Affecting an Early Morning Routine

I've always wanted to put into effect an early morning routine. I'm of the firm belief that most, if not all, my problems (aggression) stem from my failure to do so. Particularly my inability to find the time for breakkie. After all it's how we kickoff a new day.

I first got the idea when I remembered I use to have a printout, some 10 years ago, of an online article from men's health magazine that detailed, minute-by-minute what one should do in the mornings. It's now lost forever (despite writing to men's health) but hopefully I can recreate one here.
I'd like to hear what you do in the mornings to start the day off right.

To begin with I think an frank analysis of my current routine free from propaganda and spin would be benificial. Ok, let's get started.

My Current Routine

8:15ish	Wakeup. I have my alarm set for 7:21 based on a men's health magazine article that proffered that this was the best time to wake but it's no use, I constantly sleep in (probably due to the time I usually go to bed). To remedy this I now have an amazing iPhone app called sleep cycle but more on that later
8:20	I go to the toilet. Will try to find a Dr Karl Twitter post that explains the phenomenon of why this is the first thing some males must do in the morning.
8:25	if I'm smoking (in a perpetual state of quitting), I'm usually grumpy and have a cigarrette
8:30	running late already. Have a shower. (if i'm not running too late, blowdry hair)
8:40	put on deodorant, cologne & underwear, sit infront of the computer & check the sartorialist blog (and my databank of fashion photos I like (& can replicate with my current wardrobe)) for an outfit to wear.
8:45	once I've settled on an outfit I usually have to iron something. If i've settled on a look but a article of clothing required to complete the look hasn't been laundered or I can't find it, I chuck a hissy fit
8:53	get dressed and put on my shoes, this is usually around the time my feckwit cat approaches for his time-consuming morning pat.
8:59	panic that I can't find one of the six essentials (wallet, coin pouch, keys, phone/headphones, cigarettes, sunglasses) and turn the house upside down trying to find one of them. Once I've found it I am out the door with 1 minute to complete my 20 minute walk to work.

Things I'd like to work into my morning routing

1. Breakfast (without the cigarette)
2. get 7.5 hours sleep a night on average
3. Doing a load of laundry
4. Going for a morning swim
5. Brushing of teeth
6. Make a packed lunch (something from Jamie Oliver's Lunchbox chapter in jamie's dinners)

Ok, before we get started reshuffling my list it's worth mentioning things that I've learnt should be done before going to bed which all have something to do with the principle of "a place for everything and everything in it's place". The things i've learnt include:

• Decide what you're gonna wear the night before, get everything ironed and ready. I'm suppose to buy a valet stand to help out with this
• Pack the gym bag
• have a bedtime ritual that gets your brain ready for sleepy time. Mine's shutting the blinds
• Put the alarm clock far away from the bed. Got this tip (and many others) from here
• Put your towel in the dryer
• wooo here's a good one, set two alarms, one for waking up and the other going to bed, my stark watch has two alarms
• I remember reading a tip about putting the cereal in a bowl and toothpaste on the toothbrush the night before but that seems excessive to me.

And finally, the new routine to be affected in small doses over time. I don't foresee me successfully getting all of this done but life's a constant battle and the fun is in the fight.

7:21 Wake up

Technophobia

I hate it when people use the argument they prefer paper when arguing against eBooks and eBook readers on the iPhone and iPad.

I instantly get visions of snobbish, nostalgic Romans arguing against papyrus, saying that they prefer the feel of the chisel and their library of slate tablets.

Pffft technophobes.

Optimising My Work Computer

My work computer, despite having the unfounded reputation of being reasonably clever is notoriously difficult to wake up and get going on mornings. Mimesis, one might call it.

Anyway, at the moment, in my down time (what little there is) I'm looking up how to light a fire under the bitch.

I realise that posting about optimising my computer won't get me in with the cool kids and I also realise that people who are blissfully unaware that their work computer sucks worse than it should are much, much happier than me. But if you're not interested in improvement than I hold you in the same regard as those who don't know how to fecking ask the google machine.

I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday

-- Abraham Lincoln

Here's what I've got so far:

• Most of the stuff I'm planning to try comes from 99 things to make your computer blazingly fast
• A lot of the stuff from the site can be accomplished by using CCleaner effectively

Anyway I'll let you know how the rest works out.

If you've got any quick tips please comment...

Mosquito Bite Treatments

I hate Mosquitos. I consider it a failure of mankind and modern science that we can put a man on the moon but can't erradicate the little blighters from the face of the earth. The food chain will adapt and if Jurassic Park has taught us anything, life finds a way.

I long for a device akin to a venus fly trap that sits by the bedside and ensnared the bastards causing a slow, painful death. I fantasize about torturing them.
There was a device exhibited on the ABC tv programme the inventors once that did something like this but the prototype was going for some $700.

As you can probably guess, I get bitten, more than you I bet, once per two nights on average around 3am. According to wikipedia, this is because I smell better than you. As you can imagine I've tried many remedies and thought I'd write them up in the order of what works for me in the hope that people will comment on what works for them. Ok, let's get started...

Remedies
I realise this probably won't help but I was once bitten in Kyoto when watching the Jidai Matsuri festival of the ages by a Japanese Kamakaze Mosquito. The bite swelled to triple the normal size for me. A kind old Japanese woman saw that I wasn't managing and took pity on me, taking an oitment from her bag and applying it to the bite, working in incredibly slow, concentric circles from the bite out. She would have massaged my hand for what felt like 15 minutes and the itchiness was gone forever. If you know what the Japanese use for Mosquito bites, please comment.

One of the woman in the bottom right of this photo may potentially know the secret of the Japanese mosquito remedy, if your recognise yourself please email me.

Jidai Matsuri, Kyoto, 2007

An old man I had a very long conversation with, despite not being able to speak each others language

Mopiko!!!

Until we work out what the Japanese use be advised that the rest of Asia uses a topical cream, Mopiko. Forget the Stopitch and Stingoes our parents used when we were kids. Mopiko just works, not perfectly but better than anything else I've tried. Ask for it at Chinatown Chemists.

And to a lesser extent, lemon juice, ice, cold water and even rolled up ball of tobacco that's supposed to be rubbed into the bite (I think they meant loose leaf tobacco, don't dissect a Marlboro light and mix it with your spit), all of which don't really work well enough to go on about.

Prevention

Not much to say here other than I use one of those plugin Mortein Mosquito repellents which does work ok but is throw-away culture at its worst.

Please post your prevention and remedies...

Creating a Study Room

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."

Albert Einstein

Let's start with "appropriation", after all, as Thom Mayne explained to some UCLA students (i think) design is mimetic.

If you google "design study room" the image results are, let's face it, banal rubbish.

The use of the term "design" when googling usually returns what is commonly referred to in designer circles as "shit!".

I usually get around this by including the terms poliform, Molenti & C, cappellini or going straight to a design blog like dezeen and using there search or going to e-interiors.net, browsing through the brands (such as Unifor), googling them, going directly to their site and downloading PDFs of their catalogues.

Unfortunately none of these tips have worked this time.

Ok, here's what I want:

The Table

Ok, this is what I want (well, not really, I can't find the image from the catalogue I like online):

While we are waiting for thousands of dollars to magically appear

in my wallet I've got a teak veneer door (from bunnings, shame) resting on couple of trestle legs (from ikea, more shame) and it looks a damn site better than most of the shit tables I've seen for a few reasons:

• the warmth of the timber speaks for itself
• it's big, 2.1/2.4 metres which means it can sit six people
• it's casual, there's not a hint of ponce about it, it says to people "I'm too busy entertaining my millions of friends to worry about getting a table I won't let you put your drink on because you might leave a stain"
• Sweety Petey came up with the idea and he's knows much more than you do about what looks good.

I've left it untreated so it would wear quickly, we all know how us white guys lurv vintage

Anyway, dissecting these (and other) images, there are a couple of things in common that can be followed:

• Clustering items (such as tea lights, bowls, books, candle holders, vases, serving platter) one third the way along the table, leaving the rest of the table free. I think this is similar to the principle of white space in graphic design
• ubiquitous use of a Floor Lamp (a must have)

Chairs

At the risk of letting you all in a on a secret, ensuring all the good stuff gets bought before I get a chance to see it, I got exactly the chairs I wanted from the KE-ZU clearance site and a dedece sale.

However these were dining chairs and since we are talking study chairs you can't go past either the eames aluminium group chairs or soft pad chairs.

It is very popular amongst architects to condemn the purchase of reproductions, statements such as "just buy the original" or "wait till you can buy the original" are common. It is also very popular to pay young architects next to nothing, guaranteeing they will never be able to afford these chairs. Buying a reproduction does not preclude buying an original, buying a reproduction and an original are not mutually exclusive and at the end of the day... meh...

I'd like to buy a soft pad repo from either Milan Direct or Matt Blatt.

The Computer

The problem:

Ok, the best way to ruin the study table is to put a PC on it, I've bought my fiance an iMac principally to solve this problem, but until it is fully operational (i.e has working copies of Autodesk 3ds Max 2010, AutoCAD Architecture, Revit and Vray) I'm stuck with my IBM Thinkpad.

Don't get me wrong I'm happy with the ThinkPad vintage charm, it looks great on the lap when sitting on the couch (I really must blog about my $35 couch) but once you plug in a keyboard, mouse, monitor, external harddrive (which is necessary for architectural software) you're fecked.

There's really only one way to layout a notebook and monitor:

Unfortunately, PC manufacturers just don't fecking get it. I'd go so far as to say that there is no such thing as an aesthetically pleasing PC. So this is the best I could come up with:

• Make sure you extend your desktop over the notebook screen and monitor
• Use a wireless keyboard and mouse (there are no good looking ones so don't bother asking)
• Purchase a few Cable Turtle Power Cables

As for the placement of the PC on the table, I'm looking for suggestions... please help...

And finally, the finished product:

Update: If anyone knows a way to keep handbags and cardigans off chairs please comment. I've seen two good ideas:

• a pouf for the bag

(Photo by Poliform)

• a coatstand

(Photo by KE-ZU)

Introduction

Welcome to my first attempt at blogging.

I first got the idea to create this blog when trying to fake streams of dusty light on a rendered perspective view for work (incidentally I found the answer here).

I thought at the time that it would be great to find a blog that documented, step-by-step, the process between not knowing how to do something and knowing how to do something (I’m trying to work out how to browse in full screen in Safari on the new iMac).

I’m also notoriously forgetful and constantly can’t remember the things I’ve spent so much time working out how to do. I’m hoping this blog will serve as a reference the next time I forget whether it’s the modem or the router that should be turned on first when rebooting.

I also thought this blog would be an excellent way to document bridging the gap I perceive between how I want to live and how I am living.

For example, being an architect, I share the desire with every other architect I know to live in a warehouse loft where everything is painted white. It dawned on me one time that as I am already 31 and still live in an apartment covered with empty coke cans, indoor clotheslines, ironing board etc., that dream is probably never going to become a reality.

If I ever find a way to make my apartment look like something from a Molenti & C catalogue, you’ll hear about it here.

It is my hope that others will be able to share the ways in which they successfully turned their balcony into a Tsukiyama garden until we end up with an eclectic mix of guides on how to get where we want to go.

Let’s get started…