It was my first day back from spring break today and it was a wild one. I started the day with a meeting about a door handle (this is true and there were a lot of people in attendance) and ended it in the now empty machine shop in the basement of Space Science. In between I had a fruitful visit to Abercrombie and I was also overjoyed to find several boxes and envelopes that came on the mail while I was gone and which are full of marvelous photographs. (Much more about these after I’ve had time to digest them.) It was a very good day and a pretty one too.

Somewhere in the middle of all this I was walking along the back side side of Rayzor Hall minding my own business when I noticed a small hole near the sidewalk. Upon closer inspection it turned out to contain a surveying mark:

I was instantly on the lookout for the crew (like pole vaulters, they’re always photogenic) and I was not disappointed. As soon as I turned the corner into the quad I saw equipment but no people:

Follow the trail and you eventually always find the people:

They were working in the Engineering Quad, focused on the trees:

I have long since reached the point where everything I see at Rice reminds me of something else. This reminded me of a photograph I had scanned several years ago because I was interested in the process of preparing for the installation of 45° 90° 180°. I didn’t notice until fairly recently that there’s a surveying class working the Engineering Quad:

And I can’t walk through this space without thinking of my friend Carl Knapp ’16 in front of the Mech Lab way back at the beginning:

Everything is different and nothing changes.

Bonus: A more profound transformation took place over break on a tree in front of Tudor Fieldhouse. (Thanks to Nancy Rowe and Jon Rodriguez from FE&P!)