Assistant Professor of History

LaDale Winling is an assistant professor of history at Virginia Tech.  His website, urbanoasis.org, can be reached here.

Feed Me!

RSS feeds, etc., seem to be working over on the new blog, http://www.urbanoasis.org/blog/1. Check it out and let me know.

Big ups to Scott T. (do the kids still say "big ups"?) for advising me on the most niggling of details.

Help Wanted

I'm doing a planning thesis on the changing conditions of student housing in Ann Arbor ~1920 to ~2000 and I'm looking for some houses/apartments to document. If you live somewhere on the OWS or the student neighborhood south of Central Campus and think your house is interesting, let me know. My objective is to examine how these structures differed in their spatial arrangements and their uses when occupied by owners vs. students/renters, and when that change occured. It would take about an hour to take some basic measurements of your house and rooms and poke around in your closets and basement, taking pictures all the while. Sound interesting? Let me know lwinlingATumichDOTedu.

One more time

For those of you with RSS feeds, the new domain is http://www.urbanoasis.org/blog.

Move Over

The move is just about complete. I've set up shop at my own domain, urbanoasis.org. There are still some kinks to be worked out, like how the devil do I get rid of those "link" things at the top right corner of the page? Anyway, not the change in your blogrolls and your xml feeds.

Calling All Tech Nerds

I'm starting the process of moving from blogger to my own blog, but I realize I don't know what I'm doing. Anybody want to barter some MySQLphpWTF help for something I have? Candidates for barter include Bell's Beer, photography, research skills, and rowing coaching. Just some plain old advice would be good, too.

Adventures in Large Format Photography

LF Shant Front Elevation 1
Originally uploaded by urbanoasis.

I finally got around to taking my first two 4x5 photos to Foto1 for developing. Fortunately, I learned that Ivory Photo right near the Madison House still has a functioning darkroom, so it will remain a walkable hobby.

Here is one of my two attempts. It's not too shabby, but has four fairly significant problems. The first is clearly the framing. With my lens I would have had to get out into the middle of William St. to get it all, so I went for a practice shot. The second is that the top of the building is not in focus. I tilted the lens too much in trying to get both the brick wall and the cornice in focus, so the plane of focus is very oblique (it looks like from the garbage can through the brick wall to top of the doorway arch). The third is that it is not level -- the cornice should be parallel to the top of the frame. The fourth is that I was not dead-center. The top of the gate arch should be in line with the top of the doorway arch. Live and learn.

LF Shant Front Elevation 2
Originally uploaded by urbanoasis.

This one, actually my first, is even worse. First off, I double exposed it. It's even less level than the other one, and off center, of course, too. Anyway, it was my first attempt and now I'm going after some more attempts.

Bottom line, view photography is difficult, which is why so many archival images and proto snapshots I've come across in research are partially out of focus or show some vignetting. However, its results are awesome, as the lower 2/3 of the top image indicates. More to come.

David Kohrman, Genius

I recently got in touch with a friend from WMU, Dave Kohrman, now at Ball State. Having turned to public history towards the end of my undergrad career, I had a couple courses with Dave, and a turn on the Phi Alpha Theta board. Another time I'll tell about our brief detour to Gary, IN.

Narrator of the most hilarious end-of-semester true story ever told, Dave is an urban explorer not unlike the dude from the Detroit Blog, but better in my mind. I'm thinking about looking at Muncie Indiana for part of my dissertation (of _Middletown_ fame), so I got an update on Dave and, though his famed Chuck Norris movie reviews have been in short supply lately, I got to see some more of his photography. He instantly made the blogroll, and I encourage you to check it out.

Eight Months Later

New Orleans homes Hurricane Katrina
Originally uploaded by boyneworleans.

I'm having a difficult time understanding what is going on in New Orleans. If anyone went down there for Spring Break or has been there recently, please pipe up. What is the scale of cleanup and rehabilitation? Also, if there are any good maps about (re)investment or rehab, please link. The odd snippets I see in the New York Times or on blogs don't really give a sense of how this city is coming back or not.

Subletter Needed

May 1 - August 28. $300/mo for own 10' x 10' bedroom in the Madison House, near the corner of Main and Madison, Ann Arbor MI. Washer/dryer and off-street parking on premises. 4 blocks from U-M campus; one block from Leopold Bros.; one block from Washtenaw Dairy. Great roommates, great house, great location. lwinlingATumichDOTedu.