weekend


25
Nov 12

Catching up

Adding pictures to the Internet, because odds are you haven’t seen enough of them so far today.

We peaked out our Christmas tree this weekend, a fine North Carolina Frasier Fir:

And it was just the perfect temperature to build an outdoor fire. What? You didn’t build an outdoor fire?

I played O Tannenbaum on my holiday kazoo as we put the first lights on the tree.

This is a car commercial and, obviously, Ford ran this by the most unimaginative lawyers they have on retainer:

Allie is in the spirit of the season:


24
Nov 12

Just a video Saturday

Between the morning games and that thing we’re ignoring from the afternoon we went to pick out our Christmas tree. It was a perfectly fantastic day to find a tree.

While the guy was cutting and trimming and not shaking the dead leaves and needles from the tree I shot some video. Here are 60 seconds inside a fancy nursery:

After that thing we’re ignoring we put the tree in the stand with minimal oaths and mutterings. Only took two tries. I put on the Sinatra and The Yankee strung the lights. I vacuumed the needles while The Yankee untangled the lights. The Yankee vacuumed again while I looked at the lights.

It could be one of those trees.

We’ll put up the ornaments tomorrow, maybe, having worked on some of them tonight. Right now we’re just watching the reflective glow from the library. The Christmas lights look reddish in there.

Let’s see how many are on the floor now … Not many, so the smell of the North Carolina Frasier Fir is worth it for now.


18
Nov 12

Catching up

The place where we add extra pictures to make it through the weekend. Dive on in.

The Yankee said “That guy was wondering what you were doing, taking his picture.”

“Oh he knows,” I said.

police

Some genius set fire to Toomer’s Corner early this morning. The media have been using the expression “caught fire” which suggests that the trees spontaneously combusted. I submit that no blaze would have been created without the presence of an arsonist with low mental acuity.

It has become difficult to go down there and not be disgusted with people in general. But we drove by last night. At the red light I rolled down the window and took this picture blindly. Managed to get Samford, the old eagle and the tree all in one frame. If I never get to do it again, that isn’t a bad one:

Toomers

Said the same thing the last time I rolled it, after the national championship.

Great light at the homestead:

tree

I see this poster every so often. I want to own a copy of it, but you can’t find it for sale. Ah well:

poster

So we’re at Bed, Bath and Beyond, because we like to buy multi-dimensional things. Also, they have a good kettle corn we like. We were there to pick up a few bags, but we found that it was all — gasp! — beyond the “Best by” date. And not just barely beyond the date, but four whole days beyond.

I point this out as a joke to the young cashier. She is mortified.

“I can’t sell you this!”

Yes you can. And I want to buy it.

She calls her manager, who is quickly brought up to speed and is equally chagrined. I insist on buying it. I’d only mentioned it to make a pretend scene, not a real one. And now, for the first time ever, the act of scene making has actually done something.

The manager calls in her regional distributor. And he conducts a straw poll of Bed, Bath and Beyond shareholders and spectral bodies. They finally decide they can sell me the popcorn. But they will only do it for half price:

popcorn

We opened the bag that had aged beyond the “Best by” stamp. It was merely sufficient.

These were all the movies we could have watched instead of Twilight:

marquee

Note that the debuting film isn’t even on the marquee. I think the theater was embarrassed by the act of showing the movie. Not so embarrassed they wouldn’t take your money, though.


17
Nov 12

Alabama A&M at Auburn

Likely the last football victory Auburn will see this year. Definitely the last they’ll see at home. Alabama A&M put on their “Just happy to be here” smiles and had a great day under a warm sun and beautiful skies. The A&M players were excited to run out onto the field and put on a good show, but they were overmatched from the start, despite Auburn coming into the game 2 and disappointing 8.

Everyone wanted to see the Bulldogs get a feel-good score. Everyone wanted to see the Maroon and White march. And the Showband of the South was the best show we’ve seen at Jordan-Hare in years. It should happen more often.

Freshman Jonathan Wallace made his third start at quarterback. Seems he’s running the show from here:

JonathanWallace

Just out of Sammie Coates’ reach. This happens to Coates too often:

SammieCoates

Between the true freshman QB, the redshirt freshman Coates and sophomore C.J. Uzomah, the youth movement is on:

CJUzomah

Then you add in the young line, two starting corners who are freshmen and so on and so forth and you wonder … where are the juniors? Everyone, on this senior day, was already reminded how small the senior class is. There are 13 of them. And even fewer of them are starters or real contributors. There’s Onterio McCalebb, of course, and some of those statistical photographs I like to make:

OnterioMcCalebb

OnterioMcCalebb

Not bad for a guy that everyone thought was too small. And his numbers should be far, far higher: he was misused this year and everyone knows it.

There’s also Emory Blake, who’ll go on to a nice low round draft pick or a great free agent deal somewhere next year:

EmoryBlake

The last rolling of Toomer’s Corner:

ToomersCorner

The trees will be coming out soon as they’re all but gone. We’ll all be doomed to something put in place by a committee. There’s just no winning sometime

A few more pictures tomorrow.


11
Nov 12

Catching up

A weekly picture post full of extra pictures is a little bare when you don’t feel especially good. Even still, there is always something to see. So let’s see them.

Allie, nursing me back to health once again:

Allie

Aubie is, first and foremost, a ladies man. Here he’s wooing one of the event security people at the game last night:

Aubie

I’m sure Dr. Foshee did not care for his landscaping being ripped up, but the tiger heart wants what the tiger heart wants, and this tiger wanted to give flowers.

Aubie, by the way, received first place on his 2013 UCA National’s video. He’ll compete in Orlando in January for the UCA National Championship. Aubie is a favorite for another championship.

The Yankee at yesterday’s tailgate:

Yankee

A birthday card I did not buy. I was asking myself “What does a nine-year-old boy like?” I thought about this card. His mother, my first cousin, would have been displeased:

O-Mac

She’s trying to raise her sons without too much Duke-like influence. If you’ve seen more than one episode of that show you’ll no doubt understand.

O-Mac