My next board

Two weeks ago tomorrow I attended the retirement of two of my professors at the UMD School of Architecture. It was a great event, filled with an entire cross section of the different eras of students that these two excellent human beings got to teach, over the past 30 years, and I owe much of my personal success to their prowess. I made sure I told them that, in the moments that I was able to steal to speak with them personally, as they were in great demand by the multitudes of former students who no doubt had similar sentiments.

The characteristic that always struck me about these men, in addition to their being extremely honest and blunt, was the security they had in their own personas. There were no airs, no sociopathic tendencies of self-centered egomania, no insecurities as to how they were perceived by others. They were true to themselves, and urged all of us to do the same.

It was a series of speakers in the late afternoon and a dinner in the main studio, with drinks at the traditional studio bar beforehand. The cool aspect of the studio space at UMD is that it is a double height space in the center, with two levels of studio and classroom space at the perimeter. The corridor serving the classrooms served as exhibit space for work presented as well as a viewing space into the studios below, a dynamic space to be sure. Legend has it that when the school was designed the double height space, which is not efficient use of campus building resources, was to be a "lab" for full height wall sections and the building of construction detail mock-ups. Other than the full size bar for Friday post studio happy hours and the annual monstrosity of construction of "sets" for the thematic Beaux Arts Ball, it really was a large gathering space for the community that we were in.

As it turned out, the pieces of various communities were there two weeks ago to celebrate the careers of these two remarkable men, and the school had urged us to show them what we had done in our careers. We were asked to feature some of our work in a format that they asked us to use, for continuity of display, and the night before the party I created my 24" x 24" board of some of the work I've done in the past 16 years of practicing architecture. Doesn't do justice to try to compress that amount of work in a small board, but it was a cool exercise and got me to think about what my next board will look like in 15 years. The exercise itself was a great way to turn a page and reset my attitude a bit. Thanks Ralph and Karl for everything.

Speaking of resetting, I almost reset my hand through a wall tonight, after spending 4 hours fixing our washing machine. We made the mistake of sticking a $10 Ikea rug in the wash this week, not knowing that when the rubber backing of such Swedish tapestry encounters water it transmogrifies into approximately 2,100,456 rubber particles of the exact size to wreak havoc on the filtration and pumping systems of front load washing machines. I know this now because after spending a buck fifty on an appliance repair dude today we were presented with the same sopping mess of the remaining particulation that he was not able to extract on his site visit. He warned us that this may happen. So I call him on a Friday evening, and he walked me through the repair, not knowing for sure if I would just throw my hands up in the air and call him back to finish the repair himself.

It was really a case of disconnecting some hoses, cleaning out debris, and reconnecting. It was the reconnecting that almost did me in. Spring clamps are quite simple, unless you're trying to connect hoses/piping that require one to be triple jointed and sporting an extra hand. After much gnashing of teeth and expletives, I did what any mature male would do.

I laid on the floor and wept. Not really, but I was frustrated. I did lay on the floor, though.

It finally all came together and laundry is now humming. Fixing laundry machines won't be on my next board, but at least I finished something this week.