We managed an early morning ride before heading into the conference this afternoon. Here are a few combined pictures:

We climbed out of the neighborhood, went down the side of the hill and turned into another, older neighborhood. We climbed up some easy little hills and I was thinking The Yankee would decide she didn’t like this route. We hit a four-way stop. Across from us two gentlemen were painting S-T-O-P on the asphalt under gray skies. We turned to the right. The road dropped out and then leveled off and we pedaled and pedaled and pedaled over a long stretch of flat ground until we found that Road Closed sign.

This was, I think, exactly how far the glaciers got during the last ice age. If there were any soil experts around I would have asked them. I’m sure there is some sort of evidence in the earth.

So we turned around and went back through the flat part, paced a post office truck and back up the first of the little hills and breezed through the intersection.

We discovered that the return part of that old neighborhood was an even easier ride going back and then climbed back toward where we started out. It was a short ride, but the air was pleasant and the roads were nice and it was good to be outside.

This was doubly nice since we checked in at our hotel, walked to the nearby conference hotel and committed ourselves to several days of indoors activities.

At the conference: My position this year as program chair of the political communication division requires that I also sit on the Southern States Communication Association’s executive council, so I had the good fortune to take part in that late-afternoon meeting. Felt like a faculty meeting in a lot of ways. People talked, they read, jokes were made, votes were had. Agenda items were dealt with in an executive fashion.

We adjourned and I found The Yankee and we met up with many of our friends. Brian from Texas was there, as were Barry and Melissa from Alabama and then Darrell from Texas, too. We talked down the street to a fairly upscale little restaurant called Quattro. The waiter somehow quickly ascertained that we were in town on business and politely announced he did not care. This was not his first day on the job.

We ordered. I picked the most common thing I could find. When the food came. Well, most of it. Mine did not. I made the international symbol for “I’m hungry too,” which is a pouty face. The waiter says “Oh crap!” He looks down at his pad, which instantly makes you wonder if your order was actually placed. He disappeared and returned with my plate. It was a plate of something. It could have been mine. This was a place with a slightly pretentious menu, so what I ordered might have been this, or perhaps something the next table got.

It was good, either way. No one else had complaints.

And, instantly, the jokes of the conference became “Kenny isn’t here” and “Too bad Kenny couldn’t see this.”

This will be a good joke. I just wish it didn’t happen two hours after we arrived.

Tomorrow the conference begins in earnest. I have another executive council meeting first thing and then a panel session to take part in. There will also be many sessions to hear and elbows to rub. It will be a busy day.

Here, then, are a few more pictures from our morning ride:

Things to read: Why paywalls are scary:

The case for paywalls would seem to be compelling: Stanch the decline in print circulation, get paid for producing valuable local content and tap into a fresh source of sorely needed revenue at a time advertising sales continue to shrink.

All good? Not necessarily. The reason to worry about paywalls is that they severely limit the prospects of developing a wider audience for newspapers at a time publishers need – more than ever – to attract readers among the digitally native generations that represent a growing proportion of the adult population.

Alan Mutter there is always thoughtful reading.

Study: Hyperlocal demand driven by mobile devices:

Demand for hyperlocal content is being driven by increased usage of mobile devices according to a study conducted by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta) charitable foundation.

[…]

“Both the reach and the consumption of hyperlocal content has been accelerated by smartphones,” Jon Kingsbury, Nesta’s programme director for creative economy, told Journalism.co.uk.

Stop back by tomorrow. There will be more fun things thing, I’m sure.