At the beginning of each month I do a lot of important and boring things. I create a few new subdirectories for the site. I delete a bunch of stuff from the desktop of my computer. I update a document that holds a lot of standard code shortcuts that I use.
And so on. It is all terribly exciting.
One other interesting thing that I do is update the images on the front page. The rotating photos now feature a small piece of something we saw in California this spring. Head on over to the front page to check those out. It’ll take you 54 seconds for the rotation to carry you through. We’ll be right here when you get back.
My joking complaint about triathlons is that they start too early. We need hobbies, I say, that cost less and don’t start at dawn; if they don’t require too much running, more the better.
So, last night, because the story of this day began last night, as so many of them do, my lovely bride told me that she’d signed up for a super sprint triathlon she found a half hour away. And would I like to go? Also, the race started at 6:30 in the p.m.
Since that was my complaint, it seemed only fair that I should go in support.
Super sprints are short, but I had a long swim the day before, and I haven’t run in a while, so it’s just support, and that’s probably for the better. I’ve done one super sprint, thinking, at the finish line, that I am not able to get everything going in the right direction in those short distances.
Which is a shame, since they are shorter, and I am slow.
But I am a great observer of races. I am well practiced in this area. And, of all of the races we’ve done, I don’t recall having seen one with a flyover.
She’s out there, somewhere. She’s the one swimmer among much of the thrashing. It was just a 500 meter swim, and even then, the water was shallow enough that some of the dudes just stood up in the last 50 or so and waded in.
They all looked gross. This little pond is fed by this, South Branch Rancocas Creek. And it isn’t as nice as you might imagine here. There was a fine black particulate. The Millpond mildew. Something thinner than rubber, and thicker than dust, clung to everything. Whatever was contracted from this event will be given a name in due time.
The bike leg, she said, was nice. Good pavement, fast roads.
The run was one big loop. Neither that, nor the bike ride, would wipe away that stuff that latched on to everyone in the water.
When we left, because it was an early evening tri, we timed the sunset just right. I liked it. Almost didn’t take it. But I did, and I’m glad for it.
We celebrated with Chick-fil-A. The triathlon, not that last photo.
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The guy that cleaned our room in Playa del Carmen, Fredy, was a nice guy. Always with an “Hola” and a fresh set of towels. And he took pride in his linens.
He had a sort of dark sense of humor, though.
I’m kidding, of course. The heads just bounce around. There was one of these in our room for three days straight. Why he felt the need to tie down that second guy in rubber bands escapes me.
And I’m not sure why we didn’t get a new character on Thursday or Friday. Maybe he noticed what we did to one of his brilliant creations.
I feel a lot like that guy today.
It looks like I shot 14 videos in the water last week. Five or six of them might be worth showing off. Won’t you come back tomorrow to see them?
Completely whiffed on the Wednesday feature yesterday. Whoops. This just a day after I skipped a planned Tuesday feature. It seems that, in my haste to be hasty, I’ve been too hasty. That’s the problem with speeding up, or taking one’s time, or both. Anyway, apologies for missing out on the markers. I’ll return to them next Wednesday. We’ll talk music below. But first … today was a peaceful, relaxing, “What was I supposed to be doing again? Oh, that’s right, nothing.” sort of day.
And then, breaking news via email. Isn’t that something? Wasn’t that something?
Usually, I know about the story before the emails come out. Social media, despite it’s many frustrations, is a swift informer. But I hadn’t been on any of the apps in a bit, and then the New York Times wrote.
My lovely bride was swimming laps at the time. When she was finished I told her the news, and we set about wondering what the comedians and the satirists would say.
I also looked back at what I was doing on this day a year ago. We were in Alabama, and it seems I was looking at the ol’ family tree.
Five years ago, I said one of those bike things that sounds like something profound in a waxy wrapper of nothing. Still seems true, though.
There’s no way in the world that was a decade ago.
Fifteen years ago, we were in Savannah, and Tybee Island.
Twenty years ago, I stopped by the local civic center, on a whim, which was hosting a model train convention.
Now, I’m no train enthusiast, but there are granddads and dads and children all being kids together, so why not?
I walk in and meet some nice people; one man telling me of some very historic parts of his collection — he’d accidentally been given the paperwork that documents J.P. Morgan’s purchase of an entire railroad; three men talking at length about how best to paint a cliff face and so on. But the best part was stumbling onto a booth with college merchandise.
I found this tapestry that I love. I got it for a song.
Now I just need to figure out how to display it, without it being used for cover.
Funny the things you do, and don’t remember.
We return to the Re-Listening project, which is where I pad the page out with music. I’m doing this because I am currently re-listening to all of my old CDs, in the order of their acquisition, in the car. It’s a wonderful trip down memory lane and I’m dragging you along, because the music is good.
Today we’ll do a double entry, since it is back-to-back of the same act. I picked these up in 2004, but the albums are older than that. If we’re going back to my first listen in 2004, we have to hop in the time machine and go back another decade to when Barenaked Ladies released “Maybe You Should Drive.” It was their second studio album, and went double platinum at home in Canada, where it peaked at number three. It was the band’s first visit to the US charts, sneaking in at 175 on the Billboard 200.
The first of two singles, “Jane” was an instant catalog classic for Steven Page.
There’s a lot of great work from Page on this record. Here’s one more fan-favorite, the second single, which just feels like a deep cut at this point.
I picked up this CD after a handful of the later BNL records, and several shows. So many of the songs I knew. (Three of these tracks are on Rock Spectacle, which was my first BNL purchase.) And so I don’t know when I first heard this song from Ed Robertson, but it’s one of those beautiful works that I’d like to be able to hear again for the first time.
The day I bought “Maybe You Should Drive” I also picked up “Born On A Pirate Ship,” and I wish I remember, now, where I got them. But because I got them together, these CDs have always belonged together. The former came out in 1994, the latter was the followup, released in 1996. It was another hit in Canada, peaking at number 12, and captured more American ears. “The Old Apartment” was a breakthrough single and video, and Pirate Ship went to 111 in the American Billboard chart. It was certified gold four years later. Andy Creegan had left the band, Kevin Hearn came in soon after, but this is a four-piece record.
It is peak 1990s Canada pop.
I still think this is a song about a dog, Catholicism and a bunch of other random things. It’s inscrutable.
People that just knew BNL from airplay — well the Americans anyway — will recall this as their first song.
It used to be that “When I Fall” seemed like it had to be a full, live show performance. But then Robertson played it in one of the Bathroom Sessions, and you heard it in a different way entirely.
Page will occasionally remind you he’s working on a different level. This is one of those times. Seeing it live is the preferable way* to take in this song, so go back with me to a time when it’s amazing we had washed-out-color video and you can’t explain the tracking squiggles to the children of the future. But don’t fixate on that, follow the performance.
That song … Steven Page … it just feels like it should be a misdemeanor to not know anything more than their later pop hits.
*I think karaoke would be another ideal way to hear “Break Your Heart,” but that’s just me.
One of two Jim Creeggan songs on Pirate Ship, this one sneaks up on you every time, which isn’t creepy at all. And for four minutes it just gets better and better and better, and bigger and bigger, even when it lulls, which is a lot of fun.
And here’s Creegan’s other track, which refuses to fit in any pop music mold.
BNL is touring the US this summer, though we won’t be able to see them. We did catch them last year though, which was the third time we’d seen them in two or three years. Everyone wishes Steven Page was still in the band, most everyone has wished that for 15 years, but aside from the 2018 Juno Awards celebration of the Canadian Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame induction, that may never happen. (Though they haven’t definitively ruled it out, and that’s what hope is aboot.) The band stills put on energetic rock ‘n’ roll shows. They’re very much worth seeing.
You should be looking at photos from an ancient yearbook right now, but you’re not. Let me explain.
Two weeks ago I finished up our look at the 1946 Glomerata, the yearbook of my undergraduate alma mater. I said that, the next week, we’d go back 100 years to see the 1924 Glom. And then I realized I needed to actually update the section of the site that includes those 1946 photos. It seemed like I should finish that before starting a new one. So last week I spent a substantial part of Friday wrapping that up.
So now, you can see 40 of the best photographs from the 1946 yearbook, and read about the stories that go with some of those photos. Click here for the 1946 Glomerata. Or, if you’d like to see all of the covers, you can find those here.
And next week we’ll start in on that 1924 yearbook. But I’m seemingly behind on everything today, and while building out the Glom section is great fun, it is time intensive.
So, instead, you’re just getting five photos and a video today.
When I went out to get the mail this evening, the clouds were looking rather ominous. They’re telling us of the gray skies we’ll have for quite some time. Because no one has told the weatherman that it is mid-April and we should have warmth and sun and breezes and a pleasant entry into the middle of spring, here in the late spring.
In the backyard, I just liked the color of the leaves in the gathered little puddle, all of it brought on from last night’s wind and rain.
All of those flowers we’ve been admiring? All of those flowers I’ve been showing you? They’re going to wind up in that spot sooner or later. Such is the cycle of things. The next part will be lovely too, though, so that makes it easier to accept this flowery little puddle.
Good news! We didn’t kill the fig tree.
As I think I mentioned last week, we covered it to keep out the harsh elements of a mild winter. We covered it three times, in fact, because the wind kept blowing the cover away. But finally I figured out a technique to make the canvas stay in place, which was good. Because after a fourth time I was just going to tell the fig tree it was time to grow up and weather the weather on its own.
The tree might be fairly old. Our neighbors have reason to believe that this one came from their fig, and they believe theirs is ancient. Is it possible we could have figs that came from a cutting of a century-old tree? Probably not. But we could have figs from a decades-old tree, and I bet they’re just as tasty.
One of the apple trees looks lovely.
It’ll be nice to watch that continue to bloom up and out. The tree sits there, quietly, in the side yard, and is easy to forget about.
If only trees made more upsetting noises that reminded you to check on them, right?
Because it doesn’t yell randomly throughout the quiet evenings, we’ll have to remember, on our own, to go get the apples later this year.
I can’t decide what this one is.
But what it is, is pretty.
Everyone liked the jellyfish yesterday. Here’s another shot of the same species. It’ll be a good way to wind down your week. Take a moment for yourself and enjoy this view of a purple-striped jellyfish that lives at the Monterey Aquarium. We saw them last month and I’m happy to share it with you now.
This jellyfish’s diet is zooplankton, larval fish, other jellies and fish eggs. Turtles like the purple-striped jellyfish because those fancy arms are rich in nitrogen and carbon.
This is another busy week. I am today working on a presentation for Thursday. I am creating a contemporary case study for a classroom exercise. The whole thing came to me, almost fully formed, last weekend. One of those ideas that was so complete it had to be perfect. Only today did I realize that the entire exercise requires on-the-spot participation from a group of strangers.
Much depends on their willingness to play along. And there’s not really coming back from it if the idea doesn’t land, or if they aren’t interested in playing along.
It’d be better not to have that realization, but once you have it there’s no escaping it.
No matter what happens, the graphics will look passably good. No matter how many of these presentations you make, it is amazing the time sink a good set of graphics can become.
Since it is the first of the month I have to also do the routine computer cleaning. It takes just a few minutes to delete a bunch of stuff from the desktop. Some of it I’ll probably need later. New directories must be made for the website. Statistics for the site need to be updated. I haven’t done that in two months. March was a good month! But the site has been done this year compared to last. I suppose people have found better distractions. But this humble little site attracted 137,000+ visits in the first three months of the year. We’re at 5.75 million views all time. No idea why that number is so high, but I’m grateful.
Also, I updated my cycling spreadsheet. And the chart still looks pretty good, despite the long lulls of March.
The green line plots a steady 10 miles per day average. The red line shows where I was at this time in 2023. The blue line charts the mileage of this year.
All of those blue line miles have been indoors. I’m ready to take a bike ride outside. Maybe next week.
Maybe next week, he sighed.
It’s gray and cool and April and I’m over it, quite frankly. The flowers don’t seem to mind.
That’s a brilliant camellia shrub and it’s just full of great, big, beautiful blooms. Spring hasn’t come, but spring is here. It should stay for a long time, at least until mid-summer, don’t you think?
We could then push the summer late into fall and just wipe out the next winter. What with all the leaping days and the stumbling seconds and springing and falling, would anyone really miss it?
No one would miss it.
What everyone misses is the beach. So let’s go there now! Here’s one last video from the big rock in the middle of Spooner’s Cove.
Not to worry, though, I still have … quite a few peaceful videos from California. And there are still a few more slow motion videos, too. Three, I think. After this one, that is.
And the slow motion views will change with the next video, so we’ll have that going for us, too.
