Friday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Friday

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22
Aug 25

Then don’t go that direction

Just work today. Sorta, anyway. I’m now pulling together my final class of the term — and just in time! The good news is all the material is there. Today I worked out the syllabus and started the Canvas shell. I’ll finish the former this weekend and the latter in December, when the class ends.

All of the material is in hand, except for perhaps one reading. I just need to sort it all out, and get myself sorted out. But that’s what the next eight or nine days are for — he told himself, confidently.

Also there are something like three meetings next week, so it isn’t that many days.

But it is a beautful, seasonally mild-to-appropriate Friday, and you don’t let details get in the way of appreciating seasonally mild-to-appropriate Fridays.

Also, I’m tired. And possibly ready for a nap.

We had a nice bike ride today. We went “back that way,” which is a 20-mile out and bike from our neighborhood, through the next one, down and up a hill, before turning left at the church and then pedaling like mad for two miles, all of which was the preface to what I now think of as Always Bad That Direction.

Every time I go this way, it’s a poor quality performance on my part.

This one, though, she was cooking. I only caught back up to her wheel because she was kind.

I set a Strava PR on the last uphill. It was one of those things which I hadn’t previously realized was a segment, but now I do, and so today I tried a bit harder. Only I wasn’t sure exactly where the segment began, so as soon as I took the left turn, I was determined to make it to the top of the hill, a little over a mile a way. Turns out the segment was that whole stretch of road. I took 32 seconds off my previous fastest time of the year and 38 off of last year’s best.

I’ve ridden that hill 16 times, and only now noticed it was a segment. (The fastest time recorded on it is a full 1:31 better than me. That’s not reachable.)

Also, I marked my second and third best times on two other segments, but, still, the whole ride felt slow, and my legs heavy, right until the very end. (It should not take 70 minutes for my legs to warm up. Especially since I won’t stay at top condition for more than 12 minutes anyway.)

When I turned off the tracker, Strava gave me this happy news.

And I was a super late adopter to that app. My first tracker has me at almost 2,000 and 2.2 months of exercise. That seems like a lot, until you remember how long it takes to get there. The first thing I recorded there was a short little bike ride in May of 2011.

I remember it like it was 14 (!!!) years ago.

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15
Aug 25

When in doubt, pick the faster meal

This is a story about a boy and his bike. Because it was a delightful day. Because I had to go outside, or risk growing into my office chair. Because I’ve pretty much bored myself with to tears with trying to find new ways to discuss the work and sometimes-confidence-sometimes-anxiety that comes with creating a class out of whole cloth.

But when I closed my computer today I knew I was just two lectures away from being through with this class design. I also feel like I’ve been saying that for weeks. But then I sat down and made a list — for the sake of accuracy, I was already sitting when I started that list — and realized there were several things to do. But now it’s down to three things, which is really five things, but could technically be seven things, and two of those are these last lectures. So Monday. Maybe Tuesday. Because I think I’m taking the weekend off from all of it. I think I need it.

Of course I’ll be back at it tomorrow. Or by Sunday afternoon.

Anyway, this evening I set out for a bike ride. It was a lovely one, and so I went down the road and through one of three towns in the immediate area with town as a suffix. (And two of them, while charming in their own ways, are overstating the case.)

I had the added benefit of a late start, so that everyone was already where they needed to be, always a concern in that bustling metropolis of 487 people. The English got there late in the 17th century, and I guess it has always been some kind of sleepy, especially on Friday nights.

But the views are lovely.

I turned left at the river and continued on one of our usual routes. Their good for this time of day. We are at a latitude where we are already in that dark-comes-in-a-hurry time of year. Sure, roads get predictable when you’ve been on them four or five dozen times, but you want to know exactly what you’re getting into. You want to be able to pace your ride as necessary. You want to be able to make changes if things aren’t going just right. And, always, you’re thinking about where the point is that you can have a flat or other mechanical problem, fix it, and still get back home.

You don’t want to throw in a lot of variables when you’re racing daylight.

That bridge, an overpass, has been closed for a while. I’ve been over it twice since they shut it down. I’ll just weave around the barriers and …

OK, they’ve hardened this up a bit. I could hop the barrier, but despite having gone through the barrels and past at least two road closed signs, climbing over that seems like it would remove any appeals to my ignorance.

I’m sure the bridge could hold me, but they’ve made it clear they don’t want me to go over there.

So here’s the thing. I’m 11.5 miles in. I’m racing daylight. I have, when this bridge is in service, four possible variations back home, each making a completed ride of 16, 16.5 or 20 miles. But I can’t go that way because of my pretending like road closures apply to me, too. So I have to retrace my steps. And if I do that faithfully, which I did, that of course means 23 miles.

Easy quiet roads, though, so that’s good. I had my blinkies, so that’s good. The most important thing, in fact. I did not, however, carry my headlight, which isn’t really a problem. I knew I’d be back before I needed extra light to see the way in front of me.

Anyway, this was the view behind me at one point. It’s a bit fuzzy, as I was shooting over my shoulder at about 20 miles per hour, but the colors aren’t bad. That’s one well-tended field there, let me tell you.

Only the last two minutes or so, when I was inside the subdivision, did it get dark. Two neighbors who were walking did not expect to see me. I apologized as we met. They laughed it off. My lovely bride was waiting for me, in The Pose. She was unhappy with my timing, but, then I hadn’t yet told her about those unanticipated extra seven miles. In fact, I should have just gone out 15 minutes earlier.

We have agreed upon roads for night rides, and I was only on one of them, and that right at the end, and just before it became truly dark. So as she stood there, arms crossed, making a big show of patting one arm with the other hand, she said I could make it up to her by deciding what we’d have for dinner tonight.

By way of apology, I chose the sweet-and-sour chicken.

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8
Aug 25

These did not come from a can, or a factory downtown

I updated the art on the front page of the site. It starts like this. Go give it a look and come back 60 seconds later. It’ll be refreshing.

And while I was doing that, I rolled over for a quick shot. It is also refreshing.

This morning, and right on schedule, I looked out to see the first of nature’s candy ready to come inside. So I grabbed the first basket. I had four this morning, a treat for my troubles.

This marks the beginning of our third peach crop here. I’ll probably be at this for eight to 10 days, but in increasing volume. For the first time, Poseidon seems interested in them. I have no idea how we’ll deal with that. We’re going to be giving away more than a few of these peaches. In fact, we sent off two dozen-plus peaches to friends today, fresh from the tree. Come get some.

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1
Aug 25

pop-pop-pop

“You should treat yourself to a ride today. It’s pretty spectacular out there.”

My lovely bride had already been out and about. I was sitting still and reading the morning news. But when your beloved encourages you to do a thing, you do a thing, and that’s how the personal revolution began today.

The first day of August is the academic’s traditional day of “What have I done with my summer?!?!” panic. The fall term comes into focus and there’s a lot to do, and it’s a scramble until May. But I’ve been doing some work of late, and today just didn’t feel like it. It was, I was told, pretty spectacular out there.

So I went to the library.

The local public library — which is staffed entirely by volunteers and open for 28 hours a week, but only 24 per week in the summer, which asks you to pay $2 for a card which is provided “Compliments of” a bank in a different town altogether — called yesterday to tell me they’d received a book I’d requested through the interlibrary loan.

Libraries, if you’ll let them (which is to say, if you go more than once) are magical places. But, really, the ILL system lets everything come to your library, even if you have but a small library in your town. About once a year, this time of year, I avail myself of the library for an easy fiction read. (Most things I read throughout the year are news, work-related or history. But there’s always something easy and/or breezy if you’re willing to be seen checking out such a thing.)

So I did that. I’ll read it this weekend, and the revolution will be over and it’ll be back to work on Monday. Or possibly Sunday evening.

I came home and, because it was spectacular, I treated myself to a bike ride. It was blue-gray out. The UV was only a 3. The temperature was 78. After I’d worked up a sweat it felt almost coolish outside. (This is different than the brief bout of cold you might feel with heat exhaustion. It was purely damp clothes, damp skin, and 20 mph winds.

There was one place where, on a straight road, I passed a house with a flag, a restaurant with parking lot flags, and a fire department with two flags. In that brief span, and it couldn’t have been any greater a distance than two city blocks, if you were in a city, the flags were blowing in three different directions.

It was not the fastest ride, but the one place I really tried I easily set a new Strava PR, so there’s that.

After that, it was time to go to the yard. It was time to pick up sticks from yesterday’s storm. Mostly it was just that, five-six, pick up sticks. The magnolia did fine.

But there’s a branch in another tree that will have to come down. Eventually. Somehow. It’s a little high up.

Our poor trees stand no chance in these winds. This weighs heavily upon me.

Then again, a lot does these days. How could it not?

We were trying to count, and we believe this is the fourth time we’ve seen Guster this year now. They just play around us a lot. Or, we are in a place where they do a lot of shows. If it is four times this year, then it’s seven times since we moved here. They’re close by, it’s a good show, so why not go?

It is important here to say I’ve seen these guys play, off-and-on, for more than a quarter of a century now. It’s become a joke, who has opened for them. They sell custom-shirts that they’ll print at the venue, so you can make yourself known as a hipster by signifying which Grammy-winner-to-be you saw with them. I think Jump, Little Children might have opened for them the first time I was able to catch a show. (Unless I’m forgetting an even earlier one.) All of which is to say, they are a fun band and they do terrific fan work and it doesn’t always sound exactly like their studio stuff. But, in all of those years, or the last four year shows this year, or any show I’ve seen of theirs in six or seven states, they don’t seem to do a lot of ad lib jams.

But, tonight, I just happened to be holding my phone at the right time for this little diddy.

Look how much fun they’re having! That may be the best part of the whole thing.

The Mountain Goats opened for Guster. This past year I’ve suddenly heard a lot about The Mountain Goats. When this show came up I thought I should learn about The Mountain Goats. But then I got distracted and, finally, I decided, just find out live. And I’m glad I did. I understand what everyone is talking about. I mentioned this on Bluesky.

Finally got to see @themountaingoats.bsky.social.

I understand what everyone was saying. I get it now.

[image or embed]

— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.bsky.social) August 1, 2025 at 8:05 PM

One of the guys in the band wrote me back, right after the show was over. That was about the point when I was looking over their catalog: 22 studio albums, four compilation albums, three live albums, not to mention many EPs and demos that are floating around out there. That’s a lot to contemplate. I don’t think I need to be a completist here, but there’s not enough time in the day to learn where to pick up on something new that’s already so robust. (It’s concept albums everywhere and sequels decades on and so on.) Where to even begin?

And then the guy in the band gave me album recommendations.

So that’s nice. And just as soon as I get through three other musical stacks of things I’m doing … I’ll be doing this.

They’ll have pumped out nine more albums by then.

Anyway, we’re contemplating seeing them again Monday night, because they’ll all be close by again. And why not? Also, Monday, it’s back to work. And I’ll share one or two other videos from this show. (One including The Mountain Goats.) And then, Tuesday, it is working on campus. Meetings and everything.

And, Wednesday, I’ll start making syllabi. Then it gets real.

Unless it is pretty spectacular out again.

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25
Jul 25

A day punctuated by three of my favorite things

One of the great things about my work is that, even in my off time I can do work related to my work! And there’s plenty of that to do. One of the great things about that thing, though, is that sometimes that work is just reading, which I, a latchkey kid of the 20th century, am prone to do anyway. To be sure, I’d probably read other things, at least some of the time, if it wasn’t work related, but some of the things we do in life we do in pursuit of the process, not the result. And that’s how the arts and humanities are made.

So, today was a reading day. Smack full busy with words. But it wasn’t lazy, because at least some of this will definitely be put to good use.

I’m coming up to the point where I need to make a notebook detailing which sort and set of notes is written down in which notebook. But, first, the weather rolled in.

We did all of the things required just before it started. Chairs moved here, umbrellas lowers, all of that. And no more than a minute after we got inside that Hollywood rain started. There was a thunderclap and then a deluge.

After dinner, which was lovingly prepared indoors by my lovely bride, despite her grilling aspirations being interrupted by the display of hydrodynamic gravity, the skies turned mellow again. This is at the top of the neighborhood.

And we were there because we went to the local creamery. To celebrate Friday, or the weekend, or try to take some of the heat off. I’m not sure. Anyway, I had a custard. They were careful to make it match the sign.

Afterword, at home, the air conditioner compressor made a nasty sound. The thing is four years old, but there was a rattling, grinding thing and no one likes that on a humid Friday night.

We turned the A/C off, and turned it back on. And, for now, it is fine.

Let’s hope it stays that way.