michael.todoran

Morning pages 12-28-2010

2010-12-28T07:21:00.000-08:00

Time to write my morning pages. It's a free writing exercise to help 'dump' all my thoughts and activate creativity. Ala the book, oh man I can't think of it now. Oh yeah. "The Artist's Way".

Well, time to start the day. I got a lot to do. Meditate (of course) gym, Some Autocad Work, start on building a model that is due January 3rd. I have to make sure that I drink my 8 cups of water today. I think a good way of doing that is to fill up one of those milk cartons with water everyday, and make sure I finish one of those. That would work for sure.

I tried to do that last quarter but I fell short. I notice that when I drink coffee first thing in the morning that I tend to not want to drink water all day long. so either NOT drink coffee (highly unlikely) or drink a glass of water first thing in the morning, then my coffee, then keep a log of water consumption. that seems like it will work better.

I would like also to start writing letters to my family, here in the states and oversees in Yugoslavia. I think it would be nice and they would greatly appreciate it.

Also, it's time that I wrote my artist statement and covert it into all the languages that google translate has to offer. So I can start to brand myself as an international artist. This too will also be important when I'm looking to bid for work with my Landscape Architecture firm.

Well, time to get crackin, and start my day. Busy, busy, busy

other dailys

2010-12-27T19:54:00.000-08:00

I would also like to work on drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day and flossing my teeth everyday.

Also, there is a general philosophy that I'm trying to develop and that is to streamline my endeavours so I can achieve this 'elite' or 'optimal' self. I'm no longer trying to be than everyone else, but just the best me that I can.

Instead of trying to Master the whole art of Brazilian Jui-Jitsu, it's more important that I learn the key aspects of it for a street fight to protect myself or family. With that too in mind, I would like to focus and develop the right kicks for self defence. What I know to be true is a good solid forward kick to keep someone at bay, a solid side kick, a rear hook (sometimes not advised but I have found luck with it).

Also, I think I'm going to focus and develop some Katas that involve elbow strikes, knees, blocks, dirty boxing, transition to ground, and then transition back to feet.

elite

2010-12-27T19:04:00.000-08:00

It's December 27th, 2010 and 2011 is quickly approaching. The new year always brings a good feeling for me, because I'm one with many ambitions and dreams and love the thought of New Years Resolutions.

While the last couple of years I have kept my new years resolutions rather simple and without rigidity allowing for accessible goals. For example I think my 2008 or 2009 resolution was simply to "smile" and it worked. In 2009 I reconnected with my first girlfriend, married her and have been smiling since :).

However, this year I think It's important to create a resolution that is going to require a little more discipline.

And that discipline is to meditate at least once a day for 15 minutes. That's it. While I have many more other goals to obtain this year, and the years following, the very idea of me being present and centred is the most logical way to achieve them all.

I would also like to commit to doing a drawing a day for 365 days, which scares me because I don't want to let my self down with two Items that I must address everyday. Even though this is something very important to me. 1. I would like to master the art of drawing, and two and it's very good for business.

So for now, I'm just going to commit to the 15 minutes of meditation...and I'll see about the rest.

Frankies Tiki Room & Double Down Saloon Prints

2010-08-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

"Frankies Tiki Room Print" Limited Edition of 100 $20.00

"Double Down Saloon" Limited Edition of 100 $20.00

Buy together $35.00

Luck 13 Fuck Off Print $1000.00

2010-02-09T18:33:00.000-08:00

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/gims/counties/tabid/15384/Default.aspx

soils for Franklin County

2010-02-09T18:31:00.000-08:00

http://library.osu.edu/find/subjects/map-resources/
http://library.osu.edu/find/subjects/maps-ohio-historical-maps/
http://library.osu.edu/find/subjects/history-resources/primary-sources-u-s/#Ohio
http://www.ohiomemory.org/
http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=115:1:2227613096462817

2010-02-06T21:12:00.000-08:00

baobab tree West Africa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adansonia

http://panchagavya.com/

2010-02-06T11:54:00.000-08:00

Linkin Tips From http://thelinkedinlifestyle.com/linkedinsuccess.htm

1. Complete Your Profile
2. Compelling Headline
3. Compelling Summary
4.Customize Your Website URL
5.Import Relevant Contacts
6.Give Recommendations
7. Join Groups Relative to your Interests
8. Ask Questions: Relevant professionals will answer and
9. ANSWER QUESTIONS: this will bring new clients and establish your name
10. Use Applications such as Events Platform, Amazon Book Sales, etc

2010-02-05T18:36:00.001-08:00

Alleviating poverty through Entrepreneurship

Rgupta@gmail.com
Acumendfund.org

The blue sweater

***

The Bridgespan Group
Philanthrocapitalism
http://www.bridgespan.org/

Environmental issues

Bridgespan Lite

Strategic Clarity
Mission Statement (not enough)
Allocating scarce resources

Intended Impact > Who > Where > What
Theory of Change > your assets
Draw the line of Cause-ation
Not working? Shut it down

Anchor on 1: then focus from there
Once you do that, u can test things

Define Outcome

What he learned
Entrepenuers of necessity (microfinance)
Entrepenuers of Opportunity

Outliers of Model
Don't like theory

Not all entrepenuers are not all created equally
SME 5-500 personale Not the same

Age of the business is important.
Younger firms growth

Help > Parsing finance > hiring
What they really need

Formal skills, technical advice, capital

If you want to alliviate poverty, look at SME's and make them grow.

***
Ashoka

Luke inspire to action

How to build a society where everyone is a change maker.

Revolutionize THE fishing industry!

Ashoka: find crazy people to run bness ideas to run social

Selection Criteria
new ideas
Creativity
Entrepenur quality
Social impact
Ethical fiber

Vicky Colbert, Columbia
Multi grade self paced education
Student government

I'm a change maker

Harvard Business review

Ohio State the ideal changemaker

Beat them w answers

***
read: good to great
Buildapedia.com
Dave Gardner

Adam Malone : follow up

Hans taparia
Preferred Brands International

2 Rejected 3 Accepted

2009-04-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

University of Washington: Rejected
University of Virginia: Rejected
The Ohio State University: Accepted
SUNY-ESF (Syracuse): Accepted
Utah State: Accepted

2 No, 2 Yes, 1 pending

2009-04-05T09:30:00.000-07:00

To Date:

University of Washington: Rejected
University of Virginia: Rejected
The Ohio State University: Accepted
SUNY-ESF (Syracuse): Accepted
Utah State: Pending

Syracuse Said Yes

2009-04-05T09:22:00.000-07:00

University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (Syracuse) accepted me into there program. I just got the letter on Friday April 3rd, 2009. However I do not intend to enrol and will stay with my Ohio State decision. Below is the main reason to me that The Ohio State University is the right choice for me.

One reason that I find Ohio State’s program in Landscape Architecture exciting is that your curriculum is currently in the midst of a major revision. I had the opportunity of witnessing and experiencing a successful curriculum change during my undergraduate work at UNLV. These revisions not only revitalized the professors, but also contributed to a wildly explosive growth in the arts community throughout the Las Vegas Valley. I suspect that Ohio State will, for the next few years, be an especially stimulating environment in which aesthetic boundaries will be tested and expanded. I would like to be involved in that churn!

Ohio State

2009-03-26T10:06:00.001-07:00

I accepted the MLA offer from The Ohio States Masters of Landscape Archietecture at the Knowlton School of Architecture. Go Buckeyes!

PACKAGES MAILED OUT!

2009-01-13T19:14:00.000-08:00

Ah, my packages are mailed out. Man does it feel good. I sent them out 01/08/09. I was obsessing a little bit about any misspellings but after a ton of reviews I decided they were ready to go out.

Oh, I did notice a mistake in my Virginia package but It worked out for the best because I was able to give that package to my professor, and I just printed and bounded a new one, and sent it out a couple days later.

WISH ME LUCK!

Letters Of Intent: Done and Done!

2009-01-02T15:19:00.000-08:00

Well today I finally finshed my letters of intent.

I enjoyed researching the schools, and found some last minute changes to my school pics. The best help I got was from emailing friends that have already gone through the Master's application process.

Today I bought some strathmore resume paper (bright white) and talked to the printer about my binding options. I forgot what the option was called but I know it's a heatpress binding process that glues the pages with a spine. looks very nice.

Now, I just have to typeset my letters of intent. I'm going to use a 14pt Adobe Garamond Pro font (which actually looks like a 12pt) and adjust the tracking, kerning, and borders in Adobe InDesign so it fills the pages nice.

My next goal is to have everything mailed out by this Tue or Wed.

“Help, I need some body. Help, not just anybody…..” Beatles

2008-11-22T17:59:00.001-08:00

“Help, I need some body, Help, not just anybody…..” Beatles

Help. Everything is going great for my packages. My letters of reference are peers and mentors that I respect greatly whose experience and current work are relative. My portfolio contains a diverse and strong body of work. My resume and CV are current and clean. And my website is acting as a great storefront.

But my letters of intent are proving to be more troublesome than anticipated. If I were writing a letter for a Master’s in Fine Art (MFA) the process would be relatively natural and easy. My peers in undergraduate were mostly MFA students and I worked closely with and showed at the same galleries, and critiqued the same work.

However, when writing my letters of intent of MLA, the content is not the problem, it’s the process of editing down the excess, and exemplifying the appropriate material to demonstrate my sincere intent in the school, program, and career. Does my resume and CV demonstrate my capacity as a designer and fine artist, or do I need reiterate these.

• Do I use the building of our family’s greenhouse as my hook paragraph? Because I’m very interested in combining Landscape architecture with greenhouse and residential and commercial spaces.

• Do talk about the font I designed for my BFA thesis. The research was tremendous, and studio man-hours are unfathomable.

• Do I try and work in my experiences in the coastguard doing heavy weather search and rescue and how it has shaped me as a person? I stopped mentioning being veteran during interviews for design positions. I usually would just get a blank stare from the designer, lol.

• Do I this, or that, or this……..
As you can see I’m suffering from paralysis through analysis. Okay, so I’ve identified the ailment, SNAKE OIL anybody? Anybody?

Kidney Pool

2008-10-16T18:01:00.001-07:00

Resolved issues

2008-10-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

When your truly sincere to the design process it can quite exhausting. A flash of clarity occurred to me with my latest design and it's a very relieving. Producing the concept has always been the easiest for me (workaholic). I can't wait to start posting my sketches and let of you in to ideas. Stay tuned

2008 National Clean Energy Summit

2008-08-18T22:15:00.000-07:00

Tonight our former Commander in Chief Bill Clinton kicked off the National Clean Energy Summit here in Las Vegas, NV. I never take for granted the opportunities that our city offers us as far as conventions and invited speakers. Just as I suspected tonight was no disappointment.

President Clinton had several suggestions for National and Global clean energy solutions, but perhaps the intriguing and pertaining to us locals is his challenge for the Silver State of Nevada to become the first self sustaining energy state.

The biggest challenge that Clinton proposed was convincing the populace and spend the appropriate money to build huge wind and solar farms that natural landscapes can provide.

Another significant cost would be to restructure (overhaul) our current electricity grid system. He spoke frequently of couplers and how California has taken advantage of using couplers. I have an idea as to what he means but I'm not positive. Perhaps at tomorrows summit people will expand upon this.

This summit is perfect timing for my application process because energy is such an important concern for me.

Tomorrow, I will blog about the speakers. I did take a sneak peak at some of the booths set up and already I can tell it's going to be an educational and thought provoking day.

back to mac

2008-08-02T21:11:00.000-07:00

I'm back on a Macintosh and I couldn't be happier. Just got done installing Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Google Earth, and SketchUp.

Too bad I can't install any AutoDesk programs. Perhaps, I'll break down and install XP or Vista or the Mac if I really have to. But I'd rather just buy a PC desktop when I get to Graduate school.

I got six binders setup up for the schools I'm applying to. I'll be adding all research to these folders.

I heard that Ohio State likes to work with clay models. That's good because I got a clay model in the works for my portfolio.

I have some ideas on where to start, but I must admit I'm a little hesitant to dive in. Call it Paralysis through Analysis if you will.

Masters in Landscape Architecture School pics

2008-07-30T21:42:00.000-07:00

UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY
http://www.usu.edu/laep
BLA Program
LR Spring 2005/NR Spring 2011
MLA Program
LR Spring 2005/NR Spring 2011
Michael Timmons, Acting Dept. Head
Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning
College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Utah State University
Logan, UT 84322-4005
(435) 797-0500
Fax: (435) 797-0503
michael.timmons@usu.edu

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
http://knowlton.osu.edu
BSLA Program
LR Spring 2003/NR Spring 2009
MLA Program
LR Spring 2004/NR Spring 2010
Laurel McSherry, Head
Section of Landscape Architecture
Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture
Ohio State University
275 West Woodruff Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210-1138
(614) 292-0081 Fax (614) 292-7106
georg.1@osu.edu

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
http://www.landarch.uiuc.edu
BLA Program
LR Spring 2002/NR Spring 2008
MLA Program
LR Spring 2002/NR Spring 2008
James L. Wescoat, Jr., ASLA, Head
Gary B. Kesler, FASLA, Associate Head and Undergraduate Coordinator
Carol Emmerling, ASLA, Graduate Advisor
Department of Landscape Architecture
College of Fine and Applied Arts
University of Illinois
101 Buell Hall MC 620, 611 Taft Dr.
Champaign, IL 61820
(217) 333-0176 Fax (217) 244-4568
wescoat@uiuc.edu

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
http://www.caup.washington.edu/larch/Programs/graduate/mla.php
http://www.caup.washington.edu/larch/Admissions/admissions.php
http://www.caup.washington.edu/
HTML/LARCH/
BLA Program
LR Fall 2007/NR Fall 2013
MLA Program
LR Spring 2004/NR Spring 2010
Fritz Wagner, Chair
Department of Landscape Architecture
College of Architecture and Urban Planning
University of Washington
348 Gould Hall, Box 355734
Seattle, WA 98195-5734
(206) 543-9240 Fax(206) 685-4486
fwagner@u.washington.edu

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
http://fla.esf.edu
BLA Program
LR Spring 2006/NR Spring 2012
MLA Program
LR Spring 2006/NR Spring 2012
Richard S. Hawks, FASLA, Chair
Robin E. Hoffman, BLA Curriculum Director
Emmanuel J. Carter, Jr., MLA Curriculum Director
Faculty of Landscape Architecture
State University of New York
College of Environmental Science and Forestry
1 Forestry Drive
Syracuse, NY 13210-2787
(315) 470-6544
(315) 470 6600 BLA Admissions
(315) 470-6599 MLA Admissions

KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY
http://capd.ksu.edu
BLA Program
LR Fall 2002/NR Fall 2008
MLA Program
LR Fall 2003/NR Fall 2009
Dan W. Donelin, FASLA, Head and MLA Program Director
Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and
Community Planning
College of Architecture, Planning and Design
Kansas State University
302 Seaton Hall
Manhattan, KS 66506-2909
(785) 532-5961 Fax (785) 532-6722
la-rcp@ksu.edu

http://www.clarb.org/

2008-07-30T21:24:00.001-07:00

http://www.clarb.org/

Day 1 of MLA Masters in Landscape Architecture Blog

2008-07-09T18:30:00.000-07:00

Today is my first entry in documenting my path to becoming a Landscape Architect or better yet the work I will need to do to get into Graduate school to achieve a MLA (Masters Landscape Architecture).
There is an incredible amount of work that I need to do. First, is putting together my portfolio. Since, I don't have a Bachelors Degree in Landscape Architecture, I could be at a slight disadvantage to my competitors. However, my BFA (Bachelor in Fine Arts) from UNLV Universty of Nevada Las Vegas can also help me to be very competitive in several different areas. I will be elaborating on more of those assets the farther along I am in putting together my packages, but for now I would say my ability to sketch, draw, illustrate, and paint are a very powerful skill set to have.
I anticipate the process of putting together my packages for schools will cumbersome, tedious, thought provoking, and rewarding.
I look forward to sharing my thoughts and experiences to prospective schools, fellow applicants, and peers.

http://www.michaeltodoran.com