Tuesday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Tuesday

memories / Tuesday / Twitter — Comments Off
10
Jan 17

“We, the People, give it power.”

I was in a newsroom the night President Obama was elected. It was my first fall working with students. I had to gently suggest a way they could cover, and perhaps localize, such an historic moment as a presidential election. Journalism is an art and a craft and, sometimes, a learned thing. And, looking back, there was a lesson in that for me, too.

I was on our sofa when the president delivered his formal farewell. It was long, which is usual for him, longer than it had to be. But it was the president doing what he has become known for. It’ll be judged against others tonight and tomorrow and over time, and like all things presidential, that will tell the tale. But, tonight, it was an event, which is what they were after.

I do enjoy a good high-minded political speech. The good ones say something about what we want to be, but maybe don't yet know how to be.

— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith) January 11, 2017

That was a big room, but you'd think, for a presidential campaign/farewell speech they would have sought out and dampened those echoes.

— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith) January 11, 2017

And at the conclusion of the speech the top trending topic is … pic.twitter.com/v6BCt46KxN

— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith) January 11, 2017

adventures / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
3
Jan 17

Travel day

We had a large breakfast with my in-laws and then loaded up the car and set off for the airport.

We made it back from the holidays. This video was fun to make. (I recorded the bed music some time back.) #AShortFilmOfNoConsequence pic.twitter.com/XYCHoDIPxQ

— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith) January 4, 2017

We were early to the airport, which made it seem like a longer day than it really was, but everything went smoothly. The desk people at Delta were efficient. The first TSA person was humorless. The second one must have been new. The flight was easy, but for a bit of turbulence about halfway through.

One of our suitcases was destroyed by Delta. It came off the ramp with a wheel missing, and a big chunk of the frame gone too. The baggage claims folks took one look at it and said “Yep. Hang on just a second.”

They have a closet, the baggage claims folks, and they just reached in and gave us a new suitcase. It has tags on it with a giant price. A fake price, I’m guessing. A “here’s a new bag, now go away” fake price. There was no paperwork. And we were out in a flash after that. We caught a shuttle to the car lot. And the guy driving the shuttle caught us as we were leaving, did we leave a bag?

Yes, we left a suitcase. Turns out when you add an extra one at baggage claim you forget to add it to the calculus when you’re getting out in the cold and rain. But he noticed it and tracked us down just in time. Then the woman at the gate where you exit offered us waters.

Then the drive to the house, the unloading the car, placating the cat and unpacking. Dinner was frozen pizzas because we’ve been gone for forever. Laundry, finish unpacking and so on.

Now to plead with the cat to not keep us awake all night in her indignation. Tall order, that.

photo / Tuesday / windshield time — Comments Off
27
Dec 16

Travel day

On the road once more, but first, this is a charcoal drawing that some artist sketched up of me once upon a long while ago.

I wish I could find this L.F. Johnson online, and find out how life treated them. I wonder if it was someone my mom knew or if it was a street or a studio thing. One day I’ll ask.

The president’s syntax is catching on bigly in Nashville, Tennessee:

Allie is unimpressed:

And that concludes just one half of the holiday travel experience!

Indiana / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
13
Dec 16

Winter is here

Not to worry, we’ve stocked up on all of the important French Toast making ingredients.

We go now to our reporter in the field, Ernie Pyle, tell us how it is looking from where you are:

Lets get our bottom-of-the-hour weather update, Ernie? @IUMediaSchool @IUBloomington pic.twitter.com/vVPiCKBAtR

— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith) December 13, 2016

We got a quarter-of-an-inch of snow today. The record for the day, according to the National Weather Service, was three-quarters of an inch, in 2000. Ernie’s statue was not there on that day for a comparison photo.

IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
6
Dec 16

Who watches the watchers watching me?

Oh, just trying out some new eye-tracking software in the incredible new ICR labs that are coming online in the new building.

The usual Tuesday night stuff.

This software is so cool. That camera above the monitor catches and follows your eyes and then gives the person doing the research, who is sitting on the other side of a full-sized partition a real-time look at everywhere your eyes are going on the computer screen. So if I wanted to put an action sequence from a movie up, or some newspaper or magazine layout or anything, on the screen, we could then see what you glanced at, when, and for how long. It does a whole lot of other things, too, but it probably would sound weird out of context.

You do that with several dozen subjects and you’ve got yourself a study sample. Very neat Tuesday night stuff.