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Have I found a character for you today

You’re going to want to stick with this. I made an error, caught the error, corrected the error, and the story below got immensely better because of it.

Spent the morning grading at home — because it is another week with plenty of things to grade, and that’s what I did yesterday, what I’m doing today and what I’ll do tomorrow. This week we’re reading a critical analysis from a Dutch scholar.

But we spent the afternoon on campus. Sandwich lunch in the office. I read student assignments in the office. There was a marketing meeting. From the office of The More Things Change, someone explained SEO and we discussed WordPress. We had a nice time.

So after a lovely afternoon with colleagues, my lovely bride and I went over to the big kids’ pool. It was my first swim in four weeks.

And it felt surprisingly decent. Good, even, in places. And before I knew it, I was in that weird vacant groove and the lengths and laps just started disappearing. And then, suddenly (OK, slowly) I had an easy 2,000-yard workout under my belt.

Did not see the comet on the drive home. Mostly, we were busy chatting about class strategies and research. And now, after dinner, I’ll have to get back to grading.

But first!

We return once again to We Learn Wednesdays. The point is, riding my bike around the county, tracking down historical markers, sharing them here and trying to add a bit more context that what the signs offer us. This is the 51st installment, and the 83rd marker in the We Learn Wednesdays series.

And this time we’re going to Thomas Sinnickson’s house.

Thomas Sinnickson was born in 1797, and he blends right in with a large family, one that uses the same names over and over. Lots of Thomas Sinnicksons. Lots of Andrew Sinnicksons. Some of his elders had been in the state militia and in the Continental Army. There are two of his ancestors who served in both the state and U.S. legislature. A later Sinnickson went to Congress as well.

But those people aren’t the Thomas who built this house.

Our guy is maybe the third most famous Thomas in his family, which is to say, he’s not. His was a family that dates back to the original Swedish settlers. I spent a fair amount of time trying to trace my way through the Sinnicksons, deleting about five paragraphs of summary when I found I’d made a big generational error. But now we have it right. And it’s even more entertaining.

Thomas died at just 45, in 1842. Searches don’t tell me much about him, in part, perhaps, because of the other Thomas Sinnicksons that preceded. But we do know this. He and Clarissa had five daughters and three sons. The youngest died at just 21, in an asylum. One of the sons was a poet. One daughter moved across the country, to Oregon. (By way of sail, around Cape Horn, a six-month journey.) And in that woman there is a tale.

There’s a bit more about her, here, in the far right column. I would watch the movie about that woman’s life.

The rest of the family stayed much closer to home. Two of Thomas and Clarissa’s children made it into their 80s. All told, four of them lived into the 20th century. And this is where they grew up, surely steeped in their family’s history, and definitely in the midst of their community’s history, as we’ll see in the coming weeks.

The building was sold last year. From what I can tell, it’s been used as converted office space for quite some time.

Speaking of poets, the next time we return to the marker series we’ll learn a bit about a former slave turned poet. If you have missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

cycling / history / markers / Rowan / swimming / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
25
Sep 24

Just needs more

I’ve neglected to mention this here, I think, but I have the good fortune to work with a group taking an active role in cycling safety. It’s exciting watching these signs, and their message, pop up around town. It’s just one element of a long, long term project, but awareness and education are critically important.

The people doing this work are motivated for their own safety and their mindfulness of other cyclists. They’ve got the ear of the community, and the local state lawmakers.It’s impressive, and I hope the group can keep their momentum going.

Here, the state law requires motorists to move over a lane, or to allow for at least four feet to safely pass cyclists (and other non-motorists). Four whole feet!

Do you know the laws about safely passing cyclists in your state? You can look them up right here, and I’ll thank you for saving lives every time you drive.

We went to campus today and it’s a miracle we made it at all because I kept slowing us down, somehow. It got to that not-quite-comedy-of-errors level, culminating in finding zero parking in several consecutive walks. But we made it. And then we went for a swim.

It was my first indoor swim in a long time. There were lane ropes and lifeguards and chlorine and everything. Also, there was the mystery of when I would slip into the rhythm of swimming back and forth, back and forth. It finally happened, I’m not sure where I was in the swim. But I know where I was when I got pulled from the pool. The lap swim was over, some other people were wandering in and doing some organized looking stretching and warming up.

I said, “Do I have enough time to do 50 more?” But I was told I did not. And so I finished with a slow version of my 1,700 yards.

But, man, you never really know how useful that extra 50 could have been. It could have really made the difference!

After that we meant to a meeting in our department. There was food, and there was work. A handful of the faculty members were working on some important department-type language. On the third or fourth run through someone tossed a joke my way, being the newbie and all. I said, “Hey, you want to get all caught up in details, you’ve invited the right guy.”

Ultimately, the work got done. Everyone seemed pleased by it. I got a phrase or two into the finished product, phrases I may forget, so I’ll just point to all of them. I was just happy to be there.

We return once again to We Learn Wednesdays, the feature which finds me riding my bike around the county, hunting for historical markers. This is the 49th installment, and the 81st marker in the We Learn Wednesdays series. (Assuming I have faithfully and accurately kept count.) And this time, we have to try to figure out why a post office has a historic marker.

This installment features the fabled form letter of plaques.

I love the National Registry markers, but I appreciate, even more, the local ones with some information on them. And it will never not disappoint me that the Registry doesn’t contain an extant explanation of all of the places they acknowledge. In this case, however, you can’t even find this post office on the list! Anyway, here’s the building.

The first post office opened there, or around there, in November of 1903. But the first post office in these parts, I read elsewhere, was created by legislation in 1792. Either way, 18th or early 20th century, they served very rural routes, I would imagine. Also, the first airmail flew out of the county in 1938, it was a gimmick marking the 20th anniversary of airmail. It possessed all of the 1930s pomp and circumstance a small town could muster. There were special envelopes and handlers. The mail bag was taken to the airfield by a fire truck, where other special handlers took part. The Boy Scouts turned out to witness the occasion, and so on. The mail flew to a town about 30 miles away.

And not related to this, but interestingly, I also read an anecdote of an airmail pilot who crashed his plane in 1918 one county away. He was trying to land, but some livestock got in the way. He made another pass, had engine trouble and wound up crash landing. Broke his machine up, but he lived. The mail got delivered. It was the second day of airmail in the U.S. On the same day as the first local airmail, commemorating 20 years of airmail, that pilot had a nationwide conversation on this thing called radio …

Also, historically speaking, a lot of mail has been delivered over the many years. Too much of it bills.

Next week, I’ll probably have similarly limited success on our next marker, but we’re here to try. If you have missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

adventures / cycling / NYC / photo / swimming / video — Comments Off
23
Sep 24

We went to the city and got a new mailbox

Happy Monday, where the points are made up and the lines don’t matter, because it is Monday, and we walked into it, again. We have choices. We make them all the time, and yet, once again, we wind up right back here. Monday.

We’re good at choosing things, or so we tell ourselves, but Monday’s always tell the tale.

Here’s a followup to last Thursday’s story about the mailbox. To recap, a guy got distracted by a wasp or bee in his car, ran off the road a bit, took out our mailbox and cracked his windshield. Fortunately he was OK. His son lives in the neighborhood, he wanted to do the right thing, so he tracked us down, because no one was home. And then he came by that evening, deeply embarrassed, and offered to replace it. Friday morning he was out there putting the new one in.

We might have gotten an upgrade.

Best part is, no bills have come to this mailbox in the three days now that it has been operational.

To sum up, we live in a neighborhood where people are good to one another, take responsibility for their actions, and even put numbers on your mailbox for you.

Seem like this was a good choice.

I had a few nice bike rides today and this weekend. Here’s a video from Saturday, after I got dropped by lovely bride and decided to try a new road.

She took this photo on Friday evening. I bought her a new Garmin Varia radar, and this was the test ride.

The Varia sits on the back of the bike, it has a bright light and emits a radar signal (or something like it) and detects oncoming traffic. When something is behind her, the Varia sends a signal to the bike computer in the cockpit. She gets a loud beep and some visual dots.

It’s a nice safety feature. She already loves it. Good present, go me.

On that same ride she went back home before I did, so I added up some extra miles to enjoy the sunset and the neighbors.

Often I turn up this road, and ordinarily you should probably just ride toward the setting sun, just for the magic of it, but I went straight on for this ride.

A few turns later, and heading back in, I was well rewarded for my patience.

There’s something awfully peaceful about being out at that hour — blinking and flashing like a chaotic Christmas try, but my lights are behind me, and these views are peaceful and lonely and full of the imagination.

And, this time of year, gnats. Full of gnats.

Also Saturday, I did an early evening swim. I might have gone faster if only because I didn’t think I would finish my 1,720 yards before it got too dark to see the walls. For about 10 minutes I kept redoing the math, trying to decide where would be a satisfactory place to wrap it up.

But my arms kept moving and sometimes my feet kicked and I got it all in. And now that’s something I want to do more of, swimming in the evening, around my evening rides, I guess. How to manage, how to choose.

Sunday, we caught a train and went into the city. Felt like a rom-com setup for supporting characters in a Billy Chrystal film. We met my in-laws at a restaurant for a terrific meal — more on that tomorrow. And then we walked down to Madison Square Garden to see Sebastian Maniscalco and friends. He’d been filling up the Garden all week. This was his last show there. At the end, he brought his father on stage.

They’re shooting a documentary together, he said. I think Maniscalco is trying to make his dad a star. Isn’t that what Instagram and TikTok are for? I was a sweet moment. For us, this was a Christmas present for the in-laws. The headliner, feature and opening acts all had great acts in the round, and my father-in-law laughed at every joke. I think my mother-in-law did, too.

And then, just like in the movies, we parted ways outside the Garden. Them to their car and back to Connecticut. Us to the train station and a ride back home.

No one at the restaurant, which we will talk about tomorrow, offered me pepper for my paprikash.

memories / music / photo / Re-Listening / swimming / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
17
Sep 24

Come for the cats, be pleasantly surprised by something else

I have been asked by the house’s executives to get right to the important part of the day’s activity, which is, of course, the most popular feature on the site. So we will go directly to checking in on the kitties.

Phoebe is usually the driver of this, because she knows she is very photogenic. Just sitting on the landing of the stairs, look at those pretty eyes.

She does not want to share the mail, however. Sometimes she gets mail, but she’s convinced all of it is hers. She sits on it.

Oh, sure, she lets us have the bills, but she keeps the bulk mail, magazines and the like. She’s not supposed to be on the counter, but our cats are jailhouse lawyers, and they’ve figured out that if you’re sitting on a bank mailer, you’re not sitting on the countertop.

Poseidon is no better about countertops. And here he is, different day, same counter, sleeping on a box full of produce.

He’s waiting to see what’s inside. He loves trying to chew on some of our veggies. This summer he discovered corn stalks. Corn stalks are bad for cats, so we have to hide them. And we have to hide them when he’s not paying attention, because he remembers they’re in the fridge, or stored away here or there. He remembers long after they’re gone. He’s probably dreaming about corn there.

And when there is no corn, he might switch between pouting about it, and trying to charm you into getting some for him.

But we, of course, tell him no. He’s never one not to try, though. He’s a persistent little so and so.

The cats, you see, are doing well, and they thank you for your interest.

I had a nice cool swim this afternoon. It was a 1,720 yard swim. They’re getting a little faster of late, but there’s only so much improvement of which I am capable of. I know it, because I can still shave chunks of time off in pretty decent increments. Probably it’s the cooler water.

Also, I’m swimming enough to know when my arms will stop protesting and just do the work. And I’m close to knowing lap lengths just by feel.

But to demonstrate my ability: this is the summer where I’ve finally started to swim in a straight line.

More or less.

Let us return to the Re-Listening project. Here, I am listening to all of my old CDs in the car, and I’m playing them in the order of their acquisition. I’m also writing about them here, because we need the content. These aren’t reviews, because they’d be woefully out of date and I’m no critic. They are, however, sometimes full of memories, and a good excuse to post a few videos. These songs are from 2003, from an album I got in 2006 or so, of the overnight success, Howie Day, who was, in fact, a seven-year overnight success.

“Stop All the World Now” was the second album and, the major label debut, for Day. Critically, it got a lukewarm reception, but it went platinum in 18 or 19 months, and the third single, “Collide,” which you heard on the radio and in TV and movies a lot, was certified gold. And, two-plus decades later, it holds up as a pop-rock record.

And it’s full of hum-along songs, tunes you pick up quickly on the first or second listen and want to come back for a few more times. This is the fifth track on the album, and it fits that bill with an instrumentation that feels simultaneously earthly and ethereal, which seems a feat.

It is also of it’s time. But, there’s a small window on the musical calendar where rock was in an ebb and alt was disappearing and singer-song writers with some indie-pop sensibilities could fill some airspace and some evenings. I don’t really know what that means, except that I do, and it also sounds right.

This was the first single from that record, the first time a broader audience heard him. It was August 2003, and this sounds like that. I don’t remember the first time I heard that song, but I do remember the work I was doing late that summer.

I was doing interviews and producing a documentary on an upcoming tax referendum. (The tax went to a statewide special ballot vote that September, but this is Alabama and so it didn’t just fail, but failed spectacularly. The director of the state Board of Education was in tears on TV that night.) Also, at about that same time I was busy covering Roy Moore being removed from the bench as Alabama’s Supreme Court Chief Justice. Being Alabama, he got another shot at the bench, largely on the same religious rhetoric that got him kicked off the first time.

Probably I picked up on Howie Day a little bit after that. Sharp-eared listeners might have found him on the “I Am Sam” soundtrack, which we featured here a few weeks ago. He covered “Help!”

Day has had a handful of ugly legal trouble of the domestic and chemical varieties, but he’s still out there doing it. Day is touring on the 20th anniversary of this record right now.

Next time in the Re-Listening project, we’ll have a glance at a post-grunge album at it’s most polished and most posty.

Tomorrow, a meeting, and also a meeting!

cycling / memories / Monday / photo / swimming / video — Comments Off
16
Sep 24

Twenty years ago today, and this weekend, and today

Twenty years ago today Hurricane Ivan came ashore, straight up Mobile Bay. It came ashore as a Category 3 hurricane.

I woke up at that morning to go to work. My power was still on. The drive got treacherous pretty quickly. Visibility dipped. A 20-minute trip turned into almost a 40 minute drive, but the worst was yet to come for our area, which was a good 250 miles inland. That far away from the coast, hundreds of trees were down and power poles snapped. Miles and miles of power lines were on the ground before the worst had even arrived. Early on, the state broke its power outage record, with Alabama Power saying three-quarters of their customers were in the dark. We couldn’t communicate with people down on the coast.

Whole forests down there were snapped, shredded and felled by 100 mph winds down there. The eastern part of Mobile Bay took a wallop. In Gulf Shores, they had eight feet of water on the main drag. Everything almost a mile from the beach was underwater. A handful of people waited out the storm on the battleship, the USS Alabama which is a museum in it’s day job. One wind gauge on the ship broke after registering a gust of 105 mph, another recorded a 112-mph gust. “You could feel the whole superstructure of the ship move when a big gust would hit,” one of the men that worked there said. The USS Alabama weighs 85 million pounds, and she was shuddering.

Up in Birmingham, we reported the hell out of that hurricane. I was still relatively new in that newsroom — my last newsroom — and this was just the second big national story we’d had in my first few months there. So I was showing off a little, maybe. But it was important. Before the next day was out, the estimates were already rolling in that there was more than $10 billion dollars in damages and some places would be in standing water and without power for weeks. I think I worked about 15 hours that first day and something just short of that the next day. I was calling everyone I knew and reporting their experience online. Back then, I knew a lot of people all over the region. I was calling the parents of ex-girlfriends: Do you have power? What happened where you are?

Don’t know how you may be related to them in your day job (if not directly, certainly spiritually?) … but these guys are Pulitzer prizing their blog today. Especially great for those of us with ties to the area but who are not there.

Only al.com eligible for a Pulitzer. This was 2004 and it was all so very new. But in 2005, Hurricane Katrina went to New Orleans. Our colleagues at our sister company, The Times Picayune and nola.com won two Prizes, and they deserved them both and more.

We were writing a lot more than a blog. We were putting together multimedia stuff as it came in. We were running a weather central microsite complimenting the wire copy and the NWS content. We were moving fast and doing creative things and telling a statewide, regional story. We didn’t win a Pulitzer, but we were paving the way, 20 years ago today.

I had a 35-mile ride on Friday. Almost thwarted just six or so miles in. I bunny hopped a railroad track and caught the rear wheel on the far track and popped the tube, right after this lovely little spot.

So I stood in someone’s yard, taking the wheel off the frame and the tube out of the wheel. I fiddled with a new tube and finally got everything ready to pump it up. I carry a pocket-sized hand pump. All hand pumps have a limitation. They just won’t push enough air pressure to let you do much more than get safely home. And that’s when it works well. But my pump is 11 years old, it was probably cheap when I bought it, and they don’t even sell the thing anymore.

It works … some of the time. Earlier this summer, for example, it really didn’t. In that yard today, it didn’t. After I limped a bit farther down the road and stopped in a field to try again, my pump decided to get its act together. I had a good stiff tire and did the whole ride I’d planned out. Just a bit later than I’d expected. But the views were wonderful nonetheless.

I did the last few miles in the extended neighborhood. Enjoying this view on a perfectly quiet road, soaking this in. This is why I enjoy riding in the evenings.

(If that’s not the nighttime video, just refresh the page and scroll back to it. There’s an autoplay function here I can’t turn off right now.)

I had a nice and easy 20-mile ride today. Easy, and somehow I found myself sprinting along a road at 36 mph, which is about where I max out these days. I’m not even sure why I did that, and I felt it for a good long while thereafter.

But before that, corn stalks!

It’s a nice time to be outside, so I’m spending a lot of time outside.

I also had a swim on Saturday. The pool was chilly, but that makes you go faster, they say. I think if there’s anything to that it’s just because you’re trying to get out of the water. But there was a comfortable 1,720 yard workout. That’s a mile, which sounds like a lot, but it isn’t, not really.

Today, I had another mile swim, and it was a bit faster, but still slow. But fast for me, because i was trying to get my laps in before the chill set in. The thermometer said it was 76 degrees.

And so I begin to wonder, what is my tolerance? And how many more outdoor swims can I have before we find out?

Quite a few, I’m hoping.