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I didn’t really take any pictures this last week. Not sure how that happened. I always sit down and inspect the camera roll and the media cards and try to find something worth putting here. But today I’ve found not much of anything.
So there’s that Reagan stamp picture, which you can find (along with several other things) on the new LOMO blog. Do check it out.
I’ll surely do better this next week.
I was supposed to do a little video for the site today, being the first of the month and all. But I forgot, and will forever blame the jump from the 28th to the 1st. Sure, I’ve experienced this dozens of time in my life, always at the same time of year, arriving with rote predictability. That doesn’t mean I’ve accurately predicted it.
Take my watch, for example. It is from an American-owned company. It runs on kinetic energy. It is powered from Swiss components using Japanese machinery. I must still remind it to make the leap from 28 to 1.
So there’s no video to start off the month. Just as well. The purpose of those videos is to have a little fun and take about 10 minutes shooting the thing(s) that will characterize the new month. I’m not sure how to show studying, writing and fretting over proposals and defenses any differently than I did in January. (It was artful, go back and check it out.)
Here’s my month. Later I’ll defend the now legendary comprehensive exams. And then I’ll be writing on my dissertation proposal, which will hopefully be completed next month. There’s also work and teaching and grading and getting ready for the spring conference season and wonderful, glorious Spring Break. (Which will, no doubt, be filled with many of the preceding things.) And that’s March. Aside from calendars and stacks of notes and books … there’s just not a fun video there. On the other hand this will require something extra creative to shoot for April.
Today, then. My class visited Intermark Group, which is one of the public relations/advertising firms in town. I studied in the doctoral program with the wife of the CEO. Very nice people. This class takes a few trips — we’ve done a local television station and later we’ll do a magazine publisher — and it gives the young students an idea of what all is out there in the profession. They had a really nice visit today because the people at Intermark are so accommodating and enthusiastic about their work.
The students met one of their interactive guys, two of their media staffers (including a Samford graduate), a traditional PR practitioner, a social media expert, the senior creative guy and some of the nice folks in their video studios who walked them through how they produce commercials and things. It was a good tour.
Also, they have an Airstream inside.
And so it was that the first picture of the third month of the year of our Lord 2011 found on this site was a vintage restored recreational trailer which has been outfitted as a conference room. Our host said that whenever anyone wants to do a story on the place they want to talk about the Airstream. Whenever clients come they want to meet in the Airstream.
Wouldn’t you?
They also have a section of wooden bleachers where they do their large group work. She said they came from a local elementary school, but I could have sworn they were from my high school. Gave me a shiver just thinking about it.
And then it was back to the office as the student-journalists put together their newspaper. I started grading. I’m officially one-half caught up there, working my way through the mound of assignments that came in while I was off campus last week. I’ll make it through the rest tomorrow.
I could shoot a 30-second video of a red ink pen. No? April, then.
I’m a laid back guy. At least I like to think I’m calm and easy going. My friend Brian made me this graphic six or so years ago. I’ve always taken it as a compliment. It could be that there’s a grave insult here and people think of me as a hot-head, these things could go either way, but I choose to believe people think I’m reasonably pleasant to be around. But we all like to think like that. It is better than the alternative of your friends thinking you’re Charles Bronson paired up with Dirty Harry on a Really Bad Day.
“And that’s when he’s on time.”
So I like to think that I’m normally very consistent and living in that green level. This morning, at about 3 a.m., I was on the dark yellow.
Because, you see, this has been a long week. And when I settled in on Thursday night I got a little rest. And then on Friday I discovered I was rather tired. So it only seemed logical to get a good night’s sleep because I hit the wall at the baseball game and found myself not even hungry for dinner thereafter.
So we came home with our extra pizza and I pretty much made my way directly to bed last night. And then the cat meowed awhile. Meow isn’t the right word. Howl doesn’t really describe it either, though it comes closer. There is no word that describes the urgency “Lassie fell in the well after Timmy and it looks bad and this time I didn’t even push, I promise. Come quick, really!” But this is what we deal with every night, and this tired-before-9 p.m. night was no different.
She’d quiet down and I’d doze of. Repeat. She’d quiet down and I’d dose off, but in some uncomfortable position.
I dozed off and woke up deciding to visit the restroom. So I got up, got the dizzies, took a knee and thought about it for a minute.
I came back to bed wide awake, which just makes me think Lassie should take Timmy out beyond the county line, really.
There’s nothing worse than staring at the ceiling, because when the mind wakes up the rest of you must too. The alternative is at least doing something. Because of this I only go to bed when I’m good and truly exhausted. I’ve been sleepless before, so I stay up. I’ve been so tired I couldn’t go to sleep before, and that’s annoying, sure, but this takes the cake. I was so tired I couldn’t stay asleep.
So I got up and cleaned out an Email account I never use anymore. I created some space on my server by cleaning out some old files. I caught up on a little reading. I changed the front page of my site. I found that graphic above from 2005. I built an entirely new blog.
Meet LOMO, the page I’ll update only from my phone, featuring only pictures I’ve taken with the lomographic filter. Trust me here: You need another diversion, particularly at 4 a.m.
And around 4:40 this morning I finally tried going back to sleep.
So here we are, another beautiful weekend day. Another glorious day at the park:
The Auburn Tigers won 3-2 today, bringing their series to a tie with the rubber match tomorrow. Wonderful day to be outdoors.
We also visited the farmers market — which appears a few times in the new LOMO blog, do check it out. We bought fruits and vegetables, because they are cheaper there, but not the gummy bears, which were far more expensive. We hit the grocery store, stocking up on items for the next few days and then the cupcake shop because you must sometimes be indulgent.
So that was today, which started in the early parts of yesterday and will carry over until the cat stops telling horrific tales sometime in the early a.m. hours. Tomorrow I’ll have to be productive again, but only after the baseball game.
Troy University Chancellor Dr. Jack Hawkins delivers his “high-touch” message in his welcoming remarks to SEJC convention goers at the Troy campus on Friday.
Emulating the Great Sign, Pine Lakes chose that Holiday Inn feeling, and it is nice to see it persisting. Though the M looks to be sliding off. I wonder if it is a new addition.
There are certainly plenty of pines. I wonder if they have a lake.
My new bike arrived while I was off traveling.
And here it is, assembled and ready for pedals and a ride. I’ll get to do that next weekend.
Did you notice the new picture across the top of the blog? That’s from the Troy campus. The appropriate changes have been made to the banners page.
I’m not saying that this place will be dead silent for the next few days (two weeks, really). But this is the stretchiest of stretch runs. A lot of things are coming up in the next two weeks, work- and school-wise.
I figure you don’t really want to hear about image events or ideographs, within-subjects and between-subjects design, qualitative and quantitative research in political communication and the intricacies of recognition, recall and learning anyway.
So give me two weeks to navigate through all of these things and emerge from the brain cloud on the other side. There will still be a few things here, just to say I’ve written something here every day, but it will probably all be as thin and bland as this. I appreciate your understanding, you quiet and kind masses who come read this stuff.
(All 14 of you are delightful people, really.)
And I won’t ask you yet, because it would just lead to cramps, but soon I’ll hope you cross your fingers for me.
