Around Reading: Joanna Furnace

Back on October 10th, Billie and I went to the Hay Creek Apple Festival at Joanna Furnace. (Billie wants you to know that we did not eat any apple-related goods at the festival.) Joanna Furnace is only a few miles down the road from our apartment and was used to make iron from the late 1700s until the late 1800s. The sky was overcast and the ground was muddy but the rain had stopped earlier in the morning so we decided to go and check it out. Here are a few pictures so that you can see what you're missing:

The entrance. Try to contain your excitement.

The saw mill

The cider press.

This building said it was a stable, but it was used as a kitchen since a lot of the food vendors were on the other side.

The casting house (on the right) is getting a new roof. The grass on the ground inside of it will surely be disappointed.

There were also lots of flea-market-type vendors selling things that weren't apple-themed at all!

If You've Ever Shopped at Witbeck's or the Twining store...

Here is a store in the Reading area that you might appreciate:

Brent's New Car

Since I escaped graduate school with no debt and I'm finally getting paid actual money, I decided that I should probably incur some. Well, that and the fact that the Malibu was likely to need new tires, shocks/struts, and wheel bearings in the next six months. Essentially, I had to choose between keeping the Malibu and running it into the ground, since repairs in the next six months would cost as much as it was worth, and buying a new car while my old one was still worth something (unfortunately, its relatively good gas mileage prevented it from qualifying as a clunker).

Anyhow, the Malibu has been replaced with a 2010 Ford Fusion. (Yes, it is nice that Ford is an "American" company, but before any of you get too excited you should keep in mind that the Fusion is hecho en Mexico, unlike Billie's Altima which was built in Tennessee.) That's enough writing for now, on to the pictures!

Old and new

Front 3/4 view

Side view (these captions clearly assume you have the IQ of a rock)

Rear view, complete with a PA license plate that conveniently (and coincidentally) starts with HGR

A view of the interior

The dash

The glowing gauges. At night everything lights up in light blue.

Around Reading: The Fire Tower

Like the pagoda, the William Penn Memorial Fire Tower is also located on Mt. Penn and visible from most of Reading. After a coworker reported being able to climb to the top of the tower, Billie and I stopped there on the day we went to the pagoda but the tower was closed. We later discovered that it is only open on the third Saturday of every month. September 19 was clear and sunny, so we headed up to Mt. Penn to try again. This time, we were in luck. Here is the proof:

The tower, open for business.

Billiem Penn, standing outside of her tower.

The view of downtown Reading from the top of the fire tower

The Reading Railroad! (If you've been pronouncing this like "reading a book" when you play Monopoly, you've been pronouncing it wrong.)

Albright College (you can see the football stadium in the middle of the picture). When we went to homecoming, we took a picture of the fire tower from the stadium.

The stairway on the way down. You can see Billie looking up at me.

Brent on the Oregon Trail

Okay, I didn't actually travel on the Oregon Trail, but I did go to Oregon from September 11-13 for a friend's wedding. The bride was Kaci Agle, who I have known since I spent an inordinate amount of time during high school hanging out at her house with her sister Sarah and various other people. Kaci and Sarah moved to Oregon in 2002 and I've been meaning to visit ever since. Kaci's wedding finally gave me an excuse to buy the plane ticket.

Here I am standing on top of a rock near the top of Mary's Peak. Sarah decided that a picture was in order.

One of the views from Mary's Peak. Sarah drove me to the top and back down safely, though I would have appreciated some guardrails.

Sarah and Kaci

George and Kaye

Kaci and Chris

Clouds rolling over the mountains on the morning I left.

Around Reading: The Pagoda

One of the Reading landmarks is the pagoda on Mt. Penn. Mt. Penn runs along the Eastern side of the city and the pagoda can be seen from just about anywhere in town that trees don't block the view. This is also true at night when the pagoda is lit with red lights. Billie and I had visited the pagoda on our trip to Reading in March, but this time there were leaves on the trees and it was open. Inside is a small gift shop and some displays, along with stairs leading to the bell at the top. Here are some pictures:

The pagoda from the parking area

Looking up from the southeastern corner

The bell at the top of the pagoda

The view of downtown Reading from the top of the pagoda

Billie standing in front of Reading

Brent's Office

Since we've already covered Billie's Office, today we have mine. Unlike Billie, I had the benefit of a clean slate to work with.

The outside of the door, which is not very exciting. The nameplate is nice, though.

Entering the office you can see the wrinkly curtains I put up. I assume that after a few years those wrinkles will take care of themselves.

Unfortunately, my desk is no longer this clean. Picture a few piles of papers and books and you'll get a better idea of my workspace.

The "comfy chair" that I intend to use for reading if I ever have time to read. The bookshelves are pretty empty (it seemed like I had a lot more books when they were in our apartment).

There is now a clock on the wall in this picture. You can also see a bit of the closet door behind the office door. I have two deep closets for holding things like folders and filing cabinets.

And finally, the view from my window.

Happy Birthday, Billie

Billie turns 27 today. Did you send her a card?

Homecoming 2009

Breaking our normal tradition, this post contains pictures that are not a month or two old. Yesterday was Albright's homecoming and the weather was in the 70s and sunny so Billie and I went to the game. The Division-III football experience was quite a bit different than attending a game in the Big 10, even though IU is not known for its football team. For starters, Albright's stadium only seats 5,000 people. As a point of comparison, Central Michigan's stadium seats over 30,000 and Indiana's stadium seats over 50,000 (of course, U of M's stadium seats over 100,000). This is not to say that Albright's stadium isn't nice. It is just different. The most jarring difference was that Albright does not have a marching band. After five years of having season tickets to IU basketball games, it is strange to be at a sporting event without a band to provide energy. Of course, I wouldn't expect you to rely on my description, so we also took a few pictures:

The view of the home stands - this side seats 3,000.

Just after the coin toss. You can see Mt. Penn in the background. If you look carefully at the skyline, you can see the fire tower that we'll post more about in a couple of weeks.

This is the Albright Lion. Billie thinks that he looks kind of mangy, but he is definitely better than Indiana's non-existent mascot. I think that he is also better than Penn State's rabid-dog-looking Nittany Lion.

He also has a mullet.

The final score was Albright 43, Wilkes 21. Albright is now 4-0 for the season.

Around Reading: Gring's Mill

Now that we've been in Reading for a while, we've had a bit of time to get out of the house (and out of the apartment complex). On Saturday, September 5 we went to Gring's Mill, which has a walking trail along the river, a covered bridge, and some other park-type things. Here are some pictures:

Some headquarter-like buildings

The river

Unfortunately, this is not our house

The Berks County Heritage Center inside the park (there is apparently a Heritage Festival that takes place here)

The covered bridge, currently closed to vehicles

Inside the covered bridge