Author: Robby Poore (Page 1 of 3)

Visited: Oct 25, 2024 9am-12pm

Overall rating : 4.6

Comfort: 4

Electricity: 4

View: 5

Wifi: 5

My mother used to drag my brother and I to libraries everywhere we went to visit as kids, and we used to hang out at our local Mesa Public Library in Los Alamos New Mexico for hours on the weekends. I like the quiet, but also the people. Davis is a real hubbub of activity; there are 8 floors jam packed with books and students, and the bottom, lobby level is a great place with big windows and ample tables and chairs.

I worked for several hours in the room just to the right of the front door, which has tall ceilings and tables with power, and for about 2 hours I assumed this was the only place to study…but during a quick break I wandered to the back of Davis to discover another room just as big and maybe even a little better than the front room. While I was there my mother, the esteemed nedieval historian Dr. Anne Van Arsdall, even came to pay me a visit!

This library aparently has spaces on every floor except the 2nd (?), and the 6th floor is silent. Further research is needed!

Looking towards the main door of Davis

The big room at the front door of Davis Library

The side of Davis that I didn’t work in—but I will soon!

Overall rating : 4.78

Comfort: 5

Electricity: 5

View: 4

Wifi: 5

Happy University Day! This is the day the 13th Chancellor of UNC, Lee H. Roberts, gets installed as Chancellor. After riding my bike by the heavily policed Memorial Hall (note: there are planned protests today by pro-Palestinan protesters) I descended on the Health Sciences Library to see what working there would be like. I’d heard that this is a great quiet spot, and right in the middle of the medical complex, and this library proved to be pretty great. Nice new furniture and carpet, task lighting, and plenty of places to duck away and focus. I was especailly enamored with the little white pods: they are facing the wall and probably a delight for introverts, they have power, task lighting, and a plastic screen surrounding the back and sides. The desk swings out and tilts back as well. They even have ottomans! Nice spaces, and there are maybe a dozen spread out in the basement. Make sure to to explore all the corners, there are several group-study places with excellent large lights above them. There are even some whiteboards on wheels that you can use.

This place is awesome, but in the basement there are no windows, so not much of a view per se, so I gave that a 4. However, don’t let that dissway you, it’s an excellent place to focus and get deep work done.

And on a personal note, I was born just one hundred feet away—back in the 1960s the maternity ward was just inside the emergency room entrance at UNC Hospitals, which is where the Health Sciences Library stands now (according to my mother!).

The Health Science library is open Monday through Thursday from 8am to 5pm, Friday from 8am to 8pm, and Sunday from 12pm to 8pm.

The inside view of my little white pod. Note task light and scenic view of the wall.

One of the hidden group-study areas in the basement of the Health Sciences Libary. Love the huge light!

Several of these little white cubes are in the basement of the Health Sciences Library

At the bottom of the stairs at the Health Sciences Libarary are some desks as well.

Visited 10/4/24, 9:00 am – 1 pm

Overall rating : 4

The entrance to the Art Library is located on the first floor of the Hanes Art Center, next to the Ackland Art Museum. Enter the building through the east entrance (facing Swain Lot) or the main entrance (facing Kenan Music Building).

The study space is nice and has impressive windows looking out over the courtyard. I didn’t find the downstairs particularly hospitable, I felt a bit like I was imposing, perhaps that has to do with I’m staff and considerably older than anyone there. I went to the upstairs and worked for several hours in a grad student cubicle, near a rarely found power outlet (my laptop seems to not hold much of a charge these days). The view was nice… but the carrels are older and tall, so they block the view of the campus. This is probably for good reason, to help the art history student focus on Vasari’s historys of the great Renaissance artists, maybe? Still, overall a nice place on a nice part of North campus.

The wifi was solid and I did get a bunch of work done. Not too many students before noon, as I’d expect on a Friday.

Comfort: 4

Electricity: 3

View: 4

Wifi: 5

First Floor

Second Floor

Outdoor Space

Study spot on the 2nd floor of Sloane Art Library. One of the few outlets was here on that pole. The carrels kinda get in the way of the view (this is both good and bad, imho)

Study carrel. Note obstructed view of chapel

First floor of Sloane Art Library. Nice desks and chairs, but lacking more power for my pathetic laptop battery.

The lovely outside entrance of Sloane Art Libary.

Visited: 9/6/24, 9:30 am – 1pm

Overal rating 3.25

Directions; Find the elevators in FedEx Global on the ground floor (note: coffee shop on ground floor!), go to the 4th floor. There are two parts of the rooftop, one to the right (with beehives) and one straight ahead. I went to the one straight ahead.

I had read about this location in Sophia Raspanti’s “11 Hidden Study Spots To Check Out!” post on Carolina Housing, so I was dying to check it out. How can I resist a rooftop? It’s pretty bare-bones, metal chairs and tables that are somewhat weathered, and there is only one outlet, with no power. The rooftop has a wall so it’s hard to see much off the edge, although the trees are nice. It’s reasonably quiet, too. The wifi was spotty, and no power outside, so if you have an aging laptop like I do, you’ve gotta not use power-hungry apps! The garden wasn’t so great, it didn’t look tended. There was a beehive or two, which was nice, but I didn’t inspect them closely. There is a small enclosed lobby right when you get out of the elevator, I believe this has power and a couple of tables, but there’s a conference room right there, so you might get interrupted if there’s an event. I noticed that while I was there, in the morning, it was nice and cool in the shade. I believe this is a west-facing patio, so I’d imagine by midday it’ll get sunny, so it might be hotter in the afternoon.

Comfort: 3

Electricity: 1

View: 3

Wifi: 3

FedEx Global Rooftop

FedEx Global Rooftop

Visited: 8/23/24 9am – 1pm

Overall rating: 5

Behind Meantime Coffee in the Campus Y is a card-access room called the Anne Queen Room. It’s primarily restricted to staff and faculty, is a reasonably quiet place, and is in a fantastic location on campus. Very high ceilings and long wooden tables, and a good variety of desk spaces and comfy chairs. I’d think a quiet zoom call with headphones would be okay: several people were doing so when I was there.

The tall windows allow for a lot of light to pour into the space, and I love the cream colored walls and dark trim. It’s a little less formal than other places, so it’s relaxing. Lots of power outlets around. This was an impressive first stop in my location adventure!

Anne Queen Room at the Campus Y

Comfort: 5

Electricity: 5

View: 5

Wifi: 5

Visited: 9/20/24, 9:30 am – 1pm

Overal rating 4.5

A lovely oaken walled location on the main quad and right between Morehead Planetarium and Franklin St. The large lobby is filled with comfy couches and big chairs, and several old wooden desks. The walls are all old polished oak and there are candelabras lighting the space. The floor is an old patterend wood  floor, and the ceilings are high and have recessed white panels. The space is mostly illuminated with large arched windows with old wavy glass, and you can look out on Morehead Planatarium and the Chapel just beyond it.

Here’s some info on Graham Memorial, built in 1931, “the building originally functioned as a student union. In consideration of the student union as the center of student life on campus, the building committee selected the site of the burned University Inn on McCorkle Place. The completed student union included the Horace Williams Library, a barber shop, a bowling alley, and game room, as well as offices for student publications.” In 1968 this became the Dramatic Arts Department, and then in 1992 became the Johnson Center for Undergraduate Excellence.

Comfort: 4

Electricity: 5

View: 5

Wifi: 4

Graham Memoiral

Graham Memorial, one of the two oaken desks you’ll find

Graham Memorial

(ratings: 1 is not very good, 5 is excellent)

In my 24 (!) years at UNC I’ve mostly worked on the edge of campus—at the amazing School of Government—and I’ve made a point to explore the lovely and expansive campus. Coming back from the covid pandemic allowed me the flexibiltiy to work remotely, and although my current department, UNC Creative, is 4-days a week in the office, I take one day a week to work somewhere on campus and enjoy the facilities and amenities that UNC-Chapel Hill has to offer. I’ve got a rudimentary and not-so-scientifc method of ranking each location by comfort, noise level, power for laptops, wifi, and accessibility. Please send suggestions my way!

Gig posters and hungry kids at Big Bad Wolf near Nashville, TN

Cool tour bus for Hall of The Elders, from Atlanta, who are headed for the Van’s Warped Tour.

July 8, 2017

Our last day! Pretty much a big blast across Tennessee. We woke up and had a quick breakfast, then packed the car and were on our way. The trees got taller, the air more humid, and we passed through Nashville around lunch. We couldn’t agree on where to stop for lunch (Lynne and I voted for the downtown farmer’s market that our good friend Melissa suggested), so we we headed east of town and found a great bbq place called “Big Bad Wolf”  on Yelp. I didn’t actually vote for this place because of the BBQ, but more for the amazing gig posters they have on the walls that I saw in the Yelp photos. Turns out this BBQ was delicious and the staff was really friendly. Their sign was being fixed so it was a little hard to find, but it was worth it. Delicious brisket sandwich, and kids enjoyed their mac-n-cheese, and hamburgers. I took several photos of the screen printed posters, and talked to the employees… turns out they cater quite a bit to the Ryman Auditorium and several other venues in Nashville, so they get autographed posters all the time. The owner supposedly has amassed quite a collection at home.

We were back on the road and continued our long journey home, finally arriving at 1am. It was indeed a slog, but it was nice to be home. I really wanted to camp this night, but thinking about the setup/tear down times I think we made the better decision by coming home.

We stopped for our last tank of gas somewhere near Greensboro, and saw a schoolbus painted with Pikachu and with the words @halloftheelders on it, which I assumed was probably a band of some sort. Desmond loved the look of the van so he hopped out to take a look. I was indeed correct, Hall Of The Elders is a band, and are headed to New Jersey for the Van’s Warped Tour.

That’s about it! We’ll hopefully wrap up our favorite memories in the next week or two.

Keychain the kids got me: “Daddy, you’re hashtag one Dad!”

Keychain the kids got me.

Chicken Vindaloo at Kountry Xpress in Mulberry, AR

Kountry Xpress in Mulberry, AR. Unassuming truck stop, but golly what great Indian cuisine.

Our meal at Kountry Xpress in Mulberry, AR. Lynne had the Paneer Korma and we split the onion naan.

July 7, 2017

We woke up in Amarillo a bit early, packed up, and went to the Big Texan Steak Ranch for breakfast. We’d been here several times before; the first time way back in the 90s with our Uncle Clyde and Aunt Sybil, and we’ve always found an excuse to come back every time we pass through Amarillo. It’s a maze of Western kitsch and we love every inch of it. Sadly we weren’t around in the evening, or we would have ordered steaks. We had a good time and took a bunch of photos, then headed out East to see how far we could get.

We had decided, as a group, that we’d vote on how we’d spend our last few days of the trip. Granted, we’ve been gone for 2-1/2 weeks, so the kids were grumbling and kinda fed up with all the driving. Lynne and I wanted to go camping for our last night on the road, in the Great Smokies. But reading the crowd and judging how we felt, we all decided to press on and get back to Chapel Hill. It was a wise decision in the end, but it was quite a haul.

Our trip took us from the high plains of the panhandle, with wind power and large cattle ranches, through the slow hills of Oklahoma where the trees started to get larger and the air more humid.

By the time we go to Fort Smith, Arkansas, we were getting pretty hungry. Lynne did a Yelp search for a good local place to eat, and found something called Kountry Xpress. Turns out, the place is an Indian restaurant, and the ratings on both Yelp and TripAdvisor were outstanding! So, we just had to give it a go. The truck stop itself is pretty uninspiring, just a gas station with the regular truck stop gear and things, but right when you walk in you get the amazing aroma of Indian spices. We were skeptical but ordered Chicken Vindaloo (me) and Paneer Korma (Lynne), and some fried chicken and macaroni and cheese for the kiddos. It took a while to get the food, which was OK with us since we were so tired of being in the car, and when it did come it was truly outstanding. Thank goodness we made the effort, this was the best food we’ve had in quite some time, and rivals any of the Indian restaurants back home.

Onward through the night, we made it to Little Rock and pressed on, finally getting to West Memphis by around 11:30 at night. We pretty much just went right to bed, exhausted.

Wind power in Colorado

The Jr. Rangers rest under a tree at Bent’s Old Fort, Colorado

The encroaching storm on the plains of Colorado

Wind power in Oklahoma

Gretchen points to where we are in Oklahoma, Lynne is looking for the Santa Fe Trail

Kids at hotel in La Junta, Colorado

Desmond at Bent’s Old Fort, Colorado

Outside Bent’s Old Fort, Colorado

Bent’s Old Fort, Colorado

Antique game of checkers at Bent’s Old Fort, Colorado

Bent’s Old Fort, Colorado

The lightning storm outside Amarillo TX

July 4, 2017
La Junta is a small Colorado town with a lot of railroads, and some farms. It’s very flat, with the smells of feedlots and cattle drifting through  town. After the hotel breakfast we stopped at our usual, Sonic, for cherry limeades. We took the north route through town, crossed the Arkansas River, and took a right to Bent’s Old Fort. This was a trading fort on the northern leg of the Santa Fe Trail, about 100 miles north of the Cimarron branch, and was operational from the 1830s through the 1880s. It’s at an interesting place between the high plains and the mountains, and between Native, Mexican, and American territories. We got there probably around 11 o’clock in the morning, put our sunscreen on and went for a short walk to the fort. I had been there before, in 1976 when I was 10, right after the fort was renovated. It still looks pretty much the same as I remembered; a stucco exterior, two-story, and a large courtyard. There were all kinds of items relevant to the period–buckskins, knives, wagon wheels– and people in period garb explaining the functions and activities of an early 19th century trading post. There is a functional blacksmith workshop, a carpentry room, as well as a kitchen and livery with horses and chickens. It’s fascinating to see this place in almost working order. When I was a youngster this place sparked my imagination, I remember writing stories about the Santa Fe trail and the frontier and Bent’s Old Fort. The kids did Jr. Ranger packets, and there were a lot of 4th of July activities; a parade of sorts, the firing of the fort canon, and a reading of the Declaration of Independence in its entirety by one of the people in period garb. We had a good time exploring all the rooms on both levels of the fort. We talked to a nice family from Ulysses, Kansas, who also take their kids to national parks and monuments to engage them in their nation’s history.

It got hot, well into the 90s, and we realized it was almost 3! Time to go, unfortunately.
We headed east to Lemar, took a right and after a quick subway sandwich, headed south through the panhandle of Oklahoma and into Texas. It was really really flat. We did see traces of the Santa Fe Trail cut into the grassy landscape. As we descended south into Texas, large gray clouds were gathering on the horizon. We saw lightning scattering inside the clouds, the winds picked up, and by the time we were just north of Amarillo we saw the most incredible lightning storm we’d ever seen, with flashes almost every second. In the midst of all of this, several towns had fireworks bursting above, which was an odd but amazing sight to see. The rains started in earnest on the outskirts of Amarillo, which made driving difficult. It wasn’t as bad as some Southern storms, however.
We checked into our hotel around 11:30 and went to bed, exhausted.