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Stuff from the weekend

There was a football game, and a flyover:

I took this picture:

And that’ll be the last of it, one way or the other. It is a sad thing in its own way, which I didn’t expect.

Also I snuck up on Allie and took this picture:

And she was completely oblivious when I took this one:

So I discovered yesterday that the cat likes graham crackers. Of course she likes graham crackers.

Finally, I ran in a fundraiser 10K yesterday. The Yankee did the 5K and I did the last half with the uncle of a friend of ours who was in town. He heard about this run and thought, “Hey, I’m retired, let’s impulsively run a 10K in jeans!” And he did. I want to be like him one day.

I finished second in my age group. I got an ornament and a gift card.

Friday / photo / windshield time — Comments Off
20
Nov 15

Enter the weekend

The drive home. So tired. So happy. So melancholy.

I think it is something about the sunset being behind you. But I am a sucker for that mirror shot. I had a site design like that in the early days and so each time I see it I smile. And, when it can be done safely, I try to get a picture of it.

The key is in the timing, and I think that’s where the melancholy comes in.

Chinese for dinner. Tonight’s fortunes:

Shouldn’t there be a Fortune Cookie Accountability Institute, or something? When you get those promising ones, it really makes sense, doesn’t it?

Have a great weekend.

photo / Samford / swimming / Tuesday — Comments Off
17
Nov 15

What is Pac-Man’s best stroke anyway?

Not sure how, really, but today I swam 3,200 yards.

The why has become easier. I remember, a year or two ago, topping out on a little ridge on my bicycle. The view was great, just a ribbon of road and one little white house and a sea of pine trees below me. There was something happy and peaceful in that view. Riding, I realized, was one of those things that I was fortunate to be able to do because I wanted to do it. And ever since, even when I take time off the bike, I’ve thought of myself as a rider.

I don’t think of myself as a swimmer, but it is something I can do just because I want to. I’m learning to take the chances you get, even if you think your arms will fall off, to do the things that are yours.

The thing about autumn is that you can’t share it. Is it the signature season where you’re reading this? Does it last for three days, as it seems to here? Whatever you have, you just have to be in it. No photograph really captures the air and the smell and the promise and the sometimes crest-sliding feelings that come with it. But we try:

I walked under that tree on campus. And I pulled out my phone and thought, for about the 14th year in a row, that this isn’t even a snapshot of a season or a glimpse of a feeling. And I sighed at the shortcomings of cameras and smiled at the moment and pressed the button.

After my swim I saw this car while seeking out dinner:

I stood there for a while, trying to decide what kind of person the owner must be. I decided they were pretty nerdy cool. You have to have a sense of humor about you. But they also have to be OK with never clearing the board. The thing about a painted Pac-Man is that you’re never clearing the board. But if you wanted to go classic video game, it is also a bit on the nose. Donkey Kong wouldn’t have made sense. Galaga plays the wrong direction. Centipede would have looked tacky. No one remembers Qbert, probably. Frogger, now that would have been bold.

Update: Today didn’t end until tomorrow. We were still in the newsroom at 3:20 a.m. on the 19th. Never let anyone tell you journalism students don’t work hard. It takes a lot to be that dedicated. And it takes a lot out of them to get it there. They must do it for a reason.

Friday / memories / photo — Comments Off
13
Nov 15

Memory week photos, day five

For France:

A dear friend of ours is working in Paris this year. I listened to international radio on the way home as they started sharing the first horrific details. And then one reporter notes that their audience knows more about what is going on than most Parisians right now. So I pulled over to message our friend: You must tell people you are OK right now. But she’d already done it; she was safe.

She was supposed to go to one of those restaurants tonight, but her evening meeting ran late.

And that is the way things happen sometimes.

We’re wrapping up a week of skimming through old photos last week and see where they take us. So far as I can recall, I haven’t published these pictures anywhere. The theme is signs or words.

Here’s our last two for the week.

These are both from last summer’s travels. The first one is in the bowels of the London Tower. They sell these stickers and someone was unsupervised:

I wondered at the time if there was a political statement here — the locals were and are getting stirred up over various European issues — or if this was just someone being clever. Maybe someone was running from England back to Roman Britannia. But I doubt it.

It was our second trip to London. We had a great time. Maybe we’ll get to go back one in the near future. We’ve had a lovely time there both trips.

And, finally, from Berlin, the orange garbage can that says “Give it to me!”

So orange its Berlin. It is a clean city, as you’d imagine. We walked all over Berlin. I think we walked everywhere. We hope to go back to Germany one day, there’s an entire beautiful country to see.

memories / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
12
Nov 15

Memory week photos, day four

We’re checking out some old photos last week and following them down memory lane. So far as I can recall, I haven’t published these pictures anywhere. The theme is signs or words.

Here’s two now.

A restaurant restroom here in town. It isn’t the most clever thing in the world, but then it started with anger or an accident, so someone with a marker and some imagination did the best they could with it.

The store owner can’t get the drywall guy in there fast enough.

On campus, there’s the printing department’s printing department. I just found this wandering around from one office to another one day.

Or it could be just one department, now with two fonts and working on two different mediums!

I’ve got a different version of this and it is going at the top of the page one day. Two times the printing for one low price!