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No filling those shoes

Rode this route this evening:

The Yankee is racing on that tomorrow and I was doing the scouting work. The opening rollers can get you. Your eyes will deceive you. Watch out for that pothole. When you get here shift up. You’ll ride along the top of the hills, so pedal hard.

Gear up when you hit that stop sign. Crush it here. Be careful of that intersection, it feels crazy on the bicycle. Get over your gears on that roller. When you come back in toward the park sprint the last leg. I was breaking 30 through there.

Tomorrow she’ll do her second aquabike, a swim-ride race. Last year, in her first one, she took third place. And now she has another 600-meter swim and a 14-mile ride at John Tanner State Park in Carrollton, Ga. It boasts 28 acres of lakes, the largest sand beach of any Georgia state park and the nicest state park restroom I’ve ever seen. And also really, really cold water in the swimming area.

Things are still unseasonably cool, which feels great in general. But if you have to swim in it at 8 a.m. probably is a different story.

John Tanner was a local business owner who opened and ran the park from 1954 through 1971, when he sold it to the state. Actually it is now a county park. Even better. The state was going to close the park in 2012, but it went back to the locals instead.

The ride felt slow to me, I started cold, I hadn’t eaten enough and I’d gotten right out of the car and on to the bike. But my computer disagreed. It said I had a fairly nice pace for my first time on that route. Nice for me, put still slow, we agreed.

That’s OK, because pasta for dinner! We found our way to a Carrabba’s after noting the local Mellow Mushroom was closed and avoiding the many Captain D’s that seem to populate that part of the world.

They are presently offering a menu that includes seconds. They know their audience, namely, me. Only they brought out both plates at the same time, which didn’t make me look very good I’m sure. Joke’s on them. I still had bike grease and tire dust on my face, apparently.

Badges of honor, I say.

George Jones was nothing less than the greatest country music singer that ever lived.

— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) April 26, 2013

Not much else to say after that. This week’s YouTube Cover Theater features covers of the timeless, brilliant George Jones.

Charlie W. uploaded this video from Belgium today:

Sitting on a porch with crickets buzzing in the background, playing a pretty Gibson Hummingbird and singing about drinking. That’s a George Jones tribute if ever there was one:

Jim Arkus here says he heard the news and sat down on his porch and put this cover of The Door on video:

There are a lot of Jones covers popping up today, and so their traffic is necessarily low. This one has been up for more than a year and I do not understand how it has less than 200 views.

The Opry dedicated their show tonight to Jones, who became a member in 1956:

George Jones had number one singles in four different decades. He marked 26 albums that charted in the top 10 and 72 singles reach such lofty places.

George Jones gets the final word, of course. This was a title track in 1985 and still a fan favorite a decade later, when he performed it in this 1993 concert. It reached number three on the charts as a lament and a criticism and it is even sadder today:

OK, Merle gets the last word, because it is likely the truth:

The world may have lost the greatest country singer that ever lived. twitter.com/merlehaggard/s…

— Merle Haggard (@merlehaggard) April 26, 2013

friends / maps / Thursday / video — Comments Off
18
Apr 13

Doing back handsprings

I want to do a paper on Jon Stewart as the media’s ombudsman.

One day I’ll tell of my interview with CNN. It was enlightening.

So this young lady lost her leg in a car accident. Now she’s doing back handsprings:

“I get chills thinking about it now,” said White. “When you see a young lady go through what she went through and not just recover to lead a “normal” life, but to also get back to where she was as an athlete, there are no words to convey how it made me feel.”

There is video. And that’s the second cheerleader with a prosthetic I’ve seen now. Perhaps there are others, but they all suggest the same thing; we live in the future.

I wrote this two years ago today for The War Eagle Reader. Lt. Dean Hallmark would be 99 today.

You can grow from any story you write, but this one even more so. We made two nice friends out of the deal, Adam Hallmark, who was my source, and his significant other. Not bad for an afternoon spent writing in the recliner.

I’m listening to the scanner feed from Boston tonight. I miss scanners. But this is not the night to miss them. Apparently a significant portion of the country had the same idea. There are reportedly more than 80,000 leaning in to their computer speakers after the terrible shooting at MIT, the carjacking, the chase to Watertown “definite hand grenades and automatic gunfire” and whatever horrendous thing comes next.

Here is a map roughly approximating tonight’s events:

People listening in are learning that police work isn’t often like what we see on television. Maybe this terrible thing will end soon.

iPhone / journalism / links / maps / memories / photo / Samford / things to read / Wednesday — Comments Off
20
Feb 13

Took a field trip today

More trip planning, thing doing, list checking, check making.

As in the writing of checkmarks next to things on the list. If you’re looking for money, this is not your site. So sorry about that, too.

Received a visit from a former editor of the Crimson today. Nice to see Drew drop by, giving me grief about the state of the Auburn-Florida sporting rivalry and inspiring me about his plans. He’s a sharp guy ready to go out and conquer his corner of the world. (If you need a sports writer, this is the right blog. You should look up Drew.)

We do have the good fortune to enjoy a fine caliber of students in our program, to be sure. They keep us young.

My class today visited the Alabama Media Group, as I might have mentioned elsewhere. It was a chance to seeold friends in a new place, the first time I’ve visited with my former coworkers at al.com since they made the AMG shift last fall. This was the first time I’ve seen them anywhere besides the Martin Biscuit Building in Lakeview.

They are on the north side now, in the Birmingham News building — which is now for sale.

If you’re on the market for a lot of open floorspace in that is less than 10 years old, I know of a deal for you!

Anyway, lovely and talented folks. I always enjoy visiting them. I didn’t get to see everyone today, but I’ll be back for lunch tomorrow. Of course we heard from AMG’s director of community news, Bob Sims:

At one point a student asked him a question and Bob used, almost word-for-word, the same answer I’d offered to this class on Monday about where they should be focusing right now. I love it when a plan comes together.

Anyway the sun was coming in through that light, over the church across the street and stretching out across this open work area and the AMG folks talked about their numbers and marketing and coverage and where they are planning to go in the future. Students asked good questions. It all came off famously. I was happy to see old friends and to see them looking well.

I did get to visit with Brian and Justin — guys I’ve known for almost a decade now — and some of my newer online friends today. We sat in a corner, the three of us, for a time and we made random references to pranks we once pulled one another and talked almost exclusively about how old we are. So it begins.

Things to read: Jeremy Gray, a local crime writer whom I admire, is doing a little bit of historist work. Journalism-history, that’s not a bad way to spend a slow night on the beat. This story reaches all the way back to the 1920s, involves ax murders, assaults on immigrants and interracial couples, truth serums, three death sentences, reprieves, new trials and several enduring mysteries, all nearly vanished from the modern collective memory. The story is a great read, which defies a brief and cogent excerpt, but do give it a look. I’ll just leave you with this from The trials of ‘The Axemen of Birmingham’: Drug-induced confessions lead to winding courtroom drama:

Descendants of some victims still live in the Birmingham area and at least one, Butch Baldone, a downtown tailor for 53 years, said black people were unfairly targeted in the investigation.

Baldone’s grandparents, Charles and Mary Baldone and their daughter, Virginia, then 14, were assaulted in their 10th Avenue North shop on July 13, 1921. All three survived, but refused to identify their attackers.

While the five black people injected with scopolamine reportedly confessed to the crime, Baldone said he believes the attack and “at least 90 percent” of the others were the work of an Italian mafia that was trying to plant roots in Birmingham.

“Black people got along with Italians because they were the only ones who would give them credit. The white man didn’t want their business,” Baldone said.

[…]

“The Baldones found the people who really did it and, to put it simply, they don’t exist anymore,” Butch Baldone said. “That was the closest the mafia ever came to Birmingham.”

Just so pat and perfect.

From Reuters, “Keep your so-called workers,” U.S. boss tells France:

The CEO of a U.S. tire company has delivered a crushing summary of how some outsiders view France’s work ethic in a letter saying he would have to be stupid to take over a factory whose staff only put in three hours work a day.

Titan International’s Maurice “Morry” Taylor, who goes by “The Grizz” for his bear-like no-nonsense style, told France’s left-wing industry minister in a letter published by Paris media that he had no interest in buying a doomed plant.

“The French workforce gets paid high wages but works only three hours. They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three and work for three,” Taylor wrote on February 8 in the letter in English addressed to the minister, Arnaud Montebourg.

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S- … what’s that?

“Titan is going to buy a Chinese tire company or an Indian one, pay less than one Euro per hour wage and ship all the tires France needs,” he said. “You can keep the so-called workers.”

Oh, right, the American way.

Finally, some people in higher education have been writing about social media, lately, if you’re interested.

Tomorrow: Road trip.

journalism / links / maps / Samford / things to read / Tuesday — Comments Off
29
Jan 13

I had a bite of banana pudding today

Newspaper meetings, staff meetings, some other meeting. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, breathing.

I read a lot. I wrote some. I wrote a lecture. I created a work schedule and wrote emails. I tweaked a PowerPoint. I got rained on. It is remarkable how easy it is to slip back into the routine.

It is a nice routine.

The only thing unusual about it all was that the heat in my office worked. As far as I know that hasn’t been the case in the four years it has been my office. Of course it was 70 degrees outside today.

Everything else was just lovely. They were offering banana pudding in the cafeteria, after all.

I’m trying to settle on the Very Short List Of Desserts I’ll Allow Myself If They Are Available. Banana Pudding will be on this list.

Things to read: Entrepreneurial journalism? Credible voices? Two great topics for me.

The rise of the entrepreneurial journalist in a world seeking credible voices:

Breaking news without context and perspective is a commodity today. George gets that and has the experience and judgment to succeed on a platform like ours. We do our best to make sure that all of our contributors are right for the role. They’re all picked, vetted and on-boarded by FORBES editors who have worked here for years, often a decade or more. We prominently place a writer’s bio on each of their posts so readers can judge their credentials. Transparency sits at the core of everything we do. Not all our contributors work out. Some discover it’s not for them. Some never meet our standards and we part ways. We’re always learning how best to evaluate potential contributors, what the audience wants and what’s right for our brand. It’s part art and science.

We have a disruptive model for journalism. Last week, I wrote about the new wave of journalist on our full-time staff. Many work directly with our extensive curated contributor network. Our platform, tools and product features power a world of entrepreneurial journalism at a time when so many media companies are still shrinking. Our goal remains the same as it was the day we first embarked on our new journey: to build a sustainable model for journalism by respecting the values and standards of our heritage and embracing the dynamism of a digital era.

TV records uptick in dual-screen viewing:

Not only will there more second screens in consumers’ living rooms — but there could be more big second screens.

Deloitte, the consulting firm, estimates this year that 10% of homes in developed countries will have a “dual video screen” — that is two or more screens showing TV programs at the same time in the same room.

While near-term this dual video screening will continue to be dominated by combinations of TV sets and smaller screens — laptops/tablets — larger video second screens will take hold in future years.

This two screen business is all transitional, just so you know.

Great story about a great type of paper, may it publish forever, Pacific Palisades newspaper junkie buys his own paper:

Smolinisky, 33, is a newspaper junkie. He abides by Munger’s philosophy that high achievers in the financial world tend to be voracious readers.

“I love knowing everything going on everywhere in the world,” said Smolinisky, a real estate entrepreneur who keeps a peacock blue Bentley and a red Ferrari in his garage. Late last year, he satisfied a decade-long dream, paying seven figures for the Palisadian-Post. The weekly has chronicled life in Pacific Palisades since 1928 and has been losing money. Smolinisky aims to turn it around.

“Pacific Palisades is my favorite place on Earth, and the Palisadian-Post is my favorite newspaper,” he said. “I have a moral obligation to make sure this newspaper arrives every Thursday for as long as I live.”

As of now you can check out North Korea via Google Maps. I have a sneaking suspicion that that is really what the northern peninsula is actually angry about. Anyway, read about how it all came to pass, here.

View Larger Map

family / history / maps / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
9
Jan 13

My great-grandfather’s war

This is the 68th anniversary of the day my great-grandfather was wounded in Belgium. His time in Europe was brief. His service has been something of a mystery to his family for decades. Now I’ve cobbled it together, somewhat.

That’s my great-grandfather, circa 1944, with his oldest, my grandfather.

Because my great-grandfather always changed the subject about his time in the war the entire family learned as much about his experience in the war at his funeral as anytime in his life. His quiet choice means this brief bit of history focuses on the unit(s) rather than the personal.

He was attached to some element of the 137th Infantry Regiment. Without knowing which battalion or which company he was a part of this can only be a regimental overview with some movements down to the company level.

If you click the pins (which run from Dec. 6 to Jan. 11.) in sequence you can get an approximate sense of where he was. It features time near the border of France and Germany, Christmas in Metz and then Belgium during the Bulge, specifically at Villers-la-Bonne-Eau. All of the markers are rough estimations and meant only to be illustrative. Their placements are derived from the unit history, found here and here. The lightly edited text and photographs found with the pins are from the same unit history. The summary accompanying the final pin is derived from this unit overview. Any errors would be mine alone.

Click the links either above or below the map to see the entire presentation in a new tab of your browser.

View Tonice in the Bulge in a larger map
View Tonice in the Bulge in a larger map

A note of gratitude: None of this research would have been possible without the help of the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs. Finding his discharge papers allowed me to figure out what unit he served in. That document was uncovered by the persistent and passionate help of Ms. Peggy Marquart, who was almost as emotional about the find as I was.