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As many of you know, I'm a fan of a lot of vintage, kitschy Americana. Drive-in movie theatres have a lot of ties to car culture and the kinds of roadside tourist traps I love to visit and photograph. The drive-in theatre in here in Kenosha (only a half a mile or so from my house!) has a big place in local history too. This is its 65th season, according to an April article in the Kenosha News.

It's also likely to be the last. As are many, many other small theatre, the Keno is likely being put out of business by the cost of conversion to digital projection. I talked to a theatre owner in Savanna who's having the same issue, and I know it's wide-spread. The Catlow in Barrington even managed to pay the cost via a crowd-funding campaign. Sadly, I know a large number of theatres aren't going to be so fortunate.

Since the Keno is likely closing down, and I'm going to be in Canada for the next couple weeks after this one, I'm planning to go see the double feature at the Keno this Tuesday on their bargain, 12-dollars-a-carload day. I have a nice big car now that will fit up to six people. My brother and parents are going to go with me, so that's four. If more want to come, we could get you all in there and maybe pack some folding chairs in the trunk. Or you could just come in your own car and we could meet up.

I don't know what's playing, but I'll probably go see whatever, just to have the chance to see (and, of course, photograph) the theatre. The more the merrier! Let me know if we should expect you and how.

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I actually forgot for the first time to get a daily picture today. Fortunately, other folks at my girlfriend Danae's housewarming party were behind the camera this time. Here's a picture of my sweetie Lisa and I enjoying a round of cheese fondue. Yay cheese!

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The party at Danae's place on Saturday was really nice. A few people from her program at school were there early. As they were leaving, Lisa arrived. Then Posi got there, and after that a friend of Danae's who's currently a professor (and with an anthropology doctorate!) in Korea arrived with one of her students. My brother, Tim, was there the whole time too. Conversation was really great, as was the fondue. Yay for good company and tasty food!

I drove my car back, sitting in the new-to-me, different colored driver's seat (I have a custom interior now.), without incident. Today, I did a few errands; grocery shopping, dropping off stuff at Goodwill since I finally have a working car, picking up my bike from the shop. The bike, it turns out, had a broken spoke. That's fixed, and I'll likely ride to work at the archives tomorrow. I'll have to leave immediately after getting back home for the drive-in.

I'm going to end up leaving my car in Kenosha while I'm in Canada for the next two weeks so that Juan can do more work on it. So, I'm going to take the train to Chicago again, carting all of my stuff for the two weeks away. I think it'll be manageable.

I'm looking forward to the trip. As well as seeing Danae's parents again, I'm going to see a steam power museum in Hamilton and visit a couple of faculty at geography programs in Toronto and Syracuse. And other than that, I'm going to relax a bit and do some academic reading, and possibly photo editing. I want to do some writing too. Hopefully I'll catch you all up on on the rest of my trip to Savanna. If my Livejournal is, as I've been thinking about lately, going to serve as a curation of my photos someday for other people who might be looking at them as a record of my experiences, I probably need to write up those experiences, no? Maybe I'll have time to work on Spanish too.

Speaking of, I looked at school enrollment stuff with Tim today. He hasn't recieved results for his placement tests yet, so we're holding off on actually signing up for classes until then. But we went over the course catalogs for his planned majors as well as the gen. ed. classes that will be options for the Fall. It sounds like he's going to do Spanish as his foreign language, which is cool 'cause I'll have a conversation partner!

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I'm feeling...oddly conscious of the passage of time lately. I'm not sure why that is.

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I think someone stole my iPod out of my car this past weekend. I'm a bit frustrated and saddened by that, but it just does not seem like it's going to turn up. I'm trying out a number of apps on my Android tablet to listen to podcasts with. There are a limited number that allow playback and faster speeds, and the ones I've tried are all choppy. Oddly enough, the iPod's app that I was using was far and away better than anything I've tried. It's *almost* enough to make me want to buy another old iPod touch with a cracked screen from Ebay.

Any recommendationd on apps that will let me listen to podcasts at double speed and still understand them? I'm going to try out Diceplayer, which seems to sound ok at 1.5x at least.

Well, I should brush my teeth, work with Rosetta Stone for a little while, and get to bed. I'll be biking for the first time in a week or so again tomorrow (if the weather holds), and I need to get up early.

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Loaded Bike Rack - Pic-a-day 5 August 2013

Copyright Stormdog 2013


I've had this bike rack sitting in my basement for a long time, but haven't used it. Either I'm not quite sure how it works, or it doesn't quite fit my bike. But it was good enough to get my Giant home from the shop today after Total Cyclery fixed the broken spoke.