I do not know what is happening. « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

I do not know what is happening.

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1
Oct 13

More open than DC

Someone wrote this on the floor-to-ceiling chalkboard in the Samford Crimson’s newsroom.

Lately the board has been filled with non sequiturs, cryptic notes or jokes. That’s fun. I’ve always wanted to draw football plays on it. One day I’ll quote some 13th century Chinese philosopher and see if anyone notices.

The government shut down. In pieces, full of the nonessential types, which are surely made up of people who find themselves and their salaries essential. You wonder how long the thing will last this time. You recall the 1990s and how a lot of people didn’t seem to notice. You wonder how long it would take for some of those unfortunate nonessential types to be considered truly nonessential.

But if there is one place that jobs aren’t fungible, you know where that is.

All that could be said about the government shutdown has been said elsewhere, or is perfectly capable of being digested in 140 character increments on Twitter, or tuned out with The Million Second Quiz. Mileage may vary, of course. I’m pretty certain we’ll come to the conclusion that no one is playing their parts especially well.

I swam 1.33 miles tonight, 2,400 yards.

I do not know what is happening.

It started out poorly. Oh, it ended raggedly, too, but at least it improved a touch. The first 400 yards, though, were such that I was questioning pretty much every decision of the day. I hadn’t slept enough. I hadn’t eaten enough. I shouldn’t have walked over to the pool. I shouldn’t have deleted that spam email about arm replacements and on and on. I started bargaining with myself about when I would hang it up, because this wasn’t a pleasant experience.

After a time, though, the laps started ticking off and the weak feelings disappeared.

I improved my freestyle. For the first 1,800 yards I was doing 150 in my tadpole breaststroke and then 50 free. In the last 600 yards I was doing 100 in the fake stroke and 50 free. So, over the course of the swim, that worked out to 650 yards of freestyle. Which, I guess, means I have to learn how to swim now.

Remember, this summer I couldn’t swim more than four or five strokes of freestyle, so this is grand progress.

Things to read which I found interesting today.

Wearable Computers Could Make Steep Inroads into Farming, Experts Say

Does the right to “inspect” public records include the right to Instagram them?

College football attendance drops 3 percent in opening month

Inside Nairobi’s Devastated Westgate Mall

I put this on Tumblr. There’s more stuff there you can scroll through. Find me on Twitter, too.

And now I’m being summoned into the newsroom … so until tomorrow, then.

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30
Sep 13

The month’s workouts

This is what I did on the bike and on my feet and in the pool. It was a poor month, when you take it altogether.

There isn’t nearly enough riding (red) to be found. I just started swimming (light blue). This shows an accurate representation for my enthusiasm for running (dark blue). All units are miles.

cycling / errands / Friday / I do not know what is happening. / links / photo / running / things to read — 2 Comments
27
Sep 13

I don’t say anything bad at all about the DMV

The guy at the local bike shop — I should say My Guy, since he’s always the one that draws the short straw and has to deal with me — says it isn’t an alignment problem that keeps me from shifting rings on the front of my bike. This explains why I could see no obvious problem. My front derailleur, tells me is frozen.

“Do you sweat a lot?”

Do you mean, do I ride in the heat of the day a lot? Yes.

Turns out all the sweat goes right there into the derailleur cage, where the hinge can rust out over time. Which is why, right now, I can only ride in the big ring. (Which is usually where I ride, anyway.)

Maybe I should stop riding in the rain so much, too then.

“No,” he said. “Just the sweat. The salt.”

Rust. Tastes like victory.

And the cost of a new derailleur. And not being able to ride until next week.

Because Amazon can ship you something from across the country in a day, but in a bike shop it will be Tuesday before your part comes in. No matter, I’ll miss one day of riding and, hopefully, it will be ready by next weekend.

On the upside, we did stand over a Trek time trial bike. And I picked up a carbon fiber Trek with state of the art electronic groupo just to feel what 15 pounds felt like. It felt like about $10,000. How anyone could ride something that expensive without fear in their eyes is beyond me.

And I coveted a Colnago. It was a beautiful machine. (It looked like this.) So beautiful, and significantly less than the Trek. We had a moment, me imagining slinging it left and right as I stood out of the saddle, the Colnago knowing I could never handle the ride. So beautiful.

Good thing my Felt was downstairs. It doesn’t need to get jealous. Can’t afford a new bike. It “only” cost two or three grand.

Also, upstairs was this poster:

That was for Bo Jackson’s Bo Bikes Bama tornado relief ride last year, and a shorter tour this year. He’s raised more than $600,000 in those six days in the saddle. Still sad I couldn’t talk any of my media friends into letting me cover it for them.

But Bo rides a Trek, and Trek loves Bo. And he signed his left thigh. In the reflection off the glass frame you can see part of another Trek in the background.

The Yankee rides a Trek, hence she knows Bo.

Also, the DMV this afternoon.

We have a satellite office, and the people there are nice and courteous and they know their business. Still, this late in the month, it took an hour to weave through the line. I was going to ask “How did we do this before smartphones?”

Then I remembered: I used to take a book.

But everyone was pleasant and in a good humor. Many folks took a friend. As good a time as any to catch up. A lot of people ran into people they knew. Medium-small towns have those advantages.

I’d rather go to our DMV than our post office — where I have also waited an hour in line.

Also, when you park in a parking space that is for employees only the DMV staff will run the tag and call you up to the desk to move your car. And you get your space back in line. Two people had this problem while I was there.

I might have been one of them.

We went for a run late this evening on the nearby bike and running trail. It is three miles, round trip. I got out a little ahead of The Yankee and, as it got dark I stopped and waited for her so I wouldn’t be shuffling along by myself in the twilight.

This was a mistake because it turned into an all out sprint at the end. I was not prepared for the last 200 yards. But I did break the tape. And by tape I mean spiderweb.

That wasn’t nearly as exciting as I thought it would be.

I’m concerned I’ll soon come to enjoy running.

I do not know what is happening.

Things to read which I thought were interesting while standing in line at the DMV today …

Three bears and one tough hiker

Special Space Camp graduation: 200 vision-impaired students from 25 states, 6 countries

The Economist rethinks ‘lean forward, lean back’ model

Got a great weekend planned?

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24
Sep 13

Transferring 14,233 files – 6 percent complete

Spent the day transferring data on computers. You know how that goes, right? Here are a bunch of files on this machine. But this machine is going to be replaced by that machine. So you have to move all of these directories and files from here to there.

Fortunately I have a great server I can connect to and swap out files. Unfortunately I have a lot of big files. A lot. And big ones. So this took Much of the day and night.

And then the process of making sure you don’t need any of those other files. And then double checking that, because once you return this computer it is over, pal.

And then loading new software on the new machine. Only you don’t have all of the software, so you have to track people down tomorrow. No matter, though.

Tonight the students are working on the newspaper. Two weeks ago, on their first issue, they were in the newsroom until 5 a.m. Last week it was 3 a.m. Here’s to hoping that’s a trend.

But they working hard and laughing and sound like they are enjoying their evening. They do good work and ask a few questions and I’m impressed by the quality of work they are producing in just two weeks. They have a great deal of potential.

Went for a swim tonight. I did 1.25 miles. That’s 45 laps, or 90 lengths, if you are counting. It has to be the greatest distance I’ve ever traveled in water that didn’t include a boat or inner tube.

I did 250 yards with a breaststroke. It was slow. It was probably sloppy. And I was exhausted from just that. This summer I could do about four strokes before I had to stop because of my shoulder, so 250 sloppy yards is a tremendous improvement. Someone should have been there to give me a high five.

Well, maybe a low five.

I do not know what is happening.

Also, people need to learn how to swim in lanes. I’d complain, but the guy might read this and just keep distractedly swim right on to my side.

The Samford football team wrapping up practice:

Pat Sullivan just rejoined the team. The head coach had spinal fusion surgery and missed the first three games of the season, but returned on Saturday to coach from a booth above the field.

I’ve interviewed Sullivan. We’ve shook hands. He’s 63 and has paws made of stone and fingers made of iron. Some of his players have been in my classes. I’ve dismissed classes early and watched his players stay in the room. Because, I was told, “Coach said the class runs until 5:30, I don’t want to see you down here until 5:30. Stay in the class.” He’s a good man. A solid, certain, Southern gentleman. The kind of man you’d want to grow up to be like.

I don’t know if he is back at practice yet, out in the gloom and rain and under the low clouds — you can see them clinging to the top of the mountain — but I know that’s where he wants to be.

Things to read: Full of stories I’ve enjoyed today, which you might appreciate as well.

Since we were talking about football, did you hear the one about the team who’s bus caught fire last weekend? It was a small college in Alabama. Concordia-Selma was on their way to a game at the time:

Concordia, a small United States Collegiate Athletic Association school located in a city more famous for its role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s than anything, saw all of its football equipment, $90,000 worth, including their only set of jerseys, get destroyed in a freak bus fire on its way to play Miles College this past Saturday.

In the days since the incident, the team has drawn closer and others have been drawn to it, donating everything from shoulder pads to girdles so the Hornets can continue their season Thursday at 6 p.m. in Demopolis against West Alabama.

[…]

“It’s made us value each other, made us value life more,” (freshman Treyvond) Moore said. “We look at those pictures and we’re like, ‘Man, that could’ve been us. But it wasn’t. It’s just brought us together as a team. I feel like can’t nothing divide us.”

The local story, with another incredible picture of the bus that carried 62 people:

We have about 10 helmets left,” (head football coach Don) Lee said. “We lost jerseys, camera equipment, shoulder pads, everything. Right now, we’re trying to figure out what we need and where to get it from.”

Lee said he had received a call from Dallas County High School, which offered some shoulder pads to the program, but that won’t be enough to meet the demands of a college program scheduled to play its next game Thursday. Concordia College-Ann Arbor in Michigan has also called and offered aid.

“We are still going to play Thursday,” Lee said of the Hornets’ scheduled game in Livingston against the University of West Alabama. “UWA has been great. Their coach called me Saturday afternoon, while we were still on the side of the road, asking if there was anything they could do.”

Deadspin examines Sports Illustrated’s Oklahoma State story and their ultimately thoughtful critique can be shared in one concise sentence:

At the exact point where the hard work started, SI stopped.

Time: Little Boy To Kenya Gunman: ‘You’re A Bad Man’

And from the campus blog:

Want to be a freelancer?

“If a bot can write the story better than you, let it

And now back to that computer. And the newspaper. Here’s to hoping it won’t be a 3 a.m. kind of night.

The active Monday post

Yesterday, in that time between afternoon and evening, when the crickets are warming up and the sun is cooling down, we went out for a run. We’ve been running most recently through the neighborhood. We have a great sidewalk path that meanders through the residential areas and the artery that connects different parts of the neighborhood. At times, on foot, they feel far enough apart that you could be running in the woods. But that’s just if you run slow, like me.

There is a roundabout down by the creek bed that has become a good turnaround point for the standard three-mile jog. We ran out together at the same pace and I figured I would run beyond the roundabout, and my lovely running wife would make the turn and then I’d have to try and catch her on the way back in.

Only she ran on beyond the roundabout too, up the hill to the stop sign.

So I ran on beyond the stop sign, turning right and going up the road beyond an elementary school and on. This is one of the routes we ride on our bikes and, indeed, a guy passed me as I shuffled along. I got 4 km, or 2.5 miles and decided to turn around. And then I had to run up the hill to get back to the road that leads down to the roundabout and into the neighborhood.

I ran five miles in the time between afternoon and evening.

I do not know what is happening.

More physical therapy on my shoulder this morning. We’ve added stretchy bands to the routine of motions, movements, pinching and flexing and whatnot.

You meet some interesting people at the therapy place. There’s an older man there working his way back from some sort of accident that left his doctor telling him he’d never do this or that again. The guy left his doctor’s office — I believe his quote was “You don’t know God” — and went to work and proved the doctor wrong. There’s a young guy there who’s trying to get healthy so he can rejoin his high school football team. The therapist is leaning toward shutting him down, and that’s a terrible thing for the kid to hear. There’s a very old gentleman who asked me if I was from Savannah since I had on one of those shirts this morning. He was stationed there with the 2nd Bombardment Wing once upon a time. There’s a lady who works at a nearby deli, and when she visits the staff knows where they are going for lunch that day.

One day you quit going to physical therapy, because you’re better and that’s what you do, but you miss out on learning a little about a lot of people.

In class today we talked about story assignments that the students are working on. We talked about photojournalism. Usually that’s a pretty good lecture because there are plenty of great pictures. And so it was today. After that I scribbled on students’ hard work and they thanked me for it. Life is good.

After that I hit the pool. I swam a mile tonight in my little crawling, breaststroke-esque style. I did 75 yards freestyle, which is a significant improvement for me. More than four strokes before I had to stop! I felt like climbing out and celebrating on the deck.

I ran five miles yesterday and swam one today. I do not know what is happening.

Here is the best video you’ve ever seen about science, a capella, string theory and puppet Einstein.

Things to read: The interesting material I’ve found today that I wanted to share with you.

Two stories that probably say a lot more than anyone realizes: Why Alabama’s rural counties are at risk as Obamacare approaches and Alabama’s rural residents are poorer, older, and less educated – and have far less access to health care

Twitter’s TV Pitch Comes of Age:

“Tweets drive discovery, ratings, and engagement for networks and advertisers, and that means more tweets. It’s a virtuous cycle,” Matt Derella, Twitter’s vp of sales, told a room full of ad industry folks. “We want to be the preeminent compliment to the TV experience. The social soundtrack is about TV multiplied by Twitter.”

The 3 Future Waves In Design, And How To Ride Them:

Twenty years ago, computing was just coming into its own as a medium to which designers could usefully contribute. Since then, it has become the source of just about every major opportunity for product innovation. Audio devices are essentially small computers. Mobile phones are small computers. Everything from medical devices to sports equipment is being augmented by computing. Today, as the once difficult feats of functionality and usability become table stakes, our focus is shifting toward driving greater systems-wide thinking and more beautiful, humanistic experiences. Computing-driven products are no longer islands. They exist as parts of greater systems and brand experiences. The product design industry has collectively responded to this challenge over the last few years; but as we do, new waves are coming that will drive product design going forward.

About the Dexter finale …

And, finally, three things on the campus blog today:

Witness to massacre

Media names the wrong guy in shooting; he’s upset

Interactive Obamacare map

That should be plenty for today. More tomorrow. There’s always more tomorrow.