Monday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Monday

Shakespeare on the breeze

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. Or close the wall up with our weekend now behind us. In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility. But when the blast of Monday blows in our ears, then remember, you are a tiger nearing the end of a semester. Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage; then lend the eye a terrible aspect.

And so I wrote the many messages required of my classes to begin the week.

They all started with, “Hello everyone. We’re almost there.”

And that’s a Monday. Class this evening, working work before that and after, and so on. We must close up the wall, as Henry the Vee said.

Seems to me, if you’re a king and you have a hole in your wall, you summon the stonemasons, not the peasant army from the countryside. But that’s the difference between the kings of antiquity and me. That and 5G. And a full spice cabinet. And satellite communications. And air conditioning. And dependable refrigeration.

Kings had it rough, didn’t they?

Let us wander the grounds and check on the things, perchance they have grown overnight.

We have tulips elsewhere, but this brave tulip, standing alone, captivates the attention.

The surrounding weeds have certainly noticed it. But we’ll get to those too, eventually.

I am tempted to stand next to the fig tree and give it a countdown. The suspense is just too much. Maybe tomorrow, though.

In the greenhouse we are seeing great progress. Peas are emerging. The first sprouts are coming up from some of the tomato seeds. The squash and cucumbers are stealing the show.

On another shelf, however, the onions are holding hard the breath and bending up every spirit

I promise not to misquote Shakespeare with every plant, photo or paragraph on this, or any other post.

Two little bike rides the last few days, just 40 miles trying to dodge the winds, which were brutal this weekend, but nice and mild today. This was a cornfield last summer, and it’ll soon be verdant once again.

Right through there, you had corn on either side of you, and that was usually a pretty decent wind break. Just now, however, you can feel go one way on that road and think you’re dragging a deep freezer behind you, and then set personal bests coming back from the other direction. The wind has been impressive, and is just part of this part of spring around here, we are told.

The other day my lovely bride dropped me, because she’s better in the wind than I am, usually. I missed the turn she took, which added a few miles, which was fine. Eventually I found a road that looked familiar, and I turned on it, and this barn, which I’ve never noticed before.

Hey, look. here’s that same truck and tractor as before, but from the other side. With the direction the wind has lately been traveling, this is the fast direction.

And here’s another barn I found. This one was today. I was not lost this time. I’d actually paid attention to the route map and caught the left, which saved me about four miles. This was fine for time, but a shame since I wasn’t vainly pedaling into gale force winds.

After I got lost on the weekend ride I went up a road I know I have done in the mid-20s, but was struggling and straining to stay upright at 8.5 mph in the wind. Same road today? I wasn’t even thinking about it, my mind was anywhere but on the road or Henry the Vee, and I glanced down on that same stretch and my Garmin said I was doing 21 while soft pedaling. That’s the difference in no wind and Shakespeare urging it on. Blow, blow, thou spring wind.

The wind has been impressive, I think because we are close to the ocean and a river besides. We’ve been told it’s just part of spring around here in the open farmland.

I’ll take it.

Over on the other coast, things are nice and peaceful for this jelly, which lives at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This creature is definitely enjoying itself, and you should too. No reason necessary.

Relax. Enjoy. Repeat.

Happy Monday!

adventures / California / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off
8
Apr 24

The clouds eclipsed the eclipse

We did not check in on the cats last week, and don’t think I haven’t heard about it. They know they’re the most popular weekly feature. And they know, somehow, when I’ve written about them here.

They pester me incessantly when they aren’t here in their regular place.

Perhaps you’ve seen a demanding cat, but unless you’ve seen a demanding cat quite certain of their celebrity, you can’t appreciate what I’m dealing with here. Not really.

Phoebe will doze off on your knee, and it’s adorable, except for that moment you need to shift, move or get up.

But sleeping between layers of a fuzzy quilt is even better.

Not pictured, above, that guilt is folded over multiple times for maximum fluffiness, and is sitting on the back of the sofa.

These cats aren’t spoiled at all. Take it from Poseidon.

You’ll notice he’s not sitting on the sofa cushion, but on two different pillows on top of the sofa cushion.

He will, from time-to-time, sit up and watch a good police chase, however.

The person in that white truck evaded police, left the car and snuck into the woods, trying to mingle with a little encampment there. The police figured it out pretty quickly, though. Poe was there for the whole thing, though. I don’t know why he likes car chases so much, but they do captivate him.

At any rate, we remind them of their many comforts whenever they try to be sneaky, themselves, and bolt for the door.

I snuck outside to look at today’s eclipse. We were not in the totality, which every celestial mechanic expert on the web can tell you about today. But we were due something like an 81 percent endarkening. Except there was the little matter of the forecast. Clouds.

Except that, this afternoon, the clouds did not gather in their masses. There were some low, fluffy white clouds and so we were confident that we would see the thing we aren’t supposed to look at. And then, at precisely the appointed time (have you noticed everyone in the media kept saying “scheduled,” as if our people had talked to the sun’s people and we found a time that worked for everyone?) the clouds moved in. All of the clouds.

So I saw nothing of the eclipse, even though I broke out the eclipse-protecting eye wear.

After which I went to class, because you might as well see if anyone else saw the thing. One student, I know, drove to Ohio to see the big event. I guess I’ll find out, from him, how it was next week.

The purple-leaf sand cherry (prunus x cistena) is coming into its own. It’s a shrub you can’t miss; it’s right by the garage and easy to admire.

Saturday we went to the local Tractor Supply to buy a bunch of seeds.

In the parking lot there we met this guy. Chipper fellow. Quick with a joke, said he was from another town up the highway, but was very complimentary of the people he’d met today. Said they were real neighborly. Small town vibes around here. We made a nice little donation to ChildHelp and felt good about all of the seeds and soil we got, besides.

The Yankee put the seeds in the soil while I returned to grading things. Now we’re just waiting on the vegetables to appear. Maybe tomorrow.

After that, we made a fire in the fire pit. I mention it only to point out the way the smoke was escaping through this one piece of wood.

But don’t take my word for it. There’s video.

If we’re not careful we’ll develop a slow motion video habit, but I’m pretty sure my audience has moved beyond such basic tricks.

Besides, you’re here for the peaceful videos, right? Here’s another minute of the Pacific Coast Highway you can enjoy from our recent trip to central California.

Relax. Enjoy. Repeat.

And have a great start to your week. Much more interesting stuff to come here every day, including more California videos, so do be sure to stop back by.

Monday / photo / site / video — Comments Off
1
Apr 24

Light up your path, and strew it with flowers

We had a lovely Easter with family. There were … let me count … 15 people in a house where four grew up. And then six more people came over. There were eggs to hunt in the backyard for the little kids, family photos in the front yard and football in the street. Ham and football, that’s what is done.

I threw two touchdown passes and scored another on a trick play. It helps when the receiver you’re throwing the ball to doesn’t know how to drop the thing. The first time I let the ball go and said, “Nope, that’s over her head,” and she caught it. The second was a timing pass that was out of my hand before she made her cut on the ol’ flag route. It just landed in her hands and looked like it refused to leave.

If you need a teammate, pick a field hockey player, that’s what I decided.

Some of the kids hid eggs for a few of the adults and I don’t remember that being as stressful as it was. We each had a color to find, which is a great idea for kids spread from 3-16. I had to find yellow eggs and so I watched everyone else to see if they’d bend down and not pick up an egg. Waiting for an “Ah-ha! Oops, not my color moment.” It was not a winning strategy.

The kids did great, though. Inside their eggs was money. Change here. A single there. Someone made a map of all of the eggs and presumably there was a degree of difficult to the Easter wealth redistribution plan.

We had ham, which was delicious, and I never really get, and so Easter dinner was a test of How much of this can I get before people notice? But there was also ice cream cake, so it worked out just fine.

We were, of course, the last ones to leave. We have to work on that, as a skill set, but the company is so pleasant sometimes you don’t want to.

And what a lovely Easter weekend it was. Saturday we spent a large part of the afternoon outside. It was perfect weather for …

We have many trees. They shed many branches. Bits of the tree cast off for the greater good, aided by wind and rain and now sitting about everywhere on the property. At first I despaired. They shed many branches. And then I remembered: we have a fire pit and fires need kindling. Now, those bits of the tree cast off for the greater good can serve us once more.

There are a lot of sticks. Just enough, in fact, to make you see the romance of self sufficiency, but not so many that you come to realize the harder work and challenges that can from time-to-time come with it.

It’s like playing at using the whole buffalo.

The forsythia out by the road looks splendid, and I just wanted you to know how elegant and beautiful it is.

I really do wish they stayed like that all year long.

Also, the humble, noble, sometimes underappreciated dandelions, Taraxacum officinale, have made their appearance. It’s a shame we won’t allow them to stick around. But, as you can see, they’re going to be in the way, eventually.

We lit the fire pit on Saturday night. Used some of those sticks, from above. Did not make the first dent in the pile of them, at all.

And when I say we lit the fire pit, this time I mean I did it. I got outside before my lovely bride, and so I could set things up. I used the drier wood, which I’ve been stacking in the greenhouse away from the other stuff, exposed to the most recent elements. The wood that we have here is old and seasoned and so the effort means little more than keeping the most recent rains off the graying splinter distributors, but that’s enough.

I put some pine straw down under a teepee-style arrangement of those sticks. Around all of that I built a log cabin-style stack of wood. I put two sparks on it, it wooshed to life and I was able to sit back and enjoy the blaze. If I don’t get outside first, I spend the next hour or so trying to bring efficient combustion to chaos.

The lesson is clear: let me build the fire.

This little sprig of moss is thriving in the dark behind the grill. I’m not even sure, now, how I noticed him. But I did, and so here we are. The light got in there just right and now this will soon wind up as one of the new banners on the blog.

Perhaps you’ve had a busy Monday, and you need to unwind. I have just the idea: take a brief vacation to the California coastline in this video.

Perhaps I’m the only one amused by slow motion waves. That’d be OK too. But on the off chance you like them, too …

And now, I must head over to campus and teach a class. Tonight we will discuss the battle for our attention online, and then I will try to keep the class’ attention while I introduce them to video editing via Adobe Premiere Pro. It is no one’s favorite class, but it figures into the rapidly approaching final for this class. So a remarkable thing happens. We all learn to love it.

California / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off
25
Mar 24

Lucky for that

How was your weekend? It was a laid back few days around here, which was perfect. Every weekend between now and the end of time is booked up, so I took the restful days and counted myself lucky for the opportunity. And then something came up and one of our upcoming weekend plans change, and I’m lucky for some of that, too.

This week is laid out. There’s a lot to do, but it is all manageable. Most of my time will be devoted to … dramatic pause … grading. Tonight, in fact, one class is taking a midterm. I’ll score those tomorrow. Other classes have written assignments to work through. They take longer. But, by Friday, it’ll all be under control because the week is just long enough to accomplish these goals. And when I get done on Friday, I’ll have just enough time to prepare a lecture for Monday, and start grading additional assignments. It’s a cycle, like laundry.

But it is great! The thing that’s fun about grading subjective work, like written assignments, is that, I can offer some constructive feedback. It’ll help the students, if they read it. That’s always an open question, though. Have I convinced you of the value to read the 600 words I’ve written about your 500-word assignment?

We haven’t checked in on the cats in a few weeks. It’s the site’s most popular weekly feature, and I’ve been negligent. And don’t think Phoebe hasn’t noticed, because she has noticed.

Poseidon does not care. He just wants some attention. Everything else is fine if you’ll pet him or let him sit with you, or allow him to go through a door he’s not allowed beyond. Everything else is just fine if you’ll only notice him constantly.

The kitties, as you can tell, are doing well. The birds are working their way back to the feeder strategically placed near one of their cat trees, and so interest has picked back up on the window views. Phoebe gets milk and Poe gets attention, and so everything is just great with the cats.

Just beyond the bird feeder, that camellia I recently discovered is looking great.

You wouldn’t believe how many flowers this thing will produce.

There are several different varieties of camellias, and I have yet to figure out which one this is. But, an important part of the fun of this place is the discovery.

I showed you another video from this same place on Friday, but there’s still plenty to discover at Spooner’s Cove, a part of Montana de Oro State Park, near Los Osos, California.

I figure I have something like two dozen more California videos to share, so we’ll get a good two or three weeks out of it. Vacations should just be drawn out like that, we’d all be lucky for that, too.

adventures / California / Monday / running / SCUBA / video — Comments Off
18
Mar 24

We’re back! Somehow …

We made it back from California. We were only a little late, but that worked in our favor. But that’s getting ahead of things.

I had two days worth of taco lunch, on Thursday and Friday. Also, on Friday, I did a little two-mile run. That’s two runs this week, and my first two runs of the year. I’ve been spending my time, of course, putting in base miles on the bike. All of which allows me to find ways to get to this old saw: When I see a person riding their bike, I always think, ‘Man, I wish I could ride my bike right now!’ I have never, ever seen anyone run and think, ‘Man, I wish I could go for a run right now!

My run was to the drug store. I should have bought some painkillers for my little run, but the purpose was to get some contact solution. I could have gone to a CVS four-tenths of a mile away, but that’s not a run. Not really.

Anyway, the first run this week was 1.5 miles on a beach boardwalk. This run was downtown, which is a run that, despite the red light, green light, wait for a clear intersection nature of it all, felt like it could go on for forever. Maybe those occasional breaks were why it felt that way.

I saw a bunch of friends, which was delightful. I bumped into a former coworker, who is about to leave the place where we met. She told me how difficult things have become there, which is unfortunate. But she’s excited for what’s next for her, starting next fall, which is exciting. She’s been stretched thin, it appears. Added duties, administrative issues and so on. It all sounds not good. I said, When you get there, and you’re doing just the work you’ve been hired for, the work you want to do, it’ll be a big improvement. And you will have earned that. You’ll just have to be let yourself come to realize that fact. When you do, you’re going to remember how to enjoy all of this again.

Sometimes, I sound like a sage.

The Yankee’s two presentations at the conference were great. Interesting research abounded throughout the conference, none more so than hers. We had a great dinner on Saturday night. On Sunday morning, we were up and out early. To the airport, Jeeves!

This is what happened next. The Los Angeles city government conspired to ruin everything. We’d received an email on Saturday from the car rental people warning us that construction between their lots and the airport was slowing everything down. Arrive early, they suggested. We did. Returning the car was easy. The shuttles to the airport were non-existent, stuck in traffic somewhere around wherever. This, despite an early morning flight, backed up customers at the rental car lot. On the third bus, we were able to board the bus. The driver was awesome, but she was flabbergasted. The construction project had reduced the lanes to the international airport to a minimal level. After a long, long, long time on the bus, we just got off and ran the last mile and change, backpack and suitcase in tow. (So look! Three runs in one week!)

After which, the federal government conspired to make it worse. At Terminal 5 at LAX, there are two TSA agents tasked with the important job of checking driver’s licenses. Yesterday morning, there was a man and a woman on the job. Around two corners — not counting the serpentine crown lanes — I managed to get in the woman’s line. This was good! The man’s scanner was barely working, which meant that every third passenger or so he had to walk over and borrow the woman’s gear. The woman, for her part, left her duty station three times. The time was ticking. And I missed the boarding window.

Fortunately, my flight crew was stuck in the nightmare outside, as well. And that was the only way I made that plane. When the first part of security theater had been satisfied and my ID was finally checked, an older woman came to the front of the line, asking if she could go ahead. Her flight was leaving in eight minutes and so on and so forth. Everyone was in this boat, I was sure of it. The TSA agent said she’d have to ask permission of everyone in front of her to cut the line. I knew my flight crew was still trying to fight their way in, so I invited her to break in line in front of me. With one authoritatively dismissive tone, I convinced the dismissive ID experts that she was with me.

At the take walk-around-in-your-socks portion of the security, the old woman said she’d lived here for 40 years and she’d never seen it like this. She said she, too, ran from the road. She said she was 75 years old.

She had time to tell me all of these things because the scanner image specialist left his duty station twice.

“Safety,” one of them tiredly said over and over, “is my priority.”

Somehow that explains why people kept leaving their posts.

Anyway, we made the plane, but I only made it because the flight crew had trouble getting in.

The flight was fine. Long, but short. Seemed to take an entire day, especially with jumping three time zones. On the other hand, we flew across the entire nation. Lunch was airport food on the plane, chewing quickly, hoping to avoid cooties. Dinner was from a rest stop Shake Shack at 11:30 p.m. But, hey, it’s milkshake season.

It was a great trip. Our only problem over the whole trip, as it turned out, had to do with getting home.

I have a lot of video from the trip, and that’ll be something I dole out over the next however long that takes. But I’ll give you a hint.

Come back, or better yet, subscribe to the RSS feed for many, many more videos from the Pacific Coast.

I shot, I dunno, maybe 15 or 20 videos that will just be Peacefully Enjoy The Moment videos. I suppose that speaks most of all to how pleasant the trip was. But I haven’t counted how many videos I have, so I’ve no idea how many and how long we’ll enjoy from that trip.

For example, I’m still adding video from our New Year’s diving trip. This one just has a lot of fish, and then a barracuda with great camera sense.

I’ve probably got a few more videos from that trip, and then maybe I’ll just pull out some single shots for posterity’s sake. Video runs never really end here, but this post must. I must finish my prep for this evening’s class.