Wagahai ha yappari neko de aru.
Today's weather: Bright bright sunshine, but COLD. As in, 17F this morning cold. The high is going up to the upper 30sF though. I left my bike at work last night so I can ride it around tonight.
I went to the Planning Commission Advisory Board for the city of Urbana last night, which lasted about 2 hours. Interesting bits were, they admit they pretty much dropped ball on allowing that WalMart in, but are now trying to at least mitigate the effects, restraining the major commercial to a compact area and planning more proactively from here on out about where commercial development should go. The big question is, should expansion happen in little shells around the compact core, or should there be "rays" out on some main section roads (like IL 150) but just narrow narrow out there, and leave areas in between intentionally NOT developed? Both plans have good and bad points, they are getting more advice on it. The ray thing works best for transit, it seems, when they are talking about commercial areas. To the south it's looking like more onion-style will work, with little nodes of services, and they are trying to ensure than any development on an intersection allows people to walk into it from the BACK as well, from the center of the section squares. Next month (April 15th) they will be discussing the state of the Lincoln to Busey vertical strip (i.e. West 800s) from Washington up to University.
In other news they voted to continue studying the tram, woo hoo.
Monday night a cat barfed on my keyboard. Which one was it? They aren't talking. I suspect the grey one but can't really be sure. Either way, it was a major hassle, had to disassemble the thing, wash all the parts, and reassemble it. Just what I wanted to do when I got home from work. All I can say is, it's a good thing for them that they are cute.
Crocuses are up and blooming.
The new dejikame is working out great. The main reason I got a new one is, the old one just couldn't do the good light sensitivity (ISO 150 was the maximum) so in anything but utter bright sun or total flash, things blurred. And, it is slow starting up. Plus, the new one has a super up close mode that the old one didn't have. Just a sign of age, things progressed after it was made. I got the new one after my friend Mike L. got its immediate predecessor and raved about it. It's all the same company though.
Today's weather: Grey, somewhat disappointing high of 41F. This is feeling not so great after we had some 63F action last week. Plus there's snow! Not like it's sticking or anything but STILL!
My new camera arrived finally after much trials with UPS. It is a Canon PowerShot A 80. So I will put this page up now so you can see my pencil box.
Books I read recently: TRICK the novel. I am now reading a book all about trains, Zukaizatugaku Nihon no Tetsudou by Nishimoto Hirotaka and also Neokon to ha nani ka by Tahara Maki.
Movies I saw recently: Zisatu Circle. This movie starts out quite creepy and disturbing (mass suicide to happy music) but the whole thing sorta jumps (heh) about halfway in. Blood alone does not a scary film make, people!!! More on this later. Also I saw A Boy and His Dog.
Happy happy fall day... But it's not autumn! Hmm? Akibare is a state of mind, the feeling
when you wake up on a crisp, fall day, the leaves are backlit
shining yellow and orange against the blue sky, it's sweater weather, and you
can do anything, absolutely anything at all...