Category Archives: Interior

Mural, Purdue University learning center

Monday 28th August 2017, 11.10am (day 2,195)

Another campus to add to the list — Purdue University in Indiana, the people who were good enough to invite me to the USA in the first place on this trip. This place is especially known for its programmes in aviation and spaceflight — Neil Armstrong studied here (which is a cool alumnus to have) — and engineering, hence the nickname of its football team, the Boilermakers. This mural in the campus’s new learning center, open only a week, reflects this. It was a day where I was too busy to particularly get around to taking many photos, so this was a rush job I know, but there’s one thing I do like about it, which is the apparent anachronism of the guy standing on the left of the big picture: is that a cellphone in his pocket? Sure looks like one. (Actually it’s a slide rule, apparently.)

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PK’s bar, Carbondale

Tuesday 22nd August 2017, 3.20pm (day 2,189)

PK's bar, 22/8/17

This bar stands across the road from Carbondale’s Amtrak station and was therefore a suitable place to wait for my train back north. It seemed to be the kind of place where most of the clientele probably never went anywhere else — so I kind of liked it. PK’s stands for Pizza King, by the way — the matriarch who ran the place explained to me that they started out being the first people in Carbondale to open a pizza parlour, but when everyone else started doing it, they decided to turn it into a bar instead. Which must have been a good move, because apparently that shift took place fifty years ago.

Carbondale also gains for itself the distinction of being the 200th different identifiable location to appear on this blog. Thus, about every 11th shot on here is taken somewhere different, which is a decent amount of variety, I guess.

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The new carpet goes down!

Friday 11th August 2017, 3.00pm (day 2,178)

New carpet, 11/8/17

Not an accomplished photo — but I don’t care…. Finally, we have a new carpet in our living room. Is it consumerist to welcome this arrival? No — you wouldn’t think so if you’d lived for months after the Great Halloween Plaster Disaster by crunching bits of old gypsum underfoot every day.

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The joys of redecorating

Wednesday 2nd August 2017, 2.30pm (day 2,169)

Decorating, 2/8/17

Here went my day, and expect to see more of this at points over the next few weeks, as the house gets a much-needed lick of paint here and there. I did say it wasn’t going to be an exciting period. But I will do my best to retain the photographic interest.

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Clare hard at work

Tuesday 1st August 2017, 5.20pm (day 2,168)

Lego hot dog, 1/8/17

The title is irony — as this was an indolent day all round, back at home after our week in the Lakes. Don’t expect much to happen this week…

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Blackshaw Head Chapel

Friday 21st July 2017, 8.50pm (day 2,157)

Blackshaw Head Chapel, 21/7/17

Venue for Joe’s fortnightly extra-curricular entertainment (involving the mass genocide of small lead figures representing orcs, wizards and other fantastical beings). Normally we leave him to it but tonight we went up to this Victorian chapel on the moors to get dinner at the nearby pub and celebrate the fact that I’ve been off work today and will remain in this state for the next 16 days. The pools of light and colour in the chapel caught my eye on the way back home.

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Graduation balloons

Thursday 13th July 2017, 9.00am (day 2,149)

Graduation balloons, 13/7/17

It’s that time of year again. It crossed my mind today that it’s now twenty years since I first graduated, in July 1997. Gosh…

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Home sweet home

Tuesday 4th July 2017, 7.25pm (day 2,140)

Herbs and skull, 4/7/17

Feels like a while since I have spent any proper time at home, with its indoor herb garden, its dust bunnies, its strange collection of bits of dead animal.

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Into the Unknown

Saturday 1st July 2017, 1.20pm (day 2,137)

Into the Unknown, 1/7/17

The Saturday afternoon of this weekend in London was spent at the Barbican centre, where at the moment, among other things, there is a superb exhibition of sci-fi paraphernalia, films, art and so on. If you are a geek and are anywhere near London, you really do have to go and see this — John Hurt’s space suit from Alien, Leonard Nimoy’s from Star Trek The Motion Picture (Spock’s space suit!!), the original screenplay from 2001, storyboards from many movies including Dune and Star Wars… and those were just my personal highlights. Go! I don’t know what movie these two were enjoying but I like the image, the face, the shadows.

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Catching the London flight

Friday 30th June 2017, 4.25pm (day 2,136)

Aberdeen airport, 30/6/17

I have been excessively mobile during June. The trips to and from Siberia and Norway had already taken 11 flights and eight different airports, and on the last day of June I added one more flight and two airports — Aberdeen to London City. Too much… I need to reconnect with home over the next seven weeks (the next major trip being the last two weeks of August to the USA). How is Aberdeen airport? Same as other airports, except that it doesn’t seem to have been refurbished since about 1980.

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