Brent A. Jones

On Pujols

2011-12-09T07:21:00Z

I suppose I should put this someplace so I don't forget it later, and that place might as well be here.

My favorite player is, was, and always has been Ozzie Smith. I'm not sure why. My dad likes him too, maybe that's why. He was an amazing shortstop but not a flashy bat; in little league, I couldn't hit for beans and I was ok in the field, maybe that's why. He seemed like a guy who kept his head down, worked hard, loved what he did and did his job well. Maybe that's why. He had a great story.

I can't say I had a favorite active player on the Cardinals; I like almost everyone who puts on the red cap and has fun on the field. I'm not a superfan either. I think I went to one regular season game in 2011. But I am a fan. I watched or listened to a lot of games. I enjoyed going to the ballpark. And you better believe I jumped on postseason tickets when I got the chance.

A few moments stand out to me:

2004

I was at a fantastic game where the Cardinals traveled to Wrigley Field in July 2004. A highschool friend had a single spare ticket -- he and his girlfriend, and I in the backseat, drove from my hometown up to Chicago (about two hours). We parked in an impossibly tight parking spot behind a home in Wrigleyville, then walked to the stadium. I had been there once before, on a trip with my college floor, but it was the Pirates in town.

I was still -- am still -- enamored with the stadium, the history, the tradition it all represented. The seats on the rooftops beyond the ivy-covered walls. The hand-operated scoreboard. The feeling. Did I have a Chicago Dog from the vendor behind homeplate? Yes. Did I have an obstructed view? Also yes. Did I have an amazing time, a Cardinals fan at Wrigley Field? Absolutely.

This is perhaps the first time I ever saw Albert Pujols play baseball in person. It is most certainly the first time I ever took a photo of him, if he's in there someplace.

Aided by the fine folks at Baseball-Reference.com and retrosheet.org, I can relive that day. I have vague, fuzzy memories, but the story is better with details. ¹

Cardinals win, 11-8. Pujols goes 5 for 5 with 4 RBI and three homeruns, including the tiebreaker.

At the end of the season the Cardinals finished 13 games ahead of the Astros to win the NL Central. The Cards beat the Dodgers 3-1 in the division series and took the championship series in seven from the wildcard Astros. Then came the Red Sox.

To keep this one short and sweet, I entered the lottery for World Series tickets. And acquired World Series tickets. For Game Five. Of course, Boston swept the Cards to win their first championship in 86 years. Bummer.

2005

In 2005, the Cardinals made another run but fell short in Houston, losing the NLCS 4-2. In Game 5, Pujols broke Brad Lidge with a top of the ninth two-out two-on go-ahead monster of a homerun.

2006

In 2006, I happened to be visiting St. Louis in late October for a collegiate journalism conference. On Friday, Oct. 27, we took a bus from our downtown hotel to the Moolah Temple in Grand Center to watch a couple movies before their national release (Borat and Stranger Than Fiction, for some reason). On the ride back, people kept getting updates as to the score. After we got back, the Cardinals were leading, and I decided to head down to the stadium. The Cardinals led the series 3-1.

I walked down Broadway to Clark and tried to find a place to see in. The crowds were incredible and I remember being in awe of the noise from the stadium coming out through the gap in left field. Hold in your mind the stereotypical "large crowd cheering" noise, and that is precisely what I heard. I remember being surprised at how accurate the actual noise mapped to the stereotypical noise that was in my head.

And then an even bigger roar went up. And then there were fireworks. And the Cardinals had won their first World Series of my lifetime. I was sprayed with champagne as I made my way back to the hotel. I bought a Stadium Edition of the Post-Dispatch, and held it high as I walked back, getting car horn honks and high-fives all the way. I set out, foolishly, in my car, into the worst downtown traffic St. Louis had seen in years, because a colleague and roommate needed dress clothes for an interview at the convention. I decided to make the best of it -- I rolled down my window and held the paper up high for all to see.

2008

In 2008 I moved to St. Louis. For Christmas that year I got a "Pujols Pack" of tickets to ten games the following season. I also bought my family each a ticket to the Bank of America Club for one game when the Cubs were in town. I started a habit of going to games when I could, and going to sports bars for dinner when I couldn't.

2011

Skip ahead to this season. 2011.

I particularly remember two games in June. June 4, a Saturday, I had been out driving and listening to the game on the radio. The Cubs were in town. The Cardinals scored two in the fourth on a Pujols homerun, the Cubs came back with four in the sixth, and the Cardinals tied it in their half of the sixth with Pujols doubling to bring the first run home. The game went into extra innings and the Cardinals managed the threaten in the tenth when Pujols was intentionally walked to load the bases with one out. The move paid off when Lance Berkman and Tony Cruz got out to end the inning. Jump to the bottom of the 12th inning. Ryan Theriot and Jon Jay both get out facing Jeff Samadzija. Pujols walks to the plate, takes a 2-1 count and knocks a walk-off extra-innings homerun to deep left field. Game over, Cardinals win 5-4.

And he did it again the next day. On June 5, the Cubs grabbed the lead in the fourth with two runs. The Cardinals made up one in the sixth but took their sweet time before tying it on a 2-out double down the left field line by Theriot, scoring Cruz. That's all they could manage and the game went into the tenth. Fernando Salas set down the Cubs in order with ten pitches. Then Pujols stepped to the plate to lead off the bottom of the tenth. Just like the day before, the count was 2-1 before he crushed a Rodrigo Lopez pitch to deep left center. Game over, Cardinals win 3-2.

The stretch

I had just bought my house and I was training for the marathon on October 23 when the Cards began their historic comeback. I specifically remember the last night of the regular season -- September 28: I returned from my training run and turned on the radio. The Cardinals were about to win an 8-0 complete-game two-hit shutout by Chris Carpenter with 11 strikeouts. The Braves were leading Philadelphia in Atlanta, which meant that the Cardinals and Braves would have a play-in game for the division series. But it was not to be: In the top of the ninth, Chase Utley sacrificed the tying run in, and the Braves went down in order to send it into the tenth. The Cardinals would finish their game 15 minutes later, but had to wait in Houston's locker room to find out where their next game would be. Nearly an hour and a half later, in the top of the 13th inning, Hunter Pence put the Phillies on top and they would stay there, giving the Cardinals the Wild Card and sending them to Philadelphia for the Division Series. (there was a bit of drama in the American League as well. ESPN has a timeline of what some people have called the best night of baseball)

NLDS

What more is there to say but the Rally Squirrel showed up at Busch in Games Three and Four, followed by the Game Five spectacular complete-game shutout by Chris Carpenter, winning 1-0 against Phillies' ace Roy Halladay. The Cards win in five and head to Milwaukee.

NLCS

Milwaukee played terrible defense throughout the series. I got tickets to Game Five, in the outfield near the Cardinals' bullpen. My dad came down and Kitty went with us as well. The Brewers weren't even in it -- the Cardinals plated three in the second inning and never looked back. Milwaukee had four errors on the night. It was a fantastic experience to be in the park for playoff baseball. The Cardinals went back to Milwaukee up three games to two and took Game Six in a 12-6 homerun derby.

World Series

I remember the wins but not the losses against the Rangers. I remember Game Three -- it was the night before the marathon. It also happened to be one of the six games of the entire 2011 season that lasted more than four hours. Luckily, it was mostly scoring. Pujols went 5 for 6 with three homeruns (joining Babe Ruth and Reggie Jackson as the only players to accomplish three homers in a World Series game) and the Cardinals won 16-7. I watched at home, and didn't get nearly enough sleep before Sunday's marathon.

After losing Games Four and Five, the Cardinals were down to their last game. I was invited to Doug, Joan and Kitty's for a bonfire. Doug had the TV set up in the back yard, and we all gathered around. It was a back and forth game, and the mood was tense. We were all sick when David Freese was at bat in the bottom of the ninth with two strikes, down by two. Then elation after the deep double that tied the game. That quickly turned to dread after Josh Hamilton's two-run homer in the tenth. Delirium after Theriot's and Berkman's RBIs to tie it up again in the bottom of the tenth -- and Berkman's again with two strikes and two outs. Cautious optimism after holding the Rangers in the eleventh. And then full-blown dumbfounded disbelief after Freese's full-count leadoff walk-off to center field accompanied by Joe Buck's echo of his father's call "We will see you tomorrow night."²

And slowly came the realization, "I get to go to Game Seven." A coworker had got standing room only tickets and offered to let me buy one. So I did.

It was by all accounts far less exciting than Game Six, except by virtue of it being Game Seven. We couldn't see much -- most of the crowd was standing for most of the game, understandably. But I was there. For Game Seven. At Busch.

The Cardinals completed their comeback. I saw them win. The fireworks and confetti. The unbelievably loud cheers. And, even after the awards presentations, the interviews, the celebrations, there were the crowds and traffic, reminding me of my 2006 experience. I bought another stadium edition newspaper. But I was there. Inside the stadium this time.

I was at Game Seven. The last game Pujols played as a Cardinal.

Pujols

I told all those stories to get to this: I think my feeling on Pujols is a sadness that a potentially great story won't get a chance to be told.

We should be used to that in sports. If only the fielder was playing another step or two out...if only the hitter had pulled the ball three more inches...if only the pitcher had put a touch more movement on the ball.

We already knew how the story began. Wonderfully crafted, it was exciting from the very beginning. An attempt and failure in 2004. Redemption in 2006. An incredible comeback and proof it wasn't a fluke in 2011.

How would that story have ended? A massive contract for Pujols, yes, much of it for what he'd already given for the team. A strong core lineup for at least a few more years. Record chases. The chance to watch the best player in baseball take his final bow at home, wearing the Birds on the Bat for his entire career and on into Cooperstown. It's almost sacrilege, but he would have in deed, if not in word, been the greatest Cardinal. A legend.

But now I don't get to watch that story. I can't tell that story. Great stories don't end in the middle.

I'm not angry or bitter or spiteful or accusatory. Tens of millions of dollars is a lot of money. Pujols will probably give a good chunk of it to organizations that do great work, maybe work they wouldn't be able to do without his money. That's a good thing. And he'll put on the halo and get down to spring training and go to work and do his job and do it well. And that's a good thing too.

It surely is his story to write, and it surely is his right to choose his own path. But I can't help but feel a little sad that one of the greatest stories in Cardinals history -- maybe in Major League Baseball history -- won't be told.

A-like so:

Tony Womack led off with a walk against the Cubs' Glendon Rusch and Pujols, as ever batting third, doubled to left to score him in the first inning. Nothing more would happen until the Cubs came up in their half of the second when the Matt Morris lost control.

Moises Alou led off and walked. Derek Lee homered (2-1 Cubs). Aramis Ramirez doubled to right. Michael Barrett homered (4-1). Alex Gonzales mercifully struck out, but the bleeding wasn't about to stop: Rusch singled to center and leadoff man Todd Walker walked in front of a Corey Patterson double, scoring them both (6-1). Sammy Sosa, as was his custom, flew out. Patterson moved over on a wild pitch and then scored on a Moises Alou single (7-1). Finally Tony LaRussa brought in Matt Morris, who got Derrek Lee to go down swinging to end the awful, awful inning.

At that point, Cubs fans were elated. The fans wearing red were relatively morose. But it was the top of the third.

With both men in front of him getting out, Pujols hit a first-pitch homerun. 7-2 Cubs.

Ramirez answered in the Cubs' half though, with a leadoff homer, to bring the lead back to six.

After two innings of nothingness with an 8-2 score in favor of the home team, I remember the mood in the stadium being one of mostly boredom. Get the game over with, thought the happy and in-control Cubs fans. Get the game over with, thought the disappointed and outnumbered Cardinals fans.

The Cardinals started swinging their bats in the top of the sixth, when Pujols led off with a line drive single to center. Scott Rolen moved him to third with a single and Jim Edmonds also singled, scoring Pujols and putting Rolen on second (8-3). After Edmonds' single, Francis Beltran came in to pitch for the Cubs.

He did not do a good job.

Reggie Sanders walked to load the bases. Then Mike Matheny walked on five pitches, scoring Rolen (8-4). Then So Taguchi singled to shortstop (8-5), and Dusty Baker had seen enough. Kent Mercker came in and managed to get the first out of the inning when pinch hitter Ray Lankford hit a sac fly to score Sanders and bring the Cards to within two (8-6). Womack and Edgar Renteria would go down quietly and end the threat.

A few more people were paying attention now. Kiko Calero sat down the Cubs' 1-2-3 hitters in the bottom of the sixth.

Albert Pujols stepped to the plate leading off the top of the seventh, and crushed Kyle Farnsworth's first pitch for a homerun to pull the Cardinals within one.

In the top of the eighth, with one out, So Taguchi tagged Farnsworth for another homer to tie the game. Ray King sat the Cubs down in order in their half.

Top of the ninth, tie game. Renteria bounces LaTroy Hawkins' first pitch to short and is safe at first. Pujols steps to the plate and takes a ball. The next pitch he takes out of the park, a homerun to put the Cards up by two. Sanders would also hit a solo shot in the inning, giving the Cardinals a three-run cushion.

The Cubs' final chance (against Jason Isringhausen, natch) saw a groundout, a walk and a flyout by Sosa. Then Alou singled to right and Lee walked, loading the bases and bringing the winning run to the plate in the form of Ramirez. He took a 1-1 pitch to center, but it was caught by Edmonds to end the game. ↩
Jack Buck called Kirby Puckett's 11th-inning walk-off in Game Six of 1991's World Series with the same phrase. ↩

How they played Paterno

2011-11-10T07:38:00Z

NOTE: Initially this post linked to the front pages of the papers mentioned. The Newseum updates with new pages each day. For a look at some of the regional pages, see Charles Apple's blog.

I’m pretty fascinated by the Newseum today and how newspapers decided to play the news of Penn. State football coach Joe Paterno (and Graham Spanier, the university’s president) being fired over allegations of covering up the alleged sexual abuse of young boys, some on Penn. State’s campus, by former football coach Jerry Sandusky.

It seems like papers were all over the map about how big to play this story.

Pennsylvania papers all played it big, of course.

Some papers in or near Big Ten towns did too:

Champaign-Urbana, Ill. (The News-Gazette)
Evanston, Ill. (Chicago Sun-Times) — it was stripped across the top of the Tribune
Iowa City, Iowa (The Des Moines Register)
Ann Arbor, Mich. (The Detroit News and The Free Press) Minneapolis, Minn. (The Star Tribune and the (St. Paul) Pioneer Press)
Lincoln, Neb. (the Lincoln Journal Star and the Omaha World-Herald)
Columbus, Ohio (the Columbus Dispatch)
West Lafayette, Ind. (the Journal and Courier)

And some didn’t, though there was still a presence on the front:

Madison, Wisc. (the Wisconsin State Journal)
East Lansing, Mich. (Lansing State Journal)
Bloomington, Ind. (The Herald-Times)

It’s one line stripped across the top of the Birmingham (Ala.) News, but is the centerpiece of the Opelika-Auburn (Ala.) News.

The Bakersfield Californian played it huge on the front with five mugs showing those fired and charged, but refered to page 58 for the story. It’s not on the front of the L.A. Times.

Other papers with pretty big treatments are the Washington D.C. Express, the St. Petersburg Times, The (Bloomington) Pantagraph, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, lots of New Jersey papers, including the (Newark) Star-Ledger, and even the New York Times.

Apple's location tracking

2011-04-21T00:15:00Z

This also fits in the “topics I know almost nothing about” category.

There are a few confusing bits in the story about Apple’s iPhone collecting location data.

I downloaded the app and checked it out – there were a few out-of-place spots, but all in all it was relatively accurate. But, the points were all laid out on a grid, which I thought was odd (one, supposedly the locations were the phone’s position triangulated from cell towers, and two, even if the locations were the cell towers themselves, I’m pretty sure they’re not on an exactly laid out grid across metro and rural areas over three states). Additionally, the time progression of the app was broken down by week – I’d hoped it would be more granular. And finally, the points weren’t clickable or anything – you couldn’t tell anything about what time any of them was generated.

Luckily that page also gives instructions for digging through the raw data without the program, which I did.

Here I’ll repeat the preface that I don’t really know what I’m doing. But based on my amateur, inexperienced, unknowledgeable analysis of what I found, it appears the iPhone isn’t tracking so much as collecting.

Dataset

In my dataset of nearly 10,000 individual pairs of coordinates over 300 days, there were – as far as I could tell – no duplicate latitude-longitude pairs. None.

Additionally, during times when I traveled, many, many more data points were collected than usual. For example, almost a third of my 10,000 pairs were collected during a two-day trip to Chicago from St. Louis. Another 1,000 or so were collected during other out-of-town trips totaling another week or two.

So, nearly 4,000 of 10,000 data points, two-fifths, were collected in less than 30 days, one-tenth of the total time.

Based on the data, there are about 33 pairs per day, on average. Except that, as I said, about 4,000 points were collected over 23 days out of town, or about 175 points per day. That leaves 6,000 points collected over 277 days, or about 22 per day.

Analysis

Ok, so Chicago to St. Louis is about 300 miles. Double it for the round trip, 600. I won’t even tack on any for wandering around while I was there. Nearly 3,000 points for 600 miles. That’s about 5 points collected per mile traveled.

That seems ok. But the rest of the time? The 6,000 points over 277 days I spent in and around St. Louis? I put 5,000 miles on my car during that time. That’s just 1.2 points collected per mile.

Conclusion

So what’s the difference? The difference is that Chicago (and the ground covered between here and there) for two days is entirely new ground. The 5,000 miles in St. Louis is largely already-covered territory.

So, given the lack of duplicate points combined with the huge uptick in recorded points whenever the phone is in new territory, I think “tracking” is not the right word for the behavior. Tracking would imply recording a new point every time the phone moved, or a new point at a given time interval.

This seems a lot more like “collecting”. The phone seems to be collecting locations and associating them with cell towers. It doesn’t need to collect a place more than once (unless, probably, if something changes – the best tower servicing a given latitude/longitude).

This is probably an outdated analogy, but think of business cards: You collect business cards from contacts. Each time you meet a new contact, you’ll ask for their card. If you go to meetings and professional gatherings in your town, you might collect a new one now and then (both from the occasional new person in town as well as from someone who’s changed phone numbers or companies), but go to an out of town convention and you’ll come home with a thick stack, because you met a bunch of people whose cards you didn’t have.

The phone is collecting data about where it was at what time, and there’s no opt-out. That much seems clear. I’m not quite sure that automatically implies that it’s tracking its whereabouts all the time. I can’t wait to hear from people who really know what they’re talking about.

Competetive Swimming & Chemicals: MOTIKNA

2011-04-04T01:30:00Z

Welcome to “Musings On a Topic I Know Nothing About”, where I muse, discuss, ask questions about and generally BS for a while on a topic I know nothing about

Competitive Swimming & chemicals. How long have we been putting chemicals in the water where we swim competitively? Are there regulations about what chemicals to use and how much of them?

Someone defines the lane length and width, height of the starting platform, legality of suit materials, etc. Do they also regulate pool additives? How long have they been doing that, and was there a noticeable difference in records when they started?

Do the chemicals have any effect on the swimmers' speed? In other words, take your typical Olympic pool, and then one filled with water but with no chemicals added. Do the swimmers perform better, worse or the same?

My guess is that the effect is absent or so small as to be unnoticeable. But I don’t know… Hmm…

This has been “Musings On a Topic I Know Nothing About.”

Inconceivable.

2011-03-28T00:34:00Z

Note: This post originally embedded a video of the tsunami hitting a city in Japan. The video is no longer available.

The thing that is most disturbing to me about these videos of the tsunami hitting cities in Japan is not how overwhelming the damage is, but how inevitable. If there were these videos after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, I missed them.

It was an idealized, humorous conception formed by Saturday morning cartoons, I'm sure, but while I realized a tsunami could be overwhelmingly destructive, I pictured it as the classic "giant wave" that you can perhaps see rushing toward you, and then suddenly everything is engulfed.

These scenes are much more horrifying. The water rises...and then just keeps rising. Keeps covering things that should not be covered. It moves benches and trash cans, then small cars. Then large trucks. Then, surely it couldn't be, but it is -- that building is moving -- very slowly at first, but as the current takes it, it picks up speed. A building.

Where minutes ago was dry land, sidewalks and roads is now covered with rushing, swirling, rising ink black water. I have, of course, seen the Mississippi out of its banks in St. Louis, but to imagine it happening in a matter of minutes -- and potentially just not stopping for 30 to 40 feet is entirely inconceivable.

A dream I occasionally have is a typical one, I think -- falling. Thing is, falling isn't like being shot or drowning or something sudden. You have time to contemplate what is happening, and to ponder the inevitable conclusion. I got the same dreadful, bile-filled feeling watching the tsunami videos as when falling in the dream. This thing, this terrible thing with a foregone conclusion is happening. You can't stop it or even mitigate it a little bit. It just is, and it will be until it is done and there is nothing for you to do but wait until the end.

Fire.

2011-03-18T21:31:00Z

Slinger

2011-03-15T22:31:00Z

Get going

2011-03-14T05:44:00Z

Rockin' old school today

2011-03-08T09:42:00Z

Orchid Show!

2011-02-05T11:10:00Z

Taken at Missouri Botanical Garden

Extracts!

2011-01-29T21:00:00Z

Aflac!

2011-01-21T13:21:00Z

Indiana University: Herman B Wells Library

2011-01-18T07:00:00Z

The Herman B Wells Library (until 2005 it was called the Main Library) is significantly north east of the rest of the buildings I've chronicled so far. It was built in 1969.

And it makes a couple appearances in Breaking Away:

You can see the library behind the track for the Little 500. This area is no longer a track, it's now an open area with trees called the Arboretum. Also in the movie, Dave and his father take a walk near the library at night. Dave's dad:

"I cut the stone for this building."

And here's a locator map. The library's at the top right, while you can see the Art Museum and Showalter Fountain in the bottom left.

View Larger Map

Note: This is part of a series detailing my trip back to IU this past summer. All the photos I shot link to their larger versions on Flickr. Here's the whole set.

Indiana University: 7th Street

2011-01-13T07:00:00Z

7th Street runs north of Dunn Meadow and the Union, in front of Ernie Pyle Hall.

Here's the main entrance to Ernie Pyle Hall, on the east end of the building, north side, opening onto 7th. This building houses the journalism school as well as the offices of the Indiana Daily Student, where I worked for a few semesters.

The Ernie Pyle Memorial, just to the east of the building. Here's a close-up version, with transcription.

Continuing east on 7th, it then intersects with University Avenue, where you can turn right into the parking lot for the Union, go straight (except there's a little guard shack to prevent you from doing that while classes are in session), or turn left and go north.

If you can go straight, or you're walking, you'll continue down 7t — n the north is HPER (the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation; pronounced "hyper", get it?), including a gym built in 1917. I found a mention of the gym in the Indiana University Basketball Encyclopedia, which mentions that it may have been the first in the country to use glass backboards, and its inaugural game saw the Hoosiers men's basketball team beat Iowa 12-7.

Now you're about the the same spot as this screenshot from Breaking Away:

To the right is Woodburn Hall, to the left is construction for the Art Museum and in the background is the I.U. Auditorium.

The Art Museum was designed by I.M. Pei. Construction took four years and was completed in 1982. In addition to a special exhibitions gallery, there are three main galleries: Western art, Medieval to Present; Asia and Ancient Western World; and Africa, South Pacific and the Americas. Also, it's free. The red sculpture is Indiana Arc by Charles O. Perry. The tall metal structure was new to me, and is called Light Totem, by Rob Shakespeare. I never got to see it lit up, but here's a story and photo from the IDS.

Here's an interior of the Art Museum atrium. This is from the third floor.

Slightly further east, 7th loops around a fountain. The fountain is Showalter Fountain and the area is called Fine Arts Square.

The fountain depicts the Birth of Venus and was built in 1961. The figures are by sculptor Robert Laurent.

The Fine Arts Building was finished in 1962 and is on the north side of the fountain.

The Lilly Library holds IU's rare books collection, including part of a Gutenberg Bible. The building was finished in 1960.

Here's some detail. Check out that lettering. The Lilly Library is on the south side of the fountain.

Here's the IU Auditorium. It was finished in 1941. Hosts all kinds of shows, from concerts to touring Broadway shows to speakers. I saw Bill Cosby here. Thomas Hart Benton painted a mural for display at the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago about Indiana's history – much of it hangs in the Auditorium (a few panels hang in a connecting building and two – including a controversial one picturing KKK members – hang in a lecture hall in aforementioned Woodburn Hall). You can see a bunch of pictures of the interior of the auditorium, including the mural and the pipe organ here.

Here's a carved figure on the outside of the auditorium.

And here's where we are:

View Larger Map

Ernie Pyle Hall is on the left, to the south of 7th Street. The Union is to the south of that. Proceeding east, you'll see the large green roof of HPER on the north side of the street and the angles of the Art Museum next to that.

Note: This is part of a series detailing my trip back to IU this past summer. All the photos I shot link to their larger versions on Flickr. Here's the whole set.

RIP Peter Yates

2011-01-12T07:05:00Z

In the midst of posting all these IU tour tidbits referencing Breaking Away, I found out (rather serendipitously, I think) when I visited the Indiana Daily Student’s Web site for the last IU post, that the director of Breaking Away (also Bullitt), Peter Yates, died in London at the age of 81 on Sunday.

In 1980, the film was nominated for Best Director, Best Picture and won an Oscar for Best Screen Writing. It ranks eighth on the list of America’s 100 Most Inspiring Movies, which was compiled by the American Film Institute in 2006.

It also earned a nomination for Barbara Barrie as Best Supporting Actress for her role as Dave’s mom.

Roger Ebert loved the movie, giving it four stars. Here’s a bit of what he has to say, though the whole thing is worth reading:

Yates has gone for the human elements in “Breaking Away,” but he hasn’t forgotten how to direct action, and there’s a bravura sequence in which Dave, on a racing bicycle, engages in a high-speed highway duel with a semitrailer truck.

In this scene, and in scenes involving swimming in an abandoned quarry, Yates' does a tricky and intriguing thing: He suggests the constant possibility of sudden tragedy.

Here’s the trailer:

Indiana University: Beck Chapel and Dunn Cemetery

2011-01-11T00:38:00Z

There is a small chapel and cemetery just east of the Union. IU apparently doesn't own the land where the cemetery is (not sure about the chapel). I've never been in the chapel, though there are weddings held there every once in a while.

The chapel was finished in 1956. It has a Web site.

An overview of the cemetery. There's a walkway between the cemetery and the Union, allowing pretty good views of the nearer tombstones.

Felix Dunn, died 1885.

The inscription on a stone erected on top of the low stone fence in the first photo of the cemetery. It reads:

This ground was deeded by
Geo. G. Dunn
for perpetual use as a cemetery
See Deed Record "R".
Monroe Co. Page 222

Here's where we are:

View Larger Map

The tiny structure just off the southeast corner of the Union is a covered arbor thing. The chapel is a bit further east. In between the two, north, you can just make out some of the larger tombstones (they're just to the west of the pink patch on the ground). Something else to note, if you look north of the cemetery, you can make out the course of the aforementioned Jordan River, which flows into a tunnel at the east end of Dunn Meadow, emerges here, and into another tunnel just east of the chapel.

Note: This is part of a series detailing my trip back to IU this past summer. All the photos I shot link to their larger versions on Flickr. Here's the whole set.

Coffee, take 2

2010-12-30T09:44:00Z

Looks like someone else wondered too.

(previously)

Ready for the snowy trip home

2010-12-24T12:38:00Z

Orchid flowers forthcoming?

2010-12-20T13:59:00Z

Ventana

2010-12-16T22:58:00Z

Sno.

2010-12-12T10:22:00Z

Indiana University: Indiana Memorial Union

2010-11-24T07:00:00Z

Ah, the Union. Technically the "Indiana Memorial Union", an organization for all men enrolled at the university was started in 1909; women were admitted in 1952. The building was dedicated in 1932.

On the north side of the Union is the Jordan River. This stream, named after an early president of IU, meanders from east to west through the campus. Parts of it have worn down its bedrock.

Near the river is Dunn Meadow, which is the University's official public demonstration area.

This is on the north side of the Union, toward the western end. This is sort of a balcony-ish outcropping off of a patio on an upper level. It makes a brief appearance in Breaking Away (it's in the background):

There are a bunch of entrances to the Union, and I'm not sure there's really a "main" entrance, but this is probably one of the more grandiose. It's across the patio from the balcony-ish thing in the photos above.

Near that entrance is an inscription to the architects.

There's a whole bunch of stuff in the Union, of course – bookstore, restaurants, ballroom (went to a couple meetings of the IU Swing Dance Club there), bowling alley/pool hall/arcade (took a class on pool there – assignments included inventing a trick shot and inventing a pool game with a full rule set), hotel, auditorium, art gallery, meeting rooms. Lots of stuff. There's a lavish lounge with wood paneling, leather furniture and a continuously burning fireplace, as well as a piano.

One room in particular always intrigued me, the one pictured above. Sometimes it was gated off, but it happened to be open on the day I visited. It's the Memorial Room. The Union is called the Memorial Union because it's one of three buildings on campus memorializing IU people who fought in WWI (the other buildings are Memorial Stadium and Memorial Hall).

This is the Golden Book, with dedications to all the individual people.

From a small brass plate below the book:

This volume records the names of the men and women of Indiana University who have served in the wars of the Republic.

It also records the names of the donors to the Memorial Fund which has provided the three buildings erected in their honor: Memorial Hall, Indiana Memorial Union and Memorial Stadium.

The donors pay homage to those who served. The University pays homage to both.

Beautiful calligraphy and gold leaf. I don't know who writes the inscriptions, but I'm appreciative of both the aesthetics and the substance.

The floor medallion. There's also one at Memorial Hall. I don't know if there's one at Memorial Stadium.

Some stained glass from the Memorial Room. The IMU Web site says the glass dates from the 15th century.

A sculpture elsewhere in the Union.

And here's a shot from the north east of the Union looking back toward it. The section off to the left is the attached hotel. The square part at the front with the flags is the lobby. Depending on who you listen to, Indiana's Union is the biggest in the US, the second biggest in the US, or just one of the biggest anywhere. It is pretty big.

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The bottom arrow is pointing out the balcony-ish thing, while the row of arrows at the top are pointing out the river.

Note: This is part of a series detailing my trip back to IU this past summer. All the photos I shot link to their larger versions on Flickr. Here's the whole set.

Indiana University: Old Crescent ornaments & Rose Well House

2010-11-22T07:00:00Z

This is the art and other bits of ornament that appear around the Old Crescent.

This sculpture is near the front of Kirkwood Hall.

This is a sculpture of Herman B Wells. Wells worked for IU in various capacities from 1930 until his death in 2000, most notably as president of IU from 1938-1962 and chancellor from 1962-2000, when he died at the age of 97. With a 62-year administrative tenure, Wells oversaw some of the most sweeping changes at the University, including the opening of Jordan Hall, the IU Auditorium, the IU Art Museum and the Main Library, which was rededicated to bear Wells' name in 2005.

I'd be remiss to not mention the Sample Gates as a part of the Old Crescent. They're not original though, they were built in 1987. I wrote a bit more about them in the introduction to this series.

Rose Well House

This is the Rose Well House, a pretty fascinating little structure on campus. It was built in 1908, using portals from the second college building from IU's former campus, which burned in 1883. There was a wedding going on here early in the day as I was walking around.

This is the inscription over the east-facing entrance of the Well House:

Indiana University Founded MDCCCXX.

1st Prest. Rev. A. Wylie. D.D.

Burned down Apl. IX MDCCCLIV.

Built A.D.MDCCCLV.

Rev. Wm. M. Daily D.D. Prest.

J. I. Morrison Prest. of Bo. Trusts.

J. A. Wright Gov. Indiana

W. Tinsley Archt.

The fountain in the Well House. A campus myth is that the couple who kisses in the Well House at midnight on Valentine's Day will be together forever (no word on whether that's midnight the morning of V-Day or the midnight following it. Better do both, just to be safe).

The stained glass from inside the Well House.

Detail of the stained glass. A plaque inside the Well House says it was given by Theodore F. Rose. Various sources say it was built in the shape of Rose's fraternity, Beta Theta Pi, pin. Not sure I buy it. The fraternity's crest also has a red and white shield, but it's quartered and not halved. The fraternity flower is a rose, but then the guy's last name was Rose, so it could just be a coincidence.

Now this is pretty fascinating. Given that the original campus was a seminary, it's not all that surprising that the book inside the seal was originally labeled "Holy Bible". This faces the woods, so I'm not sure a lot of people realize it's even there. Can't imagine there are too many seals left that have the book labeled, either.

The Rose Well House has a cameo in Breaking Away too. Here it is:

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Here's where we are. The Well House is in the middle, while Herman B Wells sits on the middle bench of the three in the crescent to the north east. If you scroll south a bit, the sculpture in the first photo is there, although you can't really make it out using Google. Scroll west and the Sample Gates are where 5th Street intersects with Indiana Avenue.

Note: This is part of a series detailing my trip back to IU this past summer. All the photos I shot link to their larger versions on Flickr. Here's the whole set.

Indiana University: Student Building

2010-11-19T19:00:00Z

The Student Building is part of the Old Crescent. It was built in 1906, and served as the Student Union before the Indiana Memorial Union was built.

I took a class in chess here once, taught by a local business owner (now city councilman) named Steve Volan (with the hilarious nickname "Tall Steve"…because he's tall). I don't remember what my schedule was like that semester, but based on sheer distance from my dorm, this was the class I had to walk farthest for.

Note: This is part of a series detailing my trip back to IU this past summer. All the photos I shot link to their larger versions on Flickr. Here's the whole set.

Indiana University: Old Crescent

2010-11-17T19:00:00Z

The Old Crescent is where the first buildings on the current IU campus were constructed. They surround Dunn's Woods. These are in counter-clockwise order starting from about 3-o'clock.

Kirkwood Hall was completed in 1894.

Wylie Hall was completed in 1884, and was the first building constructed on the new campus. It is, along with its neighbor Owen Hall, one of the few non-limestone buildings on campus. I've heard this is because these buildings needed to be constructed quickly, but I don't know if that's true.

Maxwell Hall was built in 1890, originally named Library Hall. It was under renovation for much of my time at IU.

This is the Student Building, built in 1906. The next post will detail it more fully.

Franklin Hall was built in 1908, with an addition in 1925. The inscription is a John Milton quote, reading "A good book is the precious life-blood of the master spirit". Appropriate, as the building served as the second library, after Maxwell Hall.

Franklin Hall is also seen in the movie Breaking Away, partly filmed on IU's campus. Here it is, with the Student Building in the background:

The Kirkwood Observatory is probably one of the most plain buildings on campus. It was built in 1900 and dedicated in 1901. I haven't been inside, but it was renovated in the year before I started attending IU. It's open for groups on occasion.

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Here's Dunn's Woods and the Old Crescent. Kirkwood Hall is at about 3-o'clock, and the Kirkwood Observatory is across the woods from Kirkwood Hall. The Chemistry Building is immediately east and the Indiana Memorial Union is on the northeast.

Note: This is part of a series detailing my trip back to IU this past summer. All the photos I shot link to their larger versions on Flickr. Here's the whole set.

Indiana University: Chemistry Building

2010-11-15T19:00:00Z

The Chemistry building was built in 1931 with an addition in 1986. This photo is of the north side, which has a patio looking across University Road toward the Indiana Memorial Union. Symbols of the elements are carved into the crests between the windows.

Here's the south face of the building, with a clearer view of the crests, above the entrance to the courtyard.

This is an odd courtyard: You enter under an arch and are surrounded on all sides of the building, but you're not inside yet. Instead, you're standing on a deck and there's a tree.

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The courtyard is inside the angled space at the south east of the building. To the south is Simon Hall, to the north is the Indiana Memorial Union.

Note: This is part of a series detailing my trip back to IU this past summer. All the photos I shot link to their larger versions on Flickr. Here's the whole set.

Indiana University: Myers Hall

2010-11-12T19:00:00Z

Myers Hall was built in 1937 as the School of Medicine Building, later renamed to Myers Hall.

Detail of owl.

The building has an open square atrium attached to the south side of the building (facing 3rd Street). On the three sides of this square are elaborate stone reliefs relating to the medical sciences. This is the Anatomy carving, which faces east. Enlarge it and note the fetus-in-womb and vertebrate carvings behind the man on the left, and the heart and presumably-about-to-be-dissected frog behind the man on the right.

Here's the detail of the Medicine panel, which faces south. You can also see the inscription by Hippocrates.

Detail of the Physiology panel. Each of the panels was carved from the same plan. There are subtle difference — ome likely caused by weathering, but it looks like some are due to variations in workmanship.

Here's some context: The Medicine panel is on the south face of the square atrium. The stairs and doors visible inside the atrium are the actual entrance to the building.

Here's detail of the entryway. The symbol is a stylized IU insignia.

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You can see the square atrium on the south side of the building. Jordan Hall, from the previous post, is to the east. Simon Hall is to the north.

Note: This is part of a series detailing my trip back to IU this past summer. All the photos I shot link to their larger versions on Flickr. Here's the whole set.

Indiana University: Jordan and Simon Halls

2010-11-10T19:00:00Z

The greenhouse connected to Jordan Hall. This is on the southeast corner of the building, at the corner of Hawthorne Drive and 3rd Street. The greenhouse is one of a number of campus landmarks shown in the movie Breaking Away. It makes an appearance about 18 minutes in where Dave is chasing Katherine on the bike to give her back a notebook:

As you can see, it looks pretty much the same.

Jordan Hall wasn't built until 1955, so I'm not sure what was on this site before. As you can see, the WPA was active on campus in the 30s, building things like this low stone wall/planter. You can see it in the extreme right of the top photo, and it's just behind Dave (on the bike) in the still from the movie.

This is the main entrance of Jordan Hall, facing 3rd street on the south, to the west of the greenhouse in the photos above. Note the IU insignia on the shields inside the archway and the microscope and scales on shields at the top corners of the archway. When the building opened in the late 50s, IU put together a promotional brochure about the building (PDF).

This is the north east entrance to Jordan Hall, or as I call it, the "back". There was a major addition to the building in 1984 – I don't know if this was part of that addition or a subsequent one. I like how the glass atrium sort of echoes the greenhouse on the opposite corner, as well as how the limestone is different, almost stratified.

Simon Hall is another sciences building, to the northwest of Jordan Hall. It wasn't built when I attended I — t opened in Fall 2007, making it the newest building on campus, I think. This is, for lack of a better term, a pylon at the base of a stairway's handrails. You can see the context in the first of the two following photos.

These are overall views of Simon Hall. The first view is of the north face, the second is of the east face. It's a newer building and it seems to mostly fit in architecturally, though it feels heavier and more imposing than some of the surrounding buildings.

Here's a detail of the balustrade and window ornamentation on the eastern face of the building. I think this is replicated (though probably not exactly) on the west face too, though I couldn't get a good photo of it. From left: Not sur — ossibly a bacterium or virus, mushrooms, fly, rat, ear of corn, paramecium. Also, inscribed on the arches over the windows are sequences of DNA code.

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Note: This is part of a series detailing my trip back to IU this past summer. All the photos I shot link to their larger versions on Flickr. Here's the whole set.

Indiana University: Memorial Hall

2010-11-08T01:59:00Z

Memorial Hall was built in 1925 as one of the first major campus expansions after World War I. Other buildings erected around the same time were the Indiana Memorial Union and Memorial Stadium. The building has an arched through-way with doors to the right and left. The above view is looking at the south face of the building above the through-way.

Above is detail of the carved panel. Torches in the background and the University seal, with a woman's face above. Some sources say Memorial Hall was originally built as women's dormitories. It's since been converted to offices and possibly classrooms.

Detail of the sundial at the top of the south face of the building. I hadn't noticed the sundial up there before. Note the crest and horn worked into the pattern of the window glass solder.

Detail of what I assume to be a student sleeping. This is to the left of the arched throughway. Note the candle on the right and the owl over the student's shoulder. A bit odd for a women's dorm, given that the student appears to be male.

Corresponding figure on the right of the throughway. I assume this figure is yelling and ringing the bell to try and wake the student up. Note the small bird figure to echo the owl on the other side.

This is looking into the throughway from the south, at the doorway on the east side.

Detail of the inscribed quote.

Detail of an inlay in the center of the throughway's floor. The top shield is stars and stripes, the others are (clockwise) Sign Corps, Red Cross and YMCA. I think the inscription that runs around the edge is "Dedicated to Indiana University Women who Served in the Wars".

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Memorial Hall is the building on the south edge of this quadrangle.

This is a view of Sycamore Hall from near Memorial Hall.

Note: This is part of a series detailing my trip back to IU this past summer. All the photos I shot link to their larger versions on Flickr. Here's the whole set.

On working with perfectionists

2010-10-20T21:04:00Z

“It’s okay to be driven a little crazy by someone who is so consistently right.”

– John Sculley on the frustrations of working with Steve Jobs’ perfectionism.

H/t to marco.org

Sun Pillars

2010-10-16T05:53:00Z

I could have sworn I've posted this to the blog before, but apparently not.

This is from, to my best recollection, March 3, 2003. I was driving back to college at IU early Monday morning. You can see the snow on the ground. I never did figure out why the sun did that, and I haven't seen it before or since.

Turns out, they're called sun pillars:

Two things are needed to form a sun pillar; a strong light source which is close to the ground and a sky full of ice crystals. In a past post on Io9, we've shown how hexagonal ice crystals in the air can bend light, making it appear that there are multiple suns, or sun dogs. Sun pillars happen when the sunlight strikes these crystals from a different angle. Instead of going through the body of the crystal, reflecting off its sides, the light hits the bottom of the crystals and reflects back down to the earth.

Indiana University: Music!

2010-08-17T22:59:00Z

The Sample Gates seemed like a good place to start, being the entrance to campus. Now, though, we're going to jump all the way over to the other side and take a look at the music complex. Indiana is quite well known for its music program.

This is the view from the parking garage just north of Read Hall, which is where I lived during my time at IU. The brick building on theright is Delta Gamma house, a sorority (and one of the few Greek houses still located on the main part of campus). The tall structure next to it is the fly space of the Musical Arts Center. Farther left is part of the Simon Music Center.

This is the Musical Arts Center. It was built in 1971. The MAC, as it's known, has 1,460 seats, a 90' by 60' stage and room for a 100-piece orchestra. I performed in the chorus in a production of Berlioz' The Damnation of Faust here. Good times. The backstage area is huge — the university's site says the backstage area is more than half of the building. The seating is atypical: Long unbroken rows, a very shallow house (something like 20 rows deep) and three shallow balconies with boxes extending toward the stage on the sides. Even from the back of the house, you're almost on top of the stage compared to some other venues.

This is Peau Rouge Indiana, a sculpture by Alexander Calder that sits on the lawn of the MAC. I saw this thing pretty much every day I went to classes.

This is the Simon Music Center, as seen from across Jordan Ave. The building was originally built in 1951 and housed the School of Education and the laboratory school (and despite renovations, it looks it on the inside too — wide hallways with music lockers lining them reminds one of high school). The School of Education got a new building and moved out in 1992, the Music School took it over in 1995.

This building houses two performance halls: Auer Hall, a 400-seat auditorium including balconies and a pipe organ, and Ford-Crawford Hall, a 100-seat recital hall. There is one large lecture hall where I had various interminable classes on music theory or ear training. I think choir may have been in there one semester too.

It also has the Cook Music Library, which is not only a traditional library (and my first experience with movable shelves!) but has an extensive digital library — Variations (now Variations2 and soon to be Variations3…not real creative with the naming there…) — which catalogs recordings, images of scores, midi files and even digitized notation files to be used with programs like Finale or Sibelius. In addition to all that, it (if I remember right) integrates with the rest of the library's collection, so if you search for a specific work you'll also find hard copies, reviews and reference book entries. You can only access most of it from the library itself owing to rights concerns, but it's still pretty cool.

This is the fountain in front of Simon. I didn't realize it while I was attending, but on this visit I exited the building and it struck me that the fountain sounded like applause. Kind of cool.

This is the McKinney Fountain. I read someplace it's meant to represent a conductor (the tall guy in the middle) directing an orchestra (the long curvy guy with the fountains of various heights).

Here's one of the main entrances to Simon. You can see the University School nameplate above the door, the school seal at the top and the metalwork above the door.

This is another of the music buildings, the Music Annex. As far as I can tell, it was built in 1960. You can see the carillon at the top, which is occasionally used for practice (there's another carillon on campus too).

Here's another view of the Annex. It's very roun — he hallway inside is round as well. There are offices, classrooms, practice rooms and larger rehearsal rooms inside. I think my first college class ever may have been in this building. I also sang with the Singing Hoosiers choir here.

This is the front of the original music building, called Merrill Hall (the south sid — t faces 3rd street and is the opposite side of where the Music Annex is hooked on). The building was completed in 1937. It has the names of composers inscribed around the to — ach is above the main entrance.

And here's a closer view of the front door of the music building. I was always a fan of the carving on the columns on the sides of the door (note the small "IU" symbol in the intersection) as well as the metalwork on the doors and lights next to the doors. Somewhat Frank Lloyd Wright-ish. Also of note is the figure carved above the door — there's a figure or symbol relating to music carved above each entrance.

Here's one of the side entrances to the music building. You can see the treble clef over the door.

And finally, here's the area we're talking about. The Music Annex is an easy starting spot because it's round. Just south is Merrill Hall, the original Music Building. The building immediately east is Simon Music Center, and to the east of that building you can see the curve of the fountain. North of there is the MAC, and if you go a bit northeast, you'll see the parking garage where the first photo was shot from.

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Note: This is part of a series detailing my trip back to IU this past summer. All the photos I shot link to their larger versions on Flickr. Here's the whole set.

Indiana University: Sample Gates

2010-08-16T23:57:00Z

These gates form the ceremonious entrance to the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington.

On one sid — here I'm standin — s Kirkwood, Ave. For folks familiar with St. Louis, it's a Delmar Loop-like street (albeit a bit toned down) that has the town square on its other end. On the other sid — here you're lookin — s the Old Crescent, the origin of Indiana University on this site in 1885.

The gates are ornamenta — here's no fence around the campus. Coincidentally, while there's no physical barrier to campus, the crossroad here, Indiana Ave., is probably one of the clearest boundaries between campus and town. IU is a very defined campus (as opposed to an urban one), but the other edges still seem to blend into the town a little better.

Note: This is part of a series detailing my trip back to IU this past summer. All the photos I shot link to their larger versions on Flickr. Here's the whole set.

On the legality of Flipboard

2010-08-01T18:01:00Z

Social news app Flipboard was yesterday's hot new app, despite—or perhaps because of—technical problems that prevented some features from working. But there might be a bigger snag: Is Flipboard scraping content it doesn't have the rights to?

-- via gizmodo.com

Flipboard is a new iPad app that purports to be a custom-generated magazine, based on feeds you select and on links shared by friends on your connected Twitter and Facebook accounts. I'm still waiting on an invite, so I can't say how well it works (though the non-customized feeds are laid out pretty nicely). I'm also not sure of the last iPad app I saw this much hype surrounding.

This Gizmodo post brings up an interesting point about whether Flipboard is serving up content it shouldn't.

In my limited scanning of the app, I originally thought it was using RSS -- stories (e.g. from the Onion) were truncated, and a tap on "Read on Web" takes you to the source's site in an embedded broswer, just like an RSS reader. However, it turns out that's not quite the case.

Flipboard scrapes content. In other words, it goes to the site, takes a look at what's there, figures out where the story is (along with accompanying photos/videos/etc.) and yanks them onto Flipboard's servers to figure out how best to display them into the app. The Gizmodo article makes the case that this may not be legal, strictly speaking, because Flipboard displays the content -- content that the sites haven't explicitly made available to outside sources through RSS feeds or another means -- without the ads.

It's an interesting question -- is it ok to view the content without viewing the ads? The same question is asked about ad blockers of course, and moving to another medium, whether it's ok to skip over ads on your Tivo.

The post calls out another "parser", Instapaper, but dismisses the problem in regard to that site because you ostensibly need to view the page -- and the ads -- at least once in order to "Instapaper" it (when you send an item to Instapaper, the site looks at the page, strips all or most of the irrelevant stuff -- menus, sidebars and yes, ads -- and then puts it in an easy-to-read setting on your desktop or mobile device). But here's the thing: that's not exactly true. Many RSS readers or clients allow you to send an RSS item to Instapaper directly. Even if they don't, they most likely let you email and Instapaper provides an email address where you can send links to be parsed and placed in your account. There are even sites that aggregate stories and provide Instapaper links (the little ovals that say "Read Later").

RSS is a different matter entirely: A site chooses whether to offer an RSS feed, and if they do, they choose how much of their content to send out. Some only send out headlines, some do excerpts and some do the full content (sometimes integrating ads into the feed itself). But, as the Gizmodo post points out, the choice with an RSS feed lies with the site. These aggregators operate on their own, without the site's consent.

I'm not sure of the endgame here: As much as I hate to say it, I can't see applications like Flipboard and Instapaper working out long term. If they stay small-scale, then maybe publishers won't be bothered enough by them to care much. But if they take off, I expect conflict. The most convenient solution for the end user may be for developers and publishers to come to an agreement that developers won't strip ads. But of course that eliminates at least part of the appeal of these applications -- unless the ads are unobtrusive and fit the flow of the viewer application (e.g. Instapaper is a very simple, very bare-bones viewer -- an ad that's too distracting would defeat at least part of the point of using Instapaper).

It's a bit of a tightrope for the sites that are producing content: it's important for that content to be accessible, passed around and convenient for the end reader, but it's also important to the site that users actually visit the site -- visits and ad views and site loyalty. To over simplify things: Too loose with control of the content, and the site won't get the hits, won't generate pageviews and won't get any ad revenue. Too tight with control of the content, and users will seek out content that's easier to consume. Publishers will need to find a middle ground, and it remains to be seen whether that world includes applications like Flipboard and Instapaper in their current forms.

For want of a hyphen…

2010-06-23T23:13:00Z

For want of a hyphen, I spend $20 on candy.

So, the FDA banned candy and fruit-flavored cigarettes. Or, "candy cigarettes" AND "fruit-flavored cigarettes". That's what a whole bunch of blogs thought today, anyway. Gawker (screenshot below), citing Consumerist (which has now been updated, old Google result that now leads to a 404 below), and Slate's The Big Money blog (no mention anywhere on the site now that I can find, Google result below) all mentioned the new ban. Candy, marketing to kids, you know the drill.

Except not so much. The headline on the FDA's release, "Candy and Fruit Flavored Cigarettes Now Illegal in United States; Step is First Under New Tobacco Law" isn't terribly clear, but it was made worse by the addition of a hyphen between "fruit" and "flavored" in the blogs. That made it seem like, as I said above, candy cigarettes as well as fruit-flavored cigarettes were banned. That's certainly what I thought, and I even made the comment at work that it MUST mean that, because who's ever heard of candy-flavored cigarettes (now I want to get my hands on a blue raspberry Fun Dip-flavored Camel).

So without reading the original press release myself (lesson learned, my young friends, lesson learned) — the text of which is perfectly clear, by the way: "a ban on cigarettes with flavors characterizing fruit, candy, or clove." — I thought "wow, no more candy cigarettes ever!" I promptly set out to buy some. I saw lots of awesome graphic design on the packages (and some that's pretty terrible) and thought "I must document this for posterity!" Then I bought one of each.

The woman at the candy store asked if I was stocking up, whereupon I related the sad tale of the banned candy. No wonder she was so confused.

The past, unearthed

2010-06-21T23:35:00Z

I enjoy it when history intersects my life in interesting ways. I noticed this exposed streetcar rail the other day while driving on Olive just down the street from my apartment building. Streetcars used to be a significant form of transportation in St. Louis, and there's talk of bringing them back in a more limited fashion — a Delmar Loop streetcar running from the History Museum in Forest Park down the Delmar Loop and back ws floated in the past year, and Grand Ave. is another place often mentioned as prime streetcar territory.

Whether a working streetcar will ever exist again in St. Louis I can't say, but thinking of the history is pleasant. That rail connected with a network that transported St. Louisans from all social and economic statuses, all neighborhoods, all walks of life around the region (I may be idealizing it, but it seems to me that our current system is much more segregated — not that progress isn't being made). Iconically, to Forest Park for the 1904 World's Fair, recreationally to Sportsman's Park on North Grand or to the large department stores downtown, or vocationally to their offices or factories all around the region.

As it happens, my friend James Baker wrote a book about St. Louis streetcars called King Trolley and the Suburban Queens. It looks at the history of streetcars in St. Louis, with a particular focus on extending service from the city to Kirkwood and Webster Groves. It's got a ton of photos, first-person experiences of riding the streetcars, maps and if you want to delve in even further, footnotes.

But coincidentally, the back cover of the book features a photo shot by Wayne Leeman on May 21, 1966: A woman and child getting ready to board the Hodiamont car for the last streetcar ride in St. Louis. But what caught my eye is the clock hanging off the building in the background. It's on Olive too. It's just down the street from that newly exposed rail, where 44 years ago the last streetcar in St. Louis passed by.

An algorithm for productivity

2010-06-14T05:05:00Z

Getting Things Done, a book by David Allen, changed my life. Not because I’m good at it — I still have a long way to go — but because it made being a productive person and accomplishing a lot of awesome stuff seem within reach.

I think there are two main reasons it appeals to me:

It doesn’t make judgments about what it is you want to do. The process is entirely independent of the inputs and outputs. It’s the difference between a diet that says “you can only have these particular foods — those over there are off limits” and one that says “look, I’m not going to tell you what to eat, but if you want to lose weight you need to consume less than this amount of whatever it is you choose”.
It’s a simple algorithm that handles a complex series of inputs (any information or thoughts that command your attention at any time), outputting a series of lists with defined, simple instructions for making progress on the inputs. To use another example, imagine walking into your kitchen and telling the Food-O-Matic 2000 that you want dinner. It takes that input and generates a series of questions: Chicken, steak or pork? You push the button for steak. A slider appears: Rare, to medium, to well-done. You slide it to your preference. A series of checkboxes: Steak sauce, sauteed mushrooms, onions, cheese. Finally, a set of sides: Baked potato, mashed potato, sweet potato, green beans, macaroni and cheese, dinner roll, salad. You make your selection, a door opens and out pops dinner. The algorithm took a fairly complex input “I’m hungry. What do I want to eat?” and boiled it down to a series of discrete steps. Of course Getting Things Done takes a little more thinking — and of course there’s the actual doing — but not by much.

I never was into self-help books, programming your mind, positive feedback and all that stuff. Figured I was happy enough, and when I wasn’t a book wasn’t likely to tell me how to make it all better. I’m still there to a certain degree, but as I said, this book literally changed my life. How?

Mainly a simple, logical progression of ideas that all made sense and which I was able to try out simply, and the benefits of which are immediately apparent. Allen starts this in the very first chapter, an introduction to the ideas he’s about to present. He provides a simple exercise to display the power of this way of thinking. It consists of three steps:

Write down the project or situation that is most on your mind — an upcoming vacation, a project at work, a situation at home that needs to be dealt with.
Write down the successful outcome — how you would know that this thing was resolved, what it would look like so you could check it off a to-do list, what the goal is.
Now, — and I have to quote this part, because it’s stated so simply and powerfully — “write down the very next physical action required to move the situation forward.” Not what you need to think about, but exactly what you need to do next — calling someone, writing an email, searching for a specific bit of information, moving something from one place to another, these are all potential next actions.

Just doing that exercise in the first chapter of the book provided me with a small sense of clarity and realization: part of what keeps us from reaching our full potential isn’t so much that we have too many things to do or that we don’t know what we should do or that we don’t know how to do the things we want, it’s that we aren’t thinking about those things in an efficient and productive manner.

You probably remember a basic chemistry experiment where you mix two chemicals together and get a reaction, then mix the two again but this time add a third, and the reaction happens faster or more vigorously. You added the catalyst (and sometimes the reaction won’t happen at all without the catalyst) — this book, this way of thinking adds the catalyst. It boosts you over the threshold of inactivity and spurs you on to action: It’s easy to ignore something like “plan vacation” because where do you start?

It’s a lot harder to ignore “fill out time off form for work”, “write up packing list”, “call mechanic (555-1541) to have car checked out”, “email Jim to ask him to check on the house”, “call hotel (555-2424) for reservations July 9-14”. Those things are simple: You no longer have to think about them or how to do them, you just do them. You could be completely zapped at the end of a long week of work and manage to tap out an email to Jim, or call the hotel to book a room. It would be much harder to be wiped out after a long day and then sit down to try and “plan vacation”.

The final thing that’s great about this way of thinking is that it’s platform agnostic. It’s not a fancy system where you buy a leather portfolio and paper refills every six months, and the special pen to go along with it. In its most basic form, you need paper and a writing implement. That’ll get you started. You can of course add on to it — a file cabinet and related accoutrements are helpful, for example. Part of my system lives in various online forms: Google Calendar and a self-hosted to-do application. People do Getting Things Done out of fancy leather binders, on index cards held together by binder clips, in Moleskine Notebooks, in text files on their computer or in more robust applications. But none of that is necessary: Check out the book from your local public library, grab a bunch of paper from your printer and the nearest pen and you’re ready to go for zero dollars.

Anyhow, the impetus for all this is that one of the blogs I read on a regular basis, The Simple Dollar, is doing a very thorough, in-depth review of Getting Things Done. Check it out — it just might change your life.

I don't guess anyone from the NYTimes reads this, but…

2010-06-09T02:51:00Z

They updated their iPad app recently, and the update addresses a few of the points I made in an earlier post.

Foremost, there are more sharing options. Email still exists, but the update adds sharing to Facebook and Twitter, as well as the option to copy a link to the article to the clipboard. Not bad.

Text is now resizeable, but still not selectable.

And there are two more sections: Arts and Video.

Finally, something that either came with the update or that I just missed before: I noticed while flipping through stories that they have a published date at the end. Just the date, no time, but better than nothing.

Why micropayments for news won't work, in 113 characters.

2010-06-07T11:44:00Z

How many times have you listened to your favorite song?

How many times have you read your favorite news article?

NYTimes iPad oops

2010-06-06T17:29:00Z

I really enjoy the New York Times on my iPad. I downloaded it on day one, and it lives on my homescreen. It has a good selection of stories, is well-designed (in both portrait and landscape modes) and intuitive to use. It's free, ad-supported, and the ads aren't intrusive (the most intrusive is sometimes there's a full page ad, but that's no different than a printed newspaper). Along with USA Today's and NPR's apps, they're very well done news apps on the iPad.

One of the biggest benefits to the NYTimes app, which I didn't realize until I read it in a review someplace that I don't recall right now, is that there's an ending. Right now if you visit NYTimes.com or almost any other news Web site, there is an effectively infinite amount of information you can consume. You're never done until you decide to be. But with the NYTimes app, there's a limited amount of stories and they're updated when the editors decide to update.

There are five sections to the app: News, Business, Technology, Opinions and Features. These are fixed — not user-configured. Right now, I count 10 news stories, 10 in business, 12 technology stories, two editorials plus 10 columns plus one collection of letters in opinions, and nine features stories. There are a couple duplicated stories among these, so there are around 50 items to read in the application. It takes no more than 10 minutes to scan the front pages of each of the five sections, plus however much time you devote to reading the articles that are interesting to you. And then you're done. Contrasted with visiting NYTimes.com, it's like drinking a glass of water vs. a lake.

But of course the app is not without its problems. One of the biggest is no copy and paste of text. That's kind of a bummer if you want to email a clip and a link to someone, or want to compose a blog post or something like that. A tedious workaround is that you are allowed to email a summary of the story and a link to the nytimes.com version of it. Also, since it includes a link back to NYTimes, I can delete the summary and send the email to Instapaper if I want to read it later or copy and paste something.

A mistake I noticed today, which probably stems from the irregular update cycle (i.e. all the stories aren't updated at the same time, as far as I can tell), is that occasionally you'll get conflicting stories, as I did just now. Compare:

With:

In case that's not clear, the headlines on the "Cap collects X barrels of oil per day" have different numbers in them.

Because the stories directly conflict and there isn't any way of telling which one is newer (unless it happens to mention in the story when the information came from — there's no time or date on the stories by default). This is made more confusing by the fact that sometimes the same story will appear under more than one section — which I don't consider a mistake, as some folks may only look at one section, and if it applies to both, put it in both.

I would of course like to see these problems corrected, but all in all it's a very good application for getting national news.

Why is HDR so darn appealing

2010-01-21T05:56:00Z

I think HDR is way overdone.

I own a point-and-shoot, Canon SD750. It doesn't shoot RAW. It doesn't do bracketing. I always figured HDR was out of my reach. And although I thought it might be fun to play around with, most HDR photos I've seen have a particular "hyper-real" look that doesn't particularly appeal to me.

Then I discovered CHDK. This is a set of files you put on your memory card which allow you to "flash" the camera's internal software to allow some advanced features that aren't available on the camera normally. It's not going to turn your 5 megapixel, 2.0 optical zoom point and shoot into a 12 megapixel DSLR with a telephoto lens or anything, but it's fun to play around with. And it lets you shoot RAW. And bracket automatically.¹

So, awesome, I think to myself. Now I can play around with some HDR.

It was annoying. And complicated. And I didn't enjoy the results. The bracketing didn't always work correctly. And if it did, I then had RAW files, which weren't really RAW files and needed to be "developed" on the computer, which took a not insignificant amount of time (and the correct program, which I had to hunt down). Then I had to finagle with Photoshop to align the images correctly and tone map them. So, I came away with two conclusions: 1) Although I still didn't really like the results, I had a newfound respect for how much work it took to get even a semi-attractive image to work right with HDR. And 2) I certainly wasn't going to fiddle with it anymore.

Then I read a tutorial on natural-looking HDR images (which I can't find, at the moment). It got me to thinking maybe there was a little more to it than the ridiculously oversaturated images I've always seen as examples. So, one day last week I decided to go looking again.

I found a program, qtpfsgui. It's free, it works with jpgs (as well as RAW), and it does image alignment automatically (with manual adjustments allowed if necessary). So I got to shooting.

I couldn't automatically bracket, and I didn't have a tripod. Yes, there's a slight camera reflection, and a car that was only in one frame. Yes, it's oversaturated and doesn't quite look "real". Frankly, this is pushing the camera beyond its limits. But loading up those exposures and seeing them align, then playing with the tonemapping to make the details pop…well, I can see why it is overdone. It's fun to do. It's easy to make things look interesting. It turns a scene into art. Because of those things, it's tempting to want to apply to everything. I was even contemplating shooting my bookshelf, "just to see how it would look" in HDR. Crazy.

I'm happy with the image I created, and I'm happy I now have the ability to play around with the technique when I feel like it. I still think it's overdone. I think my goal will be to, when I use it, make the images better without making them look unnatural.

CHDK includes userscripting that lets you do all sorts of things — motion detection, time-lapse shooting, auto bracketing, all kinds of stuff. It's quite fun to play around with. ↩

Slinger at the U.

2010-01-15T08:38:00Z

Good stuff, though the photo makes it look smaller than it was. The U., a hot sandwich place (that delivers until 3 a.m.!) in Midtown St. Louis, is trying out breakfast. This is their take on a slinger. It was very good: giant hamburger patty, round-sliced potatoes (not home fries) not too overdone, enough (but not too much) chili, shredded cheese, and I opted to forgo the onions.

Friendly staff. I'd forgotten to ask for no onions, and walked back up to the register after putting my order in. Fortunately it hadn't been assembled yet, and they were happy to make the change. The cook asked how it was after I'd gotten a chance to try it, and if everything was ok when I was leaving. Sadly, the place was dead when I was in there – maybe students sleep in Fridays. I don't know if breakfast is a regular part of The U's menu now or if it's just an experiment to see how it goes, but I'm glad to have another option within walking distance.

Note: The U. was at 3108 Olive St., in the same complex as Pappy's and Buffalo Brewing Co. It eventually closed. Another restaurant, Adobe Red's, opened — and closed — in the same spot in late 2011. It's still empty.

Halloween Candy Cost Analysis

2009-11-02T00:35:00Z

Because I no longer qualify for candy donations on Halloween night, I tend to go out and purchase my own the day after to treat myself, coworkers and friends.

This year, I thought it would be fun to break it down a bit. And yes, those are 356 half-rolls of Pez (in the flat photo, the quarter is for scale).

Overview

I bought nine different varieties of candy -- Reese's Cups, Snickers, Three Musketeers, Milky Way, Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, Pez, Payday and KitKat. I decided to run a cost analysis to see how much candy I received in cost per piece and cost per oz terms, as well as how much I actually received in ounces versus what the packages said I should have received.

Summary and Highlights

Overall, I purchased $36.27 worth of candy, which totaled 719 individual pieces and 266.55 oz. That works out to, rounded, a nickel per piece and fourteen cents an ounce. Based on the contents weight printed on the large outer bags, I should have received 268.46 oz., but based on the weight of individual pieces derived from the nutrition info (or, in two cases, printed on the individual pieces), I actually received 266.55 oz., a discrepancy of -1.91 oz. The average number of calories per piece is just over 75, and the total number of calories in the haul is 34,715.2, or more than 17 days' worth.

Cost/piece

Pez - $0.02
Payday - $0.05
KitKat - $0.06
3 Musketeers - $0.07
Butterfingter - $0.08
Milky Way - $0.08
Baby Ruth - $0.09
Snickers - $0.10
Reese's Cups - $0.12

Cost/oz

Payday - $0.07
KitKat - $0.11
Butterfinger - $0.12
Baby Ruth - $0.14
Milky Way - $0.14
3 Musketeers - $0.14
Snickers - $0.16
Pez - $0.16
Reese's Cups - $0.17

Discrepancy in oz. expected and oz. received¹

Snickers - +1.04
KitKat - +0.98
Milky Way - +0.89
3 Musketeers - +0.83
Butterfinger - +0.05
Reese's Cups - 0
Pez - (1.6)
Baby Ruth - (1.9)
Payday - (2.2)

Source data

1 bag of 3 Musketeers at $3.29, 44 pieces
1 bag of Baby Ruth at $2.99, 34 pieces
1 bag of Butterfinger at $2.99, 37 pieces
5 bags of KitKat at $1.25 (ea.), 112 pieces
1 bag of Milky Way at $3.29, 39 pieces
1 bag of Payday at $1.50, 30 pieces
5 bags of Pez at $1.74 (ea.), 356 pieces
2 bags of Reese's Cups at $1.74 (ea.), 28 pieces
2 bags of Snickers at $1.89 (ea.), 39 pieces

Methodology

Each candy was purchased in the largest-quantity-bag possible (to maximize value). Except for the Pez and the KitKat, I bought either one large bag or two small bags of the candy (e.g. because Snickers were only available in small bags, I bought two). "Piece" means one piece of individually wrapped candy, except for Pez, which are wrapped in 6-piece rolls. All other candies are "fun size", except for Reese's Cups, which are individually-wrapped full size cups. Reese's Cups and Pez had oz. printed on each individual pieces. To determine oz. of individual pieces of other candies, the nutritional info provided grams per serving and pieces per serving, from which oz. per piece were calculated.

Positive means I got more than expected ↩

On Christmas before Thanksgiving

2009-10-23T01:10:00Z

Although I understand both sides, I've always been relatively indifferent to the whole "earlier and earlier every year!" sentiment. On my own, I'll listen to whatever music and watch whatever movies I feel like, whenever I feel like listening or watching them, thank you very much. I usually don't switch into full-on holiday mode until December, but I'll listen to an album here or there and watch "A Christmas Story" once or twice throughout the year. It's always struck me as a little unfortunate that there's an extensive body of incredible music surrounding the holidays (all the winter holidays, actually, not only Christmas), but we feel constrained to enjoying it for just a month each year.

On the other hand, I roll my eyes when I see that department store du jour is putting out the trees with the Halloween decorations, or when I hear the first badly-rendered pop version of a holiday classic in mid-November. It doesn't, though, bother me to the point of not shopping there or complaining about it. I shrug and go on about my business.

My family has its share of traditions surrounding both holidays. Christmas is more comprehensive, while Thanksgiving consists mainly of a couple family dinners, but they're both something I look forward to each year. No longjumping over the turkey to get to the tree, in other words.

But this year seems to be shaping up a bit differently: I find myself overlooking Thanksgiving (and Halloween!) completely, and thinking about December and snow and Christmas. Watching the movies. Listening to the music.

A couple reasons for this: The weather here in St. Louis changed pretty quickly from a nice long summer to cold and wet. No gradual descent, but a crash landing. Also, elsewhere. I tuned into the New England Patriots' game last Sunday and my jaw dropped when I saw the field covered with snow. It's the middle of October! The biggest reason though is probably the madrigal group I joined. A couple months of singing Christmas songs for a few hours every week will do that to you, I guess.

Anyhow, there you have it. Christmas before Thanksgiving? This year, for me, it can't come too soon.

Coffee talk

2009-10-08T22:54:00Z

Sometimes at work (and at home, when I make coffee there, which isn't often anymore), you'll go to get coffee but there won't be any there. So you put on a new pot.

If you're really impatient, you might do the switchout and hold your mug under the filter basket, then put the pot back. Do you ever wonder if you're getting the same cup of coffee that way as you do when you let the pot fill?

I don't think you are, but I don't know how different it would be. Take as a given that the first bit of water that passes through the filter is a bit different from the next, and by the end (a full pot), it's completely different. So, when you let the pot fill, you're getting a mix of everything, beginning to end. When you get a cup directly from the filter, you're only getting that bit, without the full mix.

I think the first bit might be really weak, then spike up to quite a bit stronger, then trail off to the end of the pot to be really weak again. But yeah, I really have no idea.

This would make an excellent science fair experiment.

Voronoi

2009-10-03T11:28:00Z

This is a Voronoi Diagram I drew. I learned how to draw them from here.

They appeal to my objective nerd side as well as to my right-brain arty side. I'll probably be drawing more of them: Given a random set of input points like I use, they're different every time.

The concept is fairly simple: Given a set of input points (I sprinkled a few grains of sugar over the page, then made a point where a grain landed), find boundaries for each point such that the area enclosed by the boundaries is closer to that point than any other.

Imagine, for example, you have a set of public schools in a city and you want to determine boundary lines for who goes to what school. Make a Voronoi diagram using the schools as the input points, overlay it on a map of the city, and the boundary lines will show which school is closest to any given address (of course there are other considerations that come in to play in a real-world example like that).

Want to draw one? It's relatively easy. You'll need a pencil and a ruler. You might want multiple lead colors and an eraser, as well. The link has detailed instructions, but I'll summarize them:

Get some input points. Make them up if you like, but random ones are fun to use. Sprinkle sugar or peppercorns over the page and make a mark where they land. I recommend starting small — these things can take a while to do. Mine only had 10 points and took more than an hour.
Connect the nearest neighbors. All this means is connect each point with the others so that no lines cross and each line you make is the shortest possible one. These lines are blue in my drawing. What do I mean by "each line you make is the shortest possible one"? By way of example, take the top-most point in my drawing (call it A), move along the blue line left and down a bit (B), down to the next (C) and right to the next (D), and finally back up to A. Either A-C or B-D needs to be connected, but if both are, the lines cross. So you measure to find the shorter line, and use that one. In this case, it's B-D. Sometimes these are hard to spot, so look carefully, and measure!
Perpendicularly bisect each nearest neighbor line. These lines are red in my example. Again, measure the lines, make a mark at the midpoint, then use a triangle or a right angle on your ruler to get a good 90 degree angle. Each of these lines should intersect with the lines from the other sides of the triangles (e.g. B-D's bisector, the shortest red line in that area of the drawing, intersects with the bisectors of B-C and C-D AND ALSO intersects with the bisectors of A-B and D-A). As you're drawing them, these lines should meet up exactly, if you've measured and right-angled correctly.
Complete the cells from the bisectors. The lighter red lines are the bisectors I made that aren't part of the cells. You have to figure out where the cells actually lie (which is fairly easy when you remember that everything inside a cell should lie closer to the point inside that cell than any others).

It's kind of interesting, and some of them can get quite complex.

American Science & Surplus

2009-10-02T03:46:00Z

American Science and Surplus is a little difficult to describe. I tried a couple times, trying to entice Pete and various roommates and others to come along with me. One of the best things I came up with was "Stuff you really don't need, but it's so cheap you can justify buying just about any of it." And indeed, here's my haul. There are tiny glass bottles and eyedroppers (I believe I'll use them for mixing fountain pen ink), glass rods (I'll be using them for classy drink stirrers), random signage (they're stickers. no clue what I'll use those for, especially the arrows, but I'm sure they'll come in handy at some point), and finally, Nerds magnets (I needed some refrigerator magnets). And I spent about six bucks on the lot.

They have lots of sciency stuff and lots of surplus, of course. Telescopes and optics, jars and flasks and medical equipment and that sort of thing. Military surplus, crafty supplies, random bits of electronics, office supplies, a box of "paper" (literally, that's how it was labeled. "We don't know what kind it is, so we'll just call it 'paper'".). The product descriptions are one of the most fun parts of the store. To read some, visit their site.

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Day 2 roundup

2009-09-26T11:57:00Z

After a slow start, day two took off quite well, and then ended on a little bit of a downer. More on that later.

I had signed up for Cardinals postseason tickets, but didn't get them. Did get an email saying I could try Friday at 10 am and they only had a few left. After a bit of working with one of the friend's roommates to figure out how I could let myself out and lock up after everyone had gone to work (he gave me a spare set of keys that had a key to the apartment door, but not the building door — I could let myself out, but only get back in if I could follow someone in), he left and I hung around.

To kill the time, I tried to play some Wii, but they have it playing through a projector, which while really awesome at night isn't so hot during the day (too bright). Started watching some early episodes of The Office on DVD, which I only started watching in the last season or two.

Finally, I went in and bought my tickets. Four standing-room-only for Game 1 of the NLDS. Awesome.

Then I headed out.

I didn't have any real objectives for the day. Just see what there is to see, do stuff as I come across it. My boss had told me about a good diner near Union Station, so I grabbed a bus and took it there. Lou Mitchell's. I liked the diner vibe, and it was ok food. Not spectacular, but it got the job done. I had biscuits and gravy — two large, freshly made biscuits and a bowl of sausage gravy. Also a side of hash browns — these were sliced the short way and fried, just like mom used to make. Pretty good. And decaf coffee, also good.

After that, I walked down to the financial district. The Chicago Board of Trade building is amazing, art deco everywhere. I was a little disappointed they didn't give tours (they do for groups and if you call ahead I think). The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is next door, so I checked that out too. After a security screening, the guard told me a tour was about to begin, so I popped in the room and sat down. Turns out "tour" means "lecture". No tour involved at all, not even of the museum attached to the bank. The "tour" guide (smokin' hot, by the way) was knowledgeable and answered several complex questions competently. Then we watched a video about the Chicago Fed and that was it. I looked at the museum which had $1,000,000 in ones, 20s and 100s (the ones are in a giant cube which spins around) and an exhibit where you have to tell the real bill from the counterfeit. I also got a bag of their free money (shredded).

Then the retail portion of the day: I walked over to the Bank of America building which houses Century Pens, one of two pen stores I know the location of in Chicago. Just looking. Then caught a train north a bit to Gilbertson Clybourne, the other one. Still just looking, though I've bought a couple there in the past. Then I went back down to (the former) Marshall Fields', which I always wind up at to check out the Levenger Store. They were having some sales also, but nothing compelling enough to buy. Contemplated buying an umbrella also, but decided against it. It never did more than sprinkle for the day at least.

After that, I walked over to Millennium Park, because I'd never been. Saw the spitting fountains (which reminded me a little of the Citygarden in St. Louis), and the bean Cloud Gate sculpture and walked over the bridge to the Art Museum and visited the gift shop there. Then I caught a bus to Navy Pier and walked around there a bit, until it started raining a little more steadily. Finally, I caught a bus back to Union Station, where I walked around and then back to the apartment. Nobody there to let me in, so I walked to the store and picked up some apple cider. Walked back and one of the roommates let me in.

I had planned to nap and then get ready and then hit up the bar scene, just to see it. I wound up watching the last several innings of the Cards game on the projector setup (NICE), though they lost. Then watched an episode of the office with the two roommates and one of their girlfriends. Then we split up, I got ready and finally headed out on the town.

Which was pretty much a complete bust. On the advice of a roommate, I headed over to Clark Street. Lots and lots of bars, but a really weird dichotomy: there were bars with five people and there were bars with 500 people, but there weren't any that I saw with a comfortable amount. I felt like I'd either be in a huge crowd struggling to make it up to the bar or the weird lone guy in the bar that all five people stare at when he walks in. Or maybe I was just finding something wrong with all of them because I didn't REALLY feel like going out. Dunno.

Walked more, got on a train at one point, walked more. Found The Clark Street Dog, where I had a Chicago Dog which I had been wanting. It was ok. I was still hungry (having not eaten since breakfast), and headed back to the apartment where I went to the Melrose Diner (which I always seem to wind up at in Chicago) and had far too much food. And that's pretty much it for the night.

So far this morning, I've been hanging out with the roommates while they ate breakfast (not hungry AT ALL). I actually woke up at a reasonable time this morning despite not getting to sleep until 2:30. There's an art fair and a book sale in the neighborhood today which I'll probably check out. Beyond that, I don't know. Pete just called and should be back in the neighborhood in just a bit, so that'll be good.

Reflections on Day 1 in Chicago

2009-09-25T08:03:00Z

It's nice to "just show up and see what happens", but I don't think I'm "that guy". On the other hand, other people can make plans and then go with the flow when/if they change. Not really "that guy" either. I should work on that.

I tried making the most of yesterday in spite of changing plans:

The trip here was just fine. Second flight ever, no problem. There was some significant turbulence at the very beginning, and by the time they'd served the drinks to the last row the pilot came on saying we were going to land in 15 minutes (and indeed, we got into Chicago about 10 minutes early). Also, it was overcast and I couldn't see anything out the window for most of the flight (pretty much just the beginning and end). I was amazed at how white and blank it looked outside sometimes though. There were, at times, no variations in the clouds, just a pure white swatch of color surrounding the whole plane. No sense of movement at all either. Strange.

I retreived my luggage and got on the train to the city. Here is where I had to figure out what to do. Ideally, I'd head up to my friend's apartment where I'm staying, drop off the luggage and then head back out on the town. A couple of things complicated this, however: He's out of town for the moment, and his roommates all work. I got ahold of him on the phone and he said he'd try to get ahold of them.

I am prone to wandering around downtown, specifically Michigan Avenue near the Water Tower. I just always seem to wind up there, and Thursday was no exception. I had switched to the Red Line, thinking I'd go straight to the apartment, but then decided to get off the train at the State/Lake stop.

I got turned around a bit and started heading south and west when I meant to be heading north and east. I got my bearings and happened to run into a farmer's market at Daley Plaza. That was rather unexpected. I bought a bunch of grapes because I was a bit hungry and headed on toward Michigan Avenue.

Sure enough, I wound up at the Water Tower, which they are renovating the inside of right now (I'm not talking about the ACTUAL water tower building, but the one across Michigan which has a visitor's center — I just don't know what it's called). I then decided I was rather tired from hauling the luggage and thirsty as well, and I should head up to the apartment and try my luck with someone being home for lunch.

Walked down Chicago and got on the Red Line again, to Addison. Then walked toward the lake and back to the apartment. Nobody was there, and I hadn't heard back from my friend as to their whereabouts. So I took off again.

I'd walked around the neighborhood a little on past visits, so I decided to explore a little further out. I ran into a place called Chili Mac's. A very hole-in-the-wall diner-esque place. I wasn't too hungry, but I didn't see any other very appealing options and I loves me some chili. They have four varieties of chili (Cincinnati, Tex-Mex, Vegetarian and Turkey, if I remember right) and you can get them 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, or 5-way (just chili; chili and spaghetti; chili, spaghetti and chese; chili, spaghetti, cheese and beans or onions; or all of the above). They also have other things like chili dogs, chili baked potatoes, chili cheese fries, and, inexplicably, pizza. Oh, and blue margaritas. I just went with the chili, and it was delicious. A regular goes a long way — I can't even imagine what a large or extra large looks like.

After that, I walked over to Lincoln Park, which is on the lake near the neighborhood. I couldn't get the Steve Goodman song out of my head. I saw the Goethe memorial, the mini golf course, the driving range, the lake, of course, and Belmont Harbor. I stopped at a bench for a while and read a book I'd brought.

Walked back over to the apartment, still nobody, so I hung around and read more. Walked down to Starbucks and had a pumpkin spice latte, the first one of the season for me. Good stuff. Read more. Walked back to the apartment. Read more. One of the roommates got home and let me in and I was in for the night.

Near as I can tell, I walked more than 6 miles. Not bad.

Hung around, read more, played Wii, that's about it really.

One of the complications so far is that, having no key to the apartment, I can't come and go as I please. Especially this morning: The roommates are getting ready to leave for work. Ideally, I'd go get breakfast, then come back here where I have a shot at buying Cards playoff tickets at 10. Then leave again. I could stick around here for a couple more hours, then leave after trying to buy the tickets, but I don't even know if that would work, having no way to lock up after myself.

Day 2: In progress. We'll see how it goes.

Late-night writing before vacation

2009-09-23T23:13:00Z

Leaving for Chicago in less than 12 hours, but I wanted to get some stuff out of my head first. Still lots to do to get ready.

Aftermath of a storm.

2009-09-22T08:27:00Z

I shot these photos more than 7 years ago while driving north from Bloomington, Ind. I had planned to go home that September weekend in 2002, probably my first trip home since moving to college. A huge storm had passed through near Bloomington, but it had cleared out by the time I left. Then I ran into the traffic.

The damage and the aftermath were equally fascinating: A McDonalds sign was completely mangled. There were places where debris was tossed into tall trees or strewn throughout a field. Houses and trailers destroyed. And, as I was driving, a double rainbow in a dirty, dusty sky. A brilliant, deep orange sky. A striking sense of quiet.

It turned out to be a tornado, which covered a swath from southwestern to northeastern Indiana. It was an F3 in some of the places I had driven through.

You can see a track of the storm and some more photos of the damage.

Brent A. Jones

On Pujols

2004

2005

2006

2008

2011

The stretch

NLDS

NLCS

World Series

Pujols

How they played Paterno

Apple's location tracking

Dataset

Analysis

Conclusion

Competetive Swimming & Chemicals: MOTIKNA

Inconceivable.

Fire.

Slinger

Get going

Rockin' old school today

Orchid Show!

Extracts!

Aflac!

Indiana University: Herman B Wells Library

Indiana University: 7th Street

RIP Peter Yates

Indiana University: Beck Chapel and Dunn Cemetery

Coffee, take 2

Ready for the snowy trip home

Orchid flowers forthcoming?

Ventana

Sno.

Indiana University: Indiana Memorial Union

Indiana University: Old Crescent ornaments & Rose Well House

Rose Well House

Indiana University: Student Building

Indiana University: Old Crescent

Indiana University: Chemistry Building

Indiana University: Myers Hall

Indiana University: Jordan and Simon Halls

Indiana University: Memorial Hall

On working with perfectionists

Sun Pillars

Indiana University: Music!

Indiana University: Sample Gates

On the legality of Flipboard

For want of a hyphen…

The past, unearthed

An algorithm for productivity

I don't guess anyone from the NYTimes reads this, but…

Why micropayments for news won't work, in 113 characters.

NYTimes iPad oops

Why is HDR so darn appealing

Slinger at the U.

Halloween Candy Cost Analysis

Overview

Summary and Highlights

Cost/piece

Cost/oz

Discrepancy in oz. expected and oz. received1

Source data

Methodology

On Christmas before Thanksgiving

Coffee talk

Voronoi

American Science & Surplus

Day 2 roundup

Reflections on Day 1 in Chicago

Late-night writing before vacation

Aftermath of a storm.

Discrepancy in oz. expected and oz. received¹