Tour of the New PNI

The Psychology Wing of the New PNI

25 July 2012

The new Princeton Neuroscience Institute won't be ready until a year from now, but today I got a tour of the building and what will eventually be our lab space.

 View from the foot path on Washington Road

This was parking lot #20.  Now it's the construction entrance.

The guts of the building, exposed for now

The tunnel to CIL.  We're gonna need it because the new PNI will have no cafeteria.

The main stairway from "A Level" to the first floor (Level 1).  The building is on a hill, with a 30 foot elevation difference from the ground floor to the first floor.  The ground and first floors are both on the ground.

A future classroom?

A stairwell in a "light tunnel," lit only by ambient light and windows on the top floor

These stairs will be enclosed.

 Construction near the main entrance

Another light tunnel

Hallelujah!  The student office doors will have locks after all!

View from a student office on Level 1

Conference room and kitchen on Level 1, near our lab space

This might be the office associated with our lab.

The offices will have high ceilings.

This is the corner office, which is coveted or maligned, depending on point of view.  Less storage space, more light.  Covet.

The corner office has a view of the soccer field and what will be the parking lot.

The student offices on this side of the building face the soccer field and will get plenty of afternoon light.

This will be our lab.

There will be windows between the lab and the hallway in order to let outside light in.

Our lab space is next to a stairwell.

In another corner will be a small lounge.

 Unfinished southern view

This will be an animal room.  At the moment it looks like a monk's study.

 

The tunnel being backfilled

 View from the entrance, facing north

View of the entrance

Your Rims are So Hot!

 A farm by a church on Emley's Hill Road last week.  

It has nothing to do with this post. 

Well, maybe something.  The corn is still blooming. 

23 July 2012

Tom dragged us up Schooley's Mountain again on Saturday.  Dragged me, anyway.  I was having one of those days where, if Moxie hadn't jumped on my stomach minutes after my alarm went off, I'd have fallen back asleep and missed the ride.  I was having one of those days that left me with just enough energy to get up the hills, but not so little that I was dreading every mile.  The spirit was willing but the legs were elsewhere.  That's better than the other way around, though.  Tired legs can be ignored.  A tired mind, not so much.

We started with seven:  Tom, Jack H., Ron, Ed, Lynne, me, and The Guy With Two Flats Who Turned Around.  At Hoffman's Crossing, the Guy With Two Flats Who Turned Around turned around.  Before the Guy With Two Flats Who Turned Around turned around, Tom and I waited for him at the top of the hill.  

Tom got out his camera.

"It won't work," I said.  "It comes out flat.  I keep trying."

"I know," he said, and tried anyway.  So did I. 

"I do better with this," I told him, turning to our right.

Tom turned back to find the Guy With Two Flats Who Turned Around.  I went ahead.  Everyone was waiting at the bottom by the river.  I rode up to the metal bridge.  We've never gone across.  There was plenty of time for pictures.

Tom coasted down the hill alone.  We passed through Califon without stopping and climbed the ridge to the west of the river.  He took us up Pleasant Grove, which, as far as we can tell, has the only view from the top of Schooley's Mountain.  I took a picture of it once.  I didn't bother this time; it's impossible to tell that we're at the top of much of anything.  Being out of breath doesn't translate to pixels very well.

At the rest stop, the Schooley's Mountain General Store, Tom told us that, after talking to me about possibly doing a hilly century, he'd come up with a diabolical route:  10,000 feet of climbing in 100 miles.  Yeah, uh, no.

We passed Our Lady of the Mountain church again.  Phyllis (where art thou?) got that title for being first up the hill the first time we were all here.

Our descent into the Raritan valley was via Middle Valley Road.  This is the one with the 5 mph speed limit on the hairpin turn at some obnoxious percent grade.  This is the hill that prompted Tom to respond, when Michael H. suggested we climb back up some day, "Not without a jet pack."  I was grabbing my brakes the whole way down.

I had to shake out my hands at the bottom.  "Feel my rims," I told Tom.

"I don't know you that well," he replied, nearly burning himself on my wheels.

What goes down must come up, and we did, to the ridge north of Califon, via Beacon Hill, a slog that put me in my granny gear.  Down Frog Hollow and a left on Beavers.  I knew what was coming; only he and I did.  "You are evil!"  I shouted up to him.  "Evil!"  Back into the granny.

We got a reward, though.  He gave us the Fox Hill descent.  I've taken pictures from here before, but never when the corn flowers were blooming.

My feet were sticking to the ground.  Even though it wasn't very hot out, the tar beneath us was melting.

Archaeologists are going to marvel at this strange, cleated animal.

Ah.  There's the corn.

OK, Jim.  You can stop hitting "refresh" now.

Adirondacks 2012 Part 3: More Photos

I never saw this chicken.

(photo by Don G.)

17 July 2012

In my haste to put the Adirondack pictures up, I left out all the ones I'd taken with my cell phone.

First is a rustic bed frame for sale in North Creek, fashioned in traditional Adirondack style.  Yuck.  I mean, do I really need to be poking my eyes out with antlers every time I sit up?

Feeling restless and having eaten too much after a day of doing nothing, Jeff, Marilyn, and I went for a walk after dinner.  Jeff had seen a dirt road leading into the woods from the driveway.  I charged up it, Jeff behind me, Marilyn reluctantly waiting by the road.

It didn't lead anywhere exciting.  We found ourselves in the septic leach field for the Gore Village condos.

Nevertheless, Jeff was King of the Mountain.

We told Marilyn she didn't miss much, which she agreed with when I showed her the pictures.  We continued down the driveway and across the street.  We knew the Hudson was somewhere close to the road.  Marilyn wanted to find it.  Behind the gas station the land dipped down.  We followed a gravel road past a power transmission station. 

We were near water, but it wasn't the river.  It was a pond and we were probably trespassing.

Marilyn stood by the water and listened.

"Goonk!"

Frogs!

"Goonk!"

And pretty weeds.  And biting flies.  The only way to keep them off of us was to keep moving.

Wearing only sandals, Jeff was getting gravel between his toes.  The dirt road narrowed and sloped upward.  I turned around for this picture.

Looking forward, we could see a mountain.

It wasn't getting any closer.  Jeff finally convinced us to turn around.

The air was thick with flies and humidity.

To the south the sky was still blue.  To the north it threatened rain.  We made it back to the condos before the first shower.  Two deer flies managed to make a good meal of my right trapezius.  'Sallright.  I was on vacation.  I wasn't using it anyway.

Here's one more picture of the Flower House.  I used my cell phone for this one so that I could email it to Kevin.  He collects pictures of doors.

The day after our hike, as we were wandering the Adirondack Museum, we came across this early map of the region.

I told Jeff that he needs to take us there next year.

OK.  So now we have to go back in time to my first trip to North Creek.  We took a bike ride and got a little rained on.  I had my camera, but I was, apparently, the only one who didn't see the Giant Chicken across Route 8.

The following year we passed it again, supposedly.  I didn't see it.  I began to have my doubts.

Last year our ride got rained out.  No Giant Chicken.

This year we took a shorter route. If there was a Giant Chicken along the way, I never saw it.

But.

As we were returning from the Adirondack Museum, we passed Don when we pulled into the driveway.  He beckoned us to stop so that he could show me something.

In the course of running errands, Don had found himself on Route 8.  He got out of his car and took these pictures just to prove to me that there is, indeed, a Giant Chicken of the Adirondacks.  Thanks, Don.