Flossing is Fun!

The weather outside today is gorgeous, so I sat in my car, windows down, sunroof open, to eat my lunch. As I continued to sit there, the prospect of returning to work became less attractive all the time. I even made a list:

Things That Sound Better Than Going Back to Work

1. Flossing my teeth over and over
2. Donating blood at the bloodmobile parked behind me, even though they'd throw it out afterwards (I lived in Germany, thus I fall into their "permanent disqualifications" group)
3. Faking a doctor's appointment
4. Faking a child, then faking that it was sick
5. Staging a "cat health emergency"
6. Faking my own illness (wouldn't be hard, as I ate my entire Chipotle burrito- and now feel barfish)

In the end, I settled on going back to work, and writing this list. That killed at least another five minutes.

For the love of all that is decent and holy!!

Designosaur, who, up to this point, has had absolutely no concern for reducing the costs of the design, has “brilliantly” had the idea that we should lower the height of all the parapets on the two buildings to save some money.

Great. That’s just great.

I wish he would have thought about that before we started drawing the 24 wall sections that will be affected by this change.

Conversely, he is refusing to use off-the-shelf items for various other parts of the project. How much money are we saving there, huh? Huh?!? [pulls out hair]

Monkeys drink more alcohol when housed alone, and some like to end a long day in the [cubicle] with a boozy cocktail.

Architect Porn

Now that ManThing and I have rid ourselves of the mundane House of Monkey, and moved into a super-cool loft, I am one step closer to becoming an architecturally pretentious ass. Not that that’s a goal of mine, or anything.

ManThing and I love the new place. It is dripping with architect porn.* Today began the final phase of ensuring the loft is 100% cool, instead of just 94%: the nasty-gross carpet in the bedroom is being ripped out and the concrete beneath resurfaced and sealed (as it should be).

[arms crossed, CAD Monkey nods her head imperiously]

I have developed an intense loathing for carpet over the last two years, as a direct result of living in a house devoid of the fluffy menace. There’s just something attractive about not getting constant sinus infections as a result of your floor covering.

The bad part of all this is we had to disassemble all our bedroom furniture, and cram it into the master bathroom. In the process, I managed to smash both the foot and the big toe of my Golden Leg.** ManThing reminded me about how I’m not supposed to move things. Ever. For this very reason. Somehow, I can work a drill while half-drunk on mojitos, without incident, but can’t move furniture worth a damn. Guess I should stick to “drunken use of power tools” and leave “sober moving of large objects” alone.

*exposed concrete structure, an interior brick wall, primary colored paint (red), sealed concrete/ hardwood floor.

**My left leg; the one that has to support me for several months after my surgery, by itself, while the bones in my right hip are “setting.”

First thing this morning, I discover Designosaur’s latest edict elevation sketch laid ever-so-sneakily on my desk. Just as I’m beginning to bang my forehead on the desk in frustration, a co-worker walks past my cube and asks, “how’s it going?”

“Fine, except I’m wondering how this is supposed to work.” I point at the elevation, where Designosaur has shown a light fixture mounted to a 2 ½” window mullion- which is surrounded on all sides by vision glass.

“Ah, that’s just a little thing.”

“Yes, but it’s one of so many other things.”

“As long as you’re having fun, that’s all that matters.”

“SNORF. Yeah, I’ll let you know when that starts.”

There are clients touring our office this afternoon, so a few days ago we got the “clean up your sty cell cubicle” e-mail from the Big Boss. I never do too much cleaning for these events, because an empty desk is a sign of an empty mind.

Thanks to the power of the ‘net, you’ll never know whether I managed to keep a straight face while typing that. Heh.

Every time a client tour is about to come through, I always picture myself in a small room at the end of a dark corridor; behind a door which reads, “Beware: CAD Monkey Sector.” When the tour comes by, Big Boss warns them, “that’s where all the production people are. We don’t go in there.” One hapless tourist sneaks closer to the door to peek through the small window at what lies inside. He sees me, sitting at my desk, hunched forward, scowling at the monitor (life inspires fiction, no?). I turn my head towards the view window and snarl at him; lunging out of my chair, against my chains

The tourist scampers off, whimpering.

He can't say they didn't warn him.

Something my favorite designer keeps forgetting about is that a building elevation drawing will never be seen that way in the real world. He keeps asking me to to things based upon how they line up on a flat piece of paper, where you see the entire face of the building straight-on, without perspective.
See, there’s this concept, called a viewing angle, which negates some things being seen from a normal person’s perspective. For example, a pedestrian will not see the mechanical unit on the eighth floor of a building from the ground, so why are we spending money (and my precious precious time) trying to cover it up with some whoopty-do fancy screening?
Someone standing in front of the building’s entry won’t notice that the mullions of the windows don’t line up between two faces of the building that are 40 feet away from each other. Yet, I keep finding myself being told to line ‘em up, anyway!
I would expect things like this from a rookie, but this is Designosaur we’re talking about here. He should know better.