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And how was your weekend? Uneventful here, but I was ready for uneventful. Wrapping up the term and long hours seem to do that to me. We did get in a nice run, enjoyed the weather, saw some leaves:
Look at these go, this is about two miles into a four-mile jog:
Saturday night, we counted our good fortune and enjoyed a delicious steak fresh off the grill:
Breakfast this morning.
That’s it for today. Come back soon for more show and tell.
We went to a meet the merchants event in the next town over. We do a lot of shopping in that town. It’s a lovely place, a railroad town turned blue collar, until the jobs left, and it has recently come back as a great example of small town revitalization.
It is the kind of place where you drive around the square to get to the courthouse, where people point to the old storefronts and say “That’s where my dad used to hustle pool.” And then they could turn around, point in the opposite direction and say “That’s where we got married.” And then just a block away is the piece of railroad intersection that made this entire area boom in the 19th century. And to the left of that is an Irish pub, an Italian restaurant and a cajun joint, all on the same block. It is a neat place for a small town.
So we were there tonight, because the weather was nice and it was a good place to unwind and because we know some of the business owners. One we knew was doing S’mores out of her storefront. We stood and talked and had more than our share. I might have had three. Perhaps I had more.
And this lady brings her daughter, like so many other parents with their kids tonight. Only this little girl, this was her first roasted marshmallow:
She liked roasting them, but she found that she preferred them uncooked. And also the chocolate.
Here was one of the trees downtown:
Nice leaf turn, if a bit late. I’m sure we’ll see more this weekend.
Leaving campus at 8 p.m. on the last day of finals may be as close as I’ll ever get to a last guy in the world scenario.
This parking lot is *always* full.
Now? After an afternoon and evening of recruiting phone calls to high school students, just like everyday this week …
Just me. Everyone, everyone is long gone. Most for the term.
But this is work that simply must be done from the office these days. And when I took this, of course, I still had some driving to do.
But, hey, I got in a five-mile run this morning, so there’s that.
More phone calls tonight. Hundreds of phone calls. Repetitive phone calls. Lots of lovely voice mails, and plenty of messages to people I called last week and three weeks ago. I am a phone calling machine. I can say a lot of things in 45 seconds, and I thank my years in broadcasting for that. But, otherwise, this is my role in things at the moment. It is a terribly exciting moment, let me just say.
You know who else has it this good? The boys and girls who get to product test all of these toys. People that have it not-so-good are the staffers who have to create these boxes after a weekend course in Photoshop. Which brings us to the final two box covers I wanted to show you this week. Six, I thought, were worth sharing. But I shot others earlier this week at Walmart, as well. I noticed a common theme. All of the models are white.
Anachronism! These two types of blades never met in battle.
Well … before Highlander, that is. Look, this is a great toy for active young children, but buy them face guards. And remove your lamps. And if you read the fine print you find that the foam sharpening stone is sold separately.
Listen for key phrases when the kids are playing. “There can be only one,” is OK. Seppuku or harakiri, if uttered, would probably signal a great opportunity to swoop in for a teaching moment.
And, while they are distracted, remove the swords.
I bet you had one of these. Or you had access to it. I had one. Held onto it for years.
Plastic. Two actual seats. Cup holders. Seatbelts. Radio Flyer has made some upgrades. Well, except for the plastic.
So there’s a boss who bought a toy idea, or a boss who has a boss who really wants you to push this particular shipping line. And you know you’ve got a staff of young designers and the photographer who is just waiting for her big break. But before all of this you’ve got the packaging engineers — and they insist on calling themselves packaging engineers these days — and they’ve written a grammatically poor memo telling you exactly how much space you’re going to have to fill up for this box. The budget people are squawking at you too. It is going to cost six percent more than you’ve budgeted for boxes these size in full color ads. And you don’t really care. You’ve got a toothache. The in-laws are coming this weekend. You don’t know which idea hurts worse. So, in April, you approved this packaging.
And you and I see boxes like these.
“This year, buy wireless baseball for your son. He can learn to throw a curve indoors!
“Sure, you won’t be there for all his games, or even as many rounds of catch as you’d like. College tuition is expensive and you have to pull a double. Please don’t let that curveball hang or everybody is going to hit you for doubles, too, son.
“For his birthday, buy him a Tommy Johns surgery.”
“Hello? Can you hear me now? Do you know where my shoelaces are?”
“And could you please send a pizza. My sister is not a good cook and I am stuck in the masculine hegemony that demands she makes my food. Oh, and extra cheese.”
