{"id":573899526,"date":"2026-10-21T20:09:33","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T00:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/?p=573899526"},"modified":"2026-10-31T17:26:03","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T21:26:03","slug":"the-fullest-day-of-the-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/blog\/2026\/10\/21\/the-fullest-day-of-the-week\/","title":{"rendered":"The fullest day of the week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spent the morning and the afternoon doing work at home. Getting in some grading. Working on this evening’s lecture, and so on. Tonight’s topic was everyone’s favorite: ethics. <\/p>\n

I have an Eagle Scout in that class. Showed me his Eagle Scout card and everything. He told me last week that he’s eager to talk ethics. He’s also taking an ethics class. An entire course for an entire semester focused on ethics. I’m going to give it a couple of hours. I offered to let him lead the class. He politely declined. So there I was, updating slides and trying to think of all the modern sports anecdotes I could use for all the points I wanted to make. <\/p>\n

The weather was too great, so around 1 p.m. I went out to do what I do. <\/p>\n

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I pedaled my happy little self down to the river. For the first time in a long time, I had a headwind on the way out. So it was blowing southeast-to-northwest(ish) for a change. That meant the return leg of the ride will be easier, which is a nice change of pace.<\/p>\n

I was not aware this was a road. All of this time, I thought that was just a long gravel drive. Maybe it is. Maybe it needs work, too. Look at that pothole.<\/p>\n

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I passed through the little three-road, two-stop-sign town where they decorate the power poles. They are festive in all seasons, and the children take advantage of Halloween. This one looks like it has been used before. <\/p>\n

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This hippy alien mannequin — Why wouldn’t there be aliens? And why wouldn’t aliens need mannequins for their own wares? And why wouldn’t aliens be hippies? — is being pursued by a jack-o-latern-wearing scarecrow. <\/p>\n

Neither of those things is the real problem here, though that is not the most handsome alien face you’ve ever seen. Somehow, the real concern is that the scarecrow has put on a safety vest. Something about a safety conscious scarecrow gives me the willies. <\/p>\n

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Someone didn’t try very hard on this one and, honestly, that’s where the real charm lies. (Also, they tried plenty hard. It’s perfect.)<\/p>\n

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Ma and Pa Burlap got a little slumped over. American Slouching, I guess. I like that someone thought to give her shoes. That’s a nice touch.<\/p>\n

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But it’s even better that they are just sitting beneath her, as if Ma Burlap’s hay feet have been aching all day and she’s ready to let them rest. <\/p>\n

You and I have not walked a mile in her shoes, and so we will not judge. <\/p>\n

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I had to go to campus early, for there was a meeting to be had. A meeting was held. We met at the meeting. Things were discussed. We resolved to other meetings. We resolved to have an extra<\/em> meeting. We resolved to solve all of the problems of the world, but we will do it at the subsequent meetings. <\/p>\n

It was at the meeting that I realized I’d left my class notes in the home office. There was not enough time to go back and fetch them, and that seemed silly, anyway. So I had my lovely bride take a photo of each page of notes … on ethics … and send them to me. <\/p>\n

This evening, instead of consulting my notebook about what was going to be on the next slide, I looked down at a second computer. It felt clunky, and it probably was clunky. Also, everyone is super excited to talk about ethics. <\/p>\n

I am a dutiful servant, however. I did four sentences on the ancient Greeks and the rest of the time on 20th century ethical models and modern sports examples. <\/p>\n

Last week I’d had a chat with a student and my phone alarm — a riff of Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle” sung out. So he asked about Redding and I talked him up and he said he would listen to him on his drive home. Tonight, he gave me the youthful sign of approval and surprised me for someone else to listen to. I was not expecting that, had no time to think and quickly settled on Ray Charles. When in doubt, go with Brother Ray. Now I have to figure out a whole plan for the rest of the semester for that student, if this becomes a recurring request.<\/p>\n

But, first, I have to finish compiling the notes for tomorrow’s lecture. The good news is that, by this time tomorrow I won’t be behind anymore. (With work, anyway. For about a day, or so.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spent the morning and the afternoon doing work at home. Getting in some grading. Working on this evening’s lecture, and so on. Tonight’s topic was everyone’s favorite: ethics. I have an Eagle Scout in that class. Showed me his Eagle Scout card and everything. He told me last week that he’s eager to talk ethics. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,10,101,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573899526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-photo","category-rowan","category-wednesday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573899526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573899526"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573899526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573899528,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573899526\/revisions\/573899528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573899526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573899526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573899526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}