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When you have the chance to take a lazy trip around town on your bicycle just because, you should take it. You get good views if you stick your head into the wind and look around:
I write this down just because I have to somehow remind myself of this from time to time.
Here’s another thing I should remind myself about. One of my favorite things about Great Big Story is how they use crafted visuals to help tell their story. Like this one, for example.
Hole punch cloud!
And the guys are hanging out with Aubie. Clint and Autumn find this funny. Chandler looks bemused. Thomas is just cool enough for this. Those are the four stages of Aubie, really:
This seems silly:
If only nature would find a way to cover these oranges so we didn't need to waste so much plastic on them. pic.twitter.com/2hJButa3wY
— Viral (@ViraI) March 3, 2016
But … Some medical issue not withstanding, this is just about the dumbest thing you’ll see any day ending in Y:
KTRK Houston’s news reporter Steve Campion was live on the scene covering flooding going on in the area, when he saw two cars drive straight into the rising waters.
Yeesh. The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans:
Since 2013, the federal reserve board has conducted a survey to “monitor the financial and economic status of American consumers.” Most of the data in the latest survey, frankly, are less than earth-shattering: 49 percent of part-time workers would prefer to work more hours at their current wage; 29 percent of Americans expect to earn a higher income in the coming year; 43 percent of homeowners who have owned their home for at least a year believe its value has increased. But the answer to one question was astonishing. The Fed asked respondents how they would pay for a $400 emergency. The answer: 47 percent of respondents said that either they would cover the expense by borrowing or selling something, or they would not be able to come up with the $400 at all. Four hundred dollars! Who knew?
When you start to seek out the portents …
The soft drinks don’t often speak to you, but when they do, you should consider listening:
I like to keep track of roads where I can break the speed limit on my bike. It is a short list. There’s only like six or seven roads in town.
Let’s call it eight after today.
Also, I use one of the popular apps to track all of my rides. In the app there are certain places along any given road which have been selected as courses where you can compete against other people. Today, one such course, I learned I’m three seconds off the pace set by an NFL first rounder, two-time all-SEC, 3rd-team all-American, two-time Super Bowl champ.
He doesn’t know it yet, but we’re about to race.
One of the things I’ve learned in life is this: clichéd sayings are just that for a reason and people can repeat them to you forever, but you have to teach yourself about them.
Like the one about stopping to smell the flowers:
No one is going to make you understand that. You have to get it for yourself.
At a baseball game tonight the home crowd heckled the visiting third baseman. Turns out it was his birthday, too and for his trouble he got a custom-signed baseball. That’s not bad:
Auburn and Alabama play one game of baseball in the state capital each spring. It is a non-conference thing, meant to allow people that don’t normally see the two teams face off on the diamond. Auburn has won all but one of these, and they won this year, 10-1.
This is the ticket:
And that same gaudy graphic is adorning the walls at Riverwalk Stadium (home of the Montgomery Biscuits). It is worth keeping around, I think.
The game was fun, the ribs before it were good, as ever. But the highlight, and the point of all of this, is the people. Here’s the @AUSection111 Glee and Chess Club and Live Bait Shop, class of 2016:
(Daniel, C.J., Beck, Emily, Josh, Thomas, Chandler, Clint and Autumn.)
I heard a speech one time years ago where the speaker said, “Look around. Take a moment and look around this room. This is the last time we’ll all be here together.” And I think about that often. These are good folks. It is a shame we won’t all be together again, very often if at all.
Well, the people and the fireworks. The fireworks are the other point. And if it is possible to say such a thing seriously, these fireworks lacked nuance:
