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

Billie's Office

Things have been busy since the semester started at the end of August, but we have a lot of pictures that we've taken since then, so there will be fairly regular posts for a while. Today we have some pictures of Billie's office for you. These pictures were all taken after Billie took over and was able to clean the office a bit, but she is still working on getting things arranged the way she wants them.

This is the outside of the building

Here is the door to the Diakon office

This is the view out into the hallway from Billie's desk

In this picture you can see the map of Berks County that Billie's coworkers put up for her

Billie's desk

And finally, the filing cabinet.

Pennsylvanian Sunset

Billie and I went for a walk after dinner tonight and I took a couple of pictures of the scenery around our apartment.

This is the road that we take to get out of our apartment complex.

And this is the sun setting over a field behind one of the other apartment complexes.

Trip to San Francisco, Volume II

Here are the rest of our pictures from San Francisco, starting with the top of Lombard Street (as promised).

The top of Lombard Street with Coit Tower in the background

The view from a cable car heading toward Fisherman's Wharf. The island is Alcatraz.

We made it to the water eventually

Here is the proof

This is the view of the city from one of the piers

The Golden Gate Bridge was usually shrouded in fog

This is the view from our tour bus as we approached the bridge

After dealing with some cold winds we made it across the bridge

You can see the fog rolling over the top of the hill

The Bay Bridge

And finally, the business district at nightfall

Trip to San Francisco, Volume I

Billie and I went to San Francisco from August 6th to 11th so that I could go to the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. Because I was attending the conference she got to spend quite a bit more time sightseeing than I did. These pictures were taken by both of us while we were there. The other half will be posted tomorrow.

The view of the airport on the way to the subway

The Handlery Hotel where we stayed

Yes, there are hills

Thankfully, there are also cable cars

Nighttime in Chinatown

After dinner in Chinatown

City Hall

The painted ladies

The intersection of Haight and Ashbury

The bottom of Lombard Street

The top of Lombard Street and some bridges are coming up tomorrow.

Today's post concludes the tour of our new apartment with some pictures of the kitchen (click on the pictures for larger versions). You can also see posts covering the bedroom and bathroom, the living room, and the computer areas.

Kitchen 1 before

Kitchen 1 during (yeah, we have a lot of stuff for the kitchen, too)

Kitchen 1 after

Kitchen 2 before

Kitchen 2 during

Kitchen 2 after

Kitchen 3 before

Kitchen 3 during

Kitchen 3 after

And finally, the patio outside our apartment

And the view from the patio