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site / Wednesday / World Cup — Comments Off
16
Jun 10

Road trip!

Took The Yankee and one of our professors to the airport this morning. They are flying to Asia for a conference. I’m not jealous of the length of time involved in this trip at all.

This happened at the airport: The Yankee can’t check in at the kiosk. She tries another kiosk. I ask to make sure she has a ticket. Sometimes the simplest things can be the trouble, you know? She gave me the “I have a PhD” look and assured me that she does have a ticket.

We meet one of the dozens of people that Delta has hired to stand around and do little of nothing. The very nice manpoints us to a long line waiting to check in. After a while someone else wonders over and asks about the flight. This being an international flight we need to be in an international line. This, apparently, is not such a queue.

The two big red signs hanging above us that say ‘International’ don’t mean anything? I ask.

“No.”

So we moved lines again. Our professor has checked in meanwhile. The Yankee tries to check in curbside, but still no luck. She finally manages to talk her way onto the flight. I’m still not sure if she actually has a ticket, but she’s on the plane nonetheless.

I caught up with our friend Dave at Meehan’s for a delicious turkey burger. One of the things I miss about spending a lot of time in Atlanta is Meehan’s. If we could get that place and Willy’s we’d be set. Anyway, Dave and I watched a World Cup game. I hit the road back home just after missing the rush hour traffic.

Stopped at an antique store on the way, browsed around and picked up this:

See the wonders of the fair inside!

The illustrations inside are great. I looked it up on ebay, discovered I had found myself a narrow deal and bought the book. Now I’m going to scan it, upload it and then send the book to my friend Henry. He was at that fair. He might like that as a memento.

One last bit for the day, featuring Jon Stewart. He has a question or two for the White House.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

Ass Quest 2010

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

That’s the most trusted newsman in America. As LBJ said, when you’ve lost Cronkite, you’ve lost the country. For President Obama, losing Stewart, even if only a little, even if only for a punchline, is bad news indeed.

Tomorrow I become a bachelor again, for a short time anyway.

site / Tuesday — Comments Off
15
Jun 10

Still more pictures

Not much new to show off on the site today. Still working on honeymoon photographs. This latest batch will get the series into Athens. That puts the total count north of 320, with the rest of Athens, Vesuvius, Pompeii and one last day in Rome still to add. That also does not count the various panoramas and two slideshows also floating around.

And I still have an hour of video to produce from the trip.

I’m going to have to make a landing page for all of these pictures.

I am so glad I recorded all of this. I wish I could hire someone to do the editing for me.

Elsewhere, just the usual run of the mill stuff. So … back to it then.

Friday / friends / Pie Day / site / World Cup — Comments Off
11
Jun 10

Pictures, soccer, good company

I'm not allowed to do any more work.

So my goals for the next several days are to edit photographs and watch World Cup. The above is what happens when I try to do either one of those things for very long. The Yankee says that Allie likes me more than she likes her, but in truth it is just because I sit still more. Also, this cat loves walking on your keyboard.

Pictures. Lots of pictures. Started watching the World Cup, South Africa playing well to tie Mexico and France struggling to the same result against Uruguay. Funny how ties are perceived differently for each team. I’ll see all 64 World Cup games this year, just living the dream.

Speaking of living the dream, I had the great pleasure of sharing lunch with two wonderful ladies today. The Yankee and I joined our dear friend RaDonna at O’Carrs — try the chicken salad and fruit plate.

I met RaDonna while working with her husband, Justin, at al.com. He left to go to the Gadsden paper and is now the multimedia director at The Anniston Star. They are the sweetest people you could hope to know, and their son is the coolest boy I know, but they live too far away. Visits with such good people shouldn’t be so rare.

There are now 233 photos on the site from our honeymoon. I suspect I might be about halfway through the project. On the one hand it is incredible to see the pictures again and think “Hey, we’ve just been there.” On the other hand I’m ready for a break from editing photographs.

Sick of hearing about it yet?

Simple, quiet, Pie Day for two tonight. Felt like we haven’t been to Jim N Nicks in ages. Mostly because we haven’t been in ages. For a weekly ritual the last two or three weeks have been our biggest absence in the almost six-year-old tradition.

Happily, Ward still recognized us.

Tomorrow, the US kicks off their World Cup run against England.

site / Wednesday — Comments Off
9
Jun 10

I’ve created a good system

Still editing photographs from the trip. Nothing new on this page, but if you look at the Photo Gallery or the Honeymoon section you’ll see some cool new stuff.

I’m not halfway through yet.

The good news is that I don’t have to pet the cat anymore. I’m sitting on the sofa and she’s sitting next to me, sitting up on her hips, not in the way you normally think of cats, and is now content just putting her paws on my hand. This makes editing photographs challenging.

I’m reminded of the old LBJ line about Walter Cronkite’s shift on Vietnam. This isn’t exactly that, but the premise is similar. When President Obama loses Rolling Stone, he’s got problems:

Like the attacks by Al Qaeda, the disaster in the Gulf was preceded by ample warnings – yet the administration had ignored them. Instead of cracking down on MMS, as he had vowed to do even before taking office, Obama left in place many of the top officials who oversaw the agency’s culture of corruption. He permitted it to rubber-stamp dangerous drilling operations by BP – a firm with the worst safety record of any oil company – with virtually no environmental safeguards, using industry-friendly regulations drafted during the Bush years. He calibrated his response to the Gulf spill based on flawed and misleading estimates from BP – and then deployed his top aides to lowball the flow rate at a laughable 5,000 barrels a day, long after the best science made clear this catastrophe would eclipse the Exxon Valdez.

What’s happening in the Gulf is heartbreaking. It is economically, environmentally and culturally devastating. And there’s enough blame for everyone. And a lot of people deserve it. But the fingers are starting to point to the administration and, let’s be honest, this group isn’t that good at image or body work. Oh they’ve benefited from an admiring media, but now that a few journalists on the beat are doing journalisty things this is going to get ugly, in a hurry.

And a lot of people deserve the blame. And none of it will fix these precious, delicate, important places. Now that Rolling Stone has come around to that others will soon follow. Working in this White House won’t be much fun, I’d guess.

I’d like to contribute an idea on how to stop the leak. By taking all of Hollywood’s tapes of the upcoming Twilight movie reels and stuffing the film in the hole we might be able to slow this thing down to a trickle. We’ll also have the added bonus of not having to see the movie later this month. And just think of the positive publicity for the franchise. And we wouldn’t have to watch the movie!

site / Tuesday — Comments Off
8
Jun 10

What day is it? Who am I?

Hit the gym this morning. Pedaled seven miles in my first post-cruise workout. As a (re)start I’ll take it. Ran a little bit, too.

Spent the afternoon doing yard work. Pulled weeds and vines and had a nice post-workout workout for the experience, but at least it got done.

Elsewhere I started editing pictures from the trip. I took more than 1,200. The answer to that question of how long this will take is “A long time.”

You can see them as they appear on the site on the Photo Gallery page or in the special Honeymoon section.

When I get all of that under control I’ll have plenty of other things to share from the trip, too. There’s an hour of video to produce from the ship excursions. I brought back a ton of things to scan, too. I figure I can carry this through the summer.