My life has been very full. In fact, it runneth over at the moment. March and April have been chock full of crises at work, several extra-curricular activities, travel, visits from friends and family, and general upheaval in my personal life. You know, same ol' same ol'. But the nice thing in all of this is that my life continues to be good and very blessed. So here is a run down of some of the significant happenings in my life of late. For your entertainment I have decided to give each event a bad B-movie title. So, let's get to the good stuff:
Attack of the Breinholts!
I've got to start this blog off with the most significant of happenings: some time back in march my wonderful sister and her family came out to visit. I'm afraid that the accommodations at Chateau Pulsipher were grossly over-advertised, however nary a complaint was uttered from any of them. They were great house guests and I never heard a complaint from any of the neighbors (a nod to both the almost unbearable restraint exercised by the Breinholt children as well as the patience of my neighbors).
It really was a blast to have them out here. I don't think i would have ever found another reason to pay a visit to the city zoo (which was pretty darn if I may say) or fully appreciated the power of a good tantrum (thank you Scout for enlightening me). I only hope that their experience was a good as mine. Seeing how I haven't yet received any requests for visits from any other siblings, I'm guessing that word has unfortunately gotten out. Well thanks, Becca, for being the family guinea pig.
The Client that Wouldn't Die!
For the last two months I have been engaged in a back and forth struggle with the client of this project I'm working on. It has been very aggravating and time consuming and has resulted in several very late night sessions at the office. The issue is that our client has never worked on a project quite like this (what do you know, I haven't either!) and so they are having a hard time understanding the limitations that we are dealing with in designing the site. We'd been trying to get them to pay attention to several of these issue for months now yet they continued to appear to think that the world was flat (literally, the issue we're dealing with here is grading). Well, some time last month it finally dawned upon them (only after we produced a blatantly simple diagram) that there were some severely limiting factors on the site. Basically they flipped out and called a halt to all work until this was figured out. Enter me. I had initially worked up the grading diagrams and such and so I had my head into the issues at hand more than anyone else. Consequently I have spent the last two months working almost exclusively on little diagrams that end up looking something like this:
I know, it's pretty sexy huh?
*sigh*
The Girl from the Great Salt Lake...
A few weeks ago I had a visit from Emily (who, up until very recently, I was dating; enter some of the personal upheaval). As always, it was great to have her out here and we had a really great time together. Part of that time was spent on a pilgrimage to Leadville. "Why a pilgrimage?" you might ask. Well, unless you have read Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose (no pun intended with the italics) and enjoyed it as much as we both individually did, you just wouldn't understand. Don't even try... I said don't... Oh alright, a good portion of that book takes place in Leadville and the imagery invoked by Stegner's writing was more than enough to draw us out of Denver and put my poor car through another test of endurance on those high, mountain roads.
The drive was beautiful, the conversation stimulating, and the pizza barely edible. Here are a couple pictures to give you an idea of what we enjoyed that day:
Pretty darn, huh?
Trapped by the Disabled!
One of the greatest parts of the last few months has been my involvement with the National Sports Center for the Disabled (NSCD). Each Saturday, starting in the end of February and running until the end of March, I could be found up at Winter Park Resort working with disabled adults and children and helping them to ski. It really was such a cool experience.
Most of my saturdays were spent working with one man in particular that had cerebral palsy. He had limited control of his limbs but was able to stand up so we were able to rig him up with a set-up that included a slider (basically a walker on skis) and a set of reins which we would use to steer him down the mountain. All in all it took three volunteers just to get this guy up and down the mountain. I was very impressed by just how dedicated NSCD is to making sure this one man's physical and emotional needs were met. No matter how short-handed we were that day, Shane always got his three people to make sure he had a good day of skiing. His condition is such that he will never be able to ski by himself. So basically, rather than teachers we served as facilitators that just gave the guy an experience that he would never have been able to have otherwise. So cool!
Return of the Alumn!
Last week I had the chance to return to my alma mater (USU) to attend a really great Sustainable Landscapes Conference. Design Workshop has a budget to send its employees to conferences should the need arise. Given that this conference was so cheap, and that this year's theme fit right in with my interests in the profession (and what is shaping up to eventually be the focus of my future graduate work), the company agreed to foot the bill and send me out.
It was so great to be back in Logan (even despite the random blizzard in Sardine Canyon that I had to drive through to get there). I loved seeing my old professors and conversing with them as a colleague rather than as a student. I also got to see a bunch of friends that were in the class below me as they were all still completing their studies.
The conference was great! The topic this year focused on sustainablity throughout history and on into the future. We took a look at past civilizations (Mayan, Tarascan, and Roman) and sustainability issues that effected them. We also looked at how they effect us today and what must be done in order to create a sustainable society in the future. It was so cool because it fit right in with where my interests are headed: the anthropological and social implications of landscape architecture.
The information presented was fascinating and helped me to gain some perspective on our professions role in the molding of our society's future. But beyond that, it rekindled the waning embers of my passion for this profession. It's not that I don't love what I do, it's just that, as academic and critical an approach as Design Workshop takes in it's design process, my job is primarily rooted in practice not theory. And it's not like that's abnormal. That's just the nature of being a professional. However, I've found that as my nose gets closer and closer to the paper, I've had a harder time stepping back and seeing the whole picture. This conference helped revitalize that global perspective that is so necessary when dealing with issues of sustainability and social change.
Anyway, it was a great conference. And to top it all off I got to end the day by having a barbecue and game night with my two good buddies Eric and John who I haven't seen since I moved.
Attack of the Previews!
So here's a quick look at what can be expected in upcoming installments of The Denverite:
* A trip to Boston to visit Carrie and Lincoln
* Installation of a garden at an at-risk- girls center (which we've spent a good part of the last two months designing. I forgot to do a section on that but I can't be bothered to go back a write it now.)
* Training for and participating in a 10k race in Boulder
That's a wrap!
Well, that just about does it for this entry. I'll try to be better about keeping this thing a little more up to date. Until next time!
3 comments:
Great, now we wont' have anything to talk about. Hope you don't mind the silence (as if. . .)
My favorite part of this post was the B movie titles. Very good. I should also say that the Breinholts had a wonderful time in Denver. We appreciated our host's generosity and his lovely accomadations, we enjoyed partaking of but a small nibble of all that Denver has to offer, and we would highly recommend the trip to any and everyone.
Dating a girl named Emily, huh! I think you just like her because of the name.
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