Raleigh

Haha, this is Andrew's friend Ori from Israel...we went out for a beer the first night of the show and later he came with us to the art museum. This was sunday night and this was about the only place still open, but they had $3.00 bloody marys that were reeeeeally good. Saturday night we met Kristen for dinner in Chapel Hill. We at at a mediterranean restaurant that had so much food we didn't know what to get. We ended up getting a sample platter and some other small things. We had a stuffed cabbage roll, which I think we call golumpki, and it wasn't nearly as good as mom's.

The North Carolina Museum of Art

This building is recent, but I don't know when it was built. It's pretty amazing, and, again, I could have taken a billion more pictures but I ran out of time. Just google it. The part I really liked was the reflective, permeable, light qualities of everything. All the aspects were really subtle and made one big impression, but if you had taken away one of the smaller pieces, you would definitely have noticed.

Raleigh Convention Center

The NAHB National Green Building Conference was held at the Raleigh Convention Center. I realized I only took pictures of this one wall, but thats ok. I took so many pictures of it i didn't have time to take any of anywhere else because we were ready to go. And the security guards were making fun of me because I was laying on the floor and moving plants and what not. The show was awesome, I learned a lot and finally got some good networking in. We got to do everything we'd do if we payed, except we were volunteering so we looked better. It rained the whole time, too. Also, the only thing I don't know how to fix on Andrew's camera is how bright and washed out the light gets, I've changed everything and I can't totally fix it.

I kept playing with photoshop...
again there's not as much detail as I would have liked, buuuuuut I'm not a professional so I like it :)

Andrew's Birthday; in the colosseum

These pictures came out really grainy and I lost a lot of detail that I might have been able to save if I printed them myself, but I used photoshop and fixed quite a bit. Even so, I still like them...they make me think of the Grunge Period in the 90's. The last one was supposed to be of Andrew's friend Eddy smoking a cigarette, but I can't really figure out what I'm looking at besides smoke...i like it.

Spring Break

I like the tree/gate combo




there was an old horse trailer out back that was rusty and all I could think of was that I wanted to decorate a room using these colors, maybe make these into a series of prints. It looks like art.

These turned out pretty well for having messed up film and getting them developed at wal mart. This was the old truck out back of the cabin we stayed in for New Years.

Really. I had to post this.

Yes, that is a camel with solar panels draped over his hump, why do you ask? this was taken outside a renewable energy conference in Israel.

Tree House vs a House in the Trees

So what if I want to live in a house in a tree? I found this site that had the following houses in it called "tree houses fit for tree-huggers"

Built from Canadian cedar, Scandinavian redwood, and English and Scots pine,$6 million tree house in Northumberland, UK. has two towers, a raised walkway through the trees, a chimney, an open fireplace and a 120-seat restaurant...maybe itd be the house i had in mind if it was smaller? And I'm not really sure if this is fit for "tree-huggers" It still looks like fun though.

This is a house in Brazil designed by Marcio Kogan. I think this a little more reasonable, but not quite what I was picturing. I think I would like to live in it though.

This house is in the Catskill Mountains. It was built with scrap wood left over from logging. This is more like it, except that I wish it was a little more original in design and somehow involved the trees more. But I would live here also.

This is a design for a nature center that includes a biomass boiler, solar panels, rainwater collection and a glass roof. Build it and call it a house and it may be perfect...

O2 Sustainability designed this tree sphere made with 100% hemp canvas, recycled milk carton plastic, and 60% post-consumer waste eco-resin. A cable suspension system is used so the tree isn't harmed by nuts and bolts. This is awesome. Maybe a vacation home? haha, just sayin, i might get claustrophic if I lived in it. I'm ok with the small size, but only if it's more open. Also I'm afraid of heights and I don't know if canvas would make me feel safe.

These are called Free Spirit Spheres. They're built in the west coast rainforest of Vancouver Island, Canada by Tom Chudleigh, and were designed to co-exist with the natural habitat and sway with the breeze. I like these better. They are not helping to suppress my desire to run away to Canada.

Natural Beauty

The water dripping off the rocks formed these weird shapes instead of typical icicles.

Andrew's camera has a tungsten setting (don't know what that means except that it gives everything a blue tint) made it look as cold as it felt.

Trashcan Falls

He's clearly going to kill people with giant icicles.

The Presentation

Everyone did an awesome job presenting. 20 times better than the last time we practiced. We packed everyone into one hotel room so the presenters could practice and we could critique them. Our advisor said they had to be able to present through distractions, but then I got in trouble for distracting them too much :( But I did help Andrew pick out his tie, which you can't see very clearly.


We had to present in front of 3 judges for 15 minutes and then there was some Q & A time. As far as we were concerned, we did a better job than most of the presentations we saw. The winning group had a lot of fluff whereas we stuck to the facts, so maybe its a matter of opinion. We placed 7th in the nation out of 39, though. Top 10...better than the 25 percentile...hello resume :)


These are all the presenters. They look pretty professional. We went as "Blue Ridge Development Group"

More food

I didn't take any pictures of the other places we went, but they were pretty damn good too. One night I was getting sick so I didn't really want anything too heavy and everyone else went to get beer and wings. Andrew and I decided to walk down the strip and eat at P.F. Changs and there were some groups of people waiting, but since there was only two of us they sat us right away. And they sat us in this little raised circular room that was just the two of us, a booth, and a table. And we got hot tea, lettuce wrap, snap peas, and cucumbers all off the app menu and it was just the right amount of food and it was $20! for both of us! It was so nice I can't believe no one else went with us.
Then on the last night we went to this brazilian barbeque. They bring around a whole bunch of meat on these swords and cut it off for you and if you don't want them to come to your table you turn this little puck over to red. We had veal, pineapple, roast beef, prime rib, pork, lamb, filet mignon, etc. And there was a buffet with salad and fruit and appetizer things. Other than being unaware that we bought $7 bottles of water, it was really good.
So I think the food was probably the best part of Vegas for me. Second would be touring the casinos (I didn't gamble once).

Society (Birthday Dinner)

Andrew and I were really the only ones interested in venturing from our block and eating at cool places. We looked through the guide book and picked out cool restaurants and he let me pick this night for my birthday :)



Look at this place! I picked it because the description said Oscar Wilde would love it!! Our waitress put our napkins in our laps, it threw me off a little.


I took a picture of the food. I'm not embarrassed. Before this we had this awesome salad with fruit on it, kinda like mom makes, and some pretzels with honey mustard butter. Then we both had braised lamb with some crazy good grits and beets. The lamb was so good it was like dessert and we ate it cold the next day and it was just as good. The only thing that was missing then was some bread, mayo, salt and pepper.

Wynn and Encore

yeah, he's carrying my backpack...
The top of the escalator by all the Parasols was called "Parasol Up" and down below it is a bar called "Parasol Down". I thought it was fun. AND IT HAD CURVY ESCALATORS!



There were so many of these mosaics and I thought they were one of the prettiest things in Vegas.


I like their style.


AloE TrEE!! did you know there was such a thing?! We didn't.


Entrance to a restaurant. Down right magical.


There was just something about those rows of red chandeliers...


I like the ceiling, too.



They were so much classier than most of the other casinos, but with a little bit of whimsy. By far my favorite casinos. Look at the butterfly mosaics on the floor!