photo


9
Mar 12

No really, buy me some peanuts

I couldn’t say if there is a lot of video like this, or if it is a one-of-a-kind contribution to the International Institute of Outflow Mesoscale Gradients.

That’s from a small town east of Lexington, Ky. and that’s serious business. They aren’t used to seeing that sort of thing up there. Once a Louisville meteorologist confessed to his shock at seeing three rotations in one radar sweep. He’d never seen that before.

Here we call that Tuesday.

Of course they can deal with snow, so there’s a trade off.

Felt sluggish all day. I guess it was the week catching up with me, but there was no energy to be found anywhere. So this evening I made myself ride my bike. I want to ride even when I don’t feel like it, not just when I feel good. That’s how I can really churn out the miles — I told myself while inflating my tires.

So I set off on the warm up routine, down and out throw the neighborhood and then on the two back roads that border the local area. My legs were heavy. Actually they were dead. The wind was blowing. I’ve found that a mild headwind kills two or three miles an hour. Going up hills felt more like standing still.

I did have two nice sprints, the first hitting 31 miles per hour and the second at 30. Otherwise it was a remarkably poor 30 mile ride. Except for this:

trees

It is a lovely neighborhood.

At the Auburn baseball game, the Tigers were leading here 5-3:

HitchcockFIeld

They’d jumped out to that score early, and it stayed there a long time. In the top of the ninth Belmont scored two runners on sacrifice flies. It was tied when the Tigers ran off the field.

In the bottom of the ninth Auburn’s leadoff man reached first on a field error. Jay Gonzalez then stole second. There was a strikeout and then an intentional walk. And then Cullen Walker hit one just past Belmont’s diving second baseman. Gonzalez raced around the diamond from second, giving Auburn the 6-5 win.

Nice way to start the weekend series. The only thing missing? The peanuts.


8
Mar 12

Busy, busy day

It was a full and busy day. It started late last night, and a brief nap early this morning notwithstanding, it spun on until about 6 p.m. this evening. It was a great day. A lot of personable people, a class and more than my share of laughs.

And, after all of that, I got to talk to a friend. I got to stand in my yard and look at my neighborhood in the dying light.

Flowering

It is a lovely life. It is a beautiful place.

Do come back for more fun tomorrow.


7
Mar 12

Where I brag on CBS-42

I like to poke fun at television news, but it is all in good fun. I have a great respect for the hard work they do and the service they can provide. And I’m not just saying that because my wife is a former (Emmy-nominated) producer. Birmingham, despite its relative small size, is a great television market. This is the place for sports, the hardest weather market in the country and has as much, and more, news as the next place. (And as of this year and the county’s bankruptcy — the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the country — they’ll have plenty of stories for a long, long time.) Because of all of that they pull in great talent.

And that talent is very gracious, across the local industry really, but specifically I must point out the nice folks at WIAT CBS-42.

CBS

Here’s why. One of our classes takes field trips to learn about the various aspects of the media industry, and between the four (or five) sections of that class we hit all the stations in town. I visit WIAT when I teach the class and we went there today. Today also happened to be the day that the bingo trial, the biggest criminal trial of the year where defends were accused of using campaign contributions to buy and sell votes on state gambling legislation, came down with their verdicts: not guilty.

So it was a busy day in their newsroom, but we had a great tour. The students enjoyed themselves, learned about the business first hand and met some of the local experts, talking with reporters furiously working in their edit bays, meeting people like the assignment editor in the newsroom, watching the producer make his sausage in his booth and talking with nice, engaging and talented people like meteorologist Mark Prater:

CBS

It was a great tour. They all are. The local media is very kind to our program at Samford.


5
Mar 12

Mom’s birthday


A favorite family song …

In a version she might have known as a child, just 29 short years ago. 😉


4
Mar 12

Catching up

The weekly effort to put a few more colorful photographs on this page, the excuse to go through stuff that hasn’t been seen on the site and add it here, the transparent attempt to have a Sunday post with little effort. It’s the weekly installment of catching up!

Freshman Daniel Koger pitched 5 1/3 innings, allowing just three runs on five hits and four walks, striking out three. Somehow a guy that bunted on base against him with two outs managed to score, walked in, in a one-hit inning. That kind of game for Auburn today.

Jay Gonzalez, who came into the weekend leading the SEC in runs scored, added another to his total today:

I wonder if he was recounting old days at the park:

Someone’s keeping score:

These two people have great seats:

He’s such an easy, obvious target:

We all know this guy: