Reflections on a Winter's Day, With Bicycle

My work adventures on this day took me onto campus for a noon meeting. The event was to occur at the (relatively new) Earth-Engineering Sciences (EES) building on west campus. To get there, I parked at the Nittany Lion Inn and walked down the hill and across the Information Sciences and Technology (IST) building that spans Atherton Street.

The IST building is one of my favorite buildings on campus. It is all lines and reflections and light. I welcome any chance to go there. I visit it in different light, at different times of day. I take pictures. Many pictures. Mostly pictures of the reflections, which are irresistible and ever-changing.

In this particular photo, you can see the red brick in front of me (reflected to my right on the IST building's glass windows) of the EES building where my lunch meeting would be held.

The IST building's walkway is where I was standing to take this shot. And interestingly enough, while the building bends off to the left, the glass windows reflect the building's own self back onto it there in the center/right of the shot.

The reflection changes the world it sees. The image to the right is more color saturated, with deeper blues than the original, that made me think of Greece (a place I've never been, but I've seen pictures). In that window is a world like ours, only slightly transformed . . .

But why did I pick this photo out of the many reflection shots I took? Because of that bicycle sitting in the sun.

I was looking at it thinking how lovely it looked, and then my common sense kicked in and I shivered. WHO would ride a bicycle at this temperature!? For it has been just frigid here lately, with temps on this day barely climbing out of the single digits F.

And so the day's song is dedicated to that bicycle sitting there in the sun. And to its reflection to my right, which lives under a bluer sky, in another (and one hopes slightly warmer) world. Queen, Bicycle Race. (I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike . . . )