Animated Joyce

We're creating animated gifs in Digital Imaging (.gif is a file format for simple animations), and I made this one today for fun.  It's really quick and easy; you can do it right in photoshop.  It basically works like a stop motion film.

Alvira

I've been home on break this past week, and on Tuesday Joyce and I went out to the former town of Alvira. The short version of the story is, in 1942, the valley where Alvira was was chosen as the site of the Pennsylvania Ordnance Works, a TNT manufacturing plant meant to supply the US army. The residents of Alvira and the surrounding area were forced to sell their land for low prices and find other places to live. The government promised them that they would be able to buy the land back when the plant closed, but even though it closed after operating for only eleven months, hardly any of the people actually got their land back.  All the town buildings were destroyed, and today there are just old foundations, rubble, and tons of TNT storage bunkers.  Most of the land is now state game lands, although some of it belongs to the Allenwood Federal Prison Complex.

For the long version of the story, go here:  http://www.sungazette.com/page/content.detail/id/525751.html.

Today, you can go to the game lands and see the site of the former town.  My main purpose of this post is to share some of the photos I took, because I think they're pretty cool and there really aren't a lot of pics. of Alvira online that I've found.  So, here a few of the best.

 One of the many bunkers; most are locked up now.

 Looking down an old well . . .

 . . . which is inside here.

 The Montgomery Area Historical Society put up markers where all the houses were.

Another old well . . .

. . . with what looks like newsprint on the stone?  This really intrigues me; I don't understand it at all . . . if anyone can explain to me what this is, I would really appreciate it!

Someone found all this old glass and left it here.

The most intact thing we saw; it might've been a church?

This open bunker was set back from the main road.

Kind of spooky inside, and really echoey; Joyce had a lot of fun.

The entrance to Washington Cemetery.

It's in pretty bad shape.

It's summer

Hi. I don't even know who still reads this, but I have a random half hour to spend, so I thought I'd just write a quick update.

Sophomore year is over. I was done on Monday the 3rd and came home on the 4th. It's a weird feeling, being halfway done with college. It's just not right. I'm really glad to be done with schoolwork, but I miss Houghton. I would have loved to stay for Mayterm, but it didn't work out with my Europe trip. So here I am, back home. I like being home, but of course there are things I don't like too, which I won't get into. It is good to be back.

Unfortunately, I don't have a job. I applied to five places over Easter break, and I hadn't heard from any, so yesterday I stopped by four of them. The first two said they didn't need me, at the third the girl there said the manager would call me (she hasn't yet) and at the fourth the line was too long to wait in. Since I haven't heard anything, I'm assuming none of them want me. The first two (who said they definitely don't need me) were my best options, so now I'm not sure what I'm going to do. A local McDonald's is hiring, but I really really don't want to work there. Mom was suggesting just looking for odd jobs, which is a possibility, but I probably wouldn't make much money doing that.

So far since I've been home I've been really lazy--sleeping a lot, watching Lost (which some of my friends from Houghton recently got me into), playing games with Joyce, reading for fun. And it has been nice just to be able to relax, but I know it'll get old after a while. Last summer I was really bored and unhappy, and I don't want this summer to be like that. So if I can't get a job I'm planning to volunteer at a local animal shelter, which is something I've wanted to do for years. It'll help them out and keep me busy and get me out of the house, even if I won't be making money.

So yeah, I guess that's pretty much it for now. It's warm here, but not hot yet, and I like it.