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We have a mystery song

Stayed cloudy and gray and dim all day. Never topped 55 degrees, according to the local weather station. Though it never really felt like that warm. I had a few minutes that I could have pedaled around on my bicycle, but I did not. Too cold. Presently my baseline is 52 degrees.

So I stayed inside and did other things. And I counted the minutes until dinnertime, when we could enjoy the rest of last night’s delicious gumbo. Homemade and good stuff. You should be so lucky!

Every so often you see stories about social media fatigue. On the other hand, here is a piece discussing Innovative uses for social media:

(W)e predict that in 2013 social media intelligence will become much more commonplace as businesses, government agencies and not-for-profit organisations seek to leverage this new, unparalleled wealth of information.

There’s a list. It should include things like tracking illness, moving money, wide scale gaming, collaborative art and more.

To aggregate or not to aggregate. The debate continues:

aggregation or curation is a fact of life in the digital age — just as record companies have had to learn to live with rampant downloading and sharing of music, publishers of all kinds are trying to get used to the idea that their content is no longer under their control.

… which is fine as a philosophical point. The reality is you can’t put it back in the box.

Here’s a new show to watch:

The Weather Channel’s latest reality show, and coastal Alabama’s latest taste of reality-show exposure, “Reef Wranglers” makes its premiere at 8 p.m. Central time on Tuesday, Feb. 12. It’s a limited four-episode series focusing on the adventures of the crew at Reefmaker, a business based at Walter Marine in Orange Beach.

Should be worth it for the underwater scenes. Ignore the stereotypes, if the producers allow you.

I got a new Glomerata today. Actually I have a few new ones to add to the site, so I’ll do that in the next few weeks. But this one is especially special, one of the earliest editions. Inside was this:

There are two pages of sheet music to this diddy. This book is so old that it is entirely possible that no one alive has ever heard this tune. Can’t wait to know what it sounds like.

Come play it for me?

iPhone / photo / weekend — Comments Off
2
Feb 13

Just relaxing

cycling / photo / Twitter / weekend — Comments Off
27
Jan 13

Not catching up

It seems I did not take the first picture this week. I took quite a few, actually, but they’re earmarked for later display on the site, so I don’t have any pictures for this space.

So I’ll just look at the stats and pull the most popular images that you’ve viewed this month. In order of popularity, then:

Playing in the yard on a beautiful January afternoon:

Catching the light just right — not bad for the phone, riding in a moving car:

The Cateye on my bicycle:

The least viewed shot I’ve uploaded this month:

Not missing much there, are you?

We went on a great ride this afternoon. The sun was out, the air was just on this side of being warm and everything was perfect. I took The Yankee out of town and into the next community over, through their downtown and then out the back into the countryside.

We rode on a road that absolutely had an uphill gradient, but it felt like I was going downhill with legs and speed to spare in my highest gear. At the end of that road we were almost at the halfway point. It felt like that halfway point of the roller coaster too, because after that stop sign you drop about a 150 feet in three tenths of a mile. Again, these aren’t real ascents and descents we have here. But I may have been speeding, so they’re real enough.

Anyway, by the time I’d meandered my way home on a not-so-direct route I’d accumulated 36.5 miles on the day. As I said on Twitter I looked, once again, like a guy pretending to be a poor cyclist rather than a guy with a bike. So top form! It all felt great, right until the end. I guess I can start putting a few more miles back into the routine, then.

Had Italian for dinner at a place called Ma Fia’s. So clever! The way they made that play on words! Good stuff for small town Italian, though. We’ve been there twice now and have enjoyed both trips.

Finished up a few projects after dinner. Got everything together for tomorrow’s first day back in class. And now I’m going to go ignore the protests of my dead legs.

Still just a guy being pulled around by a bike, then. Heh.

Auburn / friends / iPhone / photo / weekend — Comments Off
26
Jan 13

Let me tell you about Auburn basketball

“This is fun when they play well,” The Yankee said. And, indeed, it was. A struggling Auburn basketball team had a nice game going against the visiting 23rd ranked Ole Miss team. They started out with a 9-0 run, and had another nice stretch to extend an early lead.

The Rebels, though, are not pushovers. They fought to within two at the half. It stayed close in the second half, with only three lead changes and no lead greater than five points for either side.

Auburn struggled from the field, shooting just 37 percent. But, then, they’re only shooting 41 percent on the season. They finally had a strong night at the free throw line, and this was the difference in the game. Where Auburn shot 15 of 19 at the stripe Ole Miss, after 39 minutes and 54 seconds, a terrible 2-of-15.

And so with six seconds left and the scored tied Auburn was called for a foul. Mississippi’s best player, who was having a lousy night, walked to the line and dropped two shots: 63-61, final, Mississippi.

Our friend Kim said it best:

The company of good friends is always better, even if the basketball was entertaining for 39:56.

Auburn / cycling / history / markers / photo / site / Thursday — Comments Off
24
Jan 13

A few photographs

Here is a panorama of the historic Auburn train station. Click to embiggen in another tab:

Lot of history in that joint. Jefferson Davis reviewed the Auburn Guard there as he was on his way to his inauguration at Montgomery. That was, apparently, the first presidential review in the Confederacy. This is also the place where students sabotaged Georgia Tech’s football team in 1896:

The Wreck Tech parade, and the pajamas, date back to their first football meeting in 1896 where legend has it that the A.P.I. students snuck to the train station under cover of darkness and greased the tracks. The train couldn’t get stopped at the station and the Tech players had to walk some five miles back to Auburn to get their 45-0 beating.

The last train passenger was called aboard in 1970. Empty for almost a decade now, the last tenant was a real estate agency. The old building needs a lot of TLC.

Here’s a door handle at the train station:

And by the rails, a self portrait at the first sign passengers would have seen getting off the train:

A closer view of a font you’ll never see again:

These shots were part of a brief ride today. I got other pictures today, so the marker series will return next week. That’s progress.

Nothing about the ride felt very good today, though. Nothing about me felt very confident of myself. Just a lousy ride. But I also found an incredible curve I had to slow down through, lest I wind up in the trees. And then I had to ride through a big neighborhood disagreement that involved at least five police officers, two of which I almost hit on my bike because they didn’t look both ways before crossing the street. One of those days.

Here’s a sunset over Agricultural Heritage Park, with the intramural field in the background to the right:

Even “those days” are beautiful.