cycling « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

cycling

Waiting for 4.0

That tree will haunt your dreams. I want to go back to Big Lots, buy it and bury it so it doesn’t frighten little children.

Would anyone like to hang it, instead? Or maybe put it in a lake as a fish reef?

Pedaled around the southern part of town today. Again it was very cool. The high today was 68 degrees. I set out down the hill of death and up the two hills of shame, took a right at the light and raced past the back of the subdivision. Turned right, passed a school, up two huge hills where I geared up as far as I could and still had to just put my head down, grit my teeth and make mind-deals. Just 20 more strokes and you’ll be there. OK, five more.

Crossed the interstate on the narrowest overpass in town, dodged traffic on the bypass and then cruised through one of the great old neighborhoods. When I made it to campus I turned around, cruised the neighborhood the other direction, got caught by a bunch of buses on the bypass and then made it home feeling strong.

Later I went back downtown to see about a watch. The crystal needs replacing, and the jeweler at Ware’s with whom I spoke could not see through the scuffs to read who made the watch.

It’s a Fossil.

“Oh,” she said shaking her head sadly. There’s bad news here. “Fossil doesn’t let us do any work on their watches. They have some sort of warranty deal, though.”

And then I asked the wrong question. Is that pretty much a standard thing? Would that be what the rest of the jewelers in town would say if I went asking?

“You could try Walmart, but we have some of the best jewelers in the state right here …”

Right. Well then.

She was happy to not help me, though, so there’s that.

So I went to the bike story, because I have this issue with gears and hoped someone would answer my question. But the answer was no better than what I’d read. Score one more for the Internet. Now if it would just get me up the hills a bit easier … (That’s web 4.0, I hear.)

Started watching The Pacific tonight. Made it through the first two discs, thanks to Netflix. We’ve seen Guadalcanal and Pavuvu. This was all promoted, when it debuted on HBO, as the Band of Brothers of the Pacific Theater. And the men that fought there have long had a legitimate claim that their stories have gone unnoticed through all the retellings of what happened in Europe.

The series, four episodes in, is fine. It is no Band of Brothers. I’ve seen that many more times and read Ambrose’s book that spawned the series and two memoirs (Dick Winters’ and Lynn Compton’s) around it. That story was much more about the camaraderie. I’ve only read one of the memoirs (Eugene Sledge’s) that was the source material for The Pacific, and will one day get around to Hugh Ambrose’s book. So far, this one is about the sun and palm trees and firefights at night and grim desperation in the daytime. But there are six more episodes to go, maybe it will get there.

The island hopping miseries are an interesting thing. Somehow you wonder if you’re getting the full story, but if you look around at enough perspectives you realize how this may have been a period of the deepest deprivations (from both sides) of man and maybe you don’t want to know every little terrible detail.

Finished an article I’ve been working on. The task was this: write a 2,000 catching-up-with profile. And the focal point gave me a lot of coachspeak and platitudes. Not that I blame him. The interview was fine — the coach is a very nice guy and has always been an accommodating gentleman — but coaches get in the habit of speaking like coaches. They’re always a little bit leary, because you never know who’ll read the thing. That just carries over, hopefully not at home, but whenever someone breaks out a recorder or a notepad.

So write 2,000 words on a series of humble “doing greats” and “we’re excited about the season” and “one game at a time” and “we see it as a business trip.” This took a bit of creativity.

I’d written about 2,200 words and then cut a few hundred, which just made the thing better. I wrote one ending, but decided against it, so it became the end of a section. And then, to finish the story, I wrote back to where the tale began.

Sent that off, it’ll be on shelves this summer, wrote this and now time for bed.

Oh, when I took out the garbage tonight I noticed I could see my breath. May in Alabama. It was 48 degrees.

cycling / errands / iPhone / Monday / photo — Comments Off
16
May 11

I am unseasonably cool all week

This is May. And I’m writing this from the Deep South — so deep and so far south it requires capital letters — and the high temperature today was 66. Odd. But by and large a wonderful day.

I rode the bike for a while, down the big hill of death near home and then up the corresponding hills of shame past the two roads of unobservant drivers. Having negotiated all of that I pressed on through a red light and down the road a few more miles of country roads to a stop sign. And when I got there I turned around, gritted through the hills and took a left at the light. From there I pressed on as fast as my little spent legs would take me, hung a right into the subdivision and struggled up the ascent of embarrassment.

And the weather was so nice I didn’t even break a sweat.

So I cleaned up, watered the plants and went frame shopping. I have a backlog of things to frame and hang, but I am thrifty and frames are pricey. So I look for reasonable frames holding unfortunate prints, or cheap frames at places like Big Lots. That place is a closeout store, which means the tacky things that didn’t sell somehow make it there. Things like this. Who says “Oh I need that in the dining room!” Or, maybe this is more your style.

I’m putting this in our house.

Somehow I managed to resist the temptation to purchase the foosball coffee table:

They missed their price point, though. You can get a real and full-sized table for a similar amount of coin.

This was the site when I left the store:

Pretty ominous, but nothing came of it. A few minutes later the clouds were low and dramatic, but they pushed off without a peep.

Hit an outlet store, but realized they are having a sale Friday so I’ll go back. Hit World Market, because why not? Picked up a few food items at the grocery store, too. They will almost fight you to carry out your groceries when you have a cart full. You bring it to the register by hand, and they put it in two bags, and you’re on your own.

Strolled around, took a few pictures, had dinner, put some time into a project I have in the works and thought about closing the windows. It was cold. Hit 52 degrees tonight. The weather is lovely, but decidedly un-Maylike. Makes you wonder what’s in store.

adventures / Alabama / Auburn / baseball / cycling / Friday / Pie Day — Comments Off
13
May 11

Friday the 13th!

The only thing more terrifying is Thursday, the 13th!

My sense of pop culture, or my need to find such things funny, must have become especially detached lately. Didn’t even realize it was Friday and a 13th until I started writing this.

Happily, nothing terrible happened today. Slept in. Turned in my grades — the semester is done! Rode the bike.

We have a big hill at our house. I am convinced it might be the biggest hill in town — being officially in the coastal plains and all. The ride started with that hill. I do not like this hill in the saddle. The Yankee says “You’ll get used to it.”

Which is the thing that concerns me. That’s the sort of descent that will break something when you get casual about it. I have enough mass to build up some real speed on the thing. And I’m fragile.

So we pedaled a while, had a nice ride and then got ready for the Alabama at Auburn baseball game.

Which got rained out. Friday the 13th strikes after all.

We went out for barbecue and banana pudding instead. There’s always a silver lining in slow cooked meat. (As a general rule: if you find a silver lining in your meat you should send it back, but go with it.)

We visited Moe’s Original Barbecue, which has become a popular stop on Magnolia. I always said a little northern Alabama barbecue would do well here. The first time we stopped in the line was almost out the door. Now the college students have all gone home for the summer and it was merely full rather than packed. And, for the first time at Moe’s, I had the barbecue chicken. It was very good.

The banana pudding still isn’t anything to brag about. Now I just want Dreamland. Or Jim ‘N’ Nicks.

Our Friday night? We bought things at Walmart. We picked up a garden hose sprinkler attachment, socks, a birthday card and other small things here and there. We know how to party.

Alabama / Auburn / baseball / cycling / iPhone / photo / Samford / Wednesday — Comments Off
11
May 11

Summer is here

The seasons have changed in more ways than one. My spring classes are now completed. All that is left is to finish up the grades. Then I’ll turn my attention back to my dissertation. And sweating. With spring gone summer has shown up, starting today. Riding a bike in the 90s isn’t the best idea, but we did that today. Nice ride, too. I should ride more.

Cleaned up some comment spam. The spammers like photo blogs, like my LOMO blog, where I dumped 100 spammers, but the automated text has lately been unfailingly polite.

After that we hit the grocery store. In the figurative sense. The store is made of brick and cement and various other painful looking substances. Hitting it would just be silly when what you really need to do is pick up cereal and sandwich stuff.

Then there was a little reading. And then some more research. Finding obscure Russian scholars is proving a tough challenge. I found seven items from this small group today, though, so that’s a start.

And then there was a baseball game. Auburn hosted Alabama State in a makeup game that was pitched as Fan Appreciation Night. Most people had something better to do (and school is out, further reducing the crowd). They didn’t even announce the attendance, but it was somewhere in the Montreal Expos territory. On the official statistics they called it 1,868. Only if they counted you twice.

(She got counted twice because she’s extra special. )

They might have miscounted the Alabama State pitchers. They had some big guys on the mound. The starter was an all-district center in high school, was listed as bigger than Auburn’s national championship center and I believe it. They just got taller and more impressive as the night went on. Auburn got an early lead in the game and flirted with giving it away before finally winning 7-5.

Lovely night to spend watching baseball, but every night is lovely at Plainsman Park. (This weekend they host Alabama.)

Auburn / cycling / weekend — Comments Off
12
Mar 11

The umps changed their shoes

At the baseball game last night the guys one section over from us ridiculed the first base umpire mercilessly. He had bright, shiny, new shoes. They liked them very much. Today the umps had solid black shoes. Apparently the fans had gotten in their heads.

As the game today ran into the middle innings those same guys realized their shadows were falling on the mound, upon which they made shadow puppets for the opposing pitcher. They got in his head pretty well, too. All for not, the seventh ranked Arizona State has won two games in their weekend series against number 23 Auburn. Hardly matters. We shivered last night and enjoyed the sun and the shadows today. We’re sitting near a man who’s been buying season tickets to Arizona State baseball for 40 years. (They’ve had a great program for a lot of that time, their fans know their stuff and this particular bunch are vnice people and were complimentary of their trip to the plains.)

Today he was talking about how the college game is better than the professional game. The players don’t have to play hurt. It is a faster game. You can’t get seats like ours, about seven rows above first base, in the big leagues. I eat peanuts during the whole game and sit near people who are critical of the umpires’ shoes.

Got my bike back today. Took seven days to replace the crankset. By contrast I’ve had a radiator replaced in my car in half the time. But they apologized for the delay and thanked me for my patience. They didn’t charge me for labor on replacing a tire tube. They did charge me labor for replacing the crankset. We hadn’t discussed that.

So I think I’ll become a bike expert and learn how to fix everything myself. Because I can’t afford this business all the time.

Got my oil changed today, too. The guy asked if I wanted a new air filter. I said no. When the bill came it was about 15 bucks higher than it should have been. “You wanted the air filter, didn’t you?”

I’ll remember that, sneaky, duplicitous Express Oil Change man.

Then there was baseball and then home for steak and ironing. And then there’s tomorrow. No one’s especially looking forward to that.

(And don’t forget to spring forward.)