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Monday already

I wanted to ride this morning, but Monday mornings race by and this morning needed to linger a bit. Besides, it had rained and … OK, maybe I didn’t want to ride this morning. I was a bit sore last night, actually, aching in places I haven’t in a good long while. And that’s probably the perfect reason to clip in.

Also I need to find out where the guy in the neon yellow jacket went yesterday. I turned onto one road behind him, met a cyclist heading the other direction and decided to overtake the guy in the loud jacket.

What if the cyclist going the other way turned around? He should see me put this guy between us so he can, naturally, destroy me with ease, I thought.

And then I realized where I was.

I could pace and pass this guy, but I struggle on the next hill and he’ll get me back there. That would be embarrassing.

So I decided to close the distance, but not force the issue. At the next intersection, from about 40 yards back, I watched him turn left. When I made the intersection — going straight — I glanced after him but he was gone. That was impressive. Or he might be missing out there somewhere.

That was yesterday’s 32 mile ride. Today damp asphalt and things to do kept me inside.

Class today. The conversation was led by a group discussing online media. One of the guys was controlling every computer in the room and a low-orbit satellite from his iPad. He was a good choice for this topic and, as usual, it was a great job. I have very sharp students.

I’m also buried in a spreadsheet. And I have a stack of things to grade, a few more phone calls to make. I have plenty of school work to do. So this is brief.

Things to read: Sustainability consultant tours good and bad of Birmingham:

Hopping aboard a bike, former Bogota, Colombia, Mayor Enrique Penalosa took a six-mile ride through the good, the bad and the ugly of Birmingham in advance of today’s Sustainable Smart Cities Conference.

After biking through depopulated portions of Titusville and Elyton, marred with abandoned and burned-out houses and grim housing developments, Penalosa was aghast.

“What I saw today was one of the most depressed areas I have ever seen,” he said.

He suggested that residents in the sparsely populated areas be bought out to make way for a “crazy” project

When a mayor of Bogota is telling you your business …

Mitt Romney Remembers Things That Happened Before He Was Born!:

Romney recalled he was “probably 4 or something like that” the day of the Golden Jubilee, when three-quarters of a million people gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the American automobile.

“My dad had a job being the grandmaster. They painted Woodward Ave. with gold paint,” Romney told a rapt Tea Party audience in the village of Milford Thursday night, reliving a moment of American industrial glory.

The Golden Jubilee described so vividly by Romney was indeed an epic moment in automotive lore. The parade included one of the last public appearances by an elderly Henry Ford.

And it took place June 1, 1946 — fully nine months before Romney was born.

I love false memory stories, and only partly because the earliest memory I can muster (and that’s a good word) is, when I describe it to my mother, something that can’t possibly have happened.

If Romney isn’t cynically pandering with the idea that no one would bother to cross-reference the dates, this is a simple mistake. Of course no mistake on the campaign trail is simple. And this story, which is far more likely Romney’s re-telling of a story he heard in his family his entire life, is probably just a planted memory. Sometimes you can’t win for losing.

Jeff Jarvis at his best, Leave our net alone:

The internet’s not broken.

So then why are there so many attempts to regulate it? Under the guises of piracy, privacy, pornography, predators, indecency, and security, not to mention censorship, tyranny, and civilization, governments from the U.S. to France to Germany to China to Iran to Canada — as well as the European Union and the United Nations — are trying to exert control over the internet.

Why? Is it not working? Is it presenting some new danger to society? Is it fundamentally operating any differently today than it was five or ten years ago? No, no, and no.

So why are governments so eager to claim authority over it? Why would legacy corporations, industries, and institutions egg them on? Because the net is working better than ever. Because they finally recognize how powerful it is and how disruptive it is to their power.

Jarvis was the president of Advance Internet during much of my time with the company.

Friends of local Auburn legend Johnny “Mr. Penny” Richmond hold impromptu vigil:

Cards and flowers were left and candles were lit at the corner of Dean Road and Samford Ave. tonight in honor of a hero.

Johnny Richmond, affectionately known as Mr. Penny by students at Dean Road Elementary School where he worked for 37 years as a custodian and crossing guard, suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound Monday morning, according to Auburn police. News outlets have backed off earlier reports that Richmond later died from his injuries, and as of 9 p.m. Monday list him as being on life support.

I wrote the next piece, the short, just-in-case bit of copy that you hope never has to run. Right now he’s hanging on. He’s seemingly one of those people that you can’t find anyone that has anything remotely to say about him. This is Mr. Penny:

Jeremy did that interview in 2011, after the community rallied to raise money to send him and his wife to the BCS National Championship game. We live in a great place.

Auburn / baseball / football / memories / photo / site / weekend — Comments Off
19
Feb 12

Catching up

The weekly attempt to share a few more of the pictures that haven’t, as yet, made it elsewhere on the site.

Ronnie Brown and Cadillac Williams spent some great years playing football at Auburn. They were both taken in the first round of the NFL draft after their perfect 2004 season. Shame about the people they ran around with when they were in school, though:

Look at the fu manchu, the handlebars, the eye patch, the neck tats. Those kids are of ill-repute.

That’s actually a chart-your-growth-compare-to-NFL-caliber-athletes-and-try-not-to-be-disappointed poster. It is still on display at Momma Goldberg’s, some eight years after it was timely. The location means the second half of that sentence makes perfect sense. People can see the picture alone and know where I’m standing at that moment.

Meanwhile, one of the current football superstars was having dinner on the patio, just outside, when I took that shot. And, yes, we were about to have dinner outside in February. Life is good.

Quick! Count the typos! There are a few. This is the fine print on the back of a gymnastics ticket:

This pitch is too low:

That’s from the Friday game against Missouri. Auburn won. The Saturday game was rained out. Mizzou won both of those games, the last one was shortened to 7 innings because of time constraints. (Missouri had to catch their plane.) Auburn left 29 runners on base in 25 innings this weekend.

It was a cold and drizzly day for baseball. Friday? Friday evening was beautiful. (Click to embiggen the panorama.)

And now, a few more gymnastics pictures from Friday night:

Still more in the February photo gallery.

football / iPhone / journalism / links / photo / Samford / site / things to read / Tuesday — Comments Off
7
Feb 12

The magic of lights and trees and things

My view in the Caf today:

Those aren’t new leaves. That’s a species of oak which stays green. Everything is still sticks and and twigs — everything except the Bradfords, at least. Some of the maples are starting to get those crisp red buds of future promises, and all of that seems a bit early, perhaps. But we’re still looking at too much brown and not enough green.

I love what is to come, that week or 10 day period where you are overwhelmed by just how verdant everything has suddenly become.

Still, the dreary sticks and twigs of winter have an appeal. You can see things that would be hidden the rest of the year. Leaving campus this evening I had a great view of the steeple on Reid Chapel. It seemed to be lit in such a way that dramatically lit the side closest to you, with the rest in shadow for effect. It was an optical illusion of course, but what a neat trick it would be. When the leaves return you won’t be able to see it from there.

At the mall:

They’ve closed this parking deck. If you walk around inside it you see they’re painting. First the columns. Perhaps they’re re-doing the ceiling as well. It is colder in the parking deck than normal, no exhaust. But it also smells a bit better. More importantly you have to park somewhere else.

Which I did, about 50 feet away. A parking deck closed and still plenty of spaces. That has to trouble the mall managers, right?

But economists say things are due to improve locally:

The center forecasts gross domestic product growth of 2.5 percent in 2012, compared to 2.2 percent in 2011. They also expect employment to increase 1.1 percent in 2012, compared to 0.8 percent last year.

Every little bit.

A guy named AUltered Ego made me this:

That’s one of the two new crosswalk warnings — because nothing says pedestrian safety like a “LOOK AT ME!” sign high above the road — on Magnolia in Auburn. AUltered was kind enough to hack the sign with his magical Photoshop skills. I will only turn the sign on when there are no cars coming. Wouldn’t want to cause any traffic problems.

Two tech stories that fell neatly side-by-side: E&P says some newspapers still unsure how to use the iPad for publishing. Alan Mutter writes:

Two years after the debut of the iPad, most newspaper publishers still are fretting and fumbling over what to do about it.

Even though the iPad 2 was one of the most popular items last Christmas and the third-generation version of the product is likely to turn up well before Santa returns this year, many newspapers have yet to develop their very first app. Of the publishers who took the plunge, most were so unclear on their concept that they shouldn’t have bothered.

Mutter says it is all a big flub at this point.

Meanwhile, the app that keeps you from contacting your ex. ” It allows users to block text messages, emails, and phone calls to thier (sic) ex. It even tracks the number of days you go without contacting your ex.”

If you download that, you are co-dependent on technology. And, also, we’re going to laugh at you. (Though we will remain sad about your broken heart. Truly.)

Finally, this: Auburn great Ben Tamburello’s, Ben Jr., was all set to attend school and play football at Samford. And then the Naval Academy called. at Samford. Now he’s going to be a Middie. (Go Navy! Beat Army!) Samford’s coach, Pat Sullivan:

“I’ve known that family forever,” Sullivan said. “I helped recruit his dad, I sold insurance to his grandfather. But whether it’s Ben or (Shelby County signee) Denzel Williams, I really want what’s best for these kids.

“Am I disappointed I won’t coach Ben? Yes. But, in the end, this is what’s best for the young man, and that’s what we’re all about.”

Can’t say enough good things about Sullivan. Though I used 2,000 words to try last year.

What else? Two brief things on the journalism blog. One on FOI help. The other has a checklist for breaking online news.

football / music / video / weekend — Comments Off
5
Feb 12

Catching up – Super Bowl edition

Instead of pictures as we usually have in this space on Sunday I’m embedding my favorite commercials from the game. Tonight’s winner: ad agencies. Tonight’s loser: other ad agencies.

In reverse order of my personal favorites, and because I needed a sixth:

I’ve mentioned here before my love of nostalgic commercials — and if you didn’t read that specifically you might have guessed it by other context clues — and there were a few nostalgia spots. This one was the best, because it was produced by people that understand their product and know the place where it belongs. (Budweiser missed on their nostalgia pieces. Toyota’s was fine, but it was more of a personal nostalgia than a historic one.) So this one wins:

I do enjoy the irony that the last thing you see before “making the next century safer” is the attempted horse collar tackle, which is one of your more dangerous and banned parts of the game.

The local ad, supposedly shot with Hyundai’s employees in Montgomery, with Mary stealing the show:

And since we now need to cleanse our mind of Gonna Fly Now, I give you the best song in, perhaps, the worst commercial of the night. They lost all of America with “It’s got a pen? This is awesome.” They redeemed themselves mightily when the bizarrely unforgettable Justin Hawkins is found standing on a San Francisco street corner, being his over-the-top self and somehow warping the continent to be in four cities at once:

That song made it to nine on the Billboard, the album climbed to 33. It was top of the charts in the UK. They may never do anything that gets popular attention — a new albums is forthcoming, Wikipedia says — but The Darkness will always have one of the great pop tunes to their credit.

After the game Chevrolet teased this video. I surfed over, found the page down — the television audience visited en mass, perhaps. When the servers found their footing again there was the newest OK Go video which is, naturally, incredible. Stick with it through the end:

That’s one of the most involved musical performance art acts of all time, a foley artist in desperate need for an award or possibly both.

My favorite ad actually aired just before the game. And it was apparently released last fall. But it is real and emotional and does not feel the need to be outlandish to be outstanding:

What were your favorite ads? What did I miss? (I missed most of the second quarter.) Tell me in the comments.

Auburn / baseball / football / Glomerata / history / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
2
Feb 12

The oldest graduate

When he walked at his graduation at Auburn William H. Holley, like many before and since, shook the hand of the university’s president, Dr. Bradford Knapp. The governor was Bibb Graves. Know those names?

The oaks at Toomer’s hadn’t been planted yet. Toomer’s Drugs was still competing with Homer Wright as the local top druggist. (Wright’s phone number: Nine.) S.L. Toomer simply referred to his place as The Store On The Corner.

Here’s Holley in his 1927 Glomerata:

Obligatory sports references: George Bohler was coaching both the Auburn football and basketball teams that year. The football team was 1-8, beating only Howard College. Snitz Snider — Olympic track star and future legendary high school football coach — was hurt much of the season. Another key player Babe Taylor — who, as a tackle, dressed at 6-feet-2 and “around two hundred pounds” as a tackle (Auburn’s current punter is bigger) — also had nagging injuries during the down year. Bohler’s basketball team went 3-13. At least the baseball team was posting winning records! Cliff Hare Stadium? Hardly.

The Bank of Auburn, in the back of Holley’s senior Glomerata, advertised four percent on your savings. Burton’s Book Store was the place to get your dusty tomes. J&M was decades away. Samford Hall, Comer, Mary Martin, Smith and Langdon Halls were all a part of campus. Ramsay Hall was brand new. Perhaps you’ll have heard of Holley’s dean: Bennett Battle Ross of Ross Hall fame. That building was still being erected when Holley graduated.

If those things don’t sound conceivable, don’t worry. Auburn’s oldest living alum has a few years on you. Holley celebrated his 105th birthday Wednesday at the Henry County Nursing Home in Dothan (Auburn stuff was everywhere).

His walk into the real world coincided with the beginning of the Great Depression. The 1929 graduate would work as a pharmacist in Abbeville and soon after helped soldiers get their prescriptions in France during World War II. When the Army let him go he settled with his wife and family in Headland, Ala. He became a pillar of that community where he handed out medication until he retired in 1973. His son Bill, a 1971 Auburn graduate, took over the druggist desk. His son has since retired.

Holley’s Auburn kids: Elizabeth (’59) and Bill Jr (’71):

But the elder Holley refused to slow down long after retirement. He has maintained two farms, one in his hometown of Samson, Ala. and another in Headland. He was famously building fence lines by hand well into his 90s. He has four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren in his life. He maintained his driver’s license well beyond his centennial, “just in case.”

His API diploma, made of sheepskin, still proudly adorns a wall in his bedroom.

As he told Auburn Magazine, learning about Newton’s first law in a physics class has played a big role in his long life. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Living Right, he said simply, is the key. He’d know.