1. xmas eve.
2. xmas morn.
3. tamales.
4. camping.
5. lights. 6. planes. 7. trains. 8. film. 9. friends. 10. music.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
1 month
1. xmas eve.
2. xmas morn.
3. tamales.
4. camping.
5. lights. 6. planes. 7. trains. 8. film. 9. friends. 10. music.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
quick trip to safford last night to check out a large parcel of land soon to be "graham view estates" barf. rosalee and i are designing the common areas of the development. it is next to a mormon church, so i saw what they had, and will probably use similar plants b/c everyone there is mormon and they will feel right at home. well, it was a nice trip. i rode the yellow ninja today. honestly, it was scary. it was only my 3rd time riding and i kept the traffic interaction to a minimum, but i will definitely need some hours in a parking lot before i hop on speedway. i will probably get it wednesday. i have to ride a few more to get a good feel for the bike, and to get the price down. the ducati dealer has the yellow ninja and they are selling it right along w/ all the other ninjas in town, only they have tax and title. adds a couple hundred. so i let him know i'm looking around and i look around. then he will knock the price down and i will buy it from him. he knows i want it. i come to the shop twice a week to make sure we stay friends. the ninja i'm looking at tomorrow is blue with silver flames. kind of barfy. whatever. yellow is more visible. i'll put a picture up, the pic has flames, mine will not. i thought they might be cool in a funny gayish rainbow sticker way. over it.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
veintisiete
i am freaking miserable. m i s e r a b l e. i'm sure i will not be so much after i wake up but it seems too early to go to sleep.
tradescantia pallida mixed with a gray ice plant and Sprawling prickly pear (Opuntia macrocentra) add a silver torch and a totem, how about a mexican palo verde cause they look so good. a few accent boulders, some slipper plants and a few muhlenbergia rigens to soften it up. how to make it urban desert, urban desert... hmm...
"It has been suggested that some prickly pears coevolved with the now-extinct giant mammals, such as mammoths and ground sloths. It’s an intriguing theory and, if proven true, further illustrates the already-established fact that natural systems are anything but static."
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
ruined my appetite
holy christ i feel like a sock monkey right now. glazed over, malleable, soft, tacky. i worked 10 hours today. it really only feels like 10 hours if i skip lunch. never on purpose. always never on purpose... until 3pm when i eat some nuts and think about how i just ruined my appetite by eating a handful of nuts so i eat 5 more handfuls of nuts. and ruin my appetite.
i got up early today. 6ish. had a note on my desk to get ventana reserve lot 12 to donnie by this afternoon. vr is a small development of stupid million dollar homes surrounded by landscapes of 1/2"-3/4" deco rock shoveled around the desert by young men who are just trying to survive with a job that can pay their rent and buy them at least a forty a day. more like 3 forties a day.
i had to see what kind of a landscape the house was left with after they cleared most of the lot for the home. one 20ft. saguaro, one poor, velvet mesquite- mangled by the builder's bobcat, a boulder the size of a baby elephant, some desert shrubs- brittlebush, prickly pear, cholla.
back at the office, paul is waiting for me by his truck. i am 15 minutes late. "donnie needed me to check out this house, paul." "yeah yeah yeah, mumble mumbe" mumbled paul. i like paul. i like everyone i work with. we stopped by some fast food joint and got some breakfast biscuits. paul smokes a cigarette. i eye the bacon. do i love it? am i scared of it? i love it. who cares that you can see through it. you can actually see through the red part of the bacon. it tastes good. so does the fluffy yellow filling in the center of the biscuit. i think it is egg.
we drive 40 minutes east. lots of traffic. i asked every question i could imagine about bidding landscaping jobs, what we were on our way to do. it really just came down to "you measure it, and it costs a certain amount". silence. until i re-word the question and get a slightly different answer, silence.
we got to the job, a place i have been before, off of old spanish trail in vail. johnny williams and his wife are here to retire. they have worked their whole lives, mostly as border patrol and homeland security in the nation's capital. retiring on a 1.87 acre lot in a multi million dollar home along the foothills of the rincon and saguaro national park east. common story. johnny hires a fly by night landscaper who installs rip-rap, low voltage lighting, an outdoor fireplace, plants, drainage, irrigation, brick paver patios, 2ft-5ft cmu stuccoed walls, and an outdoor kitchen. the guy did all of this stuff. all of it. really really really shitty. really shitty. the outdoor kitchen was full of water, the grout used for the tile work was mixed wrong and things were falling off, the masonry was poor quality, the fireplace looked like a large bomb shelter or tomb with a teeny tiny fireplace, the wiring for the lighting was buried all throughout the yard and not connected to a thing, the rip-rap along the slope in the back had defective mortar. it was washing out from between the rocks. we have to bid the removal/demo of everything, and the putting it back together. he is getting bids from 3 other companies. this process is for some kind of homeowner's blahdy blah, so he can get reimbursed for his mistake. he might not use us to do the job, making the hours of estimating a waste. but i really tried to connect with this guy. we were both very familiar with virginia AND i just asked if he worked for homeland security in dc- he had said he worked for the government- he did, AND my cousins wife just happens to work there as well, of course they didn't know each other, but we made a connection and that half-hour we were there, i was so interested in this guy. he was funny, smart, and from dc. after the half hour was up, we left the ogre and his wife in their beautiful home in the middle of the desert. its like living on the outskirts of dubai.
back at the office.
i have a list of plants that can go in. 3-15gallon trees, 10-5gallon shrubs or accents, 10-1gallon shrubs or ground cover. i chose palo verde, mesquite, chuparosa, soap-tree yucca, giant hesperaloe, mount lemmon marigold, santa rita prickly pear, and salvia greggii. maybe some other things, i can't remember. I made a little note at the bottom of the plan telling jason, the foreman on the ventana reserve jobs, that i would like him to pick out some of the existing stones and boulders on the lot and incorporate them into the landscaping- have fun, i wrote. it must suck having to follow someone's plans all day and not get to do your own thing. not a big deal, but if i were him, i would love to put the rocks where i wanted, really if i let him put everything else where he wanted, i wouldn't have a job.
done.
dawn, the boss, wants to know where the raised planters are that i was supposed to design. i hadn't actually had the time yet, and started as soon as vr12 was done. i did a plan of 3 raised planters, 2 are 34" high on one side, and the other side arcs up 6 more inches in the middle. they are capped with brick and stuccoed white to match the house. 2 have benches built into the curves of the walls, one is 2 feet high and 20' long, running along the edge of the pool. computer freezes, data is lost, time is lost. cursing under my breath. i have to get this done, this is a test, dave is meeting rosalee about my salary today, they are testing me. shit. it is 3pm. i lost data, i have a meeting at 3:30. dave's meeting is at 4 with rosalee. i quickly reworked my drawing saving, saving, saving, i had to leave. i explained to dawn my situation, i could have her the planters tomorrow morning. no prob.
i drive to the englehardts. they have a contract for the work of the design i did for them. i want them to sign it. kevin is allergic to palo verdes, have to take it out. they want to change a few things, add the irrigation and make the palo blanco bigger. done. sweet. they just added a couple grand to their job. great. our guys can work another week.
i get a company truck to drive to my appointments. rosalee calls me to fill me in on the meeting with dave. he's gonna talk it over with dawn. good enough. "listen to this" VROOM, VROOOM, GRRRR, VROOM! rosalee is having me listen to a harley that just pulled up next to her on her drive home.
back at the office. 5:15pm. just dave and me. i'm working on the planters. dave asks me for a favor, sure. 530pm. can i put together a proposal and email it. sure. i have dinner plans with anast. supposed to be there at 6. his sister is in from out of town. dinner at 6. i'm late. must get a raise...ninja...ninja...ninja...
done.
i got up early today. 6ish. had a note on my desk to get ventana reserve lot 12 to donnie by this afternoon. vr is a small development of stupid million dollar homes surrounded by landscapes of 1/2"-3/4" deco rock shoveled around the desert by young men who are just trying to survive with a job that can pay their rent and buy them at least a forty a day. more like 3 forties a day.
i had to see what kind of a landscape the house was left with after they cleared most of the lot for the home. one 20ft. saguaro, one poor, velvet mesquite- mangled by the builder's bobcat, a boulder the size of a baby elephant, some desert shrubs- brittlebush, prickly pear, cholla.
back at the office, paul is waiting for me by his truck. i am 15 minutes late. "donnie needed me to check out this house, paul." "yeah yeah yeah, mumble mumbe" mumbled paul. i like paul. i like everyone i work with. we stopped by some fast food joint and got some breakfast biscuits. paul smokes a cigarette. i eye the bacon. do i love it? am i scared of it? i love it. who cares that you can see through it. you can actually see through the red part of the bacon. it tastes good. so does the fluffy yellow filling in the center of the biscuit. i think it is egg.
we drive 40 minutes east. lots of traffic. i asked every question i could imagine about bidding landscaping jobs, what we were on our way to do. it really just came down to "you measure it, and it costs a certain amount". silence. until i re-word the question and get a slightly different answer, silence.
we got to the job, a place i have been before, off of old spanish trail in vail. johnny williams and his wife are here to retire. they have worked their whole lives, mostly as border patrol and homeland security in the nation's capital. retiring on a 1.87 acre lot in a multi million dollar home along the foothills of the rincon and saguaro national park east. common story. johnny hires a fly by night landscaper who installs rip-rap, low voltage lighting, an outdoor fireplace, plants, drainage, irrigation, brick paver patios, 2ft-5ft cmu stuccoed walls, and an outdoor kitchen. the guy did all of this stuff. all of it. really really really shitty. really shitty. the outdoor kitchen was full of water, the grout used for the tile work was mixed wrong and things were falling off, the masonry was poor quality, the fireplace looked like a large bomb shelter or tomb with a teeny tiny fireplace, the wiring for the lighting was buried all throughout the yard and not connected to a thing, the rip-rap along the slope in the back had defective mortar. it was washing out from between the rocks. we have to bid the removal/demo of everything, and the putting it back together. he is getting bids from 3 other companies. this process is for some kind of homeowner's blahdy blah, so he can get reimbursed for his mistake. he might not use us to do the job, making the hours of estimating a waste. but i really tried to connect with this guy. we were both very familiar with virginia AND i just asked if he worked for homeland security in dc- he had said he worked for the government- he did, AND my cousins wife just happens to work there as well, of course they didn't know each other, but we made a connection and that half-hour we were there, i was so interested in this guy. he was funny, smart, and from dc. after the half hour was up, we left the ogre and his wife in their beautiful home in the middle of the desert. its like living on the outskirts of dubai.
back at the office.
i have a list of plants that can go in. 3-15gallon trees, 10-5gallon shrubs or accents, 10-1gallon shrubs or ground cover. i chose palo verde, mesquite, chuparosa, soap-tree yucca, giant hesperaloe, mount lemmon marigold, santa rita prickly pear, and salvia greggii. maybe some other things, i can't remember. I made a little note at the bottom of the plan telling jason, the foreman on the ventana reserve jobs, that i would like him to pick out some of the existing stones and boulders on the lot and incorporate them into the landscaping- have fun, i wrote. it must suck having to follow someone's plans all day and not get to do your own thing. not a big deal, but if i were him, i would love to put the rocks where i wanted, really if i let him put everything else where he wanted, i wouldn't have a job.
done.
dawn, the boss, wants to know where the raised planters are that i was supposed to design. i hadn't actually had the time yet, and started as soon as vr12 was done. i did a plan of 3 raised planters, 2 are 34" high on one side, and the other side arcs up 6 more inches in the middle. they are capped with brick and stuccoed white to match the house. 2 have benches built into the curves of the walls, one is 2 feet high and 20' long, running along the edge of the pool. computer freezes, data is lost, time is lost. cursing under my breath. i have to get this done, this is a test, dave is meeting rosalee about my salary today, they are testing me. shit. it is 3pm. i lost data, i have a meeting at 3:30. dave's meeting is at 4 with rosalee. i quickly reworked my drawing saving, saving, saving, i had to leave. i explained to dawn my situation, i could have her the planters tomorrow morning. no prob.
i drive to the englehardts. they have a contract for the work of the design i did for them. i want them to sign it. kevin is allergic to palo verdes, have to take it out. they want to change a few things, add the irrigation and make the palo blanco bigger. done. sweet. they just added a couple grand to their job. great. our guys can work another week.
i get a company truck to drive to my appointments. rosalee calls me to fill me in on the meeting with dave. he's gonna talk it over with dawn. good enough. "listen to this" VROOM, VROOOM, GRRRR, VROOM! rosalee is having me listen to a harley that just pulled up next to her on her drive home.
back at the office. 5:15pm. just dave and me. i'm working on the planters. dave asks me for a favor, sure. 530pm. can i put together a proposal and email it. sure. i have dinner plans with anast. supposed to be there at 6. his sister is in from out of town. dinner at 6. i'm late. must get a raise...ninja...ninja...ninja...
done.
Monday, December 17, 2007
st. francis
WHOOO! After 20 hours of class this weekend (yes, 2 days), I aced my motorcycle written and driving exams. I am up, as usual, at 6am- this morning searching for the most convenient MVD to get my license. The one at Ina and Shannon will do. I heard it was slow there.
Anast and I are designing a bathroom for these feng shui guys. Its a small space that needs to fit a toilet, preferably enclosed, a closet, a roman tub, 2 sinks, and a sitting area. Oh, french doors and a large glass block window. If I come up w/ something good we will use it. I just have to keep in mind that Anast is building it.
I am enclosing a picture taken by the office manager of me in my new leather jacket.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
its getting real cold
It is so cold we had a fire. I bought a truck full of wood and chopped it with my bare hands. swinging a large chopping maul. I can see the snow on the mountains, but it hasn't reached us yet. Today the weather was actually quite pleasant. Wore a t-shirt. So its probably not like Virginia weather, but its cold enough to reevaluate your wardrobe.
Oliver has been acting like an only cat today. She came with me into the bathroom and batted at the air while she rolled around on the bright, woven, bathroom mat. HaHA! she was telling the other cats. I am the favorite!
I should put a picture of me on here...
the weather
it was crazy foggy the other morning from the rain the night before. the palm trees looked really cool in it.
all my plants have almost made it inside, but there hasn't been a frost yet, so i'm not worried. i have one 4' grow light and 2 160 watt clip on lights for the cacti. soon i might have to sacrifice my little heater for them. why isn't our heat on? a simple phone call that only i can make to the property manager. why only i? well, the rmates have other warm places to sleep at night. i will also have to pay most of the electric bill since it will be attributed to my little heater and my grow lights. and my motorcycle helmet came in!
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