My office window faces the north, so I have to go outside for views like this. There’s a nice green lot below my windows and I can see when the sun hits that perfect golden angle. It just so happened I had to make a trip today from my building to another part of campus and I just managed to catch the sun exploding through that tree through the lomo filter.

Students were throwing a frisbee on the quad, the hammocks were empty, young ladies were teaching one another an exciting new cheer that involved a lot of screaming. The sun was peeking between the chapel and the theater. I was carrying a handful of books and binders and things and it was just a marvelous scene. I took more pictures for later.

We had baked apples at lunch, which I only mention because I’ve never noticed them in the cafeteria before. Naturally I tried them. Baked apples are very subjective, of course. No two recipes are the same and no one’s are as good as those made by the person that you’re now thinking of.

My grandmother makes the best apples. She would cut up fruit from the Granny Smith tree in her yard — I never called her Granny, but given that her name was Smith it was a long time before I realized that the variety wasn’t named after her. I don’t know all of her secrets, but I know that my cousin and I would beg her to make them. She’d fill up one of those square casserole dishes, the apples, the sauce and a bunch of mini-marshmallows. We could eat them all in one sitting.

These apples weren’t my grandmother’s apples. They weren’t bad. They had a nice cinnamon taste with a mild bleach finish. My grandmother has never had to make apples for hundreds of people, so there’s that. And it got me into the
spirit of fall, so I’ve no complaints.

Journalism links: It still boggles the mind that publishers, who were slow to accept the changes brought about by the world wide web because they were fundamentally losing control of their ability to be one of a few unique voices, have made their bed with Apple where they have willingly handed over control. Poynter reports:

(T)he November issue of Esquire, its second to be made available as an iPad app, has been held up by Apple’s app review process since mid-October.

The November cover story features actress Minka Kelly, who the magazine named the “sexiest woman alive,” and that apparently is the sticking point in the app being approved.

The Gazette Extra, like everyone else, is trying to find the proper way to deal with comment trolls. Because, as the editor says, “some people can’t behave” his paper won’t allow comments on stories about crimes, courts, accidents, race or sex. That particular paper, it seems, has exceeded that point of critical mass where comments are no longer constructive or dialogical. Even in that thread, on a note from the editor about curtailing vicious comments, the conversation veers wildly out of control. Most every big site has this problem.

Cooks Source — the New England cooking magazine that became suddenly infamous for infringing upon the works of online writers, and then snottily claiming that everything online was public domain — has another petulant letter from the editor on their website. Both Facebook pages they’ve set up have been overwhelmed by critics. And now, at their most popular, the little magazine that copies and pastes is closing shop.

And I wish I could give you a link, but the Samford Crimson is unfortunately not putting it online. The sports section has been running a football pick chart this fall. The university president, the starting quarterback, sports writers and other student leaders have been participating. A math professor has led all season.

Videos: Last Saturday when Georgia visited Auburn for their beat down in the South’s Oldest Rivalry freshman running back Mike Dyer broke the great Bo Jackson’s freshman rushing record. Jackson was there, celebrating the 25th anniversary of his Heisman, and had a nice moment on the sideline with Dyer.

This is the video that aired on AUHD, so imagine seeing this on the big screen at the game, and the audio is the crew’s behind-the-scenes chatter. It makes a nice moment even more entertaining:

I love that last line: Memories. That was just perfect, in so many respects. The guy who produces the the big screen programming, Bo Cordle, is leaving. In fact that was his last game. what a way to go out.

This wasn’t quite as entertaining, but I watched The Red Baron tonight. It is a modern adaptation on the career of Manfred Von Richthofen. Like all movies of legendary war heroes, it is told as a love story. Only this particular love story didn’t actually happen. Because the story of perhaps the greatest ace of World War I needed to be glossed over and fictionalized. I hate when that happens.

Meanwhile, here’s actual funeral footage:

Everyone in that footage is also in the ground now. World War I was a long time ago, said obvious guy, obviously. I just started reading this week R.A.C. Parker‘s history of Europe between the wars. The first handful of chapters are about the treaties that ended World War I. This book was published in the 1960s, so everyone knew where this story was headed. Even still, in the first few pages, it is already heartbreaking because of what even then, just months after that funeral, was something of an inevitability.

As is this stack of things I must grade. So, to my red pen I must now go.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 17th, 2010 at 8:59 pm and is filed under history, journalism, links, movies, photo, Samford, video, Wednesday. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.