And heeeeeere's Balin! I meant to put him up yesterday, mistakenly thought I already had, and instead put up Bifur. But here he is now, and a very pretty poster this is, too!

Balin is the second Dwarf to arrive at Bag End, coming soon after his brother, Dwalin (whom we shall see in a few days). If memory serves me correctly, Balin wore a red hood, and Dwalin had a blue beard. (??? Really, Professor Tolkien?) Balin is the real Nice Guy of the Dwarves, becoming good friends with Bilbo and coming to visit him in the Shire sometime after their adventure. Balin also serves as the chief look-out of the Company. He is a cousin or distant relative of some sort to both Thorin Oakenshield and Gloin, Gimli's father, whom we shall see in a few more days as well.

Those who have either read The Lord of the Rings or seen the movie know, however, that, perhaps heartened by the success of retaking Erebor/the Lonely Mountain, Balin took some Dwarves and tried to retake Moria. That... didn't go over so well. For those who didn't really understand why Gimli was so upset over a random tomb in The Fellowship of the Ring, you know have the chance to become acquainted with Balin and then become really sad when you realize he dies in some messy fashion. (Along with a couple others, but let's just wait until I post their posters. Post their posters... that sounds a little redundant.)

In other UNA news, one of two things needs to happen, or maybe both: (1) force all students parking at Darby Drive to take parking lessons and (2) repaint the parking lot lines there. Apparently, no one can park in a straight line. It's understandable somewhat when the lines are practically invisible, but what is not so understandable is when a dozen or more cars are parked side-by-side, and each successive person has felt the need to pull up a little more than the last person. Thus, there was not so much a line of cars as a crescent of cars. And then people pull up on either sides and it just gets messy. Very messy.

One girl today got out of the bus in dismay: cars were parked both in front of her and behind her, boxing her in. Fortunately, there was not a car to her right and she was able to pull out diagonally. If not... yeesh.

Note to self: park at the far ends of the lines, where there will be less chance of this happening to myself.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse