friends « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

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Clever title to come

Hey, did you notice? I updated all the photo galleries! I changed the font on the blog! And I added new banners to the top and bottom of this page! There are 36 headers and footers now. Refresh to see them all!

I also changed the site’s links to a server side include system. And I’ve tinkered with some other ideas too. These are productive times.

Rode a few miles on the bike. Not very many because I am still sore. Maybe someone will say differently, but there is a difference in suffering and hurting on a bicycle. I don’t mind the legs and the lungs and the feet and the seat. But my neck — which is connected to my collarbone and shoulder — that hurts. It is something about the necessary posture of cycling and whatever related muscular problems I’m enjoying.

Can’t even stay on the bike long enough yet to suffer, a point of honor when it comes to a bicycle, so I take it easy. Which is a good thing since my fitness is presently lousy.

So I did a little work on a paper, I cleaned out an inbox and made a lot of recruiting phone calls, talking to high school students who are looking for their college. I get the chance to talk up Samford, our journalism and broadcast and public relations programs, the student media, the new MBA program and more. Lots of good fun.

Had a long dinner at an Irish place with a friend, we talked sports and the rodeo and cannons, which just capped off a fine day.

Good thing, since tomorrow will be a lot like it.

Also, Justified, Justified, Justified:

friends / photo / weekend — Comments Off
1
Dec 12

Just one thing

Our realtor, who is also our friend, held a memorial service for his mother today. She had been ill for some time, and was under hospice care in his home in her last days. We never had the opportunity to meet her — though we’d hoped to — but she sounded like a lovely lady.

Of the stories we heard today, stories which aren’t mine to tell, she sounded like a lovely lady who loved as earnestly as she could despite unfortunate and regrettable and horrible things that she experienced in her life.

Then her son, our friend, stood in front of this small little church that was packed full of his family and friends, said this was the song that he was singing to her when her body finally relaxed. It was, he said, meant to be an encouraging relief to her, but it had also become an encouraging message to him.

And then, in his amazing voice, he sang this moving hymn unaccompanied:

It was beautiful because he was beautiful because she was beautiful.

family / friends / iPhone / photo / Pie Day / Thursday — Comments Off
22
Nov 12

Happy Thanksgiving

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” Playwright, novelist Thornton Wilder.

It was a treasure to cut up all of those delicious Fuji apples and sample the cinnamon sprinkled slices:

It was a treasure to pull it out of the oven, smell that delicious, cooked goodness and imagine eating it later this evening:

On this day of introspection, I’m thankful for my friends, my family, my lovely wife and all of our abundant blessings.

I’m also thankful for you. Thanks for coming by, and do come back soon. Happy Thanksgiving.

adventures / friends / photo / video — Comments Off
2
Nov 12

Hanging with the raptors

The venerable barn owl, or ghost owl, if you will. They will spook you in a barn if you aren’t ready for it, by the way:

Here’s a good look at a long-eared owl:

A red shouldered hawk in flight:

This Harris’s hawk was completing his first public flight. They live in the western deserts and are very social, working together — sometimes hopping on one another’s backs — to capture their prey. There is a hierarchy, much like bees and ants, about how they hunt, too. And they’re good for falconry, too:

And here’s Spirit, the bald eagle:

And a little video of these birds and more:

Check out the raptor center online.

friends / Thursday / video — Comments Off
1
Nov 12

Bronco Bamma and Mitt Romney, scarier than Halloween

I did not get to enjoy Halloween — I missed all of it driving. Just as well. I’m not a fan because there should be an age limit.

Too many people violate the age limit I imagine in my mind, which is difficult to gauge, I know, because I’m only sitting here thinking about. Worse still, I see it as a sliding scale.

If you are 15 and over you should get a job for pocket money and buy your own candy.

The first year you think “Nah. I’m just going to wrap this robe around me, call myself a playboy and take a bunch of candy,” you are disqualified from collecting candy.

It is also the unofficial turn of the season, Halloween, and it is over in a night. I like a good holiday that lingers for several days more so than one that commercial enterprise has built up into a months-long marketing ploy.

This, though, is the best and worst Halloween story of all time, from my friend and colleague Napo Monasterio:

Today’s random political pitch was brought to me by a 13-year-old trick-or-treater dressed up in ragged business attire: “Hi, I’m a small business owner who was run over by the bus that is big government bureaucracy. My friend right here (pointing to his ghost pal) didn’t make it. He was one of Romney’s founding business partners, too.”

Nice. (Oh, and he double-dipped in the candy bowl. Of course.)

Speaking of politics, here’s a map charting the progress of political spending, totaling more than $500 million in ad buys, so far. Makes you long for the days of the front porch campaigns, says the guy who lives in the most solidly red state in the union experiencing virtually no advertising blitzes.

This:

… which makes you wonder what her parents are saying within earshot about the election, prompted this:

I have two studies planned that center around the election. Maybe I should dream up an Abby one, too.