Architecture vs. the computer...

...the computer wins.

Well first of all I will apalogize for neglecting my many (1 or 2) blog frequenters for about the last 2 weeks or so. I have been absolutely swamped at work. Our 100% construction document were due monday morning at 12 noon. However, a little kink has been thrown into the equation...
...I arrived this morning in usual fasion, around 820 in the am. Knowing that I had an unusual amount of work to do before the noon hour struck I sat down and opened autocad, bypassing my usual pre-computer cup of coffee and morning discussion with the gentlemen who resides next to me on current events or the workings of his latest hobby project [usually re-building a car or something of the sort] and went right to work. This particular morning I was updating some previously finished elevations, but that is beside the point. The point is, at about 930, a solid hour into my work autocad crashes. All work gone, my fault for not saving but you know how it is when you start something and get a good flow going, saving doesn't always occur to you as it probably should. The interesting part of this short anecdote is that the whole office came to a screatching hault. You see my autocad crashed because there was a problem with our server and our drive that houses our cad and all cad files is non operational at the moment. Looking around, every person in our office is standing around and doing nothing. With the computer out of commision our Architecture stops, completely. This happening is showing just how reliant our profession has become on the computer. [or at least my office, but I feel that it would be a similar scenario at almost any other office]. Just something to think about, plus this little hiccup in our server has givin me time and a subject to blog about.

next on the agenda:

album vs. compact disc

the album wins....

I recently visited a friend of mine's house the other night. We sat out on his back deck and drank beers while listening to music. Wer were listening to the usual music format these days, the cd [actually the typical music format these days is probably more acurately .mp3, .mp4, .wma or whatever the newest file type is, but for sake of argument we will go with the cd]. We then decided to switch it up and turn to vinyl, my choice of band. I parused the collection, which is quite impressive for a young man just out of college, with bands like crosby, stills, nash, and young, steely dan, hendrix, simon and garfunkle, eric clapton, and the list goes on. My final choice was Jethro Tull Aqualung, and damn was it exquisite. the music though lacking the extreme highs and lows that the digital format brings to the table just seems to have a different life about it. The band feels as if they are in the room playing a little show just for you. Maybe it's the nestalgia that I have knowing that this particular piece of vinyl was around when all of the world events which were being so elequantly described in the music where actually taking place. Or the idea that this album may have switched hands with as many as 25, 50, 100 owners since it's creation, effecting each listener a different way. Or perhaps it just sounds better. Any way you cut it, the vinyl is my choice.