I loved lots of things about marching band at the University of Nebraska, but one of the subtler pleasures was moving in a week before almost anyone else for the 14-hour days of band camp. I (goofily) felt like the campus was ours and the rest of the students were intruders, coming too late to know the place as well as we did or to pour as much of themselves into it. But I loved their return anyway, because it also meant returning to great friends I hadn’t seen all summer and soaking up the infectious energy that boomed from the loudspeakers at every pep rally and welcome ceremony.
The excitement’s not really aimed at me these days, but it’s hard to avoid when roughly one-third of Fayetteville’s population learns or works at the University of Arkansas. The 27,000 undergrads are a pain to some and a boon to others, as my colleague Stacy Ryburn cheekily wrote for today’s paper, but you can’t deny they have a good time.
Good luck to all of the students, and to the people who have to deal with them. If all goes well, the undergrads will get their names etched into the university’s sidewalks when they graduate, an Arkansas tradition that I caught a glimpse of as I left campus.
Thanks for looking!
Dan
Graduation approaches, which means college campuses everywhere are full of people smiling and posing for cameras. Photographers and soon-to-be-grads and family members crisscrossed the University of Arkansas yesterday in such numbers that they had to queue up at the most popular spots. For the first time, I was one of those photogs. A lovely pair of acquaintances, Ashley and Emily, asked me to take their graduation photos. I tried to warn them I’d never done this kind of thing, surely someone with more equipment could do more, but they just wouldn’t listen.
Not too bad, I hope — this is just a sample of the final product. We’ll see if anyone ever asks me to do grad photos again.
For those celebrating Easter, I hope you had a good one. Among the eggs and the family and the garden shopping these past few days, I also marked the occasion by trying out something a little different. After sticking with a cranky old iPhone 4 for around five or six years, last week I switched to a newer model with 
Not too bad for a 5-ounce machine, though for anyone keeping score at home, a couple of minor marks against: Its zoom is almost worthless, and it has a habit of making everything in the frame in focus, which can clutter things up. Putting the camera through its paces was still a fun little trial.
Viewfinder 