Fall Colors on Campus 2025

 

Yesterday I worked from home, and Travalon and I walked on Governor's Island at lunchtime. Here's a photo from that walk.

In the afternoon I took a walk around the neighborhood and took some more photos of fall colors.

Supposedly you could see Comet Lemmon at 7:30 last night, so I went back to Bong Road, and my comet app told me exactly where to look. I couldn't see anything through the binoculars, even though they helped me see other stars more clearly. When I took photos with my phone, there were some bright spots, but nothing was obviously a comet, and I couldn't see the bright spots through the binoculars. Very strange. I did enjoy being out in the cold night air in the dark, looking up at the stars. Then I came home and saw people's photos on social media, not just the ones with good cameras but even iPhones like mine, and you could see the comet among the stars. In fact, from the pattern of stars I could see that I was taking pictures of exactly the right spot... but which bright spot in my photo is the comet? I can't see a tail. If I'd been thinking, once everyone at the star party had looked through the telescope at the comet and had lost interest, I could have tried to take a photo through the telescope eyepiece. 

Then I took a photo of my little yellow-orange Beanie Baby bear glowing under blacklight.

Today I worked on campus and walked with Hardingfele at lunch. Here are some photos of fall foliage on campus, where there are some truly spectacular maples right now.

Our new system made me seem crazy today, because I submitted a credit card reconciliation for the hotel for a guest speaker, and the approver sent it back to me and said include the ticket number, since all financial requests from faculty are supposed to go through our new ticketing system. This request was made months before there was a ticketing system, so I added a comment that there was no ticket and resubmitted the reconciliation. The approver sent it back AGAIN and seemed to have added a second comment to include the ticket number. I resubmitted it AGAIN and said see my previous comment, then I direct messaged the approver and said why do you keep asking for a ticket when there isn't one?!? The approver said they had actually asked for more detail, and when I went back into the reconciliation, then I found their second comment asking for more detail in another spot. They sent an email saying it would be better to have a collegial tone with each other, so I apologized for my tone but explained that what I saw seemed to be a repeat of their first comment. Great - I'm already hot-headed enough, I don't need the new system making me yell at people for things they didn't even do. So I'm over here thinking, "F--k you, buddy!" and the approver is over there thinking, "What the f--k is her problem??" This is how the machines will take over the world - by turning us all against each other. 

Famous Hat