December « 2011 « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

December, 2011

Monday / photo — Comments Off
12
Dec 11

Sick, making this a photo day

I’ve been struggling to describe how it felt to wake up this morning, where I communicated with gestures and grimaces for the better part of my first waking hour because the idea of talking hurt. Also, I was trying in vain to avoid the inevitable ancestry-cursing activity of swallowing.

I’m not sure how to express it, other than to say that if Death had a next door neighbor, and that Death thought that neighbor needed to lighten up just a bit, I might have understood how the neighbor felt.

Things got a bit better through the day, but only a bit.

So, anyway, here’s a picture to hold us over for today:

That’s the USS Torsk, which is on display as a museum ship at Baltimore’s inner harbor. She was called the Galloping Ghost of the Japanese Ghost, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Torsk is important because she torpedoed the last enemy ship sunk by the U.S. Navy in World War II.

football / photo / weekend — Comments Off
11
Dec 11

Catching up

The Army Navy edition. We’ve spent the day traveling back home, and so here is as good a place as any to post a few pictures from our big day at the game.

First, here’s a panorama of the field during the march on by the cadets of West Point. Click to embiggen:

Teaching them young with the lightweight .50-caliber machine gun:

Marine One comes in for a landing with the president and vice president:

The traditional “exchanging of prisoners” in the pre-game. The cadets and midshipmen had spent the semester with their opposite academy as exchange students.

Navy’s Kriss Proctor, a prototypical option quarterback, scores the first of his two touchdowns of the day to give Navy their first lead. Proctor’s mother didn’t want him to go to the Naval Academy at first. Her father had spent 18 months as a German POW during World War II. He talked her into it, sat for a few years behind one of the best quarterbacks in modern Navy history and here is now:

Army quarterback TRENT STEELMAN (the Internet requires his name to be spelled this way options to Raymond Maples.

Maples is the first member of his family to go to college. His bio says he’s the first person from his high school to attend West Point.

Steelman’s dad lettered in football at Appalachian State University, his mother has run dozens of marathons and his sister lettered in soccer at Wofford College. Jocks. Also, one of his grandfathers served in the Air Force during World War II, he had an uncle in the Army during the first Gulf War. A great uncle was an interpreter at Nurenberg Trials during World War II in Germany. West Point offers incredibly rich bios.

My favorite player on this Navy team, diving into the end zone. Alexander Teich is a fullback, but he’s smaller than I am. He plays fullback the right way, though, and was a lot of fun to watch run. Football tough, the senior is hoping to join the Navy SEALS after graduation.

And now a few crowd shots:

“Nine dollars for a beer?” asked one happily annoyed fan. “Is there a discount for veterans?”

The vendor could only say “It ain’t me, blame Daniel Synder.”

Daniel Snyder, owner of the Redskins and this park and blamed for most everything else around Washington sports, can take the heat.

Malcolm Brown scores for Army, keeping the Cadets in the game:

And now, more fans:

adventures / football / video / weekend — 1 Comment
10
Dec 11

The Army-Navy game

Attending this game was a birthday gift from my lovely bride. This video features two cheers from the cadets and the mids on the field during their march on. It also includes includes one of the finest, and sadly least utilized traditions in college sport, the singing of both alma maters.

And it was a historical day.

This was the first time the classic game had been played inside the Washington D.C. beltway. It was also only the second time that both the president and vice president attended. Navy extended their series-long win streak over Army to 10 games. The Middies chanted “Ten more years!”

Mike Lopresti, writing in USA Today’s special section on the game:

(H)ere come Army and Navy. In a restless sport of frequent doubt and tumultuous questions, they have more answers than anyone. They know what they want to do, they know why they’re there. And they know what’s ahead.

“Everybody on that field has chosen a very unique path in their young lives,” Army coach Rich Ellerson said last week at a news conference.

They will play Saturday with nothing on the line but pride and honor and a sense of achievement, and that will be quite enough. For these Cadets and Midshipmen, each and every day, that is enough.

[…]

It matters because how many other college football Saturday afternoons go untouched by money or excess or misplaced perspective?

It matters because, in an ego-driven sports world, the television screen is seldom so filled with men who understand selflessness.

Attending this game is a great experience. Go if you can.

adventures / Friday / iPhone / photo / video — Comments Off
9
Dec 11

Baltimore

We are in Baltimore. Or one of the suburbs. It is hard to keep all of this straight.

We visited the National Aquarium in the inner harbor this evening. Here’s some video I shot of some of their big attractions:

And a few pictures. Fair warning: there is a photo of a snake a little further down the page.

I sat next to the gentleman on the right on the plane ride up. He’s a graduate of the naval academy. We’ve read the same books. He told me of a time when he was stationed in Panama and reading the top secret dossiers on Manuel Noriega and Fidel Castro. It was amazing, he said, how much information that had been collected over the years.

The guy he’s talking to here, on the airport shuttle, is a graduate of West Point. He ran track at the military academy. They compared class rings and duty stations.

Frog! (Remember, there’s a snake coming up, right after this.)

This is a tree boa. They are non-venomous and can grow up to six feet in length.

Megalodon!

journalism / Samford / Thursday — Comments Off
8
Dec 11

The last class of the semester

I ended my last class of the fall not dissimilar from the way I began it. I think most of my classes will start and end with words to this effect from now on:

Challenge every word. Walk out of here today with that in your mind. Challenge every word. The bulk of our mistakes can be corrected by vigorous copy editing. This isn’t the sexiest thing in the world, I know, but it is so, so important to the work you do.

It is hard to edit your own work, but it is vital that you do so. Walk away from your story. Read it again after you’ve worked on something else, or eaten dinner or done something fun. Have someone you trust read it. Trade copy editing favors with a classmate. Challenge every word.

The simple truth is that there’s not a person in this room or alive that can’t benefit from a good dose of proofreading. It is tough, often it is particularly for young writers, to admit it, but we all must. Every writer is made better by good editing. Put aside your ego. Realize that the first words you wrote likely aren’t your best words. The AP style mistakes, the grammar, typos, misspelling, you think these are small things, but those small things add up so quickly. Ours is a craft that we display in public, so you must challenge every word.

‘Is that the best word? Is the subject-verb agreement correct? Is this in an active voice? Am I showing rather than telling? Can I tell this in a better way?’ These questions and more are what you should be asking yourself.

Don’t stop writing, even over the break. Writer’s write. If you stop practicing this craft your skills can atrophy. And remember, it shouldn’t be in there, and you aren’t done with the piece, until you challenge every word.

It is my goal to give that speech enough to make eyes roll. But, one day, someone will be sitting at their desk thinking ‘challenge every word …’ and that will make the eye rolls worth it.