This is a rendering of a competition entry the office recently won in Italy for a Fashion and Design Events Building in Milan. It looks kind of like a shark will gills to me : ) most of the shape and form comes from environmental drivers.
Some friends that I meet with for church on Sunday invited my room mates and I out to dinner at their house in
We had a great time hanging out and chatting. Mrs. Chao made the most amazing dinner and dessert!! A huge spectrum of Chinese dishes from salmon to noodles and pork.
It was a nice reprieve from the hot busy city to hang out in their comfortable house and get to know some other friends that I usually don't hang out with much.
I took a lot of pictures of us on the subway too, not sure why I like subway pictures so much, maybe it's because they always end up with interesting looking ppl in the background or things in motion.
I read this today on a blog link from the democratic party web site and found it quite interesting...
I’d like to say that there’s a real dialogue taking place about the state of the U.S. economy, but the discussion leaves a lot to be desired. In general, the conversation sounds like this:
Bush supporter: “Why doesn’t President Bush get credit for a great economy? I blame liberal media bias.”
Informed economist: “But it’s not a great economy for most Americans. Many families are actually losing ground, and only a very few affluent people are doing really well.”
Bush supporter: “Why doesn’t President Bush get credit for a great economy? I blame liberal media bias.”
To a large extent, this dialogue of the deaf reflects Upton Sinclair’s principle: it’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. But there’s also an element of genuine incredulity. Many observers, even if they acknowledge the growing concentration of income in the hands of the few, find it hard to believe that this concentration could be proceeding so rapidly as to deny most Americans any gains from economic growth.
Yet newly available data show that that’s exactly what happened in 2004.
(snip)
...the real income of the richest 1 percent of Americans surged by almost 12.5 percent. Meanwhile, the average real income of the bottom 99 percent of the population rose only 1.5 percent. In other words, a relative handful of people received most of the benefits of growth.
(snip)
In short, it’s a great economy if you’re a high-level corporate executive or someone who owns a lot of stock. For most other Americans, economic growth is a spectator sport.
Can anything be done to spread the benefits of a growing economy more widely? Of course. A good start would be to increase the minimum wage, which in real terms is at its lowest level in half a century.
But don’t expect this administration or this Congress to do anything to limit the growing concentration of income. Sometimes I even feel sorry for these people and their apologists, who are prevented from acknowledging that inequality is a problem by both their political philosophy and their dependence on financial support from the wealthy. That leaves them no choice but to keep insisting that ordinary Americans — who have, in fact, been bypassed by economic growth — just don’t understand how well they’re doing.
It was great to spend this past 4th of July in New York City. I went down to the South Street Seaport with my friends and room mates to see the fire works on the East River. There were a lot of people, but not too many. We took our dinner down there and hung out for a few hours enjoying the wonderful weather. Just as a side note, so far I think NYC has wonderful summers!!! no matter what anyone here says :) At least compared to Houston. Today the high is 80 and right now it is 62!!!!!! and it's July. If that is not a nice summer I don't know what is.
well things are pretty intense here in the office, but despite the stress fellow FSTC (Fulton Street Transit Center) team members are in good spirits :) this is a pic of the "the chimeister" as i have nick named her, just outside the office.
i gave her this name because she is a superb model maker and taught me a ton about making models! we worked about a month on this huge model of the Transit Center Dome.
work work working........found this comic on the web while reading some architecture article and for some reason it reminds me of how i feel right now : - ) like i have a big building on my back
So here is the latest on my work project!!! Yea for me, this means I have lots and lots of work!!!
NEW YORK REGION | June 27, 2006
Fulton Street Transit Center Plan Stands
By THOMAS J. LUECK
Despite running $45 million over its $799 million budget, the plan for a Fulton Street transit center linking a dozen Lower Manhattan subway lines will not be scaled back, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said yesterday. Work on the project, which requires the relocation of commercial tenants on the east side of Broadway between Fulton and John Streets, is to begin in September, with completion planned for June 2009, the authority said, adding that it had asked the Federal Transit Administration, which has dedicated $4.5 billion to rebuilding Lower Manhattan, to fill the gap.
While on our little field trip (see previous post) we went into this old army building. I am not sure what it's current use is or was, but it has sort of abandoned train stop inside. It's an amazing old concrete building with a great court open air courtyard in the middle.
Last week we went on a little office field trip to
I don't know which part was more fun seeing the prototypes or riding the water taxi across the east river. It was a beautiful day and it was nice to be out of work early on the river.
Pretty soon there will be more than 3,000 bus stops all over the city designed by Grimshaw in addition to some public toilets and news stands.
about two weeks ago i joined my room mates for the 4th annual big apple bar-b-q in madison park. it felt pretty funny to be eating bar-b-q from texas and other southern states in the middle of nyc, but it was a treat none the less to have ribs, cold slaw and baked beans! one restaurant serving lots of pork was giving out these big pig ears, which my room mate and i dawned for about 5 seconds to take this picture :)
First pic is in midtown, second pic is a pic from Central Park from last month and the third is a street in Tribeca very near my office.
A few weeks ago some friends from Houston were in town so I had to hit the tourist spots with them : ) My friend Caro snapped this one of us in Times SQ, and though it is a terribly unflattering profile pic of me I thought I would share since the rest of the picture is so great : ) and the other pic is of my friend caro and brett at a restaurant
my room mate has a side job of doing flowers for weddings and this Saturday I decided to join her and our neighbors (her fiancé and brother) when they went to buy flowers at the wholesale markets on 28th st.
it was quite the experience, first of all we had to begin our shopping at 5:30 am: ) to assure we got the freshest flowers available. To my surprise the place was hopping with others such as us.
The array of types and sizes of flowers was amazing including many exotic ones important from different parts of the world.
My wonderful aunt Gloria was here this weekend all the way from
I had the chance to go to an NBA playoff game Friday. Although I had only become a Nets fan about 1 day earlier it was still a blast. Sadly they lost but it did not dampen this new fans spirit!
I saw the mighty Shaq and the others "heat" up the fourth quarter to close in on us after 3 quarters of being tied...oh well. It was still great to be at a live pro game again after all these years of forsaking my favorite past time.