Crumblin' down

As my father would say, good riddance to bad rubbish. Knapp and Storms Halls, two "suitcase" dorms on the Iowa State campus here in Ames were imploded on Tuesday. I think my brother lived in Knapp when he was in college (he lived in one of the "Towers" as they were referred to here) and I'm sure he'd agree with my assessment that rather than spending all that money on explosives, they could have just used a lighter to light all the residual alcohol vapors. To say that the Towers were the party dorms doesn't really do it justice. They weren't actually on campus, more like 6-7 blocks south of campus so their separation from campus seemed to fuel the party atmosphere. I, mostly, just thought they were damn ugly. Kind of like low income housing projects from the 60s in the middle of Ames.

Wallace and Wilson, the two Towers left standing are not scheduled for implosion despite the fact that they aren't being used as dorms anymore. Apparently, they're going to be used as extra hotel space for university events. Personally, I'd feel kind of cheated if I came to the university for something and they put me up in an old dorm that wasn't good enough for students. Plus, you'd have to use communal bathrooms. Eww!

Wendy and I attended the implosion--it was a once in a lifetime thing. I mean, how often do they implode a high rise building in Ames, Iowa? It's been the talk of the town recently--so much that at work the other night, somebody brought up the exploding whale, which really speaks for itself.

RIP Knapp and Storms. You were damn ugly.