some friends of ours that we met in Bozeman have suddenly come into the possibility of a promotion that will move them out of the Gallatin Valley and onto the Oregon coast. at hearing this i am all but jumping up and down. i am ready to help them pack. they have a lot to go over and hard prayers to pray. so i think i might have to wait a little before i get them all set up to move.

this couple are great people and i hope that whether or not they move that they find the blessings they are deserving of. while in Bozeman they were one of the greatest blessings we found. having them near again would be a great thing. i love this tendency for those that L and i love to move to the same area we are in. when we moved to Montana i had given up hope of having our friends near us. since we have been in Portland it seems a new old friend moves in every six months. i figure that within the next 5 years her parents, my parents and all our siblings will be moved in and settled here in the Portland area.

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plus if they get the job we have a place to stay anytime we want to go to the coast. woot!

i had a professional development meeting this week. the point was to layout how i am going to become a better architect in the next 12 months. most of the meeting was talking about my credentials and how close i am to getting them. in the discussion it was asked if i intended on anything else with the firm, was i going to be getting involved in marketing or one of the development boards that the firm works with.

rather than look into one of these opportunities i decided to talk to them about starting a pro bono initiative in our office. lawyers, doctors and many others have formalized programs for giving of their professional talents, architect though do not have any formal policy as a profession. we talk about it. we participate in programs outside our profession. we give money. but we do not at any point set up design clinics or anything parallel to doctors and lawyers. occasionally we get a chance to work with Habitat for Humanity, but that is more a contractor pro bono project than an architectural one. i spoke to them of trying to develop a very specific community service in which our firm gives of its professional talent even of the specific types we practice.

i am not sure what this looks like and i am taking several talking points directly from The 1% Solution. but i am moved by the concept of being able to donate 1% of the work that a 400+ person firm produces in a year.

during the conversation, i was able to get both of my bosses excited about the idea, not just in the project, but in the idea of being better humans. one of them, after some discussion, off-handedly remarked that maybe what this started with was an article. he was trying to connect this to another out-there goal of mine, to be pulished. the conversation moved on and the point was left hanging in the air.

i think i have hung on that point more than most of the rest of our conversation. i have a passion for my profession, warts and all. i would like to see architects grow up and move beyond their Howard Roark god complexes. i want us to become responsive and progressive in a way that warrants the name "professional". so i have begun trying to compose an article. but here comes the sticking point: how do you get published? do you just mail off your work, hoping that some editor sees your worth? do you start with the little guys and maybe republish in something bigger, later?

i actually need to know this. anyone got any ideas? i am not trying to publish a book and i don't want to be discovered as a blogger. rather i want to have Dwell or Architect or Architectural Review or Ark or or or to print it... i suppose there are years of preparation and credential building that must come first. and if that is so i guess i have little choice, i will start down that path. but in reality there must be a place or venue where architects look to read what other architects have to say. maybe i should talk to the AIA?

i never thought those words would come out of my mouth... wow!

if you haven't noticed i have changed my blog's appearance and location in effort to get more excited about it. i have had lots to say lately, but it all seems to come out at my sounding boards rather than my blog. i think my sounding boards are getting tired of my moans and rambles. so here i am again trying to find a way to frame thoughts.

following that thought, i am here to work on framing words. i have a goal to layout an outline for a paper by the end of the year. the topic is one i have infinite passion for, until i touch paper. written (typed) words all but fail me. so i am blogging in practice for a grander goal...

i don't pretend there is an audience beyond my own eyes for this blog, but i will write as if there is so that i can try and express more fully the passion that the keystroke kills.

maybe i should look into a voice-to-text app...