photo « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

photo

Two videos to start your weekend

I put about 39 markers on a custom map tonight. You have the name and then you must consult by LAT/LONG, postal address or by eyeballing a cross-referenced map, to place the marker. You enter the name. You get the next name, spend several moments researching the precise location — the idea being that if you went to the marker you would be at least within a pitching wedge of the actual location — and do it all over again. Do these three dozen more times. And then, somehow, ruin the entire effort. This is what I have to say to that:

Sometimes she sticks her tongue out and forgets, for a bit, to put it back in. We rush to grab a camera or a phone. She is reasonably tolerable of the camera, but you have to trick her a bit and be ready before you point.

The phone must come out of the pocket. The screen must be unlocked, the phone app accessed and that you have the flash set as the circumstance demands. If you can do all of that before the marginally inattentive cat starts noticing you, you can get two or three quick shots. If you put something in her face before you’re ready and then try to compose a masterpiece you’re going to be disappointed in your effort.

Baseball season is upon us. The hype video was found by Victoria Cumbow, with whom we have the regular Why I Love the Internet This Week joke:

And this, I love this:

S*uff Samford Students NEVER Say from Connor Wangner on Vimeo.

A former student produced that video. They all did a great job. I watched it twice.

iPhone / journalism / links / photo / things to read / Wednesday — Comments Off
22
Feb 12

Don’t forget your hat

It isn’t that there’s a statue in the back of the truck — it must be contemporary, you can’t imagine any classic piece from the Vatican’s collection would be carried around in the back of a Nissan.

It can’t be that the rope is looped around the neck, though at first blush that does make you stop and wonder about the driver’s mood when they put it there.

it is the way she just stares through you.

I have a rope around my neck. I’m in a … Nissan.

Check out the latest on The Samford Crimson. It is a nicely colorful front page this week, post-Step Sing.

The copy is pretty good, except for the typos that slipped through the cracks at 2:30 this morning. The editorial staff is always chagrined when I point them out at 10 a.m.

Things to read: This is severe weather awareness week in Alabama. Were you aware the person in charge of maintaining the tornado sirens has been placed on leave? (Public service note: Do not rely on outdoor sirens. Watch the weather. Buy a weather radio or download the weather apps.)

Alabama’s exports? So glad you asked. Just happened to stumble across a story about that today, hence this entire paragraph, and the subsequent BBJ blockquote:

Alabama exports rose to a record high in 2011, according to a press release from Gov. Robert Bentley’s office.

Exports from the state increased 15.4 percent in 2011 to $17.9 billion, which was up from $15.5 billion last year.

Two prominent non-profit news outlets are shutting down. Alan Mutter has a terrific analysis:

Evidently beguiled by seeing their stories in the pages of the New York Times, two high-profile journalism start-ups failed at building sufficient audience for their own brands.

[…]

Yet, each of them seems to have stumbled in a different way.

The Chicago Cooperative concentrated all but one of its hires on journalists, including several prominent and well-compensated individuals who devoted most of their efforts to putting the best possible work into the NYT. While readers may have appreciated the articles in the newspaper, scant attention appears to have been paid to converting them into individual or corporate supporters of the venture itself.

The Bay Citizen, on the other hand, invested heavily on development …

He goes on to run through the numbers, and his commenters comment on the quality and the competition. The earlier portion of his analysis is cutting, but he has sources who suggest that both Cooperative and the Citizen were working in a bad model.

The only thing worse than a bad model is bad model security. What happens if that rope slips? Where does that garden decoration go from there? Gnomes are so much cheaper. And only slightly more creepy. The Travelocity gnome has helped a lot in that respect.

iPhone / journalism / links / photo / things to read / Tuesday — Comments Off
21
Feb 12

A random assortment of small things

The BIC, Gillette, Shick razor marketing war reaches its logical conclusion:

This, the restaurant manager, pictured here, tells me, is not an escalation in the face trimming arms race. It is instead a sign for the ski slopes. You need to know the condition of the terrain you’re about to fall down, he said. You need to know where this a good route or a bumpy one. He had to explain this to me because he’s hanging Colorado skiing paraphernalia in a barbecue house in central Alabama.

But it makes sense. The Zamboni of the skiing world, as I called it, except it is in no way like a Zamboni. But otherwise, exactly like one.

This is at Moe’s, in Lakeview, where I met Brian for lunch today. It is a central location between our offices the barbecue is pretty good. It is a Colorado-based riff on Alabama and Memphis style meat.

The manager says he’s still trying to find the ideal place to hang this inside.

They don’t understand seven-blade razor jokes there, but that’s OK, because I had no idea about this impressive piece of machinery either. The chicken was delicious. They’ve made a mockery out of black eyed peas. All things in life are a tradeoff.

Things to read: Why organizing beats is just as important as large investigations, ” good reporting happens more regularly and more quickly when information is organized from the start and a beat is built around a clear organizing principle.”

The value of Quora, I think, is jumping in toward the end of a good conversation. There is a great curation of links on this page.

Up in the air! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a zipline!

What is believed to be the nation’s first universal-access zip line and canopy tour is scheduled to open in April at Red Mountain Park in Birmingham.

Consisting of 10 platforms and seven zip runs ranging from 100 to nearly 350 feet long, the course will allow visitors to fly between elevated platforms built in the trees while descending a portion of the slope, tacking back and forth over a draw in the mountain.

At points in the course, a rider will be 50 feet off the ground and moving 25 to 30 mph.

The first comment, before things turned to that delightful level of vitriol and anonymous recrimination that makes most general comment streams, was wonderful: “I have a 17 year old in a wheel chair, I love that he will be able to do this!”

Maybe I’ll get to see him out there. Yes, I’ll be in the ziplines.

iPhone / journalism / Monday / photo / Samford — Comments Off
20
Feb 12

Monday Monday

Ike Pigott, former television reporter and Red Cross strategist, is now a spokesman at Alabama Power. He is famous for his ability to deliver an entire half of a presentation with his eyes closed, as he is simulating here. Pigott spoke in my class today, we filled one room with two classes worth of students and I believe we all learned something. I know I did.

He did not deliver his presentation with his eyes closed. Every other picture I have, however, suggests he has an awkward posture. And since everyone blinks …

Pigott was kind enough to discuss crisis communication and did so through the prism of strategy and social media. It was a great presentation, which you’d come to expect from a pro like him. As I said on Twitter, if you have the means, I highly recommend picking an Ike Pigott up.

Recruiting phone calls into the evening hours. “Have you heard about all the cool things this department does? And the interships our students routinely land? Did you know about our scholarship opportunities? What questions do you have that I can help you with?”

I like doing the recruiting phone calls. Most of the kids are interested in what you have to say, and they’re excited to get the phone call. You have to be careful about how many you make at one time. Somewhere around 25 phone calls in one evening you start to feel incredibly repetitious.

But the program at Samford does a nice job of selling itself. The are great opportunities behind the Samford gates. And then there are plenty of places in the city and across the region that have a high reputation, built of years of experience, with the quality of interns the program produces. Then they go out in the world and get really cool jobs, from coast to coast, in the NFL and national magazines and the Washington Post and big PR firms, or they start their own companies or work in huge churches and find incredible opportunities to take what they learned on campus and turn it into something they are passionate about.

And then there are the scholarships. So, really, it sells itself.

Still, you have to reach out and contact potential students. There will be a lot of that this week.

Auburn / baseball / football / memories / photo / site / weekend — Comments Off
19
Feb 12

Catching up

The weekly attempt to share a few more of the pictures that haven’t, as yet, made it elsewhere on the site.

Ronnie Brown and Cadillac Williams spent some great years playing football at Auburn. They were both taken in the first round of the NFL draft after their perfect 2004 season. Shame about the people they ran around with when they were in school, though:

Look at the fu manchu, the handlebars, the eye patch, the neck tats. Those kids are of ill-repute.

That’s actually a chart-your-growth-compare-to-NFL-caliber-athletes-and-try-not-to-be-disappointed poster. It is still on display at Momma Goldberg’s, some eight years after it was timely. The location means the second half of that sentence makes perfect sense. People can see the picture alone and know where I’m standing at that moment.

Meanwhile, one of the current football superstars was having dinner on the patio, just outside, when I took that shot. And, yes, we were about to have dinner outside in February. Life is good.

Quick! Count the typos! There are a few. This is the fine print on the back of a gymnastics ticket:

This pitch is too low:

That’s from the Friday game against Missouri. Auburn won. The Saturday game was rained out. Mizzou won both of those games, the last one was shortened to 7 innings because of time constraints. (Missouri had to catch their plane.) Auburn left 29 runners on base in 25 innings this weekend.

It was a cold and drizzly day for baseball. Friday? Friday evening was beautiful. (Click to embiggen the panorama.)

And now, a few more gymnastics pictures from Friday night:

Still more in the February photo gallery.