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adventures / friends / Monday / photo / running — Comments Off
9
Dec 24

Weekend shots

The problem with photography is that some of the best images come in the early morning, when the sun is low in the sky. And that, frankly, does not coincide with my lifestyle choices.

But on days when I am up, and I’m outside, the world looks lovely again, especially when it’s frost-covered anew.

This was waiting for a run to start, which is why I was up and outside early. They began about 20 minutes late for reasons that were not explained, but let us assume it was for our safety on the roads, and not because of general disorder. So I had time to take some extra photos, before shuffling through an easy 5K.

One stretch I was doing a 5:30 pace, but then I remembered this was maybe my fourth or fifth run of the fall, so I did the rest of it slowly and sensibly. Never you mind my time, which was somewhere between Olympian and walking.

My lovely bride did a 10K Saturday morning, which is why I was there at the finish line to take this poorly composed shot.

They didn’t really have a setup that was conducive to quality finish line photos, which more people should consider when laying these courses out. Begin with the family photos in mind, I always say, ever since I started saying it, which was just a few seconds ago.

Maybe that was the reason for the delay.

At any rate we got to hang out with our friends’ son, Sammy. He did not run, though I tried for months to get his dad to convert the stroller to an e-scooter, and bolt on some foot pedals so he could just ride on. Sammy decided to stay cozy and warm, because he’s smarter than those other kids who were out doing their stroller 5 and 10Ks this weekend.

Also, this guy is The Mayor, and he knows it.

But he’s the cool guy mayor, you know? He doesn’t flaunt it, doesn’t need to hold it over people’s head, he’s not bored of it or use it to his advantage. He just lets you be charmed by his natural charisma. How could he not be?

We had Cuban food for dinner Saturday night. I just wanted to memorialize this, for the next occasion I get Cuban food.

Roasted chicken, lechón asado, ropa vieja and the only problem was that they didn’t offer me seconds. (That ropa vieja was so good, they could have offered me thirds!)

Friday / photo — Comments Off
6
Dec 24

Notes on signs

We saw this sign and sent it to a friend. Now she wants to put it on the back of her wheelchair. You have to respect the sense of humor that people put in their own lives.

What could put someone more at ease than seeing you whip around a wheelchair and seeing that on the back? This is a person determined to enjoy their day. Let’s enjoy the day, too.

The problem with authentic outdoor signage is that they are meant to be seen from a distance. Viewed from a roadway. Perhaps at speed. And you think, I’d love to have that. Put it right up in the house, along that one wall. You know the wall.

The problem is, they might not fit. Or they might dominate the room more than you’d hope. You never think of this if you’re driving by, but if you see one in a habit in the great indoors, you are reminded. We ducked into this gas station for a snack and there, off to one sign was this gorgeous old weather-beaten thing.

How would you even all that around if the sign owner did give it to you? That one barely fits beneath the gas station ceiling.

I don’t know anything about cognac, but a quick search has convinced me the makers are still in business. I’m guessing whatever store that displayed this lovely old bottle sign has long since gone. I wish there was a little note that shared more about it, but maybe it is enough that you can touch it.

I touched the bottle sign.

adventures / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
5
Dec 24

A gleaming yellow lovelight

I made it through all of the grading and message sending at probably 3 a.m. this morning. This followed a sensible “Don’t stay up too late” missive, which I dutifully acknowledged and then ignored, because there is copy editing to do!

Which was great because soon after a student helpfully sent me a note explaining that one of the links I shared was busted. Stupid hyphen. (New band name! Called it first!)

Check your work, check your work, I have said at least 64 times a year to students for the last 18 years. And the one time I didn’t check my work, because it was late … I 404ed someone. Just great.

I am mortified.

Anyway, the link got fixed this morning. Other emails will come and go and I will do my best with them all, and hopefully the instructions and advice I offered my classes will be useful and well received and acted upon in a timely fashion.

Here’s a great Christmas tree!

No, there is not an angle you can shoot this from to not get a building of some sort in a background, somewhere. You can make the complete circle, 360 degrees, and no one has figured out a place to put this with a clear backdrop, or at least an iconic one, for the Insta.

The foreground matters more, anyway. Look who’s in that ornament!

I look forard to smiles like that. Ornament smiles are great smiles.

photo / Rowan / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
3
Dec 24

Never not grading

I am reading students’ reactions The Social Dilemma, a docu-drama on Netflix. They have to watch the full program and then describe one phenomenon that jumps out at them, and then apply one of the concepts or theories we have discussed in the class this semester to try to better understand it.

Why any of us, including myself, continue to use social media after going through one of my classes I’ll never know.

Well, for me I know. News.

In my other classes, I am looking over slide decks and quizzes and other papers. I’m not sure if the goal is to stay in the curve or get ahead of it. Maybe I’m just preemptively trying to get in the curve.

At any rate, this was my view today.

It’s important, every so often, to look up, and to look out.

cycling / Monday / photo / site — Comments Off
2
Dec 24

And so we start December, and the mad dash

Took mom to the airport for the sad and tearful goodbyes today. Drove home in the late afternoon’s dying sunlight. I was back inside before she was on the plane, but she has safely returned home and I have turned back to work, and the grading of things.

Before I began that, however, I did the monthly computer rituals. Cleaning old files from the desktop, adding the site’s page visits into a useless spreadsheet, updated a few other running files, and so on. I also updated the November cycling chart, which always amuses me and bores you.

The blue line is this year, and you can see that, compared to 2023’s red line, I’ve had a successful increase in my mileage, be it ever so humble. For some reason, in 2021 or so, I added a 10 mile per day projection line to the spreadsheet, and it seems to have outlived its usefulness.

It appears I’ll handily accomplish those two goals, of besting last year and the 10 miles per average, so I’ll turn myself to other, slightly more impressive goals. Goals which I most likely won’t achieve, because of the holidays. But they are out there, nevertheless, and we shall approach them with vigor, and alternating days of tired and enthusiastic legs, I’m sure.

This is funny to me because these are small numbers, really, but they seem YUGE.

Also today, I have updated the banners here on the blog. (You know those rotate, right? The one on the top and the one on the bottom change each time you load or refresh the page. You knew that, right? You also knew there was a banner on the bottom too, right? Because you read the entire page every time you come by. There’s only five posts per page, and that’s not too much to ask of you. I mean, come on.)

So now there are 116 banners randomly loaded across the top of the page, and 118 randomly loaded banners populating the bottom of the page. I should probably cull those two lists. That sounds like a great winter project. So click reload a lot between now and sometime in February to see them all. And don’t forget to scroll down to the see the ones at the bottom, either.

Poseidon always checks out the bottoms of the page. He’s very diligent and curious about the goings on around here.

(When it’s typed well, he caught the errors. When there are typos, he was off the clock.)

Phoebe, on the other hand, is much smarter, and she doesn’t care about any of this. Just so long as her picture makes the site, so that the week’s most popular feature is here every week.

We’re going to finish the year with something like three-quarters of a million visitors, according to the site statistics I looked up today. Why, I have no idea. The cats have it figured out, and they thank you.

As for me, I am now in the home stretch of two classes, so things will be light in the next few weeks. And after those two classes wrap up I’ll be finishing with two other classes. So there are liable to be some thin days in here this December. But there will be something more often than not, and we’ll of course always have the weekly check in on the cats. It is the most popular weekly feature on the site. (They know it, and they make me type it, too. Marketing geniuses, these kittehs.)