Paul's Pictures - November 2003
Halloween's over and they're already putting putting up Christmas decorations. This month I have been and will be busy, with tests and projects and getting ready for Thanksgiving and stuff like that. If you've been checking lately, I haven't been updating this page regularly, so I'll try to catch up.Almost everyone else I know has a better digital camera than I do, but I'm the one who carries around a camera and takes pictures on a semi-regular basis. Maybe I should add that to my wish list-- a better digital camera, but one still small enough to carry around.
November 30
 |
I visited my sister and brother-in-law for Thanksgiving. Thanks to them
I am now an uncle! Here is my niece sleeping in her swing. I think
she's about two or three months old in this shot. She's cute, and both
parents say she looks exactly like the other parent. As an uncle, I suppose it's my duty to bring gifts, so I got her a fuzzy, squeaky dog thing. I think the parents liked it more than their daughter did, but she's young yet. |
November 24
 | And here is a picture of Cardwell Hall when you're late for math class. Well, OK, when you're really late. So late that taking a picture of an empty hallway won't make you much later. |
November 15
 |
OK, so for those of you who have been waiting ages for an update, here
is the first of many I'm going to try to do tonight, and I apologize I
didn't have anything up sooner. Well, now that that's over... Today I saw a machine I never knew existed. I was in my apartment when I heard a loud engine and truck-backing-beeping noises. Looking out the window, I saw a small group of people watching something I couldn't quite see at that angle. So I went outside, and I saw this. I don't know if you can see it in this picture, but that truck has just lifted an entire tree from the ground, roots 'n' all. OK, so it's a sapling; that's still pretty impressive, I think. I guess the neighbors didn't want that tree anymore. The truck had a challenge getting back to the street without hitting anything, and returned half an hour later with a bucket of dirt to fill the hole it left. |
November 11
 |
Here we see the lecture hall in Umberger. I don't know if there are
actually classes in here, but the place is huge, so it's popular for
exams when there are multiple sections. The desks fold out from beside
the seats, but they're so small they barely fit a 8 1/2 x 11 paper and
a hand. I think I did well on this test. Than again, noone says macroeconomics is difficult. |
November 7
 |
I could use a better camera. Then again, I've never tried taking a
picture like this with any other camera, so I don't know how it
compares. Believe it or not, this is a picture of the moon, lightly covered with clouds. It looked great with normal eyesight, but my camera wasn't even good enough to let me turn off the flash when I took it. Maybe you have high-speed film or something to take night pictures. |
November 5
 |
I know there's at least one person reading this who is interested in
fish, so here is a picture (not a very good one, though) of some. I took my car in to have the transmission looked at, since it was making some bad, clunking, gear-slipping noises. Inside, they have a huge fishtank, with a huge fish. I don't have anything there for perspective, but that big fish in there is bigger than a handspan. I was trying to get his whole length, but he turned at the last second. I asked the owner what kind of fish that was, and he said something I forgot. Some kind of vegetarian pirahna. I just called the place again to check, but they're closed today as I'm writing this. |
November 4
 |
Here is an example of the sporatic tree-changing in Kansas. The tree
on the left is red and losing leaves, while the tree on the right is
still green and strong. Both are obviously deciduous (Wow I was right!
That really is how it's spelled.) but they change at different
times. OK, reading back, that's not too interesting. Ah well, better luck next time. |
November 3
 |
I don't remember what I did for the rest of the day, but I remember
this picture. These people were sitting around, singing praise
songs. When they were done, the girl there mentioned an interest
in learning guitar, so they dragged out a second guitar and started
teaching her the basics. Guitar and piano are supposedly the two easiest instruments to learn. Before too long, she knew as much about guitar as I did. She knew how to play a G chord, a D chord, an E minor chord, and a fake C chord (modified G). With those chords and a little practice, she could play two of the praise songs we had. With practice, she could probably play most of them. |
November 2
 |
I don't know how we managed it on such short notice, but this
week we went back to this guy's house to play N64. Only this time,
we were going to grill some food to go with it. It was not good
grilling weather-- drizzly and wet, and the wind kept blowing the
pilot light out (it was a gas grill)-- so someone got the idea of
bringing the grill inside. Bad idea. It started out ok. The pilot lit and stayed lit. We put the meat on, put the lid on, and started opening more windows, because it was smokier than we thought. After a few minutes, however, the smoke started pouring out like crazy. We opened the lid and flames two feet high erupted from the grill, along with a huge ball of smoke, blanketing the kitchen in noxious fumes. Fortunately, we didn't panic. We immediately turned off the gas, put the lid back on, and took it outside to cool down. Nothing was damaged, although inside looked like London fog for a while until we got it aired out. The meat that wasn't done we microwaved, and everything turned out ok in the end. And we learned a valuable lesson: never try grilling inside. |