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A day in the sun, night under the lights

Just a perfectly lovely day. I spent some time in a lawn chair with the sun peering through this tree. My head tilted back, aviators on and my eyes closed. Everyone thought I was sleeping. I could have been. I’m tired enough. But I was just enjoying the barest of breezes and that tinkling dance of the sun through the thinning shade.

A perfectly lovely day.

Two private school kids, separated by 800 miles, telling the same private school jokes to one another. We public schoolers can only pretend to know:

Penguin mascots make little sense anywhere, but certainly not in October in Alabama.

Spent the afternoon with friends. Football was played this evening and we watched it. Late into the night we enjoyed the company of friends and made it home in time for pizza at around 11 p.m. and more football.

No wonder I’m still tired. Tired, but pleased.

A perfectly lovely day.

adventures / friends / photo / weekend — Comments Off
19
Oct 14

Talladega 500

We received tickets to the big race at Talladega Superspeedway. It was a great day. Everything worked out perfectly, the weather was grand. We were on time. We did not get sunburns and were entertained by a little bit of everything.

We drove up, fighting no traffic, walked a far shorter distance than we’d anticipated, waited in the shade for a few moments at the Will Call window and then walked a few hundred yards to the gate and to the proper section. We were sitting about 100 feet off the finish line. It was a perfect afternoon to be outside and we had a grand view of everything.

There were pre-race interviews, a parade of antique military vehicles, driver introductions and there was something called sky-typing:

Then eight retired military service members jumped out of a plane with flags attached to their rigs:

We saw a flyover synched with the military band playing the national anthem:

And, of course, the race fans:

Here’s the pace car for the day’s race:

Brian Vickers had the pole, he would finish 20th:

Dale Earnhardt Jr lead the most laps throughout the race, but his day ended with a disappointing 31st, which eliminates him from the championship race.

For a time it seemed that we would see a little history. Danica Patrick had a strong run toward the end of the race, but caution flags and the last pit stop worked against her:

Brad Keselowski won the Geico 500, advancing in his championship chase:

But, really, you’re hear for the fans. Here are a lot more of them:

friends / links / things to read / video / weekend — Comments Off
11
Oct 14

The sixth sense of nine lives

This is one of the cats we saw at dinner last night. We dined with a friend who owns two cats, that dines on her porch and tells stories that begin with “When I was living in Paris … ”

She made a delightful meal, I hope we were decent company. Another friend brought cookies. They were also delightful. The cats were cats, moody and hiding and staring at one another. We wondered, What if cats are telepathic? What are they saying to one another right now?

Most assuredly, it was a plot against us. They are cats.

A followup After Mobile County kindergartner was asked to sign ‘safety contract,’ school officials announce change in policy:

Mobile County school officials announced Saturday that the system’s safety contract has been discontinued.

The action came in the wake of widespread media reports about a kindergartner at E.R. Dickson Elementary School who was asked to sign a safety contract after allegedly drawing a picture of a gun.

The child’s mother said the kindergartner was asked to sign the contract without her consent, and was also given a questionnaire to evaluate her for suicidal thoughts. The mother also said that after the incident, her daughter asked her what the word “suicide” meant.

So a little national exposure brings about some semblance of common sense. Go figure.

Now here’s a story you don’t read every day, Hero Army expert removes grenade lodged in Alabama man’s leg, ending 8-hour ordeal outside Birmingham hospital.

But you’ll read a lot more stories like this before we’re done, Ebola airport screenings to expand to passengers in Atlanta, three other cities.

We live in the future, Blind man sees for first time in 33 years. And this man’s wife, she’s just the cutest.

I’m not a basketball fan, but I do like the Jazz: Jazz Sign Five-Year-Old JP Gibson for Scrimmage.

There’s no such thing as too many of those stories.

Hope you’re having a highlight-filled weekend, too.

cycling / Friday / friends / Samford — Comments Off
3
Oct 14

A tired Friday title

I taught a class, which is to say I returned papers and discussed some of the most pressing items contained there in. We talked about that story I mentioned earlier this week. We touched on story organization, construction and source blocking.

I made an acrostic. It was a terrible acrostic, but I repeat myself. I hated it. But it let me use a cool blocks illustration and gave me the chance to talk about the elements of a story you can move around.

I graded stuff. I left campus.

Made it home in time to visit a store and pick up some flowers. I thought we might brighten the living room with a big yellow clutch of stems and petals in a glass vase of water resting on furniture above eye level.

It works almost as well as the overhead light or the nearby torch lamp.

I took a brief ride, through the neighborhood, up one of the timed courses and then back down it. I rode one half of the time trial and then came up the double hill that ultimately brings everything me back around to the other side of the neighborhood. My times were slow. I haven’t been on my pedals in five days, I would expect nothing less. Or is it nothing more? I could expect nothing more than going slow. I could expect less. My legs could be sodden stacks of newspaper, uncooperative piles of leaves, giant petrified chunks of wood that can’t turn a gear, but bleed when I fell over after I lost balance speed.

I can’t expect anything from my front derailleur just now. I can’t shift from the big gear to the smaller, which would be helpful as I labor over a little climb. There is a trip to the bike shop in my near future.

In my immediate future, though, there is company. Friends from Indiana have come down for the weekend. The plan is to show off tailgating and football.

And also dinner. Late into the night we sat around and talked about places abroad we’d all visited and genealogy and regionalism. It was pleasant and nerdy late into the night. And I am very sleepy.

food / friends / iPhone / journalism / links / memories / photo / Samford / things to read / Wednesday — Comments Off
24
Sep 14

A good man, a good plan and a good brand

I never met Mr. Davis, but I worked with his daughter, Tiffany. She was fresh out of college and I was about two years removed. She was smart and talented and charming. She was friendly and amusing. She learned a lot and worked hard and got better. She was a lot of the things that we probably all hope we are. She talked about her father an awful lot. They always sounded like a devoted family. He sounded like a good man.

She still is all of those things, by the way. She’s moved out west, but we’re still friends online. I imagine her brother is all of those things too, but we’ve never met. You’ve probably seen him on television, where he comes off as an incredibly likable man who works hard and knows his craft.

It seems to me that to have raised two children like his, you must be some kind of lucky and some kind of parent. Mr. Davis just recently passed away. Rece wrote about his dad, a wonderful and intimate remembrance proving the kind of man he was.

Those are my favorite verses, too.

Spent the afternoon counting things. I do this every year, taking stock of the department. Demographics are important, and one must always know how many of these and those there are, to say nothing of the thoses and thises. I do this every year and this is still the best method I have thought up:

You don’t change the classics. What you can change is the spreadsheet which holds the data and digests it into simple charts and graphs. There are pages and pages of data, and I get it down to one page of information, all thanks to the humble and inconsistent tally marks.

Things to read … because reading leads to pages and pages of information.

First, the quick list of journalism links:

How social media is reshaping news

Harnessing the power of immersive, interactive storytelling

The secret to BuzzFeed’s video success: Data

New York Times is retiring the Managing Editor title in favor of four deputy executive editors

Forest Service says media needs photography permit in wilderness areas, alarming First Amendment advocates

How TV Everywhere strategy is evolving in the world of cable news

Advice for real-time reporting from BBC, Guardian, Telegraph

Tool Called Dataminr Hunts for News in the Din of Twitter

And now for something delicious, The Creation Myth of Chocolate-Chip Cookies:

What’s less certain is why, exactly, Wakefield put the chopped-up chocolate into her cookies to begin with. A few versions of the story have her creating the recipe accidentally—she was out of nuts, she thought the chocolate would melt into the batter, the chips fell into the bowl by accident. Wyman, in her book, argues that Wakefield was too much of a perfectionist to have come upon the recipe so haphazardly. In support of her argument, she cites a few accounts from the 1970s in which Wakefield tells reporters that she’d been planning experiments with chocolate chunks.

And, of course, she had no idea what it would all become. It says she gave permission to Nestle to reprint her recipe. It does not say what she got in the deal. There’s also a link to the original cookie, if you’d like to try it.

Websites Are Wary of Facebook Tracking Software:

Online retailers and publishers are pushing back against Facebook Inc.’s efforts to track users across the Internet, fearing that the data it vacuums up to target ads will give the social network too much of an edge.

Web traffic experts say there is less data flowing from some sites to Facebook, suggesting they have been reprogrammed to hold back information.

Because they figured out what they were giving away, that they weren’t a partner with Facebook, just a vehicle for it.

Snapchat and your higher ed social media strategy:

When this social media tool first came out, many people were worried that certain *ahem* risque behaviour would take place at a much higher rate. However, since its launch in late 2011, it’s became pretty clear that college kids mainly use Snapchat for selfies, pictures of their pets and photos/videos of the events they attend. And seeing as a new study by Mashable reveals 77 percent of college students check their Snapchats daily, it’s definitely an outlet not to be overlooked when planning your higher ed social media strategy.

We’ve considered that, put it on the back burner and considered it again. I’m sure it will ultimately happen. We do like stories, after all.

This I want to see: Coca-Cola vintage ad will be unveiled at Opelika’s Smith T Building Supply:

Opelika-area residents and Coca-Cola enthusiasts are invited to the unveiling of one of the oldest untouched Coca-Cola painted wall advertisements in existence.

The unveiling event will be held on Oct. 9 at 4 p.m., at Smith T Building Supply in downtown Opelika. Historians from The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta and community leaders will be in attendance. Vintage bottles of Coke will be given away while supplies last.

The experts think the sign was painted in 1907 or 1908. The ad is being seen for the first time in more than a century. How about that?