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adventures / food / friends / Monday / photo / running — Comments Off on A weekend in Savannah
6
Dec 21

A weekend in Savannah

Yes, this is Monday, but I’m writing about Monday. The next few days will be in arrears. It’s a vacation thing and I’ll somehow cope with the difficulty of the problem.

Spirits were high before the 10K. Here are most of us. Anne was on the course doing a 5K because she’s an awesome overachiever. The Yankee, Brooke, Andre and Stephen and I all did the slightly less ambitious 6.2 mile run over one of the tallest bridges in the southeastern U.S. We had to run the bridge twice.

Anne ran the bridge three times. (She also finished in second in her age group.)

This is at the starting line. Limited field by design. Everyone had to show proof of vaccination and all of that. Here, I thought, is a sign of maturation as a human and my bowing to inevitability. The joke I used to make right here was “Look at all of these people I have to pass.”

(Knowing I would never pass all of those people. I have landed on the podium in exactly two foot races as an adult. Both, you might say, were of a limited field.)

But, today, my joke was “Look at all of those people that don’t have to pass me!”

And here we all are, after weaving through many of the beautiful squares in the historic district we finally have our first good view of the bridge we’re about to go over.

And one of the views from atop the Savannah Bridge.

This is the largest single ocean container terminal on the U.S. eastern seaboard, and the nation’s fourth-busiest seaport. It is a cable-stayed design, and it’s 185 feet from here to the river below.

Off the bridge, around a cloverleaf, up one little kicker and around a little right hand turn you’ll find the finish line, and your medal, and some fruit and other healthy snacks.

Speaking of food … We tried a new place for dinner Saturday night, on account of the mileage we’d already enjoyed. Plus it got good reviews, and we’re going to give Cha Bella another good review. It’s a farm-to-table concept, a term that’s lost all meaning, I think, but Saturday night it meant tasty. We had a gnocchi appetizer.

I had a tasty grouper entree, which did not photograph very well, but it was tasty. We tried the cheesecake, which had a goat cheese blend. It was a super creamy dish, and every now and again, you got that hint of goat cheese.

It was a delicious outdoor dining experience. And we made everyone go back with us again on Sunday night. Because there were other things to try.

And, look, if you have different servers on different nights and they both react the same way when someone orders a specific dish, you get that specific dish. This is the hog chop.

And I’m pretty sure I don’t need to ever have another pork chop in my life. But I also wonder why everyone doesn’t make their chops like this one. Because they should.

And this weekend I also had the opportunity to enjoy a few ghost signs. This was one of the better ones. Everybody knows, Uneeda Biscuit.

That’s a 19th century brand, made it all the way to 2008, when Kraft (which took hold of all of the old Nabsico properties in 2000) discontinued it. The old original Nabisco, NBC (itself a product of three different mergers) rolled out the Uneeda campaign in the 1890s, when no one said things like “rolled out the campaign.” Within a year or so, NBC was selling ten million Uneeda biscuits a month.

I don’t think I ever had a Uneeda, which you’d, of course, today call a cracker. But I did have some good biscuits this weekend.

Tomorrow, we have to leave Savannah and travel back to Indiana. But I probably have two more days of content to work through here. Anything to extend the trip.

adventures / friends / memories / photo / Thursday — Comments Off on Travel day, friends day
2
Dec 21

Travel day, friends day

I’m going to warn you, there will probably be crying, The Yankee said to me at the airport.

We got up this morning, drove to Indianapolis, put the car at a park-and-fly facility and caught the shuttle to the airport. This was our view.

Checked a bag, breezed through security and boarded the plane. It quickly got above these oddly bright-and-dark clouds. The plane turned south. We were flying south.

When we arrived in Atlanta, The Yankee said that to me. Because after we’d disembarked from the plane and changed terminals we met up with some friends coming off a flight from Nashville. Maybe pushing people out of the way in the jetway was Sally Ann, who we’ve known for seven years. They’re besties and made a beeline to one another. A great many hugs were had and tears were shed. Someone standing off to the side watching this got a bit weepy as well. I gave the bro hug to her husband, who we have also known for several years, but this is the first time we saw them as husband and wife. They got married during the pandemic, but did it on their own, because of the pandemic.

We all got on a plane together, their seats serendipitously right behind ours, and headed further south, to Savannah.

We got off that plane, gathered our luggage and caught an Uber.

This is our town, as you know. The Yankee and I took our first trip here. We kept going back. We got engaged here. We got married here. And now we’re having friend reunions here.

Down in the heart of the historic district our Uber dropped us off at the house we’ve rented for the weekend. I climbed out of the car first. Emerging from the house was The Yankee’s other bestie, who practically floated into my arms. There were more tears. We’ve known Anne and her husband Bill, who flew down from Maryland, for five or six years, but we haven’t seen them since just before the pandemic began. Also inside the house was an old friend of mine, Andre, who drove over from Birmingham. We’ve known him for 15 years or so, but haven’t seen him in ages. During dinner, takeout, Stephen and Brooke stopped by. They’re spending the weekend in a nearby hotel. I went to college with the two of them, meaning I’ve known them for almost a quarter of a century. We haven’t seen each other in far too long.

All of these people have been a part of our weekly Covid video chats. I’m not even sure how they started, but they did begin very early in the pandemic. There were about 17 people, far too many to be heard and understood. It was the first loud thing we’d heard after two or three weeks of silence, and it was joyous just to see the chaos after days of stillness. Over time a side chat evolved, show notes, we called it. And as these things tend to happen, the group worked down to these people, who we are here with now, the usuals. We said, at the beginning of this year, that we should all get together when this was over. We set this weekend, around a 10K run and lots of pleasant, smart, thoughtful people. We were naive, of course, about the timing, but they’ve all been careful with their health, and those around them. They’ve all been vaccinated and received boosters and they’ve been cautious with their activities, just as we have.

It was a delight to sit around a large table and watch these seven other people. They are loud. They are funny. They are boisterous. They are incredibly smart and talented and successful people. They are all our friends.

It was a great coming together. A meeting. An introduction.

They’d never met, not in person, before tonight.

And now we’ll have a long weekend to enjoy, together.

friends / IU / photo / television / Tuesday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on 500 words on Tuesday
2
Nov 21

500 words on Tuesday

This is one of my favorite views of fall here. It’s a morning view, the parking deck is oriented to the east and the colors really pop. Aside from resizing it, this is an unedited photo.

I’m not sure what, but it is trying to remind me of something. The wonders of memory, no? Some place I had to go as a kid, a piece of art in a book, or some other thing, but it wants to be vaguely evocative. I never can put my finger on it, but there are a few really great days, this time of year, when I have the opportunity to try to figure it out.

It turned into a lovely day today. I stepped outside for a quick photo at 6 p.m.

It was one of those nice-in-the-sun, chilly-in-the-shade days, I guess. I spent almost all of it indoors under fluorescent lights or studio lights. So I’m inferring a lot about my two brief trips into the great wider world.

Speaking of studio lights, here’s a comedy show that some of the IUSV students produced in Studio 5 last week. That apartment set isn’t bad at all.

And this evening it was back in Studio 7, with the news team. Here’s a freshman making his collegiate anchoring debut. He did a nice job and he’ll get better and better. I’ll encourage him to do packages every week because that’s what he’ll need out in the great wide world.

They have a segment where they cover the wide world in just a few minutes. Karlie and Larmie, who I name-dropped here, started that a few years back. Karlie is anchoring in Fort Wayne and Larmie is reporting in Morgantown.

File it under We Must Be Doing Something Right, since I mentioned two IUSTV alumni above: I worked on alumni list last week. There are at least 56 former students who’ve come through our little station in the last six years that are working in broadcast in some capacity. That’s surely not a complete list, but it is an impressive one.

One is about to start a new sports director-type job, too. Pretty cool, huh? We get them here for a while, help shape them, and then someone hires out in the world, and the long climb up the chain begins. We must be doing something right.

Today’s look was a navy suit, blue tie and a blue pocket square. Trust me, they are blue.

It’s an old purple shirt and bespoke cufflinks which sport a tiny little splash of green and pink as accents.

Hardly anyone sees the cufflinks, so I may as well show them to you.

errands / friends / IU / memories / television / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on A day that always seemed difficult, but was actually easy
26
Oct 21

A day that always seemed difficult, but was actually easy

I went to the recycling center to drop off some expired fluorescent bulbs. (Our closets have fluorescent bulbs. I have questions.) There are … one, two, three, four, five recycling centers in this county. Of those five, only one accepts this sort of light bulb. It is not our usual recycling center, which is to say, the closest one. It is three miles away from that one, an improbable nine-minute drive. So maybe it’s the next closest, but when I got down there today …

Always read the website yourself, that’s what I’ve learned. And if you ever meet anyone in charge of the solid waste management office, ask about these seemingly arbitrary Open/Closed days.

So I went to Lowes, for the second time in three days, because that’s the way it works. Lowe’s is 6.4 miles and 12 minutes from that recycling center. And today I needed to pick up a toilet seat. Because I broke the one I’d installed just two months ago.

Whoever heard of that?

I walked down the correct aisle, around a slow-moving couple who were deliberately deciding among off-white bathroom fixtures, and found all of the toilet seats were blocked by a scissor lift. Eventually a person wearing the “I work here” red vest and the “but please don’t ask me about it” expression walked by. I asked her if she could move the store equipment. We discussed the issue and she found that what I wanted was only partially blocked, so she didn’t have to find a person to move the lift. She squeezed in between that and the aisle and grabbed the thing. That was easy.

Paid, walked out, thought about it and grabbed those light bulbs. Turns out Lowe’s accepts those for recycling. That was easy, too. A theme emerges.

I had lunch with my friend, and a former student, Auston Matricardi. He watches things, talks to people, assembles sentences and applies punctuation for a living.

He’s a sports writer. A pretty great one, too.

And the building behind us there is where I work, and where we met. He was also a sports broadcaster. He’s one of those people that’s capable of doing whatever is before him.

The sort that makes the rest of us jealous.

Videos from the studio … here’s the morning show. They talked to a tarot card reader. And they got a lot of tarot cards read. Then they visited a haunted house, and that part is highly amusing.

It’s a fun show, all new people, the crew is largely new, and they are coming into their own nicely.

And this show is brand new, one of two the student television station has launched this semester, a fun look at students making films.

And today they shoot the news shows. One, which I’m teasing here, had a Halloween theme.

You’ll see that tomorrow.

This evening I got home and removed the new broken toilet seat and installed the new new one. So scarred am I from recent projects that I feared the worst, but it was simple: remove two plastic screws on the old one and line up the parts for the two plastic screws of the new one.

I wonder if I can get my money back on a busted seat which is still well within the store’s general policy time. We’ll find out Thursday! (Update: I did.)

But there will be much more here tomorrow. Who knows what theme it will hold. Don’t miss out!

adventures / friends / Monday / photo — Comments Off on Set a record for interpersonal interactions this weekend
16
Aug 21

Set a record for interpersonal interactions this weekend

Saturday we had a video chat with some friends. Two of them were supposed to be getting on a cruise ship for their anniversary, a trip they’d postponed last year, but there was a small snag in their plans. Now they will cruise next week. And that’s just the way of the world now, right? You didn’t get precisely what you wanted when you wanted, but there might be the opportunity to do it literally next week, with a bit less hassle than you’d imagine for that sort of thing, pre-Covid.

This is a part of the business model that I endorse. Maybe this level of customer service and good faith acting is something that consumers will see fit to reward when it comes to the bottom line. It’d be nice if that was a certain kindness that sticks around long after all of this is gone, if all of this ever goes away.

Remember, we used to live in a world where doctors or hair dressers would fire you if you had to cancel too many appointments. That airlines and cruise lines and whomever else are now acknowledging that stuff happens is a good thing. We can assign fault later, assigning fault is easy. Get me on the next trip to enjoy your goods and services and we can each call this a pleasant transaction.

Sunday evening we had a visit with some work friends. It didn’t go quite as we’d planned, but we’ve only been trying to do this since the pandemic began or so, so you roll with it and hope for the best.

So there we were, an advertiser, a comm scholar, a political scientist and us, all trying to be smart and funny at the same time. All thoroughly likable people, all full of giggles. It was a nice visit and we somehow managed to do it just before classes start next week and everything turns upside.

Turning upside down being a question of going from summer mode to the fall plan, and not a cynical Covid distinction. Who knows what that will bear out. Play it smart, hope for the best and thank goodness for the science that brought us masks and vaccines.

Incidentally, that three-point plan is a big part of my fall plan.

Anyway, this was the most people I’ve seen in a two-day span since the spring — and half of these folks were virtual! — we still take our precautions to heart.

But I know you’re really here for the weekly check on the cats. They are doing just fine. Phoebe is enjoying her mornings in the hall, where the sun lights things up nicely for her.

She enjoys being playing coy behind the spindles of the railing.

She also wants you to rub her belly through the spindles. If you’re nearby, that’s what you should be doing.

Poseidon spent the morning in the closet. It’s nice and warm there, too, and it’s a door we try to keep closed, so naturally he has to be in there at every opportunity, working on his Superman pose.

I don’t think we were supposed to see his Superman pose.

Now we’ve embarrassed him. Awkward photos are his kryptonite.

Finally! I’ve found a way to keep that cat in check!

And you? How was your weekend? How are your pets and friends and family?

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