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Wednesday

Auburn / iPhone / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
22
Dec 10

War Eagle Moment additions

My day has been spent in the computer, trying to make progress on my studies. So there’s nothing new to tell you about, save image events, ideographs, within subject and between subject design.

I did have lunch with Jeremy and his wife. And since he bought me lunch, and since we talked about Auburn Internet things, I updated the War Eagle Moment blog.

The occasional photo blog returns with two entries from my trip to New England. One of them is above. You can find that post, from New York City, here. The other was from White Plains, New York. You can see that one here.

If you’re unfamiliar with the phenomenon:

iPhone / photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
15
Dec 10

Tis’ the season

An angelic choir.

It was only a matter of time, really, before the truth came out.

These are from a place called the Historical Christmas Barn. It is a store shaped like a barn. It is 20 years old. They also had Halloween displays, which look ancient in December.

And then we visited the Christmas house tonight. It was full, just chock-full of Christmas decor that a woman pushing 70 has been collecting her entire life. She buys all of these things at yard sales. She has ancient ornaments, old kid’s ornaments, an entire historical collection of Santa images, more snowmen than you can possibly imagine. Every surface of her house is covered.

She said it takes her a week to set everything up. And she has to take pictures each year to make sure her things don’t wind up in the same places every year.

She showed us her guest book. She has a huge Christmas Eve party and the book has been signed for more than a quarter of a century. Great stuff.

journalism / Samford / Wednesday — Comments Off
8
Dec 10

Snow!?

There was snow (flurries, anyway) in south Alabama today. Way down in the deep south. I dated a girl from that town once upon a time. When we went out for nice food we had to go to Florida. That’s how south we’re talking about. And it snowed there today. Also, it is still technically autumn.

But it is cold everywhere.

I wrote six paragraphs on the cold, just to keep my fingers warm. They weren’t worth reading, but the writing was exquisite. For just a few more moments there was circulation beneath my fingernails.

Watched a rocket launch this morning. Falcon 9 seemed to be perfect in everywhere. That’s the commercial future of space, happening right before our eyes. Didn’t seem to carry the same amount of attention as rocket launches of the past. The day we reduce rocket launches and astronauts to airliners and bus drivers we’ll have made the space business perfectly safe. And then we’re all going to the moon.

I wrote a column with an embarrassingly transparent call to action today. The editor for the publication is going to cut the word count in half. The poetry and the lame jokes will be excised, but the call to action at the end will no doubt still be there, annoying me until my final days. But the cause is a nice one, and we’re doing our part. “So let’s go out and blah blah blah.”

Taught a class on broadcast writing, my last one of the semester. Students turned in stories on youth sports and the need for more exercise. We all agreed we should leave the lab and go run laps. So I walked back to the office to critique the newspaper for the last time of the semester.

Now I’m grading television scripts. And when the grading is done the semester will be almost over. There’s another meeting or two, a gigantic project to work through and then, of course, preparing for comps. (Have I mentioned that lately?) By this weekend that should take over.

Things I write here during all of that are going to be stellar work, let me tell you. Or is it too late to backhandedly apologize for that?

Auburn / football / history / journalism / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
5
Dec 10

The front page news

adventures / friends / iPhone / movies / Samford / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
1
Dec 10

December?

This doesn’t seem right at all, to be in December. But the mind makes perception funny that way. If it isn’t December, smart guy, what is it? July?

Well, no. But I wouldn’t mind a few weeks worth of May. It has just recently turned to a bitter chill (for here) which at least makes it feel like winter is creeping in. Doesn’t mean we have to like it. If I can’t have May I’ll take mid-March, please.

So the monthly video, designed to encapsulate the theme of the next four weeks in 35 seconds, is up. This one was both obvious and hasty. Busy day today. Work, meetings, study. Had a great teaching moment with the newspaper today. We will have to run a correction next week.

Lunch with Brian, he suggested Moe’s, a local barbecue chain that now stretches from North Carolina to Colorado. This particular one is close to Brian’s office, in an old oyster house. The place feels run down, maybe even transient for a restaurant. Yuppies can go there to feel authentic about their barbecue.

And it is good, if a little pricey. This is my compliment: It is like Bob Sykes‘ barbecue, but without having to go to Bessemer.

I love barbecue.

In finding links for this entry I found this BBQ blog. Why didn’t we think of that? They wisely break their entries down by state. Not that they can be everywhere at once, they’re leaving out a lot of Alabama. (They’re looking for contributions, if you’d like to help them out.)

I got to have Thai for dinner with The Yankee. We visited Surin West, where we haven’t been since sometime before our move. We sat at the same table. Had the same disinterested waiter. I may have had the same meal, who knows. The coconut soup was delicious, as always. And actually warmed us up a bit. Have I mentioned it is cold?

Sent her home, shot the movie above, bought some things and ran other errands.

And then Up. It is a touching film about which much has been written. I’ll simply say that it seems to me to be about how the spirit of love changes. First the child, the dream, then the wife who becomes wrapped up in the home, which gives way to the boy and the bird and the dog.

The animation, of course, is brilliant. The montage was full of life and yearning and loss, even before it was about that. And it might be one of the best montages ever recorded. That’s art.

And now a little studying. More tomorrow, happy December!