weekend

adventures / photo / running / weekend — Comments Off on New Year’s Eve
31
Dec 16

New Year’s Eve

Chasing my best girl all over on a 10-mile run. That blue dot way off in the distance is The Yankee:

Some days she’s faster than me. Some days she’s really faster than me. Look at her go!

It was a 10-mile run, but it was only 26-degrees. (I do not know what is happening.) And this run was important because those last few miles put me cleanly in the top-third of this year-long running challenge I’ve been taking part in. And I’d probably be a percentage point or two higher, but for the cheaters. (Yeah, Darryl, we know you didn’t run 5,244 miles in the first two days of January. Your plane trips don’t count, DARRYL.)

Anyway, getting in a higher percentile is probably a good goal for next year.

At our last little holiday celebration tonight we had a local delicacy. I’m told this was how they were supposed to taste, and that no one does them better than Neri’s.

And Neri’s pastry is pretty delicious. So when in Port Chester, give them a try.

Also, I’m going to use that graphic for something in the upcoming year. I don’t know what it will be yet, but I’m going to use it. It’s an unofficial resolution.

Hey, thanks for spending part of the year with me. Have a safe and happy next orbit around the sun. I’ll see you next year, you know, tomorrow, with resolutions and the usual frivolities.

family / memories / photo / weekend — Comments Off on Merry Christmas
25
Dec 16

Merry Christmas

I love coming to church here. My great-grandfather donated the land for the building. He and just about everybody else in my family has been a deacon or led the singing or preached or prayed over the congregation.

They’re all older now, but we’re all older now. Most of us, anyway, and this was one of the places where I learned about singing.

Yes, we brought Allie with us:

She’s an excellent traveler, and she’s feeling right at home at her grandhooman’s place. She will climb all over you to reach a piece of furniture that holds her interest.

And we went to visit my grandmother, too:

Merry Christmas to you and your family. Enjoy your time together and your traditions.

adventures / history / I do not know what is happening. / photo / running / weekend — Comments Off on A Christmas Eve jog
24
Dec 16

A Christmas Eve jog

We ran 12.64 miles today. We did that on Christmas Eve, and I do not know what is happening. But it was in the low 60s, because we’re back in Alabama for a few days. We ran to the dam, and then we ran over it. I remember being nervous about riding over it as a kid, and then driving over it when I was young, so narrow is the road. But there’s now a nearby bridge that took much of the traffic off the dam and so it seems like no big deal to jog along on the sidewalk, which is about as wide one of the two very narrow lanes.

I ran over that. I do not know what is happening.

There are five turbines inside the dam, taking the flood waters upstream and generating hydroelectric power, 663 megawatts a day. Those turbines can produce what is equivalent to 35,000 horsepower. That’s the most powerful set of turbines in the TVA system, and an impressive degree of efficiency for something developed in 1848.

There are 49 spillways in the dam, and the signs say that if you collected the water from just one gate for an hour you could fill the Astrodome. The lock on the side is the highest one in the country to the east of the Rockies. More than 3,000 commercial and private boats go through each year.

friends / photo / weekend — Comments Off on On our return trip, an all-too-brief stop
2
Oct 16

On our return trip, an all-too-brief stop

On our way back to Bloomington we had the chance to stop and have lunch with our friends Justin and RaDonna and Atticus. Justin and I worked together for about two years in Birmingham. Now he’s at the big G in Nashville and we’re at the ol’ IU in Bloomington and who would have seen this coming in 2004?

That is what we didn’t talk about. We did discuss work, and the state of things, and how awesome Atticus is, and when they’re all coming to see us and how the length of the drive was seriously curtailing our ability to visit for longer and various big ideas we all have.

You say this a lot, but they are just some of the sweetest people, and it takes no time at all for JT and Rad to be your friends. Then it just feels like you’ve known them forever, and when you do have the chance to reunite, it seems like you never left. You need more friends like that in life, because there would never be enough of that sort.

adventures / football / photo / video / weekend — Comments Off on He watched football … in church (there was praying)
1
Oct 16

He watched football … in church (there was praying)

We are here:

It is a chapel on a small college campus in north Georgia. Also, a football game was celebrated on the front lawn, just after the bride and groom drove away. Before that, however:

Some 10,000 people have seen that on Twitter and it got picked up by a couple of those re-write sites. Every once in a while you get one that really takes off …

Anyway, he was watching the Georgia – Tennessee game. The hail mary one way, hail mary the other way game. He was quite pleased with the outcome.

(Edit: The guy in the picture saw it. Hah! Thankfully he has a good sense of humor about it.)

After that, the reception was lovely:

The groom was one of The Yankee’s former students, and we saw some other former students and friends there as well. A fine time, as they say, was had by all.

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