persons of the year

i never took pictures of people. i think i was scared of people. i mean, they're strange and threatening creatures what with their talking and hugging and other societal idiosyncrasies. then you realize, oh they're pretty photogenic and entertaining in their own right.

that's all it boils down to. people. love em or hate, we're all in this together so make the best of it. and if you try a bit more, you get a lot more. so thanks, you people. you're number one on my nonexistent year end list.

mixed blessings

so that ascent? check. i'm there. we're there, i mean. we can sit back on a rock under the moon and the stars and just bask in the radiance. luckily there was one last christmas/holiday/solstice party to wrap up the year before i've come back home. now we play the waiting game, but what better way to kill time for a week other than christmas. and it'll be that magically strange week between december 25th and january 1st where the calendar just hangs in the cosmic purgatory. how enchanting.

my dad was diagnosed with cancer. and it took everything in both of us to even bring it up today. this dates back to the mid summer nights phone call concerning his blood clots. in the scope of things, i guess it's relatively worry free, being lance armstrong cancer and all. my dad even went bicycling on his old italian speeder this week, i guess in preparation for the tour. but there's a few more tests and a range of treatment ahead of him so i should get used to talking about it with him. and maybe get used to talking about women. we aren't much for such sharing but there comes a time when you have to fight against your instincts.

happy holy days

on the other side of the year, time in san antonio is wrapping up. in the grand wish list of it all, i'm getting some closure, but wishes aren't so great if you always get what you asked for. it leaves something to be desired. each week is more interesting than the previous and it's good to have this constant momentum towards something but at the end of the day you want to reach a plateau and look back at the ascent in a breathless well deserved daze. at the end of the year. at the end of the fuse a bomb goes off or a fuse just goes out. fireworks also apply. you know, on account of the new year.

and cruelly enough, the days get shorter. and the nights get longer. and the druids dress as fairies in celebration of it all.

up the mountain

and one year ago i watched that gradual sunset over the atlantic. unspoken plans of matching the experiences i had in europe with life in america have been a success. fall 2005 might even trump 2004 in its own slow and methodical way. another round of college students heads out into the real world and i'll just bide my time here a bit longer.

winter jitters

there comes a time when you have to fight your instincts and climb a giant rock in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night in the mid to low twenties. that time is now.

generation i

i don't have an ipod. and i'd be fine for the rest of my life if i never owned one, but there is some inner child pulling at my pant leg saying, "i want." i am entranced by apple hardware. but i feel like i'm winning some great cultural battle by not having one thus far. those little white ear buds might as well be yellow stars singling out the youth of the nation. listen to deathcab, watch laguna beach, and wear over sized jLo glasses. maybe it's me taking this 7 month career-in-a-box vacation, but i feel disconnected from the kids.

more of it is that the kids listen to their ipods 24/7. do you really need music piped in at all times? has the world become that boring? there's so much entertainment/information available on demand whenever we want it, that's there's little time left to walk down the street and enjoy it for its own sake. i guess my eureka moment was losing my tv remote. sure i tried to find it and had the couch turned upside down, but i gave up and have been all the better ever since. who is america's next top model? and why do we care?

somehow i had also managed to sidestep the whole text messaging movement. who is sending these to whom? can my phone even receive them? these are the questions i asked my mom two weeks ago, and then the telephonic gods stepped up and i've since received six different messages from various sources. it's fate.

maybe i've led my mother to believe i might possibly want a 30 gig music/photo/video player while claiming that i "was not an ipod person." i mean come on, i'm adding to the information ether with this little blog so i might as well cast off my old fashioned chains and plug into the white plastic grid. i can still avoid dvr and satellite radio...for now. i'm no simple farm boy. the elephant in the room we're all avoiding is that i lost a remote control in a twelve foot square space and i plan to take a $300 remote with a screen out into the world on a daily basis. if my conflicted christmas wish does come true, the fates will ultimately decide if i was to be one of the youth of the nation. cast the ivory walkman into the wind. we're all gonna be old one day so i might as well start now.

Thanksgiven

i was awakened thanksgiving morning to a call from my brother-law to look in the trunk of the car. after an early morning hunting trip between him and my father, what would one expect to find in the trunk of a honda accord? a deer. and what good is a freshly killed deer just sitting in the trunk of a honda accord? no good. and what y-chromosome call to order did i fulfill in order to rectify the situation? i helped hoist the carcass up from my childhood basketball goal for the following skinning and gutting, of course.

let's all backtrack and note that my immediate family is far removed from white trash, especially when compared to the whole of east texas. we only have garage sales every other year and have never owned a truck (as can be proved by the hunting vehicle of choice). my father even has this running joke about how my uncles have spent the entirety of thanksgivings past telling deer stories. and there he was pouring intestines into an old tin washtub where i used to practice my lay-ups. they shoved a freakin deer into a midsize sedan. this is a deer story that will live on through my children's children, forever stained crimson red into my concrete surfaced memory.

then i return to san antone to find a gaggle of flies having their own thanksgiving get together on every previously sanitized surface in my apartment. i did my best billy crystal impression to round them up out the door through an intricate series of desk lamp light lochs that lead out the door to the front porch/pacific ocean/colorado plains. pick your metaphor.

if having your apartment infested with flies is cool, consider me miles davis.

her name was nita

over the years i've managed to become selfless, cold, and composed in the face of women. one dare not let down one's defenses when females make the advance, or else one might fall for them and we all know how long a drop that is.

that being said, today i got a manicure. i'd run to the rivercenter mall during lunch to buy enough socks to get me to thanksgiving at home, where a cornucopia of whites would be bleached back to their rightful aryan superiority...so yeah, i was at the mall. and i was headed back when the most beautiful "excuse me, sir" did cross my ears. she was about 5'7", no older than me, dressed in a slim black sweater and knee length black skirt, with a matching head of jet black hair hanging around a porcelain white face which were in turn pierced by deep brown eyes and traces of freckles upon further inspection. i can qualify such inspections cause the next thing i knew this girl had grabbed my right hand and pulled me in (literally and figuratively) to a closeness i hadn't experienced in a while. she was working a nail care mall kiosk.

the next moments played out with me being pulled further and further in, as she dug deeper and deeper into my cuticles with a nail buffer. she'd bat her eyes, i'd blink, and next thing i knew i was saying "my thumbnail has never looked nicer." it was even better with the side-by-side comparison where she held both my hands together, close to my chest, close to her. i managed to say that it really wasn't my kind of product but maybe something more for my mom, which gave her an in into the need for caring for all things female. did i mention she had a gorgeous eastern european accent? she WAS offering me half price off $50 for today only, but i thought of the fantastic lie that i could only afford $10 for mom. and then things got grim as she lowered her voice and put her delicate finger to her now noticeably red lips, saying "shhhh, i can offer you a deal but you have to promise not to tell anyone..."

and that's when the old brain jumped in and told every other part of my body that this was my last chance to bail. "i really have to get back to work. i'm sorry." i hope i let her down gently enough. the look on her face as i backed away either said "i'll never again meet a man like that" or "damn, i almost made that sale."

and that's how i roll. i can block off any innate male tendencies to love and propagate when actually given the opportunity. everything in me said buy the nail buffer and sweep her off her feet, but i didn't. i live on the line between gentleman and loner. there's a chance i could go back there tomorrow, but it wouldn't be the same. when the moment is passed, it's passed. she'll find other impressionable young men with disposable incomes, and i'll at least for the next few days have my shiny and slightly bleeding thumbnail.

the night it got real cold

i would run out and do it all in a second if the clock stopped ticking.

oh, i'm one of thooose people

that's it. i'm here. i'm writing from the ivory tower. fight it i did, but i've now inducted myself into the culturally elite as a result of my actions. tonight i spent a hundred dollars on a week's worth of central market groceries.

it's not that i need goat cheese, but it's a nice alternative to a prepackaged processed cheese appetizer. i mean, what else am i supposed to garnish fresh baked ciabatta with? sun dried tomatoes and freshly minced basil alone aren't gonna cut it.

no, it doesn't stop at being a snobbish grocery whore. i buy those fancy five dollar greetings cards, ride my bike to work, and listen to college radio. what the hell? is free form jazz good? how would i know. aren't you just supposed to listen to it so as to feel special in a town that loves pro wrestling and hummers. that's why i like san antonio. in seattle, i'd have been guaranteed all the drum circles and and organic coffee a little boy could ever hope for, but here being bohemian is a bit harder. and this is coming from someone of actual bohemian blood. it's my destiny to wear tight jeans.

and that brings us to arrested development. a show so witty and subtle that we knew it couldn't last. it happened. they're taking it away from us as punishment for all the obscure literary references we tried passing over the heads of the masses for years. before they take our wes anderson box sets, we must run further underground my blogging brethren and warm ourselves only by the heat of a mocha latte and feed off the proverbial loaf of ciabatta. we will transmit communications via npr. godspeed.

noviembre

is always my favorite month. or at least top five. good movies come out, texas settles into being cold, and the word wreath reenters our collective lexicon. i know i'm wearing shorts and t shirt right now with the windows open, but pretend with me and tend to the yard with my imaginary rake.

further checking off my list of unique things to do in san antonio, this week i bought an old whiskey bottle from the o'neil ford estate, drank shiner as i watched willy nelson sing under the hill country stars, and did the first friday art walk which ends in an argyle sea of 16 year old hipsters with crooked haircuts. all along the way i learned about the incapability of social awkwardness and how it's the one thing that ties us all together as a twenty something populace.

now with the moving out of another semi house mate this week, casa myrtle is feelin extra empty. an emptiness that can only be filled with the sweet smell of brownies and hot wassle. come a wassle with me.

the day of deadline

at one point during the summer i had heard november 1st would be the grand ending deadline to it all. beach club detailed to a T and on to bigger and better things. like new york. i spent one night in july requesting tickets to anything entertaining that was recording live during that first week of november. i was gonna go to the big city, wear autumn clothes, and see some of them movie stars.

i slowly learned that thanksgiving would be the new deadline and anytime between then and then would have to be dedicated to work. ok, fine. i want to see this thing to the end and an extended thanksgiving holiday that includes seeing friends in ny, ny sounds great.

christmas. it'll go til then now and and hopes of visiting people when there are still people to see are pretty much gone. i'll still be working here in san antonio as those around the country head back home to texas. i'm loving my job here but I hate i haven't really gotten to get away from SA that much. one day i'm just gonna jump in my car and fly away. just you wait.

and damnit, i've got a bowl full of candy kids. why won't you come and eat my candy?

the unbearable lightness of being single

i usually get away with avoiding the topic of love. or even like for that matter. maybe that stems from the fact that san antonio has almost entirely avoided offering either up. and i love it.

and herein lies the problem. i am at times fiercely independent. not necessarily in the way of playing by my own rules, skateboarding on top of people's cars, and paying my utilities bill late, but i often like to be alone. independent of others. the freedom to unhook from the grid every once in a while.

i'm also not a fan of compromise. making important life decisions such as finding-a-job-and-moving-somewhere is a decision loaded with enough factors besides "where does she want to go in life?" i am a a big fan of being considerate so i'd probably outweigh my own wants/needs with hers and compromise myself in the end.

this all sounds like the talk of someone without a whole lot of experience in relationships. that's right. but i have observed a lot of relationships in the last year rise and fall on the basis independence and thinking-about-the-future. i'm even asked to offer my advice, and that's like me critiquing the astros. sure i've played a little baseball in my day, but do you see any world series/wedding rings on my finger? do i want one? more than craig biggio would ever know.

this all stems from be right now reading, Superstud by Paul Feig. he created freaks and geeks and directed some arrested developments and pretty much wrote my own autobiography with this book. it's him being a hopeless romantic without having much luck at romance. it's hilarious and eye opening in that same feeling i got from watching wedding crashers. in the end owen wilson gets the girl.

so then maybe i'm getting most of my knowledge of love from pop culture and that means i simply need to step outside a little more often. it is quite beautiful out there. enjoy the weather.

run home, jack

i just got back from my nephew's football game in the montgomery area 4-6 year old league. if you look past the the fact that it's just wrong to stick a kid who can't tie his shoes in pads and a helmet, it's fun to watch your lineage score three of the game's 5 touchdowns. i didn't have that much time to watch the game though as i was designated my 2 year old nephew's caretaker. i gave him my camera as i held on to the reigns and answered his "what is that?" questions as he pointed at everything from a chain link fence to a perplexed one year old. garrison is way too intelligent for his age so tomorrow, for his third birthday i'm getting him books. were my uncles this lame? tomorrow being his birthday party also means being surrounded by thirty-somethings, their yukon-xls, and a myriad of other kids named evan, tyler, and madison.

to top it all off, i'll be watching the astros hit the world series from my native environment with nick on parentally-provided and freshly aquired hdtv. you can literally see each tear falling from jeff bagwell's DLed face. in his memory, i made a run at a full fall classic beard, but commited a sleep deprived trimmer error yesterday and landed myself with a spring training goat.

jinx, buy me a coke.

coley the racist steam engine

once again the internet becomes an anonymous forum for grossly insensitive chit chat. once again, the conversation has been slightly altered to protect the innocent, though mainly to make us not look like total racists. once again we join this conversation in progress…

Cram Leppot: i'll follow up for you
Cornbread is Gr8: thanks pal
Cram Leppot: anytime chum
Cram Leppot: shark food
Cornbread is Gr8: fish heads
Cornbread is Gr8: I wish I was a shark so I could eat chum
Cram Leppot: ha
Cornbread is Gr8: Or Chinese, they eat it too
Cornbread is Gr8: they love chum
Cram Leppot: i'm sure some restaurant in LA serves chum
Cornbread is Gr8: I'm gonna start a chum factory and export all our unused chum into china
Cram Leppot: it's the new thing
Cornbread is Gr8: haha. they eat chum. that's sick
Cram Leppot: well it's their culture
Cram Leppot: don't laugh at their habits
Cornbread is Gr8: i'm high
Cram Leppot: oh goodie
Cornbread is Gr8: i'm just kidding!
Cornbread is Gr8: it sounded like i was
Cram Leppot: well i just had a beer so watch out!
Cram Leppot: i'm loopy lou
Cornbread is Gr8: you're a beer drinker! you're so adult
Cram Leppot: yeah, and after work with the coworkers
Cornbread is Gr8: no one wants to go out for drinks in my job. wah.
Cram Leppot: that's like having an architect hang out at a construction site after work
Cram Leppot: oh wait, we did that too
Cornbread is Gr8: ha
Cram Leppot: now i'm hungry so i'm getting cranky
Cornbread is Gr8: you sound like a mom
Cram Leppot: a mom unto my self
Cornbread is Gr8: exactly
Cram Leppot: that's deep
Cram Leppot: i'm deep
Cram Leppot: deep like a shark
Cornbread is Gr8: that eats chinese people
Cram Leppot: deep like your MOM
Cornbread is Gr8:You're gross! i'm telling her you said that
Cram Leppot: so is your chinese shark mom
Cornbread is Gr8: please don't sleep with my mom
Cram Leppot: “nicowr, come eat your chum dinner and fowtune cookies”
Cram Leppot: that's your chinese shark mom talking
Cornbread is Gr8: is nicowr my chinese name?
Cram Leppot: yes, sound it out
Cornbread is Gr8: that's hard to say
Cram Leppot: i know, try thinking how to spell it
Cornbread is Gr8: yes i see
Cram Leppot: i'm glad we're both smart and can have such conversations
Cornbread is Gr8: don't get boring. let's talk some more about chum
Cornbread is Gr8: Just think of all the chum americans waste
Cornbread is Gr8: we could make so much money shipping out our chum
Cram Leppot: i thought i got to go eat now
Cram Leppot: though you're taking away my appetite
Cornbread is Gr8: NO
Cornbread is Gr8: c'mon, chum. hahahaha.
Cram Leppot: if only we knew someone who specialized in food and drink distribution
Cornbread is Gr8: drink? hmmmm
Cornbread is Gr8: good idea, like clamato
Cram Leppot: chum soda
Cram Leppot: sangria del tiburon!
Cornbread is Gr8: hey that sounds delish
Cram Leppot: it'll kill you
Cornbread is Gr8: only if i eat the eyes
Cram Leppot: a tasty death, like choking on a mcgriddle
Cornbread is Gr8: the chinese say eating the eyes is like eating their SOUL
Cornbread is Gr8: and you can only have so many fish souls
Cram Leppot: i think that's when you take a shark's picture
Cornbread is Gr8: oh yeah and then you eat the picture right?
Cram Leppot: shamu must be very sad
Cornbread is Gr8: he has negative souls
Cram Leppot: i'll go visit him tonight
Cornbread is Gr8: hey i have a sea world too, the real one
Cornbread is Gr8: i will visit shamu. stay home with your beer
Cornbread is Gr8: in my apartment complex I threw some koi in the pool
Cornbread is Gr8: i feed them bread

texas my texas?

i'm past that imaginary half way point here in san antonio and that's got me looking beyond. everything that i stressed about in applying for this residency now gets multiplied by a billion or so. in the past week i've been finding out how the recent grads went about finding their jobs and what cities and firms that looked at. sounds like it's 90% timing and good luck. the remaining 20% could be my portfolio, which i've been staying up late working on so as to prevent spring time stress fests. oh yeah, it's gonna be a 110% effort.

then as kind of a grand escape from all that, i ran up to wimberly, tx this weekend to hang out with kate and the gang. sitting quietly for three hours before everyone woke up, looking at hill country magazines and 2003 central texas christmas lighting schedules, then strolling around on the chilly wood deck overlooking the blanco river makes you wonder why you'd want to leave texas. let it be said here that zoe suggested that i move to phoenix. what and leave this weather?

oh yeah, ut beat ou and the astros beat the braves. all other states suck.

i bet i think this song is about me

though the model may be long gone, i did have some of the final pics i wanted to show off. i present to you the project whose name i shall not mention for fear of curious googlers researching as of yet non-existent beach clubs for as of yet non-existent cities in coastal florida. somewhere along the line, kids will be swimming here and you don't want my deep dark NC-17 secrets traveling across the web to them now do you?





so this is our little jewel in the sand, and going back to the last post i believe this to be good architecture. yet the client payed us upwards of $10,000 to just build this model. the months of detailing cost many thousands more, so this obviously isn't architecture for the masses. could architecture be more than just for the 2% who can aford it? yet, isn't there something liberating about sheet rock and 2 by 4 paradises that can be done in a weekend? yes and yes.

designing homes that fit your lifestyle!

this one has been a long time coming but my conversation with my sister just now makes it urgent. upon finding herself and family with a good chunk of wealth, she is now looking to buy lakeside land and build a new house. i am of course not to the point where i could detail out her dream home so she's taken up the task of browsing southern living floor plans and passing along "architects" names that i should advise her on. the latest is Gary Keith Jackson and hopefully he's not the last. at what point did the extruded street facade become architecture? does wrapping everything in marble make for fine living? what color would you like: golden desert wheat or beigy beige beige? i partially blame you, creator of MTV cribs.

and then of course the same people who live in these mansions fund the creation of cheap soul sucking strip centers that are meant to stand for about 20 years then they all fall down. i can't even name whatever material that is being caked on every new commercial building around. fake stucco? it lacks relation to anything real and tangible so they paint and cornice it to death until it slightly resembles some other type of material. it's architectural tofu.

what's got me most scared is how we rebuild after the hurricanes. first off do you? and secondly if you do, do you write a blank check to contractors and have them throw up placeless floor plans. southern louisiana and mississippi still held traces of thoughtful architecture. a lot of that may be gone because of things beyond our control, but do you just give up and forget all about the shotgun houses?

why do you think americans find europe so enchanting and name our mansions mediterranean? there's a fascination with places that stand the test of time. let's build some of those. if they get destroyed, then learn your lesson and build smarter (not just better). rant complete.

the timeless days of summer

oh how me and the neighborhood boys would play stick ball neath the power lines. we'd fetch tadpoles from the nearby creek. and nothing says summer like an afternoon escape to the local shake n' fries.

for those of us not on the public school seasonal schedule, summer ends this week. i ended up spending the end right where it started with my dad down along the gulf coast. in between i've tossed aside the aqua socks of summers past and donned a pair of wingtips. ok, i am allowed to wear flip flops at work, but i've been told i'm handling this adulthood thing really well either way. then again today i was likened to a 40 year old virgin, trapped between man and boyhood.

earlier on in july during a cliff diving excursion, i misplaced my watch and had been going tan line free ever since. it was borderline liberating for my buttoned down lifestyle. my dad urged me to retrieve the watch in order to be a man, or something, so lo and behold, thank you david for getting it back for me.

so cue the cicadas and fire up the conroe high school fighting tiger marching tiger band, as summer 2005 slowly rumbles to an end. i'm gonna stop short of quoting sappy green day lyrics. it's fall.

day 2

my dad and i tried relating what we'd seen in mississippi to jerry, the developer at st. joe i'm working with. how can you actually justify building an entire city along the gulf coast of florida when it could just as easily be gone in half a day? and building from scratch seams inane when there's so much that needs to be repaired elsewhere. building material costs rise. labor is impossible to come by. makes you think where priorities lie. jerry was in between shook and depressed.

i guess i don't have to wax on such complexities of architecture as i'm just an intern. for the rest of the day my dad and i were running around the deep south trying to make our way back to texas. tip: remember to set your watch to eastern time so you don't your overnight bus. i was slightly better off and had my discount flight that took me back through miami. shaq, will smith, and david caruso send their best.

journey complete.