questions

Today I had a lot of questions, but I was not brave enough to ask all of them. Normally when I start making questions, one questions leads me to another one, so I end up with hundreds of questions and no answers, but normally I ask that type of questions that normally don’t need an answer….. more or less.

BACKGROUND.
Today I had an appointment for lunch with a friend (it sounds more formal that it was, but I didn’t know how to write it), sometime before we were supose to meet I got a call from my friend telling me that she was going to be 30 min late, basically because she was not able to take a shower before because her flatmate was taking a very long shower.

ok, so…
why people are always late when they meet up with friends? why are they never late when they go to a job interview, or to work, or to catch a plane? (i know some people are late in those situations, but percentage in hugely smaller) do they do it because their jobs are something that give them money to live? does that mean that money is more important that friendship? if so, why people say the opposite and assure that friendship is the most important thing in life? why do people tend to believe that jobs are only temporal and that sooner or later you’ll change your job while they think that friendship should last forever and ever? but then they are late when they are meeting friends, not when they are going to work. If it is not the money, is the fear and hierarchy what determines that people are not late to work, maybe  the power of the superiors? so, being late when meeting a friend is a sign of abuse to their feelings and patience?

how can an adult say that is late to an appointment because someone else not related to the appointment was taking a shower? how can you be a “successful” professional and cannot use the shower at your place whenever you need or want, and if you have to share a flat, cannot you talk with your flatmates to see the daily schedules and make the necessary adjustments so everybody is on time to their respective meetings? why people don’t make those small efforts?how architects can build a 4 bedroom flat with the two bathrooms inside two bedrooms, so 2 rooms have to go through another bedroom to access the bathroom? why nobody cares? how can someone say “i started walking out of my place a bit late, I’ll be 15 min late” and not be terribly ashamed? didn’t you know how long does it take you to get to the place? why didn’t you check? what was the reason that made you walk out of your place late?….. and this is only about a small, tiny issue like being on time to your appointments and meetings and the abuse of friendship.

sometimes people ask me, why are you such a solitary person?… I guess answers are easier than one normally thinks, but normally you don’t want to hear them.

not related
Why am I so lazy with household stuff? because I don’t care a shit, but my conscience tells me I should care.

the post I forgot what I wanted to talked about and wrote about some other stuff and I finally wrote a really long and insignificant title that is going to be as long as the post and that remembers me to the day I had a conversation with a friend only through the subject of the emails we interchanged and we discovered that 140 characters was the maximun lenght for the subject but it looks like there is no maximum lenght in this wordpress blog system. Now, the post.

So I had this amazing issue to write a post about and I completely forgot it. I cannot remember it, So you think, it shouldn’t be so amazing if you forget so easily about it, and you might be right. I’ve been the whole day, I have to write this post, I have to write this post, and I’ve spent the whole afternoon trying to remember what the hell I wanted to write about, and no way to find it. So I decided to write a post anyway, guessing that I might get this idea back while writing. I know it was something about yesterday’s post about living in the Future and so on, something that I found specially interesting but I cannot remember.

Anyhow I don’t think it matters that much as I’ve been completely sidetracked by trying to save or link facebook videos. I know that i can have some new enemies by saying this, but Facebook Sucks, yeah, you red it, Facebook sucks and make things complicated, and you cannot embed or link videos from other users, so now I am installing firefox and its tool to download and save videos from websites like Youtube.com and so on, so finally I could save and share whatever I like.

You think you can beat me, you don’t know me.

I truly think that the world should be more free and open, we have to stop trying to hide and protect things, we will only be more free (not sure freer it’s ok) when we assume what we are and we don’t hide and protect stupid things. Why can I watch a video from a friend of mine,  which he/she put on facebook for 200 people to watch, but I cannot show it to other friend of mine, well I cannot show it to him/her online, because if he/she  and I get to the same physical space and I log in facebook then I can show it to her/him.  I mean, some restrictions are so, so, so stupid. We have a long way ahead, we have to rethink ourselves.

Today was walking day, and I found myself in the water basins of the North Bank (east side), which are pretty cool and quite unknown and definitely worth checking. (pictures to follow)

I am proud to be lazy.

I am lazy and it takes me forever to do things I don’t like if I don’t have pressure on. It took me forever till I decided to organize all my papers and do a general cleaning at home. I did it today and I am really proud of how nice my place looks. (no worries I won’t put pictures, you have to come over and take a look)

If I get pressure on me I over perform and make things happen really quick, I can handle 5 things at a time, I can be like speedy gonzalez (do people from UK and US know about this mouse), I went once to a radio school contest and the presenter nicknamed me “snake” because i was laying back on the chair like bored listening to the other team or to the questions but when I knew one I just bent over the mic really quick to answer. My teachers used to say that I was lazy even for sitting on a chair and that I normally lay down on them, not sit on them. So I have a really long story with this. I’ve tried really hard to change this, but I got to the point when I decided that it was better not to change it, but to assume it. So I am lazy, I work like a mule for a thousand hours but sorry I am just lazy. but if don’t i just let it go once and again till I do it.

I am lazy to meet people, I am lazy to go out, I am lazy to have stupid chit chats that lead to nothing, one tip, just be funny dudes, people have seen me getting asleep in a bar when having dinner with a group of friends. Actually people have seen me getting asleep in class, sorry but 8.30 am classes should be illegal, asleep on trains, planes, cars, at work, almost everyday after lunch in front of my computer, at the cinema and in dinners. I guess that there is no better place to be bored that at home, so why bother when you know is not worth.

Today I feel lazy and I am proud of it. I have to recharge my batteries for another 3200 hours at the office in a year. yeah, yeah, 3200. (2700 job + 500 research) go figure.

So today, and after putting upside down my place I am gonna use my couch for a few hours.

happy trip to Rio Sara, we’ll miss u in London.

i should be writing more

my to Do list keeps growing and my ongoing projects don’t advance or if they do, they do it so slowly you don’t even notice. This means,
- first that I keep doing the same
- second that I keep  waiting for other people responses and that makes me nervous, I am really bad when I have to wait and things are not in my hands
-  third that my to do list keeps growing and i can’t move forward
- fourth and most important that I am busier now that when I was working, so I cannot enjoy my time. I NEED REAL HOLIDAYS.

So I am getting crazy, like an inprisoned tiger, moving and roaring withing the cell but without being able to go out, so I keep inside and working, but still no results, patience my friend, patience, but i am not, so once in a while I get carzy at home, like tonight and I start calling everybody, so be aware I might call you tonight

Also, not related, why politians are not able to address the real questions, why nobody can have a sense of state and long term thoughts, why are we so uncapable.

Also, not related, I hate bad movies, dude they didn’t have automatic guns in the 30’s. It’s fine you disconnect from the real when you watch a movie, but they cannot pretend we are stupid.

whatever

miscellaneous II. the long way to the office

normally it takes me 35 min to go from my flat’s door to my desk at the office.
normally I get to the office between 9.3o and 9.45 am
official time to start working 9.oo am
route to the office. Bow road station. district line one stop to Mile end. Change to central line. 2 stops to liverpool street. Walk from liverpool street to old street.

On Monday I tried to get to the office on time. Various reasons for that.

Monday December 1st.
8.25 am. Go out of my building
8.35 am. I took the district line
8.38 am. I jumped onto the central line at MIle End.
As i entered the coach a lady sitting there just fainted. They had to call for medical assistance. Train stop
8.42 am.Decided to take Hammersmith line, so change plattfor and changed to Hammersmith line.
8.50 am. We are stopped at Whitechapel.There is a personill at Monument station, a few stations in front of us, all the trains on that track are stopped
8.54 am Decided to go out to the surface and take the bus
9.oo am I catch the 205 bus that goes directly to my office place. There is a huge traffic jum due to roadworks and Ring Road congestion
9.30 amI reach the office

normal time 35 min. Monday time 1 hour 35 min. And all because for ine day I tried to arrive on time.
Infrastructures and public transports are the element around which the city should be built, and we should find a way to be able to avoid interrumptions due to normal and frequent activity falilures. no?

 

Blogging.

I realised that a lot of times I got a really good idea for a post,or a really good funny thing that just happened to me, but at that moment and even that day I don’t have the time to stop what I am doing and put myself to write the post. so many times I have “unborn” posts, which piss me off, so I have thought that probably talking about architecture and society, or more about ideas than about occurrences would be a better and more interesting idea for the blog. Also I am gonna try to write the quick stuff in twitter, I like the  140 character rule. Let’s see how it goes.

Fraud.
On my way to work on Sunday I came accross this guy who showed me his arm bleeding and asked for money for a cab. I offer to call an ambulance bu he refused and went away asking more people for money. I felt something was weird with that guy. Well, tuesday I saw the same guy doing the same trick to other people. I though thatn values and respect are in the lowest levels ever.

…

I shit on profiles, I shit on CV’s, I shit on political correctness, I shit on dess codes. I shit on images and apareances.

do you wanna shit on something,come on and join the club

lesson to whoever wants to listen Nº 1024

parcel boundary. definition.

1. I am sorry to say this but why British cannot speak proper English. Parcel boundary = Plot limit, or plot line, or plot boundary.  Parcel is what you sent through the post to other people.

Well, back to business.
Parcel Boundary. Definition
You spent a couple of months doing the layout of an area around 3km by 2 km, boulevards, parks, roads, and plots. You freeze this layout, you focus on the volumetric conditions and deliver your masterplan.
After that you Chicago office take 6 blocks within that masterplan to go further and they just decided, well you know, can you change your parcel boundaries because it doesn’t fit my buildings. Fuck, wow, I thought it was the opposite, I define the limits and you stuck to them. 

So we started fighting, we change the lines, we don’t, and so on so forth for 2 months. But not only that, they want to change the parcel boundary because it affects its contention wall for the basements, hello!!!!!! you want to extend the plot limits because you want to keep you perfect structure grid and build the contention wall outside, but yu cannot do it on the public domain, so you have to extend the plot limits, you change the road layout, you change the park design, you change all of the other architects buildings because you wanna build the contention wall without affecting your grid and as you are Chicago and the mother ship, London do whatever you fancy.

whatever. these romans are crazy.

One of the problems of our age is time. If you try to do something in half time that is require you are not going to be able to do it properly, and if you do it for sure you would not have put enough thoughts on it. But who cares, it looks that not thinking is how we are suppose to behave, and then suddenly problems appear.  Then when you want to solve the problems you put 5, 6, 7, fancy mediocre people together to do video-conference and that are not able to take decisions and what it is even worse they have no right to take them.

 whatever. these romans are crazy.

I’ll put some pictures of the so “called” “process”. 

They look like kids with new shoes, smiling thinking on how big and important they are doing projects like this.

reseting your life

suddenly I had around 20 absolutely surrealistic hours.  I was completely detached from the real world, I forgot about my worries, my life, my job, basically about everything.  It was one of those situation you just live outside your life. (now that I write about it, easily it could become a movie)

Monday between 21.3o and 22.oo hrs someone stole the handbag of my friend S. I was with her in a pub having a beer, no big crowds, quiet place, nice chat and when we were leaving, oops no bag.

No bag means my friend lost everything, Wallet, ID, Passport, credit cards, cell phone, house keys, absolutely everything. As she said in one of the few sentences she could articulate “I am nobody right now”. Just a blank person, no official name, no way to get in contact to the people she knows, no house to go and sleep, no money to buy anything, no transport card, just nothing.

One day after she has managed to get the keys of her apartment from the agency and even to change the lock and get new keys; she got money from the bank and asked for a new card; she got a new phone with the same number as before; and she managed to get a paper from the consulate to travel back to her country and redo the documents (this part sucks, having to travel back to get your documents it is absolutely nonsense). But basically she could reset her life (or at least put everything rolling) in one day.

Pretty amazing how you can restart from “the beginning” again, and quite scary that you could start it with any other name. Do you wanna change your life, you can reset yourself in a couple of days……

A funny point was that the first thing we did  after assuming that she had lost her bag was buying cigarettes. Then we went to the police. The officer was the more insensitive guy I’ve ever seen, S. was freaking out which is quite normal, and more even if that happens to you in a country that is not yours, and the officer only could articulate, OK, OK; I cannot do that, OK, OK; normally we don’t find anything.

When you are going through these situations you just basically fall into a different world, it doesn´t even make sense people going yo work in a Tuesday morning.

P.S. I know I have a lot of posts missing, parcel boundary definition missing, my latest trip to Cambridge and a lot of delayed issues from the office and the project.

too late/too tired/too blank/ my internet life is going to the trash

I’ve seen that I love to write really long post titles. Maybe I can just write the titles and leave the post empty. Wait, that is what twitter is.

Gosh, so many programs, skype, msn, yahho msn. email, twitter, tuenti, xing, my blog, google talk, my website, second life. I don’t use all of them but I do have an account in all of them, some of them I don’t actually remember,  So my internet life is really demanding. Problem is that my real life lately too!!!!!

i am trying to take wise decisions. Not just kidding, just trying to sleep less, just kidding again.

lesson to London architects Nº 534 and Nº 716

534.DON’T INVENT THE WHEEL. (Someone already did it a few hundred years ago)

Same discussion as always. Each and every time you face a new project same old problems, and same discussion about how we can solve them. Helloooo!! sorry but we have done it before, it should be a no brainer.

I mean, if you really want to propose a revolutionary system, or focus all your energy in pushing to the next step that specific problem within the whole project fine. But if it is just the same discussion about which of the 3 know options to solve that problem we choose, I mean that should take what 5 minutes, that’s it.  

There are a lot of things to solve and decisions to take in the proccess of making a building (or anything related to architecture) and there is no need to invent the wheel in each of them, there are a lot of things that have been done before, so just copy them.  It is really frustrating when you are sitting in the middle of a discussion about the same old problems about structure, facades, aligments and so on, so on, and you see they are trying to invent the wheel as if this time was the first time ever someone faces this problem, and not only that, but they come with a solution worst than the ones developped n the 1930’s.

Shame on us. We still don’t know how to fix a grid. If Mies were alive. Shame on us.

716. SOFTWARE IS A TOOL. TECHNOLOGY IS A MUST. COMPUTER PROGRAM ABILLITY IS NOT AN ADDED VALUE. I AM AN ARCHITECT.

During the last 2 decades or so (maybe 15 years) computers have been incorporated to the architect’s everyday life. but this new way of working have not been understood completly and has not been incorporate to our way of thinking as something natural. 

At job interviews we are still asked what computer programmes we use, because being able to use one software or not is still and added value. But oh my dear friend, be careful, because it is not an added value to your architectural skills, it is an added value to your contribution to the production chain.

We are not hire as architects anymore, but as technicians that know how to operate “complicated and oscure” software that produce the so desired computer simulation image, the new object of desire of architects and clients nowdays.

So if you so your technical / computer skills you will be push to produce images, booklets, brochures, excel sheets, wahtever you know how to do, instead of being considered an architect.  Young architects are not hired as architects anymore but as people that know how to deal with the computer world and with software meanwhile the “god designers” keep drawing in trace paper as a reminescent of the prehistoric ages.

Adding to this incapacity of the “god designers” to express theirselves through computers and draw a single drawing, and the use of young architects as technicians, there is the fact that no training, no software specialist is brought into the companies, because that is not an important part of the job.

Whatever