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When will this economy get better?

Newest extra on That Seventies Show…

Always marry UP

Can you call your wife a couger if she’s only one year older than you? If so, Happy birthday Ash, my couger of a wife (as of midnight tonight)….reeowrr

What’s Happenin’ for Papa Patterson?

2011 seems to be off to a decent start… We just finished celebrating our first daughter’s second birthday for the third time last night and I feel like we’re almost ready for the second daughter to make her grand entrance in May. I never thought I would have turned out to be the father of two beautiful little girls but I’ve embraced it wholeheartedly, going so far as to tell myself that girls are better than boys even. Sure I’ll have to one day face the sad moments that I’ve seen other fathers deal with, when they’re  finally allowed to go out on their first date after months of begging and sulking or even the bittersweet feelings that I’ll have to endure on the day of their weddings. I know that this experience is going to soften me, as every day comes and goes, these little angels are going to melt my heart a little more each day and by the time they give me the last kiss on the cheek before they run off to make their own lives, I’ll be a crying mushy puddle of a man and won’t know what to do with myself. Isn’t it amazing that children can do that to you? I’ve tried to express this to friends that don’t have them yet, only to find it impossible to put in words. It IS nice to finally understand what parents before me have meant by “you’ll understand when you have children of your own”…though I still think that’s a lousy excuse that is often abused as an “end all” statement to flex authoritative muscle. I’ll NEVER use it in that way, or will I?

MIA

Wow, how long it has been since I’ve typed into my blog! I committed myself to keeping this page updated but what can I say, I’m like most ambitious people in this world that start something with the full intention of following it through, only to shift to something new in the following week. That in itself is one fundamental thing that I have discovered about myself this year, my tastes tend to shift. From music to reading to hobbies, I’m constantly shifting, and I don’t know why. I love my hobbies, there are several that tend to repeat themselves, but I believe it’s because they don’t last longer than a couple months at a time. Specifically speaking, I’m referring to my hobby as a hunter, and my hobby as a gardener.

I go through many interests during the year, but hunting and gardening repeat themselves annually…but not for longer than a couple of months at a time. Right now my garden is overflowing with weeds but I’m tracking several deer and I’m way into it. In a few months, my garden will be immaculate but my guns and bow will be dirty and dry. Will I do this forever? How can I merit spending time, money, and effort on my interests, when I know they’re whimsical? I guess I’ll just have to make a note as to which ones keep coming back time and time again then officially make those ‘My Interests’ for that ever popular blank on every job application. I guess after-all that it is beneficial for a person to keep shifting into something new, it keeps us versed in other peoples’ potential priorities and constantly keeps us ‘well rounded’ and ready to spring at any moment into a conversation over common ground with the next potential acquaintance.

My Head is Spinning

Well this has been by far the busiest month of my life. I wanted to draw some witty cartoon or at least find a picture to rip off on the world wide web somewhere but thought that I would save some time and show pics of it all. I’m blowing the dust off of my blog and posting something new just because I’ve begun to let it go idle. I plan to stick to my commitment to post, even if I don’t have anything drastically relevant to share with the one person that might read this.

Firstly, two years ago I decided that I was going to get involved and volunteered to join a planning committee for Architecture Month. In doing so, I met a great group of people in charge of motivating and encouraging the general public of Greenville, South Carolina about the world of architecture. In a city that is so open to the arts and one that is well receiving of public events, Architecture Month has done well. It started in 2008 following an organization of America’s Favorite Architecture in celebration of  the AIA’s 150th anniversary, and has since grown into its own annual event. For this year, the third in existence for Architecture Month, I was nominated to become the planning committee’s chair. In doing so, I’ve had the privilege of coordinating and communicating on behalf of our fantastic committee of nine. We have grown into a well coordinated and efficient machine, and I’ve noticed that each member has proven to be just as strong and resourceful as the next. It leaves me hoping that we have the opportunity, once it is all over, to celebrate our success and reward ourselves for a job well done. Each of my members goes above and beyond, committing countless hours to the success of Architecture Month in Greenville. We do so, because we want to see it expand and grow into something that people recognize and look forward to on a yearly basis. This has been the first year that we have had outside interest approach us hoping to participate, and I feel like that experience is only going to happen more and more in years to come. I know that this April is going to be HUGE for our initiative and will surely become something to aspire to in the future. I hope that the contemporary means of “staying connected” really pay off for us this year as well since we’re on Twitter, Facebook, and we have our own snazzy site at www.architecturemonth.org

Aside from my community service towards architecture, my daughter at 14 months is a walking, talking, crazy ball of energy, requiring my wife and I to be quick on our feet and forcing us to always remember to keep the stairway door closed with a ‘click’ at all times. We love it, that’s all I can say about it. She didn’t take her first independent steps until about 13 months and we know we were fortunate to have a child that we could contain for so long. That little girl has been such a blessing, it has me wanting a whole litter of new babies. I won’t go into that any further than my previous statement, just know that I want a large family because I want fun holidays, and tons of grandchildren when I’m hopefully not TOO old and gray. I want to be the fat old grandpa that dresses up like santa for his 10 grandchildren and comes storming through the door on Christmas Eve. I want to have a house somewhere in the middle of everything where all of our family can accumulate and celebrate what we are and the how much we enjoy each other. I know these dreams represent a small fraction of the outcomes that can arrive from a large family. We could end up being extremely dysfunctional, and we could have problem children on our hands that wind up in jail, with pierced eyebrows and illegitimate children, causing Ash and I to gray early and die of a heart attack at 45…but that’s just a risk we’ll have to take, assuming that we can be amazing parents, which I guess everyone plans to be from the get go. We’ll just have to go with God and enjoy the ride, staying faithful that he won’t give us more than we can handle.

The third thing that has me scrambling to catch up to father time this month, so I can smack him in the back of the head and slow him down a little, is my own personal “FUNemployment”. Yes, since October 2009, I have been without a professional architecture job. I have been working out of my home on my computer, otherwise known as “my lifeline” as an individual drafting contractor for residential and small commercial jobs. I wish I could say that I haven’t enjoyed it and that I desire to be back in the routine environment of a professional office, but to be honest, all that I miss is the job security, which I guess I never really had in the first place. I loved where I worked but I was at that defining point in an architectural intern’s career where he has to decide whether he’s going to be a glorified draftsman for the rest of his life, or keep going with his education and make an official architect out of himself. Due to the arrival of the low economy, a lot of interns such as myself have received a hefty shove in the right direction, which I certainly see as a blessing. It’s difficult to get out of the tunnel vision that you have when you’re working day in and day out to be a provider for your family, it makes risks and gambles especially hard to take. For now though, I make my own schedule, see my daughter all of the time, and get to work in my pj’s. Who wouldn’t love that, right?  I have a former employer to thank for putting me in contact with a residential architect who greatly appreciates the work I do and has no problem giving me enough to keep my drawing board in action. I have a feeling that without this relationship, I would be busing tables or working construction until graduate school happens for me. Speaking of, the recession really sux for architects! they never told us THAT in school. Oh well, it wouldn’t have stopped me from pursuing this job, I still love drawing buildings. So much in fact that I tried to get my 5 y/o nephew into buildings last weekend only to have the self realization that what I do is boring to the rest of the world. I may as well be the comic book guy from The Simpsons, I guess.

Beyond all of the happenings mentioned above, I’m also trying to complete a design portfolio to submit to 4 different architectural schools on the 15th of April. And aaaas always, I’m way behind. I’ll raise my beer … (blue moon tonight) to countless hours of self criticism and drawing in illustrator, photoshop and CAD. At least until April 15th is over. May should be a breeze….I can’t wait.

Signing off….. arrjaypee, patterpuss, patty, patty on the bottom, JP, and paaaaterson.

~these are nicknames that I’ve acquired over my 26 years of living….there may be more that I don’t remember or have blocked from my memory.

Jack Frost nipping at your n…fingers

In my anticipation to ride and my sickness of feeling a growing muffin top from the holidays, I said ‘enough with it’ and opted to go for a ride last week. It was the 8th of January, we had been warned of possible snow and/or falling ice and the high for the day was 26 I believe. Most would read this and say ‘DUH! its too cold to ride a bike’ but you see, Santa brought me some wonderful winter riding gear for Christmas and I convinced myself that I would stay moderately warm on my quick ride. The winter gear that I’m talking about is a full body bib, yes ‘bib’, google it, that covers my skin from my ankles to the mid section of my stomach, arm warmers[which basically look like ninja gear for a character out of mortal kombat] that cover my skin from wrist to shoulder, two short sleeve jerseys, and a thin beanie hat to go under my helmet and cover my ears. Some of you may be laughing at this point because you’re beginning to picture me, a full figured guy, wrapped in spandex showing off my keg of a belly. Which is fine, I’ve come to accept the fact that my ‘super hero – looking’ outfit is a bit silly looking, especially on a person that doesn’t look like a machine, but I really don’t care, because I’m just trying to find a way to stay healthy, and wearing the alternative is only going to hinder my ability to achieve my goals. Wearing basketball shorts and a tee shirt don’t take you very far when every part of your body is bending and twisting to keep the pedals moving, and it causes other issues as well that I refuse to go into, just trust me on that one. Anyway, after getting suited up, I threw in my ipod buds, poured some hot water into my water bottles, mounted my trusty steed, and rode off into the frigid sunset.  It was about 4:00 in the afternoon, so I figured it was the warmest it was going to get before it got really cold and that I wouldn’t be gone long anyway. I began one of my favorite routes and hadn’t planned on going more than 5 miles or so, but once I hit one distance marker, I just kept continuing to the next, then the next, telling myself that I could turn around at any moment and head back. Once I passed my point of no return where the route wouldn’t give me an opportune loop back without scaling long hills, I started to really wonder why I couldn’t feel my finger tips. I had covered every part of my skin with the exception of my finger tips [and my face of course], assuming that I would need them to operate the shifters and tweak my cables as necessary. I didn’t think it was a big deal, until I really had to start pushing hard on the shifters with my palms to get them to click. For those of you don’t ride, you typically have to shift often on a road bike, especially around Greenville with all of the traffic and the ups and downs. So I began worrying a little that sacrificing the finesse in my shifting was going to really cause me to delay, not get through intersections quickly, or swerve when having to use my arm strength to shift my gears. At every stop light, I was sitting on my hands, blowing between them, shaking them, and doing whatever I could to get the feeling back in them again, nothing was working. At this point, I had about 8 more miles to go, which isn’t bad distance wise, but I had a lot of stopping and going between red lights and signs . Through the whole of this experience, my legs, arms and core were perfectly warm by the way; much like a walrus, my stored up blubber was pulling me through the harsh conditions for the time being. Through all of it, I was able to keep my momentum and eventually made it back to my house without swerving into cars or getting hit by another durango. I stumbled around the house to the garage where I then noticed that the second bottle of water, that I had filled with hot water mind you, was frozen from the front side to about the middle of the bottle. If I had opted to go 20 miles instead of 15, it would have easily been a brick. As my adrenaline quickly faded, I pulled myself upstairs and curled up on the couch and wrapped myself in blanket until I could get some blood back into my fingers and toes. I didn’t really get any frostbite but I was definitely teasing the line between having it and not. I haven’t gone out since, but HAVE gone and gotten some full finger gloves that will hopefully keep my flesh forks in operation until the end of another ride. I can’t bear to wait until Spring to burn the newly acquired calories, and I just hate to watch my bike collect dust while mother nature plays with Jack Frost. Wish me luck this week and keep your fingers crossed that the warm front hangs around for a little longer.

Back to the drawing board…literally?

This morning I visited a graduate school information session hosted by the Savannah College of Art and Design . It got my gears going for what could be to come in the next couple of years. Since I graduated in 2006 with a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture, I have been discovering a love of artwork within myself and especially the craft that people utilize to express their thoughts. A large part of me wants to attend a school whose focus is so largely based on the arts. I found myself interested in every major they have to offer, I guess because it doesn’t seem so academic to me. I’m very excited about attending an institution where imagination and creation is encouraged and expanded upon on a daily basis. For the most part I feel as though the majors they are offering have always seemed like hobbies to me, until I realized that there is a college out there that accumulates all of these hobbies into a wide array of academic programs. Or it could be that I find a little bit of each of these programs of study as a supplement to an architectural degree. Having knowledge in multiple crafts, be it graphics, sculpture, woodworking, or digital design, can only help the average architect find new ways to portray his/her designs. Speaking of, I was pointed to the direction of an architect by the name of Tim Prentice last week who has devoted much of his craft and creativity to an amazing style of sculpture that I’m sure inspires everyone who sees it, or at the very least, makes people turn their heads and let out a more than subtle ‘whoa’. The session from this morning has served as the first spark in rekindling my enthusiasm for design as well as my enthusiasm for going back to acquire a Master’s Degree in Architecture. I feel like the gears in my head are starting to spin again and I’m actually beginning to anticipate countless nights of minimal sleep, looming deadlines, and great design.

One concern that overshadows my interest in attending a school outside of our locale is what our family will do. Can we uproot ourselves and disappear for the interest of my occupational future? Our roots aren’t necessarily buried deep, but we have accomplished a lot as far as making this place home, and we are certainly comfortable. My wife has a career with a lot of potential  and a very good job, and I believe to leave it would be a mistake, in this economy especially. Then again, like having children, the time will never be ‘just right’ for a large life changing event and we definitely can’t wait forever. My wife has been a wonderful support and definitely finds the positives in any of the locations that I have loosely suggested as possibilities. I feel like I have a lot to do however,  before this becomes a real issue. I still have to send portfolios out and be accepted somewhere. Depending on who gives me a green light, we’ll then decide whether or not relocation is an option and whether or not it is worth it to load up the truck(s) and go get ‘edumacated’.

Previous Post – Tuesday, April 14, 2009

~This is a post from my previous “forgotten” blog. I thought it was a pretty entertaining one so I opted to add it here~

Is that a pear riding a twig?

Well I’m on my way to becoming a cyclist…Last week, I purchased a used road bike after about a year of researching and waiting to have just enough money together to afford something better than the standard Wal-Mart Huffy. I purchased a Trek 2300 from a guy out of Asheville, NC. I’m quickly learning the lingo of the bike community and I’m pretty enthusiastic about getting out there as soon as possible. Oh didn’t I mention? I bought the bike without wheels! hah, why would I do that you ask? Well, being a competitive bike at some point for a previous owner, the bike had very expensive and lightweight wheels with only a couple of spokes on them.

I can’t be considered knowlegeable about all of the ins and outs of these lightweight mechanisms just yet but I do know that if you put a 240 lb. adult on little tires like that, said biker will either be (a.) walking a long way from home when his tire blows on the first day or (b.) paying a lot of money to true the wheels after every ride.

I have recently discovered that I am in a different category than the typical road biker. I’m not into the competitveness (yet) and I am certainly not flying up any mountains because I’m skinny enough to cut through the wind. I am what I’ve heard referred to as a “clydesdale”, that’s right, I’m a horse. At 6′-0″ and 240 lbs. ( on a good day ) I have the appearance of a high school football player that let himself go when he couldn’t cut it in college. Neither of which is true, by the way. I never played sports due to my debilitating shyness as a child, and I never “let myself go” I simply ran out of time for routine workouts once I joined the architecture profession. Hopefully now I can improve my image a little with some heavy activity during the week after I leave work. Sitting at a computer then coming home only to eat and go to bed isn’t helping anything. I thought I had gained weight from all the beer I drank in school but have been deeply saddened in the past year as I have cut back drastically in my beer drinking, only to see that the excess weight has remained. I am sick of seeing the love handles, sick of feeling large, and sick of feeling unattractive. I don’t want to let myself go, I want to give my wife a stud of a husband rather than a tired old mule. And now that my daughter is here, I don’t want her to have a fat daddy. I want to maintain an active lifestyle in our household and I want to encourage activity in sports not only for the healthy aspect but also for the socialization. I only hope that when my children show signs of shyness, I am able to teach them some courage and bravery so they can start making the best of themselves as soon as possible.

So all this to say, if you see a large guy, or a “pear”, on a road bike, or a “toothpick with wheels”, around Greenville, make sure you point and laugh as you ride by, it’s only going to push me harder to become a better keeper of my temple.

This is what we lose to…

…. just when I thought that my hatred for the pencil necks at GT couldn’t increase any more than it did after our loss to them early this season, it grew exponentially tonight as they ganked away our first chance in 18 years for a championship title. For a young coach like William Christopher (Dabo) Swinney, it would have just been too good to be true to lead the Tigers all the way in his first year after TB couldn’t during his own lengthy career at Clemson. Nonetheless, he has been an amazing coach this year and has more than earned his keep ~ of which he has taken upon himself to hand out liberally, claiming it to be too much. Granted, he has a lot to prove, but to actually be able to do so in his first year is simply stunning. Coach Swinney is a persistent coach with his head set on results, and it’s been a joy this season to watch him adjust from one game to the next as best he could. I know it’s not all on Swinney, the machine that we call  “Lightning”  had a lot to do with it too, but I can’t wait to see what Dabo makes of himself and the great recruits we have waiting in line for their heyday .  One thing’s for sure, I’m definitely glad to see happy fans around Clemson these days as opposed to the head hunters I’ve known, and been a part of,  since becoming a fan.  So, all of this to say, I hate you stupid yellow jackets and your gloating charades, your yellow suits, your taunting songs you sing  as we walk down the skyscraper you call exit stairs at Bobby Dodd Stadium… I hope you get yours at the Orange Bowl.