Engineering Now and Then

At K-State, the new engineering building was Durland Hall, also known as "the flashcube". The old building, Seaton Hall, was the building my father took his engineering classes in. I had classes in Seaton when I was a Freshman, then moved to the new building when its second phase opened my sophomore year. They renamed the buildings when they added the third phase, so it's no longer Durland.

It's now called Durland, Rathbone, and Fiedler Halls. Durland was Dean (1949 to 1961) when my father was a student there and Rathbone (1973 to 1997) was Dean when I was there. Seaton was the Dean from 1920 up to Durland's reign as Dean.

Trip Down Memory Lane

While visiting Manhattan, I stopped by the graves of my parents, the fraternity I joined in college, the two apartments I lived in, and Aggieville.

Our College Heights apartment 4 was in the basement, we had a knee's eye veiw of the parking lot.

I learned Dynamics and Differential Equations on the balcony of the other apartment. I was 20 and my roommates were 21, so when they left to drink in the evenings, I would drag my drafting table onto the balcony and study until the sun went down. I got As in those courses that summer.

First Solid Food

Zach's reaction was not good to the new solid food.

I can't blame him. The reconstituted rice flakes did not look very tasty. Zach prefers his thumb.

How Amusing

Zachy gets a real kick out of his mommy's reaction to her birthday card.

Heartland Garden

They had just opened the Heartland Garden at Powell Gardens the week before our visit. The observation silo is not done yet, and the place still has the look and feel of a new house with fresh sod and little landscaping. It will take it a while to fill in and look good.

The friendly horses in the Fun Foods Farm liked to lick Zach's head.

Friends

I got a new membership as a Friend of Powell Garden for Father's Day.

We took Zach for his first visit and to see the new Heartland Garden.

Cookie Dough

There was a recall of Nestle Toll House cookie dough recently. The front page of the paper had pictures of the containers.

It was familiar to me, as I had just bought some a few days before, and just eaten a batch the day before.

I felt fine, and my rebellious streak caused me to immediately bake another batch and eat it, too.

The risk really wasn't much. The people that got sick had eaten the dough raw. No ill effects whatsoever.

Snuggling

Sometimes when Zach takes a nap, we let him crash right on the floor, where he fell asleep. The cats have mostly ignored Zach, but Eddy decided that a napping baby was something good to snuggle up to.

Little Lush

Anybody that has spent any time on a college campus or seen a college party has seen the amazing transformation of a reveler into Beer Man. If you take a 12 pack box, open and remove one end (usually after emptying the contents into your stomach), the cardboard container can transform into a wonderful hat. Sometimes the hat is worn high on the head, but I particularly enjoy the look of a medieval helmet when you pull it down and look out the hand handles.

We had this in mind when we dressed Zach up in an old Kleenex box. Instead of Beer Man, a better name for Zach's version would be Poopy Pants Man. Don't mess with him, he'll rub your nose in it.

Lush

It's been so wet this June that everything is green, even things that shouldn't be, like the fence around our dumpster.

But the Catalpa tree is particularly vibrant this year. Hard to believe that it was struck by lightning about 10 years ago, isn't it?

Harebells & Lame Turkeys

These flowers at the end of the driveway come up without any prompting. I think they are called Harebells, based on my latest research, but my mother always called them Dutchman's pants.

We have a turkey that limps. We see deer that limp every year, and you figure they got tagged by a car, but you don't expect to see a turkey that limps. She gets along just fine.

The Hazards of I-70

There was a bad accident on I-70 that had about 6 ambulances and two fire trucks as well as many police vehicles.

It took about 40 minutes for them to get the people out of the cars and get traffic going again. There were two SUVs or minivans upside down next to the road, up against a rock cut in the highway.

It got hot while we were waiting and Zach got fussy. We had to sneak him past the police at the accident scene under a blanket, because Matt had to hold him in the front seat to keep him from crying. We only rode like that when we were going less than 20 miles per hour. We didn't have much choice. There was nowhere to pull over and he was in meltdown mode.

Skate Park

After a serious rain delay, we were able to get some quality time in at the skate park.

Matt did not scrape or break anything, which was impressive. He normally doesn't skate with a helmut, so we had to go buy one before they would let us in. Unfortunately, they do not have a style that sports one of those Roman Helmet push broom plumes, which would have been cool.

Zach was really digging the action.

Chilling at 13 Saddleback

Zachy likes using Ray as a recliner while watching Uncle Steve kill electronic soldiers on the big screen. It doesn't get any better than this.

Spicy Formula Surprise!

I can't wait to see Zach's reaction when he wakes up and finds out that we've spiked his formula with Tobasco Sauce.

This was recommended by the staff at Chipolte, who said that this would make him start crawling immediately. Either that or the asked if we wanted guacamole with our burrito. I couldn't tell.

Bumblebee on Clover

I got up early the next morning and strapped Zach onto my chest with the Baby Bjorn and took a walk around the neighborhood.

There was a notice of a cockatiel that had gotten loose. You were supposed to let it climb up on your shoulder if you found it, and then call the number on the posters that were on every other light pole.

There were many lots that did not have houses built on them yet, which tended to be covered with clover. The bumblebees were loving this. They don't seem to mind having their photo taken from 2" away with your camera on macro.

Missouri Mines State Historic Site

We stopped by this cool old abandoned mine in Park Hills right around sunset on the way back.

It was late, and closed, but it was an old lead mining & milling complex that was donated to the state to run as a museum. It was open until 1972. My research says they purchased the Federal Mill No. 3 operation in 1923. The complex was built in 1906 by the Federal Lead Company.

The museum was closed by the time we got there, just in time to get some sunset silouhette pictures of what's left of the buildings.

Caledonia

On the way down to Elephant Rocks from St. Louis, we passed through this surprisingly cool little town, with a bunch of restored cottages, neat bed & breakfasts, and antique shops. The place was old, but nicely kept, with the first house on the north end of the town having some awesome plantings.

We were lucky to find it. We almost used GPS navigation, which would have taken us on another route, but used a map at the last minute and took the road less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.

Rockin' the Flip Flops

While Matt was dressed in long jeans, ready for tumbles or spills on the rocks, Kyle not only had short on, but flip flops.

I don't know about you, but I tend to slip out of flip flops.

I was amazed when Kyle made a leap from one boulder to another. His foot first hit on a spot that was at about 45° from verticle, basically climbing up the face of an incline. I would have expected the flip flop to stick and the foot to slide right out of it.

Amazingly, Kyle's catlike moves put him safely on top of the boulder without sliping or taking a spill.

Unfortunately, you couldn't say the same for the soda his dad opened for him in the car later.

Stonecarver's Graffiti

If you were a master stonecarver at the quarry site that later became Elephant Rocks State Park, when you graduated to master stonecarver, you got to sign your name on the rocks on top.

It's sort of the equivalent of stonecarver's graffiti

Man-Eating Tree

This vicious tree was attacking Matt. It tried to swallow him arm first.

Fortunately, he survived.

Bouldering

Do you ever plan to do something and something else unexpected happens?

I thought that Matt and Kyle might be mildly or politely interested in the Elephant Rocks State Park.

Kyle had been there before, in the winter with us when everything was covered by snow. It was interesting to look at, we walked around it once and up to the high point.

I wanted to see what it looked like in the summer, without the snow.



When we arrived, Matt immediately started scaling the huge boulders and jumping from one to the other. I guess that's a little bit like skateboarding, where you go to extremes and try to get the most interesting perspective. I just didn't expect it to be so cool to him.

Actually, it made the place cooler to me, too. Except for the fact that I had a baby strapped to my chest, I wanted to jump on the boulders, too. We'll have to take Zach back when he can climb the rocks and jump from boulder to boulder. I just have to manage to stay fit enough to do it, too.

Elephant Rocks

These are some of the big rocks at the top of the Elephant Rocks State Park.

While there was much quarrying done on the site, the beautiful large boulders at the top of the hill were left intact.

Their resemblance to elephants is what gave the park its name.

Granite Quarry Pit

This is the pit that most of the quarrying was done from in the Elephant State Park site.

It's now a 90' deep pond. That's Matt and Kyle on the other rim.

Captain Adorable

We took a little weekend trip to St. Louis, Zach, Matt, and I.

We went to Elephant Rocks State Park, where we hiked around the granite boulders and took in the sites.

Zach was a good little trooper, and really seemed to enjoy watching the scenery from his perch on my chest.

He was doing his best to live up to the title on his shirt, Captain Adorable. I think he succeeded.

Unity Tower

When I was little, we went over to Unity Village, here on the edge of Lee's Summit, and got to go up in that tower. I was probably 4 years old. I thought it was really cool.

That tower actually houses a water tower for the campus. There are gardens around the base of the tower.

In the old pictures of my brother and I with our mother, she is wearing a hat and white gloves. That's how long ago that was.

Back Through Saguaro Country

Can you believe those big cactuses are over 100 years old? They grow really slow, so when you see an enormous one, it's ancient.

I like this other picture that looks like some kind of nightmare scene in a western where the cowboy is dying of thirst.

Jittery

It makes me jittery just looking at this caffeine island.

How many different kinds of coffee do you need? This place in Oak Village Arizona had about 5 flavors each in caffeinated and decaffeinated versions.

I'll have one of each.

Tower Hawk

Here's a picture one of my Brother's crew took of a Red Tailed Hawk on one of their cell phone towers. I'm not sure if this is one of the babies or the parents.

They do not make good housepets, apparently, and they do not recommend that you let them climb on your forearm unless you have a thick leather gauntlet.

I'm going to name this one Screechy.

Photo by Steve's unnamed buddy