Monday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Monday

cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off
28
Apr 25

Three great rides

I went out for a little bike ride on Saturday, the best sort of ride, the kind where there’s no route, no plan at all, and you just find out what happens. This is much more fun than estimating a time or distance, and far more fun than the normal enterprise of planning a route. Saturday I just went … that way.

And so I went by the historic haunted house and past the church and down the three stretches of a road named after a town which was named after a plantation. From there, I turned left. Part of this road I know, in the reverse direction, because it is one of the regular routes. But I did not turn onto either of those two roads. I just kept going passed this barn.

There were clouds in the sky, something to keep an eye on, but i was going in another direction.

Over this way, for example, we had beautiful skies. And so I just kept pedaling. I contemplated alternated lefts and rights, but figured I would be sure to mess that up on the way back.

I just kept going straight, because the road allowed for it. Passed the houses and the woods and the cattle.

At some point I passed a “Now enterting” county sign. I hadn’t even realized I’d left the county, but now I was back. I’d been riding a straight line, but it was maybe a circle?

Maybe that explains the thunder, and then the rain, and possibly the small hail. It was raining, hard; I was 20 miles from home and who knows where this misbehaving storm cloud was headed.

I turned around, laughing, and started back. I had to do about two miles in the rain, but dried out for the last hour or so in the sunniest weather possible. It was 40 miles, round-trip, and at one point I went 11 miles without seeing a car.

And that’s how a spontaneous trip becomes a planned route. I’ll be doing that again.

Sunday afternoon I did the now-usual 15-mile route. I met this tractor near the house.

Nice of the guy to wave. Then, on the way back, I passed another tractor. This one was tilling right by the side of the road.

And that guy waved, too.

Me and my shadow are quite popular, sometimes.

Today’s ride was one of the standard 21-mile routes. (We have two of those.) And in this ride, an oddly misshapen rectangle, I encounter a dozen stop signs, seven turns and two railroad crossings. I did not have to put my foot on the ground the first time.

That’s a great ride, too.

adventures / art / cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off
21
Apr 25

Scenes since we last talked

Just a few shots that I captured over the last week, in the moments between doing the work that helps keep the lights on.

Walking the grounds, I enjoyed discovering the blooms on this little guy. But the tree refuses to stay in focus. But I almost got close once.

I wonder what this farmer is spreading here. Surely not nitrogen, that field is green a-plenty.

This will be a field full of delicious … something … let’s say strawberries … eventually. I’ll go back by there when the covers are off and try to figure out what they’ve planted.

I bet you never wondered if grazing cattle eat with any more urgency when they notice the sun is going down. I bet you’ll wonder about that now.

I recently got a new helmet. (I was due a new helmet!) And so my mother offered to get one for my birthday. (Wasn’t that nice of her?) This is one of the higher rated models according to the famous Virginia Tech lab that does these things, and, it’s a handsome looking piece of head wear.

It goes with just about anything, and let’s be honest, style matters as much as aerodynamic properties, and at least as much as “safety.”

Here’s the right side view.

And here’s the left side view.

Aero though it may be, it still doesn’t make me faster than my lovely bride. At least it didn’t on this ride. Have you ever been well and truly dropped right after taking a photograph. I have. (Again.)

(Notice her helmet has the name on it. Wear your helmets, kids, no matter if they are fashionable or branded.)

Maybe I’ll be faster on our next ride together.

Speaking of fashion, my Easter look.

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.

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31
Mar 25

Cherry blossoms

We went to Washington D.C. on Saturday. It was a warm spring day, the sort that promises a lot of mugginess in the capital. It was peak cherry blossom season. Everyone knew it. So crowded.

This was the first time I’d been to D.C. since this monument was installed. It has a commanding view. And as you walk around the sculpture, it seemed the expression changed.

It’s also much taller than I’d imagined. But that’s as it should be.

Once you’d elbowed people out of the way, you got some nice views.

I kid, of course. Everyone was having a lovely time. Snippets of conversation floated through the air, like the kites flying everywhere, and the blossoms as they fell to the ground. I picked up sticks, because you never know when you’ll need a bit of cherry wood.

We walked down to the mall. The monument in the background, and perhaps the one place the capitol building doesn’t demand your attention.

We met my god-sister-in-law (just go with it) and her brother for dinner. We were all in town for a concert. Usually, I put up a lot of these, but I put up a lot of these. This was the really touching moment. A show that’s being discontinued — because of its themes of inclusiveness, perish the thought — got two nights of attention, in the Friday show and the Saturday show, and they sang with Guster and the National Symphony Orchestra.

Artists, man.

But that was only part of the weekend! More tomorrow!

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

Back to school

Back to class today, where I continued our conversation from before the break. We’d been talking about journalism and disinformation and misinformation. So, today, I showed them this video.

I reminded them of a previous reading we’d had that compared mass media in the U.S. and Europe. It was a shortened version of a very important study from 20 years ago which, among other things, examined the strengths and weaknesses of each. And one of the strengths of the media in Europe, according to the author, is the robust public media you find in most countries there. We’ve never had a comparatively robust public media here. (To be sure, there are strengths on our side of the pond, too.)

Then I shared some tips for discerning a content producer’s credibility.

And then we talked about pink slime sites, which is always an eye opening conversation.

And I’m doing the springtime tradition of wearing the alma mater’s colors during their basketball tournament run.

I got photobombed, of course. Is it still a photobomb if you have to take the photo again to specifically create the photobombing?

Anyway, high quality tie, classic vintage lapel pin. School spirit for the number one seed. Rah.

The two cats that matter the most probably won’t be too worried about basketball. But they are intent on their weekly appearance here since, once again, I neglected to show them off last week.

Phoebe would like her closeup.

Look at that little freckled nose!

Poseidon, meanwhile, looks like he’s getting booked for some offense. Probably he should be.

If he’s not doing something wrong he’s working real hard at charming you into forgetting what he’s done wrong.

So the kitties are doing well. And we are doing well. And my sinuses are doing especially well! Last week my lovely bride caught a face full of winter and leaf dust and it set her back for a few days. She’s recovered. And on a Saturday phone call my mother asked how my nose was doing, ’tis the season and all. It was fine. But then, last night, the burning, itchy throat thing started. So I’ve got all of that to enjoy this week.