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journalism / Monday / photo / Samford — Comments Off
3
Nov 14

What happens below didn’t actually happen

New rule: When you see the Pig on the move, it is going to be a good day:

And so it was a good day, even though I didn’t see an actual Piggly Wiggly. (The amount of sleep I had this weekend might have something to do with the former.) I think I could only drive to one or two strictly by memory any more. How many Piggly Wiggly stores remain? Pigapedia says there are more than 600 stores in 17 states, with a distribution center still in Alabama. There are apparently 103 here, many in small towns most people have never heard of. Some in small towns I’ve barely heard of.

I remember the last time I was in a Piggly Wiggly, mostly because the opportunity was so rare as to be memorable. Nothing else about the place was. The mascot is great, and the store has a place in history, but otherwise they just feel undersized — compared to most suburban America grocery store experiences.

There’s something we don’t think about a lot, I’d bet. In fact, that exact phrase has never been crawled by a Google spider before.

One day, somebody will be at a Piggly Wiggly with their parents or grandparents and Google something about the place and this post might show up.

(Hi kid, check out the cereal selection on aisle 4. Some of it was probably shipped on that truck above.)

Today in class the chief of the Public Safety department came to give the students a faux-press conference. He was even kind enough to put on his badge, which I don’t always notice him wearing.

Every year or so the Public Safety crew and local emergency teams run an on-campus emergency situation. When I asked the director to visit my class he simply recycled this scenario. It was great. He walked in and tells the students there’s been an explosion. They have four phone calls reporting a suspicious person. The campus is on lockdown. There are injuries. These and those people are responding. “Are there any questions?”

The students ask some questions and he answers them and then he thanks them for coming and promises them another briefing. He goes outside and the students and I talk about what just happened. What did we learn and what is still confusing? What questions did we like and not like?

He comes back in and there’s an update to this part of the story and that. More questions. He leaves again. I give them a little primer on this aspect of the process, some “Have you thought about that?” business. He comes back in and does another briefing and takes more questions.

This goes on through about four or five press conference sessions and the faux-news (because this is all hypothetical, no need to worry) is real grim. There’s a chlorine leak. They found another explosive. Dozens of people injured, a bunch of people killed. The shooter is dead. If this scenario had played out in reality with these details, you’d have something similar to the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting.

Some of the students start sweating. I’m not sure if that’s the details or the rapid fire nature of what the director is telling them. That’s a lot to write down and they’ll have to do a story on it. They did a fine job in the press conference, though. I started a list of questions that should have been asked and by the end they’d gotten answers to most of those. It was a good experience then, I hope, and it was because of the guy with the badge. He certainly made it a memorable day, and that makes it a good one.

He’s definitely going to be called upon again to do that in my classes in the future.

photo / weekend — Comments Off
2
Nov 14

Catching up

The weekly post of extra pictures. There are always extras. There are extras still, but I shot these yesterday while running, they fit the season and the mood and the others can wait. On with it, then!

This is Hummingbird Lake at Callaway Gardens. And I remembered the time I took my grandmother to Callaway to see the flowers when she visited me in college. Registering for this run or the countless times I’ve passed this exit or even getting there yesterday didn’t do it, but Hummingbird Lake made me think about that trip. Now there are just hummingbirds everywhere in my life. That’s starting to make me happy a little, but just about every other emotion is there too.

The next two shots are of Mountain Creek Lake, which is the largest body of water at Callaway. The Callaway family started digging this out in 1949.

Bluebirds are an important part of the local wildlife, so naturally there’s a Bluebird Lake.

Most of the trees are pines — this is Pine Mountain, Georgia after all — but some of the deciduous leaves are starting to go. Here’s another example at Whippoorwill Lake. There’s a half-mile nature trail here, and ducks during the right season. There probably all gone south for the winter by now, I’d bet:

Here’s one last shot of Mountain Creek Lake, which is the largest body of water in the park. There’s a 1.5 mile unpaved trail around Mountain Creek that drops you down to the water’s edge where you can see turtles, ducks, herons, a richly diverse floral scene and scarred trunks marked up by beavers.

This is part of the beach recreation area at Robin Lake, which, among other things, boasts the annual Masters Water Ski & Wakeboard Tournament. I did not know there was such a thing, but next year they’ll have the 56th annual event tournament:

Running the trail:

adventures / I do not know what is happening. / photo / running / weekend — Comments Off
1
Nov 14

Callaway Twilight 10K

I got to hug my lovely bride today, and it was the most wonderful feeling in the world.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

As is now apparently our way, we find things to do online and then convince each other to do them. That’s how we started doing triathlons and that’s why we did a half ironman relay recently and that’s why we ran a 10K today.

There’s a 5K we did on campus a month or two ago with a friend. She said she liked it. The Yankee liked it. So I looked around for other races, being wary of how far I’m wiling to drive a car to run a distance I can do in my neighborhood. There it was, the Callaway Gardens Twilight 10K, held just over the border into Georgia.

The premise is you get to run around the pretty place and see the Fantasy In Lights Christmas show before it is open to the public. Twilight is a misnomer, but who cares. So we signed up, our friend bailed out because “Brrr it is cold and I’m from New Jersey.” So it was just the two of us, which was fine.

We made our way to Callaway after lunch today — and by after lunch I mean I ate in the car.

We got there just in time. Here’s the scene at the race start:

And here we are, probably less than a mile in, looking strong and having a nice time:

We’re not winning anything, this is just an excuse to exercise some new, pretty place. And, also, to have roadside support like this guy:

We ran through a lot of interesting light decorations that I’m sure pop nicely in the dark. There were speakers blaring thing from the trees — and of course the 12 Days of Christmas section was the one that wouldn’t end. We ran under giant decorations like snowflakes and wreaths and barns and this Santa’s Workshop kind of thing:

And then after six miles you found yourself trotting up the last little hill, turning right and running with Robin Lake on your left and the finish line ahead of you. We pronounced the course is relatively flat and fast. I’d like to really run it and see how slow I am. Ren did really well. It was her first 10K, ever, and she was very pleased with her performance and her time, as she should be. After the run:

It was windy and a little chilly, Somewhere between there and the finish line I got a full, complete, laughing, joyful hug of pride and pleasure and accomplishment. I could write a lot more about that, what that means or what it felt like, but the most important part is this: Don’t ever let go of those too early.

Friday / hobby / photo / Samford — Comments Off
31
Oct 14

There is no candy to mark the season

We discussed press conferences in class today. The students will take part in a faux-press conference on Monday. The director of Public Safety will brief them on an on-campus issue. It all stems from a training exercise the emergency folks on campus and in the surrounding communities do every year.

I don’t miss police media conferences. Police officers and fire department folks and the various hardworking people who are involved in those types of stories don’t give very good quotes. They have plenty of good reasons to be careful with what they say — they don’t know everything yet, they have to protect the investigation and they don’t want to be the biggest part of a story among other things — but that doesn’t help the people working on stories very much.

I found, if you interact with the same public information officers enough you can almost produce the story without them there. You learn their quotes and phrases and know where this answer goes and on and on.

Of course you must ask questions, even the ones where you already know the answer: I can’t discuss the ongoing investigation, the officer patiently answers for the hundred time this year.

Press conferences with lawyers aren’t much more entertaining. The things aren’t meant to be entertaining, of course, but still everyone wants to be amused once in a while. So I told stories today about some of the three-ring circus press conferences of which I’ve taken part. That will not be what you have in class Monday, I said.

Big department meeting at the end of the day. I take minutes. I think I wrote five pages of minutes. The first year I did that I typed seven minutes thinking “Haha! I won’t be asked to do this anymore! MUHAHA!”

And I’ve done it every time since.

They are flying the Union Jack in Sherman Circle on campus. This is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the university’s international studies program in London.

It might be a bit difficult to tell in that light, but this particular flag has silver in it. Wikipedia explains:

The first rule of heraldic design is the rule of tincture: metal should not be put on metal, nor colour on colour (Humphrey Llwyd, 1568). This means that Or and argent (gold and silver, which are represented by yellow and white) may not be placed on each other; nor may any of the colours (i.e. azure, gules, sable, vert and purpure) be placed on another colour.

I’d always thought the white part had symbolism, but it is a design rule. I learned something after 5 p.m. today!

Sherman Circle, in the main entrance to campus, is named in honor of Samuel S. Sherman, Howard College’s first president, who served from 1842 until 1853. He is perhaps still most locally famous for putting “feet to his prayers.” He rolled a wheelbarrow around Marion, the first location of the university about 81 miles away by car, collecting books for the first library.

(Yes, there is also an American flag flying.)

Up from Sherman Circle is the Centennial Walk. In the middle ground is the popular statue of Mr. Ralph Waldo Beeson, an insurance man who gave Samford millions of dollars over the years. That’s a 1990 newspaper article talking about his posthumous donations and his legendary frugality. He made his money building up Liberty Insurance, a regional fixture, which was founded by Frank Samford, Sr., the university’s namesake.

Anyway, behind the Beeson statue is the Davis Library, and on either side of the quad you’re surrounded by white tents put up ahead of tomorrow’s homecoming festivities:

This is just showing off:

Stopped at the grocery store for soup. Our neighborhood is famous among the gimme-candy set. I can’t imagine why:

I got in around 7:30. We missed the young kids, who are the best part of the Halloween order around here. Right about that time is when the older kids come out. Some of them were lingering in the neighbor’s yard when I got home. I generally want to tell them to go get jobs, buy the candy they want and boo-humbug. Our lights were already out. The candy was gone. The night was done. I’ll be asleep by 10 p.m. for a change.

photo / Thursday — Comments Off
30
Oct 14

Early Halloween

I’ve never thought of Halloween as something that really deserves wishing someone happy wishes about it. I’m sure I’ve said it before, much like you say “I’m doing fine,” without thinking about it or perhaps even meaning it. But, there I was, Tuesday night, wishing a happy Halloween to the young lady who cut my hair.

She’d told me about her trick or treating plans — she takes her little sister and friends out every year and she’s going as Mickey Mouse and the kids are going as Powerpuff Girls — and then I paid her and said “Happy Halloween” and realized I kind of meant it above the standard small talk fare.

“May all of your candy be delicious, and peanut free if you have allergens.”

The critical problem with Halloween is that it is gone the next morning. You may have the candy and the wrappers and the tummy ache, but we’ve instantly discarded the notions of Halloween.

So, before the day gets X-rayed, melted and discarded, here’s something I saw today:

Happy early Halloween. May all of your bags be heavy, and without holes in the bottom.