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Samford

journalism / Samford / Thursday — Comments Off
17
Feb 11

On the road

Which means on-the-road differences, discoveries and frustrations.

Like this:

Meet the only iron in the free world that refuses to heat up. I’ll be a little more wrinkled tomorrow for it.

Anyway, we’re in Troy at the Southeastern Journalism Conference. This is the 25th meeting of that august group, an annual gathering meant to promote journalism among aspiring students.

Samford has five nice, excited and thoughtful students on this trip. They’ll pick up awards the school has earned over the last year and compete for more honors in various on-site competitions.

Today the contest was in just getting down here. This trip is supposed to take two-and-a-half hours. We drove through an accident. We drove through one of those improbably slowdowns where nothing was going on at the front of the thing — it was mystifying, no merging, no stalls, cops or wrecks, everything just ground down to nothing for a while. I hate those things, even though I’ve read somewhere that it comes down to inattention. Someone jams on the brakes unexpectedly in a high volume situation and it can impact the road’s behavior for miles.

Anyway, then there was stopping to get gas because the rental car people didn’t give me enough. Then there was dinner – Chick-fil-A, my third visit there in as many days. Then we got turned around, but only for about two minutes.

Finally we made it to the conference hotel. We registered and then moved down the road to our hotel. When I got in my room it was 10 p.m., even. We left at 5 p.m.

Which is when the fun began. No Internet connection. My computer could see the local router, but could not get on. Observation: do not go ask the people at the front desk about this. That young lady wanted it to work really badly, but she had no idea.

Finally I found a phone number of the third-party contractor that provides the Internet service. We changed a few settings and she had me surfing in a few minutes.

Which is when I discovered the iron doesn’t heat up. And, yes, I surf while I iron. You don’t?

So tomorrow I’ll get that replaced.

Also, I’m not sure how the shower controls work. I think someone put that cover plate with the temperature guide onto the wall backwards.

But the soaps smell lovely. I have a huge television and a clean bed. And, despite this place being packed with college students in Troy for the conference, it seems quiet enough.

Tomorrow there will be workshop sessions, the on-site competitions, picking up a few awards, meeting nice people and more.

journalism / music / Samford / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
15
Feb 11

Field trip!

Took my class to CBS-42, where the news director let the students sit in master control and the studio during a newscast and gave us a tour of the station. This, of course, being sweeps. It was my first time in that particular studio. One of Samford’s recent graduates is there. A few other alumni work there as well. They were all very nice, and very gracious hosts at CBS.

And now back to other pressing things. Here are The Lemonheads:

I pulled out my box of CDs and am listening through really old stuff, like this, right now. Hard to believe that’s almost 20 years ago.

The original tune, which is just incredible by the way, is now 21. It features a guitar and chimes, and is sung by Robyn St. Clare of the Australian indie jangle pop band The Hummingbirds. Nine people in the U.S. heard this when it was released. Now anyone can find their way to it with YouTube.

Alabama / Samford / site / weekend — Comments Off
12
Feb 11

Not quite silence

I’m not saying that this place will be dead silent for the next few days (two weeks, really). But this is the stretchiest of stretch runs. A lot of things are coming up in the next two weeks, work- and school-wise.

I figure you don’t really want to hear about image events or ideographs, within-subjects and between-subjects design, qualitative and quantitative research in political communication and the intricacies of recognition, recall and learning anyway.

So give me two weeks to navigate through all of these things and emerge from the brain cloud on the other side. There will still be a few things here, just to say I’ve written something here every day, but it will probably all be as thin and bland as this. I appreciate your understanding, you quiet and kind masses who come read this stuff.

(All 14 of you are delightful people, really.)

And I won’t ask you yet, because it would just lead to cramps, but soon I’ll hope you cross your fingers for me.

iPhone / photo / Samford / Thursday — Comments Off
10
Feb 11

Snowy Samford

Started snowing in Birmingham around 6 p.m. and didn’t let up, they say, until around midnight. It didn’t snow enough to cancel classes, but there had been a great deal of sledding in the wet stuff and the roads seemed to stay in good shape.

Not sure if it ever really got above freezing today. Everything seemed to stay in place, and the imagined stillness that comes with snow was a nice sight … to see from indoors.

Here are a few pictures from campus this afternoon.

Is it spring yet?

history / iPhone / Samford / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
9
Feb 11

Space, the modern frontier

Today was a day. This video was one of the nice highlights.

Also I had great conversations with two students, one just to chat, and the other to encourage. Those kinds of conversations seem to happen outside of the classroom, in a hallway or office. I really enjoy having that opportunity.

Otherwise things got accomplished. I am now only one phone call and one online form away from having all of the important small things off my To Do List. Lots of meetings and ponderings and talks and cameras and other things that somehow, remarkably, fill up a day. But that’s all mostly done for now.

Which means I can return to the important large things on my To Do List.

Also it snowed this evening over half the state. I’m just going to flip the calendar to March if that’s OK with everyone.

Just for fun: I’m having my lunches with Robert Remini’s The House, which is a history of the House of Representatives. I’m to the point now where Kentucky legend Henry Clay has come to Washington, but there were a few entertaining passages just before he arrived. One section noted that church services were held in the original, temporary parts of the capitol building. The Marine Band played along as church goers sang hymns. But that was discontinued because, as Remini quotes Margaret Bayard Smith, “it was too ridiculous.”

In Washington.

Also, he lists the congregations that worshiped there for a time. “Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians, an Anglican, a Unitarian (that caused an uproar).”

Oh, to be glib in history.

Tonight was a doo-wop night for my listening pleasure — the iPhone, when you get a good song, sounds like a good and proper transistor radio — but first I heard Linda Rondstadt. So we’ll end with a video, much as we began. We’ve marveled at science, we should wonder at art: