East Side, West Side, All Around The Town

Spin, Go 'Round

Wind farm north of Lafayette. I find the sound of these big boys restful.

Art In Public Places: Purdue Style

Last year the temps here were upper eighties to hundred at the end of May. This year we dropped to near freezing over night. And little drizzly rains have been blowing through. I'd been meaning to cruise campus and have a look at some of the art that's being installed. Yesterday seemed to be a good bet.

I'm semi baffled. But the one that seems devoid of take home message is the last one with plants in a box and the solar panel. No doubt it's about something.

The Battle of Tippecanoe

There are multiple accounts. I grew up near here. And today I made a short looping ride along back roads. Just ahead of cold rain on my way home.

When I Was A Lad

When I was a lad, Happy Hollow Park was not especially improved. And since I have left the area, it would seem that time, energy (including thinking energy), and money have gone into making improvements. There's now an easy back route into the park suitable for pedestrians and bicycles. Instead of a long round-a-bout journey, I can go from my mom's house a short distance and then descend into the park. A little jaunt and then climb back out into an older section of West Lafayette. It looks nice now. But let's not forget that there is wintertime in Indiana. Then I would not want to be outside riding in this area.

And then there's MBU: massively bike unfriendly. One of these days I'm going to get nabbed by a cop for something here, I can just tell. Riding on the sidewalk perhaps. I'll just flash my Florida I.D. and play stupid, I suppose.

An Actual Bike Route

Someone said that it's not a bike route unless it's safe for an eight year old. I might not go that far, but I would say that a great many bike lanes are nothing more than a paint stripe's distance from the edge of a highway. Not so this one. This route very nearly connects north campus with points north of town. And it's a work in progress. There's going to be more. I rode it yesterday and I was always safely separated from traffic. Here's the stretch that goes west of Purdue's golf course. The distances seem shorter now than when I was a child. How is that?

Purdue, Big Red, and West Lafayette. Mostly

Those of us who were part of Creative Arts at Purdue remember this! The pointed red thing was on the west end of our building CA-1. Now located much farther out Stadium Ave.

I'm not sure that I have an understanding of the artistic intent of much of the art in public places on the campus. Too much of it looks like a commercial endorsement for The Purdue Experience. Not very challenging, and underneath it all: "go Boilers." A sort of magical thinking in which symbols too quickly replace the thing itself while reason slips out the back door unnoticed.

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Tour de Max

The tour is in the vicinity of Lake Maxinkuckee. I've tried to make it to this bicycle ride for years. Always been something. Life is that way.

Too many riders seemed to be in a hurry. Bombing along in packs. I wanted to look around and to take in the landscape. See the fields, stop and look out over the lake.

The lake itself. From the southwest with the academy directly across.

In the fields north of Leiters Ford

I Made It To Indiana

But it was an ordeal of minor degree. When I hit the southern part of the state I was thinking I'd just ease on to Lafayette. Then someone rolled a school bus on I-65 north of Indianapolis.

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Somewhat Of A Haul

Not a road bike. But not that bad either. 

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A Florida Mystery

It's a Florida mystery why the Indian River lagoon is dying and why formerly clear springs up state are filling with green slime. Our legislators are baffled and wary of acting too quickly. Pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers? Naw, couldn't be. But when they do get the problem a little better defined, I'm sure they will enact legislation to fund a study to determine the effectiveness of education in reducing the problem. What ever it is.

This a small man-made creek, a ditch, to carry water from the land into the lagoon which is about 1500 feet from where I took the pictures.

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Unboxing Some History

A little free time to begin opening boxes of photo things from one place and another, and that I've collected over the years. Looks like the Polaroid Model 95 is going to need a fairly extensive tear-down and cleaning to look good. Never know, I might get to it. It's the first model of the first series with a little dingleberry on a spring on the front standard. - Inside the camera back the rollers. These were (one shows here) the precision stuff that broke a chemical pod and spread goo between taking film and image receiving sheet. A camera that was used a lot would have evidence of chemical damaging the inside of the camera. This camera seems to have been used very little. Or perhaps cleaned fastidiously after each roll of eight shots.

And the Kodak solenoid for flashbulb synchronization is marked as being nearly as old as I am. Manufactured in 1951. Solenoid is how it was done on many shutters without internal flash contacts. Pushing a button on the flash gun fired a flashbulb and also energized a solenoid that tripped the shutter release.

Takes me back in time to a time I never knew. 

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An Odd Thought

That I am the first person to turn the screws and look inside this shutter since 1949. A loose spring made "B" hang. So I repaired that. Now what?

From a camera that was given to me as parts. Already stripped of some of the useful parts and fairly battered.