Not the way I planned on closing out the decade.

If you had told me ten years ago this is how my life would be at 30 I would think you were nuts. I look back and wish I had more of alot of things, direction probably topping the list. I have always been good at alot of things, and I think that has been a burden over the years. Jack of all trades master of none.

I have always admired the big names of the renaissance, Michelangelo, Leonardo, the rest of the ninja turtles, etc. I thought how incredible it was that they were so good at so many things. Da Vinci even coined one of my favorite phrases of all time. How did they do it? How were they so good at so many things, art, architecture, engineering, philosophy. How did they maintain their passion and drive? I have a hard time staying focused on a project, I usually have 3 or 4 going on at a time. I wish I knew more about how these guys were. I wish I knew more about some of the problems they had as creatives and how they overcame them. I guess its time to go buy some books on amazon and read up.

It's very strange being unemployed. First of all it is hard to get anything done while taking care of two kids and trying to keep a house clean. On top of that I don't know what I should do to get things ready for the next step. I don't even know what the next step is. A five year plan would probably help here.

I found out recently that I don't have to go back to school to get my masters degree to get licensed as an architect. Which is pretty awesome. So is that the path I should pursue? I went through architecture school thinking that I would have a decent degree when I got out. Boy was I wrong. I would guess that 80% of the buildings out there are rubbish, which means a large percentage of the architecture firms out there are producing rubbish. I love good buildings, craftsmanship, the way that light bounces around a space, the way that they detailed windows with corbeled brick in the early 1900's. When Louis Kahn says a brick want to be a brick, I understand what he means. But, where does that fit into the reality of today?

We are a nation of cheap, self indulgent, short sighted, consumers, and I may very well be as guilty as the next guy. But, how do we change that? Just because they call it Value-sized doesn't mean it is more valuable. They are just selling you more crap for ten cents less than what it would cost you normally.

I trip out when our neighbor has six bags of trash out on the curb and we only have one or two (okay, so maybe i'm not as guilty as the next guy). Why does a guy that is L.E.E.D certified not have to know anything about L.E.E.D. We should be ashamed of ourselves really. Our self indulgent ways have led us into our current predicaments. In this time of relative truth, I don't think we will ever completely recover.