bogen.org

Some notes about our trip to Wisconsin:

• When one travels through the San Francisco airport, one might notice
  that there are exhibits on display in the passenger areas.  These
  exhibits fall into one of two categories:
  1. Art exhibits.

  2. History exhibits.

  As such, if one gets bored in the San Francisco airport, there are
  numerous things to see as one walks around the terminal.  Chicago
  O’Hare (ORD) could take a lesson from SFO in this regard.  ORD has
  almost nothing to do or see.  The extent of mental stimulation
  available in ORD is a dinosaur skeleton replica and CNN’s Airport Network
  (which I despise on the general principal that television didn’t need to
  brought into public areas).

• The traffic lights in Madison, WI are all arranged horizontally instead
  of vertically.  It takes a person some time to adjust to this seemingly
  senseless, non-standard traffic signal placement.

• The University of Wisconsin excels at hiding their information
  center.  Beyond the generally hidden nature of the building itself, the
  signs that supposedly lead to the information center were actually designed
  and placed by a Bostonian with a grudge.  Much like the signs in
  Boston, the signs leading to the UWisconsin information center are designed
  to lead people away from the center.

• A book I found the UWisconsin biology department library:  The
  New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.  Does the world
  really need a shorter dictionary?  How does one make a shorter
  dictionary?  By cutting words or by cutting descriptions?  What
  good is a reference volume that isn’t complete?  Beyond that, I made
  the apparently naive assumption that college students would want a

  longer dictionary, especially one that is a reference volume in a
  library and doesn’t need to be transported on one’s back from class to
  class.

• A men’s room in the biology department building:
  • One toilet
  • Two urinals
  • Ten coat hooks

  Apparently the builders of the bathroom had a student body in mind that
  had a very large number of coats worn daily per capita.

That’s enough for now.  I’ll post some more tomorrow or the next
day.