Random Wednesdayness
Jan. 12th, 2005 07:15 pmThe temperature dropped by about ten degrees overnight, but the storms plaguing California seem to have rained themselves out before getting this far. The stars were very bright this evening, and the slender crescent moon was very sharp.
The students are back. Their imminent arrival has been foreshadowed in the last couple of days by the sudden appearance of greeters in the bookstore, and a noticeably higher people-density around campus, but today they're really back. This means that it is once more hard to find a table in the Student Union eateries; on the other hand, there's a student newspaper to read. At least the new, expanded bookstore is capable of absorbing the beginning-of-semester rush without becoming unusable for lunchtime browsing. I have nightmarish memories of ribbon barriers snaking in among the general books, rendering the SF section nearly inaccessible, in the cramped old premises.
Several of us at work collect State Quarters. We're not terribly serious coin-geeks, but it's always fun to get one's first instance of a new one. We've noticed, though, that Arizona seems to be very late to get each new issue; we still don't know anyone who's seen a Wisconsin one, though the local paper was very excited yesterday about some apparent mis-strikes that have been sighted around town. Now we have evidence: one of my colleagues discovered a site that lists 'first sightings' of each quarter, and indeed, they've been turning up late in Arizona. It's also evidence, one suspects, that some people have far too much time on their hands.
The students are back. Their imminent arrival has been foreshadowed in the last couple of days by the sudden appearance of greeters in the bookstore, and a noticeably higher people-density around campus, but today they're really back. This means that it is once more hard to find a table in the Student Union eateries; on the other hand, there's a student newspaper to read. At least the new, expanded bookstore is capable of absorbing the beginning-of-semester rush without becoming unusable for lunchtime browsing. I have nightmarish memories of ribbon barriers snaking in among the general books, rendering the SF section nearly inaccessible, in the cramped old premises.
Several of us at work collect State Quarters. We're not terribly serious coin-geeks, but it's always fun to get one's first instance of a new one. We've noticed, though, that Arizona seems to be very late to get each new issue; we still don't know anyone who's seen a Wisconsin one, though the local paper was very excited yesterday about some apparent mis-strikes that have been sighted around town. Now we have evidence: one of my colleagues discovered a site that lists 'first sightings' of each quarter, and indeed, they've been turning up late in Arizona. It's also evidence, one suspects, that some people have far too much time on their hands.
