Campus crime reports
General July 23rd, 2008
Prepping for the Open House, I was poking around the www.dps.uiuc.edu site. I found they have a page that lists the recent crime reports… and they mean recent. This must be from the same sources (at least for campus) that the DI gets its blotter.
Marc massaged it through some pipes to get an RSS feed of the UofI DPS crime reports.
It proves for entertaining reading. Such as:
An unknown person(s) poured two bottles of laundry detergent in the fountain near the Admissions and Records Building, 901 W. Illinois St., U. sometime after midnight on July 21. Staff estimated the costs of labor and de-foaming agents for clean-up at $300.
Yes, that’s bad — but think of how “green” they were being, doing their laundry outside.
A construction worker paid restitution ($186) for breaking a wood parking arm in a lot at Assembly Hall, 1800 S. First St., C. on July 7. According to the report, the man drove his truck across a pedestrian walkway to enter the parking lot without paying the fee and struck the arm. A witness recorded the truck’s license number and the incident also was captured by a surveillance camera. When interviewed by police, the man agreed to pay for the damage and the $5 parking fee.
And best yet:
Dumbass1, 22, of U. and Dumbass2, 21, of Paxton (not their real names) were arrested on a charge of criminal trespass to state-supported property on July 14. At 2:05 a.m. Urbana and U. of I. police responded to a call of a burglary in progress and a report of suspects on the roof of the Bread Co. building. Dumbass1 was arrested after an U. officer identified him as the suspect he had seen on the roof of Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, 500 S. Goodwin Avenue, U. a few minutes later. Dumbass2 was arrested at about 2:36 a.m. when a U. of I. officer saw him walking with a woman on the west side of KCPA. According to the report, the officer became suspicious because Dumbass2 was not wearing a shirt, shoes or socks and was covered with dirt.
So, enjoy!
What car are you?
Quizzes and Memes July 22nd, 2008
I’m a Chevrolet Corvette!
You’re a classic - powerful, athletic, and competitive. You’re all about winning the race and getting the job done. While you have a practical everyday side, you get wild when anyone pushes your pedal. You hate to lose, but you hardly ever do.
Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.
Looking at things from the outside-in
Libraries and librarianship July 21st, 2008
I’m a big fan of stepping back from predispositions, or assumptions, or just habits and looking at common experiences under a new light. (If you were around me in 2005, you probably heard me talk about the ridiculousness of librarian terminology and professional divisions. As I assimilated more of that culture, I internalized the absurdity, and by the time I was walking for my degree, even defending it. (But come on… “adult services librarian” still makes me chuckle.)) As a research topic, I would love to analyze how that “new environment adoption” works. I meant to blog the process, but that didn’t happen.
Richard micro-blogged a link I thought was interesting along these lines: a graphical designer looking at libraries. What insights can we gain from people whose focus is outside our typical maxims? Be sure to read the long version of the report, where she considers different storing/stacking/piling methods and comes around that shelves are the most functional. (Duh .. Although any library has every method of globbing books together.)
I don’t particularly care for her spine labels, but I like the evolution of thought in her notes (let’s do whole spine jackets to find things… wait, that’s terrible…) The outside perspective is interesting.
“Hello, lightning bug.”
Writing for the fun of it July 18th, 2008
I walked downstairs, and saw a lightning bug hovering outside the basement window. It’s yellow-green pulse was like a sweet greeting, and I smiled to myself. Lightning bugs on a summer evening are fun like that. Fresh. New. A floating ball of luminescent opportunity. Did you see it? Would you see it again? Where would it be next? Where will I be next?
“Hello lightning bug.”
As I walked towards the window, it flashed me again. It was stationary. Odd. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the bug outside was larger. It was a big, brown spider dangling in front of my window, holding a lightning bug. Neither moved, nor did I, as my hopefulness slid off my face and took my smile with it. The lightning bug flashed again, and I couldn’t tell if its glow was dimmer the second time, or if it only seemed that way. We stared at each other for a good few seconds.
My lips tightened and curled into a smirk. In an quick instant, I felt every emotion for a doomed insect — Regret. Pain. Retaliation. Remorse. Inevitability. Acceptance. I finally settled on irony. Sometimes, even hopelessness glows.
“Goodbye lightning bug.”
Summer band program July 17 2008
General July 16th, 2008
[ I threw in non-summer band YouTube example links, so you can listen to others' (odd) renditions... ]
Star spangled banner — ex (she does kimi ga yo better, I think)
Flourish for wind band / R. Vaughn Williams — ex
Bacchanale : from Samson and Delilah / Camille Saint-Saens — ex1, drum corp ex2
Scenes from “The Louvre : based on Ancient Airs / Norman Dello Joio
El Capitan / John Philip Sousa — ex
Jupiter / Gustav Holst, transcribed by James Curnow
John Williams : the symphonic marches / John Williams, arr. by John Higgins
Inglesina ["The Little English Girl"] / Davide Delle Cese — bad ex, ex
Gershwin : a medley for concert band / Ira and George Gershwin, arr. Robert Russell Bennett
Illinois Loyalty / Thacher Guild, arr. Mark H. Hindsley — ex with mace!
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