I went to LA

my poor, neglected blog-ity boo.

So I went to LA for a class field trip - I know... field trips in grown up school? Architecture!!!

8 students, 2 profs, 2 other stragglers.

The primary goal was to visit our studio site - www.mjt.org . The Museum of Jurassic Technology which is neither related to the Jurassic or technology. Our project is to design an Aviary on the roof for a future possible addition to the museum. As usual mine involves a lot of ramps.

Also, and possibly more importantly, or as equally important, we visited many places in LA. Architectural places - LA modern living at its finest. Eames' house, Schindler house, Hollyhock house by Frank Lloyd Wright, a sneak visit to La Miniatura, Neautra VDL house, Salk Institute - wowsers.... It was a very life changing experience.

Possibly the most meaningful moment was a visit out to the skate park at Venice Beach - I've never seen full-on skate boarders just doing their thing before. The anthropologist in me was on fire what with the intermingling of yuppie beach culture and poor beach culture and skate culture and surfer culture all together. There was a huge drum circle on the beach when I was walking home on my last night there.

It was a hard sell to get me back on the plane to come home, but I had a sliver of time to share with my family in the Edmonton airport on the way to Winnipeg.

It's such a precious thing: I was given a copy of Fordlandia for xmas from a good friend and I cherish reading it so much - when I have the chance to for-fun read. Yes it's partly the decadence of fondling a hardcover edition, but more it's the lifelong memories that tend to develop from being given a surprise gift that really speaks to my core as a human being. I'm learning a lot from this book and I feel like it's the starting point of further research.

Mid point in semester. My interim review was last week and I feel very positive from it. I got some great feedback and I really feel like I'm on my way toward something presentable for end of term.

Pottery today - I started working on what I hope becomes a light chimney for my project at school - what's a light chimney? Stay tuned kids, same bat channel, same bat time.

peace.