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A photo (or two) a day meant to express everything that needs to be said. Don’t over extrapolate or strain yourself making too many inferences. They are just pictures.
Saw this guy today, on the largest unicycle I’ve ever seen in person. He was handling it well, talented guy.
There are quite a few unicycle riders in town.
No change in my physical therapy this morning. I did the same small exercises as in my first session on Monday.
I think there are two guys running the place with lots of younger colleagues guiding people through their paces. During the massage portion I had the other main therapist. Today was the man moving gracefully into middle age. The therapist looked like the man that sits down a few rows on the other side of your church.
His fingers were a little more narrow than his partner’s, this process takes plenty long to consider good metaphors for the therapist’s digits, but no less painful. His fingers are more the size of a screwdriver handle. He works the shoulder. There are two muscles in the damaged and surgically repaired area that go to the scapula and that, he said, explains the almost-muscle spasms.
He spends a lot of time over the incision itself, a cruel mixture of mild sensation and extreme sensation owing to the vagaries of the damaged nerves and “Hey watch it, there’s a huge surgical cut there!”
The point is to break up the scar tissue, a little now is better than a lot later. Holy moly they can work you over. He raised up my arm, impressed with my range of motion — with a little effort I can put my hurt wing completely over my head, like a touchdown call.
“There’s a big difference” he said, between 180 and 135 degrees of rotation. “Be happy with that. It takes a lot to get there.”
Things to read: Army SPC Josh Wetzel, a Glencoe, Ala. native, was wounded in Afghanistan. I wrote about him this summer for TWER.) The most recent piece of his storyinvolves a now famous picture of the Auburn fan from Walter Reed Medical Center that hangs in the White House:
The president was so moved by us praying with him on his visit that he chose this picture from the film his photographer took, had it blown up, and it now hangs in the West Wing of the White House. We said a prayer around the picture today that it would touch the lives of those who saw it and would be a catalyst for positive decision making in the Obama administration.
Seeing the picture for the first time was amazing but I think the coolest thing about it was the tour guide behind us was showing the next group the picture and said “The family in front of us is the family in this picture and the gentleman in the wheelchair is a one of our country’s wounded warriors.”
In the media think world, Jeff Jarvis says Mobile’s not the next big thing, just a path to it:
We in news and media should bring those strands together to knit a mobile strategy around learning about people and serving them better as a result — not just serving content on smaller screens. Mobile=local=me now. We should build a strategy on people over content, on relationships.
That’s what mobile means to me: a path to get us to the real value in our business.
If you view business as grounded in a relationship (some refer to it as the loyalty of, their customer) then you find that businesses need to create and then restrengthen those relationships. Media outlets, Jarvis says, need to return to that approach. The audience has to be a part of that, which may sometimes be a tricky sell. The next thing, though, would be to also monetize it.
Speaking of money, how much did USA TODAY and the Suffolk University Political Research Center spend on this survey?
Call them the unlikely voters.
A nationwide USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll of people who are eligible to vote but aren’t likely to do so finds that these stay-at-home Americans back Obama’s re-election over Republican Mitt Romney by more than 2-1. Two-thirds of them say they are registered to vote. Eight in 10 say the government plays an important role in their lives.
Even so, they cite a range of reasons for declaring they won’t vote or saying the odds are no better than 50-50 that they will: They’re too busy. They aren’t excited about either candidate. Their vote doesn’t really matter. And nothing ever gets done, anyway.
Fine story to find out their motivations — or de-motivation. There are some great statistical points of interest:
Many of the nation’s unlikely voters report hard times over the past four years. Only a third call their household finances good or excellent. Close to half say their annual household income is less than $60,000 a year. They tend to have lower levels of education than likely voters; nearly six in 10 have no more than a high school diploma.
I love the subhead. “They could turn a too-close-to-call race into a landslide for President Obama— but by definition they probably won’t.”
Maybe “They could turn a too-close-to-call race into a Reaganesque landslide for Romney — but by definition they probably won’t” didn’t sound as good around the newsroom. Or perhaps the assumption is that staying home will, in fact, do just that. The piece estimates that more than 90 million won’t vote. The subhead, then, could just as easily say “They could bolster a growing movement for the resurgent Green Part — but by definition they probably won’t.”
The story notes “Two-thirds of the unlikely voters say they voted four years ago, backing Obama by more than 2-1 over Republican John McCain.”
That is a lot of people staying at home.
Finally, a 137-year glance at the New York City skyline. The earliest picture features only the first tower of the Brooklyn Bridge. Everything changes.
… And, no, this isn’t fishing for anything. Since I’ve been hurt I’ve received many fine cards and a few nice phone calls. I got an awesome tree. I got a care package with snacks — and a yo-yo! I got a great book on 20th century history. I love them all.
But the next time I have to send something to someone, I’m sending food.
Because this brisket, from our friends Kate and John, was awesome.
Awesome. It showed up on our doorstep and we baked it. What a country, as they say. Now we have several days of comfort food stocking the fridge. Our refrigerator has, perhaps, never looked this good. And our refrigerator is usually stocked with tons of delicious things.
But, tonight, brisket.
When I was in undergrad at Auburn, the Tigers clinched the 1997 SEC West division championship in the last home game of the season. For many, many years they’ve been very strict about people running onto that gorgeous green grass, the fans stayed in place, but things got away from “stadium officials” that night. A goalpost was torn down by the players and went into the student body.
No one had left the student section that night. Our revelry was in the stands, and with the players who climbed up on the low wall. That goalpost got into the crush of students. People in the end zone seats were passing it, overhead, to the people behind them. The goalpost made it all the way up to the lip of the stadium. It was going over.
And this voice, this beautiful basso profondo voice reproduced only in heaven and Jordan-Hare Stadium, instructed the students to put the goalpost down. Do not throw it over the side of the stadium.
That authoritative voice cut through the delirium and that goalpost worked its way back down through the students and to the field again.
That was the commanding presence of Carl Stephens. Whether everyone there knew him — many did — or whether they just respected the voice of Jordan-Hare Stadium and Auburn football, they knew of him.
He sounded like this.
That was his last home opener, in 2005, against Georgia Tech. He retired the following spring. I had the great pleasure of interviewing him on his long career as a broadcaster in Montgomery — where he was a familiar face for a third of the state, working almost his entire career at WSFA-TV — and a legend in the loveliest village. These audio clips are from that interview at al.com.
Carl Stephens on how is long career with Auburn began.
Carl Stephens on how they produced the football highlight show.
Carl Stephens on calling a game as a public address announcer.
Carl Stephens on exciting moments.
Carl Stephens’ memorable highlights, referencing the 1996 LSU at Auburn game.
Carl Stephens on games that fans talk to him about, including the 1983 Iron Bowl at Legion Field.
Carl Stephens on his favorite parts of game day.
Carl Stephens on his favorite memories.
In addition to his work at WSFA, the old highlight show in the 60s and 70s with Ralph “Shug” Jordan, and his time calling regular season sports at Auburn, he called 15 SEC football championship games, 14 SEC basketball tournaments, six SEC baseball tournaments and numbers NCAA basketball tournament games.
He was a very kind man, giving of his time, friendly to all and humble almost beyond comparison. When I called him upon his retirement he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to interview him. It sincerely took him back. He’d been an icon for more than four decades by then.
I couldn’t wait to talk shop with him. I was fortunate enough to call games for two years at UAB at the turn of the century. When I interviewed Stephens in 2005 I asked him how much of a game he remembered when he left the stadium. It was gratifying to know he often couldn’t recall the flow because he was so absorbed in doing his job. I’d felt that way, but now the consummate professional was telling me it happened to him, too. Most telling, considering all he’d seen, he maintained his favorite part of working those games was meeting so many people.
Carl Stephens was a gentleman at every turn. He was one of the last few bridges to a golden era at Auburn. He went home this evening at the age of 77, survived by his beautiful wife Mary, children Richard and Sandra, several grandchildren and thousands of fans, friends and Auburn family. For many of them, his voice was football.
Richard told me tonight that his father “truly, truly was” that kind and humble man the rest of us thought we knew. That’s a son’s pride and sorrow. That and the many eulogies shared about him now tell the story: we’ve lost another great Auburn man.
Drive home safely, and War Eagle.
Visited the orthopedic surgeon again for another checkup today. He moved my arm once, glanced at his handiwork, answered three questions, asked two and referenced something we said conversationally when we met two weeks ago.
One of his assistants removed my two cosmetic stitches. They look like fishing line. Removing them was like pulling out one hair by its super-long root. The Yankee pronounced the incision “not as bad as I thought” saying later “it looks like a bad scratch.” And so it does.
Therapy starts in two weeks. I’ll be on my bike on the indoor trainer by then.
I finally got around to taking a few more pictures of my now destroyed bike helmet. The original picture was taken on my wife’s iPhone, side-lit by my friend’s iPhone, when we were all calmly waiting for someone in the emergency room to call my name. Now that I have two hands again, for the most part, I decided to use my real camera for more detail.
[If this is all new to you, here’s the accident, the hospital and the surgery.]
This is the back of the helmet, as seen from above. So you’d be wearing this and facing the top of the frame. The thin plastic aesthetic cover popped right off when I hit the ground. (I brought it home for posterity, but it didn’t suffer any serious damage like you’ll see here.) Note the chunk that the road just sheared off. Part of that is resting beside the helmet:
Again the back, this time from straight on. See how the upper left and center of the back was ground away? Note the small cracking at the base of the helmet’s back as well. See that crack on the left side? We’ll get to that next:
Here’s that left-side damage. Hardly a hairline crack:
This is a little farther up the side, but still on the left. As you’re wearing the helmet this crack would be directly over the left ear. The fracturing only stops at the air vent. Who knows how far it could have gone beyond that in a solid form, like a skull. From these pictures we can surmise that, without the helmet, the crown of my head over to my ear would have been heavily damaged:
Finally, looking up into the helmet. That’s one-piece, molded crash foam. Look how much it separated:
Tomorrow I’m going to write about something else, promise. Pictures of other things on Tumblr. Lots more on Twitter.
