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family / friends / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off on Not the normal Monday
4
Aug 14

Not the normal Monday

An update to yesterday’s garage door mystery, from the prankee, himself. To set this up, he got into his car and backed out of the garage, but the garage door was closed. His wife saw him outside later kicking and beating on the door. Probably she saw him trying to put it back on the rails. That happened last week. And on Sunday:

I went for a run today for the first time in a while, it seems. I did four miles on the old road, down the hill, up the other side, around the curve and down and back up and down and turning around and repeating the whole thing. It looks like this:

road

The rain was from Saturday. Today it was positively summer, almost August in Alabama, even.

I met the local postal carrier. She’d written a lovely little note on my grandmother’s online obituary. That’s the way it is here, or that’s the way my grandmother lived, that so many people that she did business with have stopped to visit or attended the visitation or have written things. We had a nice chat right through here:

road

The postal carrier was emotional about it all too, so there I stood, sweating in mid-run, trying to keep my composure and thanking her for writing and telling her how perfect the timing of it had been. My grandmother made gifts for her, mittens for the winter and so on. She, meanwhile, had brought treats for the dog every day. I told her the truth: every time I visited, my grandmother mentioned the mail lady. She thought a lot of her, and the kindness was mutual.

It is like that a lot here.

I believe the preacher said something about that during the memorial service, to know her for even 10 minutes meant you would always know her, and always remember her.

I have had the good fortune of having several heart-to-hearts today. I visited the grocery store. My grandfather asked me if the garage door was opened or closed behind me. I looked, for a long time, through the rearview mirror. There’s no garage there, but it was a fine joke. (He’s such a strong guy, by the way, and though none of this is easy, he’s showing all of the great qualities that make him such an admirable man.)

I saw several members of the family and friends. I wrote thank you cards. I found that I wanted to write them, which is to say I wanted to have them written, but I didn’t want to go through the process of finding the things to say. I’ve added new numbers to my phone. I still have a few calls to return. Some of those will land on Tuesday.

Until then, keep an eye on those sneaky doors.

adventures / Auburn / cycling / friends / iPhone / photo / weekend — Comments Off on I well and truly bonked on my ride today
26
Jul 14

I well and truly bonked on my ride today

Saw this near the top, not at the top, but near the top. of the biggest hill I climbed today:

road

It seemed a cruel place for such a message. And I wasn’t even on the bike ride that needed the note. But, high sun, heat of the day, and there’s still more hill to go. Have a rest stop. Only you can’t, because this spray paint is old. That’s the way it goes sometimes.

On the other side of the hill you are rewarded, of course. It must be nearly a mile of descending:

road

And I bonked miles from home. That’s a lonely feeling.

This evening we were invited to campus to watch something historic:

road

It was just another sweet reminder of the nice people all over this special place we get to enjoy.

cycling / Friday / friends / memories / video — Comments Off on One does not simply tempt the sun
25
Jul 14

One does not simply tempt the sun

I don’t know what you were doing two years and two days ago, but I was having killer headaches and singing the praises of ice cream therapy.

Also, we dodged a solar bullet. How a solar storm two years ago nearly caused a catastrophe on Earth:

On July 23, 2012, the sun unleashed two massive clouds of plasma that barely missed a catastrophic encounter with the Earth’s atmosphere. These plasma clouds, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), comprised a solar storm thought to be the most powerful in at least 150 years.

“If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces,” physicist Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado tells NASA.
Fortunately, the blast site of the CMEs was not directed at Earth. Had this event occurred a week earlier when the point of eruption was Earth-facing, a potentially disastrous outcome would have unfolded.

“I have come away from our recent studies more convinced than ever that Earth and its inhabitants were incredibly fortunate that the 2012 eruption happened when it did,” Baker tells NASA. “If the eruption had occurred only one week earlier, Earth would have been in the line of fire.”

Who knew?

Rode my bike for the first time since the race last weekend. I needed a little break, I took too long of a break. So today I just pedaled through the neighborhood and then up and down the time trial course and over the back of the big hill, mostly mad at myself for being off my bike for so long.

It is always that way. I’m never disappointed in a ride, but I always regret not going.

It wiped me out, though, which was predictable and sad at the same time. I could have gone for a few laps in the pool, but I had no energy. My diet has been off, I think, because there is always something, or two things, that can be done incorrectly at any given time.

He said, while eating sliders for dinner with friends.

We went to visit Kim and Murphy. We took cupcakes, they made delicious tiny burgers. We watched QVC and no one really seemed to know why. But I can tell you all about the luxury deluxe makeup organizer. It comes in your choice of one of three colors and can hold 30 of your favorite lipsticks at a time!

I should have applied for a job at QVC years ago, surely.

Do you like blooper? Everyone likes bloopers. These were a bit difficult for me to wrap my mind around, because the show is so often grim, but here are what are apparently rare Game of Thrones bloopers:

Dear Internet: Let’s make a pact. If you embed every YouTube video that you find interesting, and I embed every YouTube video that I think you’ll find interesting, we’ll never have to go to the actual YouTube page and read those comments.

Hope you are planning a wonderful, comment-free weekend.

friends / I do not know what is happening. / journalism / links / music / running / Samford / things to read / Thursday / video — Comments Off on Samford is shoeing an entire nation
24
Jul 14

Samford is shoeing an entire nation

I work with special people in an amazing place. Here is what some of them have been doing recently. Watching this was the best three minutes of my day:

That’s an amazing project, built by incredible people.

The rest of my day felt a bit bleh. My neck still hurts and I had a general odd, off feeling. In the late afternoon The Yankee, Kim and Murphy and I all went for a run. Started feeling better right away.

So I suppose my few days rest are over. Thank goodness.

Things to read … because that’s just about all I have for you today, but there are a lot of things to read.

Rabbit returned to Opelika couple after seven years:

Marilyn McCarley had planted a colorful flower bed around the rabbits shortly before Mack went missing.

“Whoever got it came in and got the rabbit. … They didn’t stomp the flowers,” she said. “…They’re cement, you know. So they’re really heavy. We never thought in a million years we would see that rabbit again.”

While Mack was missing, Clyde McCarley drove around town, checking area lawns to see if Mack had found his way there.

“I can tell you every house that has a rabbit,” he said. For years, the McCarleys decorated just one rabbit for Christmas and Easter.

This would be great fun to ride, I’m sure. Europe Wants To Turn The Iron Curtain Into A Bike Path:

The Iron Curtain, once the ominous line dividing Cold War-era rivals, is being transformed into a 4,225-mile cycling trail for recreational travelers.

European Union officials interested in boosting bike tourism have set aside $2.4 million to connect and brand existing trails that extend from the Barents Sea, north of the border between Finland and Russia, to the edge of the Black Sea, at the border between Bulgaria and Turkey. Sections of trail already pass by popular historic sites like the remnants of the Berlin Wall.

Here’s a brochure on the whole thing.

Scholars hope a two-year exploration will help find the site of an epic Alabama battle:

On a muggy Memorial Day, in a remote clearing near the Alabama River, three of the state’s most eminent anthropologists and one of the state’s best-known historians huddle around a hand-drawn map they hope can take them a few steps nearer to finding one of the most significant historic sites in North America.

On Oct. 18, 1540, an armed force led by Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto clashed with Indian warriors led by the famed chieftain Tascalusa. The ferocious encounter decimated Tascalusa’s people and left the fortified Indian village in ruins. But it also proved to be a fatal blow to De Soto’s expedition. Severely weakened, De Soto led his battle-scarred troops deeper into the unmapped continent. He would not survive, and the remnants of his army were ultimately forced to find their way back to the relative safety of Mexico.

And now for a few quick links of interest:

Maxwell Air Force Base could be used to house thousands of immigrant children

Teens make up less of summer workforce than ever

Prosecutors Are Reading Emails From Inmates to Lawyers

Twitter Is Changing How the Media Covers the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Time.com’s bounce rate down 15 percentage points since adopting continuous scroll

How 4 Photo Editors Are Using Instagram

Finally, some music. This is the first track from Guster’s forthcoming album:

cycling / friends / history / links / Monday / things to read / Twitter — Comments Off on Monday titles always suffer
30
Jun 14

Monday titles always suffer

In the middle or late part of the evening yesterday we decided we’d run a brick, which is a workout where you combine two of the three elements of a triathlon. We decided to ride for an hour and then run for an hour.

So we we rode out of town as far as we could for a half hour. I went 32 minutes, which is nothing, but that got me to an intersection, a gas station and a turnaround. I thought I would race myself back, beat my time and all of that. Which is about the time my knee ligaments started hurting, so I slowed it down and still almost beat myself back home.

After which we started to run. Sometimes when you run, or when I run, at least, you just don’t feel it. You have to figure out when your body is telling you something and when your body is lying to you. Today I decided that it was not a day to run. Didn’t feel it, didn’t want it, didn’t press it.

And so that was that.

We had barbecue for dinner with a friend last night, that made it all a bit better. Tonight we dined with other friends who made jerk chicken, which was even better.

Things to read … because reading makes everything better.

If you don’t pay for it, you are the product. Or the research subject. Everything We Know About Facebook’s Secret Mood Manipulation Experiment:

And on Sunday afternoon, Adam D.I. Kramer, one of the study’s authors and a Facebook employee, commented on the experiment in a public Facebook post. “And at the end of the day, the actual impact on people in the experiment was the minimal amount to statistically detect it,” he writes. “Having written and designed this experiment myself, I can tell you that our goal was never to upset anyone. […] In hindsight, the research benefits of the paper may not have justified all of this anxiety.”

Kramer adds that Facebook’s internal review practices have “come a long way” since 2012, when the experiment was run.

There is a possibility that the sorry state of scientific research funding contributes to all of this. There’s also the possibility that, at some future date, some future lawsuits over this situation are landmark things we teach in research.

There’s more on IRB, the APA ethics and the notion of informed consent at the link.

Since we are at the 100-year anniversary of the beginning of World War I, here’s a good historical read with an Alabama hook. ‘There was never a braver lad:’ Alabama’s Osmond Kelly Ingram was first US sailor killed in WWI:

Ingram, 30, was aboard the Cassin off the Irish coast on Oct. 15, 1917 when the ship was attacked by a German submarine U-61. Ingram was cleaning the muzzle of a gun after morning target practice when he spotted a torpedo on a direct course for the ship. The Cassin began evasive maneuvers which seemed to have worked until the torpedo “porpoised,” or jumped out of the water, and turned towards the Cassin, Navy historians report.

Ingram, realizing the torpedo would hit near the depth charges at the ship’s stern, ran to release them in an effort to minimize the explosion and save the vessel.

Sadly, one of the first Americans killed at sea in World War II was from Alabama. The first American killed in Afghanistan was from Alabama too. One of the first Americans killed in Iraq was from here, too.

What will change Twitter? Twitter Rolls Out App Install And Engagement Ads, And New Click Pricing, Globally:

Twitter says that in the last quarter it made about 72 percent of all its revenues (equivalent to $181 million out of total revenues of $250 million) from mobile advertising.

On top of the app install ads, Twitter will also be expanding the kinds of reporting and analytics that app publishers will get around them.

The company says that keyword targeting in the ads will follow that of its other mobile units, with publishers able to set placement based on interest, keyword, gender, geographic location, language and mobile device, among other things.

This is all very logical. This will be very useful for those advertising in Twitter, and will refine things somewhat for consumers.

There is another plan that could come to fruition, which would be less useful. I remind you of, or introduce you to, what my friend @IkePigott said earlier this year:

In their last quarter Twitter reported $250 million in revenue — and $181 million in mobile advertising. This is all very big business.

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