photo


24
Nov 13

Catching up

The post with leftover pictures! These things were homeless until now. They find a place to live, and I get an easy day’s worth of cheap content out of it. We all win! On with it, then.

Allie and her friend:

Allie

A few weeks ago I mentioned the proliferation of Ritz cracker varieties. Now I can prove it. There are at least 10 varieties here. Who knew there was such a demand?

Ritz

If you’ve ever wondered, it comes in a gel, a foam and a spray:

Hair

You don’t see these much anymore. Naturally I saw it at Sam’s:

Hummer

Moving a little heavy machinery from A to B:

Road grader


19
Nov 13

I walked into the end of this one, didn’t I?

Partly cloudy, cloudy, mostly cloudy, scattered clouds. All of that was in the weather analysis today. Also, a high of 59. The low tonight is predicted around 36. More of these were on the ground:

leaves

So autumn is over. Fall is here. I propose that we have two seasons. The autumn doesn’t last long, but our coldest season won’t typically show up until the end of December. We have to have something in between, right? So instead of just four seasons, I propose we have five.

This is funny because some would say we really only have three seasons. Or, maybe, even just two.

It is five. You read it here, on the Internet. It is true.

This is one of those things I’ve been hanging on to for several days. I may as well share it here. My colleague David Simpson takes it away:

Because I couldn’t get a projector to work at the National College Media Convention in New Orleans, I read aloud a passage in a “Free Your Writing Voice” session that I’ve sometimes just flashed on a screen. I had not prepared for a dramatic reading, so I was surprised at how powerful it sounded coming out of my mouth.

The audience seemed to like it, though it’s a long passage. So I encourage you to read it aloud.

[…]

I especially loved reading that long sentence. And the two-word emphatic ending.

Click on over to read the passage yourself. I suspect, if you like the art of writing, you’ll appreciate what you find there.

The funniest thing I did today:

Yeah, it was one of those kind of days. My office is cold. The newsroom is colder. It might be warmer outside. The students are working on their paper and I’m grading things and working on projects and not touching glow sticks.

Things to read

Tip pays off for Richmond student journalists:

The Collegian reporters started digging into the past of a law school student when they got a tip that he was a sex offender. Turns out he had served time in prison for aggravated sexual battery.

He had also been ordered to withdraw from the University of Virginia, according to the story Conklin and Arnett published earlier this month. At Richmond, he was the recipient of one of the law school’s most prestigious scholarships and a member of its Honor Council.

Interesting story — here is their reporting — that is continuing. The comments, as always, are insightful.

This is tough all the way around. She wrote the president, he used her tale as an anecdote. And then Washington’s health system found an error. Her rates increased. Then they found another error. Another hike. And now, Woman cited by President as Obamacare success story frustrated by sign up process:

The result was a higher quote, which Sanford said was for $390 per month for a “silver” plan with a higher deductible. Still too expensive.

A cheaper “bronze” plan, Sanford said, came in at $324 per month, but also with a high deductible – also not in her budget.

Then another letter from the state exchange with even worse news.

“Your household has been determined eligible for a Federal Tax Credit of $0.00 to help cover the cost of your monthly health insurance premium payments,” the latest letter said.

[…]

“This is it. I’m not getting insurance,” Sanford told CNN. “That’s where it stands right now unless they fix it.”

[…]

She is sorry Obama mentioned her during the October 21 speech.

“I feel awful about it. I support (the Affordable Care Act),” Sanford said.

But the messy rollout in the other Washington, the nation’s capital, was not far from her mind.

“What the hell? Why is it the same story as the federal government?” Sanford says in disgust with the Washington state exchange. “They didn’t have it ready.”

“They screwed up,” she added.

Comments on that story have been turned off, which is curious, but unsurprising.

The longest (and, in places, wrongest) infographic of your day. Commenters were helpfully pointing out errors here. That’s become its own industry at this point, hasn’t it, correcting the work of others in the comments below …

I await yours in 3 … 2 …


18
Nov 13

I never have good titles for Mondays

Here are a few shots of leaves on campus this afternoon:

leaf turn

leaf turn

May they never complete their turn. Because you know they will, and that’ll just leave us sticks in the air, the great surrender of the trees to winter.

Fine day today. Lovely, sunny, weather. Béla Fleck played campus this evening. I talked about cover letters in class. There was the ritualistic grading of things and other typical office efforts. I had a baked potato for dinner. It was all grand in its own way.

Things to readSmithsonian Now Allows Anyone To 3D Print (Some) Historic Artifacts:

The Smithsonian Institution may have hit on one of the best uses of 3D printing to date. Starting Wednesday, the world’s largest network of museums introduced Smithsonian X 3D, a new effort and web portal to create 3D renderings of its vast and fascinating collections of more than 137 million objects.

Amelia Earhart’s flight suit? Done! Wooly mammoth? You betcha! Abraham Lincoln’s lifemask? Creepy, but it can be yours.

We live in the future, and it is going to have awesome tidbits of the past everywhere.

And it will have, finally, maybe, self driving cars. Think of all the things you could get done on a long drive. Has the self-driving car at last arrived?:

His Lexus is what you might call a custom model. It’s surmounted by a spinning laser turret and knobbed with cameras, radar, antennas, and G.P.S. It looks a little like an ice-cream truck, lightly weaponized for inner-city work. Levandowski used to tell people that the car was designed to chase tornadoes or to track mosquitoes, or that he belonged to an élite team of ghost hunters. But nowadays the vehicle is clearly marked: “Self-Driving Car.”

[…]

Levandowski is an engineer at Google X, the company’s semi-secret lab for experimental technology.

Closer to home, Archaeologists finding clues to mining communities atop Red Mountain:

“We didn’t know what to expect,” said Forschler-Tarrasch, who first thought the artifacts might be native Alabamian or Native American pottery. “We were surprised that most of the shards are English and American pottery. We identified one as a piece of German pottery. They are absolutely not from this area.

She speculated that either the workers brought them here, or they were purchased in company stores.

“Many of the shards have little marks on them,” she said. “You can date them based on the marks, and they mostly coincide with the dates of the settlement, so these were contemporary, household ceramics. Most of them are pretty average, but there are a few that are fancier, with some gilding that would have cost more. We have yet to determine what that means for the site.”

There’s just something about Red Mountain — the way the houses cling to the side, the way we’ve cut a road through it, its importance to the region’s development, the high quality ore they took out of there, something — that fascinates. This project, at less than 100 years old in places, is more cleaning up than archeology, but really quite cool.


Food stamp cuts in your state
— an interactive infographic. The supporting NPR piece:

When you think of Oregon and food, you probably think organic chicken, kale chips and other signs of a strong local food movement. What probably doesn’t come to mind? Food stamps.

And yet, 21 percent of Oregon’s population – that’s one out of every five residents – relies on food stamps to get by.

Oregon has a host of unfortunate and challenging problems. And thanks for pointing out that 21 percent is one out of every five people. How else could I have figured that out?

Another fact that jumps out when looking at the map: While Republicans have led the call to slash the SNAP program in the House, many of the states whose residents are most reliant on food stamps are reliably Republican and located in the GOP’s Southern heartland. About 20 percent of the population in Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, and South Carolina, for instance, receive benefits from the federal food assistance program.

That part, I’m guessing, is where the regional debate in the comments comes from.

No debate here: full day, and so we’ll wrap it up here. Stop by Twitter. And come back here for more tomorrow.


17
Nov 13

Catching up

The post that places photos from other days on this day, to show what would otherwise be forgotten, and to have a day’s worth of easy content. Enjoy.

Allie stole her chair back. And she’s holding an iPad hostage, too. Things are very fluid on the front lines:

Allie

Three more shots of the foliage that drives all the kids wild:

leaf turn

leaf turn

leaf turn

Nick Marshall is on the loose against Georgia. Pretty sure that’s a holding call that the officials blew. That crew is so talented both sets of fans felt they were hosed by the referees. That’s talent. Anyway, the quarterback picked up 101 yards with his feet on 19 carries:

Nick Marshall

He’s throwing this one into your office. Marshall was 15 of 26 for 229 yards and a score through the air. Are you ready to complete this pass? Then War Eagle:

Nick Marshall

Corey Grant is fast. He picked up 53 yards on six touches, including his 21-yard touchdown:

Corey Grant

This is Ricardo Louis. He’s still just a freshman in this shot, and not yet a legend. He had four catches and the game-winning score:

Ricardo Louis

Nick Marshall sneaking in for one of his touchdowns:

Nick Marshall

Here’s Ricardo Louis again. Still just a freshman. But I notice he’s always behind the defenders. Good place for receivers to be. Make them chase you:

Ricardo Louis

I said on the second Georgia possession of the night that they couldn’t slow down Dee Ford, and thus you may as well give him the Heisman now. He tormented Georgia’s Aaron Murray. Indeed, this is the heartbeat before he destroyed him on the last play of the game. Ford is blurry because he moves that fast. This is the way QBs see him in their nightmares:

Dee Ford

It has been a long time since I took a picture of a scoreboard:

scoreboard


13
Nov 13

I ran a lot, let’s just leave it at that

Here are two extra photos from last week’s fall foliage kick. This tree probably won’t have anything left on its limbs the next time I see it. But it is flaring beautifully:

leaves

This, more about the sun and the darkness, really, is at my grandparents’ place. While I prefer the longer days like everyone else, we do get some great angles from the sun this time of year:

leaves

Elsewhere, I ran my first 10K tonight. I was going to run the usual five, but everything felt OK, so I kept going. When I got to five miles, my previous personal best, I decided I could press on to get the nice round kilometer number. And everything felt more or less OK.

And that continued until I stopped running and took a shower. After that it all seemed like a bad idea. Since then, through the night various and different parts have been achy. My feet and my knees. My feet and my quads. My feet and my calves. Always my feet.

Clearly I have room for improvement.

Things to read …

Which brings us to this, from the Wall Street Journal, that bastion of considerate opinion and coverage of serious issues: OK, You’re a Runner. Get Over It. Once upon a time, kids, the Journal did write about serious things. Promise. I suppose we should blame the Internet.

I learned new terms today: “Snowplow parents” and “teacups.”

This young woman was on track to graduate early. And then she had a bad car accident, with a traumatic brain injury. She had to learn to walk and talk and feed herself again. And then she went back to school and graduate. That’s the short version of a remarkable story. Now her brother is trying to raise money for continued therapy. Read about it, and please share that link.

My friend Jeremy from The War Eagle Reader recites the greatest story ever written about a college football game. Worth a listen for football fans:

Here’s the text version.