weekend


6
Dec 14

All of the football

Our old friend Brian is here. He and I used to work together. He’s known The Yankee and I as a couple longer than anyone, we think. We’ve done and been through a little bit of most everything in life with Brian and his family. He’s a great friend that we don’t get to see nearly often enough.

This weekend, we are catching up some. And we are having a watch party.

screens

If you look closely, you’ll see his two phones — because Brian is that kind of guy, sitting just beneath the television. We didn’t watch it like this, really, but we wanted to see how many screens we could pull up at one time. In the last five years, at various intersections of schedules that allow watch parties, we’ve gone from two games to five, then six and eight and, now, 10. There are 10 screens showing a football game in the picture above.

Ten!

We were also taking pictures with two more phones, and I think there were two laptops down the street we weren’t borrowing, so this could have been an even more ridiculous photo.

The first point: football.

The second point: I give Charter their fair of grief for this and that, because they deserve it from time to time. But that’s some nice bandwidth right there. Kudos on that.

The third point: Brian’s a good guy. It is great to see him.


30
Nov 14

Catching up

The post with extra pictures which scream for attention because they didn’t get enough of it earlier in the week. They should have screamed louder. Except they are pictures, and screaming photographs would just be weird. Best not to think of it. On with the pictures, then.

That’s a lot of nerds:

Nerds

I asked my grandfather about this, but he had no idea what it was. He knows most everything about everything, as grandfathers often do, but the purpose of this old tool remains a mystery for now. If I pull out my phone and ask you about it, please have the answer:

tool

My great-grandfather, in letters to his son, called him “Aub.” This is awesome:

Aub

I found several old magnetic reels with this famous Holt-Wallace gubernatorial debate on them. They were recorded in a north Alabama high school in 1959. There were notes on it. I knew the man that recorded them. Now I have to figure out if I can digitize it:

debate

Anyone need a conquistador on felt?

painting

Sunset on Thanksgiving:

gloaming


29
Nov 14

There’s no place like home

This postcard was dated July, 1912.

helmet

I bought it a few years back, put it on the wall right by the front door. The frame fell and the glass broke and that meant it had to be reframed. But it meant I could also read the back again.

It said the writer had arrived and that the Johnsons were doing well. It asked how Mom was and noted the writer would be heading home Thursday.

I looked up the last name and the village they lived in. There are still quite a few people, descendants perhaps, with the name living within 40 miles of there. I hope the writer made it home. There’s no place like it.

War Eagle.


23
Nov 14

Catching up

The weekly post of extra pictures! Some of them are more worthy of inclusion than others, I’m sure.

This was from a sunny day last week in Homewood, Alabama. Autumn is lovely, for the three days we have it.

tree

I always enjoy the thematic names placed on restroom doors and wonder if they’ve ever confused anyone. Oh, wait, I know one person who has been stymied by them:

doors

The tomato & mozzarella caprese we had at Brio on Tuesday:

appetizer

I picked up doughnuts and, today, ran the Krispy Kreme Challenge in our neighborhood. That’s 2.5 miles of running, eating the doughnuts and then 2.5 more miles of running.

doughnuts

It wasn’t pretty, my run never is. But it wasn’t terrible. That first half mile or so after the doughnuts was unpleasant, but after that it was just like any other run.

Allie mugging for the camera:

Allie

A group picture last night at the tailgate. That’s Amanda in the center. Next to me are Tim, Mackenzie, Steve and Amanda’s Friend Whose Name I Did Not Catch.

group

That’s her name, really.


22
Nov 14

Samford at Auburn

Slept in. Rode my bike around campus, which was very quiet. I watched the Minnesota at Nebraska game, which was the only early game that sounded promising. It was a good one, too.

If only I’d known about that Wake Forest-Virginia Tech game, though, right?

Got out to the tailgate in time for a late lunch. Visited with friends and then we all made our way in to see the game. It got off to a slow start, but briefly gave us an amazing stat:

stat

As the second half began I realized that one of our Samford students was sitting behind me:

stat

I’ve had him in class and he worked for me for two years and now there is right behind me in a stadium. What are the odds? 1:87,450.

Auburn won, of course, but Samford looked good and fought hard throughout. This is the second time I’ve been fortunate enough to see them play one another in football. It doesn’t happen all of the time, of course, but it is a special treat to see.