New books in the new year

I hope everyone is having a good holiday, getting rested, and recuperating from a lot of fun. We, on the other hand, are using some holiday slow time to work through some new changes to Mastering Revit and Revit Essentials for the new year. Some exciting stuff!

I wanted to drop a quick note and tell you to follow us on Facebook (or keep checking the blog) as we're soon going to be doing some give aways for the new year.

Happy Holidays!

Wonder Twin Powers Activate

Like Madonna but hate bluegrass?

Like Bluegrass but hate Madonna?

Now you can have the best of both worlds!

Who'd a thunk? More about the Packway Handle band here. Oh yeah - bonus - listen closely to the last ten seconds (very carefully).

Don't like Bluegrass or Madonna? Careful…this song's addictive!

 

Last Minute Gift Idea

Whether you’re celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah this time of year, consider this for the architect or designer in your life…

Both Mastering Revit Architecture 2012 and Revit Architecture 2012 Essentials are still on sale from most online retailers and in your local book store. They are also available in the iTunes Store (Mastering/Essentials) and on Amazon for the Kindle (Mastering/Essentials). There are some really great prices available now…(check out Mastering on iTunes!)

‘Mastering’ is the perennial best seller that takes the casual Revit user above and beyond the basics into Jedi status. This is much more than a ‘picks and clicks’ book – it includes so much insight into the reasons and workflows for using various tools and settings.

‘Essentials’ is a new venture for the Mastering author team. It is designed for an academic or training environment and is targeted for beginners who have had little or no experience with Revit. Each chapter contains detailed step-by-step exercises that can be used in 90 minute lessons. Various chapters can be combined to create a customized 3-day training program to get yourself, your students, or your employees up to speed with Revit Architecture.

It's That Time Of Year (Again)

Intolerant people accusing intolerant people of being intolerant. Fortunately we have Mr. Hankey to remind us all to try and get along and bake cookies. Enjoy!

We used to celebrate Festivus. But the annual "Airing of Grievances" got to be too damn much. Not to mention that scotch and pumpkin pie is a dangerous mixture before demonstrating "Feats of Strength".

Lose the Battle, Win the War

I'm with George. Those Twilight books are a menace. Milly (12) says the books are full of "romance and intrigue...but little more". Yet she can't put them down.

Protect the fluffy kittens

Have you ever been frustrated when people say "ATM machine" or "department of redundancy department?" I feel your pain. Since the building industry has adopted the acronym BIM, it has generated a new phenomenon...the "BIM model." If you're reading this and thinking to yourself, 'hey, what's wrong with that?' then perhaps you mean to say 'building information model model?' Some of my friends and colleagues have suggested that saying 'BIM model' implies the verb interpretation of BIM so you get 'building information modeling model,' but I think that's a thin argument.

In an attempt to relieve some of our pain and mental anguish, some of us have taken to social media channels to clarify this sampling of techno-speak. John Tocci, Jr (@tocci2) tweeted: "Every time someone says 'BIM model' a fluffy kitten dies.' Being a big fan of dramatic statements as a vehicle to get a point across, I shared this theory during my presentation at the Washington, DC BIMForum and it seems to have gone viral. Check out the hashtag #fluffy_kittens.

The 'fluffy kitten' theory has even expanded beyond the borders of 'BIM model' into the realm of Levels of Development or LOD. Jim Bedrick now evokes the kitten theory when someone refers to an 'LOD### model.' This will be a full topic I'll discuss in a future post, but let's just say Jim gets equally upset with this as he does with 'BIM model!' Other folks such as Dan Russell from Sundt Construction prefer to apply a more positive spin to the kitten theory. Instead of 'killing kittens,' Dan says that every time someone says 'BIM model,' a coyote gets lunch!

Now, before you go out to the next BIM conference and start heckling the speaker by meowing every time he or she says...that phrase...let me explain a better solution to the problem. As an involved member of the National BIM Standard-US project committee, I have been a staunch supporter of the definition of standard terminology for industry BIM uses. Although BIM uses, workflows and information exchanges have been under specific development by buildingSMART international for quite some time, definitions were published in Penn State University's BIM Execution Planning Guidelines (bim.psu.edu). Without describing this effort in too much detail in this post, I encourage you to become familiar with these definitions.

Instead of abusing the redundant term 'BIM model,' perhaps we could start using some of the following terms:

• Design Authoring model
• Energy Analysis model
• Existing Conditions model
• 3D Coordination model:
• Discipline Design Model
• Aggregated Design Model
• Trade Fabrication Model
• Aggregated Fabrication Model

Of course, the industry is gradually starting to look at model servers to support collaboration and information exchange, so these ‘model’ terms may be short-lived. In the meantime, do the world a favor and help protect our fuzzy, little feline friends...don't say 'BIM model.'

RTC USA Prospectus Released

The exhibitor and sponsor prospectus went out last night around 11pm on the east coast. If your company didn't get the email, please click the above image or this link to download the PDF. Then get back to me ASAP.

And in other news, registration links open soon. First 100 "early birds'" get last years pricing.

Come on Wes! Get those links going…James' and Eddy's mouse button fingers are poised!

Performance-Based Design at NYCRUG

The next meeting of the New York City Revit Users Group will feature Matt Jezyk and Zach Kron from Autodesk. They will be speaking about advanced form finding techniques in Revit and Vasari that are connected to performance analysis work flows. If you’ve seen Zach’s blog at buildz.blogspot.com or his class at Autodesk University with William Lopez Campo, you’ll know you’re in for a treat!

When: Weds December 14 at 6:00 pm

Complete details can be found at nyc-rug.com, or you can register for the free webcast!

BIM Content for Revit

This post contains a listing of known websites hosting content for Revit. We’ll try to keep this post updated as sites change or new ones are created. This information was partially compiled from Mario Guttman’s AU 2011 class “Revit Family Counseling” (visit Mario’s own site whitefeet.com for custom Revit tools).

Manufacturer’s Content

Autodesk Seek – content aggregated by Autodesk; contains default Revit families as well as manufacturer-specific content, low to moderate quality control; content in a variety of formats, search can filter for specific formats; free, no registration required.

ARCAT – generic and manufacturer-specific content; modeled by ARCAT, high quality control; free, no registration required.

bimstore – manufacturer-specific content; modeled by bimstore, high quality control; free, registration required for downloading content.

SmartBIM – manufacturer-specific content; modeled by SmartBIM, high quality control; free, no registration required.

Sweets – manufacturer-specific content, modeled by manufacturers, quality control unknown; various formats, can’t filter by format type; free, registration required for download; much of the 3D content is in SketchUp format.

RevitComponents – manufacturer-specific and general content, mostly modeled by site author; quality control unknown; free, registration not required.

ArcXL – Revit and CAD details (2D); drafted by ArcXL, quality control unknown; free, registration required for download.

Content for Sale

Broutek – buy and download content; purchase content credit packs which range from $32 to $60 per credit; content custom made by request/payment.

PinnacleCAD – custom content creation for fee; samples available.

Yellowbryk – premade Revit content and custom content services.

RevitBay – premade Revit content.

FormFonts – subscription site with a variety of content and formats, can’t filter for specific formats

TurboSquid – variety of general content; high quality. (Hyperlink will direct to Revit content)

ArchVision RPC – wide variety of rendered entourage; high quality.

Community Content

RevitCity – downloadable user content, no quality control; free, registration required for downloading content.

RevitForum – downloadable user content, no quality control; free, registration required for downloading content.

Project Sauron

AU2011 was wonderfully successful. Quite a few people have been asking about M-SIX and VEO™. Unfortunately, unless you attended one of our closed door presentations, I can't go into any detail at the moment.

However, I can say this:

When you're building the world's first truly integrated, collaborative and cloud-based platform for the design, construction and operation of building and infrastructure…not just any dataset will do.

-Mort

Making More $$$ in Tough Times - AB2340

PDF Download: http://tinyurl.com/bsoyp2l

iPad Download: http://tinyurl.com/87d8w39

Please enjoy and feel free to leave comments.

Up, Up and Away

Update!

Calling All Abstracts!

Great Location:

EVERGREEN MARRIOTT CONFERENCE RESORT
STONE MOUNTAIN, GEORGIA

Dates:

THURSDAY 28 – SATURDAY 30 JUNE, 2012

Abstracts Due:

WEDNESDAY 30th NOVEMBER 2011

Links to Abstract Submission:

HERE

One More Thing (™)

Building Pumpkins

Zach Kron has done it again! His annual “Parametric Pumpking Carving” contest has drawn out the absolute best in Revit modeling ability. Check out the winners posted on the Buildz blog:

http://buildz.blogspot.com/2011/10/happy-halloween-iii.html

Happy Halloween!

Viva Las Vegas!

Have you guys seen this!!??

3Dconnexion is offering a trip to Autodesk University in Las Vegas on Nov. 29 through Dec. 1. This includes airfare, accommodations and a SpacePilot PRO 3D mouse! But you have to register by midnight PDT on November 7, 2011.

To enter this drawing, please complete fill out the brief form over at 3Dconnexion.

Link here.

The winner will be contacted by email or phone on November 8, 2011 and will have 3 days to claim prize.

And if you get to go to AU 2011 compliments of 3Dconnexion via the link on this blog, you hereby agree to share the goodness by offering to have a drink with James, Eddy and Phil. Okay - this last paragraph is not found in the official terms and conditions of 3Dconnexion's offer, which can be found over here.

BIM+IPD Ensure Success at HOK New York

The latest monthly meeting of the NYC Revit Users Group was a joint event with the NYC Metro BIM Group and featured a panel discussion about the use of BIM and Integrated Project Delivery for the relocation of HOK’s New York City office. We had a fantastic turnout and many fantastic questions to feed the dialogue. We chose a few key representatives of the project team as follows:

• Architect/Owner – HOK; Jason Zoss
• Engineer – Flack + Kurtz; Cheryl Massie, Frank Padilla and John Gerney
• Construction Mgr – Structuretone; Arash Yaghoubi
• Subcontractor – ABCO Peerless Sprinkler Corp.; Patrick Bowe

Here’s the recorded session (note that the formal presentation starts around 10 minutes into the recording):

We were also delighted to have attendees view the live webcast from the following locations: Boston, California, St. Louis, Chicago, Alaska, Egypt, Vancouver, New Jersey, Alabama, and Washington, DC! Watch for our upcoming meetings at http://nyc-rug.com

RIP Steve Jobs | 1955-2011

How easy to criticize something. How difficult to make something. How much more difficult to make something beautiful and how uncommon to make a difference.

Interoperability is Cool

Who says it’s not hip to be “OPEN?” Have a listen to this diddy and be sure to check out the new database of software with IFC import/export capabilities.

Autodesk in the cloud

This is interesting, especially in the light of what's happening lately. Rumor has it that Dropbox turned down a $800M purchase bid by Apple earlier this year. Apple is releasing their own iCloud later this month (www.apple.com/icloud). Now it looks like Autodesk is getting in the game with a 1 GB option that will allow you to post and share files to their cloud offering.












What makes this really interesting to me is the race to host your data. Microsoft has a 25GB option, Amazon has one for 5GB. They're seemingly everywhere. Do you use one? Will you use ADSK's?

UPDATE: Just because this is important to me, it doesn't seem to work on a Mac. which is odd for a web-based platform. Maybe v1.2.

All The Right Enemies

Good news from FLAT TIRES HQ: "All The Right Enemies" has been accepted by Pandora's Music Genome Project. Here's a list of the straight-up rock and roll goodness (all available here on iTunes):

1. Drink It Dry
2. Rock & Roll Weekend
3. All the Right Enemies
4. Trailer Daze
5. Pretty Lady
6. She's Alright
7. You're Gonna Like It
8. See See Rider
9. Fornication
10. Rag On
11. Carolina S**t Stomp

So to celebrate - here's a link to download the opening track "Drink It Dry" (NSFW).

Enjoy!!!

And as an added bonus Eddy will be pleased to know (as I was going to the post office anyway) I've gone ahead and dropped off my share of the signed contracts for Mastering Revit 2013. Here we go!

Job Opening

Let's see if Netflix CEO Reed Hastings can make it out of the company before the screen door hits him.

• Strike One: Raise prices too fast too soon and without believable explanation. Lose 1 million customers.
• Strike Two: Walk away from negotiations with 1st run content provider Starz.
• Strike Three: Further confuse your customers by splitting your business into separate content delivery models.

Result? Piss off your customers long enough and you'll eventually piss off your share holders that don't like watching their investments fall by nearly 50% in 8 weeks.

I predict more hemorrhaging is on the way. Usually the only thing that'll slow the bleeding it is announce the person that keeps driving into the ditch has been told to let go of the wheel and get out of the car.

Crashed and Burned

I installed Bootcamp this week to get better Revit performance on some rather large files. I also installed an application to allow access to my OSX partition from Windows 7.

And in the process corrupted my OSX partition.

Carbon Copy Cloner saved it all and 24 hour later I'm up and running. I could have restored from a 2 week old Time Machine backup - but wasn't willing to lose two weeks of effort.

If you have a Mac - Carbon Copy Cloner rocks. Grab it.

And go ahead and grab Tinker Tool while you're at it. Great for showing access to all the hidden files and such.

Now's Your Chance

Mark your calendars! The FLAT TIRES are headed to California for three days this week:

• Thursday @ The Doll Hut in Anaheim
• Friday @ Eli's Mile High Club in Oakland
• Saturday @ The Shakedown Bar in San Diego

Love Sketching?

Every BIM-guru I know starts by sketching rather than staring at a computer screen. Perhaps there something immediate and emotively satisfying about a sketchbook and pencil that is difficult to recreate. Even when faced with a bunch of parametric rules, it's wonderful to figure out a question with a pencil before you propose an answer with a bunch of reference points, lines and planes (and the odd paramatized void is still pretty useful, Mr. Jezyk). ;)

I'm not saying that I don't lovelovelove the fantastic Wacom display that I've been using in preparation for the next Mastering Revit book. It more a matter of portability.

So there's this. And I'm blown away:

Congrats Wacom for continuing to think outside of the box. While so many other companies are trying to ape the iPad, you guys come along and do something really original. Yes - there are other paper/pen input devices. But the addition of layers (!) and vectors (!) are going to allow designers far more flexibility than just capturing rough data - like being able to scale up a drawing with no loss in like quality.

And from the overview it looks to be Mac and PC compatible.

The bad news? Eddy's birthday has already passed for the year…so close!

Happy Friday, You Giant Cock

One of these images is a photograph of Rob Charlton, Chief Executive of _space group.

The other is a Giant Cock.

I could really use your help figuring out which is which.

One More Thing...

Chin up dude. You drove an Aston Martin to work.

 

Back to School (2011)

Update on the annual back to school photos!

2002 - Preschool

Program Management Integrated with BIM

The August 2011 meeting of the New York City Revit Users Group featured a presentation by Greg Schleusner of the firm-wide BIM leadership team at HOK. Greg demonstrates how the use of BIM-based program management tools such as dRofus can support and improve the project delivery process. The discussion focuses on the benefits of adequately documenting program requirements and then comparing those to an evolving design model.

NOTE: The featured presentation starts at about 12:00 into the recording.

Complete meeting recording from NYC RUG

Adventure Time

I've had three calls in the last two days asking for names of experienced BIM managers looking for a change of scenery. I personally know the individuals hiring - they're offering interesting projects and above market compensation.

One of the positions is in India and salary includes accommodations as well as staff that will cook and clean for you.

If you're interested, please email me and don't forget to attach your resume.

All correspondence will be kept in confidence.

Friday Reprieve #34

It's been a while. Been busy. Sorry. But have to share this short story. I think it says something about technology and the power of accurate information. I have a much longer thought on data integrity, but i'll save that one for later. In the meantime....

There was a knock on my door. My 15 year old daughter answered it and came back into the kitchen carrying a yellow bag.

Best Building Simulations?

I just received a link to this video from Arch|Tech friend, David Light. All I can say is – wow.

The Leadenhall Building Animation

Creating Elliptical Walls In Revit

Here's one way to get around making a series of walls in Revit that come Pretty Darn Close (TM) to being elliptical. But first, you need to take a moment and watch David Light's version:



What's deceptive about this (for those of you that don't know David) is that David has a foreign accent. This gives him a voice of certainty and moral authority that is unquestionable. I (on the other hand) have no such advantage. My accent is an annoying twang that starts in New Jersey and finishes in Charlotte, NC. And I talk to fast when I get excited.

DO THE TON!

What at first glance looks rough and busted on the outside - but when you grind off the dirt and rust, it turns out to be something extraordinary and beautiful underneath - all because of an amazing group of artists?

1. The FLAT TIRES music!
2. An old CAFE RACER looking to be rebuilt from the ground up!

So it's only fitting that the Discover Channel series Cafe Racer is going to be showcasing music by the FLAT TIRES during the second season.

It all starts tonight from 9pm-10pm EST. More showtimes here:

http://www.caferacertv.com/airtimes-show-information/

Happy Birthday Eddy!!!

Yeah - I know. I didn't say "Happy Birthday" to you yesterday when everyone else was saying it on Facebook. Next to Justine, you're my favorite hippy. You'll have to guess which image I was going to use (and didn't) when doing a search for "happy birthday" on Google images. Go ahead. Search.

In the meantime - here's a far less traditional but way more fun version of Happy Birthday. Looks like HNTB but Smells like Teen Spirit.

Resistance is Futile

Dear Anaheim, Oakland and San Diego,

Go ahead and install the deadbolts on your doors, buy extra ammo and stock up on PBR...while supplies last.

See you in Cali!

 

Generative Design and Parametric Structures

The July 2011 meeting of the New York City Revit Users Group featured a presentation by Robert Otani, PE, LEED AP and Jonatan Schumacher from Thornton Tomasetti.

By creating a collaborative dialog with the designer at the conceptual phase, the architectural, engineering & fabrication models can be developed simultaneously from the same geometric reference model, allowing a holistic design process.  Robert and Jonatan elaborate on this concept with case studies of actual project work with a variety of architectural firms.

Thornton Tomasetti (TT) is an internationally recognized engineering company whose computational geometry and automation team works at the forefront of advanced practices.  TT utilizes a wide range of commercially available as well as customized digital tools and automation procedures to model, simulate, and optimize engineering projects of various scales worldwide.

Note: The TT presenters begin about 7 minutes into the recording.

Starting vs. Starting Over

If you missed Autodesk CEO Carl Bass present his keynote at RTC USA you missed something wonderful.

First of all - he didn't wear of those wrap-around headsets. He leaned into the podium in a way that seemed to "ground" him (after having just descended from northern California) and began to present his case in a refreshing and relaxing manner.

Side note: on the topic of headsets, please allow me to say what everyone else is thinking: it's really hard to take anyone serious while they're wearing one. Madonna got really close and failed. Everyone else kinda looks like they escaped from a call center.

I'm trying...but I think my "come-hither" look is broken.

If only there were a rule of thumb. Well it turns out there is. When all else fails it pays to remember "WWJD": What Would Jobs Do.

Monthly Single Posted

July's monthly single has been posted! "GD Woman" is the title track from 2011's "Freeborn" CD. Rip. Mix. Burn. Share. Link. Just play it LOUD!

Download link at the bottom left: http://about.me/flattires

And yes - the highbrow among us may be go faint at the knees or scowl disapprovingly at the more base and visceral - but I've got news for ya:

Helping Shape the National BIM Standard

One of my 'little' side projects has been getting involved in some efforts at the buildingSMART alliance. Last year I began by participating in a group project to standardize cost estimating through the use of BIM. As you can imagine, that's an extremely difficult problem to solve and our efforts continue. More recently, I was asked to become involved with the National BIM Standard project committee for the United States. Given my prior experience with corporate standards at SOM, I agreed to join.

Since joining, I have been named the Chair of the Design Work Group for NBIMS-US version 2. Yes...in case you didn't already know, version 1 was completed a few years ago and can be downloaded for free from the buildingSMART alliance website. While the first version consisted of almost 200 pages dedicated to introducing the work of the NBIMS committee and the scope of BIM, it did start to address some key concepts towards the standardization of this oft misunderstood paradigm.

"Time's up. Had your chance. Muffed it."

Cudos to whoever posts the source of title of the blog post. Hint: It's a movie that first inspired my love for technology and design at the age of three! It's the story of one man that can design, build and dream. And in the end he gets the hot girl with the foreign accent and gruff father-in-law (that turns out to be a soft grandfather).

Oh shit...the parallels are scary.

Time Is Running Out

Do you make the decisions that your company ultimately implements? Do those decisions effect dozens (if not hundreds) of people and projects?

Are you essential to the success of your business?

Have you registered for RTC North America?

Here's What We're Gonna Do

Get up on my stage one more time...

Times are tough. So here's what we're gonna do.

The first of every month the FLAT TIRES are going to put up a single. Could be a song from one of their albums. Might be a live video from a recent show. Full fidelity. Not some crappy low-bandwith MP3.

You'll be able to download the single for a month. It's yours. Rip. Mix. Burn.

Revit In The Classroom

As many of you know, one of the chapters in "Beyond" section in Mastering Autodesk Revit Architecture 2012 is focused on using Revit in higher education. This past year, we had the pleasure of working with Singapore Polytechnic.

Partly Cloudy

Well, there's a lot of buzz over the "cloud" at the moment. Apple has even got all the fanboys wetting themselves like puppies with excitement over Monday's announcement. So before Steve throws the switch on his patented "Reality Distortion Field" I thought it best to inoculate you from all the hype coming next Monday. There's a couple of options (related to Apple) and a couple of implications (for the AEC space).

Time is Money

How's that rollout of Revit 2012 going?

Figured out Revit Server?

How about all the other stuff in the 2012 release?

• New Features?
• New Functionality?
• Best Practices?
• Latest and Greatest BIM-centric Technologies?

Well, there's at least two options:

Hasa Diga Eebowai!

Check out the insightful Terry Gross / NPR interview with Matt Parker and Trey Stone (of South Park fame) on their creative process while developing Broadway's "Book of Mormon". In contrast to taking about a week to completely write, animate and produce an episode of South Park, their Broadway production took the better part of the last 7 years.

Most surprisingly?  It's not two cynical hours of bashing either religion (broadly) or Mormonism (specifically).

Imaginaaaaaaation

What if you could travel back to a time where you had no limits on your imagination?

Like when you were a kid. And you drew like this:

Sloppy Seconds

Wasn't I just saying how it'd be interesting if Apple bought Viber and how established companies frequently grow through acquisition rather than innovation?

And today there's this: Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5 billion.

My advice? Put down the keyboard and slowly, quietly step back and move away from Microsoft stock.

Please Give Me Another Chance! I Can Change!

The last post resulted in quite a few well reasoned comments and even three phone calls (one international). It seems that I've struck a chord. Three questions repeatedly arose:

1. What are you working on?
2. Why makes you think existing software company X/Y/Z isn't working on a disruptive solution to collaborate across domains?
3. What about standards across platforms?

Why Can't We Be Friends?

Hi. Glad you're home. Long day? Sorry to hear. You may want to sit down for the next bit. I've poured you a cold one. Take off your shoes. Relax. You said some things and I said some things which is really difficult for both of us to talk about. And we need to talk. It's not you, it's me. It's not that we've grown apart. It's not that I've been thinking about seeing someone else. Well, sort of. And I really want to be friends. We can be friends, right? Take another sip and I'll explain. There's something I need to confess...

Pencil's Down

"Talk about unhealthy communication: a hospital uses GE call systems for patients, Philips Emergin as an electronic interface for notifications, Cisco wireless to connect communications devices within the hospital and Siemens for its main phone system.

Enter an iPhone pilot program for nurses, which helps them monitor patients and communicate with each other quickly across all of those platforms."

So starts a brief article over at Cult of Mac that discusses a pilot program to integrate the fragmentation that has evolved in the medical space.

He's Still Building Blue Boxes

Before the iPhone came along, there was this thing called the Blue Box. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built the first digital version and made quite a bit of money selling them to university students. Because if you had a Blue Box - you could make long distance calls to anyone in the world...for free.

In other words - Steve Job got his start by creating technology that was ripping off AT&T.

Did I mention that Blue Boxes were illegal?

Mi Viaje a Santiago

I recently returned from a trip to Santiago, Chile during which I shared my experiences with BIM. It was quite an extraordinary journey that I have documented on Life@HOK. Read more about it…

Happy Monday

Are you sitting at your desk, staring at your screen and already asking yourself how you came to be surrounded by a sea of soul sucking cubicles?

A few weeks ago, a very dear friend who (like us all) periodically struggles to juggle family, career and other commitments was told by a superior that he could either have a successful career or a family - not both. The frank implication of the message was that he needed to jettison his family if he was going to move up the corporate ladder. While the message seems rather blunt, it's strangely familiar. For those of us who have studied Architecture it's not the first time we've heard it.

Friday Reprieve #33

We're done!

over 1500 pages
2 books
OMG. I can't believe it's over.

California Dreaming

FYI! Having quickly reached the "early bird" limit for attendees of Revit Technology Conference this year in Huntington Beach, CA early bird registration will close as of this Monday, 4 April (midnight PST). So far registrations have been received from 17 States across the USA as well as several other countries.

FLAT TIRES @ BONNAROO!!!

Everyone - please help us out! The FLAT TIRES are working their asses off and trying to get to the Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, TN from June 9th-12th.

By clicking on this link and downloading the FLAT TIRES song "Pretty Lady", we'll be ranked according to the number of votes received. Only two bands - selected from the TOP EIGHT - will get to play at the festival. Voting ends April 15th so don't wait!

Revit 2012 - New Features

Hey, guess what? A post (or rather a link to a post) that has nothing to do with anything that's not about Revit.

David Light did a bang up job here documenting the new features coming to a workstation near you with Revit 2012.

Sucker Punch

Get out of the office early and go see Sucker Punch today. It's an original screenplay by Zack Snyder (IMDB link here), the same director behind such hits as 300, Watchman and presently tasked with directing Superman: Man of Steel.

Tell your boss you're doing it for research because 1) You need to be inspired and 2) Revit was used to design the sets and you're tired of hearing people of less experience and force of will tell you what "Revit can't do". ;)

Announcing.....Stuff

So, it seems whenever we (as a blog) do announcements we seem to always show the three of us, James, Phil, Eddy, in some fashion that's not who we really are but somehow embodies the concepts of who we might be. So, as the heading states, I have some stuff to announce and to do that, I was looking for some imagery of the conceptual version of 'us'.

I found this one - the Three Musketeers. Not so much for the obvious references but the un-obvious references. Two specifically. First off - well there's really 4 of them in this photo (Willem, that can be you on the right). And mainly because one of them is Charlie Sheen who at times can act like one of the key authors of this blog.

Hint: it's not me.

Unfrigginbelieveable!!!

I think I'm gonna send Lynn Allen a t-shirt and CD to celebrate!



It's official! The punk rock band the FLAT TIRES and their album "Freeborn" that I had the honor of producing last fall has been put into rotation on Pandora! Here's a link to their station for your listening pleasure :) Headphones apply. NSFW.