This is a sunset somewhere over the southeast, as we traveled from Atlanta to St. Louis:
That same sunset, but without the plane in the way. Sometimes the fuselage helps, sometimes it does not. You may say it helps, especially when you are in the plane:
I love the next picture. There are a half-dozen stories in there. On the left, the man is explaining he’ll be home when he gets home. There’s the guy rushing, the three men in the middle who are beaten down by life and this airport. Just out of the margin is a clutch of young troopers, headed off to parts unknown. There’s the kid studying, or about to throw up, on the floor. The lady in the foreground is relaxed, her companion is ready to fly and the guy on the far right is doing business on his phone.
Of course I took this picture to point out the fancy plug/USB station, but people are always the better picture:
The sun setting over the Atlanta airport. We sat there, the sun in our eyes, for a long time. Seems the plane parked in our spot was running late.
Little Jimmy’s grandmother took him to the park after a long day of kindergarten. “Doesn’t it look like an artist painted the scenery? God painted this just for you,” she said.
“Yes” Jimmy said, “God did it and he did it left handed.”
“What makes you think God is left handed?”
“Well” Jimmy said, “we learned in Sunday School that Jesus sits on God’s right hand!”
Silly, but I love that joke. Always made me wonder if a heavenly hand could fall asleep. Someone could blame a lot of problems on that. Others would probably shake their head and agree. Burning needles in an appendage takes it out of a guy, they’d think, I can relate to that.
Dear parents that owe child support, pay your bills. Not only are you depriving your child, you’re embarrassing yourselves:
The best part is the deputy sheriff in his Auburn shirt. They went all out on this sting, except for the location. I mean, “You’ve won tickets to the game of the year! Come down to this abandoned granary to collect!”
You can tell football season is upon us. The team is practicing, students are starting to move back to town, and the summer term has wound down. We’re shopping for shirts. The Yankee wants a jersey for her birthday, and she has numbers in mind. The university seems to be marketing just three jersey numbers this season, and one of them is the one she wants. So that works out well. We hit a few stores yesterday, as I mentioned, looking for the right size and number combination. There were a few more stores today.
But first, the university library, where there is a documentary of some heft that must be obtained. We found it and, then, on the way out, walked by part of the Toomer’s Corner displays. These are the things people left after their poisoning was announced. How weird that still sounds:
They’re going to allow fans to roll the trees again this fall, which has a “roll ’em while you got ’em” feel. I’m not interested. Having had my share, and stood under the old trees during two conference championships, two undefeated seasons and a national championship I’ve more than had my fill. But here’s my feeling:
Yeah, they’re trees, and there are worse crimes against humanity than a crime against a local icon, but if you deprive children of their part of a long legacy we should find a small space under a heavy, cramped jail for you. But that’s just me.
Here’s another neat one from the display:
Here’s more on the collection, including a few other artifacts. The archivists say no one has ever had to preserve something like toilet paper before. The things we celebrate are temporary, the hard part is making the memories last forever.
They are getting the stadium ready. In a month more than 87,000 people will be inside there. It is silly and spectacular and true:
Came home to do productive things. Planned out a presentation for next week, tinkered with the video chat feature of Google Plus. We are living in the future. Somehow the economy didn’t seem so bad in our imaginations, but still, video chat across two states. This is a step up from last week’s test of the platform, where four of us chatted in one room. And by room I mean our living room. It was delightfully geeky.
Jeremy, the host of The War Eagle Reader stopped by for a chat. Did you know he edited the Maple Street Press? Did you know I’m in that magazine? It isn’t bad, though all agree the photo selections and the cutlines could be better. The content, though, is insightful.
He loaned me a book, which I am interested to read. First I must put it on top of the To Read stack and finish the other two in progress. Once upon a time I’d read three at a time. Now I do well to get in two. Seems I’m reading lots of other things, too. Makes me wonder what this does to one’s reading comprehension. Is it really useful if I can later only say “This one book I read … ” or “I recall in … some study or another … ”
Now, I wrote last month about my joy of books, but the one thing that could replace that would be the convenience and joy of search. If I could put everything in a reader and then refer back to the term or author or time I was reading the thing … now that would be something.
And according to the Booth Theory of Commercial development, Google or Apple has that in R&D right now. And when it comes out in six months I’ll only need a way to transfer everything I’ve ever read, ever, into the reader for cross tab indexing.
Well, maybe I could leave out the Black Stallion series and various old Robin Hood tales. Who needs those now? I’ve always questioned the fingers wrapped in the horse’s mane. And the only part of the Robin story I recall better than a movie or BBC episode is that he feebly loosed an arrow from the Kirklees Priory and where the arrow landed was where he is buried. Great tale. Of the many great Robin Hood tales over the last millenium that one, I’ve just learned, is from the 18th Century. I read that as a child at my grandparent’s one summer. Why? It was there.
I may have a reading problem, and it started early.
Barbecue for dinner tonight, risking crowds from a dual graduation/move in weekend. Do not visit a grocery store, Walmart or Home Depot on weekends like this. You take your life into your own hands.
So we stand in line at Moe’s, order our barbecue and then stand around for a table. This is a bit difficult. As reasonable as the food is, they’ve taken great pains to push you out of the door — awkward decor, lighting that is off just so, poorly placed televisions, uncomfortable chairs — but people just sit around. And sit around. And sit ar —
“Ticket number THIRTY-FIIIIIVE!”
We’d only just found a table, having identified a group that put two together, sat with friends and then left. The table for eight stayed joined when only three were there. And so we made our own, grabbed the food, ate and hustled out of there before the loud, live music started.
You’ve seen a lot of pictures here over the last week. Here are just a few more, all from our trip out west.
Rain in macro in a Washington forest:
Cedar, anyone?
Even the stumps are huge out there:
Cannon Beach, Ore.:
Mussels at low tide on Cannon Beach:
Scrub tree on top of the giant rocks at Cannon Beach:
Go fly a kite! On a beach! As insults sound, that sounds pretty good …
Darkness falls on the mountains behind Cannon Beach:
I found the real batmobile, with white wall tires, in Portland, Ore.:
A favorite selection from Portland’s International Test Rose Garden. Never did find out the variety, and the color in this picture hardly does the flower justice:
These, and more, will all be in the photo gallery soon. Also, did you notice the new banners across the top and bottom of this page? Did you know you can see an archive of all of those pictures here?
Spent today in the lovely, polite Portland airport where the teenagers who work at Wendy’s neither understand or agree with what their corporate overlords are telling them and where the TSA agents are very chatty about their work problems and don’t seem especially concerned about performing their jobs.
Also, they are not able to distinguish between gel and liquid, so take that public education system.
And then there was five hours in the cramped exit row of a plane. Really, Delta, we pick the exit rows for the space (and, yes, the responsibility, because I at least trust myself) but this plane’s blueprints had a flaw somewhere.
And then we whisked through the Atlanta airport, to the shuttle, to the car and then back home, where the old lady at Cracker Barrel locked the door in our face with a smile. Hey, you don’t want my money, that’s fine. I’ll happily spend it somewhere else forever.
I tend to get indignant about my capitalism after nine hours of travel.
So we visited Mellow Mushroom, which should have been closed based on their door, but the neon burned, and the pizza cooked because, sure man, whatever. I love Mellow Mushroom. I like spending my money there. (See how that works?)
Anyway, here’s Smith Hall at Lewis & Clark, where we’ve spent the last five days writing.
Successful trip, nice mini-vacation, a small new section of the country explored and approved of (Congratulations, Thomas Jefferson) and looking forward to a return trip in some future temperate season. We lost two hours and about 30 degrees of July in this trip. There’s nothing wrong with that at all.
Anyway, those are apple trees. They are dropping fruit and squirrels and kids are handling the rest. The squirrels are fearless:
You could get so close that you could catch that guy. But you couldn’t have gotten him through TSA or into Cracker Barrel.
This was the last day of the retreat, which has the goal of arriving with a work in progress and leaving with a finished paper. Some people do this. The Yankee did this, though she said there is a bit of editing to do, which is terrific.
My project, which had something of a learning curve involved, isn’t finished, but is probably two-thirds of the way there. A few more long sessions of concentrated effort could get the thing to the editing stage. So that’s progress.
After things wrapped up this evening we stopped to smell the roses:
We went to Portland’s International Rose Test Garden — the sun stays up until about 9 p.m. out here this time of year, so we took advantage of the daylight to do one last bit more of sight-seeing. Some 700 varieties over more than 4 acres, including annual winners dating back to the 1940s. Neat place, and you can find more here.
When you start telling people you’re about to go to Portland they tell you “Oh, you have to go to Powell’s!”
You don’t go to cities and have folks tell you to visit a bookstore often, so you pay attention. With good reason; Powell’s is unique. It is a regional chain, but the original spans a city block, has two buildings, mixes new and used and is full of sensory overload. (Likely no one knows how many titles are in the Powell’s system.) There’s that beautiful pulp smell and also the feeling you get when you walk into a big cave — you’re inside, but everything is oversized enough to suggest you’re outside, and yet, there’s a roof over your head.
Seeing Powell’s was great, but also it made me a bit sad. I keep my Amazon wishlist as a way to keep track of books I want to pick up one day. I checked that list against every book Powell’s had in stock. Every great-looking book that caught my eye on the shelves I looked up on Amazon. Powell’s lost every time. They got close in one book, after you figured in shipping and handling, but that was it. (I was not really shopping today, this was a tourist trip because I’m not lugging books across the country, but I did add a few things to my eventual reading list.)
The used books at Powell’s are mixed in with the new, but they are high quality used books. And, at Powell’s, you can buy a quality used hardback for the price of a new paperback. But you can buy the same book for pennies on the dollar online.
Still, aside from the joy of being in a bookstore, and the random chance of discovering some gem on sale or an intriguing book cover, it is difficult to find a book that is cheaper in a store now. And that makes me a bit sad. Borders, which had been using a flawed business model for years, it seems, is as symbolic as it is as damaging to an industry. Shame so many people lost their jobs in that company’s demise, but as an indicator of change it is just as unfortunate. So there will be less distribution, thus fewer books, and fewer publishers pushing new authors (self publish!) and prices will go up and quality will go down a smidge.
We’re buying digital versions of media or not consuming them at all anymore. As such that atmosphere that we’re losing is also painful to contemplate. This is relative. When record stores went away we mourned, moved on and bought the new stuff in malls and online. After a while you forget the feeling. I fell out of my biggest music habits just as the digital download became the medium. When newspapers and television finally had to grudgingly accept the notion that there might be something to this online thing, I was already working there. In time, people will overlook the psychic benefits they once received from the old style in favor of their new cerebral download of water skiing squirrel features they get daily.
On books, I’m old school. I buy actual books online and have them shipped to my home because I like books. I like shelves and art and big fonts and running my fingers along those beautiful spines to find the tome I want. I like my own little personal library. I sincerely want a home library stacked so high I need a library ladder on rails to reach the top shelf. At the risk of sounding old, I can’t get that in a digital reader.
A bookstore as big as a city block can’t compete with a warehouse jammed to the rafters in a cornfield somewhere who can get me that book before the weekend. There’s little hope for bookstores. Which means books are in bigger trouble from the model than from their formatic opposition like Kindles and iPads.
See DVDs, Blockbuster and Netflix.
There will always be a need for some of these type places. Just fewer of them, and farther between. My argument for why I could live in the middle of nowhere so long as they had a decent grocery store (and good Internet) is because you can get anything shipped. (Arts, culture and medicine, as a service and experience, seem to be the biggest outliers.) But, then, maybe this changes things:
Falling mail volume and soaring red ink may soon doom Saturday mail delivery and prompt three-day-a-week delivery within 15 years, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe warns.
Donahoe wasn’t specific about how soon he would like to reduce service but said he thinks Congress, struggling with the federal budget, will be more open to the idea now. He said a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll last year helped move the discussion along. More than half of those polled had no problem with losing Saturday mail.
The Postal Service estimates the move would save $3.1 billion a year.
So pick your spots ship on Monday for a Friday arrival, I guess, or hoof it to town.
Also, in that same piece: “On Sept. 30,” he told the USA TODAY editorial board Tuesday, “I won’t be able to pay my bills.”
Better leave your mail person a tip.
We had dinner at Good Taste, an almost-dive in Chinatown. It was very good. This was my fortune:
