Not to intrude on Catember, but this is the pup we visited with this weekend:
We were down near Louisville, where The Yankee was riding on the Ironman bike course. So we crashed with the family. And this is my step-sister’s dog.
He is a good pup.
And then on the way back to the house yesterday, we drove by these corn bins in Orleans, Indiana.
It is a small township named after … the Battle of New Orleans, which had taken place just two months before this area was surveyed for a town. Some 2,100 people live there, and they bill themselves as the dogwood capital of the state. John Stetson, the maker of the hats, had a house here. His wife, Elizabeth Shindler, was from Orleans and he had the place built. They call it the house that love built. And Samuel Lewis, who would go on to become important in Texas history, spent some time there as well.
Sometimes wide spots in the road are more than just wide spots.
links / Monday / television / video — Comments Off on Here are a few things for you to check out today 18 Sep 17
Is your NFL quarterback bad? You’re not alone. Here’s a sports show that the students produced late last weekend and aired yesterday:
If you’re not ready to get back to work, but would rather spend this time thinking of your entertainment diversions, perhaps you’ll enjoy this read. How AI will disrupt sports entertainment networks:
Whether you’re training to run a marathon or gearing up for a marathon of binge-watching TV, both athletes and casual sports fans can benefit from advances in sports video. Due to its widespread appeal, high demand, and abundance of related data, sports video is a prime candidate for innovation. Cognitive technology is teed up to enhance the viewer experience and maximize advertising revenue. What’s more, AI technology can disrupt the game itself. Here are the three main players in sports broadcasting that stand to gain the most from cognitive advancements in video technology …
Read that and realize, the future of spectator sports is going to offer you something different, for sure.
I love stories like that, the ones that tell us about the future. I especially like the ones that tell us about the future we’re enjoying right now. You see those a lot in medicine, of course. And we think, Wow, that’s some impressive development or maybe This is going to be so important for my neighbor who is dealing with this. We seldom ever think about the real people on the other side of the equation.
When we finally arrived, my mom’s flight was about to leave in 15 minutes, Emily’s and my flight was going to leave in 45 minutes, and in front of the counter to pick up tickets was a long, long line. And, of course, we had our suitcases. My mom was carrying hers, and she was already fairly frail.
So Emily and my mother and I were standing in the line, and I said, “Mom, can you make it down to your plane on your own?” Bear in mind, there were no checkpoints in those days, but there were, of course, very long corridors.
She said, “No.”
So I said to Emily, “I’m going to need to go with Grandmom down to her plane.”
And my mother shrieked, “You can’t leave that child here alone!” (Fair enough.)
Suddenly this unmistakable voice above and behind me said, “Emily and I will be fine.”
And you’re going to need to read the whole thing and the part I’ve left you is a terrific tease.
It is a great read. You’re going to want to read it.
IU / Monday / photo / Twitter — Comments Off on I do the photographic Don’ts – sometimes on purpose 11 Sep 17
I delivered a lecture on photojournalism composition to a graduate class today. So we talked about the rule of thirds and margins and the golden ratio and visual storytelling and all of that.
My favorite section — after Step 1.) Removing the lens cap — is the Don’ts section. Don’t do grip and grin shots. Don’t shoot buildings. Don’t put people right up against a wall. Don’t let mergers creep into your shots. Don’t do the Facebook photo poses. You know, the let’s all get together and squat down, or throw fists on hips or, my favorite, just stand in front of a thing. It’s good for Facebook, not so much for the work you’re trying to do here. I show the students, who are always paying close and careful attention, several examples. I used this one of my mother-in-law for the Facebook photo:
Also, I need a haircut.
Yesterday’s sports talk show from the sports talk guys:
We’ve been in this weird debate off-and-on over much of the last year about whether there is anything redemptive in sports. I really think it started as the slight souring of one person’s opinion until that person saw it was getting a reaction out of people. And when you get a reaction, of course, you go all the way with it. So this conversation has morphed and twisted and disappeared and reappeared several times over the last year. And it has done so to the point where The Yankee and I will be watching some sporting event or reading some athlete’s story and she looks at me and says “SEE!?”
Like I’m the one that offered the offending opinion. I was not. Sports are silly, but there’s plenty of redemption in them. Redemption is sort of the theme of many sports, and one of my favorite humanistic themes in general. And while the following anecdotes, all from this glorious, long weekend, don’t really offer redemption, they do tell the tale of worth in sport. I commend them to you:
This is anything but a regular PAT.
Jake Olson, blind since age 12, just snapped for the first time in a live game. https://t.co/amyHcFoVue
Ray Watts and meddling Bama trustees can go hide somewhere. UAB football had to come back for Tim Alexander. This is beautiful. https://t.co/zjeuT00s3p
… for about seven years now. It is a nice view. You understand the topography differently. You learn to be patient with yourself. You see the world at a different pace than you do from behind the windshield. And you see some things, too. Turkeys and deer and people doing odd things and strange sites you just might overlook when you’re moving at car speeds. Why, just last Friday three separate people — all supposedly adult human beings — walked right in front of my bike’s path over the course of a five mile stretch of my life. (I’ll bet you a dollar that happens at least once again tomorrow, because why look both ways when crossing the street. EDIT: It did.) And then Friday ended with a big truck whose driver couldn’t hardly be troubled to demonstrate an appreciation for the dynamics of a four-way stop while I was in the middle of the intersection. He got a well practiced European reaction I learned from watching pros racing.
Granted, the four-way stop thing is problematical because the local K-Mart closed last year and, consequently, no one has any idea where they are supposed to get their driver’s license anymore. Plus, people aren’t always their best driving selves anyway. And I’ll grant you what is likely just a limitation of habit and the human brain and the internal filtering system: sometimes drivers just don’t see a cyclist because that 15-pound frame with a human on it isn’t a two-ton truck, which is what they are actually looking for. On a bike, then, you accept this, and you have to always be on guard for it, and aware of a lot of other road rage, silliness and stupidity, too.
Which brings us to yesterday. I was out and about, enjoying a nice slow day on the bike because some days have to be slow days and the weather was nice and you soak those in. I’m on a road that ends in a T-intersection. I take this route every day when I’m traveling to the house from the office no matter if I’m driving or riding. You go down a little roller and then up the other side and there’s the stop sign.
Yesterday, while I was on my bike, I reach that spot with three cars in front of me. One car goes and there are two cars in front of me. The second car goes and so it is just me and a Fiat. And this guy turns on his left blinker, so I go to the right, which is the direction I’m going to turn anyway. And then this guy turns right …
Almost flattened me. And for all of that I caught up to him at a red light a block later. If you know that guy, give him the what for for me.
