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adventures / friends / Monday / photo — Comments Off
7
Apr 25

Back from Old Dominion

We are back from the conference, and I will now try to get back into the regular routine. Two conferences so close together, and at this high-volume stage of the semester … It will probably take weeks, if it ever happens at all. The nice thing is that Wednesday is group presentation day. We’ll learn about 10 new countries and I don’t have to do the prep work.

Why, I may as well go to another conference! Or back to Norfolk. The views were lovely.

This is from the VIP lounge atop the conference hotel. We aren’t I, and hardly VI, but we found ourselves sneaking in using the argument that we are, in fact, Ps.

The guy working the desk at the VIP lounge didn’t care, either way. It was as if knowing of its existence was the password. And so we had commanding sight lines of the waterfront.

So we went back another time. Because they also had some pretty good cookies.

They also had a clip-art-photo-ready conference table. We sat around that and enjoyed our powerful position dominating the skyline and talked about … nothing of importance. It was great.

We had a great view on Saturday evening, too, at a business meeting. As the discussion of the mass communication was discusseed, you could look right over the table and see this view behind the speaker.

Being on the water does have its charms.

We drove home yesterday. All of our friends caught their flights — indeed, we took one to the airport — outside of which I saw this modern art masterpiece.

Some of them made it home on time. Others got diverted because of weather, but they are eventually got in safely. And we’ll see them again next year, I hope. At least once a year is better than once every seven.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go come up with some presentation ideas for next year’s conference.

adventures / Friday / friends / photo — Comments Off
4
Apr 25

Another day of saying things in thoughtful ways

Today at the conference I was on a panel titled Mediated Fandom in Turbulent Times. The panelists talked about how movies, TV shows, podcasts, sports teams, and social media channels offer us versions of mediated fandom, which can serve as places of mooring. A recurring theme was about how we retreat to things we know, which everyone understands on a modern practical level.

I said one of the basic concepts of trauma is a loss of control, and how watching Friends or Gilmore Girls or the like for the 90th team is a means of re-establishing a bit of that control, if only for a short while. We know the characters, the plot points, and the outcomes. This, I said to the room of academics, is another reason why you see a lot of movies from the students’ youth as on-campus activities.

The rest of the panel was better, because the panelists were great.

The whole conference is really good. Here’s a panel I watch from the audience. These are some of our friends, representing universities in Alabama, Texas and Mississippi. These are some of the brightest and most thoughtful minds in political communication, talking about the last two election cycles.

Bill, Brian, Melissa, and Barry, talked about political realignment, overcoming hyperbole, socially mediated politics and memes. They’re also our friends, and the best part about the whole trip is hanging out with them. Everything is a joke, or incredibly insightful, or both. And they’re all so kind; just lovely people. Why they put up with me I don’t understand, but I’m grateful for it. And they have to put up with me for another day-and-a-half.

adventures / friends / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
2
Apr 25

Conferencing

After I did the monthly cleaning of the computer — updating some spreadsheets and other documents, deleting stuff from the desktop and the downloads folder, and so on — I returned to the equally exciting task of packing for this afternoon’s road trip.

But before we left I got a stern talking to. Poseidon pointed out I was behind on the site’s most popular weekly feature, the check-in on the kitties. And he was also upset that, last week, Phoebe got a closeup and he did not.

They are jealous cats. So here you go, Poe, a recent closeup, to keep things equal between the two of you.

Phoebe also noticed we were two days behind. She was gearing up to tell me all about it, you can tell.

Next week he’ll probably want a photo in a bag or box, too. They are very jealous of one another. Him more so, but only because they haven’t yet realized that jealous is a thing they can compete for, too.

And, so you see, the are doing just great. Now they’re hanging out with a sitter, because we are just under five hours away, in beautiful and scenic Norfolk. Here’s a blurry shot from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel route. See if you can guess which this part is, bridge or tunnel.

We’re in Norfolk for the 95th convention of the Southern States Communication Association. This is our 10th time to this conference, and then second time we’ve attended it in Norfolk. The first time, my lovely bride won an award there. We’ve won two others, too. These days, we go back to point that out a little, but mostly to see our friends.

This is our first time at SSCA since 2017, though, because of other obligations, travel budget reasons and Covid.

Most everyone got in in time for dinner tonight, so we had some catching up today. We had blueberry french toast at this restaurant near the hotel.

And it was great, but seeing our friends was even better. You can text people and have group chats and do all of that, but when youget to see them in person you realize keenly what’s been lacking. These are sweet, sassy, incredibly smart people, people we have worked with and presented with and laughed with and so on since grad school. We get to spend a long weekend hanging out with them, and call it work.

cycling / friends / memories / photo / Rowan / Wednesday — Comments Off
26
Mar 25

We saw Adam via Zoom

My old friend Adam joined our class via Zoom. He’s recently stepped down from a command of American Forces Network Europe, where he managed dozens of stations on two continents. It seemed a good perspective to add to our international media class. And he had a lot to offer, so I’m glad he took the time.

I was trying to remember, but we met in 2011. I wrote a piece about a distant cousin of his, a World War 2 hero, one of the Doolittle Raiders. Soon after we met in person, and became fast friends. He took a master’s degree and became one of my lovely bride’s students. We’ve toured Alaska and Ireland together.

We are close in age. His hometown is just one or two towns over from my grandparents. Once, we tried to decide if we’d ever been to some event as kids. We decided the most likely place would have been a steakhouse. My grandparents’ church dismissed earlier than his church, so it’s possible that he had to wait on us to leave so he could eat lunch.

I wrote a little bio of him for my students. It’s been an impressive, long career. Multiple deployments, some great experiences and some less than great. He’s now just a few months from retiring from the Army, an exceedingly happy family man, and studying to become a commercial pilot. We’re trying to talk him and his wife into moving close to us. I’m not sure if I’ve sold him on it yet, but you’ve seen the pictures around here. One of my angles is that it is a lot like home.

(Speaking of home … He knew where his ancestor who immigrated from England came from. Adam and I once visited that road in London.)

Speaking of pictures, I took these the other day and I’m cleaning up my phone.

As the weather warms up and the bikes go back on the roads, it is good to see these signs still out there reminding people about the rules of the road.

That one is relatively new. At least I don’t remember seeing it last year.

And here’s a man out there discing that dirt. That field, if it is all his, goes back some ways. He was probably doing that all afternoon.

That was Saturday, because you work every day on a farm. I wonder what they were doing there today. A lot more than me, I’m sure of it.

adventures / friends / Monday / photo / running — Comments Off
9
Dec 24

Weekend shots

The problem with photography is that some of the best images come in the early morning, when the sun is low in the sky. And that, frankly, does not coincide with my lifestyle choices.

But on days when I am up, and I’m outside, the world looks lovely again, especially when it’s frost-covered anew.

This was waiting for a run to start, which is why I was up and outside early. They began about 20 minutes late for reasons that were not explained, but let us assume it was for our safety on the roads, and not because of general disorder. So I had time to take some extra photos, before shuffling through an easy 5K.

One stretch I was doing a 5:30 pace, but then I remembered this was maybe my fourth or fifth run of the fall, so I did the rest of it slowly and sensibly. Never you mind my time, which was somewhere between Olympian and walking.

My lovely bride did a 10K Saturday morning, which is why I was there at the finish line to take this poorly composed shot.

They didn’t really have a setup that was conducive to quality finish line photos, which more people should consider when laying these courses out. Begin with the family photos in mind, I always say, ever since I started saying it, which was just a few seconds ago.

Maybe that was the reason for the delay.

At any rate we got to hang out with our friends’ son, Sammy. He did not run, though I tried for months to get his dad to convert the stroller to an e-scooter, and bolt on some foot pedals so he could just ride on. Sammy decided to stay cozy and warm, because he’s smarter than those other kids who were out doing their stroller 5 and 10Ks this weekend.

Also, this guy is The Mayor, and he knows it.

But he’s the cool guy mayor, you know? He doesn’t flaunt it, doesn’t need to hold it over people’s head, he’s not bored of it or use it to his advantage. He just lets you be charmed by his natural charisma. How could he not be?

We had Cuban food for dinner Saturday night. I just wanted to memorialize this, for the next occasion I get Cuban food.

Roasted chicken, lechón asado, ropa vieja and the only problem was that they didn’t offer me seconds. (That ropa vieja was so good, they could have offered me thirds!)