adventures « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

adventures

Line and pole rod

How was your weekend? Here it was … variable. Coolish on Saturday morning. It felt almost damp. (That’s a meteorological observation where I’m from, and it differs from humidity.) The mercury struggled to get to 67 degrees. The temperature peaked before noon and started falling away soon after. Sunday it was 81 degrees and it finally rained.

Recently a read a paper from a colleague who is an atmospheric scientist. She and her co-authors were discussing how highly variable springs are just the new normal around here now. Climate change in daily life. It’s hurting the crops. Because the agricultural sector needs more challenges right now.

Today we topped out at 69 degrees. Tomorrow we’ll have variable skies and be in the mid-70s. One of these things is late spring. They can’t all be late spring.

Saturday morning we went out for a ride with the neighbors. The guy up front lives just behind us. The woman closest to me in the photo lives about a mile away. There’s at least two other cyclists in between these houses. We could start a little roadie gang.

We should start a little roadie gang. Only, I, being neither fast enough or talented enough, am not the biggest fan of group rides. Three or four people is probably my comfort limit, and I like them to be spread a bit, rather like that photo. Some people are crowders, should bumping, handlebar rubbing riders, and I’m too frail for all of that.

Today, I woke up, sent a reminder note to my online class about their adjusted deadlines, and then went out to the creek. The purpose was to pretend to do a little fly fishing. But, really, I could just sit next to that, walk along the bank, or put on those waders and just go out there and stand in it for the better part of a day and be happy. And hey, that’s what i did.

I caught one good fish, a beautiful 16-inch rainbow trout. Slipped him right back in the water, and he went and told all of his friends to take a good look before trying to eat anything else. His messaging worked. I got a lot of nibbles, a few on the line, but couldn’t bring anything else in the rest of the day.

Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter at all. I’d probably rather not hook them if I’m not going to keep them, and these are catch-and-release. Some people like the gear — and there sure is a lot of it in fly fishing. Some people like the puzzle and the challenge. I could stand right here and listen to the woods and unwind until my toes grow cold from the water and I’ll get everything I need out of the experience.

It’s funny. I’ve been on this little body of water twice and our host is keen to coach me up. I think he thinks I’ve never been fishing before or something. I have now been fly fishing three times. Twice with him. But I grew up with a Zebco and spent a lot of time with bobbers and worms and liver bait and bass lures. Even then, I enjoyed the peacefulness and the company, most of all. But my guy here on this river — they call it a river, I’m not sure it rises to that level — was taking it personal that I wasn’t getting more fish. He’s a big technique guy. He feels the real thrill of bringing them in. I think he’s trying to appreciate every little part of his sport. And he’s a pretty good teacher, even if he has a lousy student. He’s got my casting and line management techniques down to an almost manageable level. There’s a real satisfaction in placing it where you want it to go, as opposed to in a tree. It’s satisfying when the cast feels just right. Just being under those trees is more so.

I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation. So, I’m sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. It was a great vacation. I have a lot of footage. This will go on for some time. Enjoy it with me, won’t you?

This is part of the view at Island Roy.

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7
May 26

Score one for edtech

Today was finals day. Two classes had their finals due this afternoon. These were done remotely and submitted online. To celebrate we, of course, went for a bike ride. It was a fast 20-miler, and then I got right back to it. I started the day knowing I had 144 papers to read, and knowing that 48 of those were going to come in today.

And for that hour, just a bit more than an hour, my empty mind drifted over to the questions I’d asked on the two finals. One class had four simple questions. Two hypotheticals I was asking the students to work through, and then two questions that were a tiny bit subjective. In the other class I had the students watch a program and answer a bunch of questions about it. You can run through all of those questions quite a few times while you’re not thinking about anything else.

I hope I caught all of my typos. I hope the students did well. I hope it was all clever enough to let them show what they’ve learned, how they’re thinking, what they’ve possibly gained from their time in my class.

Not too long after we got in, Canvas, the platform the university uses for online classwork, crashed and died.

One class had finished their allotted final window. The other was mid-final. About four people hadn’t submitted their final yet. Well.

Also, my online students have their submissions due on Monday. Who knows how long Canvas will be down? And some of those students manage very regimented schedules. Well.

There was nothing more from the university than that. During finals. Well.

(Update: It came back overnight, in fact, not too long after I shared my contingency plans with all of those students with work still outstanding. Problem solved. Can kicked down the road. Everything is now due next Tuesday.)

But I can start grading that one final right now. (Mini-update: They’re doing well.)

That is the view at Ballymastocker Strand.

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1
May 26

Rounding spring’s corner

We went back to campus today. The student athletes were doing a fund raiser. They were taking shifts, sitting in chairs, wearing plastic ponchos. Pretty soon they were wearing whipped cream pies.

That’s an All-American. She’s been in both of our classes. She’s a lovely human being and, somehow, that meant she got more pies to the face than any of her peers did during her half-hour shift. I don’t know how much money you raise doing a bit like that, but it was a lovely spring day and they’d set this up in a quiet little corner of campus and people came by in dribs and drabs for an hour or so. The overhead seemed to be a few ponchos, a couple of cans of whipped cream and some paper plates.

Nearby, there’s this piece of public art.

It’s titled Knowledge is Power.

Knowledge is Power is inspired by a quote by Francis Bacon. In creating a visual representation of the verbal statement, Artist Zenos Frudakis thought a book would make an appropriate metaphor, as it has been the traditional form of preserving and transmitting knowledge through the ages.

Always interested in philosophy and the love of wisdom, Mr. Frudakis wanted this sculpture to embody those who are good examples of having powerful ideas. As a compositional element, he has faces and quotes organized around two central figures he considers two giants of thought. On the left page is Charles Darwin, and those around him are of an earlier period. On the right page is Albert Einstein, surrounded by more contemporary figures.

There’s a lot of art around campus, it turns out. I need to see more of it. Maybe something will rub off.

We had lunch at Chick-fil-A. For the first time in a good while, it seemed, we had lunch together and didn’t have to rush off somewhere. It was pleasant, it felt a bit like unwinding.

Something I wrote:

I’ve been developing and teaching a class we call Criticism in Sports Media for the last two semesters. Students are learning to consume and interpret media critically, place it within broader contexts, and examine the structure and meaning of the material. This, I say, gives one an appreciation of sport media’s role in contemporary life, because sports reflect the values of a culture.

It’s a good course, and helpful. Students know there’s a lot going on, and they’re trying to understand the media landscape that surrounds and inundates us all. They are coming to understand that there are some things they don’t understand, and they’d like to try to make some sense of it.

The class spends a lot of time on the printed word and on documentaries, and we discuss social media and, lately, AI content.

Now, at the end of the term, I wanted to leave them with a lasting impression about recognizing and addressing AI.

I’ve got a few more things I want to write soon. But, first, back to the grading. Just 144 papers and exams to go!

That video is from Mullaghmore Head, where we both fell down, separately and hilariously. You’ll just have to read about it.

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28
Apr 26

A unique piece

I wanted to add to my small lapel pin collection. I have 15 of them, most of which I’ve just collected over the years. About half of them were given to me. I have little case to display them in, and lapels on which to wear them. And so it seemed a good time to add a few to the rotation. This is tricky, I figured, because they should have some sort of meaning to the wearer. How many meaningful lapel pins can you be autobiographical about?

It turns out you can get custom made lapel pins for pretty cheap. So I made and purchased two of them. They arrived late last week, and I’m slapping one on today.

I like the old logos. And the quality of these is pretty good. So it is probably a good thing that lapel pins ought to mean something, otherwise I might be adding more to a medium-sized and growing collection.

But no one needs that. Least of all me.

Today in Rituals and Traditions I wrapped up the last of our lectures. I shared this video, which is all kinds of great. It has just the right amount of spiteful, prideful, “Make me.” What’s more, FIFA deserves attitude, at the very, very least. It’s a shame they won’t get more.

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A post shared by Tailgate Mart (@tailgatemart_)

We also talked about the future of stadium design. No one in my class is in architecture or engineering, so they’ll never do that themselves, but you never know where you’ll wind up working, or what the facility circumstances will be. So today we discussed a recent trend of removing the cheap seats from venues, in favor of more lounges and escalators and clubs and restrooms. The cheap seats are important. They are typically thought of as a gateway into the sport. And we have discussed how fans spend more money inside the stadium — food, souvenirs, etc. — than they do to get in the place. So I asked them to think about how all of these changes might effect the fan experience and stadium choreographies and everything downstream of such changes.

I had a colleague come in to proctor the student evaluation process. I summed up the semester, gave my last little lecture and handed over the room. We’ll get together one last time, Thursday, for their presentations.

In Criticism we talked about this story, Suns’ Devin Booker calls out ref by name in furious NBA playoff rant after baffling call, which allowed us to talk about sources and source credibility. It doesn’t really seem to figure into this particular story, but it is the Post, and it should figure into every bit of their copy.

We also talked about Hailed as a ‘football goddess’ by many, yet sexism, hate and misogyny remain for this soccer trailblazer:

Marie-Louise Eta received a typical German welcome at Union Berlin’s Stadion An der Altern Försterei on Saturday.

“Fußballgöttin!” (“football goddess”) they bellowed in deafening unison.

Eta, 34, was named interim manager of the Bundesliga club last week after the sacking of the under-performing Steffan Baumgart. As a result, her unexpected appointment became a historic milestone as the club smashed through a glass ceiling in men’s professional soccer.

In the April 18 match against Wolfsburg, Eta became the first woman to take charge of a men’s soccer team in any of Europe’s top-five leagues (England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain).

Here, we talked, obviously, about representation. This example also let us consider a great deal about the notion and value of context, for the CNN copy omits a lot.

(Update: She was successful. Union Berlin finished 11th of 18th after going 2-2-1 under Eta’s tenure. She will coach the Union’s women side next year, as planned. Tapping Mauro Lustrinelli to run the men’s team returns the club to the old European boy’s club. Pretty much everyone expected that.)

We also talked again about watching out for fake stories. There’s a set of skills involved in that, and we were due a refresher. So we discussed psychological literacy, basically understanding our own psychological biases so that we might be, hopefully, less at risk of manipulation. We also talked lateral reading (check up on the source you’re reading and read others besides, basically).

It sounds better in the lecture. Maybe it sticks with people.

And for me, two more classes to go for the semester.

This amazing video is from An Bhinn Bhuí.

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27
Apr 26

The bridge between here and there

This is the last week of class. The last week for my two in-person classes. My online class runs another week. I don’t set the schedule and I’m not sure how this works. They start on the same day, the classes end a week a part and the finals are six days a part.

In a practical sense I don’t mind this; I know about all of the things I must grade in the next three weeks. (The official count: a lot.) I wonder if a student taking both online and in-person classes notices. I have one student this term in one of my in-person classes and one online, she hasn’t said anything about it. Maybe the students don’t mind it because, in a practical sense, they have a fair amount to do, of course.

The online students are now working on social media platform audits. This is a four-step process that we spread out over five or six weeks. It is a substantial portion of their grade. With each of their submissions I send them a lot of feedback. We are between steps two and three, with the third being the dress rehearsal, if you will. There’s a lot I try to offer, most importantly it must be done quickly since they don’t have a big turnaround. Also, they have a final to worry about.

This week in my in-person classes I have one final lecture on Tuesday and group presentations on Thursday in my Rits and Traditions class. In criticism we’ll have one final conversation tomorrow about some written content, and one final documentary on Thursday. They’ll both have finals due next week.

Then grading, and some grading, and probably some grading. Also, there are meetings.

So, busy-busy.

Late this afternoon we tore ourselves away from work for a quick 60-minute lollipop route. There was no candy, sadly. It just looks like a sucker on a map. I noted that it felt sluggish, but mostly because the last few miles felt that way. In the early going, I was as happy as could be.

We went down a road we haven’t been down since last July or so. I’ll give you one guess why.

The bridge is still closed, but not closed-closed. If you are properly motivated that sign is just a suggestion. If you go over the bridge right now you’re traveling over firmly packed dirt. It’s just a highway overpass, so it’s probably safe as can be. Hearing all the cars and trucks roar beneath you as you’re on an out-of-order overpass might be unnerving.

It’ll probably be another year before they get done with this project. No one seems to be in a hurry to fix it.

That beautiful spot is Dún na mBó