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iPhone

See ya, Superman

Cam Newton says it is time for him to fly off to the NFL. And this is how I’ll remember the guy, a big joyous balloon-like creature — because balloons make you smile — flying out of the light holding something that I’ll choose to think of as a popsicle stick. Because if balloon creatures make you smile, then a balloon creature bringing popsicle sticks is all the better.

By happenstance I was taking that picture at about the same time Newton was announcing his goodbyes.

Yes, yes. Cam Newton was at the center of a controversy that was either manufactured or so shady as to be disbelieved, depending on whom you believe. I don’t know, and you still don’t either. What is definitive is that he was a nice part of a renaissance of fervor in the Auburn community and he did nice things while he was here, too. All of that won’t soon be forgotten, I’m sure.

We’d told ourselves the last several years that Tim Tebow was one of the greatest to ever play college football. And he was. So was Cam Newton. Consider: the guy played on three national championship programs in a row at Florida, Blinn and Auburn. Statistically you can’t get much more gaudy than his 1,473 yards rushing and 4,327 yards in total offense for the year. His 51 (!!!) scores — 20 rushing, 30 passing and one receiving — are more than 80something teams in big-time college football manufactured this season.

He wasn’t Auburn’s entire team, but he alone was statistically better than most of what you could see on Saturdays. He broke records previously owned by men named Tebow and Bo Jackson and Jimmy Sidle.

(That last one stood for more than 40 years. Newton would pick up the AP Player of the Year, the Walter Camp, the Maxwell, the Davey O’Brien and the Heisman awards, all as a matter of course. Best ever? If he was not he was darn close.)

His teammate, Lombardi award-winning defensive bear-dragon Nick Fairley will declare for the draft tomorrow. I can’t show a representation of him. Balloons can’t be twisted into savage rage machines. (He’s apparently a very nice young man off the field, though.)

So good luck to them, and all of their departing teammates, two dozen seniors in all. It has been a pleasure cheering you on and it’ll be nice seeing you when you return to the plain for a visit. War Eagle.

iPhone / photo / site / Tumblr / Wednesday — Comments Off
12
Jan 11

Can you spot what’s different here?

Woke up in a foul mood. There was a bad dream filling up my morning. And the blogosphere wants for nothing less than someone pecking on about their dreams, but something bad had happened in the dream. It was at least indirectly my fault. In that way of dreams that doesn’t make any sense later, nothing was done to resolve the problem for three days.

It took a while to shake all of that today. It is one thing for someone to be mad at you for something you’ve done in their dream, but another thing altogether to be mad about something that happened in your own. So there was that.

Read some. Window shopped some. Walked around all day thinking it was Thursday. Changed a few things on the site. There’s a new picture across the top here. The historical banner page has been updated. I streamlined the links on the rest of the site. I took out two slow moving widgets from the right rail on this page.

I added a picture something to the Tumblr site. I deleted, from here, three paragraphs on why the Tumblr app dislikes adding asterisks. Apparently that is code for italicize, when it should be code for an Alan Alda reference.

(Next week I’ll try to get back into the habit of the regular features around here.)

And now, to put you in a reflective mood, the library at sunset:

More tomorrow. I’ll start the day with a brighter mood and do some more interesting things than site maintenance.

Auburn / football / iPhone / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
11
Jan 11

The Tigers are back

The Auburn football team returned to campus this evening. They won the championship last night, flew for four hours from Phoenix to Montgomery today and then had to sit around and wait for the luggage to get off the plane. Finally, there was the hour by bus from the Montgomery airport to campus. It was, no doubt, a long day for them.

But when they got back home, a nice crowd was waiting. The estimate is that about 2,000 people were on hand in the sub-freezing temperatures. Some had been there for hours. Here’s a bit of video from the scene.

That’s just them walking in. I love the shots of the players taking pictures of the crowd.

Here’s the brief speeches, from the athletics director, head coach Gene Chizik and two senior leaders, Kodi Burns and Zac Etheridge. Unfortunately their amplification system wasn’t especially effective, but you can still hear most of their brief remarks.

The big formal celebration is slated for Saturday, Jan. 22nd at 1 p.m. in Jordan-Hare Stadium, where champions play.

iPhone / Monday / video — 1 Comment
10
Jan 11

Witness the ice

Here’s the aftermath of SnowOMGpalooza 2011. Bad to the north of us, just a coating of ice here.

The power stayed on, but the roads are a little slippery.

iPhone / video / weekend — Comments Off
9
Jan 11

Snowmageddon 2011

For my in laws in New England, and everyone else that likes to make fun of the weather. This is the calm before the storm.

We’re expecting the ice and snow any minute now, or eventually, whichever comes first.

Serious business to the north of us though. Be careful out there.