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27
Dec 22

I fixed a thing, we ran some, and did other things

I decided to try to get cool son-in-law points this weekend. My mother-in-law had grown frustrated by a leaking kitchen sink. They’d had a plumber out, but that hadn’t worked. So I said, “Let me go get, and install, a new faucet for you.” The old one was, well, old. And they have weird water, so a new fixture wasn’t uncalled for.

It went like this. I went to Lowe’s. Found a faucet. I purchased some other things because my in-laws don’t have the widest array of tools on hand. I took half the old faucet out and realized I didn’t get a big enough crescent wrench. Grrrr. Having failed at my first goal of going to one hardware store for this project, we went to Walmart and got some more crescent wrenches. And then I labored at the silly old faucet and it’s decades old components for a good long while.

Finally, the new one went in, but I kept running into a leak from the supply hose. The cold one was fine, the hot supply line was a spraying mess. I tried, oh how I tried, to make it work. After a late lunch I, grrrrrrrrr, went to the local small hardware store for new supply hoses. A guy walked me right to them and, showing the amount of studied disinterest that indicates he’s almost ready to work at Home Depot, he showed me the many size options available. I took the most likely candidates and then I asked the guy “Why do you suppose this one is leaking?

The old one was a plastic-rubber style, popular in the 1980s or so. It was undamaged. He looked down the hose. “No rubber seal.” I showed him the old cold supply hose. It worked just fine. He glanced at it, turned and walked away mumbling, “I don’t know.”

This guy need to be wearing a vest in a big box store, ASAP.

Anyway, we got the sink working. It does not spray under the cabinet. It does not drip when she turns it off. My mother-in-law is very pleased. Despite that project dragging on way longer than it should, and longer than I’d promised, I think I might be the number one son-in-law now.

We went for a run, just before darkness fell.

We had great sunset views along the beach for one of our favorite 5Ks.

But then, when the sun went down, it went down quick.

On the far off, westernmost point over the sound we saw the sun go down. It turned dark before I could get there, despite an almost-sprint to make it to the beach. But imagine about two thirds of this amount of sky in that brilliant red.

Also today The Yankee got her mother’s new iPad set up. And, tonight, she digitized all of their old slides using a machine I picked up this year. There’s 1,100 of them, all sitting on an SD card, and in the cloud, and in all of those carousels. We looked at the first several hundred of them on their TV this evening. Their daughter was a really cute kid.

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5
Dec 22

Conquered the bridge again, celebrated in Savannah style

We did the 10K Saturday, “The South’s Toughest Bridge Run.” Here’s that bridge, the unfortunately named Talmadge Memorial Bridge. That’s 185 feet of vertical navigational clearance for ships, and a horizontal clearance is 1,023 feet. The total length is 1.9 miles, so the over-and-back was 3.8 miles or 6.2 kilometers, of the run. This is the most imposing view on foot.

The view up top is pretty grand. Looking to the east, the Atlantic Ocean is about 15 miles downstream.

And if you look upriver to the west, the shipping port goes farther than your eye can see. This is, after all, the largest single ocean container terminal on the U.S. eastern seaboard, and the nation’s fourth-busiest seaport. Odds are some of your Christmas presents slipped through these waters.

Here’s a nice casual view of the cable stays. The shots we take mid-jog:

The run goes over to Hutchinson Island, which is in the river, but still in Georgia. (One year I’ll just go all the way over the line into South Carolina.) It’s an industrial, convention, resort-based island, but there is a struggling residential project underway, The Reserve at Savannah Harbor. Everything down here is turning into a neighborhood or a shopping district.

If you lived out on “The Reserve” — they should rethink that name — and drove into Savannah for work, you’d look down off the bridge and see the signs of a booming industry.

There are acres and acres of heavy industry, waiting to be deployed and put into service.

I ran this 10K at almost an identical time to last year’s 10K. Next year, the goal is to get to the bridge run while not recovering from a surgery — anybody’s surgery, and any surgery.

After a hearty lunch we spent the afternoon at Forsyth Park. This was my view.

We are familiar with this spot. This is the spot The Yankee and I picked to spend an afternoon on our first visit to Savannah, almost 17 years ago, in April 2005. This, then, is our tree.

Click the above image to embiggen.

This is also the spot where we got engaged 14 years ago, in December of 2008.

I sit on her left, and if I look further to the left, this is the view.

Nice and peaceful.

We got married at the Mansion on Forsyth, in June of 2009. Some of our pictures were taken right here.

At the center of Forsyth Park — which has tennis and basketball courts, is the home of the local rugby squad and also boasts a great playground and fragrant garden, but was upon a time the drilling grounds for the local militia and guard, including the legendary Georgia Hussars paraded here — you’ll find the fountain.

Installed in 1858, the fountain was manufactured by a Bronx foundry. I did not know about that New York connection until just now. In fact, that foundry also produced work for the dome of the U.S. Capitol building, and railings on the Brooklyn Bridge. Small world, metallurgically speaking.

On Saturday evening we went out to The Crab Shack. We dined under the oak trees.

We ate delicious crab.

And now I want more delicious crab.

Tomorrow … we’ll continue to play catchup. More stuff from a Sunday and Monday in Savannah.

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2
Dec 22

Did you figure it out?

I told you yesterday, dear reader, that we were taking a trip. I left it to you to guess where we were. Are. We are there now. Here. We are here now. Where is here?

Here’s a hint.

We were on a run around the fountain, just a little two-mile shakeout. And I found this in the cement. Seemed a good bit of advice. I’m glad someone put it somewhere with a bit of semi-permanence.

This sidewalk could persist for 80 years, which is a nice long time to leave a message. I wonder how long it has been there already.

We stopped in a pub for a snack, and we found some very good shaker glasses.

Might need to get a set of those. (I had the Swedish meat balls. They were tasty.)

Also, we spent part of the afternoon with our old friend, Andre, who has come over for a mini-vacation of his own. But, first, he had to finish up his week, hard-working, persevering sort that he is.

There are other friends, not pictured, here as well. But where are we?

There’s two hints in the images above, and this is your final hint. Tomorrow we’re running what is billed as “The South’s Toughest Bridge Run.” so this is your last chance.

Got it yet?

We’re in Savannah, where we took our first trip, where we got married, where we return to as often as we can. Where, tomorrow, we have that run.

(Omelette for breakfast, calzone for dinner, walked seven miles today before a sunny 10K tomorrow. What could go wrong?)

music / photo / Re-Listening / running / Tuesday — Comments Off
29
Nov 22

A sidewalk shuffle

It was 58 degrees when I limped in from my run this evening. I did 4.25 miles, though I’d hoped for 4.5. I cut it short after I twinged my knee, which caused the limping, somewhere early in the second mile. And that’s how I came to spend the evening with an ice pack on my leg.

It’ll be 30 degrees cooler than that when I go to work tomorrow.

I’ll be somewhere much warmer, soon enough, for a brief time.

So I limped around the house, eating leftovers, cleaning up runaway rice, taking out the garbage, trying to find every way possible to bend over or squat down or get on hands and knees while wondering what I’d done to myself, waiting for the Ibuprofen to kick in.

We didn’t check on the kitties yesterday, and don’t think I didn’t notice that you noticed. You noticed. I know. This is the most popular feature on the website.

Phoebe has developed the habit of needing to be on the bathroom counter anytime I go through there. The easier for me to pet her, I suppose.

We have also come to the time of year where Poseidon has discovered a personally imperative need to be under a blanket. Any blanket near you will do. Body heat is important.

Sometimes it has been cool enough that they’ll even get near one another, which is otherwise unusual for these too.

Phoebe would like it to happen less.

Back to the Re-listening Project, where we’re listening to all the old CDs, in chronological order. These aren’t reviews, but just for fun, like all of music.

“6th Avenue Heartache was released as a single in April of 1996 and got a lot of airplay as it climbed to number 10 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks, and eight on the Modern Rock Tracks. It had Jakob Dylan singing over a Hammond organ and in front of Adam Duritz’s charming background vocals. So I bought the record. “Bringing Down the Horse” climbed to number four on the US Billboard 200, and it topped the US Heatseekers Albums chart. (I did that!)

This was a time when I was pretty sure that the judicious use of a well-placed Hammond organ was the most brilliant thing you could do musically. This record didn’t disabuse me of that notion.

Turns out, you can use a lot of that organ before you wear it out.

This was a car album for me, but it’s hard to imagine this didn’t play around our place a lot. Upbeat honky tonk from Leo LeBlanc who played with John Prine, Bill Medley, Aretha Franklin, Jose Feliciano, Merle Haggard, Clarence Carter and approximately everyone else, besides.

Sadly he died just before this record was released.

Gary Louris and Michael Penn are among the other huge stars that sing on the thing, but I didn’t realize all of that until much later. See if you can pick them out here.

Louris, who we’ll later hear a lot is in this one.

When I wrap up the Re-Listening Project I should start a Re-Louris project. I’m curious if there’s anyone he can’t effortlessly harmonize with.

Meanwhile, Michael Penn, who’s music I listened to ad nauseam, as if to dissect every possible tonal nuance, is in this song.

Speaking of over and over, the next record is the first one I’ve gone back and listened to twice on the Re-Listening Project. That has to mean something.

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8
Nov 22

We voted hard

We voted this morning. Took a quick trip to the local middle school where all of the sign holders were sunny and pleasant and one of the men running for local office was out greeting people at the 50-foot line. By the time we got our ballots I’d forgotten about them entirely. After walking 50 feet and then waiting 30 seconds to get my ballot, I’d forgotten all about those people.

The ballot here was front and back. One school funding referendum, one Senate and one House seat. There were a lot of local seats for council this, commission that. The jobs you seldom see campaigned for, because the campaign budget isn’t there, but the people in them impact the day-to-day business of this in a direct way.

We also had the opportunity to vote on whether two judges should be retained. It’s a system this state has used for a half century.

Once appointed, a judge must stand for retention at the first statewide general election after the judge has served for two full years. If retained, the judge is on the retention ballot every 10 years. The retention system is designed to allow appellate judges to decide cases fairly and impartially, free from campaign finance considerations, and without influence by partisan politics.

Everything is a tryout, I guess.

Tonight, the student-journalists are trying a new thing. The students from the television station presented a long collaboration with the newspaper students and the campus radio station. They covered the location elections from multiple locations, aired a special on the FM station and streamed live results and news on the web.

This is a big collaboration for them. It happened organically and, I think, that’s the best way. I’m very excited for what they’ve undertaken here, how it has played out and, mostly, for how I’ll get to brag on them after the fact.

Someone gets to be the cheerleader, and that person is me.