Water Heaters
Here on the St. Thomas campus, Cretin, Grace, and Loras hall were all designed by architect Cass Gilbert. Even though this is a common known fact, I was surprised to learn we live in buildings designed by such a prominent name in architecture. The part of the story that most people don’t know, however, is that James J. Hill, the railroad tycoon owner of the Great Northern Railroad and resident of St. Paul donated some of the money to build these buildings. For this reason, there were originally four 5-story red brick buildings, lined up and quite close to one another and built to resemble the boxcars on a railway train. Unfortunately, we are missing one so the effect is not nearly as strong, but these relics of 1895 continue to surprise and fascinate me as they come with all the marks of character of really old buildings. No floor is exactly the same, few rooms are identical, the ceilings are high, and the windows are big. It’s truly a unique experience to live here.
On that note, I was sitting at the computer reading zeldman.com today and heard a strange sound, it was a loud and rather persistent hissing like air being let of a tire. Naturally, I got up to investigate. Turns out it was the bleeder valves on the radiators shooting warm streams of air to make way for the hot water. That’s one of the things they have kept here since the 1890’s: hot water heat. It felt really strange that I didn’t know radiators do that the first time they are turned on - you really start to realize the age of the building when you don’t even understand it’s heaters.
Some thoughts from Philosophy. On Buddha, “Can I be enlightened? You can’t because there’s no you. When you stop worrying about yourself and realize you don’t exist, you can be enlightened.” On the wrong questions, “Of course you can ask the wrong questions. It’s like a guy who comes in with an arrow in his neck and the doctor asks ‘So, where exactly were you standing when this happened? How is arthritis? Have you been eating plenty of vegetables? Some questions are just wrong.” This class sure is thought provoking - I feel like my narrow view of the world has been stretched and stretched and it feels good to see other views and criticize my own. Maybe liberal arts isn’t such a bad idea after all.
What is better, 100 acquaintances or a few close friends? Why?