Thursday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Thursday

cycling / iPhone / photo / Samford / Thursday — Comments Off
5
Apr 12

There are at least three ways to spell “triple”

Meetings. Meetings about copyright laws. Meetings about stories. Meetings about meetings, at least two conversations worth. And then the emails. Emails about inventory. Emails about recruiting. And then there was a meeting about email. And, finally, emails about meetings.

That kind of day.

I took the long way home.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, between Calera and Jemison, Ala.:

They’ve moved! But their new location has the same chicken and the same chili. And you know they are good because they’ve deliberately misspelled both words. But don’t go in the old Dari-Delite. The recipes are not there. This is in Clanton, Ala.:

This is a fairly common misspelling if you search the Googles. But you don’t expect to see it quite so … large. Shame this Prattville, Ala. shop is closed, I’d loved to have walked inside and innocently asked them if they’d noticed anything odd about the sign. Or if Mr. Tripple was in today. Even for a muffler man this has to be galling.

The nine A’s though? That’s just brilliant:

Got my bike back from the shop. It now sports two shiny new shifter covers, a new chain and a tightened cassette.

So that will take care of the safety of my hands, a needed replacement — the old chain was starting to stretch and impacting performance — and fixed an obnoxious rattle on country roads.

The lady that runs the place offered to sell me a new seat because she’d noticed my saddle was giving way. When I bought the bike, used, there was one small tear. I recently rubbed two new spots on it in a stupid decision.

She said she’d just purchased a Felt herself, maybe that’s why she asked me about mine earlier this week, and couldn’t use this saddle.

“What am I going to do with an orange seat?” she said she’d asked herself.

And then through the door walks this sap, orange Felt with a frayed seat.

Saddles are a bit personal, though. She offered it to me for $20, and I talked her into a test ride. I’ll try it this weekend and buy it or return it. I gave her my business card, saying “If you don’t hear from me … ”

Turns out her husband works at Samford too. Small world, big bicycle.

cycling / iPhone / overwriting / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
29
Mar 12

Ride right

The road was quiet. Everyone had gotten to where they needed to be.

It was empty enough that when the occasional car came by it seemed to do so apologetically. They knew they were intruding on the empty asphalt and how lonely it should be.

When the hum of the road is your own noise, and yours alone, that’s worth chasing. That’s the moment you ride for.

family / journalism / links / memories / photo / site / things to read / Thursday — Comments Off
22
Mar 12

Much better now, thanks

I woke up hungry this morning, which is how I knew things were looking up. Let’s call whatever moved in on Tuesday night and dominated Wednesday a minor, temporary inconvenience and move on.

There is this, though:

When I was in the third grade I came down with chicken pox during my spring break. I was at my grandparents. They were out in the country enough that a trip into town to see the pharmacist was good enough to verify the pox unto me. The druggist suggested I not travel. I was staying with my grandparents for a few days longer.

This would ordinarily not be a problem, but I’d had perfect attendance in the second grade and made it all the way to spring break in the third grade without missing any school. This was upsetting.

And then the itching really began.

After a while it all became miserable, one of the more painful being a spot right on a biceps tendon, irritated each time I walked. But I was fairly well covered in the horrible little blotches.

The only thing that made me feel better was the custom-ordered and custom-heated chicken noodle soup with crumbled up crackers and tea in the red plastic cup.

My grandmother has always been amused by me, and she’s spoiled me with all of her precious heart. (I was her first grandchild.) And so this silly, pathetic little request was honored for almost every meal for the week or so I fought off the chicken pox. My grandmother has a very giving spirit.

That picture is probably a few years before they realized they’d have to buy me that nasty, soothing lotion.

Some years later, probably when I was in undergrad, I asked my grandmother if she could spare one of those cups. Because I’ve always amused her, and because I am her favorite (and only!) grandson, and because she is very giving, she offered me two of her red plastic cups, which secret a cure-all elixir from their pores when you are feeling bad. They’ve always held a place of honor in my cabinets.

What, your cabinets don’t have places of honor?

They’ve been in use around here the last few days. I still can’t make chicken soup like she can, even though she just pours it out of a can as I do. Also, she is a better cracker crumbler than I. That’s even more absurd sounding, I know, but it is a truth of life: your grandmother is way better than you are at a lot of things. It’s science.

These days a similar cup is called a Koziol Rio Tumbler. I doubt that’s what these cups are. That name suggests a carefully calibrated focus group that was meant to impart sophistication. My grandparents were hardworking country people. My grandfather was a truck driver, my grandmother worked in the textiles. Their red plastic cups have no name or logo on them. Who knows how long they’ve had them, but it is an easy 30 years at least. They probably bought them because they needed cups, and red brings out her eyes. Or maybe they were a gift from an aunt or someone. What matters is that the magic curative powers within these cups are still working.

(And now, some several decades later, during another spring break, this bit of unpleasantness caught up with me. Parallels!)

Elsewhere: I did a few small things around the house to feel productive. I read a bit and wrote about nine pages worth of things. There’s also the new marker entry.

I’ve recently added some posts to the work blog:

The age of mobile has been here awhile, actually

Lots of links — visual edition

The 1940 Census infographic

Changes in advertising trends

Publishing with WordPress?

That last one, even if you aren’t interested in anything to do with the general journalism theme on the other blog, could be useful.

Finally, I’ve tweaked the front page to the section on my grandfather’s textbooks. That portion of the site is complete, but it was missing something. And then I found that something — a photograph, the one I have of him as a school boy, even if it is a transfer and his bright young face is in a bit of shadow — tonight while working through a box of things in the office closet.

Yes. As midnight approached I was cleaning off a desktop and working through a box of photographs. I am feeling better, thanks. The red plastic cups do the trick.

cycling / Samford / Thursday / video — 1 Comment
15
Mar 12

Look at me! One hand!

Watch the entire video if you like, but here’s the backstory. Samford student Ryan Penney spent a day on Lake Martin with his girlfriend and her family. At Chimney Rock — where thousands of us have jumped and dived for decades — there was a terrible accident. Ryan found himself talking with doctors who were telling the theatre major he should consider another line of work, because he’d never walk again. And then:

The mind and will and spirit are powerful things.

Below are the winners of the 2012 World Press multimedia awards. Brilliant, beautiful work:

Afrikaner Blood: “Kommandokorps in South Africa organizes camps during school holidays for young white Afrikaner teenagers, teaching them self-defense and how to combat a perceived black enemy. The group’s leader, self-proclaimed ‘Colonel’ Franz Jooste, served with the South African Defense Force under the old apartheid regime and eschews the vision of a multicultural nation.”

Half-lives: The Chernobyl workers now: “Slavutych in Northern Ukraine was set up by the Soviet government shortly after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to accommodate people evacuated from the proximity of the nuclear plant. The city was designed to provide the inhabitants with modern amenities and a comfortable life. First people moved in their new homes in 1988.”

America’s Dead Sea: “Salton Sea in the Colorado Desert of Southern California is a former tourist destination that has turned into an environmental disaster. Born by accident 100 years ago when the Colorado River breached an irrigation canal, the lake soon became a popular resort. Yet with no outflow, and with agricultural runoff serving as its only inflow, the lake’s waters grew increasingly toxic. Though the resort towns were soon abandoned, the skeletons of these structures are still there; ghost towns encrusted in salt.”

The cycling story you probably don’t care about: One of the little pieces of cycling etiquette we have here is very dangerous. It involves a simple wave off to people pedaling the other direction. I’ve reduced this to a minimal movement, the raising of a flat hand so I don’t have to alter my “form.”

Form in cycling is important. I have none.

So this evening I rode out my three warmup miles. I sailed down the hill, through the neighborhood, made a beautiful turn toward the exit of the subdivision, through the roundabout and up the little incline that is the first minor piece of work of the ride. Only it felt great, the rhythm was there, the incline felt as mild as it ever has, my legs were crisp.

I coasted the last few feet, unclipped from my pedals, to the stop sign. I let the traffic from either side go by. Finally the only other person was another cyclist. And so I pedaled out across his oncoming path, clipping into the pedals, standing out of the saddle, making the long slow turn. Head on, I gave him the flat wave. My bike wobbled badly. I barely saved it. How, I’m not sure, but I stayed upright. In the two seconds of trying to not fall I sliced my pinkie finger on an exposed, sharp point of the bike.

So that hurt. By the time I had everything under control and could look down I was already bleeding off my hand from the meaty part of the inside of my metacarpus. Also, it hurt.

So I returned home, cleaned the cut, which was happily superficial and clotting. Suitably bandaged I went back out. About 22 miles in I forgot about my hand, began gripping the handlebars properly and pulled the bandaid away and reopening the wound. So it bled awhile but there was nowhere to stop. Look at me! A suffering cyclist!

Forty-five miles. It was a great ride.

iPhone / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
8
Mar 12

Busy, busy day

It was a full and busy day. It started late last night, and a brief nap early this morning notwithstanding, it spun on until about 6 p.m. this evening. It was a great day. A lot of personable people, a class and more than my share of laughs.

And, after all of that, I got to talk to a friend. I got to stand in my yard and look at my neighborhood in the dying light.

It is a lovely life. It is a beautiful place.

Do come back for more fun tomorrow.