Wednesday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Wednesday

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4
Nov 15

An impromptu reunion

I had the good fortune there to run into a former student today. She graduated maybe two years ago and works on campus now. Lovely young woman; she’s charming, bright and quick with a good joke.

She would always give me a hard time in class, too, because my shoes were always untied. I never can keep them together for very long. It doesn’t matter the length of the string or the shape, so the failing must be mine. I’ve discovered these laces you don’t have to tie for running shoes and that’s changed how many times I have to kneel on a daily basis by much more than I’d care to admit. Best thing since velcro.

Once upon a time near the end of the term she decided she was going to tie my shoe for me. Show me how it was done and all that. A friend of hers decided to tie the other one, so they had a contest and see which knot lasted the longest. I walked around for several weeks with those shoes properly tied. One of them finally let go over Christmas break in Manhattan.

My knees say those were the best weeks of my life, because, again, they were saved a great deal of bending and strain.

So anyway, I ran into her today. She’s married and life is grand. Nothing less than you would expect. It was good to see her. “Come up and visit,” I always say when I run into familiar faces.

She walks this direction, back toward her building. I walk the other direction, off to wherever I had to go next. I look down:

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28
Oct 15

These leaves are quitters

I stepped outside two times today. Once was to go from office to class and once was to go run, a brisk five mile jog that was mostly remarkable for feeling normal.

On the way back from my run, and on to an evening meeting, I got a few leaf pictures. They are giving up the fight:

By next week they’ll all be on the ground and brown, probably. That’s the way it moves here: fast.

So you seek out the maples and the dogwoods and you hope your timing is right.

Now, no photo could ever capture the feeling of autumn, particularly on a rainy day, and especially not the hasty cell phone variety of shot. But that doesn’t mean we don’t try.

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21
Oct 15

Under the blinds, out the window

Sure, I have a corner office. It overlooks the recycling dumpsters and some parking. But it gets a really nice flat early morning light and some charming and golden rays, like this, in the evening.

I see both a lot.

Tuesdays are an all day and all night affair. Wednesdays have a slightly later start and still runs until 9 p.m. Then back to it all again on Thursdays. But, hey, you can’t beat that view.

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14
Oct 15

Now fully in recovery mode

You have a lot of time to think when you’re trying to actively not think about how you’re torturing your body for 70.3 miles. Somewhere along the way you can give up thinking about times. For most of us they are just arbitrary goals anyway. And pretty quickly I got down to the “Next power pole — next shade on the asphalt — next step” mantra. Breaking things down into increasingly smaller goals works for a while. After that I just start noticing things. And then my brain turns into what I can only describe most closely as that fuzzy world between being awake and being asleep. Oh, the things you think on your pillowcase. Or on a warm race day.

I was jogging through a wooded exurban landscape and looking at the trees, this was probably around mile nine or so, and thinking Why is the phrase ‘You can’t see the forest for the trees’?

Shouldn’t it be forest for the leaves?

When we came through the finish line the announcer reads off your name and your hometown and cheers you on. it is a nice little touch. “You haven’t been forgotten out there for the better part of eight hours!”

We went back to the finish line for that traditional photograph and the guy says “Hey, weren’t y’all from Auburn? Did you hear about Nick Chubb?”

Dude, we’ve been dragging it up and down this course. And at mile 10 of my run was when the Georgia game was getting ready to start. I know this because they were packing up the aid stations to go inside and watch. So, no, I didn’t hear. But what about him?

He just thought we’d like to know. Not that it will matter in the larger scheme of things. He’s a great running back. Hope he heals up nicely. But it is interesting how football just weaves itself into everything.

Still so tired. But at least I’m not eating everything in site today. Maybe I’ll do something tomorrow. I’ll go run. Yeah. That’ll be good.

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7
Oct 15

The perfect cuisine idea

Over the weekend we met friends for brunch. I had the chicken and waffle. It looks pretty good, don’t you think?

I remember when I was young and was introduced to the concept of breakfast-for-dinner, an altogether too rare event. But that’s a different complaint. The thing I’m wondering about today is ‘Why isn’t brunch a meal we have at other times of day?’

I’m creating a petition.

Today there was class. And I did a podcast. I shot some video.

I got in an casual 1,300 yards in the pool. I feel like I’m at a pretty good spot in the pool just now. Then I took a deep breath and jogged out an easy two miles on the indoor track.

That last paragraph reads a lot more awesome than it really is. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am fairly slow.

After all of that there was a critique meeting. Wednesday nights never stop impressing me. Here are a group of people who were in the newsroom into the wee hours this morning and they are spending their free time looking at work they’ve already done in the hopes of doing it even better the next time around.

You have to respect that. I just wish I knew more jokes to entertain them with as it was going on. They deserve the respect and good humor.