D'OH!

Originally Posted:

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

12:49:00 PM CDT

Well, crap. I was slapped in the face with Murphy's Law yesterday. You know, the one that goes, "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." So much for my Habitat group's easy-shmeazy-we'll-get-our-work-done-by-Tuesday-at-5 o'clock-no-problem theory. It did not happen and we are still not done.

At WKU's Interior Design program we have a list of "Been There, Done That" Life Lessons list of commandments we live and die by. The top four of the rules are:

1. Save and save often. Computers have a tendancy to crash at the most inconvenient moments so frequent saves are a must.

2. Never work off your floppy, zip disc or flash drive. Portable storage devices are unstable, often crash, and do not allow backups to be created while you are working on the file.

3. Spray adhesive is not allowed. (This is a personal pet peeve. Students tend to over spray and get the glue all over the floor, furniture, other projects, etc. leaving the fallout to become a trap for unsuspecting victims to get stuck to the floor if they stand in the glue spot for more than two seconds.)

4. Always have a backup of your backup.
It's rule number four that bit me in the butt last night. It took a big ol'chunk out of my hide. After working on an Autocad file for the past few weeks, I imported two other group member's work into my one file. Did I have a back up of my own work. Heck no! I'm a renagade designer. Backup? I don't need no stinkin' backup. Long story short, the files I imported from PITA (you saw that one coming, didn't you!?!?) were drawn in the most current version of Revit and when they are converted to Autocad files they cause problems. My file selfdestructed and evaporated from my computer. Maybe I did listen to my own advice after all, because I did save backups on my flashdrive and on the school's server. Anywho, the file will still not open today after exhausting every trick I know to do and I've called in the calvary for help.

The morales of this story?

1. Don't accept strange drawings from PITAs

2. Breaking a Design Commandment is a sin and you will be punished accordingly

What I did find out is the true strength of the fibers that make up the fabric of my Habitat team. Andrew, who is 31 and served in the Navy for seven years, kind of freaked out with the news that we would not meet the 5 pm deadline. He sort of came up with a Plan B as a temporary fix, but I could tell that my news rattled him. Adam kept on rendering the drawings that I printed for him earlier in the afternoon until he had to leave for a prospective student orientation meeting so I took over his rendering job at that point, Lorainne stuck around as moral support and to keep me company, PITA left to let his dogs out then came back an hour later and stayed until 9:30 pm when we all left to see if he could help me even though he had not slept in two days, and Crazy Girl (I haven't mentioned her before...she's a bit of a stalker) bolted five minutes after we got together in the first place without doing her part. And me? I handled it in typical Pace fashion...I shrugged my shoulders, tried everything I could do at the time, said "It'll work out" and started rendering drawings that needed to be completed. Never let them see you sweat. No worries, man. No worries.
The comic relief part of the evening came from the Architecture Thesis Studio class that meets caddycorner from my studio space. The Thesis Studio is the made of up students that produce work in the wee hours of the morning and mysteriously come and go from their studio space without being seen. They come in around 9 or 10 pm, work all night and leave when the sun comes up. Sometimes I catch a couple of them dead asleep, slumped over their desks when I show up at 8 am (see photo from TGIF entry). Well, last night my group was there late enough to join the impromptu merengue dance lessons given by one of the Thesis group guys. Latin music was bouncing off all the walls of the open studio spaces, computer labs and classrooms. It was marvilliso fun!
Adam and I dropped Lorainne off at her apartment, ran to the library to return books so the SCAD Library Police won't come looking for me, and then went for sushi. Eatting sushi and curry chicken at 10 pm gave me crazy dreams and left me telling my roommate to "Just cut it into two pieces" when she came home at 2 am. I can't explain that one. It was a weird night.

This entry has 2 comments:

#2 Comment from tracypace

7/20/06 1:28 PM

Amen, sister, amen.

#1 Comment from ssflener

7/20/06 12:37 PM

As a professional designer you should always do the following:1. Make friends with the IT person in your firm. Bribes help!2. Always bring contractors, electricians, and carpenters coffee and doughnuts!3. Make friends with your Sales Reps!These groups can save your hiney 99% of the time!