Our Startup Company, Untitled Concepts

I am exhausted, this SELF-EMPLOYMENT is fun. Another wild and of course unexpected weekend. It started off at 5am Satruday morning with a ride to a diner in Arbutis, MD. Where we met a neighbor of EEG's to clean out some tools from his garage. Our woodshop will be a reality thanks to Dave! large Drill Press, Chop, Radial and Table Saws with Dado blade kits and other goodies. As well as a canoe! We were packed up by 845am and back to Northern VA to an interesting auction which would change out weekend forever...stay tuned, too tired to write about it now.

Re-vitalizing a 76' Vintage Modern Reston Condo

The first 4 pics are of a stock 2br 2ba unit, c.1976 Woodwinds Garden Style 6-unit condominium building in Reston VA.


My unit started out just like the one shown but is an end unit with an additional 94" x 62" window, and a 20" x 62" master bath window on the living quarters level, its kind of a bi-level to achieve the 10' 6" ceilings in the rear space, and the windows on the rear of the unit go from floor to ceiling, revealing the wide strip of nature reserve land seperating woodwinds from the next development. This vintage modern space, was concrete slab constructed, it's great because it's super quiet and it means almost every wall is removeable, except a semi-load bearing cinder block wall on one side of the mechanical closet. Really the only major disappoint with the place. It would be much cooler if the entire rear walls of the units were glass and placing the heating and cooling units outside or on the ceiling. It was not feasible or permitted for resident to alter. So it stayed. But this was the coolest structure I could afford in 2002.

When I moved in I guttted the most of the rea space rear space except the mechanical closet. I removed the walls around the kitchen, the soffet, hvac tubes inside the soffet and the entire kitchen, and the semi-wall stairway bannisters (added tons of visible square footage.) I lived here creating art and painting for 5 years while day jobbing at AOL. My junk shop studio. Scary I really never missed a kitchen much, probably should have left the sink. I slowly modernized it with clearing the concrete beam ceiling of white popcorn with a powerwasher, redoing the shallow carpeted concrete steps with wood planks, and putting in exposed duct work, added black bamboo floors wall to wall and a modern compact euro-style kitchen, 2 ceiling fans, Cable Railings soon, Slate Foyer/Entryway. Should be done this first level in a couple of weeks. Then it's off to the living quaters, 2 full baths and the 2 bedrooms.

Cheers

Remembering OZ!

Me happy before a surf last winter at Brokenhead Beach Australia with one of my Best friends from High School D Lloyd. He never forgets, eventhough I do sometimes. My friend I miss you!

In Australia I was along for the ride, while Dave was shooting architectural sites around the country. But his trip through Asia for EDAW, Dave contracted me as a co-photog, check out our travel/photo sneak peek blog:

http://beyond-sfo.blogspot.com/

The book Beyond Growth should be out by September. Cool.

The Backyard at my Reston Modern Condo

Electric Char-B-Que, $99 in 1981. $7.50 in 2008. EEG and I had a cookout the other day with are new procurement. Excellent; Confetti Potatoes, Portobellos, Tofu, and Chicken Sausage. The burns are healing nicely.

Now take notice of my backyard, Yea! I tilled that shit myself and grew some grass, tried of waiting for the morons who run this community to do anything to up real estate value. Instead they buy little flowers for you to plant for exorbatent costs. And they die in a month. Money well spent, Good Job! Jerk-Offs! They actually fined me for putting up two string of orange tape to keep the so called landscaping people off it, just while it grew in. The Woodwinds Association is a very reactionary and punitive group. They are not able to comprehend any longterm improvements. Not sure I will ever understand the average person that inhabits the Northern Virginia area. They seem quite different from me, and I really want to relate to my co-inhabitants. I am lonely and in need of companionship like any other person of the world. Okay I look a bit sketchy and often fail to follow the rules by the letter. But I am a lover, shit virginia is for lovers, right? Please don't judge me on my looks, or I will take you, and you'll never see it coming. Oh well. It's much more beautiful out my walls of windows to the woods now, and summer is here and the grilling days are in full effect.

But, I do wish people were more like they are on the Andy Griffin Show, or Leave it to Beaver, you know with that fifties attitude of neighborly love. Today they just hide behind a book of HOA rules, with extra copies behind there backs to throw at you. I guess it goes with the territory, D.C. is infested with .gov's, red tapers, bean counters, cowards! If there is a problem we could talk it out, have a beer or a cup. Forgive each for our abrasive guards. We are all people, we are all smart enough too relate and help each other understand our needs and gripes. The Association person actually said I was lowering the real estate value by emphasizing the other grassless yards. A real Genius, "so false you think it's fucking true.." Isaac Brock (Modest Mouse.) Love it All!

UNEMPLOYABILITY feat. A Business Trip

Found on the clist in Miami, Coconut Grove to be exact. I love Miami! Just got through all three of the Jeff Lindsay Dexter Books which take place there; Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Dearly Devoted Dexter, and Dexter in the Dark. Lindsay has a funny style, a serious penchant for euphonics and alliteration, but sounds nice, I audiobook most stuff.

Anyway, this poor chair was the product of a nasty divorce. Banished to the Garage, with a bunch of other manly stuff. Nice house, poor dude. A 2001 Walnut Eames 670 Herman Miller Lounge Chair with perfect black leather cushions, coupled with a 60's Vitra (german made) 671 Ottoman. It was missing an armrest and a base cotter pin, not bad for $550 bucks. I fixed it and switched out the vitra shit base on the ottoman to match the lounge chair and sweetsweetness.com There you have a Mid-Century Icon! I was keeping my nights productive prowling the clist and local ebay listings, while in Miami, checking out all the local Mid Century shops and thrift stores. I am not much of a night time socializer, but I love sex and I am a night owl, and that spells SELF DEPRICATION. Anyway, now we know my ABC's.

The daytimes were filled with biking around town, swimming and soaking up the rays and hanging out with the local Ferala (i.e. below in the photo a large feral Green Iguanas, etc) They are all over the place but not orignally indigenous to Florida. Cool. So I am eating my lunch chilling out feeding a Mina bird bread from my hoaie, and the homeboy who made my sub (and skimped on it too) rolls out of Jack's Deli to chill on the dock by the bay. Just as I had been doing for about 20 minutes or so,, peacefully feeling like Dr. Doolittle. Homeboy decides to sneak up on the Iguana and grab the thing by it's tail and hoist it up over his head. The thing thrashes violently, it's quite large and from the look on homeboy's face a lot stronger than he had anticapated. Then bang a vertibrae in the things tail explodes (a defense mechanism among lizards) and the Iguana went for an unplanned drop in the drink, leaving his tail in homeboy's outstretched hand, he instantly squealed like a girl and dropped the writhing thing to the deck, and off it wiggled its' way into the drink as well, swimming like some blind eel, in search of its' master. So much for my tranquil lunchtime. Wha a jackass.


Anyway after disassembling and packing the lounge chair up, I drug the large box on a Dolly down route 1 from aventura past the mall to a Mailboxes Etc. No one made a comment or really even seemed amused, needless to say I was laughing the whole way, I felt like I was in an old 80's David Bowie music video, you know the one Let's Dance put on your Red shoe and dance the blues...maybe? So without a hitch the chair for $72 went home to Reston and later to be restored and tranplanted to my pad in Reston. My Biz partner EEG (Mr. Ginter) fell in love with it, you know sitting in it too much does that, and bought it. That is what a Business trip to Miami is all about, UNEMPLOYABILITY at its best. Ice Cream cones, Enrique's American Spirits, Cheap Cuban food, Enrique's AMG benz, and good times and many stories of how he got his Poul Kjaerholm pk22 for $400. Cheers Motha F'er. And remembering Life Promotes Life! Feel it!


http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/fur/715355476.html

Before she leaves for a new home:








First Day or so on the job cruising across White's Ferry to Maryland. $1.50 Cones on the boardwalk in Hollywood Beach. The Condo Backyard under going a slight facelift. And another shot of the place at an unfinished spot looking back from the main room to the living quarters.

1980 Datsun 810 Station Wagon 29,800 Miles One Owner

Another day has passed and we seized it. Last night an estate sale listing caught my eye. On sale Wednesday morning, a 1980 Datsun 810 with just a mere 29K Miles on it, original owner now 93, this baby has been garage kept. So initially, WOW, I thought to myself I need a new car something to supplement the old ailing service van I normally drive around a good StayWay! Ya Know. And with that in mind Mr. Ginter and I stopped by before our Red Cross Auction pickup for the day. Good thing we did, it was everything we thought it might be and more. And SHIT! We never anticipated the overwhelming feeling of relaxation and bliss this machine passes on to its drivers and passengers. We were so intoxicated we cruised some busy Vienna High School as classes ended for the summer, trying to gauge the coolness factor, apparently none! Nevertheless, we gotta get it! So meet our first 2 ton stage prop, and of course it's for sale. Ask me about it.

Behind me the lane lines glitter like someone is throwing flairs out there car window as I speed home, just a lonley little hypocrite vagabond in a little blue abduction van. Life keeps spoon feeding me all that I have ever swore off and I try to swallow without much resistance and I get older.

Yesterday with a van full of old window weights, iron cages, bakelite toggles, brass and bronze switch covers, electric locks, and 40 pieces of germany track lighting, Mr. Ginter and I have lunch. We fight the entry stench of an old latin grovery store in PG county to rustle up a bit of lunch, and not for a lack of trying to be healthy we just down a few little bricks of hershey's ice cream. It's starting, something, creativity, without a muse, just on me, and the fabrications factory is too, almost a reality. I am by myself and I watch the grass grow in the backyard around the chipmunks, and birds and try to not think too much, all the while drifting with this silent force that pulls me along to an unusual life. I feel lucky.

Back in Reston

Hey. I am back at home, working on the condo renovations. So call me lets do something.

Cheers,
Dino
email me

Last Stop Pushkar

After an afternoon train ride 24 hours I was back in Mumbai. Gave my old point and shoot away to the juice boy at my favorite spot in Bombay. Chilled out for the last time in my favorite place in India, mostly out of comfort and familiarity. By the way I finally found a nice room, a seperate room with shower near the C.S.T. for 624 Rs. Hotel Windsor, try it.

Later that day I headed north from Mumbai with Eric "Legend." We arrived in Pushkar 18 hours later. It is a bit high on the spirtiual charts for my liking, kinda gave me the creeps like Varanassi, and compound that with a festival ongoing all the time and the clever beggars and annoying beggars gather like flies on shit. Don't get me wrong I love all the Hindu stuff and the temples and Mosques and the Ghats and stuff, it just attracts a certain type of beggar that always take something frm me that I don't want to give, when I get over that BS issue, I will not mind the spiritual centers of India so much, but for now the dreadlocks can have them.

Eric has a soft spot for the lower castes, particluarly Gypies. We were told today they are in the lower caste even with the urinal scrubbers. I think it just made Eric want them more. Yesterday we are sitting with four of them, I inbewteen to young blossoming gypies girls maybe 17 and 20, each has one of my hands palm up in their laps. Doodling with henna from a bakers pen, thinking they are taking me for 400 Rs each. They smile and flirt and push out their bosoms. I am a prisoner, they are in control and they like it, you can tell, my palms in red mud I can't even drink the black tea in front of me, ah India. Eric laughs, this won't happen to you in D.C. And he quickly returns to drolling over Anita the gypies who is with us that he met last year and has been dying to see since Mumbai and even dig out her necklace and started wearing it a few days before we entered Pushkar to show his undying love and devotion.

I sold my books and got a few more for the train ride to Delhi and the plane rides to Munich and D.C. I guess it is really over and I still miss Priyanka and think of her constantly. The calls have stopped, and things are as they will be in the states I guess. I hope our communcations will pick up again, I liked being needed, and feeling helpful in stopping her tears of anxiety and stress. I miss GOA, and the beach, I miss the movies in Vashi. But home is calling louder than last time, and Dave's equipment has to get back to San Francisco by the 10th or so. My hope is that business connections made will come through, if love does not. I want something from this trip to survive with me, if the impossible love cannot.

I even look forward to eating my old meal (afgani kabob on naan) in the living room, listening to an audiobook and drawing new symbols on my vintage plank of maple and doing new artwork for food money. The office job feels like it has removed itself fully from my future, it was not indelible like I thought it was just like the henna on my palms. See you soon, but there is so many moving parts.

Dino

Plane Crash in Bangalore! (Baby where are you?)

Leaving Priyanka in Bangalore, possibly for the last time, did not feel so 'International Man of Mystery.' Fucking Bangalore?!?! (India's capitol for US exported tech jobs.) More like the end of an ailing tech career.

So with a lump in my throat, and a limp in my leg (being 2 nuts down and all,) with a mean 'Cum Coma' rolling in like a late summer squall. I slunked out of that 5 Star (15,000 Rs/a Night,) Royal Something or other Hotel, Just like Arcele' did in Manila but sans the escort and the payment. Straight out across the bridge over sewage waters back to INDIA, (seriously swank, 120 Rs for a friggin Tea bag! shit!)

She(Priyanka) is funny. She says, "We impossible!" over dinner and, "forever!" during our goodbyes (complete with tears and all.) I am alone in Bangalore, Priyanka has flown the coupe early this morning. Now during my morning walk I have become unprepared for the immediate explusion of my bowels. Also a toilet is not materializing very quickly, am I on the bad kharma list again? THis Hindu Santa is a tyrant. (On the train looking out the window where I am writing this, passes a family of pigs, the mom is wearing a chic piece of rubbish, it looks just like a page of notebook paper on her side, it says KICK ME!) I am feeling the strain of the day. I have no toilet paper, so here we go with another 'Sock Sacrifice' in the land of the sacred cow. By mid day this town will be strewn with dumbfounded Indians staring at my one barefoot.

SINGLEMINDED PUNISHMENT; Overcome with grief and my bowels, I fail to see two small puppies in my path to the public railway toilets. A little puppy has to sacrifice his tiny paw to pull me from the depths of my belly button, to again feel the pain of the world. (She says, "Have you travelled the states?" I reply, "No, I think I will wait till my golden years." She says softly to herself, "Poor America.")

I stepped on the puppies' paw. No look back right to the 'Indian Style' toilet to listen to the poor thing's squealings, horrible. Did you know wet newspaper works better than toilet paper, its nicer softer, amazing. Nice discovery in the midst of all this, squealing. My grieving for Priyanka has now tripled, and I must see to this poor puppy.

Both puppies had limps so I massage 4 paws that morning and tried not to think of all the fleas on them, and all was well in the world, and I cried inside for my lost little girl whom which I probably should stay oceans way from in the future? I am still not sure what I want. Women seems so angelic and innocent at first. Or I always start out a sucker.