photo « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

photo

adventures / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
13
Aug 24

Two nights and one day

Late last night, technically early this morning, I took out the garbage. (Now, isn’t that a way to start a post!?) And it was there that I coined a new phrase. That phrase is “Anything worth doing is worth doing with an LED light.”

The expression came about because I didn’t have my phone on me — always when I need a camera. So I went in to grab my phone, which made me realize that it was too dark to capture my subject. So I went back inside for a camp light. Because somehow, in the darkness, I saw this guy.

My new friend stuck around for quite some time, posing up a storm, allowing me to photograph him in profile. When I turned to get those head-on shots, it got curious and started walking toward me. On the fence post the mantis got bold, and turned to reach out to me. Unfortunately, for the brief moment the air sparring went on, I was unable to get the auto=focus on the phone to cooperate.

And then the mantis jumped, flew, or fell off the post. I was careful, walking away, to make sure it wasn’t underfoot.

I was called for jury duty today. I wasn’t called today, but I had to report today. They called me a month or so ago. It’s an interesting process. I received a postcard in the mail. Log in to the site, create the 4,397th password in your life. Watch a poorly produced 28 minute video extolling the very real virtues of our judicial system. Log back in to the site and certify you watched the video.

You are informed you’ll get messages, via email and text, on when to report for jury duty. And I was told it would be yesterday. But Friday I was told to report today, Tuesday. At noon, thankfully.

They could have said 1:30, because that’s when we finally got pulled into a courtroom. This after checking in and two rounds of taking attendance. People of all ages remember how to say “Here” when their name is called.

People sat quietly, scanning their phone, reading books and so on, and then a deputy who takes his courthouse duty Very Seriously commanded us to go upstairs to the courtroom. So we did. A moment later he came in and said, no not this second floor courtroom, but the courtroom on the third floor. And, thus, he lightened up a bit and found himself able to make a joke or two. Meanwhile, I’m thinking, someone in the courtroom upstairs is potentially counting on some of these people.

We made it into the courtroom. Two prosecutors, a defense attorney and his client. The judge and three clerk/staff members. Two deputies. On the way into the room we received a pencil and a seven-page document. These were the voir dire questions. The judge explained a few things, had us watch an even lower quality video, and then read the entire seven-page voir dire document to us. Then, he brought in the partial jury. It seemed they need to find four more people. So the clerk would call a name from this selection pool, and the person would go the bench. They played white noise in the courtroom so the rest of us couldn’t hear the private conversations. This went on, one by one, until the jury was full.

My name did not get called. At the end of it, it took about three hours, the judge said our service was fulfilled and thanked us. Everyone fairly well scrambled from the courtroom, as if you’d pulled a fire alarm.

The trial is scheduled to run through mid-September, which would have been a problem at work, so I’m glad I did not have to go through voir dire. Just as well. It’s a double murder trial. As I’m no longer under consideration for the jury, I tried to look it up, but it was four years ago in a virtual news desert, so there aren’t a lot of details available.

Tonight, we went outside to see if we could catch the end of the Perseids. It was a perfect night for it. Nice and mild, with a beautiful cricket symphony coming from our right.

I saw two, maybe three. My lovely bride saw four.

cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off
12
Aug 24

The chocolate was a bust — how often do you say that?

I tried a new smoothie today. Because we have a lot of peaches, you see. The go-to has been a simple peach, ice, dash of milk and honey. And, recently, I swapped out the honey for a bit of brown sugar. That’s been a hit.

Just to experiment, though, because when you have bushels of peaches and a powerful blender everything seems viable, I decided to take out the brown sugar and add a chunk of chocolate. It did not turn into a nice brown color, because it was a chunk that just turned into bits. Thousands of tiny little bits. I guess I was hoping I’d wind up with a peach flavored Frosty … which the people from Wendy’s should call me about … but that’s not what happened here.

It wasn’t the best smoothie ever, but it was a worthy experiment. That little chocolate bunny gave its chocolate life for me to find that out.

I think we have some jelly beans somewhere … maybe I should try those next …

I will not try those next. Why tamper with what works?

Let’s get right to the site’s most popular weekly feature. I know it is, because they tell me it is. They, of course, being the kitties.

I’m a sucker for whenever Phoebe sleeps on her paw. Not sure what it is, other than just about the cutest thing she can do while she’s napping.

I was telling a story on Poseidon the other day. It was a common tale around here. One where I get to blame him for whatever is going on. It’s a high percentage play because he’s usually very much the cause of things. And just as I told that story I had to go down to the basement to fetch this or that.

The basement is a wondrous place to the cats, because we don’t allow them down there. I know, for a fact, that if we let them come and go they wouldn’t be interested at all. But, while the basement is cat friendly, it isn’t cat proof. So they don’t get to go. And just as I was heading to the basement he made a run. He’s good at timing these things, but he didn’t win out this time. He covered it well, though. He wasn’t darting for the basement, you see, he just needed to rub his chin on the door.

Poseidon has also recently discovered an interest in corn husks, but they aren’t a good treat for cats. So the corn, even the fresh picked stuff, goes directly into the refrigerator. Which means he must try to also go into the refrigerator.

If we get too much corn, we are keeping it in the laundry room, because we have cats and when you have cats you put your corn in the laundry room. He, of course, needs to be in there constantly.

So the cats, you can see, are doing very well, thank you.

I’m getting pretty good at timing out evening rides. This is why I did not get in a ride this evening. I waited too late, doing other things. (Two of those things had to do with peaches.) On Saturday, however, I set out at 6:35 for a 25 mile ride.

That still left a lot of time to enjoy the views through the corn fields.

Oh, I had lights a plenty. There’s a blinkie on my seat post all the time. In my back pocket, in the evenings, I carry a little four buck triangle light that I got for Christmas last year. It shines right through the material so well I’m going to pick up some more the next time I’m at the hardware store.

For the front I have my trusty One80 bike light. I saw their head lamps on Instagram, a runner I follow swore by them. I bought the Yankee one, she loved it. I bought myself one. And then they pushed those bike lights. I got one for both of us. She doesn’t particularly care for night riding, but I do, and I think those lamps are so great I bought two more of them, just to keep on a shelf in the basement — where the cats aren’t allowed.

I passed one stunning barn on the way back — I took a different road, for the different views, and it turns out to have worked very well for that time of day.

So I was well stocked in illumination products, but it turns out I didn’t need them. Oh, I turned on my blinkie and the one I carry in my jersey pocket, a bit more visibility for the distracted drivers behind you never hurt anyone, but I figured I would get all the way back home before I needed to use much of my front light. If anything, I figured, there is one dark patch where it might be necessary.

A strange thing happened on the back half of my ride. I didn’t realize it until I was almost all the way back home, but my legs came back. I don’t know where they’ve been since roughly mid May, but everything else felt a little sluggish and even slower than normal since then. Saturday night, however, there was plenty of power and energy.

This is all relative, of course. Relative to this point in life, and all of that. But compared to the rest of the summer, the second half of this ride was great. And kinda almost approaching a reasonable speed.

I don’t want to say I was a super man, or anything. Maybe I was just inspired by this view. Because, as I looked to my left and saw that gravel drive and that farm and that sunset I thought, If a kid grew up there, he had a great chance to play Clark Kent.

And so I made it home with daylight to spare. Not much. But still.

Maybe my legs are returning. I bet its the peaches.

Friday / photo / swimming — Comments Off
9
Aug 24

Two things I can’t do at once

We pause from our regular Friday style of yearbook posts because I have to take and edit the photos that we’ll feature in that next installment. But, since we completed our glance of 1944 last week, we’ll give 1955 a cursory look starting in a week or two. Which also gives me time to update the archive on 1944. That’ll be done by the time I end this post, just you wait and see.

(Or see right now. Our casual glance of the 1944 Glomerata is now live in the Glomerata section. You can also see others, here. Or, to just see the beautiful book covers, go here. The university hosts their complete collection here.)

Anyway, another gray day here. Some rain. Outer bands of the remnants of the big storm that landed on Florida and did a slow motion burnout on Georgia and South Carolina coastline.

It was windy, just another afternoon of 25 mile per hour gusts, and a lovely persistent rain that made you wonder why you weren’t spending the time in a good book.

I can’t tell you how often I wonder that these days, no matter what the weather is.

Finally, I figured, at that point where the afternoon turns into evening, that if going outside meant getting wet, I could spend the time doing laps.

And this is that story.

The first 700 yards or so were a little clunky. Each of the pool was an opportunity to ask myself, “Why are you doing this to yourself?” It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t good. Good for me, I should say. Quality is a unique and relative condition, and you never see that distinction quite so clearly as you do in things you do poorly, but you’ve been able to distinguish your own improvement. And if you’ve ever done that think next to people who are among the best in the world at it, you understand the level from which you begin, so that you more keenly discern the .28 percent improvement you might make over time.

So the first 700 wasn’t good for my normal meager abilities, and I knew it. But after that my arms or my legs or my lungs or my mind, or some combination of them, all finally slipped into gear and it became a good, for me, swim.

And so it was that I breezed past 1,000 yards, didn’t even really notice anything on the way to 2,000 yards, and, suddenly, I was at 3,000 yards.

“Suddenly,” also being a relative term and, in this case, one concerned purely with perception rather than pace.

I learned something about swimming, or myself, or about my swimming today. I can’t write while I am doing laps. I do a lot of sentence and thought forming, emails, lectures, you name it, while I am just going about my day. This is my process. When I sit down to actually type things it becomes an exercise of recall and, sometimes, actual editing.

But in the pool, I’m busy counting laps. I repeat the lap number over and over, with every left-hand stroke. “Forty-one, 41, 41, 41.” There’s nowhere in there that I could get out more than the two main points of something I am mulling over right now, lest I lose count.

Was I on 41 or 43?

And, yet, somehow, I don’t even notice the middle third of a swim as I plod my way through it.

Anyway, I got in 3,520 yards this evening. That’s two miles to you and me.

On the other hand, I wasn’t tired or sore, after, which helps to explain the incredibly slow pace of it all, I am sure.

The sky above, after it stopped raining, looked like that. This system broke up a heat wave, gave us some rain and now it will have the courtesy to move on out of here. We’re expecting sunny and mid-80s through the weekend and beyond.

Let’s see how we handle all of that.

photo / Thursday — Comments Off
8
Aug 24

Nature’s candy in my hand

A friend came over for a visit today. While she was distracted, I put two bags of peaches in her car. A basket’s worth of peaches, right there in the front seat. So this status update isn’t exactly accurate.

We only have five baskets of peaches in the kitchen right now. And I had a giant smoothie. We’ll still have a week or more of peaches to bring in. And a lot of these have to be given away. So, again, come and get some peaches.

By the weekend, we will be hurling them at the neighbors.

Elsewhere, we’re getting rain from the former hurricane in the Gulf. The temperatures have dipped a bit, into the 70s, and it’s been a good day to stay inside and catch up on things.

There are many things on which I am behind. But I am now trimming things off the To Do list, and deleting emails from the inbox. I’m calling it productive.

ANd now I have to go get some more peaches off the ground.

cycling / memories / photo / site / Wednesday — Comments Off
7
Aug 24

Starting year 21

Today marks the beginning of the 21st year of this website. We had a private anniversary party yesterday. A little peach crumble … a small scoop of vanilla … yes, we pulled out all the stops for kennysmith.org.

I opened this place up in August 2004, two cars, three jobs and four houses ago. I’ve been writing in this space through the advent, rise and now the fracturing of social media. I’ve been in all of those places, too, but I figured out, pretty early on, what some have only come to learn in this online cultural nadir. You post it on someone else’s site, you don’t own it. At least all the photos and other things are on my server. It has been a way to pass the time, occasionally learn new code, or, rarely, get a commission. I ramble here, all the time. Often, it seems like I should ramble more. It has been a lot of things, and I’m pleased with all of them. North of six million people have come through here. I have no idea why, but I’m grateful. Mostly, I’m glad you’re here, and that you’ve kept coming back.

Suddenly, it seems as if there should be an announcement. A big surprise. A new direction. A redesign. Something. But I don’t have anything.

Hey, next August, this place will be 21. I might think of something by then.

It has been almost relentlessly humid lately. The sort that keeps you from doing anything outside.It’s been a lot like home, actually. But, today, it wasn’t humid. It rained!

I said, How long are you going to ride?

And she explained her route.

When you drop me, just keep going, and don’t stop and wait for me, I said.

“Are you sure?”

I’ve been going slow lately. If you wait, you’ll just drop me again. Then you’ll wait and drop me, wait and drop me, and it won’t be a good ride for you.

I asked her how long she was going to ride for, she said, “I’m going for distance, and not time,” and explained the route she had in mind.

It’s always about time, so this was rare. And more fun. And this route is a new combination of familiar roads, and longer, and here I am, unfit for the ride at hand.

For the record, the types of ride, in terms of most fun are:

A vacation ride
Riding without a plan on roads you don’t know
Riding with a plan on roads you don’t know
Riding roads you know
Riding for time
Riding in severe weather

All of those are fun, to be sure, including the severe weather. I got caught in a hail storm once. It was hilarious.

Anyway, today, I was dropped quite easily and early, as I imagined. I did see this cool tractor, though. I wonder where he’s taking all that fruit.

I was in a headwind just then, and I’m usually no good in the breeze, but today wasn’t bad. And then there was the rain, which started falling about an hour into the ride.

Then, the most fun thing happened. I just kept riding. Legs felt pretty good and everything worked fairly well. Around the two-hour mark, though, I realized that the old pair of bib shorts I was wearing should really be for rides of 90 minutes or less. Something to figure out before I put on cycling kit.

Somehow, this will be easier than just throwing away the old and obviously worn shorts.

I looked down at some point in the last 10 miles or so and this little maple leaf was being pressed against the brake lever by the wind. I picked it up so I could take this photo.

When I got home I found that leaf, still stuffed in my jersey, ready for its moment. No idea why I kept it. But that changed up my routine at the end of the ride, and somehow that let me notice this daylily that I would have overlooked by the garage door.

It got plenty of rain today, so I’m sure that is one happy plant. If I thought of it at the time, I would have rung my socks out on it, too.

But I had to head over to the peach tree and get today’s haul.

Seriously, come get some peaches. We’re celebrating over here with stone fruit, and we have plenty to share.