VARIOUS PEOPLE have been demanding spring-weather pictures from Knoxville, but I’ve been — alas — too busy to take any. I managed to take a few on the way across campus today, though, so here you are.

UPDATE: Moved to the “extended entry” area to speed page loads.

Is there anything more collegiate than sitting out on a blanket in front of your dorm on a nice spring day?

The thing at the upper right is what’s called a “Bearbee” around here. It’s the result of some atomic-crossbreeding experments at Oak Ridge. They make a lot of honey, but you really don’t want one of them to sting you.

It doesn’t matter how much traffic you block when you’re talking to your girlfriend.

This is a poster advertising a band that features Dave Nichols of the legendary Smokin’ Dave and the Premo Dopes, and legendary Knoxville guitarist Preston Rumbaugh, who last I heard was living as a squatter in London somewhere, but who apparently has returned. Smokin’ Dave was the lineal descendant of a band I was in in college — you could trace the descent (through such other Knoxville bands as The Schoolboys and The Real Hostages) by who got ownership of the Peavey PA-500 head. It finally died an unfortunate death from spilled beer at a Smokin’ Dave gig in (IIRC) West Virginia.

The nice thing about being from Knoxville is that you can go away, and come back, as many times as you want, and nobody minds. When you return, it’s like you were never gone.