September 27, 2018

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I saw this at the University of Michigan on September 27. I’d never seen something like this on the wall here before. Thinking about things that are better than they used to be. “Rise against despair and fear. Encourage others with our words and actions. Strive for justice and equality for all.” 

Yes. Yes, please, oh please.

Here's something else that is better than it used to be!  Lots of recycling bins.  There are lots of drinking fountains with bottle-filling stations, too.

Hmmm.  Well, I guess it's good to know what to do..........

This is definitely NOT better than olden times...................

This, however, is better.  None of these around, when I was a student.

I wore this shirt to get my flu shot, so I was still wearing it after we decided to take our walk on North Campus rather than after we got home.

There are a LOT of nice buildings on North Campus.  Here's a big reflecting pool with a pretty good-sized fountain at one end.

From the other end of the reflecting pool.

Picnic table with solar panels in its roof, so you can sit outside and charge your phone with energy directly from the sun.

Closer crop of the above.  Paper plate under table, sigh.  Really, in comparison to most places, there was very little trash on North Campus.  I bet I picked up fewer than two dozen items, and I picked up essentially everything I saw.

The U does a good job of having trash bins EVERYWHERE.  Ann Arbor could do a lot better.

We wandered into a building, which turned out to be Computer Science.  (I think it's odd that the buildings are all labeled with the names of the people who gave the money to build them -- but no indication of what's inside.....................)

Isn't this fun?  A truly ancient computer!  (Not sure why it rates all of this natural light, but I'm glad I got to see it.)

This is a close crop of the upper left of the above -- I never saw this until I was getting it ready to put on the blog. 

Wow.  Setting switches and plugging in cables to tell the machine what to do...........

I guess the ability to give the computer software instructions (even if delivered via punch cards, as was the case in my first programming classes) was a huge improvement over hardware instructions (setting switches and plugging in cables)!!!

I never saw the actual computer those punch cards gave instructions to.  But I surely remember how huge an advance it was to have a teletype machine I could use to talk to the computer, rather than punch cards..........



Can you believe this?  Soaring spaces and natural light -- for computer people!!!!  No more windowless basements, nowadays, apparently.............

This was about comestibles.  :-)   A little old-timey computer-person joke.....

Look at this.

Closer crop of the above -- GIRLS.  Front and center.  That's different!

The parking lot we use when we visit North Campus for flu shots is behind the art school.  We have finished wandering around, on the 26th, and are headed back to the car.

We walked through the art school.  Here's yet another reminder to register to vote, on one of the arty bare concrete interior walls of the art school.  It was all set up with a page for each day until October 9 (the last day to register if you want to vote in Michigan on Nov. 6).  So glad to see all of this effort to get the students to register and VOTE.  !!!

Seen in the ladies' room in the art school.  This is better than what I used to see on bathroom walls when I was a student...........

JoAnn McDaniel turns out to be assistant dean for undergraduate programs at the art school.



People ask me if I find valuable items when picking up trash.  No.  This is about as good as it gets.  I was feeling a little bad about picking this up in the art-school parking lot -- what about starving artists and all?  Then my better half pointed out it was right under the driver door of a Beamer.  Right.  Ok then.

Starving schmarving!   Mine, and no guilt!

We went to get lunch.  I enjoyed seeing this cute little car at Zingerman's Bakehouse.

Who's this on top of the dashboard?

Hello Kitty.  :-)  :-)  :-)

We stopped at the library on the way home.  I love being able to put stuff on reserve from home.....

I knew I had several things waiting, but was surprised to see this many.  :-)

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