Another application away!

I got another application (Clark University) finalized tonight. I have another one due on the fifth. It's my number one choice, so I want to make sure everything looks really good for it. This process is stressful. And expensive! With grad school application fees averaging $75, fees for copies of transcripts, and a big-ass car repair, I've spent a ridiculous amount of money this month.

I'm in favor of posicat's idea of moving to our own volcanic island with swimmable hot springs.

Chess Sets in Questionable Taste

By the way, this was for sale at the Medieval Times gift shop. Too soon?

Road Trips With Friends are a Wonderful Thing

posicat is one of my favorite people. This is from the day in July last year that we departed for a photo and exploring trip to Savannah, Illinois.

I'm planning to see a bunch more of him, and several other folks like serinthia, this coming year!

For now, I'm finally going to edit this set of pictures!

(I'm sorry I've been posting so many photos lately; It's where my head's at I guess.)





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It's an interesting process, choosing which pictures of me I post. I could choose only photos that I think are flattering. The problems with that are:

*My idea of what is flattering is not necessarily consistent with other
people's ideas.

*I like the idea of posting relatively candid photos of me, rather than posed and prepared-for ones. It makes me feel like maybe people see a little of what I "really" look like, whatever that may mean.

(I hope other people in my photos don't mind when I post them either, for that matter. For me, I just enjoy seeing my friends and people I care about. It makes me smile.)

In fact, the latter reason is part of why I'm doing the picture-a-day project I'm doing. I have one photo of my face per day (with a few days that I missed) since October of last year. If I can ever figure out how to make a movie out of them, I think the result will be really fun. And I'm planning to keep at it until, well, I die. I'm fascinated at the thought of a time-lapse of myself growing older. I just wish I'd started it sooner.

Happy New Year's Eve!

Happy New Year's Eve everyone! May it be a wonderful time, whether you're enjoying a day to yourself, having a party with friends, or stuck at work. I hope your upcoming year is as better than the last!

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This is the Savanna public library. It's a Carnegie library, built in 1905.





Carnegie was by no means a perfect guy. I have some major issues with him. Still, he believed in the importance of using great personal wealth for community benefit. For one thing, he funded all these libraries all over the place! He said :

"Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for - public ends would work good to the community, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire’s unworthy life."

Mississippi River Overlook

There are so very many cultural concepts all tied up together in the Mississippi River. It's metaphorical tendrils extend into boyish adventure, modernist development, slavery and racism, changing transportation paradigms, great public works, commerce and trade, beautiful bridges, nature and wildlife, and so much more.

Humans have this amazing way of investing a single concept with a plethora of meanings, and that's wonderful to me. This picture makes me think, in some ways, of all of those things.

If I'm not mistaken, Posi has a photo of his own from this overlook that he had used as a custom design on a credit card!