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.
. 

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.