Birthday Weekend

What a weekend! Friday night, Jen and a bunch of our friends from architecture went out to a college pizza joint, like Greasy Tony's, and then went on First Fridays in downtown Phoenix. Every first friday of the month, the galleries in downtown phoenix all open. There's a few particular areas along Roosevelt where there's a local art community. The galleries here range from very professional galleries to tiny homes people have converted the first floor of into their personal galleries. There's lots of live bands, a fair amount of drinking, and huge crowds. All types of people come out: matrons with baby buggies, I ran into a guy from Habitat down there, and tons of design students, artists, and artist/designer wannabes. This time, we spotted Dan Hoffman, one of the tenured professors taking in the artwork. One of the places, Monorchid, is an amazingly cool designers collective in a spectacular building of glass, concrete, and steel inside an old warehouse. It contains a huge gallery space, a private gallery/function space, library, and offices.

Saturday night I went to a party with some friends and afterwards, when I passed midnight, I made a mojito back at thier house. Everyone I talked to at the party couldn't beleive I wasn't going to do 21 shots of hard liquour or do the "Power Hour" where one goes and drinks for a solid hour at a bar. Such is the school I attend.

Sunday, I went over to Jen's and she made me french toast for breakfast. Then we went to see March of the Penguins. While I liked it, it wasn't exactly a billion dollar blockbuster. Afterwards, I bought a new pair of shoes to replace my sketchers, and a found a really good deal on some Bass leather sandals 60% off. That evening Jen took me out to AZ/88 a trendy American restaurant in Scottsdale.

Labor day, I spent working on my studio project, finally finishing the corrugated wall pour around nine pm. Today is long Tuesday. The human factors class is putting me to sleep, although the Finding Purpose class was theraputic as usual. It helps that the teacher is an acutal therapist. I'm looking more and more at architecture firms nearby. My top three local picks would be Will Bruder, Rick Joy, and Antoine Predock. It's really good working in the library because it exposes me to so much. We get new books in all the time, and I always take time to skim the books I'm shelving.

Speaking of which, I got my paycheck today which made me feel good. I can't beleive I'm being paid for this, especially after Ross and the bookstore. Granted, its not much, just $6 an hour, but for the actual time spent doing library "work" I think I'm actually making $18 an hour since I only do "work" about a third of the time.