Black Friday ride

There were only 16 people on our ride this morning, a manageable number that enables some good social interaction early, and given our collective post-gluttonous condition, we all agreed on an easy pace. The absence of ego-induced muscle flexing made for a relaxing ride, and the paceline was the smoothest it has been in many months. Then again, I haven't been on this ride much this year, so what do I know? Suffice it to say that the smaller number (there are usually 5x as many riders on this popular ride, and it usually happens on Sundays) enabled a smooth rotation all the way down MacArthur to the top of Old Angler's.

The classic 2 column rotating paceline is a simple process, though one that is often disjointed and sometimes dangerous, especially with large numbers on board. Broken down into more discrete groups, we can benefit from the efficiencies of this practice, and miles tick along with less effort. This is not new, and much is written and conveyed about how to ride a paceline properly, but the competitive nature of group rides often transforms these models of windbreaking into mini battles for position, which benefits no one. Today, however, was different. Nice job, boys and girls.

Thanks Abe.

Back in 1875, this building was erected on F Street in northwest DC. The LeDroit Building was a prominent office address, well known for its high ceilings, large windows, and stately presence.

Based on this picture, this area of downtown DC was relatively vibrant, in the '60's and '70's, based on the styles in this photo. Soon after it became seedy, and hanging around that area anytime after 6PM was not a good idea.

In the mid '90's, when I was humping any sidejob I could to earn some extra cash, I did some sidework for an old school crazy architect who had space in the LeDroit Building. The short walk from the Gallery Place Metro station to his studio was always risky, especially at 10 or 11 PM when I would head home. The space was as vintage as his methodology--he didn't own a computer, he drew everything pencil on vellum, beautiful stuff. The craft of drawing was as important as the instructions his drawings provided, and I learned a ton in the short time I worked with him. I am certain that his cranky style bred his isolation and he paid me as much for helping him produce about 3% of his drawings as for just listening to his rants. My favorite quote from him originated from a call he received from an ex-colleague, who wanted to hire him for a short but complex contract job up in Pittsburgh. "But what about all of your hotshot young kids who could do the job on CAD?" he asked. The response: "Do it on CAD? There's not enough TIME to do this job on the computer." I will digress for a moment, as I was discussing with my staff at work today that the craft of drawing, conveying, and understanding the graphic narrative of making an instruction set for buildings is buried under layers of technical noise brought on by CAD, an incredible tool that, when used poorly, reduces the act of visual communication to relentless data input and management.

Back to the LeDroit building. It was renovated in the late '90's, and it is now the Spy Museum. While it's still a good idea to be wary of one's surroundings, the threat of imminent physical harm in these parts has certainly lessened in the past decade. It would not have enjoyed its current renaissance had it not been for the vision of a man who dumped millions of dollars of his own money into not one but two arenas in the DC area, the Capital Centre and the Verizon Center. Chinatown and its environs are a much better place for the city now thanks to the generosity of Abe Pollin, who was also instrumental in bringing the NBA and the NHL to DC. Much will be written about his passing in the local papers tomorrow morning, and I just wanted to remember him briefly for his largesse, as he did much to make the city a better place. Rest in peace, Mr. Pollin.

Following directions

To simplify it to its most basic components, I get paid to make instructions. Not unlike the graphic notations that come in the flat boxes of IKEA furniture or the organizational components that we buy at Target, I produce documents that enable people to make spaces in which to live and work (or both).

Sometimes these instructions are so nebulous, vague, or lacking in the proper narrative that the process of putting together a "kit of parts" becomes a joyless chore. Why didn't they do this or it would be easier if or buttheads don't know what they're doing are the tamer things that we utter and grumble as the process of assembling lurches forth.

On several levels of increased magnitude, the plans and specs for a building are complex instructions that require vigilant coordination of disparate elements. If we do our job properly, the owner and contractor are only calling us useless hacks some of the time. When things go south, it's no fun, like so many of life's conflicts. Mix in varying levels of people involved in development, construction, design, management, authorities having jurisdiction, and the end users, and we have a veritable chaotic stew. It's actually pretty miraculous that buildings get built, they tend to be safe, and they can be pleasing.

Aside from creating these instructions, we're always solving problems, like little puzzles, in this quest to provide solutions. The current crisis at the office on one of my projects is a disturbing lack of water pressure on a condo project, which is more complex than it sounds. But like so many things we deal with, the complexity is due to the layers of noise added to the process by those who don't always follow instructions too well. It may well be that parts of the instructions are deficient. Whatever. The important thing is that the problem be solved, which ultimately may come down to turning a few valves or clearing out a few obstructions...

More to come when this thing is resolved, because I sense that the energy spent trying to get to a solution will far outweigh the energy not spent in ensuring that it wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Nick vs Nik

Just learned how to embed videos in a blog.

Whoop-dee-doo.

Gotta be careful, as posting too many vids can be as interesting as talking in great detail about dreams, or discussing fantasy football, or describing how epic D & D character roll-ups are, or showing baby pictures, or or or.

I'll stop here.

Off to the Caps v. Wild game. It's not often that you see two Nic(k)las Backstroms play each other, so you take those opportunities when they come.

vs

Me and the Mayor

OK so we've seen that Sr. Fenty, the mayor of the good city of Washington, is in the news for various P.R. gaffes. In his zeal to "get things done" and "live a normal life" he has succeeded in ruffling feathers thusly:

1. He shunted some public monies slated to develop parks and playgrounds throughout the city via the DC Housing Authority to contractors with whom he had some long term personal relationships. This end run allowed him to avoid the pesky oversight (aka "approval") by the DC Council, resulting in more anger amongst the politicos, as they were still miffed about his odd refusal to share Nationals and Bullets tickets. Why anyone would be angry about not getting to see mediocre sports products...oh never mind. Notice how they like to call his friends "frat brothers"? Ya know, a coupla words and suddenly there's cronyism.

2. Training on his bike with his mates from DC Velo and other local clubs in the middle of the day has raised the eyebrows of the humorless press, who ominously intone about running red lights, slowing down mid-day traffic, utilizing valuable police resources, and taking long lunches on the saddle. This is fodder for local newscasts and LooseLips in the City Paper, so we're in for a juicy few weeks of mayor and cyclist bashing. Yay. My only request for these "journalists" is to GET THEIR FACTS STRAIGHT about cycling, the law, and minding one's own business before they prattle on about how weirdos in spandex are interfering with their right to "use the roads that we pay for with taxpayer dollars".

So here's where it gets interesting, because 3 weeks ago I may have tipped the first domino in the whole sordid "mayor who rides a bike at lunchtime and funnels work to his friends" controversy, also popularly known as "MWRBLFWTHF gate". It's a mouthful, I know, but we'll get used to it, as the local press will surely use this moniker freely as they get to the bottom of things. Rolls right off the tongue. So here goes.

At the end of the process of converting a sow's ear into a silk purse, as they say, I often attend ribbon cutting ceremonies for rehab projects that our firm completes. I've mentioned before that the gratifying aspect of my work is seeing how we can literally change lives by improving the living conditions of the working poor (and working not-so-poor, and non-working poor, etc). The culmination of design and construction efforts is a show often attended by the mayor or whatever muckety muck happens to be running the jurisdiction of our projects.

Three weeks ago, in the Fairlawn neighborhood of southeast DC, we waited for the mayor to show up at the ceremony. The usual bunting and balloons festooned the newly landscaped front lawn of the building, a tent with food, drink, and TV cameras waiting, and small throngs of people rounded out the scene. About an hour after the scheduled time, the mayor pulls up in his SmartCar and wades into the "crowd", shaking hands and looking past each person, looking to the next gladhand. As he looked my way and shook my hand, I greeted him with a reminder that we had met at a groundbreaking ceremony this past April at yet another project. My hook at that time was a remark "Hey I ride with some of your friends". He stopped, looked at me, and we engaged in some conversation about the riding scene and some of our mutual acquaintances.

This time there was a flicker of recognition, as the bike was our common bond. So I pressed him further and asked him to bring the family out to DCCX that upcoming weekend. he politely declined, citing a busy schedule, and that he prefers riding on the road, etc. Maybe next year. Great talking to you, time to move on. So he stepped up to the podium, gave his remarks, toured a unit, and began to make his exit.

(Unfortunately for the mayor, this is what he missed)

On his way out, he needed to make the obligatory stop in front of the cameras, so as he (seemingly reluctantly) made his way to the news crews, he passed by me again. But he stopped, shook my hand again, and engaged in some more bike banter, asking my name, and talking cyclocross. As we chatted, I felt this odd sensation of quiet descending around us. Couldn't put my finger on it, but it was odd. We finished our short chat again, and he began talking to the talking heads. I left the site and headed back to work.

So later that evening I saw that his site visit was the lead story on Channel 5, not because the press wanted to focus on his interest in housing, but because the DC Housing Authority/Parks and Recreation scandal was brewing. Seems that while we were talking, it got quiet because, I don't know, maybe the newsies were trying to figure out who I was, and did I have anything to do with this "breaking news".

Look closely in the background and there's a renovated slum. It's much better than it used to be, really. Happier people live there for sure, and the intercoms actually work.

I give myself too much credit. What really happened is that they heard us talking about riding bikes and they decided to go jump on another "scandal". I know that this station hates the mayor, but c'mon. This piece is about as amateur as they come.

The list of suck

Last week was pretty rough at work, as the economy continues to drag us down. Gotta institute furloughs again, despite a brief respite.

"Managing expectations", a well overused term, was in force last week. It's amazing how one's attitude can be affected by the spin that is placed on the information you share with a client, coworker, contractor, or partner.

So while I was being harangued by a client before the weekend about details that were important to him (those that I had honestly not even perceived to be important), I had a mini epiphany, of sorts. I decided that when I meet with him later this week I will bring a list of things that give owners heartburn and angst (read: change orders that result in cost overruns). This is a list that I have compiled over the years that highlights my lowlights. By itself, in black and white, it is a list of suck, a compendium of abject failures that trumpet the wanton spending of other people's money because the architect didn't foresee every unforeseen circumstance. By itself, it is a vehicle for despair, as it represents glaring deficiencies in seemingly simple operations, i.e. leaving out one line in a drawing set that literally cost a client $30,000.

But that's what professional liability insurance is for.

That said, I can hold this 3 page (or thereabouts), black and white list of suck against the massive volume of work that we did get right, several thousand units of affordable housing, some of which were nasty slums, all over the metro area and into PA, WV, and NC. This 3 pager up against stacks and stacks of photos showing revitalized buildings and new construction looks pretty meager and unimportant. So I'll happily add that missing 3-way hallway light switch to the list, knowing that this inconvenience is a small price to pay for living in a clean, modern, and safe unit.

It's all about perspective. After all, that list of suck is now a checklist to make sure I don't go down that road again.

Next blog

Every once in awhile while I'm noodlin' around I'll hit the Next Blog button at the top of the page and drop into someone else's world, if only for a few seconds, just to get a taste of what's out there.

Flipping through the pages at not quite Coverflow speed on iTunes, just enough to see the general subject at hand, a photo, or the language it's written in.

Sometimes this linear meandering ends abruptly, as the Next Blog button disappears.

Other times it moves along briskly, and you realize one cannot scratch the surface of the surface of the 10,000 new weblogs that are generated DAILY. Not that you would want to.

One more thing. Not to end on a bummer note, but the mother of a friend of a friend is losing her battle with cancer this week. I don't know the friend or his mother, but I'm familiar with their story, and my friend is going to be with them on this sad weekend. So my thoughts are with them.

Connections

Since November of last year I've reconnected with a bunch of old friends via The FacceBoooooook (that's Italian for Facebook), and boy it's been fun. Really. Both K and I have been lucky to have had the experience in life of growing up in multiple places (that was the hook that got me and K talking when I first met her) since our dads both worked for the US Govt (military and Foreign Service). So besides my cousins who are all over the world now, I've got friends from 2 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, 2 high schools, college, grad school (the failed attempt), the bike shops, architecture school (the successful attempt), the career, my riding buddies, my neighborhood friends, and the friends that we have come to know by what our kids do (and where they are schooled) who are all, in some way, back in touch via FB. Pretty amazing, and the memories have been flowing.

The old fashioned (that is, e-mail) way of communicating, however, yielded an interesting exchange this last week. My packrat freshman year in college hallmates started sending out scans of pictures, missives, screeds, and other such gimcrackery to a select few of us, just to stir up the old recollections and for a few yuks. Two weeks ago, totally unrelated, one of my hallmates when I was an R.A. in college started commenting anonymously on my blog, making reference to some people and stories that made me realize it wasn't spam. The guessing game began, and it was fun for a while, but I figured that since these comments happened on the same weekend as Homecoming, there may be a connection. A quick conversation with my sister in law, who was also AT homecoming, yielded the answer, and just for fun I posted one of the pics that my friends had sent me last month.

Turns out that some guy who raced at DCCX with me (though I didn't see him, since he passed me once in the first lap and lapped me somewhere near the end, though I must have seen him twice, from behind) recognized the pic as the BROTHER OF SOMEONE HE WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH. Some quick email correspondence confirmed this, and I'm still shaking my head at the coincidental events that yielded me:

1. A reconnection with a couple of college friends that went beyond the "friending" process on FB.

2. A new acquaintance who I will now see every coupla weeks in the fall at CX races.

3. One more person who reads this blog, for a total of 3 readers!

When I was a kid I watched this BBC show called Connections. Not that this is nearly that complex, but still...