hot hot hot laundry!

Busy day today. There's so little time left in the semester, its near academic suicide to not be busy. 

For my community development class, I'm proposing redesigning the interior of an empty building for basically a community fitness center for a low-income community. This is the class where my team has social workers, a 2L law school student, and an urban planner. The 2L law student, by coincidence, works part time for a local construction company. (How she is able to go to law school and work 20 hours a week, I don't know). Anyway, she was able to set up a meeting with one of her coworkers who has 18 years of experience in building cost estimates. Because this project is real in that we're going to deliver our recommendations to a real client who intends to carry it out, it is useful to know how much my interventions would cost, and where we can get the most 'bang for our buck'.

I took the metrolink down and walked the mile to the offices in the Locust neighborhood of downtown. Mostly industrial, lots of abandoned warehouses. Really beautiful with grass filled empty lots and tons of the beautiful St.Louis brick. It's almost to the downtown, but not that intense yet. There's something amazing about St.Louis, something evocative and ethereal that makes me wonder why St.Louis doesn't have a larger artist's community, or at least is known for its artists communities. Needless to say, I enjoyed my walk.

Lunch was nice, my classmate treated us to burgers at Dooley's. Good burgers, reasonably priced. About the right size, too, not an absolute mountain of bread and meat. Over fries, we talked out the building, the areas of concern, potential places to save money, things I'd missed from code, constructability issues. Really helpful. As I'd drawn it, it would be about $150 to $200 a square foot. With serious changes to my proposed roof design, it could come down to about $90. Very useful information to have. 

Tonight's happy hour was extra happy with a dual celebration: the release of Approach and the celebration of the schools #4 rankings for graduate architecture. Approach is a concise catalog of student work from the past year. In every studio of approximately 12 to 15 students, perhaps four or five will get their work included.  I got a page to myself, showing three images I put together for my 419 housing project. The project, and the images, were really not that great compared to the really incredible work in the rest of the school. I shouldn't complain actually, it's a credit to just be included.

Bruce gave a very short speech from the top of the steps and basically said he was confident that when we go into the workplaces upon graduation we will reflect strongly towards the school. The sparkling wine they served wasn't quite Korbel, but would not be many found many shelves above it. 

I've actually had a pretty good friday night. I decided to avoid the alone-in-studio-friday-night depression and went grocery shopping at Trader Joes, and then, because I'm just that wild-and-crazy kind of a guy, I went to Target and bought a new hat. Yes, I have a lot of hats. But this one looked really good with my Colors of Benetton wool coat which I wear all the time in the winter. And it was pretty cheap. 

Home, fed suki, then cranked the tunes to get in the mood, and GOT IT STARTED. That's right, readers, sometimes, I get a little dirty. And when I'm feeling dirty, its time to do laundry. Whites. Colors. Lights AND Darks. I wash both ways. My clothes were flying all over the place, water was flying all over the place, and my world was rocked by this machine that spins me around, around. 

Made pasta for dinner from the supplies I picked up at the grocery store. I'll probably wash some dishes, take a shower, and hit the sack early tonight to get an early start tomorrow.