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My mother-in-law has a cool advent calendar:
Santa on a bicycle? That’s great stuff.
I made a video this evening:
Moving pictures for your Merry Christmas. #AShortFilmOfNoConsequence #fb pic.twitter.com/jKxmKMKAoL
— kenny smith (@kennysmith) December 25, 2015
Somewhere she found these holographic glasses that changes the lights. There are snowflakes and stars and Santas. She prefers the Santa version:
Christmas candy. Nerve pills, they call them:
The problem is in the dosage.
Leaving campus at 8 p.m. on the last day of finals may be as close as I’ll ever get to a last guy in the world scenario.
This parking lot is *always* full.
Now? After an afternoon and evening of recruiting phone calls to high school students, just like everyday this week …
Just me. Everyone, everyone is long gone. Most for the term.
But this is work that simply must be done from the office these days. And when I took this, of course, I still had some driving to do.
But, hey, I got in a five-mile run this morning, so there’s that.
Just wrapped the last Crimson critique of the term. For me, it was a 10-hour day after wrapping up last night at 2:30 this morning. For some of the students, it was even longer. Think of that.
I’m never sure how the students stay energetic, but I’m glad they do.
Tomorrow I start the process of nominating them them a few awards. They deserve the recognition if, for no other reason, than how they prove that journalism never sleeps.
Anyway, look! The sun is setting on the campus!
Always a pretty nice sight. You have to remind yourself to go look at such things. You have to remind yourself.
I am torn about Thanksgiving. The holidays are usually pretty challenging to start with. So many people to see. So many places you have to get to. I have it in my mind that I need to treat everyone equally in terms of time. And the logistics are such that you simply just can’t see everyone you need to, full stop. And never far off in your mind are those you can’t see anymore. I am torn about Thanksgiving.
We had lunch at a north Alabama state park with one side of my family. The food is good. The company is pleasant and there are enough other people around doing the same thing that it keeps the room lively. Plus you can get seconds and no one notices. Also, you don’t have to do the dishes. We’ve done this the last few years now. I understand why we do it. I can’t raise an objection to it. It is not my favorite thing.
But there are nice views at Joe Wheeler State Park.
Anytime you can be near the water something fun could happen. Even when the water level is down and you can walk out into what should be the shallow parts. There could be boats or fish or people could push you in. But not this time of year.
There are piers to nowhere when the water is low. This makes sense, but it makes more sense during boating season.
And, of course, there are the rays of the sun dancing in the movement of the water. That’s always a captivating experience.
About three hours later, because that’s what you want to do after a big Thanksgiving lunch is have a ridiculously early Thanksgiving dinner, there was another meal with more of my family.
I have been promoted to the chief ham slicer there. This is a big responsibility and I must now mentally prepare myself for it every year now. Mostly I think no one else wants to do it and they figure I will take it seriously. I do take it seriously. Even if this meal comes too soon after the last. Even if you can’t see everyone, or even all of the people you’d hope too, even when your thoughts are full of those people you can’t see. Even when you have nice views, and a tasty ham, this is Thanksgiving. I am torn about Thanksgiving.
In this time of ours, we can of course pass along any moment to anyone living in the same technological way. The seasons aren’t truly passable, fully sharable. Yet. People are working to change that. But they’re going to have to get the crunch of leaves and the smell of the air and that crispness in the ether. Maybe it is as much of an ideal as a season.
Anyway, go outside and see some autumn, if you have any left wherever you lovely people are.
I got a green screen. I’ve been making tutorials for the department and I wanted to step up the production values by about a half step. I’m doing this as a solo project, which means I get to be inventive and show initiative and create new skills for myself. I’ll show them all off someday, I’m sure. Anyway, it looks like this:
And I’m shooting it all on my iPad. I have an app that both records, runs a script prompter, throws graphics and projects images onto a the screen behind me. It was free and you can do a great deal as an awkward one-man band. Isn’t technology grand?
It is stacked on top of my old tripod:
I bought that in 1999. American Pie was a hit. Tonic was in heavy rotation. It cost $19.99 at Walmart. It was cheap even then, but I figured I could get a fair amount of use out of it. I lost one of the feet early on, I think at the beach, but the whole thing still works just fine. I have probably 45 tripods at my disposal, but sometimes you just have to chose the classics.
