Summer work

I know that some of you have heard, but not all of you so I thought I'd take a minute and fill-in any lacking information about what Kelly and I will be doing this summer. Kelly will be working at the movie theater again putting in a few more hours now that she won't have classes to worry about. She will have research to worry about because she is going to get started on some preliminary research for the research she will be doing this next school year in order to graduate. I don't really know all of the details but I'm sure she could fill you in a little more. Kelly will also be working at a new job she was offered dealing with equipment checkout that the university does for local high schools...or something like that. Again, I'm not too clear on the details. This summer isn't going to be that busy with it, more or less just getting acquainted with what they do so she can put in more time this coming fall when she will be working there for work/study funds she was awarded. Finally, as if she wasn't doing enough already, when she isn't doing all of that she will be babysitting Evalie Rippy while Stacey is going to start going back to work at the theater and Jeff is hopefully going to be getting an internship in Spokane.

As for me, I'll be working this summer at the library putting in hours on the evenings and weekends. During the day I'll be taking summer architecture studio, pending on a few circumstances, and also working as a research assistant for Frank Jacobus, my current studio professor. I'm really excited for the research assistantship for many reasons. It will look great on a resume and the research will be interesting (we will be looking into defining an architectural genome that could then be used to develop design computing software, which has many different applications). Most of all I'm really excited to be a part of architectural research. Here at the university you can see that many of the professors are dabbling with different things they are researching but for the most part the student body isn't involved, unless their research involves using us as "guinea pigs." This is an opportunity where students are integrally involved in the research. I think something that has helped with this is the fact that we got a grant to fund the research and therefore have money to pay us. The interesting thing that really helped in getting me the job is the fact that I have the experience with the library. Frank was really pleased that I had that experience with the library because much of this research at this stage will be finding out what other schools are involved with similar projects and getting enough background research done so that we can find further funding in the form of other grants.

Also, if you haven't noticed already, check out my "drawing board" blog for details on the ICMA competition and my fire station design. The link should be in the upper left of this page and if that doesn't work, http://vandalarchitect.blogspot.com, is the address.

The Lundbergs

Kelly and I recently drove out to St. John (between Pullman and Spokane) to (re)do a photo shoot for the Lundbergs, Jeff's sister Kelly's family. We originally tried to get some family photos for them last fall when they had just adopted the newest member to their family Marcos.

However, due to weather, lighting and kids that wouldn't really cooperate we didn't get too many good family shots. We did get some great candid shots of the kids, especially birthday cake shots of Marcos (he turned 1), but we still needed some group family shots. So this time, rather than trying a Mexican restaurant in Spokane we just went out to their house. I thought it might be worse getting the kids to cooperate there, but on the contrary they we much more mellow and easier to work with...although I'm not sure their mom thought so.

Here are some more we took. I'm currently going through them and trying to pick out the best ones and touch them up a bit, but these ones were just too good to not show them off right away.