My good friend Bryan moved to Australia a little over a month ago, so most of us thought it would be a good idea to get webcams and Skype him long distance. Tonight I would have to say this was the first successful 4 Way video Conference call.  it was about 1:30 am for us in Florida and 3:30pm for Bryan.

People pictured above from left to right:

Me (JRameau), Vova, Bryan, and Cassia. We got 3 different regions connecting, Vova and I in Gainesville, Cassia in Jacksonville, and Bryan all way on another coast, Melbourne , Australia.

Because Skype doesn't do more than one to one video, we are using an online service called MeBeam.com, its all free, no install, it runs right off the site through a flash app. The image is the actual size you will get if you talk to 4 people. Plus they add a chat window so you can share links and type in comments or anything. For the Sound we use the conference call feature in Skype.

Currently I am researching Cameras. I am going to be on my 3rd camera this year. I am alittle out of it with consumer cameras, and think about buying an entry level digital SLR, not sure if this is the best choose. Well the Nikon D40x has been on my radar for the last week, supposedly pricing is relatively cheap for the quality of camera it is, but its still out of my price range. The only flaw I can find on the camera is that there is no Auto Focus Motor, forcing you to buy AF lens which start at $250. On Ebay I found some amazing deals, but they are still like $200 out my price range. My have to go for a higher end consumer camera, but I definitely need to get a new camera before my trip to Vicenza in the Spring.

Here is a very detailed Review on the Nikon D40x

Here are a few sketches I made while I was in my URP Housing class.  I plan to put more of my day to day sketches/doodles up on the site, it should encourage me to expand on my artistic skills.  A lot of my sketches especially the random ones have very architectural components in it. 

It been a little over month since JRAMEAU was launch and the layout is still incomplete. I have a huge list of web projects which I am the sole designer and programmer of them.  To list a few CertifiedRANDOM.com and MenuWall.com. I got to Step my game up and finish them. But I got a good excuse, school, I got a lot on my plate this semester. I need to study for my GRE ,make a portfolio, plus apply to graduate school. Currently I have a 2,000 word paper due in a little over 24 hours. CRUNCH TIME.

NotCot.org is currently of my favorite sites. This is one of my secret weapons for finding content for CertifiedRandom.com. I just got a post up on NotCot, I proabably wouldn't think much of it if I wasn't rejected before. Now I just need to get them to post links from CertifiedRandom.com

When we were waiting for the bus to JFK, we got very bored, so we started taking random photos with Kyla's Polaroid camera, retro. (I look like a toddler in this shot, but atleast I am choking Alicia so that cool.)

This was a pretty jampacked day, we meetup again with our professor and went to SoHo. We meetup with the project architect of Herzog de Meuron's 40 Bond. 40 Bond is very hi end condos developed by Ian Schrager (founder of Studio 54), the top half of building is all glass, even the aqua framing around the windows are glass tubes. The bottom is kind of odd, its an attached screen that was inspired by graffiti. After that we pass by Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa's new museum that is completely white and looks like a buch of stacked boxes shifted.  We later went to midtown, our professor had a great idea of going on top of Port Authority where we can get a better view of Renzo Piano's New York Times HQ.  After that we had a meeting with Resolution 4.  Resolution 4 became very popular after wining a competition for Dwell Magazine, their main focus is on modular architecture that can be built in factories instead of on site.  Its a completely Mac office, I probably saw 4 iphones sitting of people's desk.  We capped off the meetup by going on the rooftop, which was amazing and scary at the same time.  We ended the day with cappuccinos in Little Italy.

Day 4, I went to my architecture class's site next to the UN, (its the pic with the construction site). After that we walked by Grand Central where they closed down a few blocks for a street market. The image above is of one of the vendor's sign, the irony in it is that I was joking to some girls on the way up about how everything in NY is expensive, "even dollar stores are double the price", to my suprise they are. Later I took the Long Island Railroad, to see my Uncle and cousins, which was cool becuase they haven't seen me since I was 5 years old.

While I was in New York, I took the opportunity to network a little. I meetup with Heron Preston on Day 3, at the Naked Offices in Soho. Heron is a Junior Strategist at Naked Communications, he strategizes market campaigns for companies. This was my first attempt at networking, Heron was definitley a cool person and he making a lot of big power moves in New York. The meetup last about 40min and the topic vary from business, school, and NY. While I was there I went out on the balcony and took some shots of people below, very nice views from above. The images of Heron above are taken by me, they both cam out blurry, so I throw a scan of his cool business card on top of the blurriest.

(If you not familiar with Heron's Blog, check it out here, has him jetsetting from country to country and doing alot of networking around New York) 

This is outisde Naked Communications, which is in front the BAPE store, it took me forever to finsh this place, mainly because some kid in a Supreme T-shirt pointed me the wrong direction and I walk down Greene St to Canal St.

 

I am still in the process of putting my NY trip online, I got 2 more day to put up.
Pretty much the morning of Day 3, I went to Central Park with Alicia, then took the subway to Prince St where meet up with Heron Preston at his office in SoHo. Afterwards, I went searching for the Prada store Rem Koolhaus design, which was really cool, but I got no pictures of. Then I meet up with Kim and Jose, and we went to Tribeca. Ending thoughts: I loved Central Park, that wold be a good enough reason for me to move to NYC. The park works so well, you are away from urban life, but still within it. The connection to city through the skyline is so profound, you can chill and be calm and stragize on the chaotic activites you have to do in the city. I like the idea of the chaos of city life, so a place to rest along the way is perfect.

128 images of our night out in the East Village, I probably should have edited some out.