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Auburn

It was a pretty full day

Had the big anniversary dinner last night, which also means the anniversary self-portrait, traditionally taken right about on this spot, the “Oh, yes, we should take a picture” spot.

We had reservations at the marvelous Warehouse Bistro — a local five-star restaurant that is hidden in the oldest industrial park in neighboring Opelika. All the big signatures are on the wall. You get the impression that a lot of powerful deals are made there.

We now have an “our usual table,” even though we go there once a year. It is a bit out of our normal price range. But the food is so good.

Here’s the New Zealand rack of lamb:

Try the … well, try everything. It is a five-star restaurant.

Rode a quick 19 miles today. Had dinner with our friend Jeremy. Did some research and planning — turns out the Harvey Updyke trial, which was set to get underway this week, was continued once again. That got scrapped this morning when the judge, concerned over this guy’s inability to stop telling members of the media he poisoned the fabled trees at Toomer’s Corner, media exposure and jury fairness, delayed the trial again.

The guy has talked to ESPN, Finebaum, Finebaum again and been featured in a thin television documentary that had a theatrical release. People have heard of him. This has all been an indecipherably, convoluted defense strategy, I’m almost convinced of it. (Finebaum, because he knows it is good for his business, has decided that Updyke has been punished enough. Last one out turn out the lights.)

(Incidentally, good on The Plainsman’s reporter for striking up the conversation that led to the story linked above. Word is that Updyke told the reporter he did it without being asked. The reporter was supposed to be working on something similar to a sympathy piece, but realized his story changed right in front of him. Of course he wrote it. The Plainsman called it a confession, and treated it like this was news. It was not. Updyke has been saying this since February of 2011. Also they missed on the age of the trees by 60 years. Facts are important, tricky things. But it was nice hustle nonetheless. Now the young student-journalist has been subpoenaed in this case. Nice start to a journalism career, that.)

The timing of this scheduled appearance had been fortuitous, though, because we’d fashioned a little project around it. But the decision today scrapped that plan. Worked out well, though. Our new plan fleshed out as a much better idea.

Incidentally, we’re 16 months out from his arrest, and still nothing more than an arraignment and depositions in bizarro-Updyke land.

Did a little packing tonight. Put the brand new bike rack on the car. Read every direction in the booklet. This is important. There are cars behind us that would like our bikes to stay on our new bike rack. And we’d really rather not trash our bike.

Tomorrow we’ll be on the road again.

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19
Jun 12

I wrote at the library today

I am to the point in this little section of a paper I’m writing that I’m now rewriting it over and over. This is a fine part of the process, but it can be overdone. The trick is knowing when to take the meat off the grill, he said in a metaphor that makes no sense. But I’ve been through these two pages … oh … several times. It doesn’t always seem like progress. But it isn’t exactly treading water, either.

And so the writing goes on.

Some anonymous person from The Birmingham News wrote a nice little obituary for some of those colleagues who recently learned they were losing their jobs. No one wants to see people out of work. Only the misguided would revel in the diminished stature of newspapers. (I think the future is bright for journalism online, but I value what newspapers bring to the civic conversation as well.)

Journalists, of course, take this recent news a bit more personally, because it is a lot closer to home. People in our line of work passionately believe in what they do and the importance it carries. And in addition to that zeal there are the other real concerns about paying the bills. These notions transcend industry, though. Newspapers, unfortunately, never cover job closings well enough — there’s always the perfunctory facts and the obligatory quote about the sad decision and then a few other facts before wrapping up, but there are dozens, or hundreds of stories among all of those people now out of work — but they at least try when it has to do with their own.

Here’s a nod over at Weld to some of those hard-working people in the news business. There are a lot of smart and canny people at those papers. I hope they all land on their feet soon.

Harvey Updyke, alleged Toomer’s Corner tree poisoner, is finally getting his day in court. Today was the beginning of the jury selection. And, during a lunch break, a writer from The Auburn Plainsman approached him:

Before his trial began and before his jury was even selected, Updyke convicted himself by admitting to poisoning one of Auburn’s most iconic landmarks.

Updyke also said his lawyer, Everett Wess, would probably drop him if he found out he was speaking about the case.

Why he decided to admit his guilt may remain unknown. However, Updyke had seemingly already resigned himself his fate.

“They’re going to find me guilty… it’s a done deal,” Updyke said. “I don’t think I’m going to get a fair trial.”

He didn’t convict himself. Judges and juries do that sort of thing. And he’s been saying much the same thing on the air and to reporters for the better part of 18 months. But it does demonstrate a bit of scattered thought at play. Why would you do this, Harvey, just outside the courtroom?

Also, the story misses on the age of the trees by about 60 years. Facts are tricky things, a statement I’ll now say over and over until it becomes annoying. But it is an interesting read. Good for the student-journalist who struck up the conversation. Wonder why none of the rest of the reporters did.

I’ve read elsewhere that after he spoke Updyke asked the reporter to not publish his comments, but of course he did. He did the right thing there.

We walked under the trees Friday night. Sadly they don’t look well at all.

We walked down the street today to watch the local bike club’s time trial. Met a nice older gentleman who does his riding at 3:15 in the morning. Met one of The Yankee’s grad students. Watched all the riders push through the finish line.

This is a route I ride regularly. So I guess we know what we’ll be doing soon.

Something new today on Tumblr and on the almost dead LOMO blog. (I should probably kill that one off. Also, check out the happenings on Twitter.

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16
Jun 12

Signs, signs, everywhere are signs

Spent a couple of hours on my bike today. (Sounds so nice I want to do it again.) I waited until the afternoon sun was dying out and the heat and the ultraviolet weren’t so oppressive and then I set out for a three stage ride. I cruised over to Opelika, intent on picking up a few more pictures for the Historic Marker Series.

As you may know — or if you don’t know or if you’ve just come back from that link and would like your assumptions confirmed — I’m hitting all of the markers in the county on my bike. I found the locations on the historical society’s website. I made a map, which heads up that page. But I’ve learned that between the descriptions and my best guesses there’s sometime a bit of discrepancy. So I’m fixing the map as I go, but I’m also spending a lot of time just cruising around looking for the signs.

So the second stage of today’s ride was riding around the downtown area of Opelika. This was little more than soft pedaling between red lights and looking confused. There were eight markers downtown. I found that I’d placed four or five accurately on my map.

I found them all. And the biggest inaccuracy was no more than a mile or two off. (That one was purely a guess anyway, so it wasn’t a mistake so much as having no real idea to begin with.) But I found them all. I dat on a bench in the shade in Opelika and had a little snack. I took all of my pictures and then pointed toward home, catching that last one on the way. Turns out I go by it every so often, but I’d never noticed it.

I also found two more signs. The ones I’m photographing are by either the state or the Chattahoochee Commission. The extras were put up by a tourism board and a church. But I was there. I had the chance to read them. Why not?

So I’ll add those to that section of the site eventually too, as always, one a week, on Thursdays.

The third stage of my ride was the return trip home. The sun was falling and the route I’d planned involved a lot of tree cover — meaning darker even a bit earlier — and I had no blinkies on my bike. In cycling the expression is to “put the hammer down.” That doesn’t apply to me, but I put it down anyway.

I average 24 miles per hour over the last eight miles, making it home just before the sky grayed.

And then we worked on paper ideas. Now we just have to write the paper. Meantime, we’re enjoying homemade muffins with fresh picked, locally grown blueberries. I think even the cinnamon was fair trade. It sounds far more ostentatious than it really is. But it is also more delicious than it sounds.

Best story detail of the day:

Leftfielder Nick Clark hustled in, trying to catch a sinking line drive.

“I ran up and at the very end I said, ‘OK, we’ll sacrifice my body,'” Clark said.

Clark went into a diving slide. He caught the ball.

He lost his leg.

The rest of us? We’ve lost the privilege of complaining about aches and pains for the rest of the day.

And, with the death this morning of Rodney King, the Associated Press published their Where Are They Now feature on some of the key players of his beating and the later riots. Some of these aren’t surprising at all.

Years ago I dropped my subscription to Newsweek because of a stupid cover story. And now you can see the latest cover that wasn’t. It was to be an image of President Obama in a hoodie. Here’s why they didn’t publish it:

In the old days, a cover is a cover, and that was it. Today, she says, there’s an “aftermath of imagery” one must take into consideration. Will this cover be used by white supremacists? Will it take a bad turn in its meme lifecycle?

This was to be one of their new artistic covers, because a news photograph is no longer desirable. But Diana of Wales, were she alive today, now that, they think, will move magazines! They get people to talk about the magazine occasionally, but they do nothing for news, or to buttress the once proud reputation of the old magazine. Issue sales are stagnant or barely moving. Advertising is sadly way down. Putting the president in a hoodie isn’t going to help those things.

We’re watching the Clemson-Auburn 2010 game tonight. (I hope Auburn wins!) I’m not sure how they pulled this game off. Clearly the purple and orange set clearly played better in the first half of the game and, if memory serves, for the better part of the third quarter as well. But they never quit, and there was a big hit (there were a lot of those in this game) that limited Clemson’s quarterback. And then that heartbreaking, for them, overtime experience.

Clemson came to play that Saturday night, and they gave the eventual national champions one of the three biggest scares of the year. I talked to some of their fans after the game. That was exactly how they expected the game to play out: a strong start before they found a way to give the game to Auburn.

I took pictures of that game. Had a few good ones, too. You can see some of them here. Watching it tonight, the 2011 beatdown that Clemson gave Auburn is a lot less surprising.

The two teams start the season against one another this fall in Atlanta.

adventures / Auburn / Friday / friends / iPhone / music / photo / video — 1 Comment
15
Jun 12

Art Walk

Tonight the city held the annual Summer Art Walk. They closed the main intersection downtown, shunted traffic from all four directions and let vendors put tables in the streets. They built a small riser stage in the intersection for music. Stores stayed open a bit later hoping for a little more revenue. The weather was perfect and a nice crowd came out for a relaxed evening.

We walked by Samford Hall on the way to the party. Beautiful as ever:

Kids were just rolling around in the road. An entire block on one side had given way to a chalk explosion:

Kids of all ages:

We enticed friends to come out. Jeremy brought his oldest daughter. We ran into the famous Sara “War Eagle” Willis. We met some of her friends, a graphic design graduate and others. We had lemonade. We played behind the trees at Toomer’s:

Local band Muse, who have been jamming here for almost 40 years, played a nice long set at Center Paw. Kids danced. College kids had a sit-in. The old people, milled about visiting and shopping.

It was a beautiful night.

They should do this every week.

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12
Jun 12

Just current events

If I may wrap my head around the journalism of our big shooting story — and this is my site, so I say that I can — I’ll recall something I said to The Yankee on Sunday. She was driving as we headed home from our rafting excursion. I was reading aloud the emerging news on the Saturday night shooting.

“They might stumble at first, but The Plainsman staff will do a great job of covering this story.”

I said that with pride, knowing they might struggle a bit because they are, after all, students. But I know what they are capable of because I was a part of that staff once. And it has been a great paper for decades. And I was right. They did a great job covering the story. You can see their continuing coverage here.

If you are interested in how the sausage is made Dr. John Carvalho wrote a piece for The War Eagle Reader on the subject.

Covering that first big story is always hard, but they’ve done very well so far. I’m proud for them. Shame they had to have a story like this, but it shows their promise, demonstrates their hard work and will, hopefully, give them confidence to go with the sudden attention they are receiving.

(Update: WHNT-19, the Huntsville, Ala. CBS affiliate did a story on The Plainsman’s newsgathering. See it here.

There was another press conference today, though there was not much new to say. The suspect is still at large. Desmonte Leonard, authorities believe, was at the house they targeted last night. The thought is that he was able to move on before the Montgomery police, Auburn police, FBI, state troopers, U.S. Marshals and four other agencies arrived on the scene.

The only other news was that the reward for information leading to his arrest now sits at $30,000. And law enforcement is openly telling the public they’re tired of being misled. They’re offering Class C felonies to anyone who gets in the way.

I dislike that that this has become a football story. It is hard not to, though. Two former players were killed. One, Ladarious Phillips, was transferring to Jacksonville State (The heartbreaking version of his story is that his new coach, Jack Crowe, had expected him at JSU much early this summer. He was, apparently, having a tough time making that change, though, and so the wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time motif has even greater significance. Phillips everybody loved. He was 290 pounds and could do a backflip flat-footed with a big smile. The stories people tell of him in his hometown of nearby Roanoke, Ala., about being a father figure to young children, even when he apparently didn’t have one around himself, are sad and uplifting and heartbreaking. The other, Ed Christian, retired because of a back injury. He was still a student, though, a Georgia boy who, by all accounts I’ve read, also had a fine reputation.

Another current player, Eric Mack, was injured, but is expected to make a complete recovery. Whether he’ll play football again, Auburn coach Gene Chizik said, is right now immaterial.

But there were others, too, not affiliated with the football program. DeMario Pitts was a local boy, and he is dead at 20, leaving behind a son and daughter. Xavier D. Moss was killed at 19. John Robertson is in critical condition at a Birmingham hospital. The 20-year-old was shot in the head.

This is clearly beyond the scope of a football program, or an athletic department or even a university.

But, still, Chizik stood before the media today. Still shaken, exhausted and determined, he stood before this sign and said he wasn’t thinking about football at all. He was thinking about his players, and those families:

I noticed that sign in the spring, when I had the pleasure of hearing a presentation of a much happier sort in that same meeting room. But that sign means something even more profound this week than when it is normally read by football players thinking of Xs and Os.

And so this is a football story, though it shouldn’t be. But maybe it had to be, because that’s one of the things we do best. So let’s make this a football story, and Chizik the reluctant healer.

While no coach wants this kind of added work in their job, I’m sure most would do quiet well in these terrible circumstances. But Gene Chizik will be great. I think he’s a pretty good coach, but I’ve long thought he was a better man.

Oh, and the other big news: The Advance layoff meetings start today. In Huntsville, Birmingham and Mobile newspaper staffers are going into one-on-one meetings and being told whether they’ll have a future with the new company. Scary times for all those people.

I have friends in those newsrooms and have read the bylines or seen the efforts of others’ anonymous work for years, decades. No one wants to be a situation like this personally, but the future is here, says the company, and they’re changing for their future. Tough for everyone. Some 400 people are said to lose their jobs.

Later: Desmonte Leonard is in custody. He turned himself in to the U.S. Marshals in Montgomery this evening. Apparently he’d been negotiating with them for a good part of the day. Happily he’s been arrested without anyone else being hurt. And now the legal process can begin.

I mentioned this on Twitter, and I don’t want to overstate the point or anything, but we were at Mellow Mushroom when the news of his arrest was announced. You could fellow the atmosphere in the room change just a bit. Now, maybe, all of those families can begin to copy a tiny bit with their grief.