stupid kinkos

August 20, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Anyone know when Adobe released Acrobat 5? 'Cause I'm pretty sure it was a while ago, and all the Kinkos around here still have 4. Now, when you try to view a file that uses 5 features in 4 (particularly alpha in the objects) you get some nice blocky non-transparent objects that look nothing at all like what your nice design did in anything recent. I know, if I was smart I would have saved my pdfs only using 4.0 features, but who would have guessed Kinkos is at least two years behind the times. I mean, come on, Acrobat 6 is out, and has been for a while.

i'll become a graphic artist yet

August 20, 2004 by Eric Richardson

So I'm stuck on campus this evening, not wanting to make the drive home in between being here for my multiple hour stay in the financial aid line and an event I'm recruiting waterski people at tonight. I've been passing the time pretending I knew how to use Adobe Illustrator, messing around with a signup sheet and a sign for the waterski locker.

What I've come to realize is that Illustrator is really cool. I'd used Photoshop plenty, PageMaker enough, and Premiere many times, but until today I'd never fired up Illustrator. Even non-artist me (civic title notwithstanding) was able to create something that looked pretty good.

Now I'm off to Kinkos to see if I can get these printed.

going to need that padded furniture...

August 20, 2004 by Eric Richardson

How ridiculous is this? Somehow I managed to injure myself last night while sleeping. I know it happened last night because it woke me up (and really hurts this morning). But who hurts themselves enough to draw blood while sleeping?

I don't know what time it was, but I had been in bed for a while. I must have gotten too near the left side of my bed, because all of a sudden I thought I was rolling off. Instincts sent my left foot shooting down to catch me. The left foot must have been a little tired, though, because instead of finding the ground it smacked into my bed's side-board, ripping at my toenail and cutting a nice flap of skin from the front of the toe.

It hurts.

LA Blogs Friday Questions: Parts of LA

August 20, 2004 by Eric Richardson

It's part three of the weekly LA Blogs questions. This time Jonah's put together a set of questions about parts of the city.

What city or part of Los Angeles do you live in now?

Downtown, in the "Historic Core." My building on Spring St. was built by a bank in the 1930s, and then converted to apartments in the 1980s.

If you have lived somewhere else in the area, where was it?

For my first three years in LA I lived in the neighborhood right around USC. My first year I was in the dorms, and then for the next two I was in an apartment three blocks north of campus.

Besides where you live now, where else would you want to live in the area?

The beach. I had this grand scheme to live in Manhattan Beach and commute to USC from there, but then I took a job in Pasadena and that whole idea sort of went out the window.

Where would you not want to live?

Any of the non-descript areas that are in-between everything but don't have attractions of their own. I love having such interesting stuff all around me, right within walking distance.

How often do you venture out of your area?

All the time. Downtown has a lot going for it, but it doesn't yet have enough of everything to allow you to not leave. But why would you want to limit yourself like that? LA's so big, and there are so many cool places to go do things.

Where do you usually go when you get out?

When I get out? I don't know that I have a place that I "usually" go, but I try to make it down to Manhattan Beach once a week (if I'm lucky). For movies I probably most often go up to Pasadena.

How far do you work/school from where you live?

Work's something like 20 miles away from downtown. School is just maybe two and a half miles. The commute to work isn't as bad as you would think, though, since the downtown -> Pasadena drive in the morning is against the commute traffic. I wouldn't want to see how long it takes the other way.

Money is no object; Beach, the Hills, the City or Leave?

I really want to live at the beach, but I think right now I love downtown too much to say I'd leave. And if money's no object, there are some insane condos you can buy around here for a million or so.

the caltrans building on foot

August 19, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I took a walk today at lunch. From my apartment I went up Spring to 1st, and then from there headed a block east to take some pictures of the new Caltrans Building. My opinion of this building is altered a little bit each time I see it, but I think in general I'd say it gets refined more than changed. Check out my pictures starting here to see an admittedly low-quality view of what I'm talking about.

I think the building looks a lot less ominous when you're farther away. You get a sense of perspective that you can't get when you're right down under it. The Main St. fronting courtyard should be nice. It's still fenced off while under construction, but it looks like it'll be some open space that the building really needs to not flat out overpower you.

I've mentioned before that this building really made me sit there thinking I just didn't get it -- I just didn't understand. Today was a great example of this. It wasn't until I was standing across 1st, looking at a side-view of the building, that I first understood some of the crazy angles in the bottom of that black metal mesh covering. If you look at my third picture you can see a little of how the mesh is supposed to bunch up, looking a bit wrenched from its flat shape. From the front you can't see that. It just looks like weird angles.

The rear of the building, the side facing Los Angeles St, has a much poorer street presence than does the front. Here you do get those nice blank concrete walls directly across from the New Otani. Again, it's a question of how the structure interacts with the space it's given. All the lines on this building are horizontal, and pretty much all ornamentation is above the high-side ground level. As the gentle downhill runs its course, the building stays unchanged, its lines just moving farther above the street level. Yeah, it's a parking garage down there, but at least give the wall something. I mean you sheathed everything else in metal, why not that?

As always, it's still to early to judge what everything will look like once the finishing touches are in place and the construction fences come down. And as with all architecture, it'll end up being a matter of personal preference. My preference, though, is that I like the classic old downtown buildings. What happened to stately or sleek? When did those go out of style and give way to abrupt and jarring?