Not the way they’d anticipated this playing, I’d bet. On 9/11 the newspapers of the Alabama Media Group ran their cloned front pages to celebrate the 100th birthday of Paul Bryant. He died in 1983. Ignored was the 12th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. The reaction on Twitter was awkward. I’ve collected them on Storify. (Blogging continues below.)
That isn’t cherry picking. I searched Bryant’s name and the names of the papers and AMG. I didn’t add one which was linkbait. I chose not to include one which was tangential at best. I avoided anything that was purely directed at the University of Alabama. (They had their own unfortunate public response after today asking people to honor the former coach by changing their Facebook photos, but that’s not relevant here.)
Furthermore, of the 13 dailies from the state I surveyed today (via newseum.org) two localized 9/11. Two offered skybox teases to 9/11 content elsewhere in the paper. Four ran some elements of a wire story about New York’s current mayor Michael Bloomberg. There was not as much Syria on the collected front pages as you might imagine, either.
Meanwhile, talk radio host Matt Murphy had his way with the newspaper. You can hear that segment here.
As for the Crimson the paper looks impressive considering this is the new staff’s first paper. I’ve challenged them to start strong and become great quickly, and they’re answering. Here are the first two pages. They have plenty they can concentrate on, but I do believe this is the best first issue paper I’ve seen in my six years at Samford. And we’ve seen some fine starts, too.
The day marched by quickly. Lunch at my desk. People talking about the paper. Phone calls, emails and so on.
There were meetings. Meetings where one ended so another could begin. Talking with students, an advertising meeting, the paper’s critique meeting.
Left work to go on step two of the tuxedo rental odyssey. Stopped by a place last week to try to match a rental with someone (whom I’ve yet to meet) who owns a tux with a fair description and one photograph. The guy last week said it couldn’t be done. The guy this week, in step two, told me to go back to step one.
Good thing everyone will be busy staring at the bride and not me. Maybe they won’t notice if I go with the blue ruffles.
Got home and everything seized up on me again. Went immediately to the foam roller and abandoned that for the flat floor. That helped a bit, but I ended up in such a state I didn’t know how to get up.
Started the new physical therapy routine on my shoulder today. Met with the nice lady who is going to make me all better. She asked what brings on the problems and I wish I knew, because I could stop doing them. And not knowing is unusual because I am typically very causal about what brings about the things that hurt.
Maybe I should start a journal.
So I have these movements and those stretches. Basically today was all about using my arm and my body against itself in ways you don’t normally use your muscle groups. Which means the entire thing is shaky and humorous. And I have homework of stretches and flexes and things.
She gave me an ice pack and sent me on my way. Twenty minutes later my shoulder spasmed hard. (Note to self: You did it, lady! You’re the cause!)
And then my other shoulder and my neck. Such that by the end of the night I could only barely move my upper body. That was a lot of fun. Still is, really.
In class we talked about Associated Press style. We discussed the front pages stories in a national newspaper, a small town community rag and a campus publication.
What makes this story important? What makes it unimportant? Should it have been placed here? There were good answers to these questions, even for the stories that, probably, weren’t really front page stories.
Less obvious were the answers to this question: Who else should have been quoted in this story?
What was fun was trying to find those newspapers. Like pay phones, newspaper boxes have disappeared. And, yes, I understand the business. What I mean is that in places where you saw boxes earlier this year, they are often gone today. The day was coming. The day has quietly come. If by day you mean a big truck with someone throwing newspaper boxes in the back.
Things to read, or items that interested me today.
There was a fireball in the sky here tonight. Twitter — watch what I do here — lit up with the news. Here is a record of some of the sightings. Four meteor cameras spotted it. Some observers noted a sonic boom, which demonstrates how long and low into the atmosphere the object survived.
Poor dears in Texas are having trouble because they booked their wedding in the fall and the date coincides with the later booking of This Week’s Game of the Century:
“The game will probably be ending right around the time I say ‘I do,’ ” sighed the bride-to-be.
[…]
“Trying to schedule a wedding on a home-game weekend is nearly impossible,” said Susan Keough, a wedding coordinator in College Station.
[…]
The wedding of Ms. Mies and Logan Parker is set for 6 p.m. at Astin Mansion, a venue in Bryan, Texas, that employs its own chefs and florists. The unusual circumstances, Ms. Mies said, will be an unexpected test for her 100 guests: Some men will be scurrying over for the reception from the stadium, where the game has a 2:30 p.m. kickoff, while their wives come early for the ceremony.
“You find out who your friends are,” Ms. Mies said, “and who loves you the most.”
Also, your friends find out if you consider things that may be important to them, like locally important cultural events, before scheduling your big day. This news is not news in our beautiful corner of things, but surely looks very eccentric and odd to every other part of the country.
Here’s more news: Spring weddings are beautiful and summer weddings are possible, despite the heat.
I attended a wedding held during the Iron Bowl one year. The wedding was held in a private home, so they could have moved things up a few hours. But, nooooo.
I wonder why someone doesn’t get married actually at a game. With the big HD screens in stadiums these days you’d have an entertaining and unique experience. Maybe the coach comes over afterward and gives you a game ball.
And, finally, Samford moves up a step in the (sometimes dubious) U.S. News and World Report’s rankings. Number three in the South.
That is the sound the car makes. Which means, I hope, that the battery in the key fob is dying. So I try the other one.
Clickclickclickclick.
Well.
The lights turn on. The radio and the interior light, too.
So it is the battery, since the starter and the alternator have both seemed strong recently.
One 5/16ths wrench and three bolts and the two connectors later and the battery is free. This took just a minute, which is an improvement over the headlights in this car. They can’t be replaced without dropped the entire front end of the car. This battery is also better off than a car I once had that required a mechanic to take out a support bar to simply change batteries.
Because nothing on a car should be simple.
But at least this battery comes out.
Off to get it tested. And that battery failed. But it has been in the car for six years and that’s asking a lot of a battery these days.
So I bought a new battery. Took it home, set it in the engine compartment and started tightening nuts and bolts. Dropped a nut into the deepest, darkest part of the engine compartment. With visions of a bouncing battery tearing through the hood I had to figure out a way to pull out that nut.
I found one of those fridge magnets from a realtor that knows who you are for no reason and thought you might like a football schedule. I put that in right spot, fished it around and found the nut. Take that, MacGyver.
The biggest setback of the day, then, was realizing I have to re-set all of the radio presets in my car radio.
Life is pretty good then, no?
Tried to rent a tuxedo for a wedding, but failed. I’m trying to match a tuxedo that someone else already owns, but it seems that that tux is one this particular suit store sells, but does not rent. Though that’s not what I’ve been told. So I’ll try a different store later.
I just bought a battery, nothing is phasing me today.
Got a flag folded, in preparation for a birthday gift for my grandfather. I visited the local reserve center and there soldiers helped make it official. One of them was a sergeant who’d never folded a flag before. But, she said, she’d always wanted to. They’d just been talking about it, in fact. So they took pictures of her folding the flag. So everybody wins.
And I didn’t have to buy a starter or an alternator.
Everybody wins.
Except that we’ve lost. A lot. Here are a series of disconcerting headlines:
A lot of time in the car. But a lot got done. One of those days.
Meetings were held to discuss Digital Video Center policies. Things were taught to students and learned by me. Plans and logistics were heard and arranged. Emails … were emailed. One of those days.
Which is not to say there was anything wrong with it at all, because there was not anything wrong with it.
The Crimson had a meeting this morning, so I stayed out of their newsroom. You don’t want to put your snout in all of their activities. As an adviser of an independent publication you have to pick your spots.
So when I was there later I saw this on their wall-sized chalkboard:
Sounds like they’re off to a good start for the year.
One of the first emails I received this morning was the first I’ve received on the Affordable Health Care Act. It included this line: “Unfortunately, we do not have details on the exchange coverage or the rates to share with you at this time.”
And this starts in October.
Though, right off the top, there are $65 in fees, and “we do not yet know what the rate increase will be.”
Thanks, Congress.
So I wrote our hard working and now long suffering HR director and asked a few specific questions. You can imagine the stress that gentleman is under.
In the evening I received this tweet:
Was so scared to drive within 20 ft of a biker today in fear that it was @kennysmith because MY GRADE IS IN HIS HANDS. #heholdsgrudges
I tell my students “One of the perks of being in the front of the class is having your pet issues. Here’s mine. Be careful of cyclists. Move over three feet,” and so on. Be careful when you pass them, I say, because you never know when it will be me and I get to grade you.
This joke always does pretty well. And she laughed at it, too.
Someone asked me on Facebook one day how to pass a cyclist. I got it down to five hints:
First: Wait. Just a second. Let a little road get out in front of him or her. She has the same rights the car does, etc.
Second: Know that waiting for 15 seconds until oncoming traffic doesn’t exist isn’t going to make you late.
Third: Just ease over to your left and pass, when clear. Some cities have a three-foot law. Think of that: that’s an arm length, but do err on the side of wider berths when you can. (Not everyone is a champion bike handler.)
Fourth: You don’t have to honk your horn. Unless you are driving an electric, I can hear you.
The programming director at Shoals Radio Group said he is puzzled how a promotional for a local radio station managed to excite many students and parents into believing bombs would be exploding today at area schools.
Rumors of school safety being in jeopardy have steadily increased since promotionals began Monday to bring attention to a format change at Star 94.9. The rumors prompted some parents to keep their children at home today instead of having them attend class as usual. Police and school officials also increased patrols in some schools in an effort to ease fears.
[…]
The promotional, which will continue until Friday when the format change is officially announced, is built around the thought that aliens have taken over the radio station and are trying to figure out what type music appeals to humans.
You can hear the promos here. How people got worked up about them remains a mystery. “Aliens with perfect diction!”
Every now and thenSpencer Hall feels the need to prove he’s a better writer than the rest of us. Give the guy a good story and watch him work. Read this (too long) excerpt and you’ll need to know the rest:
Kurt Vonnegut said that his chief objection to life in general was that it was “too easy, when alive, to make horrible mistakes.” This is what offensive line coaches live with: the notion that for every five simple circles drawn on a board, there are a nearly infinite number of possible threats looming out in the theoretical white space. Offensive plays give skill players arrows. Those arrows point down the field toward an endzone, a stopping point, a celebration. Those five simple circles stay on the board in the same place, and are on duty forever.
They are rough men in the business of protection.
Herb Hand is an offensive line coach at Vanderbilt University, where he might not even be were it not for a long line of random events. Hand got a job at Glenville State under Rich Rodriguez in 1994, a team whose base offense–the spread option that redefined modern football–depended on a play that in itself was the result of an accident, the zone read. A quarterback simply pulled the handoff from the running back, read the defensive end, and turned a mistake into deliberate and deadly strategy. Other coaches might have dismissed it entirely. Rodriguez did not, and now it is run at every level of the game from Pop Warner to the NFL.
Hand would work under Rodriguez at Clemson, and then followed him to West Virginia when Rodriguez was hired to replace Don Nehlen. Hand would recruit, coach tight ends, and recruit, and do all of that in exactly that order, because recruiting is an important activity that sometimes is interrupted by bouts of college football. One of the places Hand recruited was the talent-glutted state of Florida, including Orlando, where on April 27th, 2006 something would hit him in the back of the head with an axe.
The axe blow to the back of the head was a different kind of pain than normal.
And then you finish that story and you think: Great, that’s how we start football season. With teary eyes.
Which is fine, I guess, because we have football. You know, I’ve waited almost my entire life to enjoy picture-in-picture. The technology was rolled out in 1983. I’ve had two televisions that had the tech, but never had the necessary cable setup. Now, on this second television to feature PIP we finally have the opportunity to use it — and during football season! — and I can only manage to watch the same game twice.
But Gatorade ads look great when you see them in double vision!
So picture in picture is, so far, disappointing. And the New Directv setup lasted seven quarters of football, watching and switching between channels, before quitting. So there was a call to tech support. They flipped the magic switch and unkinked the hose on their end. A reset and a reboot later and it works again. Hope we’re not doing that all fall.
Even if we are they’re already proving more competent than Charter ever was.
