Chris Whitted

To offer a counter point, many of the firms (LA/Planning/Engineering) around here had a very high percentage of private clients. The ‘crash’ happened, and of course places started closing left and right. As things began to recover, I spoke with several different firms and noticed a common trend. Those that were still in business either had one or…[Read more]

Your example is obviously at least five lanes, but I can easily see it hitting half to three-quarters of a million for a three lane version. The biggest wildcard I think would be the amount of custom metalwork.
Back in 2007 or so I worked on what was essentially a higher-end ranch gate – masonry (stone) column bases with wing walls, and timbers fo…[Read more]

When I first graduated and was looking for writing samples, I pulled from a couple of sources depending on whether they gave any kind of example as to what they were looking for. I wrote a tech column for the campus paper one semester, had the pro-practice proposal Wyatt mentions, some narrative/description documentation from various projects…[Read more]

I’ve seen it hold more weight/advantage outside the LA profession than in, unless you’re talking some of the much larger and multidisciplinary firms.  Since it’s a generalist sort of thing (ie, applies to any industry) it can also help transitioning to another job or career.  That said, if you’re interested, have the time and opporunity, and e…[Read more]

What you’re going to find (and sounds like you already have) is that there is no one right way to do construction docs.  There are no standards.  Or rather there are, but they’re not a one size fits all solution and nobody follows all of them.  Every office is going to do things a little bit different; some of them will have very detailed and ri…[Read more]

Your options are pretty much limitless, depending on how YOU can make them relevant to the field, and what it is you want to do.  I had minors in computer science and Native American studies; I’ve used both in LA, though not necessarily on a regular basis.
That said, I agree with Toby that business would be a really good one.  Horticulture, fi…[Read more]

You are correct, I defaulted to expectations of a typical US firm when it comes to computer security.  There are a lot of smaller firms that operate in sort of the same way you describe (ie, no computer security with access levels and permissions and such).  With administrator rights on a machine, you would have the ability to install whatever p…[Read more]

You can’t lock the workstation, but they’ll let you install programs to it?
The first problem I see with your current tool, in the minute I spent looking at the link, is that I don’t see any real security there.  My system is set to show hidden folders, so flagging one as hidden will do nothing for you.  Also, it does not appear to provide any e…[Read more]

Bottom line, there is no ‘correct’ set of initials.  The two most common are R(egistered)LA and P(racticing)LA.  The only way there would be a correct set is if your state’s title/practice act spells it out, and most don’t.  I started a thread on this a while back and one of the responses is very in de…[Read more]

I don’t have a lisp routine, but I do have a couple of ideas.
Are the plant blocks the only ones in the file (ie, are you getting a false positive from a non-plant block)?  Does the total number bcount result equal the data extraction result?  Are all of the blocks on one layer, or do they contain multiple layers themselves (thinking of ways to i…[Read more]

Since you haven’t gotten any other responses yet, maybe Adobe Lightroom?  Or Bridge if you’re already using the Creative Suite.  Are these images you’re shooting yourself or coming from outside sources?

Your current employer sounds sketchy to me.  My response to why it’s important would be that as a professional in this field it’s important to maintain a record of my work, period.  It doesn’t matter if I’m looking right now or not, maintaining a portfolio simply comes with the territory.  A lot/most people tend to do it only in job search mod…[Read more]

I’ve never heard it as reference to LAs, just types of engineers.  It first came to me as:
“An electrical, a mechanical and a civil engineer all sat down one day to try and decide what kind of an engineer God must be.
The Electrical Engineer said: “God must be an electrical engineer. You only have to look at the complex nervous system powered by…[Read more]

I’ve always used relative.  It’s more for my (our) benefit than anyone else’s, as it allows relocating/renaming a file/project without breaking xref links so long as you preserve the folder/path structure. It really depends on your file management practices.  Bottom line, it doesn’t really matter unless you’re running into a problem on a re…[Read more]

You might also take a look at this thread if you haven’t already:
https://land8.com/forum/topics/portfolio-for-entry-to-mla-programme

I’m a little fuzzy on exactly what you’re asking.  The purpose of accreditation is to ensure that graduates meet a certain competency level – they’ve been exposed to a core set of skills and knowledge that is necessary to be an LA.  If your B is accredited, then you’ve got that.  If it hasn’t, then you may or may not meet those requirements, an…[Read more]

I suppose the question is whether you’re looking to hire someone with little or no experience, such as a recent grad, someone with at least a few years who should know how to run CAD, or someone who has been a project manager or higher for some time and may not have worked with CAD on a regular basis for a while.  In my opinion, testing is not t…[Read more]

I have no direct experience with that issue, but a quick search finds the following:
http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=38578
In particular the section under the beige box.

Interesting that you’re running across Vectorworks in job postings.  I haven’t seen so much of that, whereas I’m not sure I’ve seen one yet that didn’t have SketchUp on the list.  Depending on if you need a smooth terrain or stepped, and (again) what level of the program you have access too, Sketchup can do terrain models fairly easily.  See th…[Read more]

Depending on which version of AutoCAD you’re working with (ie anything other than Civil 3D), yes a terrain model is going to be a challenge.  And depending on your license level (what extensions you have available) then ArcGIS may have its own challenges, but there is absolutely no reason you would not be able to display houses as accurately in…[Read more]