Three Beautiful Things 01/08/11: I'm in Charge, College Hill Photos, Best Burger in Fifty-Seven Years

1. Before shooting photos, Russell and I sat down at Yi Shen and I got a few things off my chest about how unfair I think it is that my place of employment offers too few sections of WR 121 and how I handle the demand for unenrolled students trying to get in the course.  I'm strict about unenrolled students.  They can't come in my classroom.  I tell them that however I decide to will get a seat, it will be unfair.  The whole situation is unfair so I can't pretend to be fair within it.  It's like I tell my students as I lay down how I will conduct class and present the course:  "I'm not a control freak.  I'm in charge."  Russell got a kick out of that.

2.  We went to the top of College Hill where the Eugene Water and Electric Board owns a large cement reservoir and where the neighborhood is nice to take pictures.  I left our time up there thinking I left a lot of pictures not shot and want to go back when the view of Spencers Butte is more promising.  I didn't take any shots of the Butte today.  Here are a couple shots.  In this first one, the subject of the picture is Russell.  He's the figure at the far right of the picture.  I'm experimenting with making existentialism visual.  (I'm always wanting to do this, by the way):

 

I got really interested (obsessed) with these red berries and took quite a few pictures of them.  Here's an example:

3.  The Deke and I ate the best hamburger each of us had ever had for dinner -- and they were homemade.  The Deke brought home LaBrea Ciabatta Rolls from the store and I toasted them, grilled two patties of Painted Hills hamburger on the George Foreman grill, and we each constructed our own burgers.  Mine featured bacon and sharp cheddar cheese and one of my mom's dill pickles, the Deke's sweet onion and dill pickle.  We rounded out our meal with scrumptious sweet potato fries.