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Woke up in north Alabama, spent the day on campus in the central part of the state and finished at home. Long day, lots of travel.
But I wrapped up a summer assessment project — and learned two new tricks in Excel in the process. I met a new student. Had a nice meeting with the new editor of the paper. And also had two sit-down meetings with faculty members.
Now I have to finish building my first few weeks of classes. Things return to the normal, busy, hectic, gratifying pace next week.
Had the chance for a quick family trip and, amidst the visiting, I got a few old pictures.
This is my mother’s father. He died just after I was born, and so I know him through stories and pictures. Hard to imagine your grandfather ever looked like this, isn’t it?
Here is his father, W.K., on the far left:
Now I have a picture (or a scan of a picture) of my great-grandfather as a child. The man next to W.K. is his father, W.J. , my great-great-grandfather.
W.J. was born in 1860 and died in 1948. He might have had memories of the Civil War, definitely Reconstruction and probably read all about World War II in his local paper. Based on W.K.’s birthday, you can put that photograph as circa 1910.
The above dates are from Tidwell’s The Frank and Jesse James Saga. The book changes the family narrative somewhat. Prior to researching that text for this post, the thought was that there was an adoptive relationship. But, the book has a written family history that indicates that W.J., the older man in the above picture, was a cousin of the James boys. W.J. was orphaned as an infant (his father died in a Civil War prison camp and his mother died soon after) and adopted by his maternal grandparents. His grandfather, Joshua James, was the uncle of Frank and Jesse James.
Moving a generation or two into the future, here’s a picture I’ve had for some time:
That very tall man young man in the background is my grandfather. The woman to his left is my grandmother. Their kids, my mother and uncle, are in the front center. The older couple are my mother’s father’s parents, my great-grandparents. My great-grandmother, on the far right, looked that way until the day she died four decades later. In 1995, she became the oldest ever graduate from the University of North Alabama. (One of her daughters was the youngest graduate, in the 1960s.) My great-grandfather, the oldest gentleman in the picture above, is the kid on the far left of the previous, ancient picture.
On the other side of the family, here’s a picture of my maternal grandmother’s father:
That’s me on the right, and my cousin on the left. She’s all grown up, and has three kids who are now older than she is in that picture. I doubt she remembers him at all.
That building is still standing at my grandparent’s home. I have two or three scant memories of this great-grandfather, his home and the stories about others’ memories. Research on this side of the family isn’t as well developed, but can be traced back to a few family names I’ve never heard of elsewhere. Alas, there are no ties to outlaw folk heroes.
I love old pictures and the stories they whisper.
Martin Belam, on the future over the past:
What concerns me is that there are a whole generation of students who are being encouraged to pay for qualifications that will equip them to work in a 90s newsroom, because the people designing the courses and the industry input they receive are all from people who cut their teeth in a 90s newsroom.
A piece worth reading in its entirety.
Five curation tools you should know about. Pearltrees is a new one to me. I’ll check it out this weekend. The others are variations on one another, reminding you that you don’t have to be in every space. At some point these things are competing with one another. You want to be doing your work on the one that is the winner, which is to say has an ease of use, flexibility to do what you need and the place where your audience is willing to follow (or is already building a community). Otherwise you just build up platform fatigue.
What’s more, curation is a function, not your every solution. All of these things, all of them, are options, tools and components at your disposal. As a journalist your job is to amass large amounts of information, filter, screen and select. Your job here, with these many platforms, tools and doodads, is similar.
Copy editors: read the story before writing the headline.
Also, beware of sneaky copy in those pull out boxes.
Everyone knows of Twitter, and the wise ones are using it to their advantage in their professional life. But now comes Pinq Sheets:
Unlike Klout and other similar services, Pinq Sheets is keyword- and campaign-based, as opposed to user-based. And because Pinq Sheets uses Twitter’s streaming API (instead of the search API), Pinq Sheets subscribers can pull down entire Tweets, rather than just numbers.
Pinq Sheets also does the dirty work for you, compiling the data in readable graphs (see below) that can easily be distributed to your clients. This is pretty stellar. When we do reporting for our clients, we find they love graphs and infographics. When we can make them pretty AND useful, so much the better. Seeing information and insights, for some, is often more valuable than reading a report.
[…]
Additional features include showing users which individuals talk about a particular hashtag or search term the most, giving you valuable insights about either your brand or the brand advocates/influencers.
“If you’re trying to market to a niche, this is the tool that’s going to tell you how to do it and who to talk to,” Jen says.
Robust tools get stronger all the time.
Big names in journalism links: How Steve Jobs changed journalism. A study on Rupert Murdoch’s troubles. The semi-retirement of Jim Romenesko and his impact on journalism.
Was Twitter a vehicle for riots in England? A Guardian study:
Analysis of more than 2.5m Twitter messages relating to the riots in England has cast doubt on the rationale behind government proposals to ban people from social networks or shut down their websites in times of civil unrest.
A preliminary study of a database of riot-related tweets, compiled by the Guardian, appears to show Twitter was mainly used to react to riots and looting.
Timing trends drawn from the data question the assumption that Twitter played a widespread role in inciting the violence in advance, an accusation also levelled at the rival social networks Facebook and BlackBerry Messenger.
That’s part of a quality series from the Guardian, Reading the Riots.
Since this was my view all day, you can stare at it for 61 seconds.
The cracked windshield is a camera trick, for effect. The bugs are real.
Click. Watch. Enjoy.
More tomorrow.
I did not go for a ride this morning. I could not wake up fast enough. So I took a ride in the evening. In between I read some things. I also wrote some things, sent out Emails that will help orchestrate the giant journalism workshop of the fall and made a list for all of the rest of the things I need to do this week. They include … there’s a lot of stuff on that list.
Wiped out one of my browsers. Browsers, like my inboxes, have become my online To Do list. If the tabs are still open — and I love the tabs — then attention is still required. Presently I have three browsers open, the one in which I surf, which is at present also being overrun by dissertation things, and two for paper ideas. As much as I love tabs, I wish I could close them faster because I love to close tabs.
It isn’t putting the check in the box, a level of psychic joy I’ve never been able to appreciate, but the disappearance of the thing. You, sir, have been closed. Vanquished is that search on political action committees. I banish the to the under realms, the places the Tron characters wouldn’t even go.
It’d be nice if a little poof of smoke popped up when I clicked the X.
We received a delivery this evening, a new mattress and box spring had arrived for the guest room. We have a queen frame and it has been holding a regular size for some time. Now, we figured, was the time. The Yankee found a deal, but I suggested checking another place. Her first deal stood. She found a coupon. I suggested driving around and doing a bit of window shopping.
The first place we visited stuffed their mattresses with the tender locks of unicorn hair, and that is the only way the prices can be explained. This was the place, I recalled, where I bought a mattress when I moved in my freshman year. We’d unloaded the U-Haul and set out to shop. Being exhausted, the first one I fell upon was declared the winner. And it worked for a good long while. I’ve either donated it or it is elsewhere in the family, I don’t recall, but the point was that it was cheap. And that same place had no such option now.
Just down the street, a par five away, we found the place with our coupon. We found the expansive clearance section. We tried every flat surface. We discovered one in the proper size, which became $100 cheaper if we turned down the frame, sheets and pillows. Done and done. We pronounced we had a coupon. They offered to deliver it for a song. We sang.
We realized we did not have the coupon with us at the time. “No big deal,” the guy said. “When would you like it delivered?”
We got it for about 38 percent less than the original find. I fully expect for it to dissolve over night.
Checking. Nope. Still there.
Anyway, the guys show up, two young men they pulled off fraternity row, and they were stunned to find the old mattresses carefully stacked next to the door. They big up the old mattress and carry it out. They grabbed the old box spring and toted it away. They bring in the replacements.
So you guys have it under control?
“We’ve done this before.”
“A few times.”
And then they were gone, off to do whatever mattress delivery guys do when they aren’t tearing plastic off your new purchase.
I spread out the blankets and tried the new setup. Our guests will no doubt be appreciative. If the thing doesn’t dissolve over night.
Set out for a ride just after quitting time. The road I choose was necessarily busy. So I called an audible, pedaled my way to the first stop sign, took a right and dashed off into the countryside. Well, dashed is a kind word. There are two little hills in that direction, both of which wore me down. But I got over the top of each, collected my breath and, as I often do, questioned my sanity. Down the hills in a proper tuck position, just hoping that the momentum will get me part of the way up the next one. And so on it goes.
I stopped at one point for a drink and a photograph.
And here a woman stopped and asked me for directions. I knew the place, but not it’s location relative to where I was standing. I told her to keep going and look on her right, thinking that if she hadn’t passed it from whence she came, it has to be just down there in the direction she’s heading.
She continued on straight, I went the opposite direction. Down a hill, back into the sun, rounded a curve, and there’s the soccer complex she’s looking for. Terrific. Just as I make it there, she actually passed me again. If I’d only been a bit faster she would have never had the occasion to see me on the road again. Brushing me with the mirror must have been tempting.
So, if you run across this, ma’am, I’m sorry. I’m not sure how long one is supposed to feel bad about giving the wrong directions, but be assured I’ll regret it for at least twice that length of time.
Made it home just as it got dark, marking a 26 mile ride, and just in time for dinner. Food, talk, scanner problems, a little television, some more reading and now this.
… Still there.
