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We don’t talk only about the weather

Much of the country is under a heat dome, because heat wave just doesn’t focus group well. One of the local broadcast meteorologists here pointed out that we were at seasonal averages, and a change was in the air. I called him many, many names for the implication, but he’s used to that, being a broadcast meteorologist.

I’ve admired those people, worked with some of them, taught some more of them, and I feel for all of them. They make models and they’re sometimes wrong. It happens so much they are common jokes. You’re doing the punchlines right now. They work at all hours. And when the weather is really bad, it’s all hands on deck, and the greats stay on until the weather has moved on. Most stations will send out their reporters on days like that for the cliched stand up, but it’s the meteorologist who has to help find a place their friends and colleagues can get the story, but stay safe. That’s a huge responsibility, to say nothing of the way they all mentally take on that role for their community. But pity the poor meteorologist who sees something on the radar that justifies breaking into the soap operas or the big game.

I try to be understanding and appreciative of meteorologists, especially the really good ones, in most every thing they do on air. If you can name every small county road across the DMA, I’ll talk about you with the reverent tones a legend deserves. There’s just two things you can’t do. One of them is this: you can’t, in the summer, talk about the change of seasons.

Longtime readers will be able to figure out the second thing easily enough.

Anyway, the high today was 82 degrees.

My cycling computer is a Garmin 705, which is now pushing 15 years old. I bought it, used, a few years back, because it did all of the things I wanted at the time and it has basic maps, which could be useful. That could be a very useful feature just now since so many of the roads are new to me.

I tried to get to the maps part of the device a few days ago, mid-ride, but couldn’t remember how. Another day, I figured. I’ll only think of it when I’m well and truly lost. But, he said with confidence, there’s always the map on my phone. Problem with that is, I’d have to hold my phone. And the computer is right there, attached to the headset.

Anyway, something I noticed for the first time a ride or two ago is that while the unit of measure is tenths of a mile, the first tenth of a mile is displayed as feet. It ticks up 10 feet at a time, through the first 520 feet.

So it was that on today’s ride, while I was watching those numbers tick up 280, 290, 300, 310, that I knew right away that my legs didn’t have “it.” So little “it” did my legs have that I chased my lovely bride the whole time. So little “it” that she sat up and waited for me once. So little “it” that I decided to add on more miles to the ride, because I keep saying I need more rides, but I also need more miles. I will get my legs out of this unproductive funk.

So little “it” that I didn’t even take any photos or videos of the whole ride, but I did get a shot of the Garmin during those extra miles.

I’d just passed the grocery store and was about to go through the roundabout, just plodding along.

Somehow, despite having dead legs, I set PRs on two Strava segments. They were on roads I’ve only been on twice, and they only shaved a few seconds off the first ride.

I had a nice long Zoom chat with a new colleague this evening. The goal was to help get me up to speed on a class I’ll be teaching this fall. She was very kind to share the time, and generous with her thoughts and materials. Answered a bunch of questions, helped put me at ease and offered to help me throughout the semester. She invited me to come visit her classes, which was especially considerate.

The class will be even better because of that conversation, and I was grateful for the help.

Also, the chat gave me my first look at how my home office will play as a Zoom background. I’ve got nice evening light and a great depth of field. I just need to fix a few things in the background. But I’ve got ideas about that.

While I was considering those, after the chat, I noticed the last light falling on the door.

It stayed like that just long enough for me to turn around, grab my phone, pull up the camera app and compose a quick shot. Seconds later, the clouds rolled in front of the sun, and, disheartened, the sun slipped behind the trees. The meteorologist was off tonight. A different guy was on, and I couldn’t bear to hear it again. I’ll also pretend not to notice that the time stamp on the photo said 6:27 p.m.

This is the fourth installment in my tracking down the local historical markers. There’s an online database with 115 markers in the county, so we’ll be at this for a good while.

You can find them all under the blog category, We Learn Wednesdays. What will we learn about today?

The first stop is the Friends Cemetery, which is a few blocks up the road from the Friends Meeting House. The marker says …

Three African Americans are interred in this Friends cemetery.
From the records:

“Rachel Mintiss (Colored), wife of Andrew Mintiss was buried 5th mo. 8th 1846 on the hillside, near the 1st Row of the 2nd purchase.

Andrew Mintiss was buried 28th of 8th mo. 18?? on the left of his wife. Aged about 82 years.

Abigail Mintiss, widow of Andrew Mintiss was buried 31st of 1st month 1850 next to her husband.”

Andrew Mintiss and Abigail Atlee were married 16 September 1846. He died between then and late January 1850. The location of these unmarked graves remains unknown.

Find A Grave thinks Andrew Mintiss died somewhere between 1846 and 1852.

Some 2,500 others are buried there, including at least one Civil War veteran, a militia captain. In his portrait, he’s seated, bearded, holding a sheathed sword.

The Bassetts came over on the ship right after the Mayflower, and a few hundred years later, there was Howard. He studied dentistry, but became a farmer. He married Clemence not too long after the war. They had seven children.

The oldest recorded grave was a Quaker who lived and died a British subject. He was interred in 1773. It’s still an active cemetery.

Not too far away is the Russell G. Garrison Memorial Park. It was rededicated as a memorial and environmental park in 2017.

All of those men were locals who died in Vietnam.

One of the town’s busier thoroughfares runs right by the park, but there’s something tranquil about the place despite the road noise. There’s a large rain garden that features hundreds of native plants helping collect storm water and prevent run off. The parking lot has a porous asphalt and the whole place has an underground filtering system to deal with chronic flooding. There are signs explaining all of this, the rain garden and the owl houses.

The mayor says the park is part of a growing greenbelt around the town. I kinda want to see the rain garden in action. I guess I’ll have to pay closer attention to the meteorologist.

photo / Rowan / Tuesday — Comments Off
22
Aug 23

Fraught of feather, talk of talons, enchant of eyes

The mascot at Rowan is The Prof. He comes to life in the form of an owl named Whoo RU … because owls say “Who” and RU are the initials. Imagined in 1957, brought to life in 1959, and not made official until the 1990s — the idea of an underground mascot encouraging and antagonizing people for almost 30 years is hilarious — he is, like all costumed mascots, as dynamic or mediocre as the people involved with the project make him. But this, the first line about the mascot from the athletic department’s page, seems like a missed opportunity.

The Rowan University “Professorial Owl” has been a misunderstood yet deeply dynamic figure for 50 years. Not only does Rowan’s Prof promote the sports teams, but he has also, over the years, become a proud endorser of the student publications, campus events and all-around Rowan pride.

The biggest question from people, linked academically to Rowan or not, would have to be “What is a Prof?”

I’m not sure who named the character, or when, but I assume they were big fans of The Who.

(I really wanna know.)

Anyway, I decided today, on day two of orientation, that I would ask some big questions about this. Whoo RU, where are you?

That one was on a little handbill with useful contact information we received in one of the many sessions. This version was on, well, you can tell what he was on.

Whoo RU, where are you?

What’s going to happen a lot is that we’ll see a bunch of different owl logos meant to be evocative of Whoo RU, but only specific instances of the actual character because he’s limited to athletics. There are reasons for that, but I wonder if it diffuses, or reinforces, the brand in the long run.

Do you see a lot of alternate versions of Georgia’s Hairy Dawg or Florida’s Albert, or Puddles, the duck at Oregon? I don’t think so, but I could be wrong. Maybe you see them, but the costumed mascots are so iconic that your brain makes the leap without thinking about it. Call it “The mental shortcuts of things that don’t matter overmuch, not really.”

So I guess the question is, does the mascot have to be iconic to overcome that? Or is it enough that a mascot that is locally iconic? Or can a mascot that’s long been deeply misunderstood do it, too?

For what it’s worth, having not met Whoo RU yet, the cartoon owl holding a stack of books is pretty great. Is that meant to be Whoo RU, or an owl cousin with a backstory we just aren’t supposed to question? Whooever — see what I did there? –that library-going owl is, he looks ready to be the lead in a classic kids book.

Anyway, more orienting today. Full of truths, allusions to truths, helpful information and stuff that blows right by you. The thing is, if you gather a group of 50-some incredibly well trained people in disciplines representing all different disciplines that a college campus can offer, and those people are also at different stages in their careers, you’re going to find that they need different information. It’s a difficult event to program, but the programmers did a pretty nice job with it.

I didn’t have a welcome packet for some reason yesterday. The lady who does this sort of thing was a bit upset, concerned that I would be upset. I was deeply, passionately moved by this first impression. And I let her have it.

I said, “This is not my first impression, but I really must tell you, this leaves an impression. And the impression that it leaves is, I am not … ”

I didn’t say any of that, of course. It’s an easy oversight. There are a lot of moving parts. You don’t know how much goes into programming a three-day event that involves seven rooms in three-to-five buildings a day across a campus, involving dozens of people who watch their schedules like ~~a hawk~~ an owl, to say nothing of the catering and technology until you’ve done something remotely similar.

Several times, because it happens in medium-sized group dynamics, I ran into this nice lady. Each time she was apologetic. Finally, I made a joke that it was OK; I don’t need a name tag because I am working undercover.

She came up to me at lunch today with my gift bag and name tag. Inside the bag — a quality reusable bag which will haul groceries for me soon — was a water bottle, a folder with the schedule of events, a pen and a cool lapel pin. The name tag was blank. This, I thought, was a terrific joke in reply. I wore it with pride, that blank name tag.

Another good day, a long day. But the people were nice, the catered food was perfectly passable and the sessions were useful.

It brings the start of the fall semester another day closer, but this is the thing I’ve learned: I need more sleep. So, seeing that it is late, I’m going to give that a try.

adventures / books / cycling / Monday / photo / Rowan / swimming / video — Comments Off
21
Aug 23

I suddenly feel semi-oriented

In late May, I bought a new backpack. It arrived in a timely fashion, and I stowed it away in my office. Of course, as planned, not too long after that I didn’t need to use a backpack. But I needed a new backpack. The shoulder straps were growing threadbare. The little handle at the top, the one you use to pick the bag up if it is on the floor, was all busted up. A zipper on one small compartment was broken beyond repair. Most distressingly, the bottom of the main compartment has two growing holes.

Friction. Rubbing my belt. Riding my bike to work. Dragging it on the ground. Whatever it was, my laptop and the other items carried in there would soon be at risk. It was time.

But it was a good bag. Carried all of my things. Spacious. Plenty of pockets. Lasted years and years. I don’t remember exactly when I bought it, but I remember where and the circumstances. Call it 2013 or 2014. Anyway, it worked well for a long time for a bag I tend to carry most every day. So I got my money’s worth from the cheapest bag I could find at a small office store, the bag that I thought, at the time, was too expensive.

So I bought the same bag again.

Why reinvent the method of moving my things? Why lay out a new way of lugging things? Why set up a new system? Why establish a new packing paradigm?

Last night, I emptied the old bag, and put all of my things into their same spot in the new bag. My computer and two small notebooks in the main computer. A camera stick, some tabletop tripods and a microphone in the secondary pocket. A bottle of Advil and two handkerchiefs in a side pocket. Two ponchos and two garbage bags — for emergency poncho or any other number of uses — inside the other side pocket. A small assortment of Post-it notes, multicolored, a few pens and sharpies, a thin container of bandages. Two umbrellas, four masks and a thumb drive or two. All of it where it belonged, in the same spots, in the new bag.

I discovered three additional smaller pockets inside a medium pocket on the old bag while doing this.

This morning, I hefted the new bag on my shoulder for the first time. The straps are stiff and new. And, somehow, it feels heavier, even without a few extra pieces in it I didn’t need today. Probably, I’m out of practice: I have carried a great many heavy things recently, but I haven’t put a backpack on my shoulders since mid-June.

Today, though, we went to Rowan. First day of new faculty orientation. Three days of this. Some of it is very helpful. Some is aimed at new faculty and, hopefully, those people are getting a lot out of those elements. Everyone is excited and happy, it seems. Attitude is important. Passion is important. Students and the work are important. But so is your well-being. This was, largely, the theme the president, Dr. Ali Houshmand offered in his welcome address at the brunch this morning.

And so everyone there was happy. Enthusiastic. Deans from different parts of the campus complimented the programs in drastically different part of the campus. Most everyone that spoke made a special effort to point out how long they’ve been at Rowan, and how it’s still a wonderful experience. That’s great. Very encouraging. I hope that’s the case for everyone, and not something they were asked to say. Even a Q&A session, the sort which could easily turn into a grouse fest was particularly upbeat. Very encouraging.

At the end of the day there was a little outdoor mixer. We talked with our dean. I chatted with an associate dean, a fellow who came over to administration from political science. He said that, I glanced at my lovely bride and she smiled, because she knew that was a good 15, 20 minutes of conversation taken care of. And so it was! He talked about his previous research, the structure of American-style politics. I asked him if he missed that sort of work since he’d gone over to administration. Then I asked him about the new paper on Article 3 of the 14th amendment. He said he hasn’t read the paper yet, but he knew of it, and he had some thoughts. Everyone has thoughts about that paper.

My little name tag, meanwhile, of course says “journalism,” but there I was, talking poli sci. Then I remembered what was on my name tag, so I asked him some broader and philosophical questions. It was a fun conversation.

The mixer was winding down, so we went over to say goodbye to our dean. We ran into Houshmand, the president. And the three of us talked for about 20 minutes. He easily shows off his keen, innovative ways of thinking about higher education, and his passion for the place and the task at hand. It was a delightful chat. It felt, almost, like getting permission to do something you weren’t expecting.

It was the longest conversation I’ve had with a university president in all my years, on any campus. I hope we have the opportunity to have several more.

But enough about me, let’s get to why you’re really here, the site’s most popular weekly feature, checking in on the cats. Phoebe, it seems, has rediscovered this little buffet table. She presently seems intent on making the surface, the floor below it and the airspace around it, strictly hers.

Poseidon was a very good boy much of the weekend. Which is not a thing we can say a lot. He was also quite cuddly this weekend. These two things often coincide. But he just looked, last night, like he was planning his next mischief.

And the good traits, of course, were not to last. He’s been a jerk all evening to his sister.

Probably that’s why she’s staking out that table top.

I had a big bike ride on Saturday. My lovely bride had a longer ride scheduled, and those are (usually) my favorite ones. We have, on our last two rides, added some new roads, which is wonderful, because there are so many new roads for us to explore. Saturday’s adventure involved a road we’ve been on a few times, some others we’ve been on just once, and the back half of the usual, easy hour route.

It was a big ride in the momentous sense. We were only out for about two hours, but on the back end of the ride, indeed, right in that area of the last shot in the above video, I broke my record for the most miles pedaled in a single year.

It’s a humble record, comparatively so, but it’s a new high for me. And the best part is I did that in August — even if I am behind on my spreadsheet’s projections — there’s a lot of time to build the new PR.

Yes, I have a spreadsheet for this. It’s one of the only spreadsheets I like, because it is simple, but also because the numbers only go up.

We also spent Sunday afternoon outdoors.

I swam a mile. Well, I actually swam 1,700, but I discovered that Strava gives you a little message “Congratulations, this activity is your longest swim on Strava!” when you set a new mark.

I also discovered I like seeing that message. Generally, internet badges don’t mean much to me because they don’t mean anything, but seeing that little box is a nice bit of encouragement. I’ve had longer swims, but they were long before I began using Strava. And since I am not training for anything in particular right now, and my swim is my own, and because I like that note, I might just increase every swim in small increments, just so I can get that message a lot.

This might be why I’m not terribly efficient in a gym, pool or anywhere else where new standards can be set.

As for the swim itself, it was rather spontaneous on my part. Seemed like a good idea. My shoulders disagreed for 100 yards or so, but after I ignored them for a while, they gave in and performed slightly more efficiently for a while, and the laps clicked away easily. It was a nice feeling.

I also sat in the shade and read the first third of Eudora Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings (1984). Welty is from Jackson, Mississippi, is revered as an incredible talent, a giant of her generation, and, for reasons that I don’t recall, I’ve never read the first bit of work, probably just because I don’t read much fiction, and the loss has been entirely mine. Here she’s examining the differences between her and her brothers. They were the in their laughter, but their anger is where their differences came up.

This book emerged from three lectures she delivered at Harvard, and were eventually turned into this memoir. The three sections are titled “Listening,” “Learning to See,” and “Finding a Voice.” All of it is self-possessed, none of it all consuming. She’s painting a triptych, I think, showing her surroundings in this delicate, sweetly innocent way, filling in her surroundings to show what makes the great author.

It’s all eminently relatable.

It has to stay in the house. Can’t go in the new backpack; I might be tempted to reach for it in between meetings.

books / Friday / history / photo — Comments Off
18
Aug 23

I am onboard; I know where my towel is

With the viewing a lot of web videos and slideshows, I have now completed my onboarding process. I am onboarded. I only need to be welcomed aboard.

Speaking of which, there should be a form email in my inbox … oh there it is, right to the spam folder.

I had to forward that email to another email, as per the instructions of the ethics module. It was an hour-long slideshow telling you not to take gifts, and all of the things you can do, if you get special permission. It reminds me of a place I worked once that had very specific rules, the third rule in that old job you just knew showed up that high because someone was caught doing it and someone else realized Ya know, we don’t have a rule for that.

So the rules and the guidelines are all good. Some very specific. And there was a lot of time spent on whether or not you can own, manage or work in a cannabis shop. I don’t see myself owning, managing or working in a cannabis shop one day, but it’s nice to have the official guidance.

There’s always a specific story in the specifics.

There were some fun hypotheticals, the stories populated by characters with great names. My favorite was Paul Pushalot. There were two characters, though, that sounded familiar, both in name and circumstance. Familiar in a 1990s sitcom sort of way. Hopefully no producers with ties to ABC every watch that training module.

But, if they do, they’ll know about the cannabis store rules.

At the very end of the work week we took the garbage to the convenience center. (I wonder how long before I start writing that as the inconvenience center?) The gentleman that had to wait for us to drop off the recycling so he could close the gate behind us, on a Friday, wore the weary “I get home every afternoon at 5:08 and if it’s 5:09, the wife begins to worry” look on his face.

With that chore just barely done, the man checked his watch when we pulled in, I rinsed out the garbage cans back at the house. I considered how we can simplify the recycling paradigm. At the previous place the recycling center did containers for different kinds of glass, plastic, steel and aluminum. Here, it all goes into one bin. Maybe that means I don’t need to keep four big tubs in the garage. That would mean I have three extra tubs. I wonder what we could do with those.

Store tomatoes in them, probably. I brought in a great big armful again today. I’m enjoying so many tasty fruits that there is no way I can be dehydrated, or keep up. It is a great treat, though, to see all of the things that grow here.

We finished the first half of the seventh season (thanks Ronald Moore, for that silly innovation) of “Outlander” tonight. It took seven seasons for the characters to cover 30 years (and forget, mostly, about agin) and it’s taken an interminable amount of time for the show to work its way into the Revolution.

Daniel Morgan’s sharpshooters play a small part in these last episodes, as we have finally arrived at the Battle of Saratoga. Shows can’t show the full scale of battlefields, of course. Too expensive to have that many extras, and showing things as they were probably wouldn’t translate well to the format. But these guys were firing from 300 yards, at a time when volleys were effective at about 70 or 80 yards, and on TV it looked like close combat.

Also, Benedict Arnold is there. Now, in the show’s time in Scotland our protagonists rubbed shoulders with important people real and fictional. In France, they were in the king’s court for reasons I forget. And, in a Forrest Gump sort of way, they bumped into George Washington, when he was still that tall fellow from Virginia. The heroine is a mid-20th century time traveler of course — and I’m just here to see that explained; I’ve been assured it isn’t a coma, dream or aliens, but even as the characters are now trying to guess at understanding it, I am concerned about the resolution — but she’s British and only remembers the broadest strokes of the war in America.

Also, also, they keep running into other time travelers. Four that I can recall. All play bit parts and none add a lot to the story. Quantum Leap it ain’t. But there’s Benedict, calm and charming, personable, handsome, slight limp. They don’t give it away until you learn he’s a pharmacist, and then the limp becomes an editorial fixation. Later, some exposition clues in people in clever way what that guy’s story is, but Claire, the British protagonist brilliantly played by the Irish Caitríona Balfe, doesn’t know the details. She’s sure he must become a turncoat for the colonies to win the war, which is the side she and her main man are on. But the rest is … Why couldn’t a historian be a time traveler, you ask? Claire’s son-in-law is a historian, a 20th century Scotsman. When he went back to the past to chase his future wife he decided to become … a preacher. Not an especially good use of a unique skill set given where they were, but a delightful nod to the difference between the practical and the knowledgeable.

It reminds me of Arthur Dent, on Lamuella. You run across a backward planet and figure you could be running this place with your superior knowledge, skill and ambition, but then you realize the one thing you know how to do: you can make a really good sandwich.

Or, as Stephen Frye aptly said, “A joke about a small thing tells you a lot about a big thing, and a big thing turned into a small thing is just as true.”

So anyway, Claire knows Benedict Arnold has to, eventually, commit treason. Only know they are in each other’s orbits. And, eventually, she finds herself caring for him after a battlefield injury, and he confesses his anger. This part of the Arnold character is correct, though it seems like he isn’t intense here as he becomes in real life. Also, because our characters don’t know the real story of the man, they don’t know the audacity of this pharmacist as a military man.

I guess what I’m saying is that a series about Benedict Arnold and his upstate New York struggles could be fascinating. (They’d over-cast his wife.) Daniel Morgan, could he be a series? He deserves an anthology episode, at the least. Everyone knows Arnold’s name, even if they were never taught or read about the details. Morgan only comes up if you go to the battlefield, which is a shame, because his name should have passed into the common folklore. He is all over some of the specialty history books, the sort that dissect certain elements of that war, the sort I read from time-to-time. I’d suggest Washington’s Immortals and With Musket & Tomahawk as two I’ve read most recently. In the latter, Timothy Murphy gets a nice moment. In fact, one of the important sequences in that episode should have been highlighted as Murphy’s, but that’s TV for you.

I just realized I brought Douglas Adams into a historical fictional romance anecdote some 300 words back. That’s how you know when the rambling should stop. Belgium, it’s late.

(That makes sense. I probably won’t remember why when I traipse back upon this post in six years or whatever, but I promise, future me, that makes sense. It’s just really, really obscure.)

cycling / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
18
Aug 23

Another fine summer day

Today was a paperwork day. A small amount of important paperwork was … Worked? Papered? No matter which incorrect verb we use, it means three more things off the to-do list.

I’m also catching up on reading things. There are so many things to read. I am just under three months behind on one read, and eight years behind on another. There’s a lot of reading ahead. There’s always a lot of reading ahead. You welcome a challenge like that. And it’s all great stuff, too. No AI, no second-tier writers. Nothing I don’t want to absorb in some way. It’s a wonderful thing. There’s just … a lot of it.

The volume isn’t a problem. The problem, as ever, is what to consume next … and how in the world can you make a real dent in the stacks?

More and faster. That’s always the answer.

We had a lovely bike ride this afternoon. I titled it “One day my legs’ll surely come back.” I had four splits of 20+ mph, though. And I set three Strava segment PRs, the last one in the final moments of the ride, long after my legs had called it a day.

That was also a fair amount of time after this moment, which was the moment when my lovely bride dropped me for good.

At one point, one of the stronger parts of the ride, I thought I would need to sit up and wait for her. I’d had three big bursts in a row, over a stretch of road that favors my ride over hers. Then I looked over my shoulder and she was right behind me.

Later, on a stretch that should have favored neither of us, it was all I could do to stay on her wheel. I knew early on I was going to be way off the back. It happens from time-to-time. Just settle in and enjoy the view.

One thing I saw was on a new-to-us road. (Most of them are new to us.) On a bit of straight road that went over the freeway, there was a beautiful little side road, veering off at a 45-degree angle. It was quiet, and tree lined and tree-covered. I don’t know where it goes, but

I love all the different styles of field irrigation farmers use. I wish it was the sort of thing that I knew more about. Some of these rigs have signs, though, and I’m eventually going to look them up. Maybe I can become a Wikipedia-level expert.

There was a rainbow there, but I missed it.

Didn’t miss all of this hay, though. How could you? That’s a lot of winter food for the livestock.

Later, after my heart rate returned to normal, I picked the day’s tomatoes. We now have to bowls worth to eat. Plus all of our peaches!

I had four smaller peaches today. I lost count on the number of tomatoes.

They’re a paperwork filing super fruit!