At work. Tired, so I took some caffeine pills from the medicine cabinet. Started getting drowsy. Looked at the package and saw they were for menstrual cramps 🙁

Thursday Lunch, a text from my college friend Greg.

Well, the terrifying process of boxing up my life has commenced. About a third was moved yesterday, with assistance from my co-worker Dave, and I’m about to begin again with Matt this morning. I eschewed renting a moving truck this time, although this means a lot of trips back and forth.

Although I seem to have too many things to move as quickly as I’d like, I also have too few things to properly fill a two-bedroom apartment. These things will be worked out, possibly through a binge trip to Target.

Moving the bed always seems to be the catalyst to actually living in the new space… until then, you’re just pretending. And speaking of hauling that bed…

Somehow, the Huck-Finnishness has gone out of summer, and there’s no getting it back except, perhaps, to find your inner Huck Finn. There may be no slipping away down the Mississippi into another life. But today would be a good day, once the dew is off the grass, to wander out into the open and lie on your back and watch the clouds float by overhead without even trying to decide what they resemble.

-from NYT editorial A Pause Before Summer

Bacterial conjunctivitis due to the common pyogenic (pus-producing) bacteria causes marked grittiness/irritation and a stringy, opaque, grey or yellowish mucopurulent discharge (gowl, goop, “gunk”, “eye crust”, sleep, or other regional names) that may cause the lids to stick together (matting), especially after sleeping.

And of course, it’s in my shooting eye… today will be a difficult day at work. Damn it.

Update: Four days later, it’s gone. I no longer cause small children to weep.

Back from my trip to the corn-loving state of Nebraska, it feels oh so strange returning to work after a week off. There’s a new website, the Flaming Lips concert I’m shooting Friday night, and our final house party this Saturday. I move into a beautiful new apartment next week and return to a roommate-less life. A lot to discuss. Mr. Franklin, are you there?

“When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.”

Over the past few weeks, a remote camera atop Jobst Hall has been taking pictures of work on the Robertson Field House site. I created a video of the time-lapse images, showing the demolition and site-clearing to date. Special thanks to our friends at 89.9 WCBU for use of their control room window.

I swear this is the last entry about that damned Field House… I’m a little burned out on it.

Somewhere over Minnesota

3pm I just managed to have one of those extra-dramatic “I gotta get on that plane!” moments this afternoon while trying to catch a flight to Minneapolis. And yes, I ran with one shoe on, untied, toward the gate just to see the plane taxi away. My fault for cutting it so close, but also their fault (NorthWest) for not staffing the ticket counter and leaving the gate 25 minutes before the estimated departure time. Everyone should probably have one of these to keep them humble, right? Sheesh.

9pm Half-way there to Lincoln, Neb. The approach into Minneapolis was trying, with plenty of action for the thrill seekers as the dinky prop plane kept slipping and sliding toward the runway. The big Bass ale I drank with dinner has gone straight to my head; I can see lightning in the distance. A jet awaits us.

11pm I’ve made it! More to follow…

It’s the same drill each time. A fire call on the scanner, a quick check of the maps and you’re off. I go from puttering around the office on 4 cylinders (there’s a lot of paper to be pushed around, right?) to roaring like a turbo-charged, rip-roaring jackal. The situation escalates as I’m weaving in and out of traffic. “Fully engulfed,” “roof collapse,” “mutual aid” – all jargon telling us this is no kitchen fire.

I’m the first on the scene out of the Peoria media. The NBC affiliate arrives a minute later, with the rest of the ragtag media crews showing up 5-10 min later. There’s a lot of smoke and I wonder if I will smell it every time I exhale the next few days. Flames are raging, and I keep circling the scene trying to find some sort of unobstructed angle.

Things are under control by this point. The sky is darkening to a shade reserved for hail and big, jagged lightning. Someone crackles over the scanner with a report of a funnel cloud. I hop into my car and head back to the office, unable to see out of my windshield as the maximum amount of water that can possibly fall out of sky suddenly does, soon peppered by loud, obnoxious hail the size of peas or small marbles.

I’m on edge.

Bell – It’s Oh So Quiet

THE NORTH HANGER: Still intact 11:14am, flattened by 11:29am

Thanks to our friends at WCBU on the Bradley campus, I’ve had a remote camera set up for the past several weeks monitoring the deconstruction process on the east side of the Field House. The result has been a slew of boring frames where little has happened for days on end, punctuated by large sections suddenly disappearing in between shots. I missed the big collapse Tuesday morning by less than a hour, reminding me that I can’t always be everywhere at once. Kirk Wessler has some first-hand accounts of the big event.

For those curious, I’m using a spare D1x with a 10.5mm fisheye lens, driven by a PocketWizard set to trigger the camera every 15 minutes. I’ll be posting a time-lapse video later this week.

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