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adventures / family / memories / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off on Winter and weddings
26
Jan 26

Winter and weddings

Here’s the update from high noon. At least the sun was out, which was an improvement over yesterday. Also, there was no precipitation today, which was a glorious change of pace after yesterday.

  

We went back out in the late afternoon to chip away at more of the drive, thinking the sunlight might help, though it still felt like it was 10 degrees. Maybe it did. This is the system we adapted today. It is pretty good, if only because we had a lot of driveway in which to experiment.

I took the larger snow shovel and, standing in the middle of the drive, I would ram it underneath the frozen solid slab of ice that covered all of the earth. After two or four big pushes a few feet were carved out. My lovely bride, standing in front of me, and with a slightly smaller shovel, and one designed with a much better angle for, ya know, shoveling, would scoop those chunks into the yard. I worked around her, scooping up and chopping the left and right sides. This shovel is large enough that three rounds would just about clear the width of the drive. I figured that attacking the middle intimidated the flanks, because those were always a bit easier to bust up. In the places the ice got stubborn, I turned the shovel onto its corner and give a little axe-like tap. Working like this, we made our way down the drive, clearing off about 990 square feet in an hour.

Then we helped dig out the new neighbors. They have two little kids, and it was still ridiculously cold, never mind that I ditched my jacket. So mom and dad were taking turns with the kids inside, and the drive outside. Welcome to the neighborhood, nice to finally meet you.

Our other neighbor, Joe the Elder, was out on his tractor trying to plow the three neighborhoods for which he is responsible. No one gave him this job. He took it on himself. And it’s a good thing, despite the many taxes we pay, we are not the recipients of any road cleaning services. During last weekend’s snow was the first time in three winters I’ve seen a snowplow go down the road that wasn’t Joe the Elder. He must have been lost.

My lovely bride walked out of the neighborhood to see the big road, by which we mean a two-lane county highway. It is not in great shape. The local school districts have all canceled classes again tomorrow. I have just uploaded some reading materials for my students. There are a lot of country roads between our house and campus and I’d already heard from about 15 percent of my students that they weren’t going to risk it, anyway. I do not blame them. I commend the wisdom of the safe decision. We’ll catch up Thursday and next Tuesday, if necessary. (It’ll be necessary, but we’ll do it.)

As it says in the video, above, we dug out Sunday. You see why that’s necessary, but you also realize it is a Sisyphean task. I believe it snowed and sleeted and iced after that dig-out as it had before hand.

We got eight inches, easy. But even more on the leeward side of the house, where the sidewalk sits, blown off the roof no doubt.

That was Sunday. We were contemplating how to handle the drive today and I said, Are you expecting any deliveries this week? No? We’re not shoveling the sidewalk.

Saturday, before the storm blew in, we went out to celebrate my god-parents-in-law (just go with it) 50th anniversary. It was partially a surprise. It was supposed to be last weekend, on their actual anniversary, but that got snowed out. Their daughters hustled to get it in today, else we might have just celebrated in the summer.

It went like this. They’d rented a room at the happy couple’s favorite Italian restaurant. Much of their family came, some old work friends came, and so on. They just expected the immediate family for dinner, so the surprise was this full room. My godfather-in-law is a retired teacher, and I sat next to two of his former colleagues. The easiest way to say it is that the stories your teachers have about their lives away from school will really make you second-guess every opinion you had of these people. These two guys were no different.

Dinner was served. Vows were renewed, as officiated by one of their daughters. Photographs were taken. Cake was distributed. This was the cake topper.

Their actual wedding cake topper. (The groom was not wearing a black tux in 1976. It was a much better tuxedo.) One of their son-in-laws pulled it from safe storage when they weren’t looking so it could be used again Saturday. They’d asked all of the guests to prepare pages of a scrapbook, memories of family and friends for half a century. It was lovely.

My father-in-law, the best man at their wedding, gave a toast Saturday, much as he did so long ago. He did a great job. My mother-in-law gave a little speech. These two wouldn’t have been together if not for my in-laws. The two men were childhood best friends. They’ve known each other 70 years. The two women went to nursing school together, and were roommates there. They met at my in-laws’ wedding. My in-laws had the one daughter, and they are her godparents. They had two daughters, and my in-laws are their godparents.

Not the whole of the dinner party, but that immediate family — the happy couple, their daughters’ families, my in-laws, us — returned to their house for a few minutes after dinner. The still-blushing bride pulled out her wedding album. I saw photos of both of their parents — two of which I had the chance to meet a few times. She pulled out her wedding dress, which has been carefully sealed in a cardboard picture box all of these years.

Fifty years.

Fifty years, and one week. Count the weeks. That’s 2,601 weeks. Count the days. That’s 18,269 days, as of Saturday. Lovely people; they built a fine life and a wonderful family. They said it was about this cold that day, too.

adventures / Friday / NYC / photo / video — Comments Off on Today was my birthday last year
16
Jan 26

Today was my birthday last year

Got in some quality work today. I all but locked down two syllabi. I decided to give myself an extra day or two to meditate on whether I made any big errors there. Sunday. I have started the final polish on the first two days of lectures. Monday. I thought about laundry. Tomorrow. It was a great afternoon.

And sunny. Suuuuuuunny. Spring is on the way, sunny. We made it, sunny. The world is full of possibilities again, sunny. When I finally went outside it was 25 degrees.

There was some mild discussion about a jacket. As in, You need a jacket and, “Nah, it’ll be fine.” It was, you see, an evening with brief moments of outdoors.

It was not my birthday, but it was the day of my present. So we took a ride to the train station, and took a train to Penn Station, and took a subway up to 72nd. And this is where my jacket risk became a consideration. It was sunny and 25 when I climbed into the car. Now it is dark. And I have no idea how far we are walking from station to venue.

Fortunately, it was just two blocks. And there was a line. But it moved quickly enough that the cold didn’t set in.

And so we went inside the Beacon Theater, which will celebrate its centennial in a few years. The Beacon opened in 1929, it was to be part of a chain of elaborate movie theaters. But then, right after this incredible place opened The Great Depression sank in. This was one of the last things to go up in that older world. There was a hotel attached to the project, and an airway beacon placed on the roof of the hotel, hence the name.

It was a daily movie theater, which ran 12 hours a day. And then they added radio broadcasts. (Your live podcasts aren’t that novel.) They stumped for bonds during World War 2. In the 1960s, plays became a part of the rotation. In the 70s, it became a concert hall, and also got a renovation. It almost became a night club and disco in the 1980s. That plan got tied up in court and plans changed. It became an IMAX, then got renovated again in the ‘oughts.

Today, it’s a popular live event venue, having entertained Manhattan for almost 100 years now.

I said this in the venue. I know people in New York aren’t mean. People from elsewhere might think so, but that’s not the case. It has been argued to me that the people in New York just aren’t concerned about you. But under that, there’s a kindness there, as you will find in any decent person. A decent one, anyway. Sometimes you get the random person who will try to help if you look lost. You will also get the person who will walk by you or cut you off if you’re not moving. They’re just focused on what their focused on, and not you.

The people outside the venue were all in the usual mode of evening happiness. They were going to see a show they’d been looking forward to. On a date. Out with friends. Faking a birthday. Whatever. And we got up to the woman who scanned tickets, who had a small talk conversation with you, which I don’t know that’s ever happened to me in the city. It stood out enough that I considered asking if she was originally from there, but if not, then I run the risk of insulting her. So I let it slide. The security people were security people. Inside, someone was handing long-stemmed roses to the ladies.

I went to the restroom. In the restroom there is a man who has the job of standing there and making sure everything is clean and orderly. I walked in and he welcomed me to the theater. This man is on bathroom duty. He’s drying countertops. “Welcome to the Beacon, sir.” After I washed my hands, shaking them brusquely in the sink so as not to mar his dry workspace, he handed me a custom, artisanally torn stretch of paper towel and said “Enjoy the show,” with a sort of sincerity that you don’t often occur in a men’s room, or in the liminal space between that room and the rest of your life.

And, you know what, I was going to enjoy that show. It was my part of my birthday present, after all.

Mandal was the opening act. Here’s a guy who is cleverly pretending to be foolish. Not that it is clever to do so, but that he is clever at it. Online, I found a set he did for a Netflix comedy fest eight months ago. Here’s his debut on The Tonight Show six months ago. And, so, between these two points and what we saw tonight, I’ve gotten a little sense of how his set was evolving, which is fun.

He did about 20 minutes, I guess, but I wish he had more. I was ready to settle in, in that way that you do when someone has brought a really funny person over to your party and you sit around the kitchen and listen to them go on and on until the evening ends.

But the evening wasn’t ending. Josh Johnson was the headliner. He’s one of the most prolific — and topical and timely — comedy writers of his generation. Just has to be. He’s produced almost five hours of material on YouTube just this month, plus his day job working (and now occasionally hosting) at The Daily Show. I wonder if this set will go online in the next few days. I’d watch it again.

When the show was over — and the bathroom gentleman was right, we did enjoy it very much — we went across the street for dinner. Because it is Manhattan we had a host of nearby things. Mediterranean, two cheesy American places, Italian, something else that didn’t really get a lot of consideration, and Thai. So we chose that, and it was right across the street.

The woman working up front at Sala Thai asked if we had reservations. We did not. She said it would be 15 minutes, and asked for a number to text us at. There was nowhere to stay inside, so we ducked back out to the street and I said, “Let’s walk the block. Keep us warm, see a bit more, and we’ll be close.”

We rounded the corner and got buzzed to come back inside. It is a tight, crowded, hopping little place. It reminded me of home.

I’m from Thailand.

No, there’s an incredible — incredible to me, anyway — Thai place in my hometown and I miss it a great deal. This place I was excited to try because they also offered a coconut soup, just as my favorite place does. And, being a cold night, it was perfect for coconut soup. (I’d eat coconut soup in the middle of summer, and have.)

Theirs was a bit sweeter, compared to what I recall, and had some odd little mushrooms, compared to what I prefer, but it was tasty. Also on the menu was this.

Kao Soy (a northern style curry noodle soup, the menu said) looked very similar to my beloved Chicken Noodle Bowl. And it was close.

This is egg noodles, onion, bean sprouts, pickled mustard greens in a red coconut broth. I immediately scooped the pickled mustard greens out of the way. I wish it had just a bit less of the broth, and had some plump long grain rice. Then it would be my beloved Chicken Noodle Bowl. Not quite the same, but very, flavorful and filling.

The tables in this place are so on top of us that, to my right, there was an acrylic divider between us and the next table. An older couple sat there. The table to my left was so close that we couldn’t leave without interrupting their meal. Two younger people sat there, still very much in an early phase of dating. She was still talking about her school work.

So my lovely bride and, being between them in the phases of relationships, alternated between sounding like an old couple and acting like two young people just finding one another.

We left, walked the two blocks to the subway, and talked about the merits and challenges of living in a big city. She, who grew up in a suitcase town and lived a few times in Atlanta, regrets never having done it. Me, having lived in suburbs and exurbs most of my life, am set in my ways and glad I don’t live in a big city. But I do appreciate being so close to world class cities. It was something I reflect on the reverse trip. Five quick subway stops. A late train out of town, and then a quick ride on an empty late night freeway. A couple of easy moves and I can be up there for the 100th anniversary of the Beacon, or celebrating other events, or enjoying some of the other fabulous looking things on that Thai menu. And, most importantly, it is even easier to get back out again.

I’ll be back for more of that menu.

And the Chicken Noodle Bowl? I’m going to have that again, this spring. That will also not be my birthday, but I might celebrate it just the same.

Friday / Rowan / television / video — Comments Off on The Coldplay song just gets in the way
9
Jan 26

The Coldplay song just gets in the way

This is the third time I’ve tried to write this. It goes like this. I’m trying a new pattern, where I catch up on some reading of a particular author I like, and think of that as a primer for what to put here, and what not to put here. I am well behind. Months behind. I am reading July of 2025. It is a five-day-a-week proposition over there, so you can see I’m well behind. The guy has just retired and we’re all wondering what comes next. Well, people that are behind are wondering. Many people know, because they aren’t behind. I am behind.

Anyway, read a week, and peck away. Only, as I read, one cat climbed up into my arms. Very well. I can enjoy a purr-filled cuddle and scroll to my heart’s content. That cat got down. But I was on, like, a Wednesday or something. So I must finish the week. This is when what we call call the shift change took place. Out of my office went one cat, and in came the second. This time it was a sit on the desktop and rest the head and neck across the forearm move. Well, let me just tell you, any domestic animal that uses me as a pillow has the right of way in every arrangement. As happens with cats, though, there was a sudden recollection of a meeting that must be attended to in another room, and down and off we go. Only I’m reading a Tuesday or what not. And wouldn’t you know it, before that week’s worth of catch up reading was done, the cat was back. When he finally got down, I was reading in August. Mid-August. The author has been retired for a month and is making lists to give structure to his day.

I am, sadly, a long way from retirement, but I find this interesting. Do I need structure in the event of my eventual retirement? Would that just be productivity for the sake of productivity? Will I read less? Putter about the house 15 percent less? I should go out more. I should go out more now. Maybe I’ll get to that this spring. Definitely by next fall. Who needs a productivity list when you’re already trying to envision the events of next fall in January?

I have completed the outline structure of my new class, Rituals and Traditions, or Rits and Trads as we’re calling it, to save 11 letters and to sound hip. Several of my friends are kind enough to think it sounds interesting. I have, this week, consulted with a few of them to see what I might be overlooking. I have talked with an architect professor friend to see what from his world would apply here. He sent along a reading. And I have consulted with my in-house colleague and on-campus office mate, who is really quite good at this professoring thing. She has helped me cinch up the last two or three days of ideas. So, if the syllabus is the brain, and the outline is the skeleton, we now have the outline and the skeleton in place. I’m guessing the classes and lectures are the hearts and blood and muscle in this metaphor some sort of way. The first, call it 10 classes are all in my head or notes, and ready to be put in slides. That gets us through the third week of February. I’d like to come up with one more working component for the students to do. And maybe that’ll come to mind soon. I’m sure they won’t mind if it doesn’t.

Today is the 15th anniversary of the day Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot, in Arizona. It seemed a good day to watch this again, a sequence which, for my money, is just about the best seven minutes of television ever produced about television. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen this now, if I say half-a-dozen I’m low. I’m still finding little layers, both within this series of events, but also how it contributes to the show. This is four episodes in, and written with the privilege of hindsight, but still.

No matter how many times I’ve seen it, it still pulls at the emotions, every time. And this was no different.

So I had a little sob today. This, Minnesota, just a general lousy few days of other stuff besides.

For the best part of three seasons — I didn’t care for the way The Newsroom ended — they really brought something, but none of it, the fictional stuff, or the almost-this-reality stuff that Aaron Sorkin pulled from would bring it all together quite like that. And if I don’t watch it with the timer on the screen I — a person who, in his first career, made his living by the dispassionately cruel, unrelenting tick of a broadcast clock — am absolutely boggled that that is seven minutes.

Here was the former congresswoman today, talking of those she was with on that horrible day in the desert.

Today marks 15 years since a gunman tried to assassinate me. He shot 19 people and killed six.

I almost died, and think of those who did every day.

[image or embed]

— Gabby Giffords (@gabbygiffords.bsky.social) January 8, 2026 at 7:11 AM

Well, the cat has come back in. He’s looking for a little ziploc bag that he was chewing on. Inside of it was a small bottle of hand sanitizer. Both had been in my backpack. Since he is not allowed plastic, I hid the bag. He is looking for it. He’s getting quite close.

Let me go hide it again.

Have a great weekend. Until Monday!

Rowan / Thursday / video — Comments Off on Penultimate day of classes
4
Dec 25

Penultimate day of classes

I would not be so bold as to say I am the best teacher in the world. Nor would I be so self deprecating (yeah, I don’t know what’s going on with this sentence either) to suggest that I’m the worst teacher in the world. I’m probably somewhere right in the middle of the top tier or near the bottom of the “also receiving votes” bunch, depending on the material.

But no matter what, I can read a room. And today’s vibe, in two classes, was “Enough with this semester already.”

Just one more day of putting up with me after this, guys. You can do it.

We watched the highly compelling 30 for 30 documentary, “June 17, 1994.” No one has uploaded a trailer equal to the thing, but this is from Netflix.

It follows a unique day in sports history. The Rangers had won the Stanley Cup and there was a ticker tape parade in New York. Arnold Palmer was wrapping up his legendary PGA career with one last round. The Knicks and Rockets were fighting in the NBA playoffs. The World Cup was opened in the U.S. by President Bill Clinton. Ken Griffey Jr. had a day, and also, there was one other bit of news that evening.

This is the view from the sixth floor, and apparently the sun broke through just in time for the sunset.

O.J. Simpson in Al Cowlings’ white Bronco.

The documentary is different because it is told in original found, and archival footage. There’s no contemporary narration or interviews. It’s just editing selections, juxtaposition, musical score, and those video clips. It’s a nice 51 minute piece, which you can find on ESPN and, as of this writing, Netflix.

In org comm we talked some more about scandal and image repair. They’ll wrap up with image repair on Tuesday. And everyone will be into finals mode.

Even the sunset is sort of over the day, I think. Here’s the view from the sixth floor.

Two more classes to plan, six more course notes to send, and about 108 things to grade.

I counted them up on the drive home, in the pitch black of night.

It was 5:15.

Instagram / photo / Rowan / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on Ready for turkey?
25
Nov 25

Ready for turkey?

Guess who has been giving me the business for not talking about them here. You guessed it. They get a whole month of highlights, and then I overlook their contractually obligated weekly appearances for a few weeks and the howling, yowling protests I receive … these cats should have been agents. They’d be devastating in negotiations.

Anyway, here’s Phoebe, in between lodging her protestations. She’s surveying her queendom.

On a recent cold night, Poseidon cuddled up next to me, on top of me, and under the covers.

That’s the boy that wants to go outside all of the time. Always needs to be under the covers, but wants to try on the cold of all outdoors.

Here’s Phoebe considering a bit of dust on the steps. I like how the tail curls around the paws.

And here’s Poseidon doing his best noir cat act.

He would have been great in an old noir movie. He’s got real charisma on camera. But he also has versatility. If he couldn’t get top billing, somehow, he could play a good mid-level henchman.

So the kitties are fine. They’re ready for Thanksgiving, and an extra day of cuddles.

And while Thanksgiving is Thursday we did have class today. The university is only closed Thursday and Friday. So we had class today, those of us that showed up. In my criticism class we discussed Mo’ne Davis is finally ready to play baseball again

Back in 2014, when she was on top of the planet, when she was the first girl to pitch a shutout at the Little League World Series, when she was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and getting recognized everywhere she went and fielding requests from what felt like every corner of the country, Davis heard something that she never forgot.

In the immediate aftermath of that wild run in Williamsport, Pa., her coach told her, “Mo, I don’t want this to be the greatest thing you do in your life. I don’t want you to be 35 years old stuffing yourself in your old Little League jersey and signing at a card show.” She took that message to heart.

That was not his plan when he delivered it to her. “When they’re 13, you feel like they’re not even listening to whatever you say,” Steve Bandura says now. He was stunned when Davis, now 24, recently used that quote in a newspaper interview to describe what had shaped her life after that famous shutout. You remember that? Of course she did. Bandura met Davis back when she was in elementary school and had coached her in multiple sports, and he’d always recognized how smart she was, how good a listener, how thoughtful. Of course she would hold on to something like that.

She was invited to the White House. She published a memoir. She struck out Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, she was the subject of a documentary by Spike Lee, and she had not yet turned 15. She kept thinking about those words from her coach all the while.

It’s a good story, and it’s about her, but it’s also about this new baseball league, and the modern star, and the commissioner, and the draft, and Davis’ coach is our real tie to the younger star of years gone by.

The draft for this new league has since taken place. Davis was picked 10th overall. The Women’s Pro Baseball League is scheduled to begin play next May.

We also discussed Cowboys DE Marshawn Kneeland dies in apparent suicide at 24:

DPS troopers found Kneeland’s vehicle crashed on southbound Dallas Parkway near Warren Parkway. According to the report, Kneeland fled the scene on foot and officers searched the area with help from K-9 and drone units.

As authorities were looking for Kneeland, a dispatcher told officers that people who knew him had received a group text from Kneeland “saying goodbye. They’re concerned for his welfare,” according to recordings from Broadcastify, which archives public safety radio feeds.

Approximately three hours later, Kneeland was found with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Happy Thanksgiving, boys and girls.

That’s a morning-of story, and one of the few breaking news style pieces of copy we’ve looked at this semester, so there were plenty of new things to talk about. And, as a palate cleanser, I ended the day with three quick videos, each with something we could discuss in a useful kind of way.

In org comm, we talked about stereotypes, prejudice and diversity. We discussed the organizational aspects of diversity and inclusion, and we talked the substance of organizational success. You could see them staring at the screen, with my extremely exciting slide deck. You could see them dreaming of turkey.

The blog is taking a few days off. See you next week. When I make my quiet little list of things I’m thankful for, I’ll be including the readers of the site in that list. And, of course, the kitties.

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