You may be asking yourself, "What is the significance of this empty office?" Well, I'll tell you--Room 111 of the University of Arkansas-Monticello (UAM) forestry building was my workspace for almost 12 years of my career with the US Forest Service. This picture was taken this morning after I had swept the floors clean. My old office is now empty, with the notable exception of the fellow below:
This large spider was none too happy to have its living space disturbed (I'm glad it was behind my shelves!). We are moving out of our current space because of an expansion and remodeling effort on the forestry building complex. Below, you can see the new forestry building annex being built at the end of the old (1950s vintage) building we were housed in:
Once they finish this new annex and the remodeling on a different part of the building, they will come back and remodel the old building we were in, and in a year or so we'll move back onto campus. However, until then we'll be housed in this nondescript office space near downtown Monticello:
We will be in the middle office. Below is a picture of my new office, which is about the same size as my old office:
Pardon the mess--I haven't fully unpacked yet... So far, the space seems like it will be adequate, although I don't have a window, which is disappointing. Only another year to go...
We have been doing other things to keep us busy. Last weekend we were in Fort Smith, Arkansas, for the annual Arkansas Archeological Society meeting. I attended talks and gave one myself, and Hope was the proud recipient of a certificate of merit for her work on our local chapter's newsletter. Hope also took the kids around the area, which included a ride on a local trolley:
They also visited Fort Smith National Historic Park, which was right next to the hotel we were staying at. Fort Smith is on the Arkansas/Oklahoma border, and for much of the 1800s was the primary access into what was then known as "Indian Territory". Fort Smith had military garrisons and other federal facilities and is famous for its "hanging" Judge Issac Parker and the US marshals that helped patrol the area (the book and movie "True Grit" were based in this area). Below, the kids see the wrong side of a jail cell:
Yesterday, we went to a nearby small town named Fordyce and checked out some local sites, including some antique stores and a historic steam train engine:
Here's a picture of our boys with some of their friends playing video games at a recent party we hosted:
Note how the boys couldn't be disturbed from their video games, with the exception of Stephen, who's always up for hamming to the camera.
I have tomorrow off (Columbus Day holiday), so we're going to continue to work on our house, which mostly involves finishing up a remodel of the guest rooms, which is to become our new master bedroom...
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