2009
i’m a robot man
maura @ 11:03 pm
It’s finally summer here and even though it’s not too hot yet my brain has been kind of slow lately. We went on our fabulous midwest vacation last week and though I’m back in the groove at work I’m having trouble shoving myself into a writing frame of mind. Also since it finally decided to stop raining this week I started riding my scooter to work again, which means that I’m more tired than usual at night.
So hi, internets, how’ve you been? I feel like I should have something more interesting to say than that, but sadly I do not.
We had a great time last week. Gus was treated to all manner of grandparental spoilage including go-kart construction, pottery making, junk food eating and late night TV watching. I slept for eight hours EVERY night and spent enough time lying around reading that I think I actually gained a few pounds. We all got to pet adorable baby goats at the zoo.
Jonathan and I also went to Chicago for 2 nights which was a blast. It was fun to see old friends and spend time walking around the city without having to give someone small a piggyback ride. We went to the newly-expanded Art Institute, and though I was a teeny bit disappointed that the Chagall stained glass windows aren’t back up after the renovations it really was lovely. There’s so much space now that lots more of the collection is displayed than before. The Cornell Boxes were among my favorites – so interesting + creepy. We rode my favorite El line and took advantage of our friend’s knowledge of architecture to learn about all of the new buildings. And I stood under the bean and took a picture of us:
(Please note: unless your name is Anne or Tex you are probably not at all interested in this paragraph. Feel free to move along.) On the way into the city we stopped in Hyde Park to eat garbage pizza and drink (strong!) coffee at the Med and wander around campus. The new dorms by the Reg are intensely orange (and not really in a good way) BUT they have the old house names from the now-demolished Woodward, which is kind of cool. And the new GSB building is handsome but kind of pushes Ida Noyes even more to the periphery than it was before.
Mostly I really wanted to ogle the new library construction. Instead of offsite storage they’re building this crazy oval-shaped dome-covered subterranean library next to the Reg. It’ll be closed stacks with automatic book retrieval (read: robots!). I’m calling it the underground robolibrary in my head – you should, too.
7 comments on “i’m a robot man”
Yeah, I think any kid’s room probably has good fodder for shadowboxes. Jonathan and Gus were making a wand (Gus is really into this online game Wizard 101, which is like a Harry Potter-themed World of Warcraft for kids) and they dumped out a bunch of boxes of random bits that we save for making stuff and I kept hearing them say “wow, this is cool!” and “I forgot where this was!”
Yes, well, one hopes that the robot shelvers will not go on the fritz, but you never can tell with robots.
Max had to make a wand for HP camp! We found all kinds of things — plastic star garland, irridescant (sp?) tissue/plastic, modeling clay, who knows what else. Next time you see him he will do the Ravenclaw cheer for you!
We found shadowboxes at a frame store — my friend & I were there to get some school stuff framed and we thought how cool to put some of the lumpier art projects in the boxes!
OMG, WoW + Harry = nothing will ever get done again! Well, it’s summer! Just make sure he gets a bit of Vitamin D every so often! (Which I’m sure he did in Indy!)
I keep seeing chicory growing in overgrown/broken sidewalks! I think if I pulled over and picked it people would wonder wtf is this lady doing?! But they probably say that about me anyway.
Yeah, I have to say, if Max doesn’t know about Wizard 101 yet DON’T TELL HIM! Gus saw an ad for it while watching TV w/his grandparents in IN (damn cable). On the plus side, it does let you play without paying (you just get stuff sooner if you pay) so at least we don’t have any whining to buy a subscription.
underground robolibrary?! I want to live there!
and the last time i saw the [plans for] reg-surroundo-dorms they were very orange + purple.
Also? awesome photo.
Yeah, you know how much I like bright secondary colors, but this was too much. Disappointing. Isn’t that a great picture? JPT looks exactly the same.
Return the Chagall windows! the Cornell boxes are cool, always liked them. Makes me want to go create a shadow box RIGHT NOW…
But I won’t.
Orange dorms? They should have named them New Upper ORANGE Flint, New Lower ORANGE Woodward, etc., with all caps for emphasis.
What if the robot shelver went haywire and destroyed everything? Is this a foreseeable problem? Call me a luddite, but it scares me.
OK, now back to those shadow boxes…Legos, marbles, hmm just about anything on Max’s floor would probably work.