March 30, 2011

March 29, 2011

I could not resist...

March 25, 2011

In all the years I have biked past here, I have never seen smoke.

March 24, 2011

Yesterday's Headline: University of Iowa Hospitals Predicted to End the Year With a $65 Million  Profit

Today: While leaning against the wall across the hallway from a tiny examination room deep in the University Hospital this morning, waiting for a friend's reluctant vitals to be measured, I became aware of a conversation going on before me in the neighboring tiny examination room. A woman with a clipboard had just joined a man there. Two nails stuck out of the side wall and the discussion they were having concerned a picture that had fallen off the wall the previous day. The picture was sitting on a stainless steel table, leaning against the back wall. The man, from facilities services, was explaining to the clip boarded woman that he was not allowed to touch the picture as it belonged to the Arts Something-Or-Other, it was one of Their pictures and they would have to be called to have it rehung. He even picked the picture up, turned it over and showed her the name of the Arts Something-Or-Other written on all four edges on the back to prove he was not allowed to touch it. While doing this, I noticed, he had the picture within inches of the nails on the wall. Having made his point, he set the art back on the stainless steel table. Not thinking this conversation was the least bit odd, she acknowledged that he could not put the picture back on the wall and then asked his advice about whether she should leave the picture on the table in the examination room or secure it in her office until someone from the Arts Something-Or-Other could be contacted. She was uncomfortable, she said, leaving it as is. I was distracted away from the conversation at that moment and when I turned back they, and the picture, were gone. The rest of the morning, shuttling from waiting room to waiting room, I wondered if they had gone away leaving the picture on the stainless steel table how likely it might have been that  I would have simply stepped into the tiny room and rehung the picture on the two nails myself.

And now, a picture of a spoon in  tree taken during this afternoon's ride.

March 21, 2011

The bike path rises up above the Clear Creek river as the moss covered wall leans back the against the hillside.

March 18, 2011

Three years after the great flood of 2008, houses are still being torn down in Iowa City. This one has been stripped of all of it's recyclables and will come down soon.