He was exploring the bricks on the side of a building:
I managed to get four quick shots to make his acquaintance. And then he fell off the wall. Kids looked for him, but he’d gone into hiding before they could seek him out.
We also met a tiger:
I took a picture of our friends Kim and Murph:
Ceylon and Fatima live at the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo. They visited Auburn tonight as part of a fund raiser. You stand in line for a few hours, make a small donation and you get to pet the tiger cubs and take a picture or two.
They had a dark setup, and they wouldn’t let you pop a flash. These are the pictures their photographer shot:
We spent the evening hanging out with friends, and then had pizza just before Mellow Mushroom closed. It was a great evening. There was a caterpillar after all.
It was a steaming hot summer afternoon, I remember because I was on my bike. The Yankee was following me as I pumped over a slight hill, at the height of my meager powers. She was saving herself for a race two days later.
We got out to our turnaround spot, near a restaurant we visit once or twice a year, on the spot where German POWs were held during World War II. I was drenched, but loving every minute of the exertion, loving that it didn’t feel so much like work. It felt so good to feel good.
She decided she’d had enough — there was that race, where she would finish third after all — and asked me to come back and pick her up. I sprinted out ahead of her to grab the car and save her legs and keep her out of the heat.
She stopped at a country store that has a porch swing. A kindly gentleman bought her a drink for no other reason than he was a kindly gentleman and there are a lot of them here. She waited for me and, while sitting in the shade, she learned a trial that we were planning on using as the operational basis of a piece of research was being delayed.
So for the rest of the week we brainstormed about a new idea. Surely there must be something. After a few days, I think on another ride, we seized on another idea. A few days later we put this new plan into action.
We spent a few evenings immersed in the idea and then about two weeks writing it for a journal submission. The reviewers sent it back with suggestions. We spent another few days improving it, and ultimately edited the piece down to 10,000 words.
This evening we learned that paper has been accepted for publication. I was cutting up a cantaloupe at the time.
We’re pretty happy about that, as you might expect. The journal article I mean. I’m sure we’ll get to the fruit eventually.
The Yankee did a great job on the paper. I wrote a few sections of it. She reworked some things and I edited it a couple of times. We make a good team.
A photo (or two) a day meant to express everything that needs to be said. Don’t over extrapolate or strain yourself making too many inferences. They are just pictures.
I hate these pictures. They are pretty, but this time of year they just feel like summer is leaving. They are just beautiful reminders.
Here’s the same shot, just a bit farther down the road, and through the polarizer at the top of the windshield.
One of our graduate school buddies was passing through the area with his new wife and so we were invited to a cookout with friends in Wetumpka. His brother was there, along with various of his college friends who have taken us in as peripheral members of their group. We had great burgers and a fine time sitting on their back porch, talking and laughing and singing out of tune. The Yankee asked me to get her sweater out of the car.
We’re skipping the regular Sunday feature to talk about the U.S.S. Constitution, which sailed again today.
Old Ironsides, the world’s oldest commissioned warship, cruised open water today to honor the bicentennial of the battle against the HMS Guerriere in the War of 1812.
These days she is an incredible museum ship. We were there three years ago, almost to the day.
Here are some pictures, including this replica gun:
An estimated 13 percent percent of the original vessel is still in place, all below the waterline. Including, I love this, some of Paul Revere’s nails:
This is where the sailors slept. It wasn’t this well-lit. There was obviously no fire alarm. And it didn’t smell like varnish. (We were there during the latest renovations.) The docents, sailors in the U.S. Navy who said this duty station was a great honor, said 19th century conditions aboard ship were less than ideal:
The anchor capstan was used when the order came to weigh anchor. Sailors walked in a circle, pushing long poles into those square cutouts. Anchor cables wound around the capstan, which could raise or lower anchors up to 5,443 pounds:
One of the salt boxes by the guns. A gun wad is on the left and a felt cartridge is on the right. The plaque says “The origin of the name is lost to history. Each gun was required to have a “salt box” which was to hold the felt cartridges ready for loading into the gun. Only one cartridge at a time was to be kept in the salt box.
“Cartridges were made of felt or foil or lead and were color marked for type and size. Red was close, blue was standard, white was distant. Size was indicated by numbers.”
Here she was in her mooring in 2009. It had been 12 years since she’d last set sail:
And today, for just the second time in more than a century:
I also did physical rehab yesterday morning. That was probably why I was so worn out by the simple task of driving around our lovely, small little town and paying for things and picking up things. I was exhausted from PT.
I cheated. The lady who was monitoring my work turned away to see after one of her other clients and I picked up the two-pound barbell instead of the one-pound. Two pounds! I’m getting ripped!
Hey, the surgeon says I am not to pick up anything heavier than a drink while my shoulder is recovering. A two-pound barbell is a big deal. Wears you right out.
Not really.
We had our weekly breakfast this morning at the Barbecue House:
This is a big deal. The guy on the left is perhaps the best short order cook in town. Everything runs more smoothly when he’s there. The blur of motion is the guy that puts together the last touches of your plate. The lady in the back … she does a bit of everything. Our ticket is the farthest to the right, and the farthest away from being made.
They’ll call our name and I’ll go get our two plates and ask for an extra fork, because we sensibly split the hash browns. The drink refills are right there for you, in the bottom right corner of this shot. In the background you can see an Alabama quarterback getting sacked. Next to that is a bucket that has clearly been beaten half to death. I’m intrigued by it. What do they do with that bucket?
I’ll ask one day, when they’re having a slow morning.
Today was Black Cat Appreciation Day. Apparently. We didn’t know such a thing existed until someone mentioned it on Facebook. Maybe that is the point of Facebook, feeling better about yourself compared to the lot in life of people that didn’t like you in high school AND made up days.
I spent a while trying to take a nice picture of her, but she was having none of it. She did not appreciate that there was no tuna for her. And she knows Catember is coming up, so she did not appreciate the attention today. She’s trying to avoid the camera as long as possible, I’m sure of it.
And that’s pretty much the day. It was designed to be a day of sitting and rest and not hurting myself. I finally did this right for a change.
