Frank Robbins

A Little Recognition For the Bearport Books

2009-08-19T14:04:00.002-04:00

A profile on my work with Bearport Publishing on Wash-U's website.

Happy Birthday To Me

2009-08-10T09:57:00.003-04:00

I finally freaking did it and ran my first marathon as part of my birthday run/bike etc. As usual, it was hot as blazes so I had to start at 5:00am. Highlights include:

1. The sun coming up while running past Clydesdale Park on Grant's Trail, quickly followed by four utterly forgettable miles of running through South County on Union/Morganford

2. Running along Broadway, having a low moment and then turning a corner and seeing the Arch.

3. Handing over sweat soaked dollar bills to gas station attendants in exchange for water and Red Bull. I told them to keep the change each time, but I doubt that 47 cents is ever enough to make up for currency covered in back sweat.

4. Running by Imbev: I love the smell of beer brewing, EXCEPT at 7:30 in the morning after two and a half hours of running.

5. Getting to the Arch, walking down the steps, walking UP the steps, getting off the phone with Laura and saying to myself, "only 7 more miles to go"

6. Finally getting to a place where I felt the pain that everyone talks about, making peace with it, deciding to start pushing IN to the pain then suddenly having my left calf cramp up so bad I had to walk/run the rest of the way.

7. Laura driving up to meet me during the last two miles while I was forced to walk because of my calf and me telling her that I couldn't stop to talk.

8. Final mile and a half, Prince's "Seven" coming on in my iPod and suddenly feeling good about the world.

9. Running the last bit up Brookings Drive, seeing Laura and Freddy playing on the grass, getting a huge boost and then having my left calf completely seize up with fifty yards to go to the stairs.

10. My calf finally letting up and me bounding up the stairs while I made loud "hoaaa, hoooaaa" noises at the top of my lungs

I feel emboldened to do another one. I'm sore today, but not debilitated. I wish that I'd done more long runs, that it was less hot and that I had had several thousand people cheering me on instead of one guy giving me a honk and a fist pump at mile 17. I have no knee or ankle pain and can't complain about a thing.

Thanks to:
Laura and Freddy
Friends and family
Prince and the Revolution

Now, if you will all excuse me, I have to go and eat the contents of my kitchen.

Newest Article

2009-07-01T09:54:00.004-04:00

Newest article on Jetson Green about a manufactured home in Georgia that's getting LEED Platinum with all off the shelf technology. Check It Out and order your own today!

One Of Those Guys Who Runs In The Morning

2009-06-30T14:37:00.002-04:00

Before Freddy had been born, I vowed to avoid getting Dad-Fat, the general puffyness associated with being a dad. Lucky for me the stress of work/finding work, school, fixing/selling home, moving of the last year has actually taken about ten pounds off of me and a good amount of the hair on my head. Having a second vehicle has made me complacent about biking everywhere and there just hasn't been the time to go to a gym.

And so I've started waking up at 6:00 and going for a run. I put the clothes by the bed, the iPod by the door and I usually wake up by the time I'm a quarter mile in (I shit you not I yawned while passing City Hall). The new neighborhood I live in, Glendale Missouri is a picturesque and I see as many as a dozen other runners, mostly older, mid-career professionals by the looks of them. This is only my fifth morning running, but I'm already feeling the same silly competition as when I would bike over the Williamsburg Bridge in the morning.

I'm not too sure what I'll do for my 31st birthday. I'd kind of like to crush my 1/2 marathon time again. If I train regularly, I can do it. I feel so damned good the rest of the day that I probably will.

Finally, An American Made Diesel Hybrid THAT I CAN'T DRIVE!

2009-06-25T13:22:00.005-04:00

Caterpillar just came out with the pricing for their new hybrid diesel bulldozer. Apparently, the thing costs 20% more ($600K vs. $500K) and has a fuel payback of less than three years. This seems like a kind of a game changer when you think about how many of these enormous vehicles there are out there, their service life and how much diesel exhaust they belch into the air.

I just hope they have a mineraturized toy version of it by the time Freddy is really into earth moving equipment.

Cyborg: In Which I Pull Metal From My Leg

2009-06-25T10:06:00.004-04:00

I remember hearing a story on NPR about a young, American raised Afghan who was traveling back to Afghanistan to visit his family. One morning, his uncle asked him for some help removing a piece of soviet era shrapnel that had begun to work its way out of his forehead.

This morning, as my son looked on and at times played with cabinet doors, I removed some sort of surgical wire that had been left in my ankle 11 years ago after I broke the ever-loving hell out of it. It was amazing.

Those who have known me for a while also know that for years I kept the surgical plate that held my tibia together for a summer on my keychain. It's still hanging on a hook in my basement. What came out this morning looked like nothing more than a small curly piece of boar bristle. No souvenir, but a fun reminder that I am still part machine.

Coxsacki, Not Just For Middle School Laughs

2009-05-21T16:37:00.002-04:00

So the triple whammy of awfulness that was sicked on Freddy over the weekend was diagnosed as Coxsacki virus, or hand foot and mouth disease. On Sunday night he started breaking out in a rash, so we took him to the ER and he was diagnosed and sent home with some meds. The next day, Laura came down ill as well and while her fever is down, she's still completely wiped. My parents came in and helped us a whole lot. I've been completely free of it/possibly asymtomatic, but it's made me paranoid that I'm about to come down with something.

Through all of this my summer school class has begun, which is Fundamentals of Project Management taught by Dr. Jim Blair. His background is in tech, so he focuses on broader, psychological aspects of project management. Interesting so far.

Freddy Is Sick

2009-05-17T09:39:00.002-04:00

Over the last few days, Freddy has gone from having an ear infection to having a virus and wicked diaper rash and teething all at once. He really liked the taste of his grape flavored anti-biotic but since he had a fever, we poisoned the well by feeding him Pedialyte through the same dropper the tasty medicine came in.

I've been working through most of this, so I haven't had anywhere near the responsibility that Laura has, so whatever misery there is, I take my licks. It was only when my brother complained about our cat puking while at his house that I realized that I have been vomited on twice in the past 16 hours (the first one was a real doozey, volume, distance, smelled like formula and grape Pedialyte).

My morning ritual with him this morning had him crying through every activity he usually likes, then crawling back into Laura's arms, the only place he's wanted to be since this started and sleeping for what has now been more than an hour.

Next weekend, Laura will be heading out to California and I will be with him for the weekend. Here's hoping he's well by then.

So Maybe I Don't Have To Leave Town (Again)

2009-01-25T21:51:00.002-05:00

Two Things:

1. In accordance with Missouri Senate Bill 1181, every EnergyStar appliance up to $1500 purchased between April 19-25 is free of tax. This week will celebrate Earth Day and weed day; perhaps a coded parting message from former governor Matt Blunt. Either way, I'm saving my pennies for an efficient, small fridge for the basement.

2. Just checked out the new local coffee shopFoundation Grounds. It's locally owned (two of the owner live a block away from me) and they did a green renovation and sourced recycled, reused and renewable materials. Lastly, the vegan muffin tasted good...like an actual muffin. I'm usually a vegan baked goods hater, but these were awesome!

Good stuff coming to town, now if is just wouldn't be so freaking cold out.

Everything In Brief

2009-01-24T17:29:00.002-05:00

I'm back in school, which is spectacular, and working on greening up some rental properties, which is also great. It's been only two weeks and I already feel I've learned things that could be used to avoid many past and future $#@$-up's.

I also finally wrote an article that I'm halfway happy with. My god what a piece of work this guy is:

On the parental tip, Freddy is crawling and it's a whole new world. He can also say "ma" and "da" and eats about two jars of baby food on top of his regular formula regimen.

Laura is back in the saddle directing a show at Stray Dog Theatre and we're super busy. It's been a juggling act coordinating my work/Laura's work/rehearsal/school and Freddy, but we've managed figure it out so far. Tuesday night is the only vexing conflict and my parents have stepped in to watch Freddy.

I have yet to work exercise into my schedule, that's the next step.

Canine Equestrian Shenanagins

2008-12-27T16:24:00.004-05:00

My son, my brother and his dog Milo

Writing For Jetson Green

2008-12-27T16:20:00.003-05:00

I got a gig writing about LEED platinum projects for Jetson Green a green building blog created by a guy named Preston Koerner, an attorney and LEED AP in Salt Lake City. I'll link to articles as I write em, here's my first article on the Kerr Foundation building in downtown St. Louis.

Happy Holidays Everyone

2008-12-27T09:33:00.004-05:00

Long week of Christmas/Hannukah celebration. Freddy was captivated by the tree, but was also tried hard to touch the live flame on the Hannukah candles. Both traditions offer a lot to a five month old. I got some pretty good gifts all around including some Dogfish Head60 and 90 Minute IPA from my lovely wife. I also ate like a king and my fridge is still stocked with leftovers.

Last year I went to a holiday party and played with a friends' baby who is almost exactly a year older than Freddy. Laura was pregnant at the time and I remarked to myself that I would have a son that age next Christmas.

So, in the most Jimmy Stewart way, I got everything I wanted for Christmas.

The Original Frank Robbins

2008-12-22T14:58:00.005-05:00

My aunt Mary just sent me a collection of obituaries of my great-great grandfather, Frank Robbins. Here's the handsome devil right here:

One newspapaer described him as a "bluff, cheerful, hearty, agressive citizen", hopefully those were good qualities for Canadians to have in the early 1930's. Though I knew that he was elected to the head of the school board and reffed many a soccar game, revelations include his membership in the Knights of Pythias, being in the 91st Highlander Regiment and his tenure as the president of the Ontario Baseball Amateur association.

Frank Robbins LEED AP

2008-12-18T14:23:00.004-05:00

Over the last few months I've been telling everyone that'll listen that I've been "studying for my LEED exam". About two weeks ago, I decided to go ahead and schedule an exam because:

1. "I'm studying for my LEED exam" was starting to sound like "I'm working on my novel"
2. In 2009, the test will be even harder
3. If I passed it I would have six letters after my name. That's twice as many letters than a CPA and three times an MD!

What the hell is LEED?
LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It's a building accredidation program through the US Green Building Counsil (USGBC). Basically, if you want to have a LEED certified building, you have to follow some proscribed steps, design it in a certain way, document the heck out of it and have it all reviewed by the USGBC. Then you get to tell everyone you know that you have a LEED Certified building.

It's a complicated and involved process and so they set up a testing system to identify individuals who know how do to this (LEED APs). There are about 43,000 of them in the world, and now there is one more...me.

Gee, That Sounds Easy:
Well it's not, at least is wasn't for me. You have to be responsible for a heck of a lot of information, terms, calculations, percentages etc. Not being an engineer or an architect, I had to learn a lot of the terms for the first time. No worries, I like learning new things, and now that I know what a chlerestory is, I'm going to use it in my everyday vocabulary.

Here are the flash cards I made:

Who I can thank for this:

-Rachel: Thank you for giving me a copy of the Colorado Reference Guide, your study materials and answers to my assinine questions.
-Lauren G: Thanks for answering spot questions and turning me on to ARE Forums, I woulda been screwed without it!
-Laura: Thanks for watching everything while I studied for hours and hours.

What this means now:
Boy I don't know, I can put it on my cards, I look more serious than someone who just says, "I'm into green building." Oh and when I'm working my next LEED project, I'll be able to add a point to the overall scorsing under ID Credit 2!

LEED Exam on Wednesday

2008-12-14T14:16:00.002-05:00

I dropped myself into the deep end of the pool and sceduled my LEED AP exam for this Wednesday at 3:30.

I haven't crammed for something since I was in high school, I've got acronyms and percentages oozing out of my ears. The test is really freaking expensive, so that just adds to the pressure.

And speaking of pressure: Jeremy, you said that you might get your LEED AP, Rachel I don't know if you've taken your test yet, but I challenge both of you to a LEED-OFF!

Joe Felice Was Here

2008-12-10T23:54:00.002-05:00

My good buddy from school, politics and former work, Joe Felice stopped by this week. He's moving to California from New York and stopping at many points along the way.

It was a good time, he came bearing gifts (pickled squash) and we did some video-blogging on Blog TV. I also got to show Joe the joys of St. Louis beer culture.

Let The Masters-Off Begin

2008-12-01T16:44:00.003-05:00

I am going back to school next semester, that much is clear. My friend Jeremy has been talking a good game about getting his masters in urban planning for quite some time.

And so, in the spirit of competition I have challenged him to A MASTERS-OFF!

BARE KNUCKLE
WINNER-TAKE-ALL
BATTLE...TO...THE...FINISH

Never has there been academic rivalry so intense, so bloody, so completely ridiculous.

Let the games begin.

Officially Admitted To Wash-U

2008-12-01T11:40:00.004-05:00

I got the call about an hour ago confirming that I've been accepted to Washington University in St. Louis' masters program in construction management. I was pretty sure I'd get in, but I've told enough people that I was going that getting turned away would have been a big -ahem- embarassing.

Instead of an envelope, I got a phone call from the woman in charge of academic advisement, which was pretty darned civilized. I remember when I was in high school pulling up to my house after school and looking at my mailbox and coming close to vomiting with anticipation. When I got in, I danced around the kitchen with my mother and she gave me an NYU t-shirt she had picked up when she was working in New York that past summer. She told me that if I didn't get in, she would have just chucked it without letting me know she'd bought it.

A friend of mine told me that I should go out and get a Wash-U hoodie now to celebrate. I came up with a better idea:

For my son Freddy: Wash-U Onesie

For Me: Wash-U wrestling singlet

We'd match, and the ensuing photos would be memories that would last a lifetime.

Open (Thank You) Letter To Tom Schlafly

2008-11-25T19:37:00.003-05:00

This is a copy of a thank you letter I've sent to Tom Schlafly, owner of the ol' local microbrewery and brewpub.

Dear Mr. Schlafly,

I just wanted to sit down and write you an official thank you letter for your work here in St. Louis. I’m sure you get a lot of praise for your work, but add this one to the pile as well. Oh yes, and a belated 60th birthday.

I live in Maplewood Missouri, about a half mile from the Bottleworks and this summer marked the birth of my first child. I can’t tell you how incredibly great it has been to be in stroller-walking distance to a baby-friendly restaurant with smoke-free outdoor seating, good food and great beer. I’m originally from St. Louis and moved back about two years ago after a nine-year stint of living in New York. I’m a huge proponent of Greenpoint and Willaimsburg Brooklyn, but I gotta say you’ve got Brooklyn Brewery beat by a mile!

Thank you also for staying a St. Louis/American brewery. I’m sure you’re approached several times a week by men with Flemish and Wallonian accents making multi-billion dollar offers on your business. Thank you for politely turning them down. That said, a Schlafly-made Belgian style tripel would be a very welcome addition to your roster.

Lastly, thanks for your commitment to the environment, local farmers and green building.

Keep Up The Good Work,

Regards,

Frank Robbins

Warum Kenst Du Deutsch?

2008-11-25T15:53:00.003-05:00

Just confirmed that everything that I need to get in to school is in to school, and now I just have to wait. In the end the last thing was my transcript from Middlebury college where I took a summer intensive German program. In the course of doing that I realized that it's been ten years since I went there.

Unlike my BFA, which I can tangentally point to (speaking, reading and conveying emotion, being able to walk on my hands), my flash-fry immersian in the German language is even harder to put my finger on. With the exception of some very surprised German tourists looking for directions, I haven't used it a whole bunch.

I guess I learned how to learn a language and how to be completely comfortable listening to people talk when I catch only 1 out of ten words that they say. Most Americans get edgy after about a minute of this. The other thing I learned was that you need only know a certain number of words in any language to shock the hell out of people and get some love.

Knowing a few words a phrases in Spanish got me through my days in the food industry, and got me a lot of free food. Knowing the smallest bit of Arabic got a huge laugh out of my old local deli owners and I was able to hop the line a few times and the bit of Polish I sat down and learned kept me in good stead my five years of living in America's second largest Polish community.

When I lived in Chinatown, I bought a tape and diligently tried to get a few phrases, numbers etc. down. Blank stares every time, but hey, my pronunciation probably sucked.

Herding Cats To Go To School

2008-11-20T11:58:00.005-05:00

As many might know, I've been going through the process of applying to school. When I graduated in 2001 I was relieved because there was NO WAY I would ever be going to grad school. Then again, grad school would have been for theatre. As the proud owner of a BFA in theatre, the change to green building and construction management neccessitates a little bit of extra schooling.

I've taken some comfort looking at other peopel who have made drastic career changes:

Kandinsky: Started painting at 42

Peter Falk: Started acting at 28 (with one eye at that!)

Sonny Bono: Elected to congress age 59 (who the hell saw that one coming?)

To say nothing of two friends of mine who have gone from acting to law school, another who is an off-brand software developer with an obvious obsession with the qaddafi regime and many many more.

Now what's left to do:

Get accepted
Finding a summer internship
Fun with financial aide
Finding a construction related job to do during school

Week On The Road

2008-11-16T10:28:00.003-05:00

Back now from a six day whistle-stop tour around New York and DC for a friend's wedding and to show off Freddy to friends and relatives. The lil' man was extremely good on the plane (except for descent) and loved the NYC subway

Our friends Laura and Alex had a beautiful wedding in lower Manhattan. The ceremony had a beautiful bit of intergenerational multi-lingual poetry reading. Alex's grandmother read a poem in Hungarian and his sister translated and likewise with Laura only in Italian. Moving and classy, I dug it.

We had our friends Shannon and Tim who hava a baby girl of their own watch Freddy. While this left us free to frolic at the wedding, I was up the next morning at 6:00 with the bottle. I went for a three mile run with John through Brooklyn at 8:30 and even though the first half mile was awful, I felt like a new man by the end.

With basically just two full days in NYC, we weren't able to fit in all of our friends to see Freddy, which was a bummer, but it's just more reason to come back again soon.

What I might look like with twins. Good grief.

Back In New York

2008-11-07T07:19:00.003-05:00

Back in New York for my friend Laura and Alex's wedding. Our flight was cancelled, delayed then delayed again, which meant Laura, Freddy and I spending about seven hours waiting around the airport.

The city looks like regular fall, when I was back last it was six days of unseasonal sunshine. After a morning breakfast forage, Brooklyn still looks damned good in shades of gray.

Happy Democracy Day

2008-11-04T10:11:00.003-05:00

It was my plan to bring Freddy with me and have him in the booth with me (mostly to help me pick some of the folks running for judgeships). After about a half hour waiting in line, he got a little poky and Laura ended up picking him up.

After two hours and fifteen minutes in line, the poll worker tried to get me to to fill out a provisional ballot. My driver's license address doesn't match up with my new home address, but I politely told her that I only needed proof of identity then kept looking into her eyes and didn't blink. Staring straight into her soul seemed to do the trick and I filled out a ballot with no further problems.

I won't go into how I voted except for this jobbie right here. There was a constitutional amendment that was up that would establish English as the official government language of Missouri. The more I looked at it the more the hair at the back of my neck started to stick up. One woman waiting in line said that it made sense since you have to know English to get your American citizenship (someone else fielded that one so I didn't have to get loud). Another woman told a story about how her great-great grandmother came over as a mail order bride from Lithuania and had to petition a judge in pantomime to let her stay because the man who sent for her had given her a false picture to lure her overseas. To me it felt distinctly unAmerican and after the fourth grammatical error made by the people in line who were supporting it, I decided to vote against.

29th Annual Clayton Half Marathon

2008-11-02T17:16:00.003-05:00

After missing the online registration date, I decided to do the Clayton Half Marathon bandit style (sorry St. Louis track club, I promise I will become a member). My goal this time was to beat my last two half marathon times (1:49 this August, 1:49 last August).

I did all the right things except eat right and at mile nine the bottom fell out. The person I had been pacing slowly floated away and then I hit the ol' wall. The last two and a half miles were mostly uphill on Forsyth from Forest Park into downtown Clayton and it was not pretty in the least. I almost tossed my cookies, but didn't and beat my old time by over five minutes. Glory be.

My First Full On Charette

2008-10-31T16:45:00.005-04:00

I attended my first LEED design charette this past Wednesday, but first a little on the word "charette".

To me the word sounds exotic and exclusive that members of the French and Russian aristocracy would attend. A big ballroom filled with men in semi military dress uniforms twirling around women in whalebone corsets and hoop dresses.

Imagined Charette Image:

Real Charette Image:

While studying for my LEED exam, I got a slightly better idea what goes into a charrete. No corsets, but lots of architects, engineers, designers and energy modelers going through a proposed design and seeing which LEED points might be achieved and what problems might arise.

This is the missing piece. I realized that what I'd missed the most since ditching theatre for green buiding was a good collaborative process. I am indeed heartened.

Laura's New Green Obsession

2008-10-27T14:11:00.002-04:00

The "Forever Lawn", a fake grass product that has probably had it's website crash multiple times since it was featured in a photo spread of Jessica Alba's new green home is my wife, Laura's new obsession.

Neither one of us are lawn people. Aside from making our house look freakishly odd in the middle of winter and effecting the resale value of our house, I'm down.

Sustanable (and cheap) Temporary Business Cards

2008-10-22T22:08:00.004-04:00

Saw this online from a printer in North Carolina.

Great idea and beautifully executed with soy ink. Got a quote from them and was amazed. Maybe when I can put LEED AP after my name I'll treat myself. In the meantime, I needed some temporary cards for networking, interviews etc. and it seems like a waste to get 500 cheapo cards that I hate.

I cut up a PBR box I'd just gotten done with, cut it into two 8 1/2X11 sheets, formatted my info onto a twelve-up template and shoved them through my printer. If you're doing this at home, your printer won't want to do it, but it will surrender to your will if you jam it in enough. Read into that as you will.

I measured the finished product out, made some pencil marks and Laura cut them neatly out. The finished product has roughly the thickness of a credit card and they feel like you can cut salami with the edges. They're distinctive though, I must say. Next time I'll try it with the Raisin Bran box I'm about to polish off.

Green Drinks

2008-10-22T13:52:00.003-04:00

Went to Green Drinks last night at Schlafly Bottleworks. Not only was it a networking event that involved green job opportunities and beer I could walk to it from my house!

It was a great opportunity for me to meet some to the people in St. Louis who are doing interesting work in green building and energy management. I don't know the blogging ethics on naming names and describing conversations had in semi-public private events like networking events, so instead I'll just provide you with some clever campaign t-shirts for sale through Schlafly!

Oh Gray Lady

2008-10-20T21:54:00.002-04:00

New York Times article today by Clifford Krauss Momentum Slows for Alternative Energy. My response is this:

Cliff, dude, momentum has slowed down for EVERYTHING. Unless you work in the repo, forclosure or hobo-bindle manufacturing sector, things are bad all around.

Speech On Saturday

2008-10-20T09:46:00.004-04:00

Like roughtly 100,000 other people, I went down to the arch to hear Barack Obama speak on Saturday. I have a terrible sense of the national impact of events I'm part of (I famously thought that I had till the 6:00 news before word got out about the towers falling) and this was no exception.

I haven't attended an event that large in a long time and I forgot how much difference it makes being at a live event. While watching on the news would have given me a much better view, it was just incredible to see that many people. I was so far away that I spent a lot of the time helping out my neighbors pick out which one Obama was "see the lights, go down 45 degrees, he's in a white shirt". Here, I'll show you:

See him?

Home Energy Ratings

2008-10-17T14:37:00.003-04:00

I recently had breakfast with a local real estate professional who was good enough to sit down and give me a little insight into the state of commercial building in St. Louis (he also insisted on expensing the breakfast, thanks ####### LLC!). When the subject moved towards green building he said that on his end there needed to be a bunch more incentives in order for the industry to go that way. As a developer, the numbers just didn't add up.

He's partially right, there do need to be more incentives to make sustainable building compete in the market. The part he left out is that legislation is the other way it can happen. This from Green Building Law Update

Beginning in 2010, it would require commercial property owners to generate an Energy Star efficiency "score" for their buildings using free online tools provided by the Energy Star program. That score would be made available to the public by the District Department of the Environment (DDOE).

This is for DC, Clayton Missouri (St. Louis County seat) just passed that all new government buildings are to be LEED rated. I like the idea of a commercial building having the equivalent of a new car EPA mileage sticker.

Dirty Renewables

2008-10-16T16:24:00.003-04:00

One of the stranger conceits of architectural design models are the two dimentional people that are put in a proposed space. They're generic models that walk through the middle of huge piazzas and tie their children's shoes on glass bridges that span buildings etc. They always seem like an afterthought and even though they're supposed to evoke human interaction with a space, it always rings false for me no matter how well a building is designed.

What makes this particular design stand out from others proposed renewable designs that I've come across are two things. One, the roof is clad in recycled rubber, and two, the people interacting with the space are doing very dirty things to one another.

Crazy Sexy Water Harvesting

2008-10-16T09:58:00.004-04:00

As part of their monthly speakers series, the St. Louis Chapter of the Green Building Council had a presentation on water harvesting by Joe Scott CPD of Cannon Design.

I was extremely impressed by Mr. Scott's presentational abilities. While there was a mike in place, he opted to boom out his voice to the sixty or so people in the room and really sell the importance of water concervation and harvesting from the plumbing designers perspective. Believe me, I know from good speaking, this guy had some chops.

Highlights included an explanation of a new type of roof drainage system that actually siphens the water off of your roof like a great big hoover instead of using gravity.

Advantages:
-No need to tilt a roof
-No need to angle drainage pipes (no whacking into venting systems etc.)
-2" instead of 6" pipes used (much, much cheaper)

Disadvantages:
-Must be designed by an engineer
-Probably godawful expensive

Mr. Scott also gave his $.02 about water concerving shower heads. I'd have never thought about this: since the water gets aerated in the shower head to give the illusion of greater water flow and is usually coupled with the energy concervation tactic of lowering water temp to 115F, it creates the perfect petri dish for Legionaire's Disease. He designs a lot of systems for hospitals and labs, so this is a real concern. There's a bunch of places to concerve and reuse water, but in his mind, it's not the shower.

This was my first time attending a local USGBC event since joining and I was very impressed.

What I Did In College

2008-10-15T13:03:00.003-04:00

While most people were studying in libraries and attending large lectures, I was crawling around on wooden floors and messing with some Danish dude's Balinese masks. It's been difficult to point to something out there that demonstrates the kind of stuff that I spent hours and hours learning....UNTIL NOW!

Green Porno, is a series of short films written and directed by Isabella Rossalini. In it she plays common insects and arachnids and acts out their mating rituals, usually by humping soft sculptures. It's a pretty good example of the kind of stuff that would come out of the Experimental Theatre Wing at NYU. Take a look at a few of them and you'll understand why I get wierded out by NOTHING!

$100,000 House For Only $265,000

2008-10-14T21:21:00.004-04:00

I've been looking at the 100K house project lately. The idea is pretty interesting: build an approximately 1000 square foot green home in Phillie for a hundred thousand dollars in construction costs. It satisfies both my love of green building and penchent for round numbers. Unfortunately it's as misleading as the initial description of the Titanic as "unsinkable".

The hundred grand only covers the construction costs, the land, permits, architect etc. is extra. It makes for a bit of a disconnect when you try to sell the 100K house for about two and a half times the price.

Check it out:

REALLY Affordable Modular Housing

2008-10-14T11:37:00.003-04:00

I've been thinking about messing with containers for about five years now. For a long time I've wanted to make a Container Bar, a series of contiguous lounges and bars made from old shipping containers. This guy made something a whole lot cooler

Check this baby out:

This is a 320 square foot home made out of a shipping container. The company that makes it PFNC which stands for Por Fin Nuestra Casa (finally our own home) which will make houses for Juarez factory workers who are currently living in housing they've fashioned out of palletts and cardboard. While they're not exactly the most glamorous thing I've ever seen, they've got a full kitchen, bathroom, shower HVAC and at about eight grand a pop, they're pretty affordable.

Here, lets to a little side by side comparison to the other type of housing I hope never to live in: the FEMA Trailer.

Cost:
FEMA: $15,000
PFNC: $8,000

Square Footage:
FEMA: 240
PFNC: 320

Capacity:
FEMA: Two Adults, Two Children
PFNC: Two Adults, Four Children

I'm most definitely making some pretty apples to oranges comparisons since the site is vague on whether the cost includes estimated electrical, water and waste hookups and the fact that the PFNC residence doesn't have any insulation (it has to be horrifically loud in there).

In the end though, the PFNC model does a great job of repurposing the abundant world supply of shipping containers which are available one every corner of the globe and can fit on ships, trains and trucks. The real cool stuff will be to see how these will be customized by the end user.

Google SketchUp

2008-10-10T12:53:00.002-04:00

I've recently become aware of Google's SketchUp program, a free downloadable program that allows you to draw 3-D images and play around with them endlessly. I've had a bunch of ideas for what I'd like to do to the house, and I've decided to just go ahead and draw them out on SketchUp. That said, it's immensely addictive and I've started to rotate objects on my desk around in my mind.

Here's what I came up with in my first 20 minutes of goofing around:

Why, at that rate, I will only take me 250 hours to draw my house!

My Most Recent Obsession

2008-10-09T13:50:00.002-04:00

I've been intrigued with what's going on with prefab lately. I've also been kicking myself in the butt for the last three weeks because I didn't go and see Moma's Home Delivery Exhibit while I was in New York and had the chance.

I was happy to find out recently though that one of my favorite innovators in this field, Rocio Romero actually lives in Missouri and will be in St. Louis on the 23rd. I don't know too much about her (I actually just figured out she was a she just days ago) except that her designs are inexpensive and she's actually been able to sell a bunch of them. Here, check it out

Basically, you provide the foundation and the house gets trucked to you in pieces, it gets put together in about a day, you finish the sucker and voila, you got a house! I'm pretty positive that it's a lot more complicated than that, which is precicely what I indend to find out when she's in town.

Green Building

2008-09-26T14:20:00.003-04:00

After some serious soul searching and a rut-busting trip to New York, I finally figured out a professional focus: green building. Now I know what you're all saying, "but Frank, why focus on green building? Ever since I've known you, youve been a banking temp, real estate agent, office manager, project manager, barista, building manager, bartender, bike messenger, school assistant, coaster maker, hiring consultant, researcher, political consultant, machine gunner, why settle on that?" Well, because I gotta choose something for Pete's sake.

Oh yes, and because I genuinly enjoy construction administration and management, believe in sustainability and believe this to be an area of amazing growth in the next two to three years or whenever the market stops crashing.

Currently I'm studying for my LEED Accredited Professional certification and I'm pumping all of my contacts for people who are in the field. All of this would be very exciting except I have a wicked bad cold and my head feels like it's huge.

The Ferber Method or I HATE YOU DAD!!!

2008-09-23T09:53:00.003-04:00

Freddy is healthy, he's in the 90th percentile for height and is finally getting some serious baby chub. He is not however, going to sleep very well and apparently it's all our fault. The nighttime ritual has been: bath, change into pj's, I hold him in my arms for about 20 minutes until he falls asleep then put him in the crib whereupon he wakes up inside of 30 seconds. Repeat the last two steps until he finally goes down. It's been taking about 45 minutes to put him to sleep, but then he'll sneeze, startle himself and it starts all over again.

So now we're going to try the Ferber method where we start off with him in the crib awake, settle him in and then leave. When he cries, wait three minutes, go in for two, then wait five minutes, go in for two then wait seven minutes etc. etc. The point is that eventually he'll figure out how to put himself to sleep. It sounds pretty easy but it's amazingly hard on your nerves. I'm currently trying to put him down for his morning nap and he's screaming his head off and writing this post in the now 7 minute intervals. Last night it took an hour and fifteen minutes to get him to sleep and then another hour after we went to bed. It's supposed to take about seven days. Seven long, long days.

Gene Simmons Eat Your Heart Out

2008-09-17T22:02:00.005-04:00

Sometimes I wonder what my brother's students make of him.

Heading Back To The City

2008-09-03T16:25:00.002-04:00

In an effort to get me out of a career rut, Laura has sent me off to New York to recharge my batteries. Sarah Pailin was just taking office the last time I was in the city and I've missed it tremendously. A slice of real pizza, some coffe from a cart and seeing good friends should do just the trick. And of course there's the matter of biking through the city I cut my teeth on.

Giving Back To The Web

2008-09-02T17:08:00.003-04:00

I took a six mile hike with my friend Matt and among the myriad things we talked about was keeping up with blogging. It was easy to do it at the Wine Press since I equated it with being part of my job (no matter what I'm doing, I'm slavish to job duties). Anyhow, we came to the epiphany that the entire world wide web is an empty place if you don't put anything into it and only sit and watch it like TV.

And so, in an effort to give back a bit, this is what's new:

Freddy is more adorable than ever. He can follow things with his eyes, do flirty smiles and most recently he can laugh. He has lost almost all of his original hair and now looks more like actor Wallace Shawn than his mother or father.

That has done little to diminish his attractiveness. Josh's mom, Leigh sent me a congradulations on Facebook and added that he had a beautifully shaped head. I didn't quite get it until I went to dinner and ran into two other babies of simular age who had serious cone heads. Gulp!

I'm 30

2008-08-12T13:40:00.003-04:00

Nathan: Man, I'm turning 29 soon.
Me: I turn 30 this August
Nathan: Whoa, you'll be 30! Man....well, you're going to be a dad so your life is already over dude!

I had hoped to do a triathalon for my birthday, but due to pool problems it became a duathalon and after tepid interest it was canceled. Not having planned anything as a backup, I decided to do a half marathon. I also figured that I could pull 13 miles out of my butt without risking injury or becoming totally useless to Laura and Freddy for a week.

The first four weeks of Freddy have not been exactly conducive to any kind of regular training schedule, so this was kind of a cipher. I woke up at 4:30am, drank a bunch of water, stretched, and stepped out the door at exactly 5:00am. I drank way too much water, tripped over a hole in the sidewalk in the first two blocks but after the first two miles life was a little easier.

I am unapologetic about my musical choices, the cheesier the better. New this year were tracks by Mr. Bizmark-E, Cee-Lo and The Dropkick Murphy's. I ended up getting the exact same time as last year: One hour, forty-nine minutes. I was kinda pissed about it, my mother's comment was, "I really like how you thought that you would be better a year later."

Next available half marathon in St. Louis I intend to crush.

The Late and Early Shift

2008-07-20T13:54:00.003-04:00

Since neither of my breasts lactate, I've been trying to help Laura out as best I can. What's worked so far is to have her go to sleep early and I stay up with the lil' guy so she can get the first couple hours of sleep. Laura takes over until the early morning and then I have him from the early a.m on.

This has worked out pretty well, and to my great relief, I've discovered that Freddy shares my interest in this year's Tour De France. While I let out a series of expletives when I found out about Ricardo Ricco's doping scandal, Freddy was so upset he crapped his pants.

I need to start reading more to Freddy. At this point, it's all about hearing the sound of my voice, so I can be selfish in choosing the reading materials. My last attempt at reading to him, I pulled "The Commitments" by Roddy Doyle off the shelf. The book is one of my favorites, but reading it out loud is difficult if you can't pull off a decent South Dublin accent (which I can't). I've been looking for an excuse to crack open my Shakespeare, this just might be it.

Shout Out To Val

2008-07-13T15:54:00.003-04:00

Laura's mom came to town to help out when the baby was born. Among other talents she's an amazing cook and since she got here before Freddy arrived, I was finally able to put on the sympathy weight that the books describe. As Laura and I have been trying to set up a routine for our lives, she's made it that much easier helping us around the house, giving advice, basically keeping the place from becoming an absolute sty. Really, I would advise anyone thinking about having kids of their own to first consider having Valerie Cass as a mother-in-law!

More Baby Pics

2008-07-13T10:48:00.005-04:00

I've not been very good about photographing everything, luckily my friend Rich is, enjoy:

Freddy Robbins

2008-07-10T18:59:00.005-04:00

Frank Edward Robbins VI
Henceforth to be known as Freddy Robbins

Stats:
Born: Tuesday, July 8th 6:58 PM
Weight: 6lbs 8oz
Labor: 3:30 am to 6:58

The pictures you all want to see:

And Wait S'More

2008-07-06T12:42:00.002-04:00

No updates lately because there's not much to update really. The little dude was due on the 1st, it's the 6th now and if he doesn't come out, he's getting evicted on the 9th with an induction. Laura has done lots of walking, has eaten plenty of spicy food and had her mother grind her fingers into pressure points in hopes of starting labor contractions. For my part I've been shaking a rattle between Laura's legs in the hope of coaxing him out to play. Nothing doing.

The Waiting Game

2008-06-26T15:48:00.004-04:00

The due date is either Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on how you look at it, and it seems highly unlikely that the baby will come either on that date or before it.

I'm not working right now, Laura's mother will be coming to town next week and if the baby doesn't oblige us with it's presense I anticipate a Beckett like scenario of the three of us waiting around for the fourth to come.

On the plus side, Laura and I opted to get a smaller house in a more central area rather than a larger one in say....a flood plaine, so we are high and dry. I've considered volunteering and sandbagging around these towns but the idea of being three hours away from Laura is completely untenable.

I picked up this picture of the flood of '08 which I feel underlines what I feel are the two greatest features of my fellow Missourians: unrelenting fealty to our loved ones in the face of tragedy and our unflinching support of Anheuser Busch products. God Bless

Old Man Ribber

2008-06-23T09:12:00.008-04:00

I went on a bike ride yesterday morning to the river to see the carnage firsthand. It has been an amazingly wet spring and summer, I have been immune from the great flood of '08. Here's some pics of downtown:

As you can see, the bridge is about 8 feet away from having the water whack it on the sides.

Yup, those are streetsigns

And of course, the obligatory shot of the staircase to nowhere:

In Case You Were Wondering

2008-05-08T09:36:00.003-04:00

I've been busy of late and haven't been posting. As most of you know, it's about time to be a father. As much as I'd love to splash the internest with pictures of pregnant Laura, she has yet to let me do that. More posts with pics of the little man as events unfold. Life changes, career changes, lots going on.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

2008-03-17T11:22:00.002-04:00

Enjoy responsibly folks! Requests for me to blow off work and go to the Dogtown Parade were all turned down. I'm too damned busy opening a bar to drink!

Besides, I already had my share of St. Patty's day fun this past Saturday at the St. Patricks Day Parade Run where I got to hear hear some speeches from sitting Irish MPs. I also got a close-up look at Irish Secret Service: sunglasses, earpiece, green tie and about 40 lbs lighter and meaner looking than our guys.

Anniversaries

2008-02-15T22:13:00.003-05:00

Today marks one year since Laura and I arrived in St. Louis. We managed to get a $*#()@$*load done in that amount of time. We went from sleeping on my brother's futon to owning our own house. From unemployed to having good (for me great) jobs. From barren to fertilized et cetera et cetera.

Also celebrated this week was Laura and my second marraige anniversary. The wedding, of course was in October, but we had our court marraige in Februrary.

As Promised: My Son!

2008-02-06T20:06:00.000-05:00

And in case you didn't see his inherent maleness by that profile, the circled blob is is pee-pee.

IT'S A BOY!

2008-02-05T17:34:00.000-05:00

I saw the junk myself! I'll post them to the world soon. We won't announce a name until the big day.

God Bless

Sex O' The Baby

2008-02-04T21:21:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow morning we go to find out the sex of the baby. With any luck, tomorrow morning will not be the day the baby decides to hide its genitals with its hands or be bashful and show it's back to the sonogram tech. You can be sure that I'll be calling everyone and postng it here.

As fate would have it, my old buddy from the Dean campaign knocked his wife up one day after me. He's finding out on Wednesday and I'm sure will have it up on his fancy blog

The Other Woman/Blog

2008-01-16T13:36:00.000-05:00

Really, the other blog is more appropriate, since I'm not having sex with the other blog, I'm just diverting attention away from this one. Not that I wouldn't want to, this other blog I've got is one hot little piece of abstract tail. Announcing, my work blog where I'll be doing a little show and tell about the quick, easy and inexpensive way that I'm turning a former printing room into a wine bar. It's what I've been obsessed with for the last seven months or so, so I hope you'll enjoy. I'm counting it as part of "work" so I feel more obligated to post regularly on that, whether or not I have anything particularly insightful to say.

Now that that's out of the way....

Laura continues to be pregnant, which I feel is a damned fine thing. I went to the last OBGYN appointment and got to hear the heart beat through the doppler. I was fucking awed. It kind of makes this science fictiony warbling sound before it zones in on the heartbeat, but then it's off to the races. 156 beats a minute which can only mean one thing, that we're HAVING A GIRL OR A BOY!!!. We'll know for sure on February 5th, and if we get an image, I fully intend to broadcast naked pictures of my unborn child to all the world.

"New Haircut, New Attitude"

2008-01-06T20:33:00.001-05:00

Since my time working on the Dean campaign, my hair has been thinning. I've been noticing myself patting my bangs forward, which has annoyed me to no end; I dispise transparent combovers. I was on propecia for a little while, which worked but caused a lot of stress and cost a lot of money (it makes a small minority of men impotent, imagine spending two months holding your breath at the onset of any hanky panky). This summer I met a very successful, local restaurantor and was shaken to see him sweating from under a really bad toupee.

I figured that I might as well face this sucker "head on" and see if I have the skull to fully commit to being a bald man. I figured that new year's would be a good time to do it since it's the traditional time to do such things and it would give me ample time to grow what little hair I have left before I opened the wine bar or became a father.

Laura did the honors and settled on a 3/8" setting on the trimmer (trimer for my beard and the dog). Josh was there to help with the mirror, the camera and to give good color commentary as Laura trimmed away "oh yeah man, with the front of your head intact you can still pull off the art school student 'do if you stopped now."

And the results? I personally dig it, my wife thinks I look hot (whew) and I don't have any wierd scars or bumps under all that. Aside from doing it in the dead of winter and having to wear a warm hat everywhere, it's been great.

BEFORE:

DURING:

AFTER:

Happy Freaking New Year

2007-12-31T16:08:00.000-05:00

Checked off a lot of big ticket items in 2007:

Left North Carolina (thank fucking god)
Moved to St. Louis
Bought a house
Got a great job
Got a cat
Inseminated my wife

I also had a great 29th birthday, ran my best half-marathon ever and biked till I couldn't really safely bike anymore. I've resolved in 2008 to have a smashup wine bar, make more money and of course, be the best father I can possibly be. I decided to eschew the "exercise more" or "lose weight" resolutions and have amended myself to simply not put on too much "new dad weight", that puffy faced, three day stubble, saggy under the eyes look that most new dad's have. No doubt the stress and sleeplessness of both starting a business and raising a child at the same damned time will take their tole on my body, I just want to be aware of it.

Laura has planned an incredible New Year's Eve feast. Josh is in town and Matt and Narcisa will come over. We decided to go all out and under the direction of our meat man at Whole Foods, we bought five and a half pounds of upright roast. We were given some incredible bottles of wine from a family friend as thanks for helping him pack up his house, so that will make for a great evening as well.

Hope all ten of you that read this has a great new years, and an even better 2008.

ABC Motherfucker

2007-12-19T21:06:00.000-05:00

After months of nail biting, wrangling, harrassing etc. I will be closing on the business loan tomorrow. I've been at this for about six months now, and I thought I would be at this point long ago. This is a process however, a long, tedious, stressful process.

I feel like my life will be like the movie Alive only backwards. From this point on, I'm going to have to climb some mountain ranges, eat my fare share of people jerky and hopefully, get into an uncrashing plane filled with my fellow, now-alive rugby buddies and head back to Buenos Aires to party over a game victory. Yes, I am playing Stretch Armstrong with that freaking metaphor, but it's just the way I feel, dammit!

I'm going to start a second blog about the business, I'd promised to months ago when I thought the loan closing was imminant.

Commuting As a Future Father

2007-12-13T21:40:00.001-05:00

Last Thursday I biked home in snow that turned into freezing rain that just turned into rain (but that was only after it was dark out and only for the last four miles). For me, it was the time of my life. I had my shuffle stuffed into one ear, proper gear on, a blinky light and years of experience. For Laura however, it was pure hell. She's not an edict maker, but she makes it known when she's worried she might have to be a single mother because I like to save gas.

One the one hand, I don't race motorcyles, have sex with prostitutes, own a gun etc. On the other hand, it's indefensable to worry my pregnant wife like that.

When I was about to leave for college, my mom asked of me only one thing, "Teddy, I'm trusting you with a lot here, I just ask that you don't ride a bike in New York. A woman that I work with's friend died riding her bike in New York". Of course, three weeks later I bought a bike and was riding like an asshole through the streets of New York. Later, I was a part time, semi-dilitante bike messenger. In the meantime, of course, I regularly commuted by bike, chose my jobs based on whether they'd be cool with me biking to work and even went so far as to build an office for my favorite bike non-profit (for a princely sum, of course). It was years until I admitted to my mom that I rode a bike. As fate will probably have it, I'll have a girl and my biking will worry the hell out of her, too.

I'm not going to quit commuting altogether, but now that the days are shorter and my hours at work are longer, I'll be driving in. Either that, or mixing a morning commute in with a MetroLink ride home. I went to a spinning class on Monday, but it was simular to that part in the movie "Interview With A Vampire" when Brad Pitt's character starts sucking blood from rats in order to avoid the guilt of drinking the blood of hot, creole prostitutes. You could also compare it to Tofurkey or a sexual encounter with an inexpensive sex-doll. Running might be an option, or going to a gym or yoga. If it's really not working out, I'll probably pick up boxing or some other semi-dangerous thing that can be done with lots of padding.

The Lime Moves

2007-12-11T20:02:00.000-05:00

Laura convinced me to skip the second OB appointment, saying that it would be a perfuntory five minute weigh-in, doppler, wham bam bhank you mam. It turns out that she got an unexpected ultrasound and a glance at our lime-sized bundle of joy bouncing around her uterous. It was moving too much to get a good picture, so I was left hearing the highlights from Laura. She did count two arms and two legs, so I'm pretty happy at this point.

Cranksgiving Tooth Fairy

2007-11-18T21:04:00.000-05:00

So, two years later and my second Cranksgivng, a rolling canned food drive that roves from supermarket to supermarket, this time STL style. Patrick and the good people of Bike Works put it together and it was more of a ride than a mad-dash scramble.

At the beginning of the ride, it was mentioned that the shelter we would be donating to needed toothbrushes. When we got to the first stop, I asked some people who volunteered at a local food pantry what I should buy. They said again that they needed dental hygene products. No effin' problem, everyone who matters knows that I'm a flossing machine. No canned corn for this man, I loaded up on teeth cleaning products. Five supermarkets and 16 bucks later, I had 10 tubes of toothpaste on special, two Spider Man kids toothbrush and toothpaste kits, some floss and a few bars of soap for good measure.

All in all, 72 people took in a crap ton of food and dental products, everyone had a great time and now I'm going to concentrate on drinking water.

UPDATE!
Cranksgiving STL made it into the local paper

First Baby Pictures

2007-11-14T15:31:00.000-05:00

Laura and I went to our first OB/GYN meeting yesterday. Dr. K, who is our other Dr. K's Wife, was pretty good. There wasn't any waiting, she was very pleasant and professional and was warm enough to make Laura feel comfortable. After only a brief meet and greet, we went to a little room, she turned on some mood lighting and shoved a condom-covered, sonogram probe up Laura's hoo-hoo.

And this, ladied and gentlemen, is what we saw:

What you don't get from the picture is the winking on and off of the heart beating very rapidly. Laura was very nervous about finding problems during this visit. I didn't think I was, but once I saw the heart beat, and saw that it wasn't in the tubes, it felt like someone had taken a bucket of relief and dumped it over my head.

Don't Try This At Home

2007-11-10T17:49:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to add that in looking for the picture in the previous post I did a Google image search of "knocked up". If you have your filter turned off, like I did, you'll get a few images of Judd Apetow's movie, and a lot of shots of pregnancy porn.

Thanks A Lot Judd Apetow

2007-11-08T23:32:00.000-05:00

I remember telling Laura after we saw "Knocked Up" that I coulnd't wait to see the DVD when it came out. I was actually clutching Laura's arm while the birth scene was happening. The movie holds up the second time around with the comedy as well, I've always been a fan of improv based shit.

Our first meeting with the OB/GYN is on Tuesday. It'll also be our first time meeting the OB/GYN who just happens to be the wife of our regular doctor. I'm not too sure what one is supposed to do in these meetings. My grandmother, my grandfather and my aunt were all OB/GYNs and so I'll be sure to get that one in. I always make a point to mentiion the doctors in my family whenever I'm having a frank doctor-patient about my own impending medical attention. It's not so much a hope that they'll have met them, but that I'll appeal to that part of their superego that's more afraid of looking like an ass in front of their peers than getting sued for malpractice. It's an unfair advantage, but I feel that the cards are stacked against me anyway and I might as well use whatever I've got.

Our Blueberry Sized Bundle of Joy

2007-11-07T20:01:00.000-05:00

It's unclear to me how Laura gets through her day. She seems to move through the world in a vomitous cloud of pure fatigue. Not being able to eat a lot, I was a little worried about how that would effect the nutritional needs of the baby. Luckily, female biology is such that a fetus will happily eat the very marrow from the mothers bones.

As you might guess, I'm playing the part of the caretaker. Gone are the days of me basking in knowledge that my junk works and that my love of cycling hasn't destroyed my cajones. Now I wake up and have to change the cat litter for fear of giving Laura a harmful cat feces born disease and there is no one to walk the dog but me since Laura is out for the count.

Work is going well, I've jumping through requisite hoops to get everything ready for construction. Lots of people that I run into bitch about how difficult it is to get anything done in the city of St. Louis, but so far everything has gone off without a hitch. Bids are due this Friday, which is the 800 lb gorilla. I'm expecting some awful sticker shock, a little horse trading, a touch of whip-sawing and then finally picking one, closing the loan and getting down to business.

I'M PREGNANT!

2007-11-05T20:07:00.000-05:00

Laura is pregnant, but everyone says that it's a "we" thing, so yeah, while Laura is doing a great job of growing another human being in her womb, I too, am pregnant. I/Laura/we are due in late June. It was no accident, we meant to do it and it happened lickity split. Anyone who tells you that unprotected sex doesn't result in pregnancy is telling you a goddamned lie!

Laura turns 28 tomorrow and has reached her goal of being 28 and pregnant. Happy birthday baby.

Fun Times Weekend Pictures

2007-10-22T23:16:00.000-04:00

Here's the sag wagon.

Too Much Fun

2007-10-21T21:31:00.000-04:00

Through a friend of a friend of a friend I heard about the illustrius Tour De Moose, a semi-competetive event that marries beer drinking and biking. It celebrates the birthday of a gentleman known as Moose (or Kevin) who works as a bartender at a bar called Lemmons where the event began.

These are the rules:
1. Everyone has a helmet
2. No running lights (five minutes added to your time)
3. Stay with the turn sheet (five minute penalty as well)
4. Each beer is 30 seconds off of your time

About twenty minutes of biking, a half hour of beer, a group photo and then off to the next bar. Every weekend should be like that, maybe a ride around wine country for variety. Everybody was super chill: lots of introductions, some new friends made an invitation to a friendly game of bike polo and in the end some healthy competition.

Laura got super competetive and decided early on to house all of the other women AND DID!!! The four sophic women in charge of the oranizing and timekeeping rooted her on at every checkpoint. I took it easy for the majority of the ride, but was told at the beginning that there were a few people that always took it very very seriously. I decided to take the piss on a couple of these guys and had a great time of it. Lots of photos to follow.

Anniversaries

2007-10-14T13:42:00.000-04:00

Went to my 10 year high school anniversary last Saturday. The timing with work was good since I could back up my brag of opening a wine bar with written assurances from two different banks. My high school class was incredibly small, and the reunion was maybe 35 people, spouses included. Two girls from my class are new mothers with six and nine month olds. Three of my former classmates fly for a living, for the Coast Guard, Air Force and privately for jetsetting millionaires. A good number of my classmates work for their dads, pretty par for the course here in St. Louis, but impossible for me since my old man never taught me how to intebate.

I got to see my old theatre teacher, tour the school and see what has changed. The former head of the school, who I absolutely hated was long gone and had been replaced by a younger guy who seemed pretty competent. I was a little bit worried that she might show up, since I had planned exactly what I wanted to say to her and I knew I wouldn't be able to stop myself. Laura was there with me, which was great for the cool, hot wife bragging rights and so that she could get a little bit of an insight into who the hell "Teddy" was.

October 7th was our 1 year wedding anniversary, a sort of half anniversary since we were actually married in February. Laura's mom, Val and her boyfriend Bob were in town and we had barbicue and went to a new wine bar where Val gave the Italian wine selection a delighfully thorough drubbing.

October 11th marked a full year since we left beautiful, thriving, exciting New York. It's becoming a more remote spec in the rearview mirror, more abstract. I miss it sometimes, mostly the people. With some notable exceptions most of my good New York friends are leaving the city, and the New York that I used to know isn't really there anymore. This may be a stretch, but I sometimes liken the city to female characters in the Tom Robbins novels I used to read in college; beautiful, eager to engage you and completely indifferent whether you stay or leave.

The day we left, a New York Yankees pitcher crashed his plane into the side of a midtown building, snarling traffic and adding several hours to our exit. I looked out the window of our rented minivan and Laura said "we could always move back if we got really rich" it was a nice thought, but I knew it was goodbye.

Happy Freaking Bike Messenger Appreciation Day

2007-10-05T12:46:00.000-04:00

It's been a year and a day since I retired as a bike messenger.
I've got a crap cold so I didn't bike into work.
There is exactly one (1) bike messenger in the entire city of St. Louis.
Nevertheless.....

A Real, Honest-To-God Bike Commuter

2007-09-27T09:47:00.000-04:00

I've been experimenting with my commute route for the last few weeks and I've settled on the one that goes through a long, industrial stretch of Manchester Road. It's got a lot of stop lights many more lanes than there are cars and no one else except local traffic seems to use it in the mornings. There are a bunch of factories, used car lots, a big depot for welding supplies and the illustrious Bull's-Eye indoor shooting range. It's a lot like my commute from Greenpoint to Gawanis Brooklyn, only I'm the only biker.

Except for today of couse when I got passed by a guy on a mountain bike with slicks, full on shorts and jersey and a rack with waterproof panniers, which I assume held his work chlothes. I drafted him about a half mile, we exchanged a "great freaking weather for it" with one another and then went our separate ways. I finallly don't feel like a complete freak.

Nerding Out

2007-09-25T22:18:00.001-04:00

One of my boss's German clients turned me on to "Meet-Up German Speakers" and tonight I went. It was me, three other Deutschaphiles and a woman who was actually from Germany, a scientist of some sort. I've never quite figured out what it is I'm supposed to do with my German, it's an odd little parlor trick that I'm no longer that good at. It's not quite so good as a hard skill. Not very sexy either.

On the work front, I've gotten one bit of good news from one of the bankers, but I'm wating for even better news from the other one. I remain hopeful that things can get started soon. In the meantime, I've been clearing out some of the dead weight in the space.

Big Week

2007-09-09T23:17:00.000-04:00

Work is going well, met with money folks last week, more money peeps this week. If things go well, I'll clear it with my boss and see if I can start blogging about my work project either here or on another, new blog.

Here's a little bit of St. Louis cultural differences for those of you on the coasts. In St. Louis, home of Anheuser Busch, drinking beer in public is your goddamned god-given right.

Life Insurance

2007-08-29T09:03:00.000-04:00

About a year ago I was taking in a Shakespear in the Park production in New York and I ran into an old theatre design teacher of mine. He's gay, and when I told him I had gotten married he asked me very earnestly (New Jersey was mulling over civil unions at the time) "how is it?" I told him that the biggest difference I felt was that it was now okay to openly talk about my shared future with the other person. My former teacher is good at getting expository truth from people and my answer knocked me back since I had never articulated it for myself. When I was dating, even when I was in a long term, stable relationship, I was always leery of say, making Christmas plans in August.

Now that I'm married, planning can span months, years, and now I suppose, beyond. I was just notified on Monday that my life insurance policy through USAA had begun and if I crump before I turn 49, Laura will be the sole beneficiary. It's heady stuff, but I've been raised to be pretty practical about it.

Growing up, my parents would start many a conversation with "if your father and I dropped dead tomorrow..." Family friends and relatives would shift over the years and become the ones nominated to take care of my brother and I should my parents die. Once I became an adult, any changes in post mortum plans would be covered during my time home from school or when my parents would visit New York.

It has now been passed on through to the next generation like a potato salad recipe. Mortality is inevitable, and planning for it is just another form of hygiene. That doesn't exactly take away the ol' fear of death or make me feel like riding my bike like an asshole, but I was able to openly talk with Laura about future plans, even those that don't include us both.

How LImber You Feelin' Now Mother#$@#$@

2007-08-19T11:13:00.000-04:00

Decided to bite the bullet and take a yoga class on frida and got talked into purchasing a $20 7-day unlimited pass. I took it Friday night and Saturday morning and my god do I hurt all over.

Looked around the internet and found this great short film that I had seen a couple of years ago. It's a pretty good portrayal of biking in New York. I especially like it since there are no anglos playing bike messengers, a personal pet peeve of mine. Look closely and you'll see a Mr. Frank Boudreaux as the yuppie douchebag what doors the messenger.

And I Thought Only My Wife Read This Thing

2007-08-18T11:39:00.000-04:00

I guess I should have expected that a blog with my real first and last name would be more than a little googleable to my relatives. It was lovely to her from my master linguist aunt Dr. Jill Robbins and my uncle John wishing me a happy 29th.

In other relatives news, my cuzzister, Carol is off to college tomorrow. She's a smart cookie and all y'all better start saving saving up for her upcoming 2020 congressional campaign. BASTA!

29 is shaping up pretty well

2007-08-15T18:50:00.001-04:00

The birthday party was a great success! We now have more wine than god. Matt and Narcisa came back from Bosnia just in time for the party and gave us a beautiful "Bosnian coffee" (don't say "Turkish coffee" unless you wanna get a frying pan and 630 years of history thrown at you) set and a bottle of plum Slivovica. Hell yeah!

My brother in law, Alex was able to come and visit fresh from his last final of college and the day he arrived he got a job offer! Sure it's good news for him, but it will also mean vast rebates on luxury hotel rooms for Laura and I when we come to visit Boston. Double Hell Yeah!

Lastly of course is the coming of Nosey, our new lady cat who we picked up today from the APA. Nosey is named for her love of ramming her nose into mine when she's amorous. She's so far been a great cat.

Here's pics of my life lately:

Laura getting ready to obliterate the former owner's paint choices.

Milo and Pig, awkward dog cousins.

So goddamned happy to own a house I forgot to wear a longer shirt.

My Eventful 29th

2007-08-10T16:39:00.000-04:00

Here's the Highlight Reel

-Wake up at 4:00 in the morning. Drink about 30 oz of water and find out from NPR that the European stock market is shitting the bed.

-Suit up, get ready and head out at 5:00 am. Realize that I haven't so much as taken a step with my newfangled water bottle belt, consider ditching it, but tighten it instead. I hate the belt.

-Mile 8.5 I have a minor freakout. Inside of 100 feet I feel extremely tired and my body stops working like it should. I try drinking water but drop one of my water bottles and freak out some more. In the midst of all this, my former coworker's band Au Revoir Simone starts playing on my Shuffle and everything is ok again. Thank you Annie Hart.

-I have been saving my energy for the last three miles. MIle 10 comes around and the energy is not forthcoming. I reach for external forms of inspiration and find it in the form of Rihanna's "Umbrella" which I play three times in a row. It is a good example of my character persona that Julia likes to call, "big, gay Frank".

-Finish at 6:49. HOUR FORTY NINE-BITCHES!!! That's an average of 8 minutes 20 seconds a mile, waaaay faster than I had hoped for.

-Get on my bike. Go 10 miles and realize that both my body and mind are wrecked. I had counted on this so I intentionally biked in a straight line away from my house so that I can get at least 20 miles in. I drink water by the shore of the Mississippi river and head on back.

-I'm slower than molassis save for the last 2 miles when a biker passes me and I chase him to within 4 blocks of my house.

-Shower, change, gorge. My brother-in law Alex comes in from Boston and we go check out the cat we wanted to adopt.

-Adopt the cat, who shall be referred to from here on out at "The Nose". She is getter her uterus and her claws removed, we will pick her up on Wednesday.

I haven't had a beer for over two weeks. I haven't had any sleep since my morning and I can't freaking wait to see what alcahol will do to me.

Happy Birthday to Me.

Prop S Failed by 244 Votes

2007-08-08T09:37:00.000-04:00

Proposition S failed in a vote of 1059 to 815. Taxes will remain lower, classrooms will stay crowded and my GD property value might not skyrocket beyond my wildest dreams. Ah well.

My Brother Is Back, His Dog Is Gone

2007-08-08T08:05:00.000-04:00

Yesteday I returned my brother's dog back to him after nine weeks of dog sitting. My bro got a great job at a summer camp in Connecticut that he'd worked at for several summers and Laura and I agreed (jumped at the opportunity really) to watch his dog, Milo.

Milo is about three times the size of Pig, and unlike our hypo-allegenic bichon, sheds to beat the band. While he is now gone from our house, there is still plenty of his hair around with which to remember him. I have to say that he was a very good, well behaved dog...after the first two weeks and after we got him a "Gentle Leader" collar. He socialized well with Pig and even if he went a bit ballistic every time someone new came into the house, he did spend most of the time chilling out and obeying my verbal commands.

I had high hopes of running with him all the time, but he has a hinky right back leg and after every run, he would limp on it a lot. I didn't want to risk screwing up his leg and having to have the damn thing amputated.

Local Politics

2007-08-07T12:16:00.000-04:00

Laura and I just came back from voting on a ballot initiative for our local schools. Proposition S (S for SEXY no doubt) would increase our property taxes by about five bucks a month but would make classroom sizes smaller and pay for preschool scholarships for needy parents. Laura and I discussed the issue at length and decided that it would be a good thing to vote for.

Unfortunately as this increases taxes and older, childless people vote in droves. I suspect that the initiative will be beaten down like a red-headed stepchild and that said child will be ridiculed the next day in school by his 43 other classmates.

I'll keep ya posted.

Sexy Aussie Chicks Dig Recycling

2007-08-07T08:47:00.000-04:00

In my quest for green products to incorporate into the wine bar I'm developing I came across an Aussie company that makes a quiet bottle crusher and encorporates footage of lady bartenders mulching bottles on the job into their online ad. Yeah baby!

Speaking of hot, at 2:00 pm today it will top 100F outside and feel like 108F. It was simularly hot yesterday, when I biked about 30 miles, drank a gallon or so of water and still managed to have a water weight loss 6 pack at the end of the day. Oh man.

Things Are Heating Up

2007-08-04T14:35:00.000-04:00

First off, Laura's cousin, Dr. Amy Gershkoff just published a pretty hardcore Op-Ed in today's Washington Post about the difficulties facing returning reservists trying to get thier old jobs back. This could very well be the fart at the beginning of an election year shitstorm.

In other news the house is great. I spent about two and a half hours swapping out the garage door with the basement door. It was the first time I've ever messed around with mortising out a doorframe, which I butchered. We have a very small yard and I'm cheap (and somewhate ecologically concerned) so I got a free fifty year old Craftsman push mower from my boss and I'm loving it.

This Friday is my birthday and I'm going to be doing a duathalon: a half marathon and sixty miles of biking if I'm game. St. Louis is about 1300 miles away from a coast so the weather in August gets pretty oppressive. Friday's high is 100 degrees, breaking the heat record set 19 years ago. I'll be starting my run at 5:00 am to beat the heat and will hopefully be at the halfway point of my run when the sun rises. Wish me luck!

Oh Yeah, Did I Tell You I'm Buying A House?

2007-07-01T22:49:00.000-04:00

After a lifetime of renting, I will be carving out my own (small) piece of the American dream. The pics below are from the listing and have the current residents' stuff in it. Check it out!

Sicko

2007-07-01T22:00:00.000-04:00

Spent the afternoon watching Michael Moore's, Sicko with my father, my sister, Laura and some friends. It made me laugh, come to the verge of tears and then left me feeling empty and distantly hopeful.

I've had no illusions about how fucked up HMO's are and always just assume that I'll never get any coverage for anything. I have never, ever been totally honest with any doctor I have ever had for fear of having my honesty come back to haunt me. No doctor of mine has or will ever know that I used to smoke cigarettes, how much I drink, past drug use etc. I feel that I am always trying to game a system that would like nothing more than to game me.

For the last two and a half years, health insurance has been a mounting issue in my life, my work and my family. I kept my dangerous job as a part time bike messenger in New York primarily because of the health insurance it offered. My grandfather had a religious, but not a civil ceremony in order for them to preserve their health care coverage. Laura and I had a civil ceremony long before our wedding in case either one of us lost our job and insurance before our wedding. Laura and I have had several worried discussions about what in the hell we would do if she got pregnant during a lapse in coverage or what we would do should she lost her job and we couldn't afford the Cobra payments. We've also had pretty hardcore questions about the nature of our coverage and what we could possibly do if we got into a jam. "Sicko" seemed to propose a solution to a predicament like that: get the fuck out of the country!

The part of the movie that took place in France actually got me to involuntarily start having expatriation daydreams.

"How bad could it be? I could pick the language back up again in a matter of months, the kid would grow up bilingual, healthy and live three years longer than had we stayed in the U.S. Ahhh, but Laura would never do that." After the movie of course, she was quick to ask me what it would take to move to Paris. We talked about the prospect of flying to France in her third trimester, having the kid in a free Parisian hospital and getting French citizenship through our healthy, French-born child.

That fantasy is only about 25% fucked up! I spent close to a year of my life working on the Dean campaign with the idea that my service could possibly ensure health insurance for my unborn children, what Josh like so call "Investment Activism". That, of course didn't pan out like I had hoped. If the health care mess isn't cleared up in the next election, the economy tanks, and the war keeps cluster-fucking along, I don't really know what in the hell Americans will think they're getting back from their tax dollar investment.

Eco House

2007-06-11T10:00:00.000-04:00

After reading about it in my my new favorite blog I convinced Laura to check out the new display home for Eco Urban a green building company that just started her in St. Louis. Upon certification the house will be the fifth one in the nation to get a Platinum LEED certification.

The idea behind the house in great. The houses are modular, everything is sourced inside of a 500 mile radius and it takes 60-75 days from start to finish to get one and you get a tax credit for owning it. Local lenders are lined up to give special mortgage rates for the houses because it saves an average of $300 a month in heating bills in the winter and a few hundred in the summer for electricity, freeing up money for a bigger loan.

There are about 30 houses slated to be built in St. Louis city, most of them on lots bought from the city. Because St. Louis city is less than half the population it was 75 years ago, there are many blocks that have vacant lots where foreclosed homes were reclaimed by the city and bulldozed down. On those blocks today you'll see some people holding on to their 120 year old houses, some of those houses boarded up and crumbling and some really ugly, poorly built apartment buildings falling to pieces after only thirty or forty years. EcoUrban has decided to buy up the cheap lots (for about $1500 apiece) and build their houses there.

I talked to Lunchtruck yesterday about it and he asked if it was all about gentrification. In Brooklyn, it would be pretty much that, because there's always 100% occupancy and putting something in somewhere is a zero sum game. In this case though, these are lots that no one is using or wants, on blocks where no one is investing and houses that are cutting edge.

Laura and I drove around some of the proposed sites, and while I'm sure the investment will help things along, the neighborhoods are a little too sketchy to think about moving in. For now, an Ecourban home is slated to be a the second house we buy, not the first.

Corporate Charity

2007-06-09T18:12:00.000-04:00

Doing the full-on job search can wear you down. Flooding the internet with tweaked versions of your resume, sending corny cover letters in the blind hope that you'll be able to get a proper sit-down. Once the sit down happens, it's a high stakes structured improv and I've been falling back on my theatre training. I now do vocal warm-ups, take costume very seriously, write down objectives (what I want the other person to feel) and plan out specific actions and talking points get my message across.

The format of the interview can be a little too much give and not enough take. Most of the time you're on the defensive, answering questionse in what you can only hope is the right way, hoping that you don't get dry mouth, trip up or say "you know" too many times. After being the one to ask the questions they make a show of turning turning the tables and ask:

"So, do you have any more questions about our company?"

To which I've taken to responding with:

"Can you tell me what kinds of Philanthropic work your company does?"

The reaction is priceless. They'll falter for a few seconds, say something vague about sending nice things to the Troops around the holidays and mention something they might have heard third-hand about an event that they provided food for. Hopefully, it makes me a memorable candidate, and beyond that maybe they'll in turn ask someone else if there's a program. I don't know how effective that question is overall, for my sake though, it makes me feel good to stump the questioner.

My New Running Partner

2007-05-26T14:57:00.000-04:00

My brother got a great gig at a summer camp he used to work for in Connecticut and in nine days I'll be taking his dog Milo for the summer. This is great news on all counts: Milo is a great dog and I'm going t start running with him, Laura and I will have a dry run of two dogs ownership and my bro will have the opportunity to make it with hot Aussie girls. Win Win Win. I also agreed to mow his lawn and drink his beer. Tonight is his birthday/summer party and everyone will get to try his new pilsner and coffee stout. Good times.

The 8 Mile Barrier

2007-05-23T10:25:00.000-04:00

John laid it out to me last week that 8 miles was right about the upper limits of what I should do. Part of me wanted to go ahead and do a 10 mile just to prove him wrong but after doing 8 miles yesterday, I would agree with him.

The weather was in the low 80's and muggy and I was more resigned to the idea of running 8 miles instead of being pumped about it. Zoe, the malamut had just changed from puppy to grown dog chow and stopped at least 10 times during the run to deficate, so there were ample breaks and we lowered to pace to roughly nine and a half minute miles.

I had a couple of low moments where I wanted to give up, which scared me. I've always prided myself in being a mentally, if not physically tough person, and I've always liked how endurance sports have pushed me against that edge of giving up. Having conquered my endurance limits in the past I've begun to believe that that was just part of my persona. In reality, I'm only as tough as the last time I pushed myself.

Perhaps that's at the heart of my current funk. I've just lost touch with my badass side and with it some of my confidence. It's a powerful lesson, but it's something I've realized in myself and can actively work on. It'll be another couple of weeks till I can crush an 8 mile run, but I did wake up this morning without even a hint of soreness.
BAAADASSS!

The Bunnies Are No More

2007-05-20T13:54:00.000-04:00

Having saved the bunnies from a certain death in the jaws of my brother's dog, we knew that we were just playing slim odds that they would survive in our care. From what I've read, if you take them away too soon, they might not have built up the benificial bacteria that helps them digest food and they die.

We found "Chinny" two mornings ago, dead in the cage. There are a few theories as to how he passed.
1. The cotten I found around his neck=he might have strangled himself
2. He was malnurished. Though he might have actually been a she which would provide a reason for why Chinny was so much smaller than Lefteye.
3. Aforementioned lack of digestive bacteria

Lefteye hung in for a little bit longer, but when we got back last night, he looked nearly dead, was cold and didn't want to eat. After some deliberation, the decision was made for me to euthanize him. It was quick.

Bunnies!

2007-05-18T12:24:00.000-04:00

My brother's dog, Milo surprised him a couple of days ago by waking him up with a dead baby rabbit in his living room. A female rabbit had had a litter in a hole in his back yard, and his dog managed to destroy three of the babies and leave two still alive in the hole. He told me about it and remembering how Laura constantly points out the baby rabbits in our neighborhood, I said that if they're still alive, we could be over ther in 20 minutes.

When we got them out of the hole, one of them made this unearthly, high pitched screeching noise but quited down once we had them in a towel lined box. The internet gave us a bunch of info and so we took em' home and fed them a bunch of Pedialyte and formula. One of them had a pretty sizable gash on it's left cheek, by it's eye, which got worse during the night. We did a little bit of bunny surgery, cleaned out the flap and then reattached it to its face with liquid bandage. We named that one "Left Eye". The other one, in better shape, had a cut on it's chin that we cleaned out. He has been since dubbed "Chinny".

The bunnies are roughly 5-6 days old and the chances of them surviving are pretty slim. In the wild, about 90% of the littler don't make it, which is just as well since they would overtake the planet in short order if not for that. If they do survive, we'll be releasing them in about a month (thats my plan anyhow).

It's a funny situation, morally speaking. In Maplewood, where we live, there are bunnies everywhere and save for hopping under a car or into a back yard inhabited by a dog, they have no natural predators. I've been on a kick lately where I've been wanting to revisit my meat-eating by killing, slaughtering and preparing an animal, but after this episode, I've effectively scratched rabbit off of the list of tasty dishes.

Six Miles Mutha Fucka

2007-05-15T22:34:00.000-04:00

Had a freaking excellent 6 mile run in the rain today. Laura came with for the first mile and a quarter and doubled back and the rest went off without a hitch. Inside of two weeks I was able to get up to six miles, not too freaking bad. I was completely endorphin high for about two hours, singing in the shower and generally alienating myself from Laura. Several hours later, I'm beginning to have some hurt in my calves and hip joints.

Ritalin and Running Update

2007-05-14T22:51:00.000-04:00

Were I a competetive athlete and open to chemical scrutiy I might get called out on how I did today on my first 5+ mile in a long ass time. That not being the case, lemme just say that running is a freaking cinch now that I'm on ritalin. I was able to concentrate and perform quite well today. It can also be said that I"m in a lot better shape than I was two weeks ago and that helped a lot too. Tomorrow is a 6 mile run, more on that later.

Quality of Life Drugs

2007-05-12T09:59:00.000-04:00

After my recent acquisition of out-of-pocket health insurance ($175 for me and Laura, not too bad) I got myself to a local doc. My mother told me a couple of years ago that if I'm picking out a doctor blind from a list I should look for geographical convenience and a last name that belies being one of the chosen people. Since she was in Australia when I was looking for a doctor and neither she nor my father could think of anyone good offhand, I used the same method to get me to Dr. K.

I told him about my ADD and he prescribed me Ritalin. It's been pretty good so far, not too speedy like when I took Adorol when i was 21, but I'm able to focus a lot easier. More updates on that later.

Running Again

2007-05-10T00:19:00.000-04:00

As much as I hate it, I like running. Just found a running partner 7 years my junior and it's been working out pretty well. My idea of getting out of shape means not touching my toes, his is not being able to do a no-handed backflip at will. To boot, he has a 70lb malamut that comes along and never gets winded. It's pretty funny finding myself being the one out of shape and at a motivation deficit. At the same time, I've been suffering though it and feeling better every day.

My J-O-B situatuation came to a head today. The place that I was working, a start-up, organic pasta joint owned by a married couple seemed like a good fit. In the end though, it just turned into a completely toxic workplace reminiscent a job I had in New York where I had major beef with a guy straight out of IDF special forces. I know a job situation is in a bad place when I imagine a physical showdown that involves convincing the other guy to put down his knife and fight like a man. In the end, they wanted a further cut on my tips, I told them that I would be leaving, and I left. No big deal.

As my dreams come closer to fruition, I just want to be the boss. Soon my pretties, soon.