Auburn « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Auburn

Auburn / baseball / photo — Comments Off
25
Feb 14

Before I forget

On Sunday afternoon I caught my first baseball game of the year. I was just tired enough to sit and watch. When you are too tired to sit and watch a game … you question your diet, rethink your sleep habits, wonder about hydration and ask yourself about too much exercise, or too little. You begin to wonder if this is what it means to feel old.

I did take a few pictures at that game, and I should probably put a few of them up here before too much time passes.

Cute scenes at the park:

It was never explained why she had a puppy at a baseball game.

As for the game itself, Auburn took a two-run lead in the fourth, and then allowed runs in the seventh, ninth and tenth in a frustrating loss. Clinton Freeman slid in ahead of the tag for that first score:

At least the weather was nice. And now it is getting colder again. What a terrible thing to complain about. We’ll be sitting in short sleeves and sunshine by Saturday.

Which is too many days away because I’m too tired, I thought this morning, for the rest of the week. By the afternoon I was starting to feel better, like myself, awake. So it probably isn’t hydration, then.

Auburn / food / Friday / I do not know what is happening. / photo / swimming — Comments Off
14
Feb 14

Your typical, lovely Friday

The scene earlier this week at Cheaha, Alabama’s highest point. Today, depending on where you were, it was mild and clear or mild and overcast with the occasional shower. Cheaha, which will likely be closed for several days for cleanup, got up to 58 today and had sunny skies, with rain later.

All of this is how you know that spring is about to make her entrance. When nothing makes sense it all clicks into comprehension, meteorologically speaking.

This morning I had a BLT for breakfast. Later I swam 2,850 yards — and some of it wasn’t bad. And I did some other things, too.

We went to the gym meet this evening:

Auburn hosted fifth-ranked Alabama, a team whom they’ve never beaten in the history of gymnastics. But they’re getting really, really close. By the time the number 12 Tigers were on the beam they were only a few hundredths of a point behind with the floor still to go. It was apparent that it would come down to either a Bama stumble on the beam or the last routine on the floor for Auburn.

The fourth rotation came along. Bama held a slim, but sure lead. Auburn was still in striking distance. We were still in an anything-could-happen atmosphere.

And hope springs eternal, for the numbers are good and Auburn’s tiny powerhouse Bri Guy is up to anchor the floor routine and close the meet. And on her first tumbling pass Guy stumbled out of her leap and then fell harsh and hard to the ground. There were a scary few moments:

They put her in an air cast, sat her on a gurney and wheeled her out of the Arena. The crowd chanted “We love Bri! We love Bri!” and she flashed that adorable, big smile she has and waved to everyone as Alabama’s gymnasts and Auburn’s looked on. Later they would pray together, stunned by the scary moment that could have been any of them.

(Update: She reportedly tore both of her Achilles’. One apparently on the way up and perhaps the other on the way down. Despite all of that she narrowly avoided landing on her neck and head. Sadly, her junior season is done.)

Auburn lost, but posted their second highest score in the history of the program. They’re getting closer all the time.

And then, later tonight we laughed with a friend at the local barbecue joint. We made a new friend there, too. And then they kicked us out because they all wanted to go home.

It was a fine day.

Auburn / photo / Thursday / video — Comments Off
23
Jan 14

Photo week – Thursday

Justin Bieber! Richard Sherman! Super Bowl!

Let’s talk about a real hero.

Celebrate him for a while; he deserves it.

Allie says hello:

So maybe you saw the Kick Bama Kick video. Perhaps you saw the one that emerged last week, of the Auburn University Marching Band. That floated back to the surface of the social media streams today and so I watched it again. Love that video. It is great fun watching some of those people lose their minds, but then watching them recover and do their job. (Not that you could hear the band in the stadium just then. We didn’t.)

I decided to synch the videos. Watch the drum major in the center. She was great, calling for the fight song just before Chris Davis scored. That’s attention to her craft.

Happy accident, they’re all looking at the giant HD screen in the end zone, but it looks like they are watching the insert box I’ve dropped in the shot. But watch how they all wig out and then get their job down. Just awesome. As is Rod Bramblett, my friend and former boss, who has the immortal radio call.

Auburn / football / Friday — Comments Off
17
Jan 14

The first football game

Just one thing today, a terrific artifact from 1892. This is a newspaper that covered the famous Auburn-Georgia game at Piedmont Park. It was the first ever football game in the Deep South. If you’d like to actually read the copy, which spans more than four columns, you can see a larger version here.

It seems more than the game has changed. The paper notes the average heights of both teams were around 5-foot-6. The average weights were in the 150s and 160s.

Auburn’s senior punter this year, Steven Clark, is listed as 6-5 and 230 pounds. Kicker Cody Parkey is an even six feet and 190 pounds. Auburn listed two wide receivers weighing in the 160s.

Auburn / Friday / photo / video — Comments Off
10
Jan 14

Just a few things, and a bit of stuff

It is thundering, which means there is lightning. Accompanying them is rain. Two of those things are odd in January. They haven’t happened since … last January, apparently. So maybe it isn’t so odd. But it sure seems like it. The high today was 55, and it was overcast and that didn’t feel spring-like. But the lightning and thunder helps set the mood.

Can it be spring yet?

Spent a little time uploading 166 photos to Facebook last night. They are all older, pictures from the last 18 months, because I am a rebel when it comes to timeliness. All day people have been liking and tagging and commenting. My Facebook account has never been so successful.

Went to the gymnastics meet tonight. Auburn hosted and defeated Texas Woman’s University 194.875-189.825.

This was their opening meet of their season, at the Auburn Arena. I walked around a bit and strolled through the new “museum,” which isn’t as nice or complete as the old Lovelace facility was. I found this:

Those are the two trophies commemorating the first two Iron Bowls. The statue marked the second game. The cup, which has fallen from the perch just out of the top of the margin, celebrates the first victory.

I hope someone notices that and puts it back on the little display shelf. We’ll check back next week.

Yesterday I wrote here in passing about the documentary shot on Google Glass. Here’s the official site for Project 2×1, and their promotional trailer.

And, to wrap things up, the best 73 seconds of video you’ll watch tonight. Austin Hatch was in two plane crashes and lost his entire family between them. Now he’s back, finally, to basketball:

Austin Hatch says on Twitter is still planning to play for the Wolverines, making us all, for a time, Michigan fans.

Finally, How the NSA Almost Killed the Internet:

The hard-earned trust that the tech giants had spent years building was in danger of evaporating—and they seemed powerless to do anything about it. Legally gagged, they weren’t free to provide the full context of their cooperation or resistance. Even the most emphatic denial—a blog post by Google CEO Larry Page and chief legal officer David Drummond headlined, “What the …”—did not quell suspicions. How could it, when an NSA slide indicated that anyone’s personal information was just one click away? When Drummond took questions on the Guardian website later in the month, his interlocutors were hostile:

“Isn’t this whole show not just a face-saving exercise … after you have been found to be in cahoots with the NSA?”

“How can we tell if Google is lying to us?”

“We lost a decade-long trust in you, Google.”

“I will cease using Google mail.”

The others under siege took note. “Every time we spoke it seemed to make matters worse,” an executive at one company says. “We just were not believed.”

“The fact is, the government can’t put the genie back in the bottle,” says Facebook’s global communications head, Michael Buckley. “We can put out any statement or statistics, but in the wake of what feels like weekly disclosures of other government activity, the question is, will anyone believe us?”

Since it comes down to money and government contracts, no, probably not.