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4
May 13

We haven’t bested 72 in a week

OK, I’ll complain about the weather this much: “Tomorrow morning temperatures will drop into the 38-42 degree range.”

Checking my elaborately Photoshopped gag gift calendar … yes, I see that this is May.

In Albany, NY, where Maine is playing baseball today, it is sunny and 75. We haven’t seen 75 in a week. It is 57 right now. The high temperatures for Auburn on this day in this century: 80, 78, 82, 69, 71, 84, 82, 79, 77, 84, 70, 84 and 60.

I’ve seen snow in the Deep South in April. But I’m pretty sure I’ve never huddled under a blanket in May. This is a strange season.

Also, it is rainy.

The baseball game was delayed from the afternoon until the evening. So that meant even cooler still. Which wouldn’t have been so bad itself, but for the continual drizzle and threat of rain. And, also, it is May.

By the end of the night you could see your breath in the air.

But it was a quality baseball game:

The coach called it magical dust in one interview and said in another “I don’t know what works and what doesn’t work – just try to put guys in different spots.”

Whatever gets you into postseason play.

Today the high was 61. Tomorrow will be about the same, overcast, unseasonably cool and curiously devoid of any hints of spring. Mostly I just miss my friend, the sun.

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28
Apr 13

Catching up

The Sunday post of extra pictures. Look at all these neat snapshots! Marvel at the stories they tell! Forget there’s no real content here on Sundays!

Two guys coming back in from their ride yesterday. They still had a 5K to go. Check out the guy in the front. He’s already out of his shoes:

Two more racers wrapping up their ride:

Random self-portrait at the hotel elevator:

And the message on the inside of the elevator door. Why do people throw away their children?

And now a series of bicycles I found myself admiring at the race. These first three triathlon bikes were built by Felt, which is the same maker of my humble little bike:

As much as I do love love Felts, there’s just something about the Cervelo that I’m drawn to. This P2 has a nice aero setup:

Another sharp looking P2:

Clearly they are popular bikes:

This is the P2C, one of the winningest pro bikes around. This is about a 2008 model:

The current top of the line, the Cervelo P5. It wins Ironmans, the U.S. Time Trials and the Giro d’Italia. This one has electronic shifting, which is apparently the way to go:

Here’s a 2011 Kestrel Talon carbon triathlon setup.

A surprisingly sharp Trek tri bike:

Want the best in Swiss cycling? Here’s the BMC TM01. This’ll run you about $14,000:

Finally, at the massage tent they had a signing sheet. Here are the various complaints people were listing:

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27
Apr 13

Race day

Time for The Yankee’s big race. Today marked her second aquabike and the first of the season. We were up before sunrise and out at the race site hours before the sun finally appeared. It was gray and cloudy and the water was cold, but she was swimming. Better her than me.

This is the starting line. All the different color swim caps mean different race groups:

This is the first guy out of the water. He was moving very fast:

Here’s The Yankee’s heat. She’s somewhere up front:

A few minutes later came out of the lake after her 600-meter swim. It was a short run up to the transition area:

She’s off on her bike for a quick 13.8 mile ride. She’d pass these other ladies right away:

Meanwhile, here is the amateur group starting their race. This group also includes the handicapped competitors. Imagine swimming around a lake hauling a floating raft and then biking and running around the town. Those guys were awesome and their teammates were all smiles:

Remember that first guy out of the water? Here he is back from the cycling leg and getting ready to run. He isn’t even in the park yet, let alone the transition area. Look at his feet:

He’s already out of his shoes. He’ll hit the transition area and then sprint off for his 5K, which he’ll finish in about 18 minutes. It is a sprint triathlon, after all. Here’s the first woman back in from her bike leg:

Not too much later The Yankee came back in after a great ride around John Tanner Park:

And all of that earned her some bling. Here’s her silver:

After the awards we packed up, hit Chick-fil-A on our way out of town and got home in time for a nap.

Her medal is hanging over the sink which means, I think, that I’m doing the dishes for the next several days.

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25
Apr 13

Man in the morning

The Yankee showed me this last week:

It took me a long time to come around to the idea that the anchors were still on the air as they completely lost their composure over what has to be the dumbest interview they’ve done in a while.

And then we watched the first episode of this guy’s show the other night. Surely, I thought to myself, there are more interesting Olympians. Smarter Olympians. But the existence of this show suggests otherwise.

It is a good thing, I’ve told people who brought this show up, that he swims really fast.

We had dinner with a large group of people here:

It is one of those places where the door handle is an elaborate set of antlers. Same with the lighting, which is full of antler-pronged ornamentation. The food is all local. The tables and the bar are all hewn from felled local timber and … oh the bountiful quantities of bacon on the menu.

I had the turkey avocado sandwich with bacon and a Caesar salad. Somehow there was no bacon on the salad, but that’s about the only exception on the menu. They do a bacon-drizzled popcorn, which is better than you’d imagine.

The Hound is pretty intense like that. They are casual in their intensity. Or is it intense in their casualness? Who can say. Look at that menu.

I sent a picture of the menu to a friend, an aficionado of bacon. He said “You had me at Big Fat Steak.”

Things to read: HazMat crew finds no further dangers on barges after fires, 7 explosions:

The flames were fueled by raw gasoline, which was stored on the partially emptied barges as they were docked for cleaning at Oil Recovery Co. of Alabama’s Marine Gas Free Facility.

Three people were cleaning the ship when a fire apparently broke out, catching the gasoline and causing the explosions.

They were transported to USAMC Wednesday night, where they remain in critical condition as of 9:15 a.m., according to USAMC spokesman Bob Lowery.

They were the only people on the barges at the time of the explosions, according to Lt. Mike Clausen of the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Triumph, that now infamous hard-luck Carnival vessel? It is taking on repairs just across the water:

“It literally sounded like bombs going off around. The sky just lit up in orange and red,” he said, “We could smell something in the air, we didn’t know if it was gas or smoke.” Waugh said he could feel the heat from the explosion and when he came back inside, his partner noticed he had what appeared to be black soot on his face.

Saw this on Twitter and I wondered about the grandmother’s age:

A Franklin County woman was arrested after police said her 2-year-old grandson tested positive for cocaine …

Deanna Leigh Fretwell, 38, is charged with chemical endangerment of a child. She was arrested after Russellville police said they received a tip from the Department of Human Resources, the report said.

Record Number of Households on Food Stamps– 1 out of Every 5:

The most recent Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP) statistics of the number of households receiving food stamps shows that 23,087,886 households participated in January 2013 – an increase of 889,154 families from January 2012 when the number of households totaled 22,188,732.

The most recent statistics from the United States Census Bureau– from December 2012– puts the number of households in the United States at 115,310,000. If you divide 115,310,000 by 23,087,866, that equals one out of every five households now receiving food stamps.

So this isn’t a recovery so much as a series of selectively moving around numbers.

At times like these we must ask ourselves: What would Ryan Lochte do?

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24
Apr 13

The day the sirens went off

My friend the great Ike Pigott came to speak to my class today.

Ike works at Alabama Power and he is a great idea man. His time at Red Cross and, before, that, ABC 33/40 make him a terrific pitch man. He talked to the class about public relations and social media and crisis communications.

He talked about the last series of tornadoes that passed through the state. It occurred to me that every pro we’ve talked to in that class this semester has told tornado war stories. I’m sure every student who is from some other place is wondering why they live here now.

With about a half-hour left in the class the fire alarm went off. Everyone in the room looked at me.

I’m supposed to know this answer.

Fortunately I remembered what we are supposed to do in a fire alarm. (It isn’t like this happens all the time.) So we got our things, felt the door to make sure it wasn’t hot, walked down the hall and exited the building to our exterior gathering space. Class continued as the fire truck pulled up:

It was cold and damp and we couldn’t see any smoke anywhere. Firefighters walked inside and, a few minutes later, walked back out. I walked over to them and said “I have a class full of journalism students wondering what is going on.”

Turns out someone in the kitchen in the cafeteria, which is in another wing of the same building, started cooking something without exhaust fans and that built up smoke for the sensors and so there we were, talking about crisis communication with a firetruck in the background.

That’s a Wednesday.

We went back inside and, at the end of the class, the fire alarm went off again. Turns out that we had gone long on our class, but the students were so caught up in what Ike was talking about that they didn’t mind. He’s just that good.

Also today was the first meeting with the incoming editor of the Crimson. I was up late last night putting together information for him. Want the job? Here are 27 pages of easy reading. Mark, set, go.

He’s been around the paper for the last two years as a section editor and is a smart guy, so I’m sure he’ll do well.

This year’s staff has done a fine job and I’m proud of a lot of things they’ve done. I always like that first new meeting though. It is one of my favorite parts of the year.

Usually it is warmer, mid-April and all. Tonight parts of the state are enjoying temperatures 30 degrees below their seasonal averages. Spring will arrive on a more permanent basis, eventually. Right?

Or maybe we’ll just go directly into summer.

Things to read: The War Eagle Reader was kind enough to reprint the thing I wrote the other day. It let me give it another edit and convinced me I still didn’t adequately make my point. There’s always next time.

Philip Lutzenkirchen wrote an open letter that’s worth reading:

Most importantly I need to thank the entire Auburn Family. You all are truly the best fans in the country. You’ve been on our side through thick and thin and that is appreciated way more than you think. I’ll never truly understand why you all love that goofy, embarrassing, silly, little dance that I did against ‘Bama but I appreciate the love that you have always showed me.

State senators have to be separated:

Alabama state senators and a Senate official stepped in between two of their colleagues during a shouting match between the two men that occurred after a controversial ruling by Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday night.

And this, the sweetest thing you’ll read all day:

Plastic wrappers and other pieces of litter rustled like tumbleweed across the empty space under the bridge yesterday afternoon.

Two hours later, enough chairs were set up to seat several hundred of Nashville’s homeless, enough chicken and baked beans cooked to feed them all.

And a few minutes later, while some were still finishing up their rainbow cake dessert, a cloth was rolled down the aisle and my friend Amanda walked through a crowd of her homeless friends to meet her fiancé at the altar under the overpass.