Andrew Garulay, RLA

I know that feeling. I work in a very chaotic office that is often more reactionary and last minute hurries to meet a deadline oriented than any sane person would operate under. That is the personality of the office from the top and despite several of us trying to change that, it just does not change at the top. However, as hectic as it is, the…[Read more]

The beauty of our profession is that you never have only one door in front of you. Every doorway opens to a hallway with several doorways in it. Some are are locked, some are closed, and some are open. Some lead to places you don’t want to go to. Some lead to new places that you never heard of. Few of them close behind you.

The exception is if…[Read more]

The thing that degree does more so than anything else (aside from licensing) is to get you in the door. You already are through the door and have an employment record to get you the next job.

It probably would serve you best to hold your position for at least a year before moving on just in case the next position does not last long. Its hard to…[Read more]

I agree that standardization and limiting of lineweights, text, dimensioning, layering, hatches (and hatch scale), and symbol blocks adds hugely to efficiency in production.

There is nothing worse for wasting time than having to “clean up” a drawing that has any of the afore mentioned things out of whack. The number one CAD faux pas has got to be…[Read more]

What has it to do with my photo?

Hey, I apologize about the unemployment thing and the abrassiveness comment. I just got a bit tweaked that you entered the thread saying that I should be fired for not using a table for plant schedules. Maybe that was humor, but it seemed a little harsh.

Nick,

Can you take the math courses and others at a Community College at night and then petition for your degree at CSU? Have you talked with anyone at the U to find out?

Efficiency starts with being able to produce a competitive product at a competitive price. That all starts with a business plan that identifies the market that the company is targeting and is followed by finding the most effective way to get the most profit out of that market.

Depending on the business plan, it could mean staying on top of the…[Read more]

I have to bite. What is Bomarzo?

The photo is formated for use as an avatar that I use elsewhere as well. It had to be formatted to that size for a different website.

You get all that from the fact that I find it easier to slap in a plant schedule using dtext and linework than using a table to display the same thing?

Like Lynn, I have a template on my tool tablet that is well set up. I don’t use mtext in the plant schedule because dtext is easier to edit without having to highlight for an over-write. My template size and layout has evolved over a very long time, so there is not often a need to change “cell size”, but simple edits are simple edits whether they…[Read more]

Pasting and editing a linework and text table is no different than pasting and editing an acad table if it is already in existence. There is no waste of time over the alternative in either case.

It is much like using the set up programs like Vectorworks or Landcadd in that you can jump through the hoops while being directed by the program up…[Read more]

There is a strong potential benefit in getting a B(S)LA over staying in the design/build that you started while in high school. As I close in on 50 having worked in many laboring roles from maintenance to hardscape and design build from small scale contractors to high end, working for others and myself in those roles, then going and getting my…[Read more]

I don’t understand why so many people gravitate toward complicating simple things. Editing a text table in Autocad and is no more difficult than editing an excel spread sheet. The difference is that you don’t have to link it or paste it and you can edit or reconfigure it right in the drawing. Sometimes I wonder if we learn “this is the way you do…[Read more]

My understanding is that the most development (=landscape architecture opportunities) are in the greater D.C. area. I would not make the move based on opportunity, but we all have more in our lives to consider than best places to get a job. If you make the move, make it for those otherreasons (assuming you are near D.C.).

Is the point of using Excel to be able to incorporate the plants into spec’ sheets outside of the drawing, for point of sale inventory control, or work orders? I assume that the Excel plant schedule is necessary for a function in addition to making the plant schedule in the drawing.

I have a set of plant symbols that I use on commercial work that we color in ACAD using solid hatching. The main plant symbol is drafted on the “0” layer, but I also have a layer with just a circle and another with colored light, shade, & shadow all in each plant block.That way I can display the symbol on the black & white line drawing without the…[Read more]

I have all my symbols 1′ in diameter so that all I have to do is scale them by the diameter that I want just after insertion from the tool palette or when I use the insertion command. My blocks are all renamed p1, p2, p3,… from when I used to use the insert command before the tool palette came to being so I did not have to type in long names. I…[Read more]

Lynn,
When you repeat a symbol in a different size it is a good idea to change its lineweight as well. All of my plant symbols (and most blocks in general) that I use were drafted on the zero layer both because they will take on the color of the layer that they are inserted on and so that the color can be changed by using the properties box or…[Read more]

That font is just Simplex with a 20 degree slant that you can do either in the text edit box if you are using mtext, or in the properties box with or without using mtext.

I keep a plant schedule that I edit for each project in the tool pallette to drag and drop. Keeping the plant symbols the same size as they appear in the drawing is much appreciated by those trying to follow it. Years ago I used Landcadd and hated the fact that the automated plant schedule made all of the symbols the same size whiich really…[Read more]