“It is tough,” she said, “to be that enthusiastic at that this time of day.”
She meant the morning, trying to wake up for breakfast, which is something to be excited about. And it was delicious:
And then it was cloudy and cold. Well, there was that part of the afternoon were it rained. That really changed things up. All week long. That’s pretty much been the way of it this week.
Today we learned that Harvey Updyke could be back on the street by May. I’m over the guy. He has so many probation conditions I’m sure he’ll get picked up again before too long.
More importantly something collapsed at the newly renovated terminal at the Birmingham airport. A family was hurt. Turned out they were standing under one of those large flight info screens when it fell off the wall. I was listening to the fire department scanner chatter. Three rescue units were there. And then a fourth and fifth were dispatched.
Meanwhile they were answering calls to an elderly person with trouble breathing, a teen who couldn’t see and a car crashing into a power pole. Listening to a scanner is addictive.
Late in the evening we learned a 10-year-old died in the airport accident. The people that picked up the info screen off the family said it weighed between 300 and 400 pounds. The mother had some serious leg injuries. Her younger children were also taken to the hospital. They were on vacation, returning home, and just passing through the Birmingham airport.
In a happier story, the US played Costa Rica in a World Cup qualifier and someone thought booking this in a Colorado venue in March would be a good idea. Craziest non-soccer game I’ve ever watched at the international level:
Welcome back YouTube Cover Theater, where we celebrate the talent of regular people who are playing on their sofas, at their bars and on their decks, in front of a camera and, now, the world. We do this by choosing a feature act and showing off covers of their original work. This week’s inspiration is Old Crow Medicine Show:
James River Blues:
There have been some 5,200 views of that one. I can’t believe this one of Caroline has less than 2,000:
This one just looks older because of the sepia:
Every other Old Crow Medicine Show cover is of Wagon Wheel. So we’ll just go to Mumford and Sons:
Hope you have a great weekend, and that it is a little warmer and a little drier where you are.
At the baseball stadium last night, before it turned cold again, Auburn hosted Alabama State. The hecklers were giving ASU’s third baseman a good-natured hard time. He had the misfortune to execute a poor slide in the early innings and then the good humor to laugh about it with the crowd later.
Late in the game, with ASU in the field, their short stop shifted far to his right. Someone pointed out how close the guy at short was to the third baseman. And then there was a weak ball up the line to third and the two guys ran into one another. Here is a dramatic reenactment:
Thereafter the Alabama State short stop was everyone’s hero, and he could do everything. Those guys were such great sports. The ASU third base coach offered free tickets to the Auburn students for their series this weekend. Auburn won 10-2.
We had dinner at Mellow Mushroom, which meant leftovers for lunch today.
It turned cold about that time. I debated turning on the electric blanket. No, I thought, spring is here. The windows were open earlier.
And then this morning it felt even colder somehow, which is to say the low 50s. We’ve been in the upper 70s, so there is a bit of chill again when you hit 54 at the high point of the day. Particularly when the sun is playing shy behind three or four layers of cloud cover.
Never could get warm today. I stayed curled up under a blanket with the space heater on. Spring is here, after all.
Sometime in the late afternoon, though, the sun finally came out. It was nice and bright and warmer, though the space heater stayed on all day, into the evening and night.
But we did get sunlight at the right time, my favorite time of day in our house, which I’m sure I’ve mentioned here before:
Those 25 minutes or so just feel magical. Anything is possible. The most ludicrous movie plots could become reality for those few moments. You revel in them, you wonder how they manage to escape so suddenly. And you reaffirm an incontrovertible truth; every house should have clear sight lines and plenty of windows facing west.
Tonight The Yankee made chicken tikka masala and naan, which is a new dish at home. It was good. Now, we’ve decided, we just want authentic Indian food.
Things to read: Usually videos like this are news simply because there is video. And usually it is some bad news, or something that barely qualifies as news. This, however, is awesome:
In an amazing rescue in Perth, Australia, a man administered CPR on a young girl who stopped breathing as her panicked and thankful father looked on.
Voyager is leaving the heliosphere, or may be leaving the heliosphere. It might be coming back, because it thinks it left the stove eye on. Or it could already be Vger. Whichever. Humanity is now interstellar:
What’s not in dispute among any of the scientists is that the spacecraft is now, undeniably, in a new and unexplored region—pushing the reach of humanity farther than it’s ever gone before. What we call that place is, in many respects, less important than the fact that we’re there at all.
According to new scientific findings set for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Voyager I has pushed into the great unknown.
NASA, however, remains skeptical about these new conclusions. “Consensus of the mission team is that NASA’s Voyager spacecraft has not left the solar system,” a NASA social media specialist told TIME via e-mail. “Statement soon from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.”
For years, scientists have speculated as to when Voyager would finally leave all traces of our sun behind — officially exiting the heliosphere, and entering the great undiscovered country beyond.
Every suspect is entitled to his day in court, but for accused Auburn shooting suspect Desmonte Leonard, Wednesday’s hearing had to be postponed because no one thought to bring him.
[…]
(H)e was never transported the 50 or so miles from Montgomery to the Lee County Detention Facility.
Your brain can’t remember pain. Of that I am glad. I don’t miss the pain. I’ll tell you what I miss though, I miss the weather.
Did I ever tell you about when I used to train in Italy in the winter? In the mountains the snow would fall for days, and the hillsides would be covered in thick blankets of white, their peaks looking like the hunched shoulders of giant beasts, faces bowed in shame. Those giant mounds of rock were too scared to face me and too cold to move, and so I rode up them, and made heat of my own. I would catch fire; burning in my layers of clothes, cutting through the cold like an electric heater. Sweat would drip from my nose onto the white road, snow tingling as it melted on my exposed skin. The world was frozen, but I was roaring in flames, as if I was driving an open-top-car with the heater on full blast. I was my own nature. I was defiance.
That piece, about bicycle racing, just gets better and better. Penance for complaining about the cold this morning.
Talking turkey with professor Mark Smith at the Louise Kreher Forest Preserve. He lectured on most everything you could think of about the wild turkey, what they eat, how they choose mates, how they raise their young, mortality rates and so on:
And then we made turkey calls. We yelped and clucked and keekeed and gobbled on slates and boxes.
Because we know people at the preserve we got to hold turtles:
The Yankee and her mom did not enjoy watching the turtles eat their worms, though.
We walked to the waterfall, meandered through the woods and then had subs for lunch. We went to the baseball game, which we aren’t going to talk about this weekend at all, it seems, because it hasn’t been good in any way. Except for the weather, which has been stunningly gorgeous the last two days. These are the days you’d order from Amazon, have them shipped Prime and be in disbelief when they arrived early.
We had dinner at Warehouse Bistro, which is always delicious. They’d called us to say there was a hot water problem, so we’d be dining outside, but by the time we got there that was fixed.
We sat next to a long table of one large, happy family who celebrating a life or a marriage or a death. It was hard to say, but they all took turns giving speeches and it was beautiful. I filed one away for future use.
The chocolate torte was also wonderful. But try the duck breasts. That’s what I had tonight. Or the rack of lamb, which is another favorite. Or the filet, or the crab cakes … Really, anything at the Warehouse Bistro is worth having. Also they’ll unabashedly play Hank Williams next to the Delta Blues next to Harry Connick, Jr. I don’t know why that matters, but I noticed it and it seemed like it could be important later.
The Samford Crimson launched a new look this week for the last quarter of their academic year’s publication run. Looks pretty sharp:
Also there’s a new Target now open just down the street.
Here are two more quick shot of the inside layout. They worked hard, had extra meetings, were excited and it shows. This section is designed by our Society of Professional Journalists award-winner features editor Megan Thomspon:
The sports section is designed by SEJC award winner and sports editor Clayton Hurdle
I tinkered with that page in InDesign last night after they’d finished it. It is solid.
I left a meeting discussing the Crimson to drive over to a television station. CBS 42’s Bill Payer was giving my class a tour. Here he is showing off their mobile production unit:
They built that from the ground up two years ago. They didn’t copy anyone, just built what they thought they needed. They got everything right, except they forgot a kitchen and restroom. Payer tells me that the station could burn down around them and they could go on the air from this truck and cover the news.
Being at CBS meant a chance to see the always welcoming Mark Prater. We sat in the studio and pitched around ideas while, downstairs in the studio, the students were hearing a bit of breaking news. Seems some officers were out serving a warrant on a woman and she sliced them up with a box cutter.
Three officers were taken to the hospital for treatment. Another was treated on the scene. Samford grad Kaitlin McCulley reports:
There was also a big fire leading the news cast, and as I told the news director, the days I really miss it are the days when I am watching a newsroom buzz. He invited me to join in, but I figured they had it covered. Kaitlin was reporting, after all.
