Squash

I play squash once a week with Aidan and Will and whoever else is around and not sick or injured. The doors leading into the squash courts are very small, and open onto a private space that is only visible from the outside through a small, smudged plexiglass window. The courts, with their white walls and minimal markings, could be holding cells from THX-1138. The ceilings are probably 20' high. The acoustics inside are very strange--it is nearly impossible to understand what someone is saying, even standing just a few feet away, but you can hear the shouts and strikes in neighboring courts clearly. The flourescent lights produce a slightly different shade of illumination in each court.

Student's Point of View

GB 321, before class.

Jake One & Mr. Supreme

A slide from Zed's talk at the UNM pop culture conference last weekend.

UNM

University of New Mexico, in and around the student center. The mascot of UNM is the lobo. My overall impression of the campus is that it is very much like my parents' alma mater, Fresno State, but with an adobe theme. And the air is clear enough that you can see the nearby mountains.

O'Hare

The United Airlines terminal at O'Hare, designed by Helmut Jahn. It's supposed to look like a Victorian railroad terminal.

O'Hare is fancier but less charming than Midway. O'Hare, for example, doesn't play "Sweet Home Chicago" over and over in the baggage claim area.

Free Trade Coffee

Coffee canisters in the Divinity School coffee shop. As you can see, the coffee on the right is "Organic/Fair Trade Coffee". A cup of the Fair Trade coffee costs about 25¢ more than regular. I think the regular actually tastes better than the Fair Trade. All of my attempts to order the regular coffee by calling it "Free Trade" have failed, resulting in the clerks charging me as if I ordered the Fair Trade kind.

Valentine's Day

Melody is awesome. For Valentines day she got me a grenade candle, plus B-17, P-47 and tank cookie cutters.

From left to right: B-17 cookie cutter, grenade candle, and P-47 Thunderbolt cookie cutter.

B-17 Flying Fortress cookie. Fantastic. I'm afraid it will have a hard time landing after I eat its wings off.

La neige est blanche

Kimbark and 57th, looking north.

55th street.

Today in Jason's intentional content class we went over Davidson's theory of meaning, and talked about ways of giving the meaning of the sentence "Snow is white".

Morning Coffee: Cobb

One of the most enjoyable aspects of having early office hours on Monday morning is being one of the first people to get coffee from the Cobb coffee shop. The coffee is fresh and it is satisfying to see all the burners warming full pots.

Indoor Soccer

The team, from left to right: Sam, me, Dan, Thomas, Ben, Noah, Will (in front).

Dan about to move the ball forward.

Sam on the ball.


Thomas on defense.

The result today was a 2-4 loss. But we had a ton of chances, and nobody got hurt. And I didn't get carded. Will had some awesome aggressive saves on counterattacks when he was the only one in our half of the field.

Hyde Park Winter Afternoon

Looking east across Nichols Park. On the way to coffee hour, which was particularly good this week.

55th/57th Street Metra at Night in the Snow

Waiting for a late train downtown. No one was around.

Facets Videotheque

The Facets Marquee.

Entrance to Facets videotheque.


The "House of Carradine": movies featuring John, David, Robert or Keith Carradine.

Mr. Submarine parking lot: where you park when you go to Facets.

I made the absurd trip from Hyde Park to Facets (Metra to Randolph, walk to the Randolph brown line El, take the El to Fullerton, walk seven blocks from the El stop to facets, then repeat everything in reverse--except I took a cab back from downtown rather than the Metra) to return five different versions of Hamlet I checked out about a week ago to use in my Phil Perspectives class. If I didn't return them yesterday I would have been charged another $50, I think. I was hoping that after I returned the movies I could cross the street and get an ice cream from the Oberweis ice cream shop. But it has been turned into a Re/Max realtor, so I had to walk back to the El without any ice cream.

Deluxe

I thought I was going to be late for office hours this morning, but luckily for me, I was walking with Melody. She flagged a cab and I got a nice cozy cab ride from 55th to just outside Cobb. I even had enough time to get a coffee.

Going Up to Evanston

Getting from Hyde Park to Evanston is tough. The trip is even more painful when it's one degree outside. We made it today in a little over an hour and a half, with the help of our friend Naria who picked us up and drove us from the Howard El stop to her place. We watched the Superbowl.


The door leading up to the Metra tracks was covered in ice flakes.



The Metra at 53rd street. Time to downtown is about 25 minutes.


The Red Line to Howard, the end of the line, took about 45 minutes. The temperature inside the train dropped about 45 degrees at each stop when the doors opened.


Huddling under the heat lamps at the Howard stop.


End of the red line.


Super Bears.

Four Degrees Fahrenheit

NPR just said that it's going to be so cold tomorrow that you should just stay indoors. And that after a conversation with Zed last night about how in Los Angeles he sometimes has to put on his adidas jacket.

Looking at this forecast for the coming week, the high of 4 degrees on Monday reminds me of the only time I've experienced weather that cold. We were driving back from a Grotto trip to Wisconsin. It was two in the morning, and the Lincoln Continental needed gas. I got out to fill it up, but I didn't have my gloves on. When I touched the metal handle of the gas pump, I felt like I had been shot in the hand.