| Saturday, 10-29-05. Partly cloudy and cool | |||
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I've had a near-terminal case of Oregonitis lately. Every time the wind blows a certain way, the sun gets low in the sky, or there is a quiet moment cooking bacon in the kitchen, I've been consistently getting the feeling Eric, Michael, or Sandy will walk around the corner. It's an odd Christmas-laden feeling, almost expecting there to be the familiar sight of decaying leaf piles out on the curb and the thick, cold air that precedes the repeated waves of winter rains to be sucking the heat out of me as I stand for a moment on the deck outside. Alas, my urge to head up there would not be wise at the current time, as I'm right in the thick of a challenging semester, and I'm not yet sure of my finances for the spring. I'm looking very much forward to my usual visit in late December however, as I missed my usual summer trip for the second year in a row due to my job.
The justification for my Oregon trips has evolved over the years, at first being mostly procured as a release from a blaringly foreign and hostile California, and a return to what I then considered my familiar and preferred surroundings. In recent years, however, my stays up there tend to feel more like a grounding experience, so as to maintain some sort of healthy frame of refence with my origin and reconnect with my most trusted friends and removed relatives. When you spend enough time in any place, however, you get to know it just as well as any other. In that process, things slowly and unknowingly fade from something that feels like it excludes you at every step to something you begin to unconsciously control and harness as your own. Though I currently think an extended stay here in San Francisco would be pretty much out of the question (barring radical changes to the city's layout), I have definitely become comfortable. I doubt I'll ever move back to Oregon, though. After living in a major city, moving back to my quiet hometown permanently would have me crawling the walls inside a month. I'm too used to being constantly challenged and having the option of experiencing refreshing variety everywhere I go. Whoever said you can't go home again knew what they were talking about. For me, thinking about Oregon is unsettlingly strange. It's smothered in everything that's depressing and hopeless, but also everything that's homely and warm. The former is why I could never move back, and the latter is why I continue to visit. I've uploaded another project album, as well as a few new random sketches. Take a look and let me know what you think. German word of the day: Heimatstadt (f) - Hometown |
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| Tuesday, 10-25-05. Partly cloudy and cool | |||
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Though I'm still considerably pissed off, my mood has eased a bit. I had the broken window fixed first thing this morning, and it was much cheaper than expected. While that was going on, I had a nice, greasy breakfast at an authentic old-school diner on Market Street. Though it was a bit overpriced, the original 1935 interior and my view of the intersection at Market and Octavia gave me a nice opportunity to chill for a while. My mood was further soothed by the news from the camera shop that it will only take $250 to fix the camera and the two lenses, though I will still have to wait a couple more weeks. Not bad.
I recently uploaded an album of my most recent rendering project. German word of the day: Fettig - Greasy |
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| Monday, 10-24-05. Overcast and cool | |||
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I had the pleasure of getting my car window smashed while I was in class this afternoon. While I was in class trying to get an education, some f*ckhead broke in and stole numerous personal items, items that make me angry just thinking they're in the hands of a thief. These included all my nice shirts (which I'd been planning on taking to the dry cleaners after class), a pair of binoculars I'd borrowed from the folks, and a full CD case that I've had since I was in my mid-teens. They left a broken window, a seat and floor covered in glass bits, and my parking change. The car was parked on a busy street, across from the college, and in front of a bunch of houses... yet no one saw anything.
Instead of doing errands and getting a head start on a large homework assignment, I had to call around to set up an appointment to have the window replaced tomorrow. In the meantime I've fashioned an excellent ghetto-style cardboard and clear plastic window covering. Hooray for life in the big city? German word of the day: Bluterguß (m) - Bruise |
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| Sunday, 10-21-05. Sunny and cool | |||
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Here's some information you never wanted to know... I'm starting to notice a trend: Every time my sleeping pattern is thrown way off and I am mildly stressed or greater, I seem to develop athlete's foot... and only on my right one. I really hate the smell of the propellant they use in the spray medicine canister. It's the same sh*t they use in Pam, I know it.
If that wasn't happy enough, I found out yesterday that it will take at least two or three weeks just to get an estimate for the damage on my camera, let alone actually fixing it. If I could get a dime for every moment I've found myself wanting to smack myself for not buckling the little clasp on my camera case that afternoon, I'd be a millionaire. I've been trying out some new pens for sketching lately. While I've been using micro-tip ball-point pens to sketch with since I started my current college major, I've recently started trying several 0.05mm felt-tip inking pens. The first one I tried started to flay out like a paintbrush after a few days, so I'm trying out some other brands in the meantime. If anything, they'll be great for inking final drafted drawings. German word of the day: Debatte (f) - Debate |
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| Tuesday, 10-18-05. Overcast and cool | |||
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What is being an architecture student?
Being an architecture student is working on a drawing for hours non-stop, then finally realizing that the first two Godfather movies have played all the way through on your television since the last time you got out of your chair. It's realizing that, unless you start on this project the minute you get home, you'll be up until at least 4 am working on it. By then you might as well stay up all night and polish your work, right? It's an obsessive-compulsive's dream and worst nightmare rolled into one. It's perfect for sadist and masochist alike. You hear hours of radio programs and TV shows playing in the background. You hear album after album of perfect, mood-driven music left in the CD player on repeat dozens of times. It's perfection. It's realizing the once crisp lines you drafted out on the left side of the page have now been blurred and softened by the endless mowing over of your 30/60 triangle. You take one break for dinner and a shorter break later on to check your e-mail and have some ice cream. You get up, wash your face, and sit back down again. German word of the day: Eindringen in - to invade |
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| Tuesday, 10-11-05. Overcast and cool | |||
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I'm starting to think seriously about re-designing my website from scratch. My residues section is beginning to be taken over by classwork and photo albums, and I am starting to think they need their own sections. I'd also very much like to somehow incorporate comments. It doesn't really help that I'm extremely rusty with Flash at this point, but hey, that's why I kept my reference books. Hmm...
Firefox has been crashing a lot lately, and I'm not sure why. I cleared my cookies and my cache, and the damn thing still continues to lock up. I shall, therefore, beat it to death. Wow. For the first time in four months, by blog is actually up-to-date. Enjoy it, ingrates. German word of the day: Nässe - Wetness |
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| Sunday, 10-9-05. Sunny and warm | |||
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Today was glorious, though tragic.
After several weeks of day-by-day delays due to life and school, I finally was able to head down to the Bay Bridge western approach retrofit to take photos of the demolition of the enormous 1936 concrete causeway that leads to the Bridge. Unfortunately, while illegally scaling a 60-foot scaffolding tower to get up on top of the new roadway, I somehow neglected to buckle my camera case, despite having been extremely cautious about taking care of my gear since I bought it only a few weeks ago. You can see where this is going. Both my camera, its lens, and my telephoto lens fell out when I'd climbed about halfway up the tower, making a wide assortment of banging and crashing noises while hitting every step and steel bar on the way down. I cringe even now just thinking about it. After nearly having a heart attack, I rushed down to find that, not only were the camera and lenses still intact, but the only visible damage was to the camera's pop-up flash mechanism. I continued on through the several city blocks of construction attempting to snap photos, but I quickly realized my lenses and camera were more damaged than I had originally thought. The autofocus doesn't seem to work half the time, there are distorted duplicates of images showing up on the flash card, and my wide-angle lens wobbles in its housing. I made do using manual focus, but the damage is pretty noticeable. The rest of the adventure was an assortment of being asked for change, avoiding drug dealers, climbing over gigantic steel beams, and walking over rickety plywood platforms. I eventually made it up to the halfway-demolished bus onramp at Rincon Hill, where I was chased off the grounds by a security guard. It was worth it, though... I ended up with some nice photos. I do not look forward to finding out how much it will cost to fix my camera equipment, however... I spent all my extra savings just to buy the damned thing. German word of the day: Schraube (f) - Screw |
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| Saturday, 10-8-05. Sunny and warm | |||
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Like some kind of hyped-up crappy deodorant, this was a Saturday EXTREME... with extra guano.
I woke up early (early being 9, as I've unfortunately been allowing my sleeping patterns to resemble something Luke could relate to lately), to cut a thick, stainless steel tube on a decorative lamp that my parents own. The purpose of said cutting experience was to allow it to fit in their living room, as the arc-shaped fixture was designed for a room with a high ceiling... which they obviously do not have. I cut, polished, and carried it (along with the 180-pound block of granite it's attached to) in, out, and then back in the house by lunchtime. The tendons in my arms threw a bit of a fit, but I recovered like the man of steel that I am. Justin and Megan came to visit in the afternoon. We rode the Muni light rail down to the castro, where we had lunch at the Baghdad Cafe and then toured shops for used clothes. While waiting for the N line train, Justin's face and hair were made subject to a massive splattering of bird droppings. It did not help that, two seconds before the incident, I motioned for both he and Megan to "step forward a bit" for a photo. After a quick clean-up, we walked around the haight, and I bought a t-shirt at Giant Robot. As usual, I almost forgot to get off the J-line train at the 24th Street stop. Naturally, I put up a couple photos. German word of the day: Gütig - kind-hearted |
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| Friday, 10-7-05. Sunny and cool | |||
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After having a fairly uneventful day sleeping in until one in the afternoon, and doing web work on the computer for most of the day, I treated myself to a late-evening shower and an excellent sushi dinner. This evening, however, marked the second time that I've ordered an avocado roll and have instead received avocado nigiri. To be honest, I don't mind nigiri at all, but it does seem like a bit less food for more money. I made my usual sketches of inanimate objects, had a nice conversation with a waitress, and headed home for a brief rest before...
...I donned my overcoat, cut-off-finger gloves, and black cap to wander the streets downtown in search of good photography, of which (without a tripod for decent night exposures) I found little. I did, however, discover the newly-opened Octavia offramp of the central freeway, as well as a number of nice clubs and restaurants that I hope to sample. There was an unusually strong wind blowing, so keeping myself still enough for even half-second exposures was a bit of an undertaking. German word of the day: Pavian (m) - Baboon |
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