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Allie is settling in just fine. She’ll have a routine down in a few days and all will be right in her world. I believe I stress more about her stress than she ever actually gets stressed.
Plus she has her yirt:
Also, we tried the local barbecue place tonight:
It will suffice.
Anyway, back to cleaning and settling.
Today one of our friends and colleagues gave us a walking tour around the main part of the campus. It is a big place. Quite attractive. Almost all of the buildings are made from local limestone, so it sort of looks like Hogwarts. But it is also big enough that a quick walking tour makes it all a bit hard to digest. (Mostly I started wondering what they aren’t good at here. The reputation of this place is pretty incredible.) It’ll take a bit of time.
But, here, this is part of our new building, Franklin Hall:
When I was up for my interview at the beginning of the year the students were still working away in Ernie Pyle Hall. The great journalist was an Indiana student and that’s his statue out front, there. When the students come back in the fall they’ll see his statue there, the famed Ernie Pyle desk inside and a lot of new opportunities.
Franklin dates back to 1907 but is right now enjoying the finishing touches of a $22 million renovation. You can’t go inside just yet. Next month, though, we move in. (Which is fine, I’m ready for a break from lifting and carrying cardboard.)
Franklin Hall was once the library, and later an administrative building and will now be home to the newly created Media School. It is going to be an incredible facility. My office is in there somewhere:
Right next to Franklin are the Sample Gates. Designed to look older than they are. They only go back to the 1980s, but the gates have a weird history prior to that. In the 1960s a donation toward building some version of the gates was consider “wasteful alumni spending” and ever since then alumni everywhere have been sure to spend their own money wisely.
Anyway, they are named after Edson Sample’s family:
In a twist of fate, it was long-time University director of scholarships and financial aid Edson Sample that provided the funding to build the Sample Gates in honor of his parents.
Schweir, the historian, says walking through the Sample Gates makes her feel like she’s stepping back in time. Starr, the artist, views them from a 21st century perspective.
“Every time I walk by it now, I don’t just see the Sample Gates,” says Starr. “I see Obama and Edward from Twilight and zebra skin and cheetah skin. You really transform the psychology.”
It took 90 years to get there.
We built our new grill and gave it a tour tonight:
I tasted beef and roasted vegetables. No Edward from Twilight, though.
Riding some of the trails this morning:
This was, I believe, on the B-Line. Bloomington has created a three-mile long paved path that basically bisects the city. It is part of a larger plan which, supposedly, will provide paths and trails to all points of the town when the project is completed. Part of that path is just behind our house and you could walk on it and the various sprawling sidewalks and paths that sprout from it for a fair distance. (Forgive the imprecise measurements. I’m new.)
Anyway, nice and scenic. This is more for walking and running and maybe a casual ride. You wouldn’t, we found this morning, put your bike on this and start hammering at it. But, still, a pleasant route, and one without cars.
We had to get in the car today. Drove up to Indianapolis to pick up my mother-in-law from the airport. It wasn’t a bad drive, except for the construction. I wonder how many times I’ll say that before they finish the construction. (Exactly the number of times I have to go to Indianapolis, would be my bet.) They are working on a giant interstate project and part of that work is between here and there just now. I’m sure it’s coming along with all due speed.
Anyway, she’s come to visit and help us get settled. She got in the house and was ready to work. What a lady. Good timing, too. My progress has slowed to road construction levels. We joked that we were leaving a room for her, and we’ve left part of that room for her to unpack. I’ve pretty much had my fill of it all.
Cardboard is an adventure, until you start getting cardboard cuts. That’s a powerful disincentive.
We went to the Surplus Store. This is a facility IU runs where all of their extra equipment and furniture and what not from the many different campuses comes to be picked over by the general public. Plus, they were having a sale. I mean look at the deal they’re offering on these:
Cheaper than Wheel of Fortune. And authentic in ways that the Wheel letters haven’t been for quite some time. Vanna just touches the rectangle now, she doesn’t even spin them around any more.
The surplus store is interesting, but mostly office stuff. And the stuff that isn’t office stuff seems to be either almost-worn out or the sort of things you might not buy secondhand. I did get some pool paddles, though. And I would have stayed longer, there was that sale, if only to avoid this:
We are overrun with packing paper. Someone came in and poured water on it or fed it after midnight or whatever makes paper multiple. It is overwhelming. There’s at least two full car loads of paper due to a trip to a recycling center. It has to be more than one car load.
And then there’s the tape. And the boxes. We are making good progress, though:
I’m starting to hear the sounds that packing tape makes in my sleep, though, so I’m ready for that to be finished.
We went on a bike ride this weekend. I saw a bridge and took a poorly composed, off the hip while pedaling-beneath-it photo for no reason:
We made our way to one of the lakes, this one is named Lemon:
This ride took us through four towns, I believe. (I’m not sure if we should distinguish Unionville from New Unionville.) And we enjoyed the rural scenery:
And there was so much climbing! At least we didn’t have to go up that hill in the distance. (We’d already gone up that hill in the distance.)
I was vacuuming and wanted to make a joke about this Dyson. (I am not its biggest fan.)
Best I can tell, this Dyson was designed to stop working when it encounters more than four strands of hair or anything with the tensile strength of nine covalently bonded dust motes. Its seven-foot power cord was also an attractive selling point.
But it has this giant orange ball!
The Yankee points out I’m the only one that has trouble with it. Probably because I use it.
I haven’t seen one of these in a long time:
In fact, out of the corner of my eye, while we were riding our bikes through some of the local lowlands, I saw that today and thought it was real. This guy needs help!
That guy is actually a cool decoration.
And I would have stayed around there all day, it was nice and cool in the shade, but there are boxes to unpack. And soup to eat. Here’s the ceiling fan in my spoon in my soup:
