Wednesday

Wednesday / cycling / iPhone / photo — No Comments
22
May 13

Just a bicycle post

Yesterday we pedaled the loop around town. I was riding behind The Yankee and watching her work down into the drops as she got into a hill. I pass her on the climbs, trying my hardest to make it look nonchalant when really my lungs are falling out of my feet. She usually catches me later and all will be grand.

Until, about halfway through, her front derailleur failed. I was caught by a red light and she wasn’t behind me. So I waited through the cycle and still no bicycle. Another turn of the lights and finally she topped the hill. She’d been in her worst gearset for two hills because a rivet popped out and forced her into the wrong chainring. We tinkered with it under a brilliant sky and earnest sun and finally pedaled the rest of the way slowly. As in, this is easy and I have good legs and could take on the world, slowly. I topped one of the larger hills in my biggest gear at this pace and didn’t even feel it. Great legs!

So, today, with her bike in the shop and a cold coming on, she stayed inside and I decided to ride the loop again. If I did it comfortably and easily yesterday, I figured, this will be great to do it at pace.

Only it didn’t work that way. It was warm. My legs weren’t good. I hadn’t eaten enough. I was a bit tired. And my mind was busy making excuses for what was going on. I found some shade at a vacant grocery store:

Felt

It is funny, but I’ve noticed that the days that feel the worst — I could complain about the heat and how I feel and all that — allow me to look at the computer and find a new personal best for that route.

Even progress is humbling.

Also, I need to get back into the long rides. The ones I really want to do, the ones in my Map My Ride account are a lot longer than around town. I mapped out a route that would let me hit Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, three states in an afternoon. I just found another one for the Silver Comet and Chief Ladiga trails, which cover Georgia and Alabama and is the longest paved trail in the country. Somewhere out there is the big one, the state tour. Sitting in the shade of a dead Kroger isn’t going to make any of those happen.

So I did a few more miles and marveled at the heat and the various ways I feel on the bicycle right now.

Yesterday we went to James Brothers and Danny asked how my recovery was going. Right after I crashed they were all very concerned, which is nice. The answer, though, depends on when you ask. At that moment I felt great. As I write this … well, I’ve felt better. Nothing a 400-mile week wouldn’t cure, I’m sure.

But these things are what they are. He’s bouncing back from some difficulties that have hampered his training. We talked of triathlons and marathons and various things. I’m hanging out with people who say things like “I can run 10 miles, but I can’t run 12 because … ” and wonder what I’m doing in that conversation.

So naturally tonight we had a healthy dinner and I treated myself to the foam roller. Later I had ice cream.

There’s not a lot to this, because today was today. Tomorrow will be full of errands, however, and so that’ll be something to write about. Just you wait and see.

Come visit on Twitter!

Samford / Storify / Wednesday / cycling / iPhone / journalism / photo — No Comments
15
May 13

This will be quick

Sunny. No shade. And 84 degrees in the prime of the day. Spring has arrived. I went for a ride in it.

And this is the wall I hid behind about three-quarters of the way through my ride. A banana, a bit of water, a deep breath.

Wall

My bike is dirty.

Bike

It was good to get outside. I spent time today grading and coordinating student-journalists who were covering the second student death in the last two weeks.

You hate that all of this happened — another young person taken far too soon — but at the same time I can’t help but be proud of my particular students. They did a fine job in challenging circumstances. This time our paper is on hiatus for the summer, our new editor is still building his new staff and the students had just started taking finals.

Samford student Caroline Neisler died this morning. The university held a memorial service this evening. Our student-reporters got a couple of quotes, some art and wrote a story, all within a few hours, and under finals pressure.

I didn’t know Caroline, but having read the things her friends are writing about her she seemed like a fine young lady:

Then this happened on campus, too:

Powerful things happen in special places. But special things happen everywhere.

Auburn / Samford / Wednesday / baseball / friends / history / iPhone / video — Comments Off
8
May 13

This day had doughnuts

Grading, reading, writing. Preparing for a class.

We held the last critique meeting of the school year for the newspaper. The newsroom closes down for the summer. Some people graduate, others take a deep breath. I thanked them for their hard work. I bragged on them, despite the huge error in the headline of the lead story.

Class was held. Things were discussed. Everyone’s mind is outside because the beautiful spring weather has shown up and it all feels very real and, finally, incontrovertibly here.

The newsroom folks gave me two doughnuts. That’s how you end a Wednesday:

doughnuts

Made it home in time to see the last half of the baseball game. Auburn hosted Samford. Everyone wanted to know who I would cheer for. Samford pays me so …

Auburn won 9-3, in yet another comeback. Both teams are in their respective conference post-season hunts. The two teams have almost identical conference records. Samford hits for power, Auburn has lately been looking for any hits that drive in runs. They’ve spent their conference schedule getting beaten up by the baseball teams in the country. Auburn has won both of the two mid-week games this season.

The last time Samford beat Auburn was March of last year, at Samford, and it was dramatic:

Here’s a mystery: After tonight’s game The Yankee, Adam and I caught dinner at Mellow Mushroom. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed this on the ground next to the door. I’ve boosted the contrast so we can see it a bit more clearly:

HeardSwope

It says “Heard & Swope 1905.” A quick search of the genealogy sites tells me there was a Sylvester McDaniel Swope (1852-1923). He was a preacher in Talladega, which is about 90 minutes away today. It was a little different in his day. But Sylvester had a son in 1877, Arthur, who married Addie Lee Heard. Arthur is buried here in Auburn, so maybe these are the right people. (There were 31,000 people in the county and about 1,600 in the town at the time. How many different Heards and Swopes could there have been?)

The first gas pump was four years away and the year before there a total of 37 party line phones in town. Those tidbits, and this picture, come from Logue and Simms’ (1981) incomparable pictorial history.

HeardSwope

That map is from 1903, when College Street was still Main. See that empty spot at lot 34? I think that’s where this Heard & Swope marker would go in in 1905. You can count the front doors today and it makes sense, for the most part. But I’m not sure what Heard and Swope were building. Yet.

Tumblr / Twitter / Wednesday / iPhone / journalism / links / things to read / video — Comments Off
1
May 13

Say enough things and something is bound to be correct

Twice today I’ve read things that I’ve earlier made predictions about. This would make a person insufferable, he said insufferably, if it wasn’t done in a charming way.

Netflix is cutting a bunch of movies in the midst of a licensing fight:

The titles belong to Warner Brothers, MGM and Universal, which are pulling them from Netflix and instead housing them in their own subscription-based “Instant Warner Archive” which you can access for $10 a month.

Two years ago I called this the HBO problem. Entities that own the content, having seen the success of Netflix, and having now verified that achievement by HBO’s own gated community, will pull their own material in favor of a branded digital platform, as we first discussed on the campus blog last March. That’s in addition to the Hulus and Amazons of the world, too. Netflix becomes just another layer in the stratification.

Of course, now, you have to have a paid membership to everything, which is expensive, learn new interfaces and have the proper smart TV and so on — or do without programming.

Eventually some format wins and all of these things come back together again, somehow.

Here’s the other thing I sort-of-somewhat-guessed-at. The New York Times launched their new mobile site today. It is something of a shame that this is a big deal — I would have thought we’d be beyond this point by now — but there is something important here. As Nieman Lab said:

In typography and story layout, it’s much closer to the Times’ iPhone app, edging closer toward cross-platform parity. (Headlines are still just Georgia, not the custom version of Cheltenham it uses in print, in apps, and on Skimmer. But they’re now black — no longer 1994-weblink blue.) Presentation of images, captions, and credits on article pages are also much closer to app styles.

[...]

Overall, the takeaways seem to be: a common visual experience across mobile platforms and a cleaner, more premium look.

Two months ago, after a sneak peak of the new version of the website, I wrote:

But look at the layout they are showing you in this prototype. That’s as indicative of mobile as a traditional news site has thus far been. They may be conceptually starting with the article, but they are designing for your phones and tablets.

As the Times goes on this design, so will many folks follow.

The last part still remains to be seen, but give it time.

Things to read: Just two items today, this one is worth bookmarking: 10 digital tools journalists can use to improve their reporting, storytelling:

Digital tools help produce quality content online, but it can be tough figuring out where to start. Here are 10 online tools that can help improve journalists’ reporting and storytelling, and engage readers in multimedia.

Reporting resources: These tools can help with research and sourcing.

[...]

Data compilation and resources: Datasets and social media backlogs can be intimidating for any reporter; these resources help share, gather and handle large shares of information.

[...]

Data presentation: These tools can help process and design otherwise-cumbersome data sets in a way that makes them easily accessible for stories.

The golden age of privacy Is over:

What the drone debates really tell us, then, is not so much about drones. What they do, unfortunately, tell us is how ill-prepared we are institutionally, and as a culture, to deal with the challenges and complexities of rapidly evolving technologies. In an age when emerging technologies become ever more integral to geopolitical positioning, and military and security competence, this is a weakness that any society can ill afford.

You can take out the word drone and put in the name Google Glass and have the same conversation.

One new thing on Tumblr today, this from Ted’s Montana Grill in Atlanta. I hear that Ted himself lives just upstairs. I’m told that this has provided many interesting stories to the people thereabouts.

There are, of course, always new things to see on Twitter.

And a video from yesterday. It was omelet day in the caf. Delicious:

Samford / Wednesday / iPhone / links / photo / things to read — Comments Off
24
Apr 13

The day the sirens went off

My friend the great Ike Pigott came to speak to my class today.

Ike

Ike works at Alabama Power and he is a great idea man. His time at Red Cross and, before, that, ABC 33/40 make him a terrific pitch man. He talked to the class about public relations and social media and crisis communications.

He talked about the last series of tornadoes that passed through the state. It occurred to me that every pro we’ve talked to in that class this semester has told tornado war stories. I’m sure every student who is from some other place is wondering why they live here now.

With about a half-hour left in the class the fire alarm went off. Everyone in the room looked at me.

I’m supposed to know this answer.

Fortunately I remembered what we are supposed to do in a fire alarm. (It isn’t like this happens all the time.) So we got our things, felt the door to make sure it wasn’t hot, walked down the hall and exited the building to our exterior gathering space. Class continued as the fire truck pulled up:

Ike

It was cold and damp and we couldn’t see any smoke anywhere. Firefighters walked inside and, a few minutes later, walked back out. I walked over to them and said “I have a class full of journalism students wondering what is going on.”

Turns out someone in the kitchen in the cafeteria, which is in another wing of the same building, started cooking something without exhaust fans and that built up smoke for the sensors and so there we were, talking about crisis communication with a firetruck in the background.

That’s a Wednesday.

We went back inside and, at the end of the class, the fire alarm went off again. Turns out that we had gone long on our class, but the students were so caught up in what Ike was talking about that they didn’t mind. He’s just that good.

Also today was the first meeting with the incoming editor of the Crimson. I was up late last night putting together information for him. Want the job? Here are 27 pages of easy reading. Mark, set, go.

He’s been around the paper for the last two years as a section editor and is a smart guy, so I’m sure he’ll do well.

This year’s staff has done a fine job and I’m proud of a lot of things they’ve done. I always like that first new meeting though. It is one of my favorite parts of the year.

Usually it is warmer, mid-April and all. Tonight parts of the state are enjoying temperatures 30 degrees below their seasonal averages. Spring will arrive on a more permanent basis, eventually. Right?

Or maybe we’ll just go directly into summer.

Things to read: The War Eagle Reader was kind enough to reprint the thing I wrote the other day. It let me give it another edit and convinced me I still didn’t adequately make my point. There’s always next time.

Philip Lutzenkirchen wrote an open letter that’s worth reading:

Most importantly I need to thank the entire Auburn Family. You all are truly the best fans in the country. You’ve been on our side through thick and thin and that is appreciated way more than you think. I’ll never truly understand why you all love that goofy, embarrassing, silly, little dance that I did against ‘Bama but I appreciate the love that you have always showed me.

State senators have to be separated:

Alabama state senators and a Senate official stepped in between two of their colleagues during a shouting match between the two men that occurred after a controversial ruling by Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday night.

And this, the sweetest thing you’ll read all day:

Plastic wrappers and other pieces of litter rustled like tumbleweed across the empty space under the bridge yesterday afternoon.

Two hours later, enough chairs were set up to seat several hundred of Nashville’s homeless, enough chicken and baked beans cooked to feed them all.

And a few minutes later, while some were still finishing up their rainbow cake dessert, a cloth was rolled down the aisle and my friend Amanda walked through a crowd of her homeless friends to meet her fiancé at the altar under the overpass.

← Older Entries