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Springtime

Now if it only felt like spring. It is cold, and this is no fun. The high was 58 and it dipped into the 40s, but this was the cold version of the low 40s.

Busy day today, class, the newspaper, radiation. Don’t panic. Your microwave, when it is cooking your television wrapped in aluminum foil, emits more bad stuff. Just don’t go outside and lick caterpillars and you should be fine.

I blame this guy, ousted state supreme court justice Roy Moore. He’s more radioactive than anything else in the air around here. Drummed off the bench because he misread the times in defying a court order, badly defeated twice for the GOP nomination for governor and now he’s considering running for president.

In one of my recent comps questions I was asked to design experiments that would help a potential candidate determine a.) if she should run and b.) how she should run. The only solution I did not include was “Float a trial balloon and read the comments.”

Here’s my favorite from that story, the easy majority of which are adamantly against our old friend Roy Moore running for president.

“Roy Moore will become the Shorty Price of presidential elections.”

Here’s longtime political reporter Bob Ingram, many years back now, reminding people of Shorty Price.

There’s a restaurant I occasion with a picture of Shorty Price hanging in the restroom. The guy was such a character that he probably would have appreciated that gesture.

Roy Moore is no Shorty Price, though.

In class today we heard a presentation on social media tools, which was nicely done by the students. I’m working on this and that, elsewhere. Trying to get my act together for the dissertation. I started recycling a bunch of old newsprint today, too. ANd the student-journalists are hard at work putting together their paper for the week. Hard to believe their year is almost over, they’ll only have four more issues after this paper.

Took part in a teleconference tonight with Public Square an online organization with the goal of fostering debate on political, legal and social issues. I mention this because I get to serve on the board of directors there. They are thoughtful people doing interesting work with big ideas. Also, the call was in high definition. I hadn’t realized that had become a necessary function of the conference calling business, but there it was, in beautiful bit rate. The sound effects are still pretty basic, though.

And then there’s this. I’m guessing it will be ugly for two days and then disappear for a long while. Then it will come back again with more ground-shaking, but plausibly odd assertions, which is all you need as evidence in the sporting world these days. We’ve seen these things before, you see.

iPhone / photo / weekend — Comments Off
27
Mar 11

Catching up

We’re on the road today. All day. On days like today the road can take you over. To keep that from happening to you, pictures!

Auburn’s Casey McElroy drove in four runs last Sunday, including two in a four-run eighth inning to beat Arkansas and win the weekend’s series.

Dan Gamache drove in a run off this pitch, to help win that Arkansas game, 8-7.

Safe! The Tigers weren’t so fortunate this weekend. They were swept at Mississippi State.

Later that same day last weekend Samford’s women’s basketball team made their first ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament in first round action at Auburn. The Lady Bulldogs fell to a tough Florida State squad, but Paige Anderson played her heart out. She only registered seven points, but was pure hustle. Turns out I took her picture in high school, too, when she won a state championship.

Savannah Hill’s off-balance shot fell for two points. (Sort of looks like a foul in there, too.)

Ruth Ketcham actually played at Auburn for a year before transferring to Samford. She got called upon to run the point late in the game.

After the game Spike, Samford’s mascot, ran into Hairy, who was getting ready to watch Georgia play in the second game of the day. They were very cordial. That bone was not used as a weapon.

So Florida State beat Samford, and Georgia defeated Middle Tennessee. The Bulldogs put FSU away in the next round and then fell to Texas A&M. I now know more about early round action of this tournament than I have in years.

I took a LOMO picture of one of the Live oaks at Toomer’s Corner on my way out of town the other day. Turns out the poison runs deeper than they’d originally realized, so grim news is a bit more grim. Old leaves are falling off just now for new growth anyway, but it will be the warmth that comes with the spring season that really shows how bad the problem is. Meanwhile, the deranged individual who admitted on the phone to poisoning two trees is awaiting a hearing next month.

You can see more pictures in this particular style on my LOMO blog, which I’m doing entirely from my phone. And as cellphone photo sites go, it isn’t bad. I know this because that site gets a lot more spam than this one.

The Yankee and I have this joke where I pretend to get indignant at whatever has offended my sensibilities and I announce “I’m going to go blog about my feelings!” I thought these were tasty chips, but she did not like them, so I said that I would write about it, and here we are.

The Yankee at Famous Dave’s in Little Rock.

friends / iPhone / memories / photo / weekend — Comments Off
26
Mar 11

More conferencing

Presented our paper today on the media participation hypothesis, which suggests that, as political involvement grows reliant on new media formats and technologies, use of interactive public affairs media will produce more satisfaction and efficacy over time as media become more interactive. The concern with this hypothesis, we argue in the paper is one reflected in current research which struggles with logistical challenges that the Internet presents.

That’s what this paper is about: this doesn’t exactly work, that doesn’t exactly work, we need a model to help with understanding new dynamics, and so on.

There were nodding heads during the presentation, which is always a good sign at these sorts of things.

We had a pizza lunch with two of our friends from Mississippi schools and another from Texas. After more sessions and meetings in the afternoon we had dinner with our colleagues at The Flying Fish.

This place was new in Little Rock when I lived here. (Almost a decade ago!) It is delicious. I went to the Flying Fish because it was one of the few places in a re-developing downtown back then; now Riverwalk is a bustling, thriving area once again, thanks to years of development and the Clinton Library. I was glad to see the place was still around. It is, I believe, the best catfish I eat — and there’s a catfish joint in my family.

And apparently it is a regional chain, so the next time I’m in Memphis it’ll be ribs and fish.

Part of the decor:

Outside they light the building with lamps made of outboard motors.

Anyway, the company was the best part. We had dinner with four exceedingly bright and funny people, two old friends and two of them new. Shame we’ll only see them at conferences, it has been a while since I’ve laughed that much, that hard.

So that’s the day: the presentation, the conference and the food. Tomorrow is the drive back home. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

Alabama / iPhone / Monday / photo / Samford — Comments Off
21
Mar 11

The comps defense

The day has finally come to defend what I wrote a month ago. In fact, this day has come twice, but the previously scheduled meeting was canceled which was … inconvenient.

So it was rescheduled, and this was that day. I had to drive to Alabama, which you might know is more than a little commute. And I managed to do this behind every slow truck, 18-wheeler and septuagenarian who didn’t have anywhere important to be. Normally this isn’t a problem, but I had somewhere to be at a certain time, months in the making. And there were middle-of-nowhere two-lane roads to travel. Each time the road straightened out and the dotted lines gave me permission, another slow moving truck would come from the other direction.

This commute took ever second it should and a few more it shouldn’t have. I walked into the meeting where my adviser was on his phone, calling me. Later I heard a voicemail with myself in the background, which was unusual. But that would be hours later.

For almost two hours I was grilled on my comps answers. “Why did you write this? Why didn’t you write that? What would work better? What theory? Why this adjective?”

On and on it went, my brain already a little bit fried from the drive, the Mondayness of it all and this being the first day back from a week … not off, but a week with a lot less in it.

In the end the professors kicked me out of the room and voted on me. And now the comps are defended, I’m A.B.D. and can move on to the dissertation. This is good because I’ve been thinking and worrying over the comps since last Thanksgiving. You might remember I was supposed to take the comps in January, but those plans were snowed out. I’ve been living under this for a while. It will be nice to put this stuff behind me.

I celebrated at Samford with dinner and grading.

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20
Mar 11

Catching up

I don’t normally take pictures of food because it never turns out like you want. The only reason I put this here is to share with you the awesome glory that is that cheddar. Do try some. Found at the Auburn gymnastics season ticket holder reception last week.

This is a picture of Aubie at the baseball stadium from about a week ago. It feels ancient now because it was bitter cold that night, and we wore shorts and flip flops to every game this weekend. (Auburn won a dramatic 8-7 game today, and so the 24th ranked Tigers take the series from the 9th ranked Razorbacks.

Brother and sister, before they’ve learned to fight constantly. The father brought his long lens, you can see on the margin, to shoot the game. He was missing out on the kids. Maybe he’s just accustomed to it.

She does not like to be disturbed from her naps. We feel the same way, but she hasn’t the decency to care. So we return the favor. Or, possibly, she’s always just paying us back for waking her up. Who can tell anymore?

We bought all of this, and two other items the lady had already bagged, from the local meat lab for less than $60. If you have a meat lab, I can’t recommend it enough. If you live in our town, the meat lab is closed from Monday through Sunday, and they are sorry for that inconvenience. (Don’t need you getting all the good cuts, you know.)

The pretty Bradford pear trees that line the path on our little walk to the grocery store. We are fortunate to live in a lovely little area.

From the Friday game. I believe I intended this picture for the LOMO blog, but now I can’t be certain. Never fear, there will be new additions to the LOMO blog next week. Visit often.