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Auburn / football / photo / Twitter / video / weekend — Comments Off
6
Nov 10

Chattanooga at Auburn (Homecoming)

War Eagle and laissez les bons temps roulez! Auburn dispatched their homecoming foe with expected ease, 62-24. No one was seriously hurt, it seemed. We all shivered because the thermometers which said 40-degrees were surely lying. And LSU beat Bama. Perfect, perfect day of football.

Here are my Twitter memories, because I don’t want them to disappear one day, as recounted from the south end zone where we spent a great deal of time in an over-worked scoreboard. Wendy’s parents loaned us their seats so we could be down in the lower bowl with the in-laws. Wendy’s parents, like Wendy, are awesome. So here’s the stream of frozen consciousness. Parenthetical additions from after the fact are in bold. Enjoy and War Eagle!

At Tiger Walk. Cam Newton looks unphased.

Hanging out in Jordan-Hare with my in-laws who are taking in their first college football game (in the South). They’ve been to Rutgers games, but that doesn’t really count, now does it?

No Daren Bates, no DeAngelo Benton today. They are in jersey, but no pads during warmups.

Eltoro Freeman and Corey Lemonier are announced as defensive starters. Interesting even at homecoming.

Touchdown Auburn. Two plays, 30 seconds and it was Newton to Adams for the 30 yard score. 7-0.

Chattanooga punts against the most vanilla defense you’ve seen since A-Day. Carr muffed the return. Tigers are on the march again. Here’s Quindarius Carr scrambling to recover the ball

Touchdown Auburn. Newton to Adams for the 20 yard score. 14-0. This is getting ugly in a hurry.

The Alumni Band, sounding crisp, has already struck up Hey Baby. Seems a bit early for that, with 9:33 to go in the first quarter.

Cam Newton just jogged for a first down. Chattanooga’s defense is not LSU. See that bit with him playing ball with the local elementary school kids on television? It looked almost like that.

Newton slips and falls for a first down. Kenny Rogers on the tackle. It’s funny because that story is the only thing that can slow this guy down.

I know it is Chattanooga, but that 18 second (yes) scramble by Cam Newton was absurd.

Newton to Burns to the goalline and then Newton keeps for the score. 21-0.

Touchdown Auburn. Newton to Adams (I need macros…) for the score. @wesbyrum’s PAT was no good. 27-0. Byrum, now Auburn’s all-time leading scorer, is having another great year. Before this miss he’d hit something like 104 in a row.

Chattanooga crosses midfield for the first time, aided by a pass interference penalty.

After one quarter Chattanooga has 48 total yards. Auburn has 56 yards rushing, 193 yards passing, 249 total. 27-0.

Also, it is cold and windy and the hot chocolate smells delicious.

Touchdown Auburn. Newton to Zachery for the 80-yard score. 34-0.

Chattanooga returns a kickoff 99 yards for the score. And then the guy got a celebration penalty. Hey Moc, it is 34-7.

Touchdown Auburn. McCalebb goes around the end and down the sideline 49 or so yards. 41-7.

So after the most backyardtastic-we-forgot-Dyer-can-play series we shank a punt and get a formation penalty. Georgia much?

My mother-in-law: If they come around selling blankies I’m buying one. The thermometer lies, it is cold on the Plain.

The Auburn Band is now soliciting your donations for a band complex.

Chattanooga scores on a 4th and 6. 41-14.

Touchdown Auburn. Mike Dyer carries 37 yards on the draw. 48-14.

Chattanooga may be on the verge of a record, having now mishandled three kickoffs and returning a fourth for a 99-yard score.

At the half, Chattanooga has 133 total yards. Auburn has 167 yards rushing and 317 yards passing, totaling 484 yards. Chattanooga is in the Southern Conference, with Samford, whom Auburn plays next year. Not looking forward to that.

Just saw a guy wearing a Grandpa To Be button. Too cool.

It is four dollars for a packet of cocoa powder. That’s an awesome profit margin on a cold day at Jordan-Hare.

They lowered the price to $3, but still. At kickoff it was $4.

Remember two weeks ago when we were out here sweating? Sigh. Did I mention it is cold?

Chattanooga marches down on the Program defense. 48-21. Because you need a program to identify some of the Auburn men now playing, but good for them to get on the field. They deserve a nice reward and an afternoon in the sun. Meanwhile, where I’m sitting in the shade …

They announced this as a sellout. To Ric Smith’s credit he said it with a straight face.

Touchdown Auburn. Mario Fannin carries in for the score. 55-21. Fannin is wrapping up the ball nicely. I hope he gets a chance to run over Georgia next week.

Clearly there is still some work that needs to be done in preparing next year’s secondary.

Saw a four-year-old boy wearing an “I’m taller than Saban” shirt. Heh.

Chattanooga kicks a figgie. 55-24. Anthony Morgan, who’s battled injuries all season, has a nice kickoff return. Mario Fannin scores. 62-24. It isn’t that close, by the way. Auburn’s first team defense came off the field in the first quarter. There are assistant coaches scouring the student body for intramural players at this point.

These are 10-and-oh Tigers!

And be honest: no one would have suggested that in December 2008.

Neil Caudle scrambles inside the 10 … And then takes a knee. Wish he could have scored, he’s a deserving kid.

Hunker down you hairy dogs, you’re next and these Tigers are due!

Rolling Toomer’s with The Yankee and the in laws.

adventures / Friday / photo — Comments Off
5
Nov 10

CQ, CQ? 1XS?

Nature — and a carefully planned highway — make art.

We traveled to Atlanta this evening to pick up the in-laws. We met our friend Dave and his new fiance for dinner.

Is this a place where I really want to eat? It is across the street from a large cemetery, hence the name. Which is only clever until you order the fish.

They have great art, though. This one was in the restroom of all places.

“Calling anyone, anyone who can get me a better drink. My wife is killing my tastebuds!”

They might make ads like that, still, but not many people are looking for them in magazines.

So we picked up the in-laws. They’re making a long weekend of it, visiting our new place for the first time. We gave a happy little tour … and then The Yankee broke the ceiling fan in the living room.

I’ll try to fix it tomorrow, but we live on an Indian burial ground. I’m convinced of it.

(Bonus points if you can figure out the title. If you have an answer throw it in the comments.)

Alabama / iPhone / memories / photo / Samford / Thursday / video — Comments Off
4
Nov 10

“We are out of potatoes. We have potatoes. We are out of corn.”

Sitting at the red light to make my turn back onto campus I looked out of the window to see a gust of leaves making their adieu from trees. Floating there, in that transcendent space between instrument of photosynthesis and ground matter, they are so graceful. For all of their work on the branches and all of their nutritional value on the ground it is a shame that they are free for such a short period of time.

So I decided to record their moment. This decision always seems to take a long time, in retrospect. And when the neurons finally connect, assess and send the signal that documenting this visually might be fun, I must still pull my phone from my pocket. This can be cumbersome. The screen must be unlocked, the camera accessed and the video feature selected.

Of course this was when the remaining leaves grew resilient, their petioles growing stronger than the breeze.

That is one long red light.

Grand day. Had a class where students skewered the published works of learned authors. Enjoyed a delicious lunch where things were off the menu, and then back on the menu, but the other supporting item was off the menu instead. The poor waitress had to recite the sides three times through the confusion.

Took part in a meeting. Met a new student, the first-in-their-family type. Very nice person.

Punched out of my weight class in a particularly thorny carpentry problem. Longtime readers will recall I have no business even being in that conversation. But screws, the cheaply made international kind, were breaking off at the wrong time. They must be removed so that other screws of decidedly sturdier stuff can be put in their place. I invented a tool that would facilitate removing the offending broken screw.

But only after my super-powerful magnet idea was dismissed.

Turns out it already exists, this tool, but I didn’t know about it. Even still, it is gratifying to know when you’re on the right track, even if someone patented the thing decades ago.

This was the scene when I left this evening:

Samford is a beautiful campus.

Dinner with friends. Our realtor is now a friend. He’s been to our house after we’ve moved in. He didn’t even judge our staging. He had us over to his place for a football party last weekend. We have dinner about once a week now. You probably aren’t supposed to be friends with your realtor, especially if you moved onto an Indian burial ground, but he’s a nice guy and tells the best jokes.

So we had pizza tonight at a place called Little Italy and I brought home the leftovers. These are of the New York style, and while The Yankee has spoiled me on New Haven pies, Little Italy is pretty good stuff.

I just found the obligatory store opening story from two years ago. Those always amuse because the writer inevitably talks about how this new place uses only fresh ingredients. As opposed to, what? Stuff they found in a dumpster around the corner? Whatever fell off the farmer’s truck while he was on his way to market? Something frozen from the Green Giant?

I probably wrote the same thing. Years ago I did a restaurant opening story for a chicken joint just four blocks down from this pizza place. They framed the story and put it on the wall, which was cause for only a slight amount of chagrin when I would later dine there. The chicken was fine, but they had live music and I happened to live across the street from the place, so I found my way there a fair amount. Eventually they moved to a new location, and now Urban Spoon tells me the place is closed.

Those are always the more interesting stories — What did happen to that young couple? — but you don’t see them as much.

Busy and full day. The Glomerata covers will be updated momentarily. Tomorrow will be another full day, I’m sure, and it will come equipped with a full night as well.

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3
Nov 10

When one is better than two

Cold and rainy, but at least the spiders at Samford can enjoy a drink. Winter is pushing its way in behind this little tantrum of a storm front. We need the rain, but not necessarily the chill. But this isn’t winter. The cold weather isn’t shouldering through, but rather sneaking through with a little nudge of the toe.

The cold air will be brushed aside again in a few days. It’ll be weeks before winter really arrives, but we don’t especially care for the reminders.

While working out this morning I missed a collect call pretending to be from the city jail. No one I know is there. Or no one would own up to it online. Of course, if you were in jail you couldn’t check Facebook. So if you were in jail, I apologize for not being able to answer the phone to bail you out.

If you’re still in jail there’s no need to apologize; you’re probably still not reading this.

Homecoming week at Samford. There’s an extra little bounce of happy in your step on campus. It can’t be helped. There’s an inflatable bull ride in the student center. There’s football and tailgating and plenty of free food for the students this weekend and more. And an inflatable bull ride.

I watched two people ride the bull. The horns were falling off, but so were the riders. Everyone was happy, watching their friends flung into the lawsuit minimizing safety of the airy cushioned walls.

I rode one of those bulls a few years ago at a mall with family. It was Christmas time and we spent the evening doing things like riding inflatable bulls. I figured I would be very good at this. I’ve seen rodeos on television, or snippets of them. I’ve heard tips on how to use your knees.

I lasted about as long as it took you to read that sentence. Other people did better. My grandmother rode the thing. She did very well. It was fun, and humbling. The bull we rode was in one of those empty mall stores, one of those places that looks fire-bombed without any shelves or commerce. The inflatable people were as temporary a tenant as you could have — they sold time on air, of all things — and may have rolled up shop as soon as we walked away as far as I know.

Inflatable operators are the modern carnival operators. You worry less about the bolts and bits and pieces of metal that couldn’t pass a yard rake’s stress test and more about whether that air blower will keep whirring for the 45 seconds you are involved. No one likes to talk about this, but it is always in the back of your mind. Is there a worse holiday tragedy — because inflatables only appear around holidays, birthdays and other celebrations — than drowning in a collapsing sea of rubber?

The inflatable bull on campus, though, was without incident. The horns wouldn’t stay in the fake animal’s fake head. One girl fell off, picked up one and put it back in place. She reached that point where she realized she’d been standing there too long and moved away. The next guy up rode a bull with one punk rock horn.

Somehow that improved the situation. None of this would be memorable if there was cranial symmetry. That the bull spun to his right and you could see a plastic horn, and then spin to his left and you’d see a big gaping hole made the whole thing silly and odd and perfect for a homecoming festivity.

I’m writing a mini-paper for a class, so I must get back to that. The 1939 World’s Fair will be along in a bit.

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2
Nov 10

Vo – ho – ho

We haven’t even finished election night and already Santa Claus is moving behind the podium, stealing the evening from a night full of winners and losers.

Interesting elections here. The people voted for a Republican for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. The new secretary of state, treasurer, state auditor and commissioner of agriculture and industries are all Republicans. Voters gave the courts to the GOP and made a little more history, to boot.

For the first time since Reconstruction the state legislature is majority Republican. Democrats fell in many districts that were engineered to ensure Democratic wins. The state Senate adjourned with 20 Democrats and 15 Republicans. When they meet in Montgomery next time there will be 22 Republicans and 13 Democrats. Democrats had held 60 of the 105 seats. Now Republicans will sit in 62 seats.

Just two statewide offices are now held by Democrats. They weren’t on the ballot. Only two Democrats were elected above the county level. It was a rout in every respect. Celebrate or be upset as you find the need.

This was the first win for a woman in a contested race in the state. In fact, Alabama will send two Congresswomen to Washington D.C. One of them, Terri Sewell, became the first black woman elected to Congress from Alabama. She’s also the lone Democrat in the state’s D.C. delegation.

Things may change, but Santa is still on every shelf.