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Friday

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10
Dec 21

Some things to get you to the weekend

More Savannah stuff! The last of the Savannah stuff! It’d be bad form to try to make you jealous for more than a few days, I’ve decided. And since we got back on Tuesday, I’m sure I’ve worked through those days, and your patience! At the same time, I took a lot of pictures.

This is from Byrd’s Cookies.

And not far away, this is where people buy all of that shade they keep throwing on people.

And, if you need to upgrade your floors while you’re at it, then it’s one-stop shopping.

To me, Savannah will always be about the beautiful buildings — among other things. And, one of those things are the trees! Look at this beautiful nature-is-amazing moment!

And this one is in Chippewa Square.

If all of those old oaks could talk … they’d probably ask, “Where does this Spanish moss come from, anyway?”

(Wind and birds, mostly.)

Back here in the regular world, I spent almost the full day in the studio. First there was the morning show, which will be online next Monday. And then there was a big game design video program. All of the students that work on video games pitch their projects to industry professionals. It’s a four camera, two location, three Zoom shoot. (It just grows and grows, each year, this thing.)

For whatever reason, it has been decided to just put programs like this on Zoom, which means you’d need the link, which means you’d a.) need to know about it beforehand, and b.) have the ability to watch it live. So I can’t show you the live show we produced this afternoon, but it was a good one.

All of the students presenting did a nice job. Some of the games were simply incredible, even in their current form. One of them, it looked like the experts wanted to buy right there during the presentation. And you could see why. It was different, had a pleasing, soothing pace and was absolutely gorgeous.

I had two students playing the role of Ryan Seacrest and Carson Daly. We were doing entrance and exit standups as the design teams went into the studio. I didn’t get any photos of this because I was working, but take my word for it, they did a really fine job. Everyone was complimentary of their efforts, and we were all quite proud of how they kept the program moving along.

So that was about seven hours of my day, studio stuff. And here are some other studio things I haven’t yet shared here.

A sports show! This one is a little different, it has a different feel and a bit of spunk. I like where they are going with this.

We talked, on Wednesday, about the last show of two of our graduating seniors. Here is that show.

And one more sports show, another talker, where they are unpacking the Major League Baseball lockout. The short version seems to be: If it can be messed up, baseball will mess it up.

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3
Dec 21

A Friday in Savannah

First things first, we had to have breakfast at Clary’s. Longtime readers know we always go to Clary’s. Usually we go multiple times per visit for the delicious breakfast and friendly staff. We are doing all of our dining outdoors this visit, and they don’t have many tables on their sidewalks, but after the briefest wait …

Clary’s is something like 118 years old now. Luther Clary founded it as a drug store. Later it became a soda shop and, eventually, the diner we have today. And it figures heavily into the Savannah lore.

We got a little table overlooking Jones Street. This allowed for the traditional Clary’s photograph.

Here’s the first one, which was from our second visit. This was 16 years ago.

Here’s another visit, and from the same table, this time in 2007.

And here’s a photo from the same table on a 2012 visit.

We go to Clary’s a lot.

We’re not just here for the food this time, of course. There’s a 10K that six of our group of nine are running tomorrow. Anne will be the winner.

She’s a natural born runner. And the rest of the group have been putting up some really nice times in their recent runs. Whereas I … well, to say my recent training has gone poorly would be an insult to poor training. The run is tomorrow and I’m just going to have a nice time and try to not be the last person on the course.

I walked seven miles or so today, though, and that counts as training, right?

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26
Nov 21

That lovely Friday after Thanksgiving

Today is one of the best reasons to like Thanksgiving. The turkey is great, and days of leftovers are wonderful. Family is, of course, the biggest part of it, and the opportunity to reflect is the actual point. And you can do a lot of that on Friday, too. You can avail yourself of a lot of those things on the Friday after Thanksgiving, as it happens.

This was the morning view:

We had an early trip to the airport to drop off The Yankee’s parents. They’d flown in on Sunday and stayed the week and today was the least expensive flight back out to the east coast. They’re old friends who have retired to Indy came down for turkey yesterday. We had a fine time of it. A lot of toil in the kitchen; a lot of tittering in the dining room.

I said all of the good things on the table were my bride’s and anything bad was something I made, but everything was delicious. We were fortunate to have a table full of food and now we have most of a refrigerator full to enjoy all weekend.

And though the in-laws were back before I woke up from a nap, we’ll see them again in a few more weeks. Plenty of visiting for the holidays this year, happily enough.

We took a nice walk this evening, and I enjoyed seeing this tree on fire.

I hope I get back by there again before it deposits all of its leaves onto the ground.

And here was the almost-sunset. Between the tree line and the neighbors we don’t have the best view of the western horizon.

But you can always walk toward it, and try to make sunset heart hands.

Heart hands, we learned, are a bit more challenging in gloves for some reason. She gave it a few shots, but the laughter was better than the posing. Sometimes it’s like that. It’s always better that way.

And I read Craig Johnson’s new book today. He pulled no punches in the acknowledgments. It’s the theme of this part of his Longmire series, and it’s something you might have heard about in the news recently. It spanned two pages in the layout, but it’s worth remembering.

I prefer the series to the books. The character is here, of course. It’s in the first person, though, which is not my favorite style. And there’s always a scene where the central figure takes a bigger beating than necessary. And he’s a bit goofier in the novels than the way Robert Taylor played him in the series.

And there’s the aging problem. The books are now taking place right after one another, which helps. Each book takes place in a different season, so four books equals a year. So this is year four — and I’ve somehow read all 17 in this series. But the sheriff, in the books, is a Vietnam veteran living and working in a time of smart phones. In this one he directly mentions the 1963 Rose Bowl in which the character played. It’s a different sort of math. Whereas Taylor is 49 or 50 in that scene above. But if you can ignore that part, they’re good reads. The bad guys are always idiots or devious villains. The victims and bystanders have a certain heroic stoicism and some keen philosophy. The sheriff always gets his man. And, usually, a head wound.

That’ll do for now. Have a lovely weekend. See you here on Monday.

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19
Nov 21

You’ve got video options

Right as I cross the street onto campus I walk under this ginko tree. It was having a busy morning. And this is your moment of Friday meditation. It’s 60 seconds. Just watch it over and over until your weekend begins.

I will.

This is directly below that same tree, and it’s the next installment in my jigsaw puzzle project.

Wouldn’t you like to have a whole series of puzzles like that? I think it’s a 5000-piece puzzle. And, of course, as my contribution to the innovation puzzle industry, I’m proposing two-sided puzzles. This side yellow leaves, the other side red leaves.

One more show before the Thanksgiving break. This is the talk show the sports gang produced Wednesday evening. So if leaves aren’t your things, there’s always more sports talk to be had, right?

This week’s episode is a deep examination of the current state of the NFL.

And if you’re not in the mood for leaves or sports talk, here’s a car chase I watched this live this evening. One of the better ones I’ve ever seen. It had a little bit of everything — high speeds, PIT attempts, spike strips, wrong-way-down-the-freeway, bystanders trying to pitch in, a standoff, K-9, rubber bullets, bumper cars — it was a roller coaster of emotion and, happily, no one was hurt.

Some Fridays you just want a good chase and some Fridays deliver.

The daily duds: Pictures of clothes I put here to, hopefully, help avoid embarrassing scheme repeats.

Here’s a pocket square I made. First time I’ve worn it.

And I also made these cufflinks this summer, as well.

Looked pretty snazzy for a quiet day in the office.

And that’s my last day before the break. There will be some stuff here next week, so if you’ve not logged off for the week, stop back by and see the good stuff.

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12
Nov 21

Four months of winter

This was the week the seasons changed. Yesterday my office neighbor noted it by how the rain fell from a different direction outside of his window. Usually, he said, he watches it go left to right. But yesterday afternoon he watched it blow right into his window.

I wouldn’t know.

I took the day off today, so I saw plenty of the wide world outdoors. When I woke up we started with a brilliant morning.

As I waited for a delivery that required a signature I caught up on a bit of television. Yellowstone is back on for it’s fourth season and I needed to finish season three. This fourth season started big. If you’re not watching, I would understand. The characters are earnest, but ridiculous, and a few of them are really chewing the scenery. I have described it as Knots Landing in a heavily armed modern American West. If I tried to sum up the character arcs, you might agree.

Or, if you prefer, here’s some dew-covered plant growth I noted earlier this morning.

The UPS man finally arrived, chipper in his opportunity to talk to someone, and with a usual patter that indicated he’d told these jokes before. My replies hinted at the idea that I am no longer accustomed to standing in a doorway, holding a cat desperate to escape to the wide world beyond, and talking to people.

When that was done I escaped to the wide world beyond. Or at least two grocery stores. At the first, I noted that more people seemed to be better-masked in the mid-day than when I go earlier or later in the day. (This county remains under an unenforced mask rule.) The second store seemed about the same as it ever does, I guess. I’m not paying close attention there. I simply hustle in and head to one of the corners for a specific item, and then back out again. In fact, today I was moving too fast for the automatic door. Almost walked right into the thing as I exited.

After that, back to the house, and to the garage, to sand things. It was bright, and then sunny, and then it rained. And then it turned cold and, eventually, I figured my fingers were too cold to check my sanding work.

And that’s how you know the weather has turned. I came in and it was 42 degrees. I’ll finish the sanding another day, he said not for the first time.

Maybe before the seasons turn again.