:: learning about America[n] ... ::

The Queen City of Charlotte, a town of 2.3 million should find no difficulties to entertainment me for a four-day weekend “getaway”, a getaway from the social desert of Western North Carolina. With six-year of networking experience inside a nuclear shelter, my contact list isn’t as long as the Schindler’s, however, I do manage to make friends with a fair amount of share-mind designers.

The first two nights, and day, were great, good friends, mild intoxication, and waiting to see the dawn with social chitchat. However, on day three, things started to get difficult; after a fun and educated lunch with a great friend of mine, my evening plan still remained vacant. Usually, during academic season, there was always dinner buddies to be find within 15 steps of walking distance in studio; very easily and unintentionally, dinner outing would transform into night procrastination.

These entire social dynamic seemed so distance this summer as everybody from my graduating class are moving on adventures of their own. And most of everybody was venture out of this city for the weekend.

Therefore, I figured it would be a good idea to contact someone who was working in this town, knowing that must be a better guarantee for them to stick around during the non-schooling season.

Thus I contacted my first year architecture professor Andrew, since we had not hang out form quite sometime and he told me not to leave this town without catching up with him. A brief text was sent and a reply never surface.

By dinnertime, I had decided to go solo for some flavor of the Queen City that I missed for this past month. Deciding a diner was a monumental mission by itself, Penguins, Hickory Tavern, Cans, Big Daddy, Lang Van, and Giacomo’s where only a short list. After an hour, a strategic plan had been made, the fish sandwich at the Hickory Tavern won the vote.

It didn’t take me long, after arriving at the restaurant, to realize why Andrew never replied my text. The Red Sox was playing that night; since he was from Boston, this was pretty much his life. And as a good friend, who never kept track nor understood baseball, I felt like I had insulated the man.

Strangely, the grill tilapia and cold beer gave me motivation to observe the live broadcast on the 42” LCD screen over the bar counter for hours. Even scarier was my attention toward the screen adjacent to the baseball live feed – NASCAR. For the first time in my live, I actually felt compelled by the racing-for-dummy association; a sports once I claim to be unrestricted-interstate-driving was actually fairly intense. At the end of the night, I had managed to understand the sports baseball and somewhat, only somewhat, appreciate NASCAR, because I knew the most prestigious racing sport would have a go in Hungary this Sunday.

Headed back to my recently broken-in arcHouse, I found my new sub-leasing housemate, Livi, also suffered the same summer-Saturday-night syndrome. I hardly knew him, since I had only been in the house for approximately six hours accumulated in the past two months. Going to the bar this time was a much easier decision to make than my dinner selection.

Settled at the same table and same seat as my previous night at Wine Vault, I not only learned Livi was all over the map, and also a person with an open-minded appetite.

Despite the mixed population in the US of A, finding diverse dining experience is still hugely limited. No doubt, street food is one my favorite type of dining experience; they are mostly simple, modestly dangerous but hugely rewarding.
Time after time, going back to Hong Kong, I would relentlessly go to Central Kowloon for the ultimate “Street Sweep”, hitting up favorite kiosk in my childhood while discovering the new trend in the fast changing culture city.

Talking to Livi surely bring back traveling memories from the frozen lake of northeastern China to the southern England port of Bristol. We might not share the same interest and carrier goal, and we most likely will never be BFF, but the common we share are the desire to taste the exotic cuisine at the most exclusive restaurant and the flavor makes familiar to the vast majority of the working class.

Sadly, this wasn’t an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservation, pork intestine covered in deep frying grease sold at street kiosk were only dreams reside outside of this country.

But I guess it will be okay for most of you, because I am sure you will not find stinky tofu as an attractive delicacy in the first place.

:: vacation ::

For those who has been checking my blog lately, on my blog re-ramp, thank you for your support and interest! And you might have already suspecting my blogging momentum has stopped already. No... I have not... this is some serious stuff this time, and I need to work on it once my vacay is over, which will be soon, Monday soon. So, please keep checking back to fulfill your curiosity...
Meanwhile, I will it a night early, since the two glasses of wine and three pints of beer are calling me for bed time...
Anywho, I will be back sooner than you think!!!

:: let's play! ::

After two rounds of blog posting, I think it is about time to align my yakking toward thesis research. At this perfect moment, I browsed through a blog post, study model, from one of my architecture friend Josh, who is questioning a similar problem in architectural pedagogy – conceptual representation.

This would not be my initial attempt to explore such issue, but every time half way through the investigation, it had always detoured into an actual design project. Thus this time, I will reserve this as a sub theme for my thesis interest…

Back to the question regarding conceptual representation; the corner stone for all competition entry, project bidding and portfolio building. This skill is so essential that it becomes extremely hard to achieve. Even one has excellent artistic talents and/or design concept, communicating one’s idea flawlessly is as impossible as drawing straight lines during an off-road rally race.

Architectural academies their protégée to crank out overly elaborate design concepts; on the flip side of that coin, talking to the practical architects, who know nothing but how to edit their X-Ref in 1000 really uninteresting manners, will tell you the best design is a Lowe’s buffet.

Why can we not be innovative and playful? For Mies sake, we are part of the design community, is our goal is to seek for a better way to live? Do we all sacrifice sleepless night to dream of something that we hate? No. Aren’t we all do what we do because we love what we do?

If someone walk through the front door of a design firm does not give a damn about design should not only be not hire but should indeed thrown into exile. But for someone walk in an architecture office has no sense of humor should really stop breathing.

It is like my writing style, mostly idiotic and obscene for thesis document, is joyful to write. I must admit reading Jeremy Clarkson’s book and watching too much Top Gear has contribute a fair amount on this lunacy; however, writing in this manner is airy and fun. I dislike scholarly writings not only because they all sounds like a poorly writing instruction on how to defuse a nuclear bomb, I loathe them because you will never hear me talk in such a way even I am presenting a project in critique.

It is like cook, too, despite from all the facebook and twitter photo uploads, I always tell people I don’t cook - I just play. It is the playfulness that yields for happy accident in the end.

Earlier today, I had commented on Josh’s blog entry “in which you could call this a manifesto if you want, but it’s probably not”, saying writings could be as effective as sketch models, nevertheless, they were another medium for design. Since my writing craft was limited, I shall remain in the rhyme of obsessive model making.

Finally, a note to self; I probably should not write at late night because my brain does not know how to slow down, thus when I hit the bed sheet, floating like space debris it keeps thinking. But this habit of blogging is good, it allows me to jog down ridiculous thoughts down and onto the cyber space; more importantly, it gives me a chance to critically polish my not so critical writing skills.

:: let us all be economic crisis cave bear ::

Now-a-day, breathing, living, sleeping on the land of the free and the home of the brave, you will unmistakable to hear one, which also happens to be the most heated, topic of the decade, the economic turmoil.

I know I do, either having dinner with a lady friend with the most seductive smile or a group of superfluous petrol-heads, the conversation eventually steer toward the crisis of the money market. I doubt even Osama bin Laden can possibly escapes from this with his hiding skill that defeated the world police’s troops and technologies (and I can assure you he has already heard the news and probably laugh about it before he goes to bed, that is if he is still alive).

And why? Why is our chitchat topic becomes so dry all in a sudden? Does the tele stop broadcasting the Bachelor? No, because it is eff-ing REAL!

It was as real as the movie “W” which I was informed to be hilarious because all things were facts and they were just as real as the unemployment letter that everybody had gotten (or will being receiving soon).

In this uncanny time during an uninterrupted 12-hour road trip, my dad and I came to one of the most sensational conclusion for years: what if we hibernate!

You see, as the temperature drops and the food supplies died off, animals had figure out a way to save themselves from the hard work on finding food, they simply lay down, relax, and sleep the whole crisis over. So how come a civilization that can figure out how to overcome gravity and create gadgets that could translate on-and-off electric current into thousand hours of music in ones pocket cannot figure this out?

Economic crisis? Sure! We will all go to bed early today and by the time we wake up again, this whole thing will be blown over.
Well, not that easy isn’t it? When H.G. Wells suggested the human race to hide underground on public radio in 1938, waiting for the Martians invaders to pack their bags and leave, everybody freaked out.

Instead of playing the waiting game, there are actually many little tricks to help improve your chances to be employed via the greatest invention of the 21st century: the Internet and social media.

Sure it might sounds silly, but on the other end of the cyber space, those are real people sitting in front of their computer screen, or silicon-hand grenades, who might be looking for talents to resolve specific issue.

If you know me, I am sure you are aware I am a facebook addict; it is a great piazza for anyone to advertise a personal brand, service, or even products to friends; if you happen to have a web-site, blogs, or other media site (such as youTube), posting updates on f.book also help to gain publicity on your service.

However, f.book might seems like a small circuit when it comes to advertising, and that is why we look into the social-media “big daddy-o”: Twitter.

As you think this blog is derailing, stay with me. From personal experience I can tell you it is one of the most effective ways to put yourself on the local radar screen.

Back in May this year, I was busy finishing up a house expansion/renovation project of mine. I tweeted aggressively because it was the only tool I had to keep my spirit up in the social artic. By the end of May, someone actually contacted me, via Twitter, regarding to a renovation project she had in mind.

While many of you might think Twitter is nothing but a gossip loopy loop, it is actually a powerful tool to let you, or others, to search for professions in your local area. Twitter clients such as TweetDeck for desktop or TwitterFon for iPhone allow use to define a search proximity for recent tweets.

Secondly, understand the power of the “#”; the humble little symbol often use as a tag for keyword for sorting of a similar interest. Topic related to architecture might tag as #arch, or #architecture; Top Gear addict like myself often post comment regarding to the show with #TopGear, or #TG. Use your imagination while search and filter topics are the key to success. You might be surprise how many people yack about the same stuff you have in mind every moment, 24/7.

No? Still not convincing enough? Philip Odegard, a 23-year-old so-call Californian social media expert, was so good with the whole trade he even owned a 1.4 million Bugatti Veyron; to further show the world his expertise in SM (that’s social media, not S&M you filth…), he even drove the damn thing at 210+ mph and caught by donut-eating man.

Sadly, this not only stirred up attention in the social media circle, the news actually caused some enthusiastic petrol head to poke about this automobile amazement. When matters get on the hands of petrol head, we don’t f__k around.

So, it turned out the “King of SM” did not own a 1.4 technological hyper triumph nor did he blazed down the highway at 210 mph; he was, discovered by lawyer and confirmed by California-donut enthusiasts, caught speeding at 100 mph three months ago in a 2004 Infiniti.

On that bombshell, I do have one of those (mine is a 2003, but what’s the difference, the haven’t even change to the aluminum trim for the 2004, yet); and, of course, I tweet. Thus if I drive fast enough, maybe this whole economic crisis will be all over; or simply, I can get to dinner with my lady friend just as stylish as Mr. 23-year-old millionaire-wanna-be.

:: the architectural-engineering twilight ::

In today’s civilized society, we, as a collective body of diverse interests, had figured out that the four seasons which the global climate had provided for our comfort (or discomfort) were too plain and boring. Therefore, we figured out ways to define our own spectacle of time as entertainment; there was season that we prefer to go shoot those cute little squeals in our front yard; there were seasons for sport enthusiasts to challenge each other; there was time when children must obey rules and sit quietly in confine environment; there were even seasons when the color of fabric deemed inappropriate to cover our naked bodies.

For personal interest sake I learn to adapt my own seasonal patterns very much like animals that evolve overtime to survive in the ever-changing, now globally warmed, environment; thus, without any doubt, summer is always the ultimate car season.

That doesn’t mean I don’t like car during the rest of the year, (oh no, far from that) but the leisure of having cool breeze tunneling into the driver’s cockpit under blazing hot sun somehow make me increasingly more passionate about what I love.
I have more time on hands, too (hint I have time to write this blog); and these precious moments of freedom translated into hours of Top Gear watching and petrol-head chitchats.

I was so intoxicated on this passion of mine I even made videos last summer (which you can find from my previous post).

Sometime, it troubles me how much I love the automobile industry that I would question myself if architecture is in fact the holy grail as my career path, especially when the construction industry is nothing by a spectacle of unemployment. Since my both of my all-time hero were both non-architects (Anthony Bourdain, being a cool middle-age chef and travel show host for “No Reservation”; while the other as an automobile expert and a TV commentator overwhelmed with ridiculous thoughts – Jeremy Clarkson), my architecture friends might find this particularly disturbing (since the architectural cult usually consisted of pure building believer and build shrine at home worshiping his/her favorite architect).

Until one day, in this summer, I chatted with a friend of mine who happened to be a petrol-head AND an engineer. In a general setting, we, as in my major of study, all know the relationship between engineers and architects are like oil and water; both hate each other but yet need the coexist with the opposing party.

However, in the case of my friend Roger Carter, he appreciates quality design as much as value engineering. Here, we are talking about a guy who know how much horsepower he can extract out of an engineer by reporting its port for 0.01 millimeter and the pitch change through an exhaust system while adding quarter of an inch to the pipe, yet he understand the different between a line drawn by a man with a pencil and one generate by silicon chips.

It is under these extraordinary circumstances when masterpiece is born, shocking the world (exceeded beyond design, architecture, and engineering) by surprise – Antonio Calatrava is certainly the perfect example for such occasion, caught within the delta area of spectacular aesthetic, monumental architectural gesture and mind-blowing engineering.

Now, wait a minute, with that being said, did I just reassured the security of my interest? If a grease monkey understood, and appreciated, the different between minimalistic-cold-architectural concrete and rotting-Victorian-Colonial state of mind, I could comfortably admit my disappointment toward the American automobile industry in the 90’s then admired the Mercedes 300SL as the most astonishing car men had ever created on the drafting board.

But until I can master the craft of impossible imagination, I will take advantage with this petrol-head season of mine; as I driving my coupe with the windows down and a pair of sepia sunglass on, I shall listen to Joyce Cooling, pretending I am living under the California driving culture, where the four seasons are monochromatic, people are as gorgeous as Italian sports cars, and the architectures are doubtlessly brilliant.

lost tracks

Have you ever dig into your shoeboxes, rediscovering your old cassette tapes, pulling out records from their dust covers. listening to music that you used to love, but had been forgotten all these years?
I don’t havethe experience on neither of these two scenarios (since I am a new vinyl collector and my oldest media to date are CDs); however, I do own three iPods and one iPhone. In this evening much need for music to pump up my productivity energy, I decided to plug up my Altec Lansing iM7 speakers, mount my 3G (that’s third generation) 15GB iPhod which I purchased 6 years ago and let one of my play list unfold as I click my evening through autoCAD
I had not update this particular iPod for 4 years, thus all the music onboard were basically my soundtrack from my 1st year in architecture school. It was simply sublime and amazing on how many amazing songs had forgotten within my new iPhone and iPod inventory. And the effortless simplicity of the iM7 iPod station (which had also been forgotten for about 2 years) allow me to listen to these delicious old tracks without the complexity of playing with remote on my amplifier, no sampling mode, no equalizer simulation, just plug and play. Of course, fundamentally, the iM7 did not sound bad at all.
Sometime, I just cannot cease to amaze myself with the power and joy of listening to music that was forgotten, and the memories that they bring back to me.

:: aeroDrive new Infiniti G35-VQ35HR ::

It has been a very long time since my last post... well, it is simply because my video making schedule usually derail as expected when school kicks in. So, in this winter break, I could get back into the video marking mode and shoot quite a bit, so, here is the first (more is uploading to youTube as we speak...) so, sit back, and enjoy!