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.