Today was my best girl’s happy day. We celebrated with friends and pie.
I was playing with Overgram, an app that lets you put text over your photographs.
friends
18
Sep 14
A game was played, we allegedly watched it
We had friends over to watch the game this evening. So it all felt like this:
I’m not sure I watched much more of the game than that, which is odd.
But, I’d wanted to see people last weekend and we managed to see almost no one, so having a house full of company for the first time in a long time was a nice thing. The conversations were pleasant. We brought in office chairs and camping chairs and had quite a few smart people — an Emmy winner, an art historian, a lawyer, an architect, a tech wizard and more — sitting around trying to not talk about work.
We had finger foods. And the parts of the game that we saw were often underwhelming.
Hey, no matter, the team you wanted to win went on the road and played a team of strong reputation and managed a win. My impression of the game was that it was a good game from which to be distracted. Looking at the stats was somehow more intriguing than watching snippets of the game without continuity.
I’m probably a terrible host. I’m too casual and we’re so very laid back about everything in general. We get by on our good humor and the forgiving nature of friends, I suppose. You may have a snack. You will laugh at my joke or at my expense. You’ll forget that you had to fight the cat away from the food, but you’ll remember I offered you your choice of ice.
Football was played and new friends were made and plans were laid to see them again, so a good evening all around.
Thursday night football is a strange thing, but it is a fine excuse to see people during the week. Sometimes you need the excuse, I suppose. Sometimes you need only the snippets of a game to go with it.
16
Aug 14
The grasshoppers at play
We saw this guy on the deck at the pool.
We spent about seven hours there tonight, no kidding. It was a very nice time. Brian also invented a new hamburger for us, which was the other highlight of a fine Saturday.
Here are a few links for you to enjoy, just in case you aren’t at the pool, too.
There are some good points here. Some pertinent realities. John A. MacArthur says the internet makes bad journalism. He has a point. There are also some realities that can’t be ignored. That doesn’t make them better, or worse, but they remain our realities.
Pop-up ad creator: ‘I’m sorry’ There’s a great line in “The Execution of Noa P. Singleton,” dealing with a much, much heftier theme than pop up ads, but let’s consider it anyway:
But you see, the problem is that apologies are really just little weeds that grow over monuments and headstones. They keep coming back, but never stop ruining what lies beneath. If an apology is truly authentic, the pain is supposed to stop. Right?
A Medicare scam that just kept rolling:
This summer, in a Los Angeles courtroom, Bonilla described the workings of a peculiar fraud scheme that — starting in the mid-1990s — became one of the great success stories in American crime.
The sucker in this scheme was the U.S. government. That wasn’t the peculiar part.
Somewhere between here and $8.2 billion dollars were tied into the scheme. No one knows how much, though.
My toes are raw. I’ve checked them several times tonight, just to see if they were bleeding. But the pool has been fun.
15
Aug 14
There is Star Trek at the end of this post
We went for a run in the middle of the day, because running takes less time, and we haven’t done it in a while. Here’s the more-sunny-than-you-realize path.
I discovered today that I’m big on the mind deals — slightly different than Ray Romano’s mind bets. Today’s was fairly straight forward: if you stop running, you’re going to run another mile.
I did not have to run the fourth mile. I had a fairly decent time on the 5K. But not fast enough.
I do not know what is happening.
As I finished the run, I was looking for some shade, stepped under a promising pine tree and found this guy:
That’s the Actias luna caterpillar. You might be more familiar with the luna moth version. I didn’t see one of those, but I did watch that caterpillar climb and climb:
There’s probably a metaphor in there, or we could just be impressed by the closeup quality of my phone’s camera. Probably a metaphor in that, too.
Brian came down for a weekend visit. He and I went to Niffer’s for dinner. Turkey burgers and corn nuggets are for dinner.
Afterward we spent the evening in the pool. Colleagues and neighbors were there. It was a fine time with friends and more friends. We stayed so long the bottom of my feet are raw. And we’ll probably go back tomorrow.
Things to read … to prepare for tomorrow.
Alabama’s unemployment rate at 7 percent
The Re-Return of Chuckie Keeton
Inside the College Football Hall of Fame playground in Atlanta:
First and foremost, know this: This isn’t your father’s Hall of Fame.
Often ignored for nearly two decades in South Bend, Ind., the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta represents today’s game and media world while respectfully giving a nod to the past. The National Football Foundation’s decision in 2009 to move the Hall of Fame into the deep South symbolizes how the sport has changed demographically and through television.
Located within a five-minute walk from the Georgia Dome and the future Atlanta Falcons stadium, the Hall of Fame craves connectivity and a personal experience above all else. There are interactive videos and games, selfies with digital face paint, countless screens, and a field for activities and events.
It sounds like a nice experience.
Now the fanfic looks better than the source material …
Interestingly, everyone you see in that prelude has played multiple characters across the sprawling Star Trek franchise, except for … Richard Hatch. This is his first time in Rodenberry’s universe. They’re making a movie out of it. They’ve received more than four times their Kickstarter goal and their making a feature film, of the independent variety. It’ll be low-budget but, if you watch the entire prelude, you can see there’s some really great quality there. And Garth of Izar.
“Donors will receive either a digital HD copy, or a DVD or Blu-ray copy, depending on their donation level. It will also be released for streaming on YouTube for all to enjoy sometime later!”
The movie is in pre-production now, according to IMDB. I find it a bit more exciting than it probably should be.
4
Aug 14
Not the normal Monday
An update to yesterday’s garage door mystery, from the prankee, himself. To set this up, he got into his car and backed out of the garage, but the garage door was closed. His wife saw him outside later kicking and beating on the door. Probably she saw him trying to put it back on the rails. That happened last week. And on Sunday:
I went for a run today for the first time in a while, it seems. I did four miles on the old road, down the hill, up the other side, around the curve and down and back up and down and turning around and repeating the whole thing. It looks like this:
The rain was from Saturday. Today it was positively summer, almost August in Alabama, even.
I met the local postal carrier. She’d written a lovely little note on my grandmother’s online obituary. That’s the way it is here, or that’s the way my grandmother lived, that so many people that she did business with have stopped to visit or attended the visitation or have written things. We had a nice chat right through here:
The postal carrier was emotional about it all too, so there I stood, sweating in mid-run, trying to keep my composure and thanking her for writing and telling her how perfect the timing of it had been. My grandmother made gifts for her, mittens for the winter and so on. She, meanwhile, had brought treats for the dog every day. I told her the truth: every time I visited, my grandmother mentioned the mail lady. She thought a lot of her, and the kindness was mutual.
It is like that a lot here.
I believe the preacher said something about that during the memorial service, to know her for even 10 minutes meant you would always know her, and always remember her.
I have had the good fortune of having several heart-to-hearts today. I visited the grocery store. My grandfather asked me if the garage door was opened or closed behind me. I looked, for a long time, through the rearview mirror. There’s no garage there, but it was a fine joke. (He’s such a strong guy, by the way, and though none of this is easy, he’s showing all of the great qualities that make him such an admirable man.)
I saw several members of the family and friends. I wrote thank you cards. I found that I wanted to write them, which is to say I wanted to have them written, but I didn’t want to go through the process of finding the things to say. I’ve added new numbers to my phone. I still have a few calls to return. Some of those will land on Tuesday.
Until then, keep an eye on those sneaky doors.
