OK, I guess I do have something to relate. While I was stomping and sliding around campus Monday night, I marveled at how things change when you're not paying attention. That construction out on the old Lot 80 is wrapping up, and there's much less in the way of parking deck than I really expected. All the big, open spaces of the campus of my memory have been filled in with vaguely modern brick buildings of mysterious purpose and dubious provenance. There's another building where the old parking lot for North Commons used to be. What do students do for parking on campus any more? There aren't nearly enough parking decks to make up for the lost spots, if I'm calculating properly.

Well, I take that bit about all the big open spaces being gone. The big, empty, le Corbusier-ish lot around the bunker-esque Smeal College of Business building is still empty, except for a few straggly little trees which look like they were planted Oct. 2004 at the latest. Is this an expression of the power and influence of the Smeal College of Business, that it can defend its space against the encroachments of endowment-driven hyperconstruction, or a reflection of the disinterest of the said endowing alumni in putting their names on new buildings for the colorless Smeal College of Business?

They haven't started building anything on Old Main's lawn, have they?