Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Bravery in Illinois
The workweek seemed extraordinarily slow. On numerous occasions I found myself without any tasks to work on. The workload usually isn't this small. That's ok though, because I've been running through the new Coldplay album, Viva la Vida. Upon first listen, I rated the album at a mediocre 78. Since then, I've gravitated toward a few songs and grown to really like them. I reconsidered my rating, and bumped it up to a more respectable 83.
After work, I studied my last little bit of microecon and took the test. 50 questions, hour and a half time limit. It took me 28 minutes to complete and I felt pretty confident that I knew the material. Unfortunately I got an 84. Oh well, what can I do now. Still really good compared to my macroecon experiences at OU.
Ok, with work done and the test over with, I had some free time. Hooray! I've been itching to go out and shoot again since I haven't really done it since the first day I got to St. Louis. No motivation. Again, my plan to shoot was that I had no plan. What I've learned in the past few years about photography is that your success is based on the amount of preparation you put into your work. Even treks on urban photography are thought through in some way. A photographer usually packs for the conditions he or she expects to experience while shooting. However, there is also that element of pick-up-your-camera-and-shoot. That was definitely the theme of the evening.
What was my plan? Get in the car, drive toward downtown, shoot things I see. Here is a map to show you where I ended up (click on map to see larger picture). The star marks where I started my journey, in Creve Coeur where I reside.
Courtesy Google Maps.
Now, keep in mind I literally jumped in the car and started driving. I do not know the streets of St. Louis or the roads to get around. I started by going south and turning east toward the town of Ladue. Ladue ended up being the rich part of STL. It was about 8PM so the sun was started to go down and create long shadows everywhere. It was great for the golf course views and huge houses with well manicured landscaping, but not good for me if I planned to go downtown. Inner city in the dark and I have no idea where I am... good call. Anyway, Ladue looked pretty amazing. Everything screamed wealth. I was probably the cheapest car on the road at the time. I was beside a BMW 7 series and behind an Aston Martin the whole time. I stayed on Ladue rd. and passed through Clayton, the source of all this wealth. Clayton is a little blip on the map, but has big presence. There are actually high rises with big banks, streets with expensive boutiques and trendy-looking people everywhere. It was a nice bit of rich.
After making a few turns I very quickly (and I mean quickly as in one street) went from wealth to the old dingy University City, or U-City as it's known by the locals. U-City is the home of Washington University, a top 20 school and considered one of the best for undergrads wanting to go on to med school. U-City is interesting because right outside of campus there is a strip that reminded me of Campus Corner. This, however, was about five times larger and ten times cooler. There were really cool looking bars and restaurants, all on a strip that was wide enough for traffic but still narrow enough for people to casually walk across the street.
I kept driving east, thinking nervously that I was getting closer and closer to places that were legitimately scary. And I was. Very soon after passing through U-City I was officially in the City of St. Louis. This part of the city is pretty run down. There were whole blocks seemingly void of business. Every building boarded up and deteriorating. Paint probably more than a half century old still clinging on to dirty brick and rusted corrugated sheet metal. Yet, amidst all this I stumbled into the St. Louis University campus. The campus was far from deteriorating. It was quite nice, in fact, especially with the sunlight where it was at that point in the evening. Architectural lighting accented almost every building. The Saint Francis Xavier College Church was especially nice.
Saint Francis Xavier College Church on the St. Louis University campus, just west of downtown. Nikon D300, 34mm, 1/10 at F/4.2, ISO 200, Picture mode Standard +2, hand-held.
A close of up the Saint Francis Xavier College Church architecture. I came at a good time, right after sunset. Nikon D300, 200mm, 1/15 at F/5.6, ISO 500, Picture mode Standard +2, hand-held.
Saint Francis Xavier College Church. Nikon D300, 60mm, 1/13 at F/4.8, ISO 500, Picture mode Standard +2, hand-held.
The light was starting to fall fast and I had to make a decision on my shooting plan. As of this point I barely shot anything at all, being too intimidated by the surroundings to get out of my car and shoot any of the run down parts of town. Plus it was not ideal with the sun almost gone. I picked a horrible time to go shooting, but I really had few choices since my econ test and the time I took getting downtown. Oh well, might as well keep going and see what happens. I couldn't really get a good look of how much light was still on the horizon, but I figured I'll work whatever I have when I get downtown. At this point I convinced myself that I have to try and get that iconic downtown St. Louis shot from across the river. Stupid, I know. How many times have you seen that shot? Whatever, I have nothing else going on, let's do it.
So, it took me probably another 20-30 minutes finding my way through downtown and across a bridge into Illinois. I don't know what bridge I took. All I knew was that now I'm in Illinois - Obama country. The road kept going quite a ways into Illinois before any useful exits. I thought to myself since I'm seeing so many signs for Chicago maybe I should make a trip up there sometime. I think I'd rather shoot some of the flooding just up north of STL before I did that, but it would be highly unlikely that I do either. Anyway, I eventually got turned around and headed back toward the river. I couldn't see any of the downtown buildings or the arch which made it difficult to make decisions on what roads to go on. If inner city STL was bad, then this was absolutely horrible. There were whole streets that were not only boarded up and abandoned, but had one street light every 1/8 mile. Needless to say I was a bit nervous now. Especially with the random businesses that always had those two or three guys sitting outside smoking and checking out the surroundings. Shady!
Finally, the river and downtown were within sights. The bad thing was that the ideal place to go was a heavy industrial area. I passed by a Cargill silo on my way to what I thought would be a good shot.
Here's the creepy part -
I came to a curve in the road. Looking over to my right I could see the arch and the buildings just off to it's right. This is where I want to make the shot. Just off the road was a set of train tracks leading to the Cargill silo and a hill of tall grass and a concrete wall that stopped at about chest-height. Perfect to perch my camera on. Just 50 yards in front of me was another car, parked to the side of the street. I didn't want to just park next to it, seeing as how I didn't know what was going on out there. I passed by it slowly and turned around on the road to get another look at my shot. Just then, a woman came out of the tall grass and started walking toward her car. She had something in her hand. For some reason I assumed it was a small camera but in retrospect I realize that I neither looked to see what was really in her hand nor looked at her face. Some help I would have been if she killed someone or made some drug deal. Anyway, I was parked on the other side of the street by now, pretending that I don't see her doing her... whatever she was doing. I could see in my peripheral vision that she was looking at me from behind her car. She then got in her car and drove off slowly, riding the brakes the whole way. I carefully got out of my car and started walking up toward the tall grass to hopefully shoot downtown like I planned. As I reached the concrete wall, I noticed that the car completely stopped up the street. Her brake lights were still on and I knew for sure she was looking back to see what I was doing. Holy crap, I thought to myself, I better not be interfering in her dirty work.
For some reason, in my body's decision between fight of flight it chose fight. Instead of turning around and going back to car and driving away like any person with reason would have done, I shrugged her off and even gave out an audible "psh...fuck her" as I set up my camera. Because of the situation, I only shot seven frames in a nervous fit. Each frame was a at least 6 seconds of exposure so I would literally stand there in paranoia looking at the woman's car while trying to suppress mosquitoes with my hands. I probably looked like an idiot creeper out there. Oh well. All that, and this is what I got (click to enlarge):
St. Louis as seen from Illinois. Nikon D300, 36mm, 6 seconds at F/7.1, ISO 200, Picture Mode Standard +2, perched on a concrete wall.
I checked my screen to see if things looked good. Gave my D300 a push on the center button to zoom to 100% to check sharpness and focus. Things looked good. Now, GET THE EFF OUT OF THERE. I quickly packed up my camera and walked back toward my car. In that span of time, the creepy woman's car had gone, but another set of headlights was on its way. Paranoia is a pretty strong feeling. I jumped across the train tracks and hastened my pace to my car, having my key ready in hand. I literally flew into the car, turned it on, threw it in drive and sped off like I did something unlawful (who knows, it was Cargill property, so I could have been doing something illegal). The set of headlights turned out to be a taxi. Weird that he would go way out there... again, shady.
Exit strategy, get on I-70 west and ride it all the way back to 270 and home. Well, as you'll notice from the map, I was on I-70 east for a while before I could turn around. Damn exits, you can't just go where you want. Anyway, my adrenaline took a little while to come down, and by the time I got back home I had a headache and my sore throat felt considerably worse. It took 40 minutes to get from where I was in Illinois to Creve Coeur, so in the meantime I shot this in the car:
Tired and scared. Nikon D300, 24mm, 20 seconds at F/11, ISO 200, perched on the dashboard, Pop-up flash on commander mode with remote SB-600 hand held on Rear Curtain Sync. The long exposure makes the lights go crazy in the background while the flash on rear curtain sync froze me at the end of the exposure.
So yes, pretty exciting night for me. I woke up this morning and my throat feels fine. I guess I just needed a shot of adrenaline.
Plans for next shooting opportunity:
1) Have a plan
2) Bring a friend
3) Buy a small knife
That's it for now.
After work, I studied my last little bit of microecon and took the test. 50 questions, hour and a half time limit. It took me 28 minutes to complete and I felt pretty confident that I knew the material. Unfortunately I got an 84. Oh well, what can I do now. Still really good compared to my macroecon experiences at OU.
Ok, with work done and the test over with, I had some free time. Hooray! I've been itching to go out and shoot again since I haven't really done it since the first day I got to St. Louis. No motivation. Again, my plan to shoot was that I had no plan. What I've learned in the past few years about photography is that your success is based on the amount of preparation you put into your work. Even treks on urban photography are thought through in some way. A photographer usually packs for the conditions he or she expects to experience while shooting. However, there is also that element of pick-up-your-camera-and-shoot. That was definitely the theme of the evening.
What was my plan? Get in the car, drive toward downtown, shoot things I see. Here is a map to show you where I ended up (click on map to see larger picture). The star marks where I started my journey, in Creve Coeur where I reside.
Courtesy Google Maps.Now, keep in mind I literally jumped in the car and started driving. I do not know the streets of St. Louis or the roads to get around. I started by going south and turning east toward the town of Ladue. Ladue ended up being the rich part of STL. It was about 8PM so the sun was started to go down and create long shadows everywhere. It was great for the golf course views and huge houses with well manicured landscaping, but not good for me if I planned to go downtown. Inner city in the dark and I have no idea where I am... good call. Anyway, Ladue looked pretty amazing. Everything screamed wealth. I was probably the cheapest car on the road at the time. I was beside a BMW 7 series and behind an Aston Martin the whole time. I stayed on Ladue rd. and passed through Clayton, the source of all this wealth. Clayton is a little blip on the map, but has big presence. There are actually high rises with big banks, streets with expensive boutiques and trendy-looking people everywhere. It was a nice bit of rich.
After making a few turns I very quickly (and I mean quickly as in one street) went from wealth to the old dingy University City, or U-City as it's known by the locals. U-City is the home of Washington University, a top 20 school and considered one of the best for undergrads wanting to go on to med school. U-City is interesting because right outside of campus there is a strip that reminded me of Campus Corner. This, however, was about five times larger and ten times cooler. There were really cool looking bars and restaurants, all on a strip that was wide enough for traffic but still narrow enough for people to casually walk across the street.
I kept driving east, thinking nervously that I was getting closer and closer to places that were legitimately scary. And I was. Very soon after passing through U-City I was officially in the City of St. Louis. This part of the city is pretty run down. There were whole blocks seemingly void of business. Every building boarded up and deteriorating. Paint probably more than a half century old still clinging on to dirty brick and rusted corrugated sheet metal. Yet, amidst all this I stumbled into the St. Louis University campus. The campus was far from deteriorating. It was quite nice, in fact, especially with the sunlight where it was at that point in the evening. Architectural lighting accented almost every building. The Saint Francis Xavier College Church was especially nice.
Saint Francis Xavier College Church on the St. Louis University campus, just west of downtown. Nikon D300, 34mm, 1/10 at F/4.2, ISO 200, Picture mode Standard +2, hand-held.
A close of up the Saint Francis Xavier College Church architecture. I came at a good time, right after sunset. Nikon D300, 200mm, 1/15 at F/5.6, ISO 500, Picture mode Standard +2, hand-held.
Saint Francis Xavier College Church. Nikon D300, 60mm, 1/13 at F/4.8, ISO 500, Picture mode Standard +2, hand-held.The light was starting to fall fast and I had to make a decision on my shooting plan. As of this point I barely shot anything at all, being too intimidated by the surroundings to get out of my car and shoot any of the run down parts of town. Plus it was not ideal with the sun almost gone. I picked a horrible time to go shooting, but I really had few choices since my econ test and the time I took getting downtown. Oh well, might as well keep going and see what happens. I couldn't really get a good look of how much light was still on the horizon, but I figured I'll work whatever I have when I get downtown. At this point I convinced myself that I have to try and get that iconic downtown St. Louis shot from across the river. Stupid, I know. How many times have you seen that shot? Whatever, I have nothing else going on, let's do it.
So, it took me probably another 20-30 minutes finding my way through downtown and across a bridge into Illinois. I don't know what bridge I took. All I knew was that now I'm in Illinois - Obama country. The road kept going quite a ways into Illinois before any useful exits. I thought to myself since I'm seeing so many signs for Chicago maybe I should make a trip up there sometime. I think I'd rather shoot some of the flooding just up north of STL before I did that, but it would be highly unlikely that I do either. Anyway, I eventually got turned around and headed back toward the river. I couldn't see any of the downtown buildings or the arch which made it difficult to make decisions on what roads to go on. If inner city STL was bad, then this was absolutely horrible. There were whole streets that were not only boarded up and abandoned, but had one street light every 1/8 mile. Needless to say I was a bit nervous now. Especially with the random businesses that always had those two or three guys sitting outside smoking and checking out the surroundings. Shady!
Finally, the river and downtown were within sights. The bad thing was that the ideal place to go was a heavy industrial area. I passed by a Cargill silo on my way to what I thought would be a good shot.
Here's the creepy part -
I came to a curve in the road. Looking over to my right I could see the arch and the buildings just off to it's right. This is where I want to make the shot. Just off the road was a set of train tracks leading to the Cargill silo and a hill of tall grass and a concrete wall that stopped at about chest-height. Perfect to perch my camera on. Just 50 yards in front of me was another car, parked to the side of the street. I didn't want to just park next to it, seeing as how I didn't know what was going on out there. I passed by it slowly and turned around on the road to get another look at my shot. Just then, a woman came out of the tall grass and started walking toward her car. She had something in her hand. For some reason I assumed it was a small camera but in retrospect I realize that I neither looked to see what was really in her hand nor looked at her face. Some help I would have been if she killed someone or made some drug deal. Anyway, I was parked on the other side of the street by now, pretending that I don't see her doing her... whatever she was doing. I could see in my peripheral vision that she was looking at me from behind her car. She then got in her car and drove off slowly, riding the brakes the whole way. I carefully got out of my car and started walking up toward the tall grass to hopefully shoot downtown like I planned. As I reached the concrete wall, I noticed that the car completely stopped up the street. Her brake lights were still on and I knew for sure she was looking back to see what I was doing. Holy crap, I thought to myself, I better not be interfering in her dirty work.
For some reason, in my body's decision between fight of flight it chose fight. Instead of turning around and going back to car and driving away like any person with reason would have done, I shrugged her off and even gave out an audible "psh...fuck her" as I set up my camera. Because of the situation, I only shot seven frames in a nervous fit. Each frame was a at least 6 seconds of exposure so I would literally stand there in paranoia looking at the woman's car while trying to suppress mosquitoes with my hands. I probably looked like an idiot creeper out there. Oh well. All that, and this is what I got (click to enlarge):
St. Louis as seen from Illinois. Nikon D300, 36mm, 6 seconds at F/7.1, ISO 200, Picture Mode Standard +2, perched on a concrete wall.I checked my screen to see if things looked good. Gave my D300 a push on the center button to zoom to 100% to check sharpness and focus. Things looked good. Now, GET THE EFF OUT OF THERE. I quickly packed up my camera and walked back toward my car. In that span of time, the creepy woman's car had gone, but another set of headlights was on its way. Paranoia is a pretty strong feeling. I jumped across the train tracks and hastened my pace to my car, having my key ready in hand. I literally flew into the car, turned it on, threw it in drive and sped off like I did something unlawful (who knows, it was Cargill property, so I could have been doing something illegal). The set of headlights turned out to be a taxi. Weird that he would go way out there... again, shady.
Exit strategy, get on I-70 west and ride it all the way back to 270 and home. Well, as you'll notice from the map, I was on I-70 east for a while before I could turn around. Damn exits, you can't just go where you want. Anyway, my adrenaline took a little while to come down, and by the time I got back home I had a headache and my sore throat felt considerably worse. It took 40 minutes to get from where I was in Illinois to Creve Coeur, so in the meantime I shot this in the car:
Tired and scared. Nikon D300, 24mm, 20 seconds at F/11, ISO 200, perched on the dashboard, Pop-up flash on commander mode with remote SB-600 hand held on Rear Curtain Sync. The long exposure makes the lights go crazy in the background while the flash on rear curtain sync froze me at the end of the exposure.So yes, pretty exciting night for me. I woke up this morning and my throat feels fine. I guess I just needed a shot of adrenaline.
Plans for next shooting opportunity:
1) Have a plan
2) Bring a friend
3) Buy a small knife
That's it for now.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
St. Desperation
I can't sleep. It must be a mix of a few things. One thing is that today I realized how screwed I am with my two online classes. I have a test in my micro econ class available on wednesday that I have until Friday to begin. I haven't exactly looked at any material whatsoever. Granted, I'm still waiting for my books to come in the mail, but it's mostly my fault for not starting on anything. Today I got that feeling at the bottom of my stomach I get whenever I have school anxiety. The desperation feeling. Like oh shit, I better start doin work.
The weekend wasn't as fruitless as my online class work. Kelsey came up Friday after a close call involving her house and encroaching flood water. She reported all is well with the house, which is good. It seems like a lot of people saw The Happening this weekend. Kels and I did as well, and I believe we share the same feelings as everyone else. Not that bad, not that good either. There were some parts that we openly laughed when the tone suggested they were being completely serious. Mark Wahlberg isn't all that convincing when he's crying. Better stick to the tough-guy-with-gun characters.
Saturday, Kels and I hit up The Pasta House which proved to be a good visit. We tried to set some style for the book in the afternoon but for some reason I really felt like sitting around. We eventually just went to the mall to find Father's Day gifts. I got some good stuff which I will be sending in the mail tomorrow (Monday). I know, timely is my fifth middle name. For dinner, we went to the Westport Plaza, just a mile up the street from my apt. Westport happened to be where some CMA attendants spent some time last year, and was highly recommended by LP. Thanks, LP, it was a pretty cool place. Maybe we'll hit up that comedy club sometime! We really hit the work after dinner and I think we got some real substance out of style so far. I'm actually kind of excited to see where it will go from here.
Sunday, Kels left early for Father's Day festivities back home and I chilled in the apartment and attempted to go through material for my upcoming micro econ test. I feel a little better now that I've gone through a little bit of material, but I'm nowhere near I need to be to feel comfortable with the material. During the day, Ben and I watched Tiger Woods literally limp his way into a two-way tie for the US Open. Woods and Rocko Mediate will play a full 18-hole playoff Monday to decide the winner. Honestly, I don't know if Tiger has enough in his knee to finish another 18 holes. We'll see how much of a badass he is tomorrow.
I noticed after Kels left how hard it is to combat laziness. It's obvious how much I have to do in my time out of the RZ office, but I just can't get myself to do anything here in St. Louis. I guess I'm not quite ready mentally to work full time and still have classes as a major pain in my ass. We'll see this week if I can summon the motivation needed. It's desperation mode from here on out.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Tribute to Dads
Earl Woods, late father of Tiger Woods, speaks about about Tiger's mental toughness. Earl is just one example of the influence that dads have on their children. So, even though I might not be a Tiger, I still owe much of my character and sense of self to my dad.
To dads everywhere. Thank you.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
X-actly
I've lately become accustomed to using an X-acto knife. Why, you ask? Well since RZ is still a relatively small company (if BaB ties excluded), all of the signage that can fit on 11x17 or less is printed in-house. That means it needs to be cut to fit fixtures and sometimes mounted on mortar board for presentation. So, I am given the task of preparing all of that. To give you a taste, I cut out about 80 signs in the last three days. I think I'm pretty good with the knife now. If you ever need something cut out...find someone else because I don't care.I have to do all of that work in the BaB offices, which they so eloquently call BQ (you can guess what that stands for). BQ is a labyrinth of office space and employees, as well as dogs. Yeah, dogs. I'm not sure what's going on, but everyone has been bringing their dogs into the offices. So, as I go through, I have to step over makeshift barriers to contain curious critters who like to float around and make the occasional mess. Not a mess like pooping but they'll start chewing on stuff. I think I might have seen the remains of a bear on the floor today. It was an eerily sad sight. Anyway, working in the BaB creative rooms has been pretty cool because I get to mingle with other designers and see what they're doing for their signage and whatnot. BaB has well over 300 stores in the US and more worldwide, so it is pretty cool seeing that level of work.
(Note: I'll spare you the internal names for all things that I reference. Usually, since RZ is pretty heavily associated with the use of the letter "Z," everything that ends in an "s" is subsequently spelled with a "z")
In other news, today I was given my big assignment, the one that will define my internship. I'm not sure how much I can share, but just ask me and I'll tell you about it. It's a pretty big project, and BP specifically put me in charge of designing it. Sweet! Now something I can actually call my own and put in my portfolio. Just what I was looking for. Of course, I'm pretty excited and pretty nervous at the same time. I'm sure it'll work out well.
Today after work I ran into The Galleria while looking for a Best Buy. I didn't ever make it to Best Buy, but I did find what I was looking for in The Galleria. Turns out it's only about 5 miles away. So that's two really good malls within 5 miles of where I am. Not bad.
Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to get out and see something around here. I feel like I'm missing out on some excellent shooting. I haven't shot anything since that first weekend I was here and I'm anxious to just pick up the camera. I mean, it's a new camera and I barely have 1,000 shots on the meter. Lame.
That's all for now
Monday, June 09, 2008
Sunday, June 08, 2008
The Tale of the Air Conditioner
Well, the weekend proved to be eventful just like the last two. First off, as some of you might now, I've been battling a great war with the air conditioning in my apartment. I am happy to say that it seems to be working now, but I'll get to that later.
Friday - The new marketing intern started. Apparently she worked with BaB a lot at one of their big money Cali stores. They stuck her in the sweat shop to organize wheelz which means I stay at my desk and do design work. That's right. I left at 5 sharp for the first time in the two weeks that I've been at RZ. I'm always afraid to leave right at 5 because it seems like no one around me ever does. I don't want to be that intern guy that just dips out. Other people were leaving and it was a Friday so I said whatever and bolted. I guess since I thought it would be a good idea to leave "early," God punished me with heavy traffic. I'd never seen traffic to this extreme on the highway I use. I literally went through a playlist of 12 songs before I got to my street exit. I ended up getting to the apt at about the same time that I always do. So much for that.
Ok, so since about ten days ago, I've noticed that the air conditioner wouldn't hold a temperature in the apt. Everyday, it would get warmer and warmer with no hint of a/c compensation. Bad news. Starting at about wednesday, the a/c control stopped working. It would default at a blazing 85 degrees and every time I changed it back it would default again in about an hour. Needless to say this aggravated me greatly, especially when I get back to the apt after work and experience 78 degrees. Sure, not too bad, but it gets worse. So Thursday night rolls around and I'm chillin with Ben (he got in this weekend to start his summer classes, so I have a dude bro to chill with) at the apt and the temperature keeps climbing and climbing. It's at the point where we are sitting there playing Tiger Woods on XBOX and we're almost sweating as if we were actually outside playing. It got up to 82 degrees in the apt at 10pm. If I recall, it was listed as the same temperature outside at that time.
I will take this time to remind you that I have absolutely no patience for things that do not work the way they are supposed to. If an air conditioning unit is blowing air 24/7 and the temperature still exceeds 80 degrees indoors, I reserve the right to curse at it aggressively, and that I did. Friday I called the apt office and put in a work order for guys to work on it. They were there working when I got home on Friday. After about 20 minutes of them farting around, one of the guys explains what they did and tells me how to program the thermostat. The thing is really stupid and has you program temps that you want for morning, afternoon, evening, etc. WTF? Why don't you try this - I set what temp I want and you just effing do it. Don't make me program different temps for different parts of the day. Pointless.
The number on the left represents the current temperature. The number on the right represents the temp I set. I put it on 66 as part of the maintenance guy's recommendations, a full 16 degree difference with the ambient air temperature.
Anyway, so after they left I thought everything was going to be good. They fixed the a/c and the temp should start coming down and at least be at a comfortable level by the time I wake up in the morning. Wrong. I was way to optimistic. Instead, it stayed hot all night (right at about 80). It's not very nice laying in bed with no sheets over your body when you're a sheets-over-body kinda sleeper. This was getting old fast. It was so stupid at that point that Ben and I just wanted to be in an a/c environment. So, we chilled in a Borders bookstore for about 2.5 hours. It was actually pretty awesome, I caught up on some magazines and even bought three for some design inspiration. Ben read up on what to do to get into law school. Good times.
Sunday - Woke up in a sweat just like the last few days. Eff. This is gay. I promptly left a strong voicemail on the apt office's number. Within an hour the maintenance guy was back and working on the unit outside. He told me he loaded 2.5lbs of freon into the unit. Freon = results. Within an hour the apt went down a degree. Progress. Right now, as I type this, it is a cool and comfortable 76 degrees. Still a bit warm for some, but it feels like bliss to me.
I have a new appreciation for the American ideal. Within the same week I had cell phone service and air conditioning taken from my comfortable existence. There are many in the world that survive with neither, but since I was raised knowing these luxuries it was particularly hard when they were taken away. So, the moral of the story is not to take anything for granted.
Needless to say all this heat has left me extremely lethargic. Here comes another week...
Friday - The new marketing intern started. Apparently she worked with BaB a lot at one of their big money Cali stores. They stuck her in the sweat shop to organize wheelz which means I stay at my desk and do design work. That's right. I left at 5 sharp for the first time in the two weeks that I've been at RZ. I'm always afraid to leave right at 5 because it seems like no one around me ever does. I don't want to be that intern guy that just dips out. Other people were leaving and it was a Friday so I said whatever and bolted. I guess since I thought it would be a good idea to leave "early," God punished me with heavy traffic. I'd never seen traffic to this extreme on the highway I use. I literally went through a playlist of 12 songs before I got to my street exit. I ended up getting to the apt at about the same time that I always do. So much for that.
Ok, so since about ten days ago, I've noticed that the air conditioner wouldn't hold a temperature in the apt. Everyday, it would get warmer and warmer with no hint of a/c compensation. Bad news. Starting at about wednesday, the a/c control stopped working. It would default at a blazing 85 degrees and every time I changed it back it would default again in about an hour. Needless to say this aggravated me greatly, especially when I get back to the apt after work and experience 78 degrees. Sure, not too bad, but it gets worse. So Thursday night rolls around and I'm chillin with Ben (he got in this weekend to start his summer classes, so I have a dude bro to chill with) at the apt and the temperature keeps climbing and climbing. It's at the point where we are sitting there playing Tiger Woods on XBOX and we're almost sweating as if we were actually outside playing. It got up to 82 degrees in the apt at 10pm. If I recall, it was listed as the same temperature outside at that time.
I will take this time to remind you that I have absolutely no patience for things that do not work the way they are supposed to. If an air conditioning unit is blowing air 24/7 and the temperature still exceeds 80 degrees indoors, I reserve the right to curse at it aggressively, and that I did. Friday I called the apt office and put in a work order for guys to work on it. They were there working when I got home on Friday. After about 20 minutes of them farting around, one of the guys explains what they did and tells me how to program the thermostat. The thing is really stupid and has you program temps that you want for morning, afternoon, evening, etc. WTF? Why don't you try this - I set what temp I want and you just effing do it. Don't make me program different temps for different parts of the day. Pointless.
The number on the left represents the current temperature. The number on the right represents the temp I set. I put it on 66 as part of the maintenance guy's recommendations, a full 16 degree difference with the ambient air temperature.Anyway, so after they left I thought everything was going to be good. They fixed the a/c and the temp should start coming down and at least be at a comfortable level by the time I wake up in the morning. Wrong. I was way to optimistic. Instead, it stayed hot all night (right at about 80). It's not very nice laying in bed with no sheets over your body when you're a sheets-over-body kinda sleeper. This was getting old fast. It was so stupid at that point that Ben and I just wanted to be in an a/c environment. So, we chilled in a Borders bookstore for about 2.5 hours. It was actually pretty awesome, I caught up on some magazines and even bought three for some design inspiration. Ben read up on what to do to get into law school. Good times.
Sunday - Woke up in a sweat just like the last few days. Eff. This is gay. I promptly left a strong voicemail on the apt office's number. Within an hour the maintenance guy was back and working on the unit outside. He told me he loaded 2.5lbs of freon into the unit. Freon = results. Within an hour the apt went down a degree. Progress. Right now, as I type this, it is a cool and comfortable 76 degrees. Still a bit warm for some, but it feels like bliss to me.
I have a new appreciation for the American ideal. Within the same week I had cell phone service and air conditioning taken from my comfortable existence. There are many in the world that survive with neither, but since I was raised knowing these luxuries it was particularly hard when they were taken away. So, the moral of the story is not to take anything for granted.
Needless to say all this heat has left me extremely lethargic. Here comes another week...
Friday, June 06, 2008
Photo Hunting on a Friday Night
So it's Friday night and what am I doing? Looking through my archives and finding things to post. Thrilling.
I have some things to blog about, but right now I am just too tired to do anything but emptily stare at the television.
Things to expect:
1. The tale of the air conditioner
2. Recycling madman
3. A look at my neighborhood
Until then, here's what I found.
I have some things to blog about, but right now I am just too tired to do anything but emptily stare at the television.
Things to expect:
1. The tale of the air conditioner
2. Recycling madman
3. A look at my neighborhood
Until then, here's what I found.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
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