Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Smatterings


  • I had my first job interview upon coming back home yesterday, and my first rejection this morning. It was a case of other applicants having more experience specific to the job than I did. 
  • I think I should drop some money for a bookshelf, but I don't know how I'd get it back to the apartment. May have to talk to the roommate about this.
This just isn't cutting it anymore.
  • I think that this quarter, academically speaking, is going to be awesome. I'm finally taking archival classes for one, and will have an independent study in which I do nothing but study historic book making processes.
  • I had my first encounter with with bookless library here on campus yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised at its efficiency. Sure, there is no browsing, but books requested actually do end up on hold within two hours, and I ended up biking home with a book bag so full my back was rather angry at me.
  • There is still a lot I have to write about concerning my time at the Murie Center, but it will likely take a while for me to sit down a process. For now, here area few lingering photographs.
 One of my last projects involved assessing the condition of the film in the studio. We had about 16 reels, all in surprisingly good condition.

 Finally got a decent shot of a ground squirrel, since by the end of my time on the ranch they had become fat and lazy, and didn't mind being a foot away.

A box I found in Mardy's cabin turned out to be a portable film projector. It was a lot of fun to disassemble and to figure out what all of the little knobs and such did.


Thursday, August 4, 2011

Welp

Today is the day I should have been driving home, but I'm still in Wyoming. Oh well!

Two days ago I woke up to a strange sound in my room that I immediately assumed was the army of mice inside the walls breaking through and preparing for their final offensive. It was this rapid pattering sound that kept whizzing by my head the way you might expect a mosquito buzz to. I could hear it pretty much everywhere, so when I crawled out of bed in the pitch blackness I was prepared to see mice swarming over everything. I'd already found the occasional present left by them, so if the sound of them working away at the walls wasn't enough I had firm evidence of their invasion plans.

But there were no mice when I turned on the light. Instead there was a bat in the room about the size of my hand, fluttering about in confused circles. I have no idea how it got in. None whatsoever. And apparently neither did it, because it certainly had no idea how to get out. It was actually kind of cute, and I didn't have my glasses on so all I really saw was a palm sized fuzz fluttering around, but I'm sure it would have been adorable if it had just stopped flying around like a bat out of... well... and settled down.

I tried the bee trick of turning the light back off and opening the door. It's not like there was much light outside for a bat to be attracted to, but the stars were enough I guess, because after a few more frustrating laps the bat figured it out and escaped to freedom.

I am so glad it wasn't the mice.