The Mousetrap

Tonight and Saturday night are the last two showings of the Columbian Players production of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap.

The play is classic Agatha Christie. It has murder (one before the play begins, one during the play) and a group of people assembled together, any one of whom could be the killer. The play opened in London in 1952 and is still running, making it the longest running play ever with over 26,000 performances. Christie thought it would run about eight months and gave the rights to her grandson as a birthday present. Some gift.

The SJC production is well acted. It is an enjoyable two hours.

The spring musical will be Guys and Dolls. It will be presented on April 6, 7, and 8.

Slow week

There has not been a lot happening in Rensselaer that I have seen, though there are some interesting things in the area. Iowa Pacific will soon cease operating the Hoosier State and it will be taken over by Amtrak. (See here.) A manure plant is being constructed at Fair Oaks Farms. (See here. It even made Yahoo news.) (For a summary of what else is happening at Fair Oaks Farms, see here.) The Magnetation plant at Reynolds may soon reopen under new ownership. (See here and here.)

Here are a few updates to things recently mentioned.

A lot of progress has been made on the Elza Street apartments.

 A few weeks ago large, circular metal pieces were delivered to the construction site on Lincoln.

 This week they were assembled into a cylinder. I am not sure where that will go--perhaps into the large concrete cylinder.

 Tree cutting and trimming around town continues. The trees on the south east edge of Weston Cemetery are now just stumps.

 I could not resist taking a picture of the many geese in the Babcock Quarry. I think my presence disturbed them because after I took the picture, they all moved to the west.

The part of the former Fashion Bug that is being remodeled is the north part. The wall separating it from the rest of the space is finished and the new space is being divided up into small offices.

Winter returns

Winter has returned with a bit of snow decorating the scenery this morning. We will have below average temperatures for the next few days.

The Elza Street apartments now have a roof and one can see what the building will look like when finished. Soon the exterior may be finished and then there will be no point in taking additional pictures.

The workers are busy on Lincoln Street with the high rate treatment plant but it is very difficult to see what they are doing. Much of the work is inside the structures. Today more concrete was being poured.

Financial problems at Saint Joseph’s College have been reported in the Lafayette paper, WLFI, and the Rensselaer Republican. A letter from the president of the college about the problems has been posted on Facebook.

This is not the first time that SJC has faced crisis. A year or two before I came the Administration Building of the College burned and that loss required many changes that were aided by a large fund raiser. A year or two after I arrived in the mid 1970s they had a financial crisis that resulted in the Board invoking financial exigency, which allowed the College to downsize staff and faculty. For several years after pay was frozen. I hope that SJC is able to figure out a way forward from this crisis as they have in the past.

Primary School Art Exhibit

It is time for the annual primary school art exhibit in the foyer of the Core Building at SJC. Since last year's was the 23 annual, this must be the 24th annual exhibit.

It is always fun to see what projects the teachers are giving the students. Does anyone remember the Op Art?

The snowmen drawing is an exercise in perspective.

A little pop-art pointillism is fun.

This was as close to zentangle art that I found. (The Jasper County Public Library has a zentangle event on February 8 with limited seats available.)

More than one school was doing foil reliefs.

I have learned a lot about symmetry in the past couple years. This picture attempts to illustrate reflective or mirror symmetry, where one half the image is a reflection of the other half.

Except for the R, the other letters in the word "symmetry" can all be formed with symmetry, though the S will have two-fold rotational symmetry, not mirror symmetry. Besides R, letters J and P cannot be formed with symmetry unless they are very oddly shaped.

The awards ceremony for the exhibit will be February 5.

Two planning meetings

On Monday evening (1-23-2017) the Jasper County Plan Commission met. They elected the same officers for 2017 as they had for 2016 and they decided to move the March meeting, if needed, to March 20 to avoid a conflict with spring breaks for local schools.

The first item on the agenda was a rezone from residential to agricultural for land in Wheatfield Township. This item had originally come before the Commission in July (see the background here) and  because there were questions about the archeology of the site, had been continued until a survey was done. The item was back on the agenda again in September and continued, and now there was a request to continue it until the March meeting. The Commission voted to deny the continuance. That means the process, including notifying neighbors, must start again. The Commission felt that too much time had elapsed since the case began and that those interested in the hearing would not be aware of it.

The second item was a rezone in Walker Township but the petitioner had not gotten the notice in the newspaper by the appropriate time so the case could not be heard.

The Commission voted to have a public-comment item added to the agenda for future meetings.

Below is a picture of the Babcock Quarry, which has no relation at all to anything else in this post. Here is a link to a picture of the quarry in early August, 2016. The water has risen noticeably since then.

On Tuesday night the Rensselaer Advisory Planning Commission met to discuss an amendment to the original platt of the Biddle Subdivision, which is located south of the CSX tracks on the east side of Mattheson Street. The developer, James Shanley, wanted to combine ten lots that front Mattheson into five lots. The original lots were 80' by 120' and the new lots would be 160' by 120', which would make them a bit less than half an acre each. The proposed change was approved unanimously.

This was a new group for me. I do not think they meet often.