site

books / IU / photo / site / Thursday — Comments Off on Today I learned what my office floor used to be
7
Feb 19

Today I learned what my office floor used to be

I won’t tell you what my floor was — this is a family site — but I will tell you this. Our building is currently in its third life. What now houses much of The Media School used to be an administration building and, before that, it was the university’s library. Our offices are in the stacks, which all have a different personality owing to the lower ceilings and many columns. Books are heavy and there were a lot of books, of course.

We had dinner this evening with our friend who is one of the university’s archivists. The oral history program of the university’s bicentennial program is one of the many things she helps look after. And apparently one theme that has come up a few times in some of the older stories is what each floor of the library was. Each floor had its own personality, it seems. And mine was no different.

It was an important meeting place and I’m thinking we should put up a commemorative plaque.

I visited the store. Almost hit this guy:

Look, if you study the left margin, you can see the nearest cart corral. It was four parking spots away. Four spots from where someone just left their cart. Bloomington people, man.

Today we are starting a new book in my grandfather’s book section. We’ve now glanced through two Reader’s Digest, and we’re staying with that celebrated publication today. We have two more Reader’s Digest issues to see, so let us start our inspection of the October 1966 issue. I suspect we’ll get about three weeks out of this one, starting with these five images.

Click the book cover below to jump right in to today’s additions.

If you’d like to check out all of the stuff I’ve posted from my grandfather’s books so far, start here.

books / IU / photo / site / Thursday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Oh it is much warmer now, thanks
31
Jan 19

Oh it is much warmer now, thanks

We hit the double digits mid-afternoon. The teens, even. Why, it doesn’t even feel cold anymore … indoors. My lungs, which I complained about yesterday, are better indoors. It feels like an irritation, similar to some other kinds of complaints of irritation, but different. It isn’t debilitating, but it is a bit uncomfortable. I’ll be fine tomorrow, no doubt.

Six new images to see today in the books section. Click the book cover below to jump right in to today’s additions.

See all of the interesting bits from this book here. If you’d like to check out all of the stuff I’ve posted from my grandfather’s books so far, start here.

We produced sports shows in the studio tonight:

They also recorded two other programs which will be rolled out later this week.

And at home tonight, I learned that there is no bottle Best Before date:

Interesting things I found elsewhere today:

More on Twitter, and please check me out on Instagram as well.

books / family / site / Thursday — Comments Off on To the books, and to the moon!
24
Jan 19

To the books, and to the moon!

For a third week in a row we’re going back my grandfather’s books. That’s called a streak!

We’re working through the illustrations of a 1961 issue of Reader’s Digest that I got from the family compound a few years back. There are a stack of other magazines, too, and pretty soon we’ll be working our way through some classic issues of Popular Science. Which fits my grandfather’s interests just fine, but the work we’ll see today surely did as well.

Four images to see today; click the book cover below to jump right in to today’s additions.

See all of the interesting bits from this book here. If you’d like to check out all of the stuff I’ve posted from my grandfather’s books so far, start here.

photo / site / Wednesday — Comments Off on Video update
23
Jan 19

Video update

On Saturday I was in a t-shirt, in a park, reading in the sun. Reading in the sun until my iPad shut down because it got too warm.

We returned Monday. And yesterday I looked out of the television studio window to see this:

No.

And then I looked at the long range forecasts.

No, and good day, sir.

So I made a new front for the website, and thought of warmer days. It basically looks like this.

But, please, go check it out. Click on all of those links while you’re there. A little traffic never hurt anyone.

adventures / history / memories / photo / site / Tuesday — Comments Off on We’re back and it is cold and frozen
22
Jan 19

We’re back and it is cold and frozen

So since everything, included the roads, are frozen here, still*, let’s talk about some place warmer. Here are a few pictures I took yesterday just before we left Savannah. (Truly, we toted our luggage inside.)

This is the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. It’s a lovely building, and it marks the local Catholic diocese.

The diocese was installed by Pope Pius IX in 1850. At the time, it covered all of Georgia and part of Florida, totaling about 5,500 Catholics. Another Pope Pius, the XII, split the territory in 1956. So now this covers south Georgia. Much of what was the original church at this location was destroyed in an 1898 fire. The outside walls and two spires were saved.

There was a big renovation project in the middle of the 20th century and a massive repair project in the 1980s put the high altar in the background. Then there was another round of renovation in the late Nineties. So the pews aren’t that old.

Indeed, much of everything here is new compared to some of the beautiful church buildings we have seen over the years, but this one is still lovely, and as impressive to me as the first time I saw it 14 years ago.

The stained glass windows went in around 1904:

Many, if not all of them, were removed, cleaned and re-leaded during the last restoration project.

I didn’t realize you had to do that to windows.

Now, about that organ …

The first recorded organ at the cathedral was installed in 1837. (They held a fundraiser in 1836.) That original organ is now on display, but not in use, at the First African Baptist Church a few blocks away. Organs came and went, one was rebuilt after a hurricane, but lost in the fire. At the turn of the century an organ builder in Delaware installed a new one. That one was removed after 1938, and some of the pipes wound up in local classrooms. During the reconstruction in the 1980s a Massachusetts firm, Noack Company, was selected to build the new organ. A protestant, a Lutheran even, helped bring the organ project to life. The cathedral’s website says that was a first. And that man’s church choir, from the local St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, was the first Protestant concert in the cathedral in 1991.

*The snow was Saturday. You could barely drive around downtown today for the ice in the roads. They have some kind of plan, I’m sure. You’d like to see it activated. You’d like to see warmer temperatures, too. They’ve got about 13 degrees on us today.

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →