And that’ll be the last of it, one way or the other. It is a sad thing in its own way, which I didn’t expect.
Also I snuck up on Allie and took this picture:
And she was completely oblivious when I took this one:
So I discovered yesterday that the cat likes graham crackers. Of course she likes graham crackers.
Finally, I ran in a fundraiser 10K yesterday. The Yankee did the 5K and I did the last half with the uncle of a friend of ours who was in town. He heard about this run and thought, “Hey, I’m retired, let’s impulsively run a 10K in jeans!” And he did. I want to be like him one day.
I finished second in my age group. I got an ornament and a gift card.
journalism / Monday / Samford — Comments Off on I want to ‘complain’ about some of my students 16 Nov 15
While we followed the horrible news from Paris last night our news editor learned that 11 Samford people were in the City of Light. (All are safe and accounted for.)
Naturally, she went to work, writing about that story. This made me read copy on a Friday night and fire off a few salvos of emails. And then they interviewed one of those people Saturday and wrote more. So I had to read that and write another few emails, praising our staff, advising them, giving them (hopefully) helpful ideas for their coverage. And now they’ll go talk to more of them, and all of this will no doubt repeat itself. Because a news editor, an English major who wants to work in museums, cares an awful lot about doing it right.
This happened on their Friday night and over the course of their weekend. This was in addition to their regular school week and the other jobs some of them have. It happened after they were in the newsroom until 2 a.m. on Wednesday morning putting together a newspaper and then spent three hours with me, until 9 p.m. on Wednesday night, talking about that issue. And they’ll do it all again tomorrow and Wednesday.
You have to be dedicated to work with student-journalists, because they are incredibly dedicated to their jobs. They care about their community and their pursuit of good journalism. Sometimes that means they work every day. Would that more did. Student-journalists don’t often get the credit for it that their output deserves, but it is gratifying to work with students so invested in the work they are doing, beyond the normal scope and scale in which they work.
memories / Monday / photo — Comments Off on Memory week photos, day one 9 Nov 15
It was fun showing off old photos last week and following them down memory lane. So let’s do that this week. As far as I can recall, I haven’t published these pictures anywhere. We’ll try to do a theme for the week. These are all about signs or words.
Here’s two now.
The first one is a sign that shows you the Homer Spit in Alaska.
The Homer Spit is a 4.5 mile long geographical landmark on the southernmost tip of the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. You’ll find docks for hundreds of boats, camping, fishing, eagles and the longest road into ocean waters in the entire world, taking up 10–15 minutes to cover by car. In 1899 a railroad track connected the docks to the coal fields on the bay and that helped built the town. The 1964 Alaska earthquake shrank the spit and killed most of the vegetation. Today it is mostly gravel and sand and tourism fronts.
We were there with Jessica and Adam and the bald eagles. A few of the hills and the eagle that shows up in the banner here on the site are from the Homer Spit or nearby.
Have you been to one of those restaurants where people stick their money on the wall and write a clever message?
In this restaurant there was currency from all over the world. That was one of the more clever ones.
Brian came down this weekend. He pronounced the scoreboard large:
That’s been the attraction this year. The football team has struggled and continues to do so. They got outpaced in the second half by Ole Miss on Saturday. Can’t move the chains, kicking a lot of field goals, struggling to stop talented teams. It doesn’t feel like 4-4, but that’s what the record says.
But that scoreboard! And the eagle flights, of course. Here’s Spirit’s flight from before the game. Note the alternating sections of orange and blue. Looked pretty good on TV, I’m sure.
I just threw that video online without slapping a URL or any other branding on it. How daring! We walked up just in time to get a good spot near her cage, obviously. And then you can see she went all over the stadium. Spirit resides at the Southeast Raptor Center. He has a beak problem that requires regular maintenance, so she’ll always live there and do cool shows and flights like this.
What is interesting to me, the second and third time I watched that video, is the camera work of the production staff. I shot that on my phone, so the lens is wide and has practically no focus. But they’re following her all over the stadium. (When I lose her, just look at the giant scoreboard.) They do a nice job of keeping her in the frame too.
Hey, this is a wild animal. She can, and has, gone all of the places except the ones you expect.
It is a cool thing to see. Scoreboard isn’t bad, either.
cycling / Monday / photo / weekend — Comments Off on James Bros Bikes Breast Cancer Awareness ride 26 Oct 15
Thirty miles in pink jerseys. Mine came direct from Poland. This event was hosted by our local bike shop and started and ended at the state park near home. So naturally we were going to ride. Here’s Ren before the start:
The course took us over a lot of familiar roads. That’s one of the things that happens when you’re riding a local event. It also took us on a few roads we don’t ride enough. That’s also one of the things that happens when you’re riding a local event.
Striking a pose:
Not to worry. That’s on a long, straight flat road with high quality asphalt that we ride all of the time. Excellent sight lines and no one was coming either direction. Also, she’s a graceful artist.
Here we are posing after the ride. Lot of fun with some familiar faces and around some great roads and scenery for such a fine cause.
At the end I rode up the big hill in the park and then we pedaled home. It was a fine ride.
