Friday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Friday

Friday / iPhone / photo / Samford — Comments Off
14
Oct 11

Dear sir

Spent a significant portion of the day doing my most favorite computer chore ever: going from Excel to Word in a repetitive fashion. There’s a database in a spreadsheet that must be displayed in another way.

Copy, click, paste, return, return, format, scroll. Page break, click, copy, click, repeat.

There’s probably an easier way to do this. Someone will send me an email about it. And you’re brilliant someone’s for doing so. It wouldn’t have helped today, though.

From this effort letters will be mailed, in support of emails and phone calls already made. There may be another round of one of those. Our department is thorough in its correspondence.

I worked on this project last weekend, when this was my view, come to think of it:

Autumn is here. But not there. That picture is from our trip to Indiana. That much autumn has not arrived in our part of the world yet. The evenings are cool, the nights are sharply crisp. Everything is still green, as we expect it to be. The high today was 81. Tomorrow is 85. Last night I could see my breath while standing over steaks on the grill. Autumn is a quirky thing this far south.

But, hey, a section of that tree is now the big picture on the rest of the site, so that’s why the wide angle shot is here.

Brian is here. He’s down for the football game. We stood in line for hours for dinner tonight. Don’t go out to eat on a homegame weekend. One day we’ll learn.

adventures / family / Friday / iPhone / photo — Comments Off
7
Oct 11

Going north for the weekend

“Do you have the bug that’s going around?”

The setting was a pharmacy in northern Tennessee, where the over the counter drugs are behind the counter. (Your identification insures you are not a drughead, but rather just have a mild medical issue you’d like to shake.) I’d just gone on a mini-rant to the things I would like, including breathing, Sudafed, an improvement in my throat’s general condition and the ability to breathe.

I did have this particular bug, virus, crud, infection or allergies. I did not explain that I didn’t have the local variety, but had rather contracted this elsewhere and was considering adding to the local scene’s viral joy if she didn’t give me the Sudafed.

She was a very lovely young lady, pleasant and chipper. She wished me well. She wanted to chat. I wanted to medicate, tired of not breathing, I’d come to think of those two tiny pills as the miracle elixir. It’ll take many doses, but give me the things, let’s not discuss microbiology.

We’re traveling, clearly. The goal is South Bend for a quick weekend. This is a nice trip, schmoozing on behalf of a non-profit, seeing a friend, perhaps catching a football game.

Watching a game at Notre Dame Stadium will be a treat. It’s a long-time goal that has suddenly materialized as a possibility. How many of those do you get in life? You have an idea of something you’d like to experience at some point in the future. Then, one day, you turn around and suddenly you could be doing that this weekend.

Life is good.

Except for the sniffles.

Saw this at a Chick-fil-A along the way:

Ice Cream was booked, apparently. Actually, they call all of their dairy-based dessert-like substances Ice Dream. I’ll leave it to you to examine their ingredients and tell me why.

Because of the throat pain I indulged in a milkshake. I recommend the peach. Sadly the banana pudding version has been removed from your list of choices.

Spending the night at one of the family outposts. My step-brother was there, ready to set out for his next trip. He travels for a living, which sounds like a lot of fun when you’re in your 20s, as he is. Now, in my 30s, I’m thinking of our trip and realizing “This would have been better at 24.”

Why do we let this happen to us? Why does it take so little time?

Tomorrow, something from South Bend. And then Sunday we’ll be on the road again. Lots of windshield time this weekend.

adventures / Auburn / cycling / Friday / iPhone / photo / Samford — Comments Off
23
Sep 11

Clever and witty title

Trying something new for my bike rides. Since we live on the hilliest part of the coastal plains (despite being 180 miles from the coast and about 120 miles from the nearest mountain foothills) you can’t leave the house without pedaling up and down something.

Since I’ve noticed it takes six or eight miles for my legs to warm up, and since the hills here hurt when my legs aren’t ready, and since I’m not a very good cyclist anyway, I’m looking for somewhere flat to start.

Problem: there’s nowhere flat to start.

I have found a two-and-a-half mile loop with just two hills on it. So I’m riding that a few times before the actual ride begins. Those five miles make one of our standard routes 31 miles, which I can do without too much trouble, despite the hills. (I’m a wimp.)

All of this to say, if you have a good topographical map you can share, I’d love to borrow it for a while.

Productive day today. Did a bit of research, fired off the many important emails. Read a lot and booked hotel rooms for an upcoming conference.

The conference is in February, but it is one of those college towns where there’s not much there besides mountains and woods. The locals told us to book early, because if you aren’t in one of the two establishments in town you’re staying at a tavern 13 miles out of town. After that you’re looking at 20 and 30 mile commutes from Super 8s.

So I called the local Hampton Inn and asked for their policies and their availability for hotel rooms in February. (And felt an immediate sympathy for people working the phones at hotels. Oh the questions they must hear, over and over again.) They had something like 10 rooms left. In addition to this conference which will bring several hundred undergrads, there’s also softball, equestrian and men’s and women’s basketball in that tiny town that weekend.

Glad I booked early.

Did an interview today. I’m accustomed to conducting the interviews, but today I was the subject of one. The experience is a different one. This is in response to an idea that a lot of people had and the subsequent little essay I wrote about Unrolling Toomer’s a few weeks ago. It got re-printed on The War Eagle Reader
and picked up in one of the fan forums, too. Online this idea has taken on a life of its own. In practice it is growing a little more slowly. But there’s another interview to be done this weekend, too. So maybe we’re on to something.

So, naturally, I treated the interview like a stand-up, saying everything I could to one open-ended question. Only took two takes, but it worked out well. We’ll see the finished product next week.

Waiting for pizza.

Mellow Mushroom is the best pizza place in town, and one of the busiest places in town. I wonder how things would go if they had a second pizza oven. Maybe folks wouldn’t have to wait an hour for a table, and then the better part of another one waiting on the food.

Dining out on a Friday before a home game is tough. Life is hard, right?

Friday / music / video / YouTube Cover Theater — Comments Off
16
Sep 11

Deadline day

Turned in the last paper after having a Microsoft Word crash at 24 pages and 5,400 words. Good thing I’d just saved the document. Shame the autosave feature doesn’t function correctly.

I pasted my references into the paper and then watched the pinwheel of doom appear. I re-opened Word, confident that I’d just pressed the Command-S, and found an old version of the paper. Well then. This is the auto restore function, which picks a version of the from about three hours ago. So I closed that, opened the file in the traditional way and found my updated paper. For the most part. I had to re-make a few changes, despite the save. This is a level of aggravation you don’t need after six consecutive hours focusing on one project.

I’ve been told I expect to much, but Microsoft, which has been in the word processing game for some time now, shouldn’t have problems of this nature.

Yes, I expect it to work.

Got everything fixed, though, properly formatted and sent away. With time to spare!

So dinner was late, but the paper was on time. And that’s been my day: a 15-mile bike ride, reading, thinking, writing, editing and dealing with technology.

And now for this week’s YouTube Cover Theater, where we sample the talent playing in their homes for the adoring crowds of their webcam and random people on the Internet.

This week’s feature artist is Sam Cooke. Why? Because I couldn’t find enough Gene Vincent covers. (The world has enough Be Bop A lula. Let’s try some variety, Internet!)

Kiersten Holine is actually an independent artist — she’s selling a demo and an EP on her site — which is a bit at odds with the YouTube Cover Theater premise. But who cares, this sounds great:

Sayaka Alessandra is a Japanese-Sicilian Italian (I love those combinations and always wonder: how did your parents get together?) who’s bio starts “Sayaka Alessandra started her singing career on YouTube recording cover songs of many various artists … Since being discovered on YouTube Sayaka has gone on to sing in Café’s, Lounges and outdoor venues.” So that’s in keeping with the premise …

And now, two guys sitting in an apartment:

And for the second night in a row, I’m going to bed at a respectable hour. No need to check my temperature. I’m fine.

Friday / YouTube Cover Theater — Comments Off
9
Sep 11

The return of YouTube Cover Theater

And not much else. Ever wake up tired?

Ever been unable to shake that before the late afternoon?

Anyway. It occurred to me that what the Internet needs is another Friday dose of talented people singing their hearts out to their webcams. This came to mind recently while listening to Ray Lamontagne, so we’ll make him the featured act covered by people in their bedrooms, extra rooms and dens. (Omitted: the guy singing in his furniture-free apartment.)

First up, a Lamontagne song for the casual listener:

Serious artist is serious because he shot this in black and white. Also, it is quite good:

I know what you’re thinking. Distinguished looking older gentleman. Sweatervest. Just came home from work. Sat down, picked up his guitar and absolutely transformed this song:

Rob Shipley wraps up the covers, playing a perfectly acceptable club version of a coffee house song:

Just a few more pieces of proof that the world is full of talent — some of the potential choices tonight, it seems, have parlayed that into some iTunes projects — and they’ve only been waiting for a way to share it. You have to love the Internet.

When you can find them, artists covering other tunes is always fun. Here’s Lamontagne covering that Gnarls Barkley song you couldn’t get away from five years ago: