June, 2012


4
Jun 12

Burned lots of watts, ate lots of pizza

I rode a spin bike today with a device that measures wattage, the true indicator of how badly the people in front are punishing you. The more watts you’re putting out the more you’re working.

It seems I can generate enough power to turn a very small turbine. But only for a few moments.

My bike’s computer doesn’t register watts, which is probably good, because I’d start concentrating on my lack of power and do who knows what. Besides, I mean, pedal harder.

But, res firma mitescere nescit, and all that.

So I tried reading up on watts, at least to the point where the formulas kick in. If you get enough formulae elsewhere in your life you really don’t want it in your recreation. So I tried to find things like your typical cycling wattage, just to see how far human physiology — by which I mean someone else’s, not mine — can go. This, like so much of everything, is variable, which is the firma part of the Latin, I guess.

And since I had to look up American Flyer to get the expression right, and since someone made a spoof trailer about the movie:

Which is not especially a spoof since that’s the precise plot of the movie. But, look: Kevin Costner! WIth something under his nose!

We had dinner with our friends Kate and John last night. Pizza. A big table of hungry people devouring smallish sized thin crust pizzas. And then ordering another one. Or maybe two more.

They were good.


3
Jun 12

Catching up

Never got around to mentioning this at the end of a full week, but that’s what the catch up day is for.

My mother-in-law runs a program at local church called special church. It isn’t even her church, but she’s a giver like that. So this class provides an outlet for some of the members of the local special needs community. There are always projects, like last week’s flower planting:

table

There are parties, social opportunities, a little bit of scripture, snacks and so on. Everyone there is always smiling. Here are some more of the flowers they planted Thursday:

table

We wrote names on the bottom of the terracotta and spooned in potting soil and pretty blooming colors. After a while, it was time for the music therapist, who stops by and plays for a half-hour or so every week.

table

The weather was so nice they did everything outdoors last week. We sat in the side lawn at the church, surrounded by peaceful trees and a memorial sculpture and under picturesque clouds and howled through made up songs and people danced through classic rock and sang What Wonderful World.

Some of us even remembered the end, but no one was really looking forward to it. Sometimes things should just go on.


2
Jun 12

Surprise!

The Yankee’s parents are celebrating their 40th anniversary this weekend.

The Yankee and family friends conspired to throw them a little surprise party. Here they are walking in the door of a little Italian restaurant they frequent:

Did you hear her say “We say your car?” That was one of their local friends. We parked right next to them and they said “That looks like their car … ” We also parked right next to an out-of-state family member’s car. No one noticed it.

We crammed 28 people into Tutti’s, the delicious little Italian place. Everyone had a great time. My mother-in-law said “These are all of the people we’d want to have dinner with.”

The Yankee and all of the people involved in putting the party together did a great job. The guests of honor had no idea.

One of the brides’ maids produced the dress she wore 40 years ago. Some of their lifelong friends brought out the old photographs.

Here are two snapshots someone showed off, taken just after the young couple had returned from their honeymoon:

40th

Here’s another picture from some time shortly after that:

40th

And these next two pictures were taken on the night they met. This was at a one year reunion for her nursing program. I was sitting tonight next to the lady who set them up, she told me the whole, cute, story.

My mother-in-law is on the far right, decked out in crepe paper. It seemed to be the style of the time. The guy in the awesome jacket was a doctor in that nursing program. (Three of her nursing classmates were at the party tonight.)

Facing the camera in the photograph on the left is the groom-to-be. He’s a bit fuzzy in the original too, but there’s an entire series of pictures where he’s floating in the background, in that posture, in the same place.

40th

She says he tried to pick her up by suggesting they go out to his car and listen to his stereo.

“No way,” she said. But he’d finally win her over. He’d soon tell his friends she was the one. They’d be married a year or so later.

And here they are today, surprised and surrounded by their friends.

40th

Great party.


1
Jun 12

But, hey, this will be quick

We had dinner with our friend Paige tonight. Drove up to her house.

She let me take a picture of the famous Rory:

Rory

This is only slightly intimidating. I was shooting her cat with my phone. Paige is a photographer on the side. In fact, she shot our engagement:

engagement

It was 17 degrees with about nine inches of snow on the ground. Maybe more. We shot those at a park up the street from The Yankee’s parents’ home, a park where she’d played as a child. There’s a pavilion there. Under that roof, there was six inches of snow covering everything.

The next year she shot our wedding in Savannah.

wedding

It was well into the triple-digits that day.

It seems we can’t all get together without severe weather, so naturally it rained tonight.

By the time we got back home there was lots of rain.

We ate dinner at a Thai place called Somewhere in Bangkok. Good food, lousy website. The server was … well, she was as American as could be.

Today I fixed a printer problem, which is a piece of equipment normally beyond me. Samford won a huge baseball game in NCAA regional play. I uploaded three pictures to the Tumblr blog.

Also, don’t forget to check out Twitter.

Yeah it is thin. I’m not spending a lot of time on the computer just now.