Day 87: What a Mess

2026-05-04

Hello! You know, given that today marks the start of exam week, I should be giving myself an excuse to write shorter articles so I can really crunch on my study materials. I forgot what a capacitor is, and I still don't know if Jim Crow is a real person. Off to a great start!

Anyway, this article might be the longest one I've written ever. The longest one so far has been of this tailgate bench from York, Pennsylvania. If you count all the default text that goes with every article (like the technical info, for nerds), that article was 789 words long. I'm going to aim for one thousand words today.

The university had some sort of alumni weekend, I think. People of age were handed cans of alcohol, and the graduates proceeded to drink the night away. When I walked around the day after, cans and scraps littered a central green area, as if a light tornado had picked up a trash bag and scattered it across the entire field.

Here, the cans were collected in one central location, in the middle of a circle of chairs. I can only assume a group of adults had a long chat served by light beer. They must have dumped their waste onto the ground in one pile, thinking that it would be easier to clean up. To be fair to them, the nearest trash bin was, like, thirty steps away. That's too far(!)

Alternatively, they could have been day drinking and I saw the mess mere hours after the party. But I wasn't that late in the day (my records show about two o'clock in the afternoon), with the sun shining in the bright sky. I can't imagine people would start their day drunk, especially if the alumni weekend had a grand ceremony the night before with alcohol.

I don't actually know what happened. The campus was pretty empty when I was walking around, so I can only speculate based on what makes the most sense: a multi-day event organized by the university to attract their alumni with parties and alcohol. The guests were probably herded to a central auditorium or other building by the time I came around to stare at the mess, floating and rolling across the field.

I can't drink; the US has a high legal drinking age compared to other countries with a minimum age of eighteen. The reasoning behind that has been covered in various internet videos and articles, but it doesn't affect me. Soda has been harmful enough to my body, and I can drink it just fine :-).

I'm glad the mess seemed to be isolated to this area, though. When I left the field and continued my walk, I proceeded as normal, humming Turn to Stone by Electric Light Orchestra along the way (an artist who I bought a CD of a week or two ago). Wandering through the university, I found myself at some back roads and nearly thought I was in a staff-only area when I saw high-voltage equipment and accompanying signs.

This is another photo where I try filling the frame and keeping the entire photo of one repeating subject — in this case, a bunch of alcohol cans. I didn't move anything around to stage a shot, especially since local police were walking by and I didn't want to look odd (I didn't expect to be required to show my papers to a government official!) so I just took a photo from a reasonable distance and calmly walked away. The photo was edited in post to show the glistening silver of the cans and the colors printed on the cans' exterior.

This photo is special because I was on a walk and I wondered how often I could take photos that were keepers? In other words, what could be my personal best rate for interesting photos per unit of time?

I don't know. As soon as I left the library, I forgot. Taking a walk allows my mind to wander, and so I'm not concerned with quantity. I'm not particularly concerned with quality either, but that's a different story. Based on no evidence whatsoever, I think I could get a keeper photo every 2.35 minutes for an hour straight.

Don't hold me to that, please. I've got to get back to my studying. Theodore Roosevelt and the gamma rays are waiting for me.

Finally, a web game. Messenger by Abeto got a surprising amount of online coverage, and when I first sent it to my friends, they thought there must be a jumpscare. There isn't. It's just a peaceful browser game where you pass on letters and learn the village's stories.

Also, a preview into the future: I'll be exploring the intersection of food, culture, and games. I don't know what photos I could pull from that experience, but I'll have lots of stories to tell about the antics I get up to in the coming weeks.

(Hey, I've reached exactly one thousand words. Only took me, like, three tangents or diversions.)

Cheers,
David