October Update

The month of October has truly flown by already. With the Architectural Historians Conference, Preservation North Carolina Conference and a midterm, my plate has been pretty full! Sadly, on October 9th, Shawn's cousin Kelly passed away. Although she's had to struggle in and out of the hospital it still came as a shock to us. 

After the funeral and spending time with family I had to leave New Bern at 3am on Tuesday to catch my flight to Philadelphia, but I'm glad that I was able to attend and be there with everyone. 

Once arriving in Philly, I went to the Sacred Places headquarters and did a few hours of research for my project this semester on adaptive reuse of churches. Afterwards Dr. Tise and I met up and walked what felt like every block of Philadelphia's Center City and surrounding districts looking at various preservation efforts in the area. On Wednesday we behind the scenes at Eastern State Penitentiary (now is in a state of ruin and used as a tourist attraction), as well as Girard College and the new Please Touch Museum. 

What a week ... very long and mostly stressful, but things worked out well and I'm happy to have a little break this coming week. 

Shawn and I are traveling out for a wedding today of one of our friends Andy! Quite exciting! My article was also published this week in Landmarks magazine although I haven't been able to get a copy yet! I'll be sure to update on how things are progressing, I hope all is well with everyone!! :)

Perry

Hopefully good things happen in 2's!

With September flying by, I simply cannot believe that October begins TUESDAY!!! I have quite a busy month ahead of me! 

A tough midterm, finishing my editing on the manuscript, two conferences to attend, two weddings and a trip to Philadelphia for two days! I also have have two projects this semester focusing on the adaptive reuse of historic churches and I'll be conducting two tours in of local Greensboro churches in November!! 

I'm having to manage my time pretty closely to make sure I get all of my readings for class done - not fun!!! I can't wait for Fall Break to finally take a mini-break from all this stuff!!! Although much of it is stressful, I have the opportunity to travel to Philadelphia on October 14th! I have to miss a class (Uggh) but I'll have the chance to meet a few key people in the preservation field up at the Sacred Places office! I'm even going to be doing some research in their clearinghouse! 

At the moment I'm trying the best to finish my paper on the "Radicalism of the American Revolution" - quite interesting, but also a little mind-numbing! haha ... I suppose I should get back to it, I'll update more later! :)

Labor Day Weekend

Believe it or not, Shawn and I spent yet another weekend in Charlotte! Although we didn't plan on it, we managed to get some tickets to the ECU/VTech game so we headed to the Queen city for another adventure! Although traffic put us at the stadium just in time to HEAR the kickoff, it was so nice to be back in the atmosphere of a football game! Not to mention ECU WON!!!!! FABULOUS. Just FABULOUS! :) We made it back to our hotel to be pleasantly surprised by the new Hyatt! Our room was HUGE! After walking a few miles at the South Park Mall we hit up the Village Tavern and then headed home to enjoy the King size bed and relax. Shawn ended up falling asleep while I watched MSNBC and worked on reading through Dr. Elliot's manuscript. 

Ahh yes ... classes officially started in my graduate school career! Although I was worried at first, I'm very interested in my classes this semester!! American Landscapes and Architecture, Colloquium in American History and Historic Preservation Principals and Practice - exciting, right? While my professors managed to be energetic and friendly, they also managed to insist that I buy a good $400 worth of textbooks. Ehhh. 

I also started my Graduate Assistantship which will mean I spend 5 hours a week grading papers, and 10 hours editing Dr. Elliot's manuscript on Albion Tourgee. 600 pages of documents written in the mid-1800s, to be completed by the end of the month. I'm making it through though, and its actually quite interesting! 

I am also completing my short article on First Presbyterian Church that will be published in the October edition of Landmarks magazine! I'm set to meet with FPC's PR department to go over my final draft. - I'll keep everything updated! :)

After our anniversary weekend!

We're back home and relaxing after an eventful weekend in Charlotte! We managed to take a walk downtown when we got to the hotel in the morning which was fun ... aside from all the bums on every park bench. After checking in and grabbing lunch we decided to hit up Discovery Place ( I was under the impression it was like a miniature Smithsonian ... instead a large scale 3rd grade science fair). Of all the people I told I was going to Discovery Place too - NO ONE mentioned it was for elementary school students!!! LOL we had fun though and made the best of it, then hit up the mall and later went out to eat! 

Classes are officially starting tomorrow and I'm looking forward to it (for now)! We'll see how my opinions change throughout the semester! 

Orientations & Charlotte!

As I begin my cram session of orientations here at UNCG I can't help but think that everyone must assume I'm walking around confused on the campus because I'm a new freshman. I wish I could wear a sign saying "NO! I'm NOT a freshman and NO I won't be living in the dorm near you!" 

I've found out after my registration session with Dr. Filene that I am the ONLY Historic Preservation student in the History Department! Everyone else is Museum Studies, and I'll instead be sharing a number of classes with Interior Architecture students - pretty neat! I have my History Graduate Assistant orientation tonight and then regular Grad orientation in the morning, followed by the History Grad orientation tomorrow night, followed by a welcome party at Dr. Barton's house. Wish me luck! 

After a packed week, Shawn and I will be heading to Charlotte for the weekend and staying at the Historic Dunhill Hotel in uptown Charlotte to celebrate our 2 year anniversary!!! How exciting! We're dying to get a break from everyday life and spice things up a bit with a night on the town! :) 

A ton of things will be going on in the next few weeks - I'll keep everything posted! 

Perry McKenzie

523 Julian Street

On my first summer off I can't seem to sit and enjoy having nothing to do, so I've managed to find a few things to fill my time! As mentioned before I've been researching First Presbyterian for Landmarks magazine, however my deadline isn't until September 15th, so I've been able to do my first paid  bit of Historical Research! 

So far my research has only proven the home was around since 1910 (based on deeds, Sandborn maps, houses around it and the thirteenth US Census), but we'll see. Based on loans the owner of the property took out in 1908, I think he may have built the home around that time. 

The owner of the home currently is applying for a grant that will help pay to fix the home's porch, and my research will serve as the abstract for that grant, but the deadline is July 31st! He may be pushing the deadline a bit, but hopefully all will come together! 

I'll be getting a number of photos of the home tomorrow, so I will update later! :)

Photos of First Presbyterian

A few photos of First Presbyterian from my visit today, more info to come!

Summertime Ventures

It seems like this summer is FLYING by! Classes start in 6 weeks! I'd never thought I'd be excited to get back to sitting at desks for 3 hours at a time, going home to write 30 page papers and researching, researching, researching! - but I am! Although I've been working part time at Ann Taylor, I am dying to get back to History, retail is not the place for me, haha. 

Throughout the next few weeks I will work on starting my research on the religious architecture of Greensboro, there are some AMAZING churches here! Although I'll start with First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro, I'll research 5 in all:

First Presbyterian Church

Buffalo Presbyterian Church

West Market Street United Methodist Church

Holy Trinity Episcopal Church

Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church

These 2 photos are of First Presbyterian: (more will come - with better quality!)

Hopefully if all goes well I can get some of my work published, even though they'll be short essays I'm hoping I can make more out of the series, maybe a walking tour or seminar presentation on a few of the sacred places of the Gate City - I'll keep my progress updated! :) 

New Car!

So after 4 years with the infamous Aztek, I've finally gotten a new car!!! For those that knew the Aztek well, it was a long overdue transition, but quite the memory maker. I remember being completely excited for my first car when I was in high school, and about 2 months in, I realized what a POS I was stuck with. It went with me on our senior spring break trip, vacation after high school graduation and onto my first day as a college student. 

Flash-forward 3 years and the window wouldn't roll down, the back door was jammed shut, the rearview mirror had a habit of falling off and even the Jesus on my rosary jumped off, embarrassed to be seen in the 'tek. I did love that ugly thing though.

UPGRADE! Now I have a brand spankin' new Ruby Red 2008 Saturn Vue! She was well worth the wait! So here's a toast - to the clunker that got me this far and the beauty that will take me the rest of the way