Almost ready to write

A recap of the weekend and this morning's events and then maybe we can move on to the thoughts for the day.

On Saturday Erica and I, well what did we do, as I try andwrap my mind around the memories that seem to disappear with every passing breath I must ask myself where do they go, into what crevice and vacuum of neurological cul-de-sacs do my memories disappear to so quickly? It seems sometimes that I attempt to rember the most recent events in my life and all of a sudden they fly like so many wisps of smoke through a spring gale, invisible in a second to the casting of my eyes and thoughts. But back to the moment rather than these reminating broken smashings. On Friday I was so relieved to be done with my long day, and wound up and irritated and picked up my bicycle from the shop where they had delivered my front fork from its misery and replaced it with a two short, wrong color, quite ugly shrunken imposter of a fork. This put me in a pretty bad mood, which I allowed to continue and fester even while questioning the actual cause and root of the problem, of which I still don't know, but which I'm past. But the question of what I did on Saturday is finally answered, I gues I had to go a little farther back in my thoughts to recycle the sequence of events.

On Saturday Erica and i had a big day of Diamond shopping. Nervousness built upon nervousness as we circled the boston downtown financial district in a vain attempt to find cheap parking close to the main event. We finally settled on a metered spot near the theatres we'd gotten to know earlier in the year and settled into a long walk down the blustery streets of downtown boston. The wind shot down the rigid window-clad cliffs surrounding each avenue and upon hitting the ground, turned sharply to marshal its energy for a frontal assault on our poorly prepared clothing. We made our way down the vortex and finally found ourselves at the rather unassuming village of 333 Washington St, where the diamond gnomes of Boston live. Into it we ventured, nervous and excited where we ventured into the first shop on the second floor and attempted to figure out how diamond experts were going to treat us. Turns out pretty shabbily, but not the worst in the world, definitely salesmen, but we managed to get past the diamond sellers own nervous facades and foudna few genuine laughs. Unfortunately Erica found out that 1 carat stones are actually quite nice in size and so the whole purchase took a fairly large jump skywards. We later went up to the 7th floor after evacuating the bright lights of the first shop and found in there a far more receptive audience for our questions. They showed us some more stones, I managed to bring the size into a more manageable price range, but unfortunately using my ideal-scope I didn't find any stones that matched the level of intensity I was expecting and hoping to see. Maybe with a little work and some searching I can find some specimens a little closer to my goals. So saturday was good.

Sunday we went on a long ride after checking out the grocery store Russo's Market, finally getting some plants to place on our deck and finding that while nice, the market probably wasn't going to work out for us now that we've signed up for the Boston Organics. The ride was excellent and Solon, while a little bit of a brat for part of it, still managed to be quite cute...

Free Association for Harvard Essay

Dramatized by my complete lack of motivation, or rather, lack of direction. Here we go.

Throughout history the ideas and management of security have motivated the restructuring of man's landscape. From medieval forts, castles and villages to modern day corporate environments and enclosed estates, the need for a secure built environment often supersedes aesthetics and

WEll this certainly isn't working right now

Plan of action

So it seems every good project has to start with a good plan. I seem to realize this but never seem to follow through, so here goes following through. Here's the main goal, getting into Harvard for Landscape Architecture by putting together a fabulous portfolio by December. I have two secondary goals; to lose weight while becoming fit, and to make Erica happy. Each goal requires daily dedication, time-management and sacrifices. I guess the problem up until now have been the amount of sacrifices I've been willing to make. My main issue with working out and doing work in the morning is my tendency to become tired. In fact, we will call Sleep my Keystone (the defining feature by which my days will determine themselves), without which I give myself excuse after excuse. In order to eliminate this I have to plan my day around a proper sleep schedule. I have determined that to be in bed attempting to fall asleep between 9:30 and 10:00pm, and waking up at 5am. As my fitness increases over the next few months, my need for sleep will decrease.

As far as my Landscape Architecture portfolio goals have come, I'm falling far short of them all, I have yet to find a volunteer opportunity, write an essay, draw a still life, or draw many trees. I also have fallen off studying every day and need to resume this practice. Basically I need to surround myself with the profession, as if I were already in it. To do this I've determined I need daily study and drawing along with daily work on a pet project to build other skills within the discipline while providing a monthly design addition to my portfolio. This has been difficult for me to do lately, and I need to get back on the horse.

For the Landscape Architecture daily time budgeting I would like three hours;

5-7am Design & Drawing - Take Solon with me on morning explorations with pen and pad or camera
6:30-7:30 Study work

This would mean returning home a little before 8pm, of which time I will spend with Erica until 9:30 when I prepare for bed. In order to supplement my learning/study/thought time, I will do much of my blogging of the information gained from the morning between the 10-12 hours of my work, when there is not much going on. Unfortunately I will not have much access to the photos or sketches I have, but as I can see here, there's a lot to think about so hopefully daily logging of these thoughts will lead to a greater ability to elucidate my ideas and transmit them internally and externally. Writing and drawing everyday should be very good for both sides of the brain.



Right now on my Portfolio list of things to do we have the following;

February - LA Volunteer Opportunity, Essay
March - Still Life Drawing
April - Tree Drawing, Garden
May - Landscape Drawing,
June - Photography Project
July - Photography Project
August - 3D Wooden Modeling, 3D Landscape Model
September - 3D digital Model, CAD Model
October - 3D CAD Landscape
November - Calligraphy & Chinese Art Painting
December - Create Portfolio Website and Submit Application

Right now I'm behind, but not by very far, and I've worked on each of the projects I need to finish, I just have to set deadlines to get them done. Tomorrow morning between 8-10 I will write the essay, and this weekend I will do a still life, although I'm not sure if I should consider my art class as counting for that. Once again, the key to all this is waking up early and getting to sleep early. My priority is the Landscape Architecture goal, then comes Erica, then comes the fitness.

What should a standard day look like;

5am - wakeup - leave with Solon and go exploring, taking notes, pictures and making sketches of what I see
7am - Breakfast
8am - Gym for a swim or bike workout
9am - sauna for flexibility training
10am - Blog about the mornings experiences and thoughts
12pm - Work (if any), relax and chat online
1pm - Run or Crossfit
2pm - Work
4pm - Research
5pm - Erica
6pm - Study
8pm - Dinner
10pm - Sleep

Yep, If I can do that, I'll be a happy man, I might need to throw in another hour of sleep at night some days, but I'm definitely making sleep my anchor keystone. Lets see how it works, I'm going to make it work

To be continued... who knows where the thoughts will be when i come back to this one.