Maybe it is the normal “I am going to be a dad” thing, and maybe it has to do with the way my hand feels unrecognizable squirming body parts under my wife’s growing tummy, but big thoughts have been filling my head.  I am very greatful that these thoughts are not the anxious thoughts that new fathers often have.  The ones about money, or how life is going to be permanently altered, or what my amazing relationship to my wife is going to be like.  These thoughts have been dealt with.   Yes, we are not going to have any money, and yes our life will not involve as much live jazz or weekend trips, and yes our relationship will be strong but different.  These things we bought into the moment we decided to try to bring a child into our lives.  No, these thoughts I am talking about are bigger.

And when I say big I mean BIG.  Somewhere on the order of what is the nature of humans, and what the future or our existence is going to look like.  Somehow I cannot help but think about these things in the strangest of moments.   Take the conversation with my wife the other day about what we are going to do about health insurance.  You know, should we overpay and stay on my insurance, or overpay and stay on her insurance?  We are hashing out some of the unknowns and this concept floods my head and it makes it very hard to have a real conversation with any real meaning.  This thought of how interesting it is that we as humans are really good at making thought models in our head of how things seem to be.  We do this even though the reality of the situation does not look like that.   At some point the reality of the situation shows itself and we have this moment of panic because the picture we have in our brains is suddenly warped and grotesque.   It’s a bit like when someone does that morphing thing in the movies.   The original looks like something recognizable (beautiful woman), and the end result looks different but recognizable (snarling homicidal beast), but the form of the thing in its morphing stages fall into the what-the-hell zone and our brains go a bit wacky.   I am sure everyone’s brain reacts to this sort of thing differently but mine get initially angry, and then sad, until the truth is made clear and then I am reticent.

Example number two is a thought that was posed to me while listening to a TED talk about memes and how ideas and thoughts act on the principles of evolution.  Not only that but it was posed by the speaker that physical objects do the same thing.   My best original example of this is the number keypad.  The form of the number keypad is not patented, and it is not copy-written intellectual property.  It would be great for the person who first thought of it.  If it was patented, that person would be wealthy beyond belief because you almost never have a device the uses a number keypad in any other form than the one we all can picture right now.   How did it end up like that?  Evolution.  Just as ducks evolved to have webbed feet to best be used in water, the number key pad took many forms producing many branches on the evolutionary tree.  It is becoming clear that the 3×3 square format is the STRONGEST, and most FIT format and thus has survived in the world and continues to “reproduce itself” billions of times over.   Just like in biological entities there are still mutations of this form.   Look at your phone, the 1 is at the upper left.  Now look at your keyboard, the 1 is in the lower left.  Moreover, just think about how many different places the 0 ends up.  On most phones it is centered at the bottom of the 3×3, just under the 8.  On the keyboard I am typing on it is two buttons wide and occupies the space under the 1 and 2.   Sometimes it finds a better spot for the task at hand, but all-in-all the format is standard.  I am amazed that the Apple iPhone, which has no physical buttons at all, and could have chosen to do any kind of number pad.  Heck, they could have made it like a rotary phone (which someone has of course), but there it is, the little comfortable box.  Fascinating no?  Well maybe not, but yet this is what take up my processing time these days.

The last example might actually be more useful on a day to day basis.  It first emerged when having what one might call a passionate discussion with my brother-in-law about the government’s efforts towards new heath-care policies.   The conversation was not from polar opposite sides of the political spectrum, it was being had by two people who hold exactly the same political views.   The disagreement was simply about what can be expected when big changes in big systems are desired.   He was very upset because he saw our President compromising on things that he had told us that he was going to accomplish.   He felt let down and disappointed.  He felt that he put his trust and hopes that this person could make big change quickly.  My take on it is, no matter who you are or what your skills are, big change never happens quickly.  It cannot.   It will fail. Like Charles Babbage and his difference engine.  Like so many other things that change paradigms.  Humans do not seem to be able to ever leap across rivers.   We need stepping stones.  Sometimes they are close together, some times they are far apart.

Steve Jobs got to experience this phenomena. In the late 80’s Steve wanted to change the world.  He thought the technology was there to take the very popular Mackintosh and shrink it down to a hand held size.  A hand held computer.  This was unbelievable at a time when the smallest available personal computers where the size of a carry-on piece of luggage but he did it, and he gave us the Apple Newton. Have you heard of the Apple Newton?   Most people have not for a reason.  It did not catch on.  He wanted badly to realize his vision and continued to develop the idea as time passed and technology improved. Finally he decided to try again but this time he needed to make sure that he pulled that next stone closer.   He did that by putting something called an iPod in just about everyone’s hands.   Now people had a tactile feel for what a little computer felt like.  Of course we did not see it that way, it was just music player, right? Everyone was comfortable with that idea, a music player, which had 80 gigabytes of memory and had processors I am guessing were about a thousand times more powerful than the Newton.   Furthermore, Steve took that stone, and instead of making it a leap, he brought it so close you could just saunter onto it.   He recognized that everyone carried around a phone and started to wish it could do more.  Why not make his computer have a phone feature and make his computer have an interface that allowed it to be used as such.  It seems he didn’t want any streaching to be required by us at all.  So, he called it what it is not, but called it what we would understand, a cell phone.  45 million purchases later most people have recognized how large a distance we were brought while thinking we were just taking on tiny step.

So, I say to my brother in law, I know you want big change, but we cannot handle such things.  We must step stone by stone to the other bank and what our leaders are doing, probably subconsciously, is to bring that next stone within leaping distance or closer.  It’s still not where we want to be but it allows us to take the next step.  My brain continues to ponder this.  It continues to serve up question after question.

I am guessing that in the last few moments before I about to meet my son I am trying to get things straightened out.  Maybe I am trying to make sure delusion is removed from the moment, that the importance and inevitability of evolution is presant in my life, and that this thing I am about to experience is not the kind of leap that everyone continues to warn me about.   The fact is that I am in mid- step having left sure footing and am trusting that next stone is stable and sure.

If not this, than what?

photo by cca

photo by cca

Photo by Sean Gaw

It has been a long time and this is probably the way it is going to go for me with this blog.  Right now I am working my guts out trying to get the RIT project in a state of completion.  If you want an idea of what has been going down, first read about the RIT project, and then read about Charrette.  This is not the point of me writing though.  I want to tell one of those stories that make me feel connected and part of a larger, civil community.

I ride my bike to work most days just as I did on May 18th.  I was starting to feel a bit under the weather but did the ride anyway.  Turns out that the combination of 14 hour work days and sickness is not a good one, and I got full blown sick that day.  It took a long time for me to feel physically better and awake enough to ride my bike back home.

A bit about the bike.  My bike is not much to look at but I do love it.  It was lovingly called a “frankenbike” because of its put-together nature.  It’s a mutt, but a fierce, fast mutt.  All I can say is that I bought a bike that fits me and I have begun to really love it even though it feels bad being parked next to the BMWs, and Mercedes of the bike world here at Cambridge Center.

At my workplace we have a bike locker in the garage and I felt that my bike was perfectly safe being left there for the better part of two weeks.   But … there was always a fear in the back of my mind that someone would complain about the fact that my bike had not moved in a while.  So, last night when I was walking to the garage to retrieve my bike and ride home I started getting a bit nervous.  You know, the nervous you feel when you walk down lane 87 at Target parking lot instead of lane 86 and you can’t find your car?  You know the feeling that “it finally happened and I am a victim of grand theft auto without Lojak”.  So … the butterflies start.

I turn the corner and spot my bike.  Whew, and then as I entered the locker there is a yellow slip of paper tucked into the handlebars.  Oh no! (said like Mike Birbiglia)

The two thoughts I have are that the building maintenance people have tagged my bike for removal and I am going to have to go to them and explain the situation.  I realized that the paper was not official looking so my mind then thought, well, a fellow biker is getting all agro on me about taking up a space.  I take the note, open it and find this …

Nia's Note

This was such a wonderful find.  I love when this stuff happens.  I really feel connected to my network of community.  Just so you know, I am that guy that bought the bike, and I do admit that I am a friend of Bruce Cormack’s (grin).

Nia, if you are surfing the web and happen to find this post, thank you so much for making my day, my week, and possibly my month.  I dream of a day when our lives are filled with little yellow scraps of wonder, just like this one.

So, that is my story.  I hope to be off my deadline soon and look forward to sharing more with you. Take care all.

Shim Grid (photo by cca)

Rigorous process often emerges as pure visual delight.  This work of art was neither designed nor intended yet the results speak volumes.  Add the dimension of willfulness and now you are really getting somewhere.  Enjoy.

Things imerge when you look.  Things like this.  Words to come, but for now, pictures

Blue Bolt (photo by cca)

Light-Snow (photo by cca)

Although 2009 has begun vastly better than 2008, it still has not afforded me any time to write.  I have a couple of interesting posts on deck.  Lets hope that the baseball metaphor is not an omen of when I will get to posting some thoughts.  For now, I hope you enjoy my favorite image of this winter, thus far.

The tradition continues.  Kristina came by and we went out and picked up our tree, set it up, and put our decorations on it.   We then had a lovely dinner and spent the night listening to “Clara’s Dream“.  Of course we could not have picked a better day.   It also snowed for the first time of the year, and we got our first Christmas card.  I hope your holidays start out as lovely as ours has.

It's raining christmas (cca)

Wine and Tree (cca)

Oh, such a good question.  One I have been asking myself for a couple of weeks now.  I guess I knew this would happen.  I knew that the Blog would suffer moments of drought.  This is due mostly to my nature of being a singular focus kind of fellow. 

The easy answer of course would be to say that I have been working hard but that only tells about half the story.  The other half  should probably remain unwritten, not because it is too private or personal, but that it would seem trivial and complaint ridden if I went into “where have I been”.  

The best I can do is to show you what I have been working on lately.  I have eluded to a design project I have been working on lately, and in the last 5 weeks the project has really come to life and gotten a personality of its own.  Funny how that happens.  When I am the designer of a project I tend to feel more caretakerly than I do godly.  What I mean by that is that some designers can mold and shape reality into incredibly willful images and forms.  I am thinking of people like Thom Mayne, Rem Koolhaas, (thanks Bjorni, for the spellcheck) and maybe even Renzo Piano to a lesser degree (lesser degree because I get a sense that Renzo’s work is less about personal will but a love of craft).  These people seem to have complete and total control of the design and will it into existence with whatever their super power is.  

I, however, am a nanny.  I am a shepard, coach, a hand holder.  I like to say that my process of design is much like someone doing Judo.  I assess the momentum that the design project builds and I use that momentum to nudge, and coax and massage a larger idea into clear existence.  That momentum might be existing context, client temperament, budget constraints, office personality, and a myriad of different outside cues.   I do not have that “thing” that those other have.  Maybe it’s talent, no, scratch that, it IS that I don’t have THAT kind of talent, but it is also that I do not choose to impose anything I have to say on the world.  

This is all in opposition to the greatest design lesson I have learned to date.  I was working with a very good principle in charge of design, Miltos Catamaris, at Ellenzweig Associates and he pounded home this concept.  He said, “As an architect you must impose your will on the building, or else it will design itself, and at that point you have lost control and ceased being a designer.”  If this does not sound important to you, read it again until it does, because it is.  This changed my life and I feel that I still act on this concept every day, but, what about the Judo?  Where does that come in?

I like playing with the puzzle pieces put in front of me and making something wonderful and connected, and contextual out of the pieces.  Thus design jobs like RIT happen.  I am pleased with the direction but the designer in me, two months ago, would have looked at how the job looks today and probably said, “whoever designed this wasn’t trying hard enough”.  Uhg, that makes me ill to even write but could it be the truth?  Could it be that I am simply not willful enough?  Am I letting all the other things take over and guide me instead of me guiding it?

The bigger question I must ask myself is this.  Is their a line between being contextual, and connective, and designing in an interwoven way, and compromising ones design integrity?

What do you all think out there?  I know I am just touching on these subjects lightly but I am interested in your opinion (context) so that I can reach the truth (design) in my own head.  Please use the comment function below.

So much has been going on these days and so little time to attend to writing.  Since writing is a hobby, it unfortunately takes a bit of a back seat to many things  These days Suzanne and I have been working a ton, dealing with our back porches in the state of near collapse, and you know, all the myriad of things that happens during normal life, times ten.  I have a number of things I want to commit to the blog on deck including the continuation of some short stories, a bit on architecture, a bit about the election, and maybe some images of what I have been working too hard on lately.  Stick with me folks, I want to keep this up so don’t lose faith in my yet.

Take care fo yourselves.