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9
Mar 20

A run, two rides, but mostly cats

Happy Monday. This week is going to be a memorable one, you can just tell, can’t you? It will. And if you can’t tell, come up for air and read the news. It’s going to be a memorable one.

But before all of that begins, we have our new usual Monday feature of checking in with the cats. Let’s see how they spent their weekend.

Phoebe discovered a new place to sit on the stairs. We have a small landing, and she’s familiar with that, but this step gives her a commanding view of the foyer, a window and escape routes up and down the stairs. I’m sure that’s how she thinks.

Poseidon spent part of Saturday night curled up in a big fuzzy blanket. I think he’s coming around to the lifestyle:

They got two new toys in the mail from a friend this weekend. They are little lizard shapes with some hardcore strain of catnip inside:

They are jealous cats, so jealous that despite there being two of the identical toys, they are fighting over the lizards. So now we’ll have to hide them.

Some naps, for whatever reason, are cuter than others:

We went for a run on a sunny Saturday. I am now tasked with running ahead and taking pictures. So my sprints should improve, because the job is to get far enough ahead that I can find a good spot for a reasonable composition, stop, turn, open the camera, frame a shot and watch the runner run through:

It’s a good chance to catch my breath, though, before having to run on and catch back up. But, check this out, same picture:

I got the two-feet-off-the-ground shot. Not bad for trying to do all of the above while winded.

On Sunday afternoon I got in my first bike ride of the year. And this evening I had my second bike ride No photos or videos of either of those. Or probably for the first four or five rides. I have to remember again where all the gears are and what all the levers on the bike do again, first.

I shot this after today’s bike ride. And I am suddenly very interested, once again, in natural sound.

The late night show produced this episode for you last Friday. The guest is one of our professors. Ordinarily my critique would be that you have to go find people outside of our own buildings. There are a lot of reasons for that, groupthink, the burden of real producing, the what’s-entertaining-to-you-isn’t-entertaining-to-everyone phenomenon, but that concept may not apply to Susan Kelly, who is quite entertaining indeed:

Anyway, for the rest of the week, and whatever else is coming to us soon, I hope your times aren’t that interesting.

cycling / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off
24
Feb 20

Leave room for cream?

Friday night we saw Bert Kreischer, who is as clever and frat-tastic as ever. He played two shows at Butler, and we stood outside in about 20 degree weather until almost the published curtain time, which meant the actual start was, of course, later. Someone said he started the first show late, and that it went long. So the rest stood to reason. That meant we were going to get extra comedy, but first we had to move seats. Because I sat in the wrong row. Joke’s on me!

Anyway, the show was terrific. If you like bawdy material it works. He can put the whole room in his hand and give them whatever he wants. The crowd control of it all might be the most interesting thing. They’re just stories. Stories he’s spiced up for maximum impact, and often even the tangents are deliberate, but how he can hold a room for 90 minutes just telling tales is interesting.

Near the end he basically took requests, because he’s reaching some interactive iconic level of comedy now. I assume that’s owing one part to his talent, but another to the times in which we live, how there are bits online everywhere, and how he has embraced the intimate part of fandom that social media creates as a bit of his act.

And of course he has to tell The Machine story because, as he said Friday night, a Facebook version of that story changed his life and put him where he is today, which is selling out shows across the country and about to premiere his third Netflix special.

The Facebook version of The Machine story works, he said, because the Facebook algorithm put a key, but unnamed player in the actual story as a top commenter and she verified the whole thing. You can look the whole story up on YouTube. It’s 10 minutes or so long, and if you like bawdy, over-the-top humor, you’d find it amusing.

If that’s not, however, your thing … errrmmmm … here are two quick cycling videos!

The Yankee got her tri bike. And this weekend she braved some cool temps and finally gave it a try. (It’s a cruel thing to buy yourself a bike in February and wait.) The fit isn’t there yet, but she looks pretty pro, don’t you think:

If that one is a little blurry I blame my upload connection and her speed.

But watch this one, she’s coming right out of the screen!

I’ll never be able to keep up with her on that thing.

Also, it is my turn to buy a bike. Hmmmm …

I should mention this:

Yesterday we had sun for a record-breaking fifth day in a row. I don’t remember the last time we saw the sunshine for five consecutive days. Maybe November, for sure in October, if I had to pick a definitive time. Certainly it has never happened here in February. Yesterday, even, we got all the way up to 56 degrees — making for an excellent afternoon for a run. Maybe this sort of weather will happen some more.

It rained all day today. We’re due for snow on Wednesday.

cycling / Instagram / iPhone / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off
28
Oct 19

This week we show color

I looked outside Saturday and saw many colors. I like the many colors. We do not go into the wilderness and write essays about it. Not like before. Now, we put on our shoes and, this time of year, check the thermostat to see the external temperature so that we can dress accordingly and then grab our phone and go take photographs. So I did:

It wasn’t cold. But that’s coming, and that right quick. Right now, in fact, the color of the Midwest is upon us: grey. That’ll be the default and unassuming look until, oh, April if we’re lucky. Sure, there will be a few blue-sky days, but you can no longer take those for granted. Sunday was a beautiful goodbye. The season of drear, with a dash of Cimmerian, is upon us. But not yesterday. Egads, yesterday was beautiful.

Just look at that sky over the same tree:

We took a bike ride and wound our way down to the lake, to see about the leaves down there. We took a few pictures. And this is now the wallpaper on my phone, because we make photobomb wallpapers around here:

Even the ground had a moment yesterday. I just shot this as I walked by a tree. How many colors are in there?

On the way back to the house, I sought out a road I discovered because of some random overwriting I was doing here on the site last month. Geese were flying overhead and I looked at their basic route and found the nearest pond and saw this road on Google Maps and thought, I should ride that one day.

And maybe I picked the most perfect day of the season to make this come true, I don’t know. I rode down it, a mile of shade and leaves and alternating beams of light and twists and turns and fun. At the end, where pavement turned into what I presume is a long gravel driveway I turned around and thought, I should record this. So I rode back up it, one handed, up the hill, and had a great time. Just here, when the light changed and I happened to be watching the road through the screen, and it lit up in a golden hue while the phone’s sensors tried to catch up to the circumstance. That was the moment, and the ride was worth it and I knew in that explosive refrain that it was, in fact, the day for this road. That moment was this moment:

You can see the whole road, slightly accelerated, here:

And here’s our view of the lake from down by the water’s edge:

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Maybe you'd like a scenic view of the lake …

A post shared by Kenny Smith (@kennydsmith) on Oct 27, 2019 at 4:05pm PDT

So a nice weekend, then.

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adventures / cycling / Monday / video — Comments Off
14
Oct 19

Let’s go ride bikes!

I’m more than a little disappointed in the HD quality of this upload, but it is a clip from a nice little bike ride this evening:

“My offseason goal,” The Yankee says, “is to perfect the cycling photobomb.”

I’m not sure if the deliberately done, on demand, photobomb is technically a photobomb, but that composition has style. Which is good since it also has some focal quality issues. I’m going to blame the one handed, barely breathing, back camera, keep-it-on-the-road nature of the moment. That’s where the authenticity is, by the way. That’s where the vulnerability is.

Anyway, it was a nice ride. Just using the little ring, thinking about high revolution more than speed. As I have neither, it was just a nice excuse to be outside with my best girl. The shadows are longer, the days are shorter, there’s a bit of different color in the sky, there was a chill in the air once the perspiration began, et cetera.

It made my Monday. What made yours?

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adventures / cycling / Monday / photo / running — Comments Off
30
Sep 19

The exercise of the weekend

We did the Outrun Cancer fundraiser Saturday. It was a beautiful, warm, not-a-cloud-in-the-sky, late summer, early autumn day. The sort you can’t take for granted. The kind you do. It’s more apogee than perigee, but definitely neither. It could go on forever, but you know it won’t. You wouldn’t mind if it did, though. You’re not that lucky and so don’t take it for granted, this warm sun, the sting of sunblock in your eyes, the sweat everywhere.

This run on Saturday was the third run on my current rehab tour. I taped up my foot that morning, added another layer and then considered what I’d done previously. On my first run, earlier this week, I did two miles on a 1:1 run-to-walk ratio. On the second run I did three miles, with a bit more running than walking. And easing back into this is important. So naturally I started this 5K with a solid one-mile run. OK, fine, a good jog. After that I walked about a third of the rest. Probably should have had another walk interval, but I was as bored as the rest of this paragraph.

On this particular 5K course around campus you take the last left, go down a little hill and then right back the other side of the next hill. You hang one more left and there’s probably a block or so to the finish line. On that last hill I saw The Yankee working her way up the left side of the road. So I found myself sprinting up the right side of the road and hanging that last, blissful left, to hit the finish line before she did so I could do this:

No matter the distance, finishing with a smile is a big deal in our house.

We walked back to the car in front of this going on in one giant parking lot:

I counted 25 air fans supporting the front of the bounce house, which is billed as the largest in the world. You wonder if there’s serious competition. And if the other guy has surreptitiously come to one of these events and measured the thing, and found it lacking. You wonder if that’s just a trademark, or if there’s something in China or Indiana or Washington state that is just as big or bigger.

You also wonder about why there were security guards in security t-shirts stationed inside the thing. You wonder about how much those people must hate their boss who made them wear the black one today. It was warm.

Now, ordinarily, I’d be especially excited about a bounce house. But the amount of perspiration would only create even more flesh-on-plastic stickiness.

There was a ball pit, and I missed out on it. I had my fill working at Chuck’s in high school, but this ball pit wasn’t like that. The bounce house was so large that for scale the ball pit was filled with beach balls.

They’d be even more demanding to clean after the inevitable accident, I’m sure.

On Sunday we went for a bike ride in the afternoon. It was a nice 20-miler on another Chamber of Commerce day. I got out front early, because I figured if I could hang on through at least two of the pre-planned turnarounds first she’d give me a big smile when we met one another. (She’d do this if she was in front of me, too, but that somehow didn’t occur to me when I was breathing hard.) At one point I probably had about a minute on her and three guys from one of the Little 500 teams picked me up. I stayed on their wheel for a few miles until their route differed from ours, but mostly answered my lingering question: yes, they are faster than me. And younger, too, what’s more.

So through the first turnaround I had the lead, down by the house with the big drive just before the side road rejoined the bigger state road. And then, at the second turnaround, on the quiet little neighborhood road that feels like a private drive, I saw her again. Closer this time. So now I have to pedal harder and faster, because the next section of road favored The Yankee’s strengths, but after that was the one sorta-hill, which favors me a little bit more, somehow. And after that big hill was the third turnaround. And if I got there then that’d mean three smiles!

And that’s how you trick yourself to going a little harder than you think you could. After that it’s hang a left, two rollers, then a right and down to the second of the big hills. Two more quick turns and then you’re back in the neighborhood and through that area I know there’s not going to be an opportunity for her to catch me. Great! I can do the gentlemanly thing and open the door for her.

As I got back to the house I remembered: She had the key.