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cycling / football / history / IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
18
Oct 16

Just some quick photos

USA Today’s little decorative badge is trying to capture the national mood. How do you think they’re fairing?

I pedaled my bike to campus this morning. Here’s a part of my route, a nice clean path with neat little trees and curves:

And the second part of the route, a slightly wider path, upon which you can go at least four wide:

I found this print today, the first Indiana football team:

They played one game, this week in 1887, in fact. They lost, to Franklin College. That was their season, a tournament to determine the state champion. IU was coached by Arthur Woodward, an economist. A future state attorney general was on the team. Six teams took part in what was the first version of something closely similar to modern football in the state. The Indianapolis Athletic Club invited Butler, DePauw, Franklin, Hanover, Indiana and Wabash to play the October and November series in Indy. Wabash won it all. You like to think some old men in the middle of the 20th century were still reminding each other how they got the job done back in the eighties.

history / memories / photo / television / Thursday — Comments Off
5
Oct 16

Beam this up

There has been a Star Trek exhibit at one of the campus museums. As far as I can tell there might be 16 museums and galleries on this one campus. This was at Lilly, the acclaimed rare book library. The experts there house more than 400,000 books, more than seven million manuscripts, 100,000 pieces of sheet music and, right now, a small Star Trek exhibit.

Being the last few days, these were on display, I had to stop by.

Please note the date. This is a 1964 treatment of the original Trek, with Gene Rodenberry’s name across the top:

This means that staple has been in place for more than 52 years. Incredible.

Also, look at the example episode descriptions. Some seem familiar. Some read like obvious early drafts of old favorites. And one just might have been altogether forgotten, fortunately.

One of the classics, the Trouble With Tribbles, which was written by David Gerrold:

Side note, the tribble episode might be one of the last of the original series I ever managed to catch. Famous as it was, I never saw it on television.

This is from another classic episode, Amok Time, written by the great Theodore Sturgeon:

And, oh look, something like tri-ox is actually a medical reality now.

And just over from the the script for the famous third act sick bay scene was this handsome cover:

It was a small exhibit, and mostly script-based items of the above sort. But it was worth walking a few blocks on a warm autumn day to see. And, by the door, someone had filled a display case with action figures:

I’m pretty sure that they just wanted to show off their Gorn.

baseball / history / photo / Thursday / video — Comments Off
29
Sep 16

Well that happened in a hurry

I say this at least once a year, but maples are quitters:

And this is way too early for the first leaf to have turned and let go of the branch to find its way to the ground. I found it on the sidewalk outside of our building on campus this morning. I’m noting the date and time, should anything come of it.

Found this repop poster on the wall at lunch today. While I find it too early for the leaf turn, this is right on time.

Even if the poster is wrong — Game One was at Yankee Stadium — it is eerily right on time. Game One of the 1932 World Series was on September 28th. This happened 84 years and one day ago.

The Yankees won. Some 41,000 fans saw the Yankees take the lead with a Lou Gehrig, and then they really poured it on in the final three frames. Red Ruffing pitched a complete game, striking out 10 Cubs.

So that’s timing, for you.

On the 29th, in Game Two, the Yankees won 5-2 and Hall of Famer Lefty Gomez got the second win of the Series. That game took one hour and 46 minutes to complete, and is not the shortest on record. (That’d be an 85 minute contest in 1908.) Babe Ruth saw his last Yankee Stadium World Series game. Ruth’s supposed called shot took place in the third game, in Chicago.

Through all of this, the Cubs wouldn’t hold a lead for more than a half-inning until Game Four, but even that couldn’t stand up. They got swept. But look at the Cubbies now, right?

cycling / history / maps / photo / weekend — Comments Off
4
Sep 16

Where the people are moving

As ever, this barn was at or near the top of a hill on today’s bike ride. It was but a 22-mile ride, and another piece of mounting evidence, impossible to ignore, that I don’t know how to ride on hills. But a nice little piece of farmland, somewhere, I think, around a place called Unionville.

Or maybe it was around New Unionville. Hard to tell at this point. They are both unincorporated areas — One has a recycling center, the other has a post office — and appear to be perfectly lovely and sleepy places to pass through.

Wikipedia tells me that Unionville was the center of the U.S. population in 1911. According to the 2010 Census the center is in a place called Plato, Missouri. As the crow flies that’s a 337 mile shift to the southwest in a century. That’s just migratory patterns. (And air conditioning.)

Furthermore, Wikipedia tells me “The 20.7-mile shift projected for the 2010–2020 period would be the shortest centroid movement since the Great Depression intercensal period of 1930–1940.”

Historically … If you looked at the mean center in 1810, the spot was in Loudon County, Virginia, 470 miles east of here. Short of a trend, let’s split the difference. I’m guessing, if you give it another 100 years, the mean center might be somewhere near Woodward, Oklahoma, which is 400 miles from Plato. Someone print this out and keep it for your great-great-grandchildren to verify.

But, anyway, hills or no, I averaged 20 miles per hour or more over the course of four different miles today. So there’s that. A quick glance at a map of Woodward suggests it might be flat. Maybe I should ride there.

history / IU / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
3
Aug 16

Hanging out with Ernie Pyle

You can never read enough Ernie Pyle. And now I get to see him anytime.

I see his desk every day. It is only strange if he starts talking back, right?

Read Pyle’s wartime work here.