Tuesday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Tuesday

Katydids, a tiger and criminals

James Lileks always likes to say you never hear the last one. Well, we’re still a good way from this year’s last katydid, and they didn’t mind pointing that out tonight.

If you click on those little play buttons you can hear how the microphone of an iPhone is not very good at capturing this sort of sound. Which is where we are with technology now. It does this thing, and allows me to use this particular tool to create and ship something to another place. And we don’t think it does it especially well.

Two cool cycling stories: UCI Women Get Upgraded to WorldTour Status for 2016:

Starting in 2016, there will be no more UCI Women’s World Cup. Instead, the women will be one step closer to parity with the men after introduction of the UCI Women’s WorldTour.

The idea began to take shape after a summit in December 2014, and the final product will launch at the beginning of the 2016 season.

Women were previously only granted 10 days of racing in the World Cup series, in which their events often lacked the media attention and social media buzz seen during the men’s events. Now, racers will have potentially 30 days of racing available in the WorldTour, which will include stage races instead of simply one-day events.

About time. Let’s get them on TV so I can watch them go, too.

My favorite pro cyclist is Taylor Phinney. He’s been recouping from a horrible leg injury, now back in just his second race in more than a year. And today he did this:

Ridiculous headline: An actual tiger gets loose in Packard Plant in Detroit. A photographer was permitted to use the old facility, but didn’t mention the tiger. And then the animal got loose. Because that’s the sort of thing that one can expect in Detroit, I guess. Though, to be sure, this seems more like a piece of a southern conversation:

“I got a call from a friend who asked me to help them get this tiger out of a staircase,” said Andy Didorosi, 28, of Detroit. “He asked me if I had a leafblower, and I said I had a weedwhacker, so he told me to bring that. … I stopped what I was doing, grabbed my tools and hopped in my truck, because, you know, tiger.

A story to restore your faith in the human spirit: ‘I was asleep but I heard you’: Newlyweds get second chance after traumatic brain injury:

Anna blinked back tears now and gripped Jeremy’s hand as she recalled one of the lowest points of her life.

“I’d always heard about people who were on their deathbeds and holding on, waiting for someone to tell them it’s OK to go. I thought maybe that’s what he was doing,” said Anna.

“I went in to his room and told him, ‘Jeremy I love you so much and I’m so proud of you and you’ve worked so hard. I know you’re tired and it’s OK if you want to let go and want to go home. I’ll be so jealous of you because you’ll be walking the streets of gold with Jesus, but I will be OK here because I have friends and family to look after me.'”

She kissed his forehead and left, expecting that to be their last conversation.

The next day, he began to improve.

His recovery is a modern medical miracle. A friend of mine knows that couple and had a lot to say about them both. It is a charming story.

A story that requires justice: Police recover Tuskegee Airman’s stolen car in St. Louis:

St. Louis police officers found a 93-year-old Tuskegee Airman’s stolen car Tuesday afternoon behind a vacant home a few blocks from where it was taken, according to police sources.

[…]

The man lost his money, then the car, in separate crimes involving at least three men Sunday morning, police said.

The victim appeared to be in good health Tuesday but told a reporter he didn’t want publicity because it would only cause more harm. He said he just wanted to get his car back.

Victimizing an elderly individual is particularly egregious. Let alone a man who was a war hero, a man who had to fight his country to fight for his country. There should be a specialized investigation unit that takes on such cases, a TV-style

Time to build up the distances. So I had a 2,000 yard swim and a four mile run this evening. It all felt nice and slow and easy. So, really, I was moving as fast as I could.

photo / running / Tuesday — Comments Off
11
Aug 15

No, that’s just sweat

Happy Tuesday. Allie says hello. She’s busy getting her early afternoon sun tan here. I only decided to take a picture because she made some weird nose and took on an entirely unusual posture. And by the time I had her framed up she moved, looked up and gave me the “What?” look.

You don’t interrupted cat tans around here. She spent all night roaring around the house and will probably yowl the night away to remind me of my transgression.

More school work today. Spent some time at the library and at a restaurant and then wandered through the local “You’re weird? We’re weird! Buy weird stuff here!” If you could put a Who logo or a Star Wars icon on it they have it. If you needed a temporary disc golf goal, skateboard, comic books, vinyl or DVD rental, this was your place. It seems they’re limping along as a brick and mortar generalist just no one else in town is stocking the stuff they are.

Went for a run before dinner. I took a photo every mile, which was silly because it was night time and I chose the darkest route possible. Here’s the first mile:

And here was the fourth mile:

I manage to run around a storm cloud. I ran a big loop and at one point the lightning was in front of me in the distance. Later, on the other end of the loop, the lightning was in front of me again. By the time I got in The Yankee asked me if it was raining. It was not, but it was humid. And I looked like I’d just climbed out of a pool.

A nice, easy five-mile run.

I do not know what is happening.

history / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
20
Jul 15

Walking amidst rocks

I had occasion to visit a country cemetery about the same time the really silly parts of the Confederate flag conversation was going on. It is the kind of place where, standing in the center, you can see the cemetery was carved out of otherwise unused land. You don’t hear anything except the breeze and, occasionally, some far distance heavy machinery. You can’t even see the country road off which you turned onto the gravel path to get there. It is a pretty and peaceful place and in a part of the world where you still refer to people by a plural version of their family name.

The cemetery sits most of the way up a rolling part of a tiny, tiny foothill in the southern Appalachians, in a part of the region that, during the Civil War, was as confusing and complicated as any other. Most of the people that lived in this part of the world then weren’t even secessionists. Historically, you would find, that many of them saw the entire conflict as a war of the men that lived in other parts of the South. In this part of the world, then, things could get particularly personal and bitter. Supporters of both sides had violent conscription efforts terrifying families.

In fact, on one side of my family the young men tried to stay out of the war, but were eventually enlisted to the Union’s cause when their soldiers came through. On the other side of my family there are at least some documented Confederates and these people all lived within 30 or so miles of one another. This sort of thing was not uncommon in that area.

Anyway, the cemetery would have been a great opportunity to write another navel-gazing essay about the way of things. Near one entrance to the cemetery was the marker of this man, who I am not related to:

Someone placed a Confederate flag there.

To the left was an entire line of James Fleming’s family buried right alongside. A few generations and not many more plots away you read that some of his descendants served in later wars. And beside their markers someone had placed American flags.

Livingstone’s 8th Cavalry, by the way, was organized late in the war, reporting to duty in the summer of 1864 and fought in Alabama and Florida before surrendering at Gainesville the next year.

The TL:DR aspect of the essay would be that, for some people, this is complicated. That got lost in the heated rhetoric in the long-overdue move to take those flags from government land, which is probably fine. And it seems dismissed entirely in the even deeper rhetoric of that imagery in general, and that seems simultaneously good and a shame. For some people it is complicated.

Nearby here is another old cavalry man:

The 4th Alabama cavalry was formed in 1863 and fought in east Tennessee, Mississippi and all over north and central Alabama. They were essentially a hyperactive home guard before many of them were captured at Selma in the spring of 1865.

And I just put this one here because I like the name:

Ollice was a farmer before World War II. He had some grammar school under his belt. He was enlisted at Fort McClellan, in Anniston, a week before Pearl Harbor. That’s all I can find about him online.

Next time I’m in that area I’ll have to ask around. There are still plenty of McNatts in that area.

cycling / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
14
Jul 15

Small circles, groceries and unknown routes

Rode my bike to the store yesterday. It wasn’t really a recovery ride. I guess I sort of rationalized it to myself that way, but I didn’t work that hard in the race yesterday anyway. I did this today, though:

We needed a few things, beans and tomatoes and the like, and I can go on the random daily store run on my bicycle in the summer.

Truly, it is the infinitesimally small things that can earn a real grin.

Plus carrying a bike through a grocery story is fun. I stuffed them in my musette bag, almost wiped out in bike shoes on the slick floor and walked my ride all over the store. Nobody has ever given my bike a second look at the grocery store, which is cool.

Guy behind me at the checkout made a joke about not knowing where they stocked the bicycles. I told him they were over by the produce, but, you know how they’re always moving things around.

He didn’t ask what aisle had the spandex.

I took a long way home, just to add a few miles to the route. So I tried a new route, sometimes you see things you’ve never seen before:

The route involved two paths and a wooden bridge. It was worth it:

adventures / London / memories / Tuesday — Comments Off
7
Jul 15

British selfies

(A few extra shots from our last visit to London, because it is summertime and our trip was grand.)

We were playing around with the selfie stick. Yes, we have one, and it facilitates the production of quality photographs. We’re actually laughing at you for not having one.

Anyway, this was outside of our flat in London. We were waiting on a family friend to stop by. She goes way back with The Yankee’s folks and lives and works in London. Turns out she lives not basically around the corner from where we were staying. We only had time to take a few pictures: