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adventures / cycling / Friday / maps / music / YouTube Cover Theater — Comments Off on No filling those shoes
26
Apr 13

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.

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:

Friday / friends / music / photo / Samford / video / YouTube Cover Theater — Comments Off on Neva betta
19
Apr 13

Neva betta

We held a big committee meeting today and held interviews and selected next year’s student media leaders. This is always a great day because our most motivated students come forward and share their ideas and answer a few questions and we try to make sure we pick the right people, and there are so many fine choices for most of those jobs.

I haven’t been to this meeting on a day when the sun wasn’t shining and the people in the room weren’t pleased to be there. Some of the elements of what happens in that meeting are among my favorite things about being at Samford. I get to watch highly-placed people in the university thinking about the best possible thing for a particular student. To be a part of that is to realize you are in a great place, surrounded by people there for the right reasons. That’s a fine thing to know.

Made it home in time to enjoy dinner with our friends Barry and Melissa, who were in town for meetings and things. We’d just spent the weekend with them and others in Louisville, but now they had their sun, who is a huge ball of 5-year-old energy. We saw Dr. Magical, who made Matthew, who is awesome, a balloon. He likes Angry Birds so …

Matthew

I mention the Boston scanner and listening to that last night. I stayed up until 3 or 4 a.m., late enough to not be sure. I fought my eyelids for a good long time and then when the officers decided to tighten their perimeter and wait until daylight it seemed a good time to get some rest. So I had about three hours last night. And when I woke up they’d turned off the streams to their scanner chatter for security reasons.

That made sense, but it was unfortunate in a way. All last night, when they were chasing people they didn’t know, when they were taking automatic fire and explosions in a suburban neighborhood, when they were searching door to door in the darkness and didn’t know what they’d find, they exhibited the best of their professionalism.

The good people of the great city of Boston have a lot to be thankful for. Their police, and the feds and other municipalities who were involved in all of that performed admirably. Today, too, we found a link to a still-active scanner feed for about a half hour before dinner and it was the same thing, even as they were drawing close, and even as they realized they had their suspect contained.

And so when they announced, when we were at dinner, that they’d caught their man, and started pulling out of town, the road lined on either side with neighbors who looked like the Celtics had just won a championship, when the SWAT team took to their loudspeaker and told the people of that neighborhood that it was their pleasure to be there, that was a beautiful site.

Here is the scanner chatter as they caught their man. “Neva betta” indeed.

There are, already, at least two sites taking donations to collect money to buy the Boston police officers a beer. That seems fitting.

YouTube Cover Theater: Where we irregularly celebrate the talent of the undiscovered, who take their guitars and their computers and show off their song stylings to the entire world, by showing off people covering popular performers. It is a testament to all of the talent that is out there that ought to be acknowledged, and only gets mild notice. We do this by picking one musician and finding people who are covering them. This week’s featured artist is Colin Hay.

This version of I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You is by the U.K.’s Kieran Smith, who is a music teacher, it turns out:

Australian Jace Leckie’s cover of Beautiful World has only been watched 62 times, which is a shame. It is a chill cover of a terrific song:

Here’s a guy sitting at his desk, just strumming out Maggie. No big deal:

Guess it wouldn’t be Colin Hay without some Overkill. Monica Brentnall is handling it. It really needs some more views:

And, finally, a bit of Colin Hay himself. Another great song, Waiting for My Real Life to Begin:

Hope you have a great weekend. Let’s all celebrate it like we’re in Boston.

friends / music / Tumblr / Twitter / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Better than Taylor Swift
27
Mar 13

Better than Taylor Swift

I’ve been quite busy today, so there’s not a lot to share here.

You won’t need anything after this, though:

That’s from my friend Victoria Cumbow.

Three new pictures on Tumblr, here and here and here. There are other things on Twitter. There is nothing else here.

Until tomorrow.

cycling / food / Monday / movies / music / Samford / Tumblr / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Ode to flashmobs
25
Mar 13

Ode to flashmobs

We have half the grapes that we started the day with. And one less navel orange. Also, the leftover spaghetti from last night disappeared. And then I was full for about an hour. But white grapes only last so long and I had to talk myself out of an extra lunch. Miles on the bike speed up the metabolism, or so I tell myself, and I want to eat everything.

Strange since my energy was all over the place yesterday. I chased The Yankee around town, counting my second, third and fourth wind. These things should be more predictable, but yesterday I was left amazed at how I couldn’t find my legs to get over this hill, but soft-pedaled over the next one, with my legs feeling bored with it all. The body is an amazing thing, and a body on a bicycle is a curious miracle, all balance and whirring and swaying and moving forward. I’m not a good cyclist. Usually I do well just to stay upright. Balance and whirring and all that. At my best moments I’m either trying to make nice little circles with my feet or, if I’ve given up on that, I just try to make it all look casual. That’s also impossible.

But, 30 more miles yesterday, and I really need to start putting more miles back in. We got home just as the wind picked up. She’d forecast the afternoon perfectly. Meteorologists call her for input, or they should.

And now back to work today, the cold week of spring break is over, replaced by a cold regular week.

In class today we talked about films, which means a lot of clips of special effects. One of the students found a five minute EXPLOSIONGANZA of CGI that just melted everyone’s brains. Oh, for a few scenes of expository. Or even a Stallone quote.

When they talk about film they also talk about awards, which everyone loves except me, apparently. I’m fine with it. I did enjoy the Oscars poster someone showed off. It had the statue in the foreground surrounded by floating lines from memorable award winners. I saw this famous line and thought about adding in some running commentary — we’d recently talked about civil rights, the 50th anniversary of various events in Birmingham and across the south, how critical a time that was and how there is such a great museum just over the mountain — so bringing up In the Heat of the Night would have been perfect.

I decided against it. I’m not sure kids born in the 1990s would understand 1960s Mississippi and why all of this was so important. Even the television show was off the air by the time my oldest student was born. Sidney Poitier, though, he just gives you more every time you watch that quiet moment.

Everyone always remembers this, perhaps a cinematic first:

They filmed most of In the Heat of the Night in Illinois because of conditions in Mississippi. The country’s come a long way in those two generations.

There are two new things on Tumblr today. One is here. This is the other one.

I call that Tumblr page “Extra stuff in an extra place.” That is, perhaps, the most apt thing I’ve ever written.

And, finally, I’ve watched this twice now. It will be the best five minutes of your day on the web.

If you’ve never read the Wikipedia entry on Ode to Joy, you should.

Back to work for me, have a lovely evening you. See you tomorrow, when there will be more on Tumblr, more here, always more on Twitter, another Glomerata and who knows what else we can find.

iPhone / journalism / music / photo / Samford / Thursday / video — Comments Off on Road trip
21
Feb 13

Road trip

I got a rental van. It arrived a bit later than it should, so we left precisely 14 minutes after I wanted to. But, still, getting on the road at 3:46 when you were hoping for 3:32 isn’t bad when you consider you’re pulling in six people’s schedules and the general We’ll be there at 2:30 or 3:15-ness of the rental car guy.

We live in an amazing time if you think of it. I looked at glowing words on this flat screen, picked up a hunk of plastic and called a hotel, booked four rooms, found more words on the screen and made arrangements for a rental van. (Of course they called me in return three times, but that’s trivial.) I arranged all of the paperwork, procured the department’s blessing, recruited four students and a colleague, made them all sign the inevitable waivers and now we are bouncing all over western Alabama, Mississippi and western Tennessee.

Here we’d stopped for gas in Tupelo:

rental

Brother, if your tank is low you better stop in Tupelo. It is a long walk in either direction if it purrs, conks and dies.

Our rental performed admirably, even with a distinct twang in Tennessee as we drove on the Rockabilly Highway, a 55-mile stretch of Highway 45, from Mississippi to Interstate 40. Look, I’m the guy who always wonders about the stories behind the names we put on roads, who regularly rides the actual Lost Highway and still does it with wonderment. So believe me, being on something called the Rockabilly Highway was pretty great.

Apparently there are Rockabilly murals here and there along the Rockabilly Highway, but it was dark and raining — which sounds like a song in of itself — so we didn’t see any. Shame that highway doesn’t stretch into Mississippi, though. Jumpin’ Gene Simmons was from Tupelo:

That video is understated and terrific, except our disc jockey didn’t walk it all the way up to the post. Everything else is perfect.

Anyway, we made it to beautiful and cosmopolitan Jackson, Tenn. around 8 p.m., just in time to register for the Southeast Journalism Conference. It runs tomorrow and Saturday and is a good trip for the undergraduates. They hear inspirational messages from talented professionals, met peers, eat free food, win awards and so on.

We had dinner at a place called Redbone’s right across from our hotel. They made a nice Casear Salad, and one of the students complimented their ribs. The band was good, if loud. And then they did a Beatles’ song that might have been a bit ambitious for two guys running their percussion through a keyboard. But they did enjoy themselves, and seemed to know they did Sweet Baby James just right.

Checked into the hotel mostly uneventfully. Everyone crashed into their rooms. I ironed in mine. Very exciting night, really. But tomorrow will be a busy day.

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