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iPhone / photo / Samford / Tuesday — Comments Off
29
Nov 11

A cold 39 degrees

I am not ready for this:

Likely I wouldn’t have noticed, cold as it was and concentrating on returning to some warmer spot. But my eyes were alert because my ears had just heard a “Christmas tune” by Babyface. And if you aren’t ready for sharply decorated trees, you are simply unprepared for major key tonality that is trying to hard.

Why does every musician these days feel the need to record a Christmas record? I suppose it helps them fill in the last two tracks of their “greatest hits” effort, which is widely viewed as a way to fulfill the last project on a bad record deal. This is the penance for recording “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” in a Hawaiian shirt in July.

So, yes, the tree displays were a surprise.

It has been observed that Thanksgiving is the day where we go from complaining about Christmas arriving too early to complaining that it is arriving too quickly. More and more this seems apt with retailers as worried as they are.

Last year we saw Christmas bric-a-brac at Labor Day, so this, after Black Friday, and at a mall no less, is almost passable.

But Babyface?

Got some things done today, but not enough. There is now a list. Forty percent of it has been struck through. I had an hour-long printer jam. This required opening the front door, pulling out the toner and retrieving a piece of paper. From the rear of the printer I retrieved three pieces of crumpled paper. From the front again I pulled, and tore, the side of another sheet. Back to the back, then, where I pulled out some component that has important looking latches. I took the back door completely off. I contemplated building a catapult so I could fling the printer over the mountain, but it is not worth cranking the tension in the ancient weapon.

Instead I just meekly went back to printing

Also held class. This is a challenging part of the semester. Some people have not yet mentally returned from Thanksgiving. Others have already flown to Christmas in their imaginations. I blame the lights in the trees.

Alabama / Auburn / football / photo / weekend — Comments Off
27
Nov 11

Catching up

Tons of pictures this week, so they are broken up into two posts. This one covering the Iron Bowl, the previous one touching on some of the Thanksgiving festivities.

First, the ever-popular panorama of Jordan-Hare Stadium. Click to embiggen:

Here’s a tilt shift of midfield, late in the game as Alabama prepared to kick off to Auburn:

Fans:

What is wrong with this picture?

Oh. Well then.

Many more pictures can be found in the November photo gallery.

adventures / family / photo / video / weekend — Comments Off
27
Nov 11

Catching up

Tons of pictures this week, so they are broken up into two posts. This one covering Thanksgiving and another from the Iron Bowl.

The Yankee taking a sunset picture on Dauphin Island, Ala.

The joke we’re going with is that this is the family crest:

What does Thanksgiving look like on the beach? So glad you asked:

Here’s you a bit of soothing video. Be sure to play this when you’re back in the office this week:

The kids in the family had a marshmallow fight:

No, I did not take part. I just shot video and pictures. In the family video library this is now set to the theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Also, they made sand angels:

Nice view we had:

Do you ever wonder what other people’s families do together? Think they’re all getting along? Think anyone in this bunch is having their patience tested?

Many more pictures can be found in the November photo gallery.

Alabama / Auburn / photo / weekend — 2 Comments
26
Nov 11

At the Iron Bowl, a hero

Fine, beautiful day. Many lovely experiences. Unfortunately the game, in its entirety, was not one of them. It had its moments, though. We will not speak of it, but of something far more important.

We often talk fatuously in a sports context about heroes and courage. In recent years even the people who discuss it sometimes acknowledge the hyperbole. There’s no getting around this, though: today we were in the company of a legitimate hero.

Lance Cpl. Kyle Carpenter, USMC, served in Afghanistan, specifically Helmand Province, where a year ago this week he put himself between a fellow Marine and a Taliban hand grenade.

He lost his right eye. Most of his teeth were knocked out of his head. His face was blown apart. His arm was mangled. His best friend in-country was seriously injured, but survived.

Carpenter was 21 at the time. All he remembers, he says, is a white flash and then a fellow Marine telling him he would be OK and a voice that said “Oh my God.” He woke up in Germany a month later with family at his side. He has been through almost 40 surgeries already, with more to come on his long road of recovery.

Lance Cpl. Kyle Carpenter has been nominated for the Medal of Honor.

Lucky to be alive, feeling guilty that his buddy still got hurt and that he is not still in active duty, Carpenter has a common stake with other heroes, as he told The Post and Courier:

“The light is on me right now,” he said. “But I’m hoping what happened to me will help remind people that things like this happen every day and people don’t see it. I’m proud of what my fellow Marines have done there and are doing there now.”

His father is an Auburn graduate, and he grew up an Auburn fan. He’s been to games before, but this was his first Iron Bowl.

Today I had the opportunity to briefly speak with him. It was a privilege to wish this gracious, humble, normal young man well in his continued recovery.

Semper Fidelis, Lance Cpl. Carpenter.

Auburn / family / football / friends / memories / photo / Samford / Thursday — Comments Off
24
Nov 11

The best game I’ve seen at Jordan-Hare

Holiday travels this week, so we’re padding this out with videos and memories. But there’s a theme! This is Iron Bowl week after all. So let’s talk about football all week. Happy Thanksgiving!

Honestly, this entire week on the site has been an excuse to work up to this picture. (Also published, and well-received, on dearphotograph.com.) Since Thanksgiving is a day of family and friends, I’m putting it here.

The photograph was taken in the spring of my freshman year at Auburn. My mother brought my grandmother, and her lifelong friend to campus to visit. They toured the campus, saw the arboretum, took photographs with Tiger VI and even got to “sneak” inside the stadium.

They played a little tackle football, with my mother tackling her mother while Ms. Lucy was the quarterback and referee.

I love that picture, and this year at homecoming I took it into Jordan-Hare Stadium to take the picture of the picture. That’s almost precisely from the same spot, looking to the south end zone.

And what makes it especially nice, this new photograph, is that the two teams playing at homecoming were my alma mater, Auburn, which I love, and my employer, Samford University, of which I am also fond.

This is a charmed life, and so precious little of that has to do with football, but it is a neat way to mention it.

At the big Thanksgiving lunch today I offered the blessing for those that were there and those that cooked this delicious meal. I asked for us to take all of our free minutes of the day to consider the things for which we are thankful and I asked for our friends and loves ones who couldn’t be with us to be watched over and cared for in their absence.

On this day of giving thanks, it is foolish and whimsy to consider something as silly as football, even in a place where it stains the culture as it does here. We have so many things for which to be thankful. I hope you find yourself in a similar situation. And I want you to know I’m thankful for you — be you an old friend or casual search engine visitor — have a lovely day.