Monday, November 27, 2006

[thankful]

well thanksgiving has come and gone. having a few days to reflect, and digest, it occurs to me, that my thanksgiving this year, was very similar to the original thanksgiving held by the pilgrims.

try to follow my ramblings for one moment if you will.

now, i don't want to go into a great amount of detail the story of the pilgrims. for one, the vast amount of my recent history classes, were on architecture. if we want to discuss the architectural stylings of the early americans we can, but that's not what this is about. secondly we all know the basic story. the pilgrims gathered to give thanks for the harvest, and for surviving in a new and strange land. they were thankful for their friends and family, their faith, and their new neighbors, the native american's.

this mirrors my situation. i've entered a new and strange land; the working world. rules and habits that applied in college, no longer apply in this territory. apparently most of the working world gets up before noon, and instead being docked a letter grade for turning a project in late, the threat now is being fired. also, i'm living in a unfamiliar and dangerous place...downtown wichita....i grew up in the suburbs, o.k. and like the pilgrims, i've become acquainted with the foreign cultures and personalities of my neighbors, manly my floral designing neighbor greg. for the past few months, i've had to rely on the knowledge of my co-workers to gain experience to help me survive this new world.

as you can see, the similarities are near identical.

truly though, it can be very humbling to take a look back at your life over the course of a year, and be truly thankful for it. i hope everyone out there can.

now i just need to get some of those great buckle shoes the pilgrims had...i hear they're coming back in fashion.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

[can]struction

a week ago, my firm participated in the wichita food bank [canstruction] project at the city arts building. after tossing out the idea to build frank lloyd wrights guggenheim, or the pyramids we eventually decided on a rocket. over the next month we collectively spend about 43 minutes designing it, which meant we drew the cans in cad. we ordered a very rough estimate of the amount of cans we'd need, and showed up to build. any ideas or plans on how to build it were quickly abandoned as the build began. through some creative use of chip board and a lot of sticks of hot glue, or sculpture was finished.

as pleased as we were about the shape we had somehow manage to create or guilt ran high. we were under the impression that the cans we used went directly to the kansas food bank. being that our rocket consisted of lesuer peas, sardines in mustard sauce, and hormel chili, we felt that we weren't making the best contribution to those in need. but we soon learned that dillons had an agreement with the food bank to take back the cans used in the contest, and contribute a healthier variety.