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The place that hurts

We saw this scary little stand of dead trees on the way home yesterday. We actually saw them on the way down on Friday, too, of course, but we resolved to stop and take a few pictures. We could make True Detective jokes about this place:

I don’t know if you’ve been watching True Detective, but the thing I’ve taken from the show is that the location scouts did some amazing work. The place in this picture, outside of Waycross, Ga., could be an alternate shot for the show.

Also I meant for this to be some sort of allusion to how I’ve been feeling: like a burned out stand of trees in a clear cut area with standing water everywhere. That’s how I’ve been feeling.

I started coming down with something on Friday — right about the time we were passing through this place in Georgia, come to think of it — and it has only gotten steadily more interesting. We even made the almost-midnight trip to an out-of-town drug store. How cliched can I be?

This morning marked day three of filling my system with whatever medicine we bought. I did pretty well in getting in front of the sinuses or allergies, so it hasn’t been too bad so far. But! We had to drive through this nightmarish setting again, and if the allergens were there, well, I have a double dose and tomorrow will just be fun, won’t it?

So we went swimming today. I agreed to this because, I figured, I can’t breathe on the surface and I don’t try to breathe underwater, what could be the harm? I didn’t know we were going swimming when I had my breakfast of an apple and peanut butter. Also, I haven’t slept well since Thursday. (I’m pretty sure I didn’t sleep at all on Friday night.) And so on …

We got to the pool and it was configured for the long course style, which I have never swam before. So instead of doing 50 yard laps I would get to do 100 meter laps. That wall at 25, I learned today, makes a big difference.

But I swam it anyway. I swam 1,800 meters, which is 1,968 yards, which is 1.118 miles.

I do not know what is happening.

Did I mention I might be the first person in the recorded history of lap swimming to sprain his wrist from hitting the water? How exciting is that? I’m not sure how I managed to do that, only that after some time my wrist started hurting — let’s blame lousy form — and that I wisely continued swimming.

So now I’m sick, have a little sunburn on my neck, haven’t slept well or breathed right in days, have a slight fever and a mildly sprained wrist.

I know one thing that is happening: I am falling apart. I blame Waycross. Give me some time and I’ll figure out how.

If I don’t hurt myself more, first.

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23
Mar 14

Catching up

The weekly post that passes off old pictures as current content. This week some are older than others. On with it, then.

One last look at a strip of Ferdinandina Beach, a lovely little place:

At the Ribault Club, where my friend Chadd got married on Saturday, the giant tree where they said their vows had lights like these on all of the major limbs:

The rest of these have been sitting in Photoshop waiting to be used for weeks. So we’ll rush through them. We met this dog, who was a total ham for the camera, at lunch one day:

Some of the things you can buy at one of our local lunch shops:

Some more of the fresh vegetables you can buy at one of our local lunch shops:

adventures / Auburn / friends / history / photo / running / weekend — Comments Off
22
Mar 14

Chadd and Kristi’s wedding day

We had lunch on the beach. We ate sandwiches while we watched the waves. Not a bad way to spend the noontime hour:

I saw a turtle:

This was our path to the beach:

We took a run this afternoon, an easy 3.57 mile jog along the beach and the road beside it. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon.

Oh, you wanted to know about the wedding? This was the site, on Fort George Island:

The Timucuan Indians called it Alicamani. They were met by the French explorer Jean Ribault, who found his way near this spot in 1562. The home itself is named in Ribault’s honor. The Spanish pushed the French out, of course, and then the British overran what was then San Juan in 1702.

In 1736 James Oglethorpe, the governor of Georgia and our friend from Savannah, named the island and his fort St. George here. The Spanish took over the region once again in 1783 and then three Americans became the owners of the island. Two of their plantations still exist.

After the Civil War the island fell into the hands of a carpetbagger from New Hampshire. Then came the trains, and the yellow fever and a fire that wiped out much of the little island. In the 1920s came the first car. The Ribault Club was built in 1928 and was, from the start, a playground for the affluent. Recently it underwent a four-year renovation and hosts parties and weddings and, oh look, here comes the bride:

Her father walked her down the aisle. Later, he offered a toast to his daughter and new son-in-law. He was shaking so hard I’m not sure how he saw his notes. But it was a beautiful speech. Very nice man.

Here are Kristi and Chadd, just after they exchanged their vows:

And their first dance. Chadd is a smoothy. Who knew?

The big finish:

It was a lovely ceremony. For dinner we sat at the Auburn table. Everyone there was just a little older than me. They said I was the one that picked up Chadd’s pieces when they all graduated and moved off to the real world ahead of him.

“Really” I said, “he was the guy that helped give me my start. It was a small thing, maybe, but … ”

So you were the one with the puppy dog eyes.

Probably, yes. If I look at the path of my career it is easy to see how integral he was to a lot of my progress. I was thinking about that when Chadd’s brother offered his best man toast. It was a great speech, about how consistent and dedicated and unflinchingly moral Chadd is. As a speech it felt right in every sense, and it was wonderful to be there to see the start of this new part of his life.

adventures / Friday / friends / memories / photo — Comments Off
21
Mar 14

Travel day

We spent almost the entire afternoon in the car, but we’ve finally arrived somewhere:

We are on Amelia Island, a well-kept secret coastal getaway just outside of Jacksonville. I’d never even heard of the place until my friend moved here. And my friend is why we are here. Tomorrow, Chadd, one of my old radio mentors, is getting married.

Chadd helped me get started in broadcasting in Auburn. I worked with him doing high school sportscasts. When he moved on I moved into his spot. And I’d follow him up in a broadcasting job in Birmingham, too. He moved on to nationally syndicated shows and ESPN and now runs a sports talker in Jacksonville. Earlier this week they announced they were becoming the flagship station for Jaguars football. Tomorrow he’s getting married. Some week. Some guy.

We saw them tonight at a little mixer. It was the first time we’d met his bride, though we are friends online — one of those modern conditions of modern life. “Oh, finally, we meet.”

She’s going to be a beautiful bride tomorrow. It is an outdoor wedding, if the rain holds off. There’s a big concern of that. Every forecast is different, the entire week, we’re told, has been a weird weather experience.

This evening was lovely, though. We sat outside on a beachfront patio for dinner. We’d walked in and they asked “Inside or out?” My first thought was “Why would you come to the beach and eat inside?” My second thought was “Why is this woman singing Wagon Wheel? And why is Wagon Wheel suddenly the ‘I have country’ bonafides?”

Outside was louder, but the band was better. And, boy, could this lady sing:

She went from the very reverend Al Green directly into White Stripes and she actually made it work. Not bad for a patio band.

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20
Mar 14

Stay to the left

Slowing traffic for several miles on the way home …

My first job after college was reporting traffic on the radio. College grad! It was originally supposed to be a job where I flew around as a passenger in a small plane and reported from the sky. Something happened, I forget the details, where the guy I was replacing stuck around. So I worked in the office.

The office was a big bullpen with miniature studio bays instead of cubicles. There was one guy who had the job of calling police stations, listening to scanners and taking the occasional phone call about traffic reports. He was inputting all of this data into the system so that people like me could read on various radio stations in the region. On any given day I was reporting on five or six stations. We all had stations and times and some people crafted miniature personalities behind it. This was, after all, something of a stepping stone job for some people.

One of those guys, an older gentleman, did this cantankerous bit, like the accidents, the minor ones at least, were an imposition to him, already at his office. It was probably funny in a sympathetic sort of way. One day he called a car fire a “Car-B-Q.” That seemed less funny to me, since these are more serious than a fender bender. I always think of that whenever I hear about or see a car fire.

You never hear what became of the people involved. Did they escape safely? How many of their things did they bother to reach for? How did it start? You only know it ruined more than their weekend plans.

Things to read … because that is almost always in the plans.

Concerns about cancer centers under health law:

Some of America’s best cancer hospitals are off-limits to many of the people now signing up for coverage under the nation’s new health care program.

Doctors and administrators say they’re concerned. So are some state insurance regulators.

An Associated Press survey found examples coast to coast. Seattle Cancer Care Alliance is excluded by five out of eight insurers in Washington’s insurance exchange. MD Anderson Cancer Center says it’s in less than half of the plans in the Houston area. Memorial Sloan-Kettering is included by two of nine insurers in New York City and has out-of-network agreements with two more.

In all, only four of 19 nationally recognized comprehensive cancer centers that responded to AP’s survey said patients have access through all the insurance companies in their states’ exchanges.

If you haven’t come around to the reality that there is a difference between “coverage” and “health care” then you are well behind the curve.

Following up on a piece you read here on Monday, TV Subscriptions Fall for First Time as Viewers Cut the Cord:

The decline is small so far. Video subscribers across the entire pay-TV industry, which includes Comcast Corp. (CMCSA), DirecTV and Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), dropped by 251,000 last year to about 100 million, SNL Kagan said in a statement today.

The industry has seen this coming for a while; research firm IHS said in August that TV subscriptions would decline to 100.8 million from 100.9 million in 2013. And cable companies have been suffering declines for years as satellite and phone carriers wrested away market share. In fact, DirecTV (DTV), Verizon and their ilk still gained TV subscribers last year — just not enough to make up for 2 million lost cable subscribers.

Pay-TV carriers have been preparing for this inflection point by developing services for watching video on tablets and smartphones. They’re also investing to boost Internet speeds as broadband services become more popular, often at the expense of TV subscriptions.

On our Blu-ray player there is an option for all manner of non-television video platforms. Most of them you probably don’t even know are out there. Seems we won’t need a la carte cable, we’re going to get it in some other fashion.

Remember when CNN stood for something? Now they’ll fall for anything.

Reaction is here.

For word nerds, AP removes distinction between ‘over’ and ‘more than’. If you want to see how that is being received, you can read the reaction beneath the Associated Press’ announcement on Twitter.

I'd say this over-correction is more than a shame. RT @toddcstacy: @Poynter @kennysmith for shame

— kenny smith (@kennysmith) March 21, 2014

I like to tell people that I think we all have a superpower, no matter how lame. Mine, I say, is that I can always anticipate the size of plasticware needed to store the leftovers. It isn’t going to save the world from alien invaders, but at least it is helpful in the kitchen. Unlike the Incredible Hulk.

It is a fun joke. It usually gets a little laugh. It starts a little “What’s your superpower?” conversation. Tonight, though, in maybe the third such event in the history of my discovering my comic book destiny …

Take note for this this day in history: @kennysmith's super power failed him. He misjudged the Tupperware needed for leftovers. #offday

— Lauren Smith (@LaurnSmith) March 21, 2014

Even Superman has an off day, or so I’m telling myself.

Things on my campus blog:

Know your rights
Giving Skype interviews
Where your eyes are going these days
Robot news
The place where television news, schools and ethics meet