baby Burkhart arrives

Here are a few of the first pictures taken of the new addition to the Joel and Jackie family. I just thought of something, we are going to have to change our blog name! joel and jackie +1 how about that? anyway enjoy the cone head pictures. oh, also for those who care, she (possibly Blythe Ann Burkhart) was born yesterday the 6th of November (right on her due date!) at 6:30 A.M. As you can see on the first picture her weight is 6 lbs 10 oz. and she is a whopping 19.5 inches long.







p.s for more pictures click then click on the feet (website) then click on client and type in blythe1106 for the password

Question

Do you know what this is? This is what I dressed up as for work on Halloween. It was an easy costume since I already kind of look like one. When I got to work I was surprised to find that only a few of my co-workers knew what I was. (even after I told them). I guess not everyone has read Dr. Seuss.

baby things

To answer the question about the last picture, Jackie is due November 6th, and that picture was taken on the 6th of September. this next picture was taken just a few days ago, so about one month away from the due date!



Jackie keeps saying she is soooo huge and has gained soooo much weight but as you can see, and like everyone else says she is still so tiny! personally i think she looks pretty good. I guess it doesn't matter much what I think....but I will say that the doctor says that Jackie is small but the baby just keeps on growing right on target so thats good. on a similar note, we have been getting a lot of great things from baby showers and in the mail from great family and friends. lately, we have been trying to figure out how to work some of the gadgets. Like today we spend a good hour and a half trying to figure out how to set up a playpen/crib/changing table/bassinet, sounds complicated, and it sure is. the instruction manuel was bigger than my mechanical and electrical systems text book! the next project...car seat! i don't even dare find out how thick that manuel is. anyway thanks for all the support from family and friends, we really appreciate the help.

third try

This is my third attempt to post a new blog, but it hasn't worked out because my pictures won't load (probably because of my impatience) anyway, since the last post a lot has happened. First Jackie and I had our 6th anniversary on the 5th of September. or was it the 5th on the 6th? the next day we went to the red bull flugtag where they send flying objects off a huge ramp into lake michigan. it was fun but the flying objects were more like falling objects and we didn't see much because there were so many people we were sent into the third overflow where we got a distant view of a big screen.



well it looks like my third attempt is not so successful at loading my pictures so we will just get one picture and more words. Anyway, after that weekend, we had Joeh and Amy Recksiek come to our house and they brought there little girl Emily, we had a great time and saw some cool things. the only problem was that we got rained on the whole time because of a residual affect from the hurricane down south. it finally cleared up on their last day here so they finally were able to see the top of the sears tower without being covered in clouds.

the weekend after that we had James and Stacey come stay with us for a couple days and we had a good time hanging out with them. They were only here a couple of days so we wanted to get as much in as we could and it seemed like we were rushing around the whole town to see everything.
there are pictures to all our adventures but they are not loading so again thats too bad.

other than our adventures with visitors i have been in school and just had a preliminary review for my studio project and it seemed to be helpful and gave me some direction for the rest of the semester.

School starts tomorrow

So, School is already starting tomorrow, like the title says, and I figure I better post a few of the projects i did last semester because we set up the blog after I got out of school.


This was my first day of school last year

This project was a "bale" where i was studying intersecting lines and change of direction. I used 8.5 X 11 inch sheets of recycled paper from the computer lab. The next project was a "box" and had to be made out of wood and had to relate to the "bale" so this is what i came up with


Each of the pieces of wood were shaped so that when put together they would relate to the dimension of a piece of paper. for instance the inside circumference is 8.5" and the outside circumference is 11" the height of each individual piece is 11" and the height of where both pieces are touching is 8.5" and so on.

One of my visual training classes we studied spheres all semester long. I used my time as a materials study as well so i made spheres out of plaster, yarn, concrete and different mixtures of light weight concrete. I used balloons as guides for a little bit but then I used a bowling ball as an object that I made casts from. anyway here are a few of the many spheres i made.





In one of my studio classes we studied wood structures and some of the common and not so common practices of building wood buildings. one of the structures I studied was the forestry station modular structures located in Switzerland. this is what part of the building looks like.

Our class later in the semester went to Switzerland and Jackie and I went during spring break before the class arrived. We drove up to the forestry station to see if I built it right and I think I did a good job.

Later in the semester we had a final show in Crown Hall and here is one of my projects along with a few of the other structures that were studied by my classmates.


Also in that semester we made some dynamic structural models of some existing buildings that used natural shapes that help the structural stability of the building. the model Tom (a classmate) and I made was a representation on the dules airport in D.C. at least i think its in D.C. either way here is a picture.

Our model is made of wood, plastic and wire to show the different forces and movement that the building has. the actual dules airport is made of concrete that is post tensioned into this parabolic shape which is able to span a much greater distance than just a flat roof.
The last project of the semester was a full scale structural design. My team decided to design a bridge that used some of the structural ideas that came from studying the dules airport. the idea was to span a long distance with a very thin structure. here are some pictures.

It ended up being a success as you can see. Tom and I are standing on what looks like a 4" deck spanning a good distance. the distance between the wall and the lockers is 40 feet. the way that the bridge works is that there are three support posts that are not touching the ground, they are actually held in place by some tension cables that are putting all the force back into the deck in a horizontal direction. it is a little hard for me to explain without being there and pointing and touching but in essence the posts are being held up because of the compression in the deck and the deck is able to span because of the posts breaking up the span distance. I am probably making no sense but anyone reading this just needs to know that it was a successful first year and I am looking forward to a next year starting tomorrow.

Last Nights Storm

Im glad I found that time lapse option on my camera because I knew that last mid to late summer we had a lot of great lightning storms and I wanted to record one coming in. I was watching the news and there was a tornado watch in effect in some of the counties to the west of us. I set up the camera and we got a storm that was a lot bigger than we were bargaining for. Take a look at the video.




At the beginning we could see a lot of lightning to the north west of us, as we kept watching we turned on the news again because it was starting to look scary. the tornado advisory was heading straight for us then the cable lost signal and we heard the tornado warning alarms going off outside! we grabbed our 72 hour kits from the front closet and were ready to book it down the stairs. Our power was still on so we decided to stay where we were until either the power went off or our windows blew out. luckily none of those things happened so we just stayed in our apartment. If you look closely at the video right before the brunt of the storm hits you can see the red crane violently swing around in the direction of the wind then later it shifts in another direction. The news said that the storm moved across the city at 40 MPH with gusts of wind that were in multiple directions which they thought might turn into a tornado. I thought the gusts were going to blow our windows out! It was a little scary but we are alive.

Joel doing nothing

So, I don't have a job. I have been looking all summer for an internship with any sort of architectural firm. Before the summer even started I gave my resume to a few firms at a job fair, then when the summer started I looked up a few places that looked like cool places to work, after no luck at any of those firms I just started giving my resume to just about any place that looked like it might resemble architecture, including a firm that draws new designs for bus seats. I had a couple of interviews and a few phone calls but nothing has worked out. I have less than a month before school starts and in that time we are going to move and I have to get a few things ready for school. Lately I have been packing books into boxes, playing rock band on line with Brett and I have been monitoring the progress on some new building they are constructing outside my view. I found this cool time lapse feature on my camera so I recorded a little bit of the day in the life of a construction worker. It is amusing to me when the food truck pulls up and there are herds of workers that line up behind the truck and then vanish for lunch.