and smeared it on Rachel's face.  It was gross.  But really funny.  So while our projects have become somewhat boring and tedious (just from working on them all the time), life in studio has certainly remained interesting.

Word of the day: Comfort/convenience- ???

I don't know how to translate comfort, because in my opinion (and I do exaggerate at times) Italians do not have really know the concept of comfort/convenience.  Heat in the winter?  Only for 8 hours a day.  AC in the summer, Ha! That's just being silly.  AC is for tourists, not for people who are actually living in Italy.  Oh, you want to run an errand this afternoon?  Ha! You'll have to wait until after 3pm, it's called siesta.  Oh, you wanted to wear something comfortable?  Then, you look silly.  Clothes should be tight and restricting to be fashionable.  You know why Europeans don't worry about pickpockets?  Because they wear their clothes too tight.  It's impossible for the person who is wearing the jeans to take out his own wallet, let alone somebody else.  Have you ever seen an Italian put their cellphone in their pants pockets?  No!  Because if it rang, it'd take 20 minutes to get it out of those tight jeans.  Now you know why Italians are always playing with their cell phones on the subway.  It's impossible to put them in/take them out of their jeans.  That's why they are always on the table, even during a graduate architectural review.  They are always out and playing with their iphones, because they can't possibly fit them in their pants.