Not even worth it

Ok, time for some politics. This is gonna be a quick one. These debates that are going to happen tonight are bullshit. Retard 1 and Retard 2 can't even address each other directly. WTF is the point of a debate where they can't even talk to each other. Obviously if this debate went over the way debates are supposed to go they would both come out looking like the incompetant doofs they really are. We are going to keep hearing the same rhetoric bullshit that we have heard all throughout the campaign. I'm not surprised that the majority of our population still has no clue where either of the candidates stand on certain issues. Blame the campaign spinsters and our fucked up media for turning this presidential race into deulling character assasinations. Click the title of this post to get to the transcripts of one of the debates from the 2000 race. I wouldn't even call what Dubya said as rhetoric at this point its just flat out lies. I mean a humble nation? Come on people can you call his administrations stance on foreign policy anything near humble? Remember to vote come November.

This is turning into a nightmare

Ok, I think I am going to start a series of posts with title's that are overused quotes that my boss uses. This being his most commonly used one lately. Let me just say that EVERYTHING in this office turns into a nightmare. Well, at least according to him. Shit gets fucked up all the time but I don't think all of it qualifies as a full blown nightmare.

However, the current job I'm working on right now is the mother of all nightmares. The client is a buffoon, a rube, a schmuck. I don't like the guy, my boss doesn't, and our structural engineer doesn't. He has changed the design of his restaurant/jazz club so many times I think were on scheme Q. The problem is worsened because my boss is the worst designer ever. He basically doesn't design. He lets the client tell him how to design. This is obviously not a good idea since clients aren't architects. They have no idea what makes a space work well. Apparently neither does my boss. This is why he lets the client dictate the design to him. However horrible and ugly and non-functioning it might be. Pile on top of all this the fact that the clients contractor is currently working on the building through some fucked up situation where he actually got a building permit. So I'm sure after all is said and done things will be built that will be changed later. On top of that is also the fact that there is no distinction between design development and construction documentation. This causes me to have an entire construction document near completed with notes, dimensions, scheduels, and then it all changes again and all that work is thrown out the door. This in turn causes my boss to charge him on a time and materials basis. Which in turn causes the clients bill to be extremely high. Which in turn causes said client to blow his top and ask for a discount. Which in turn my boss being the pushover weeny that he is to give said client his stinkin discount which doesn't go over well with the only full time architectural employee aka ME, because I'm slaving my ass off handling the entire workload of the firm which leads me to want a big big bonus or raise.

This job, not just the building I was just talking about but this entire job, this firm, the place where I am employed is turning into a fucking nightmare. I had such high hopes. I mean most of the things I wanted to happen did. I'm not sitting around twiddling my thumbs anymore. I am too busy. I have more responsibility. I get more respect. I have to I'm the only one here. Plus my boss has little knowledge of computers and efficiency and I feel he trusts my knowledge in those areas. I get paid more. All wonderful great things.

However other things happened that I did not foresee. My longterm ideas on this job were that it being a small firm, I could get in on the ground floor, offer my expertise to help improve the firm and help it grow. After spending years helping the firm I would be greatly rewarded with responsibilty and money and maybe become a partner someday. Now that I'm the only one left I guess thats been altered to be more than a partner and just buy the damn firm from my boss. Now obviously this is long term thinking. It would only happen if I decided I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. As of now there is no way I could even afford to buy into a partnership. But all of this is complicated by the bad things... Like the fact that my boss is the most unprofessional doof I've ever witnessed. For example I don't know many people that routinely drop the F-bomb while talking to clients. Also the fact that he lets clients boss him around. His extreme unorganization.

Certain problems I can fix. Thats what I like to do. I'm a problem solver. However how do you fix a person? How do you tell your boss he's unprofessional and its hurting him and the firm and in turn me. How do you tell him he's an idiot and he really needs to get better organized. How do you tell your superior that you have better ideas on how to run the firm? The golden question. I don't know. I'm going to have to work on that if I'm going to stay here much longer. Hell I'm going to have to work on it if this place is going to stay in business. Anyway... Its time for lunch. Bossman is out and I'm taking a long lunch at perkins. I'm sure I will continue a similar diatribe in a later post. Ciao

Strange and Terrible Days

Ok so I stole the subject for this one straight from HST. I figured if this was going to be my pathetic attempt at writing in the Gonzo style I should start somewhere. I obviously don't grasp journalism, the english language and a few other things to truly write in any style but my nonsensicle rambling. I wanted to make this blog a commentary on my own idea of what the death of the American Dream is. However after finally stumbling across some really good blogs, (the links to which I will add at a later date if I can find them again) I realize that I do not possess near the intellect needed to make such comments. Or at least make any kind of comments anyone else would want to listen to.

Anyway I'm rambling and I'm starting to realize that my posts are much longer than most people's who blog. I don't know exactly what that means. Maybe I just have more to say. Maybe I spend too much time during work wasting time writing my blog. Well I got sidetracked and actually had to do some work... So I lost my train of thought. Thus ends this crappy post.

South Street

Well, I started working on another post this weekend but I didn't want to put it up yet. It started out as a stream of conscious thing but sort of fizzed out by the end, and it needs some editing. Not like I'm writing a great news column or anything but it needs some work.

Anyway a bunch of stuff happened over the weekend that I wanted to muse over. First on Friday when I didn't get my daily "Bleh work sucks" email from my friend Val, I was wondering what was up. So I figured I'd check out her blog. As you can read her mommom passed away. I just wanted to let her know my thoughts are with her on all that. I just read her recent post on funeral thoughts and I feel the same way. Cremate me and have a kick ass party with all the money you saved on funeral costs. So while were on the bad news I found out this weekend that my grandpop has a cancerous tumor in his prostrate. Not exactly breaking news considering he's been in and out of the hospital many times for problems with it. But when what worries you for a while finally happens it sucks. But he's pulled through all this shit before so I don't see why he wouldn't now. I'm sure he will keep his silly sense of humor throughout the whole affair too as always.

So on Saturday I was planning on getting lots of things done around the house. Finally hook up the hose, finish painting the back door, mow the lawn and get some other yardwork done. I thought I got a good start. I got the back door primed, fixed my weedwhacker and wripped through some weeds. Those things are fun to use. I find weed whacking very therapeutic. Nothing like some death and destruction of weeds to relieve some stress. So Skip shows up after work and spouts off a few ideas for the day. The q-mart, which we had originally talked about going to, and then of course he brought up South Street. It was a beautiful day and it sounded like a good idea. So after hasty preparations, meaning I had to quick clean up everything I had started, we took off a few minutes before the train arrived with his brother in tow to the train station. You should really arrive a few minutes early for the train. It wasn't there. So we drove back to my place (which is within walking distance to the station but hey, we were in a hurry). It was nice to relax for a few moments. So we decided to walk this time thinking we had plenty of time. We barely get our asses in the seats and the train takes off... Ok I'm not great at time. I still believe my concept of time varies greatly from other peoples. Maybe that's why I'm so weird.

South street looks a little more lively than the last time I was down there. Its been a while but I think its popularity was diminishing. Or maybe I just went on a crappy day. Saturday was great though. Lots of people to watch, hot girls in short dresses. Freaks galore. I wasn't really paying attention to what we were doing. We had drunk a nasty concoction of apple juice, raspberry cranberry juice and vodka on the train, so I was just sort of going with the flow. These are the times I enjoy the most. Not paying any attention to what your doing and just walking around and enjoying the day. So naturally the first place we went was a bar. I think it was mother tattoos or something. Anyone familiar with South Street (the one in Philly BTW) knows which bar I'm talking about. I think the next place was repo records. I bought the first White Stripes album, a StereoLab album, Creedance, and a Procul Harum Album all on vinyl. Our mission was for the records. New ones, we can find old classic rock albums anywhere but NEW vinyl is harder to find. You have to go to the real RECORD stores for that shit. Went to another bar, the name escapes me at the moment. I'm just realizing how trashed I must have been at this point since I don't remember walking all the way to market street for the train.

We got back to Lansdale and decided it was either too late or I was too wrecked to drive to New Hope. This was our original plan having heard inside information that Ween was playing an impromptu show at some local bar there. Instead we proceeded to get even more drunk while watching Ween on DVD. Katie from down the street showed up with her brother and another friend. Her name also escapes my memory too.

I should mention that I have an extremely hard time with peoples names. Remembering them that is. Many times its attributed to my non sober state when I meet them. Which is why I can't remember Katie's friends name. But usually it is just because I am retarded at remembering people's names. I used to even forget people's names that I work with at my last job. I don't know what it is, maybe all the braincells that are used to store people's names are just not there anymore. Oh well... Its Monday and back to work... Bleh

The work place

Ok, I figured I'd spout some crap about the place where I work. I should start out with the fact that I'm an intern architect. Now most people here that and ask me oh, what school do you go to. This is when I have to explain to them the idiocies of the architectural industry. To become a Registered Architect you have to first complete 5 years of an accredited Bachelor's of Architecture program at college. Second you have to get a job in the Architectural field. Third you have to enter the Intern Development Program (IDP) which is a fancy term for a system which keeps track of the type of work your doing be it design, drafting, management, etc. and how many hours your spending doing each of these different tasks. During this period of about 3-4 years of collecting experience to fulfill your IDP requirements your called an Intern Architect. If your interested check out the IDP.

Quite a roundabout way of explaining what an intern architect is but hey isn't that what this blog thing is all about? So halfway through my accredited architecture program in school I realized this sucks... I don't want to be an architect anymore. But I can't throw away 3 years of school. So my school, Philadelphia University, happened to have a 4 year unaccredeted degree. So I opted for that. Got out in 4.5 years and kept working at the same place I started at in high school. This was DWKCB. Big firm for the burbs at around 60+ people with a branch office in Chestnut Hill. So blah blah blah after getting fed up with little respect and little challenge I decided to quit. Hey I don't even wanna be an architect what am I work in an architectural firm for anyway.

Well I'm still asking that question because I got another job in another architectural firm. However this ones smaller, I figured if things are completely different at a small firm than a large firm I might actually like this business and stay with it. Well it took the move to find out that I don't like it still. I enjoy the fact that I am now challenged everyday and my boss seems to respect my abilities. However its still stressful, still full of bullshit. I don't like the whole 9-5 aspect of doing the same thing everyday. It gets repetitive and boring. Plus I'm not a morning person and I have an extremely hard time getting up in the morning. Ok well this is getting long winded and I haven't even gotten into much about my actual work place, and all the weird and terrible things that happen on a daily basis. Plus I am there right now and I should really be doing some kind of work. Till later...

Slow Start

Well, I finally realized today that there is no easy way to search blogs. There are a few search engines out there proclaiming to be do blog searches but it seems they are mostly full of advertising which I despise. However I did find an article about how google is planning on creating a "blog only" search engine. So until then I guess I will have to be content with browsing the blogs and maybe even keeping up with this one.

Which gets me onto the subject of this post. I really don't know what to make this blog about. The title suggests a social/political commentary about living in Lansdale, Pennsylvania which is where I live. I'm obviously a big fan of Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Most people are familiar with his work because of the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which is based upon his most popular book. I never really thought of doing any sort of writing until I started reading more of his work. I don't think I write well enough or often enough to call this blog my own Gonzo journalistic column, although thats what I first thought of when I was posed with creating a blog. Some sort of Gonzo commentary on living in Anywhere USA. How every small suburban enclave in the US seems to be an awful facsimile of each other, making us flock to the internet and these blog things to find some sense of community. Anyway I think I'm starting to ramble so I am going to wrap this one up.

So as I said I'm not sure where I'm going with this whole thing. I have a lot of interests and thought of doing a blog for each but that seems like a lot of work. So I guess this is just a big experiment in something. Whatever it is an experiment in I really don't know.

First Post

Ok here's my first foray into this blog thing and I'm already lost. I really just wanted to read other people's blog's however it seemed easier to make my own. After I did all I could to do figure out how to search for peoples blog's I figured maybe If I just send up a post asking for some help. Well... anyone?