The Signs and Shapes of Academia

On Wednesday evening I attended a short event at the Alumni Center at the University of Minnesota. This is an annual event, but held this year later in the fall semester than usual. That occurred to me when I recalled 2 years ago we had to hunker down while a huge wind/hail storm blew over -- a strong enough storm that storm warning sirens were blowing. This November day was much too cold for such a weather system to develop.

So I saw a different view -- the contrast of the dusk sky through the high wall and ceiling n the Main Hall of this building.

Yesterday I attended a workshop for the faculty in the entire MNSUC system, held at St. Cloud State University.

More interesting shapes -- the workshop was held in a building called the Atwood Center. This is a rather ugly 1960s style building built when concrete construction was the latest fad. The inside of the building, however, is warm and inviting.

I saw signs of two interesting ideas almost right next to each other as I walked to the meeting room. First a sign -- Foot Washing-- caught my eye. I realized a place was set aside for those of the Islam faith to prepare for prayer. Immediately to my left was a table for the Secular Student Organization -- a brochure about atheism caught my eye.

In the meeting room I enjoyed this window design:

Walking around during a break I came upon an interesting sculpture:

I was quite surprised when looking at the tag by it to learn the artist was an elementary school class!

These shapes probably caught my eye because the outdoors is all brown -- we are having the driest fall in about 50 years-- a balance from the wettest one last year that led to the fall Mississippi River flood.

Time to enjoy new views such as this (also from the Alumni Center at the University of Minnesota):

Now I just have to let this day develop to learn if tomorrow I can show white stuff -- that is snow.

Sunrise to Sunset

I woke up about 4:30 AM and had breakfast done by 5 AM. By this time in November it is dark outside yet. About 6:30 I decided to go for a walk and captured a view of sunrise.

The light was perfect for reflections in the river.

A pole in the river used for anchoring barges made an interesting reflection.

In only a couple of minutes it became apparent there was more light. Here's another interesting reflection in the river, looking across to Harriett Island. The bridge like structure is actually an area for summer concerts and events.

After a busy and very long day, since it started so early, I'm about to go out for what at work is called "Impromptu Fun Night." But before I leave here's a view of sunset as it looks about  4:35 PM in my part of Minnesota.

The sun is glowing under the High Bridge.

Geese at the Spa?

I have papers to read from one course and for some reason this group of students are the poorest writers I've had in the 10 years I've been teaching at this University. I decided to take a walk as a bit of a break from reading and commenting on these papers.

I was surprised to see a flock of geese floating along in the river. I counted almost 50 in the flock. They were not eating; they just appeared to be taking a Sunday break in their routine. Is this the goose equivalent of going to the spa?

In the background one can see the University of Minnesota Showboat. The house is dark now -- no shows until next summer.

Those geese could have taken a city tour in the limo I found parked outside the door.

Haven't seen one this size since I lived in Pecs and watched an entire women's basketball team come out of a limo.

Early November Scenes

Not much excitement in the past few days. The Minnesota world is moving towards a season change.

One big activity is removing the fallen leaves. Here's the lawn service working and on another day the city came and swept the streets. It's best to get the leaves removed before they get mixed up with snow, particularly on the streets.

One early evening when I headed out for a walk the moon was so big over the river that it was easy to get it's photo.

 Had to go to a meeting in downtown office building so walked one morning. My route takes me down the street about 4 blocks and then over to a place where I can enter the parking ramp for the Science Museum. I take the elevator up 9 floors and then I'm at city level. I was surprised on an early November morning to see the tourist trolley right outside the door.

 And I was correct. As soon as the Halloween decorations went down, the Christmas decorations went up. These are at Target.

I made the announcement at work about retiring yesterday. I was most surprised for being congratulated for this! One wise friend told me not to retire until I knew what was the next thing. I do, and I'm looking forward to contributing to the world, but having more freedom, too!

Happy News

The news reached the U.S. about the emergency landing last week of the LOT flight from Newark. Today on my local news I learned the pilots have been awarded Medals of Honor by the President of Poland. This is well deserved. I felt a relationship with all of this because I have flown many flights across the ocean with LOT. We had a discussion, surprisingly, about this in one of my classes and I told my students I wasn't the least surprised about the success of this. Polish people are brilliant at dealing with problems and now their interaction with technology.

Now about Noise in the Night. The very good maintenance man for our building appeared at my door  this morning and got the smoke detectors and carbon monoxide monitors all back into working order. The carbon monoxide monitor needed new batteries and one smoke detector proved to be defective. What an experience! I hope if they ever break again they pick a weekday to do when help is more readily available than for Sunday staffing.

Noise in the Night

I was awakened at 2:15, just after we made the change back from daylight time by a monitor going off in my bedroom. At first I thought something had happened with the systems when the time changed. Then I thought it was the smoke alarm, a signal of a low battery or something like that. I shut the bedroom door and spent the rest of the night on the living room sofa. The sound was coming loudly every 15 seconds!!! With nine foot ceilings I had nothing in the apartment that would give me enough of a lift to take care of the problem.

Thankfully, I slept again for awhile When I awoke I left a voice mail about the problem morning and then called back to the building office at 12:15 after staff had arrived. I was assured someone would be by in a few minutes. When no one had shown up in 2 hours I went over to the office and found there was only one person working and she was very busy with prospective renters. She told me she would have someone fix this very quickly.

My daughter arrived about an hour later. She took the smoke alarms down and the noise continued. That's when we discovered it was the carbon monoxide monitor making all the noise. We took that down and changed the batteries and it still made noise. So now one smoke alarm and the carbon monoxide monitor are lying on a shelf waiting for maintenance help. There are many people in the world truly suffering so I tried not to feel too sorry for myself with the noise every 15 seconds -- noise I could still hear with my Ipod on and ear buds in place!

Woodwinds Adventure

I had to go a late afternoon meeting yesterday at a place I've heard about, but have never visited.

Here is the delightful view I found when entering:

In the photo above you can glimpse scenes in the stair railing. This same railing guards a walkway on the second level all along the atrium. Here's a view of the one of the railing scenes:

Out the window is this lovely view:

When I got to the meeting room I selected a seat near the window so I could enjoy this autumn view:

 So where was I? At a hotel? At a conference center? No, at a hospital!

This is Woodwinds Hospital which takes quite seriously that individuals have a body, mind, and spirit. Click here for more information.