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14
May 14

“Why did they do that?”

The air conditioning guy was scheduled to come today, precisely between the hours of 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. He did not come early, when he could have worked in pleasant outdoor conditions. No, he arrived just before 3 p.m., in the rain, the poor guy. And so I did not get to ride today because I waited on him and it rained after he left. }

But!

I did get to hear a repairman say “What the?”

I think this nice gentleman’s company has been to the house a few times before for various repairs. It is one of those companies that is a series of initials, which is hard to keep straight over time, but they are affiliated with the home warranty people and we use our home warranty quite a bit. This time because the air doesn’t cool anything.

We have a nice house, everyone that visits is kind enough to compliment the layout. It is in a nice neighborhood. And it was built upon a haunted burial ground. Also, the previous owner hired people that had some curious ideas about home maintenance.

When he looked at the air handler unit, nothing made sense. Our guy today, after going through the full series of “I don’t even know why it was done that way,” and all of the many variants, said he hadn’t seen anyone do this in 15 years on the job. Someone made a previous repair and used a different manufacturer’s parts, basically whatever was at hand. It was like, he said “Someone took the engine out of a Toyota and put it in a Cadillac.”

So we got freon, and the anticipation of a larger bill, and this mystery of why people have done things in this house that professionals have never seen before. (This wasn’t the first time.)

But the air works, at least in the short term, again. That puts you in a pretty zen place, in the short term.

Of course the rain cooled everything off, meaning we didn’t need the air tonight, so we’re right back to where we started on the “Come on, house!” meter.

Allie

Things to read … because she can’t stare at that app forever.

The Internet and the compassion of people never ceases to amaze. Brown family supporters raise more than $50,000 for medical, travel expenses

And then along comes someone doing a series of other things, without consequence, that just infuriates. Fire Official Who Hit Children in New Jersey Crosswalk Has 19 Car Accidents on Record

This is the best sports story you’ll read today:

They played the oddest game in high school football history last month down in Grapevine, Texas.

It was Grapevine Faith vs. Gainesville State School and everything about it was upside down. For instance, when Gainesville came out to take the field, the Faith fans made a 40-yard spirit line for them to run through.

Did you hear that? The other team’s fans?

They even made a banner for players to crash through at the end. It said, “Go Tornadoes!” Which is also weird, because Faith is the Lions. “I WOULDN’T EXPECT ANOTHER PARENT TO TELL SOMEBODY TO HIT THEIR KIDS. BUT THEY WANTED US TO!”

And a 15-year-old introduces his stethoscope iPhone invention to the world:


13
May 14

‘You’re going to need a bigger sack’

Auburn hosted UAB in baseball tonight. The Blazers had a 10-game winning streak (the sixth longest in the nation) on the line. Auburn had beaten UAB 15 games in a row in the series. So naturally it came down to a bases loaded walkoff walk:

Auburn won, 6-5, and they did the traditional baseball “We won the pennant!” dogpile after that.

Just before the game several of the electricity transformers just behind the baseball stadium exploded. We were treated to green smoke and acrid smells for a while. Eventually the scoreboard and the lights were restored, and that became just one more story in the baseball season. Dude. Green smoke.

Speaking of things you never want to hear about: our air conditioner is definitely broken. Two days in a row I’ve worked in the yard and now I’m sweating as much inside as I do outside. (Though half the yard looks much nicer now, thanks.) So the A/C guy will be by tomorrow.

Here’s something that could happen at a lot more local television stations:

She got a lot of pats on the back for that around the office, I promise.

Things to read … because I put the words here.

This is the first story that the new staff for the Crimson has published. They did a nice job, especially considering it is an under-deadline, semester’s-end, big story assignment: Memorial service remembers Foreman as a ‘blessing’

The Do’s and Don’ts of Online Reputation Management

I only have a minor in economics, but if you’re counting on a late Easter to give the national engine a nudge … you’re living on the margins: Retail sales flatline, disappoint in April despite warmer weather

There is an impressive picture with this story, just so you know. Woman gets slithery surprise when she finds a 12-foot snake in her bathroom:

“When the officer showed up, he came with a brown paper sack,” she recalled. “I told him, ‘you’re going to need a bigger sack than that.'”

Gonzales, who’s been with the police department about five years, said he’d previously responded to three snake calls, but nothing like that.

“When I opened her bathroom door, there was a 12-foot python,” Gonzales recalled. “I didn’t know what I was going to do with a snake that large.”

He asked dispatchers to send animal control officers. Shortly afterward, another College Station officer arrived, also armed with a paper bag, and soon the animal control officer showed up with a 10-gallon bucket.

And then they had to fight to get the thing into a large garbage can. Close your doors.


12
May 14

A little something for everyone

It was a fine, clear day. We’re transitioning from the spring we skipped into the summer that will be with us through September. It only reached the 80s today, but the humidity in the early morning apparently reached 100 percent. I don’t think I was aware you could do that without rain. As if to prove the point, this evening the humidity ticked up to 94 percent. It is warm in the house.

It is so humid that I prepared, hid and drank two bottles of water on my run this evening. It is a shame I only ran the 3.1 miles. For two bottles you should get more distance, you’d think. But not here. Not now.

Did I mention it is warm in the house? Someone will come out later this week to figure that out.

Here’s one of the neater and sweeter stories you’ll see today:

Things to read … because they can’t all be videos.

Child killed in wreck in front of Hampton Cove Elementary One child killed, three others injured. Also hurt was their mother, who was driving. I know the mom, we worked together some time back. She’s a lady with a big family because she has a big heart. Yours can’t help but break for them.

The old faithful pyramid returns, with more action-packed segments, of course. The Pyramid of Journalism Competence: what journalists need to know Poynter’s trusty pyramid remains a great think piece. The problem here, amidst the pyramid’s sub-sections and supporting essays is the suggested “courses that would enrich.” They list 81 courses, ranging from Jazz to Gender Studies to Quantum Physics to actual approaches to journalism. That is a lot of classes, all with merit, I’m sure, but some offering more meaningful insight to journalists than others. It is unclear if they mean college courses or Poynter courses, which are different things. But still, 81.

We are witnessing the birth of the social media press corps:

That’s not a social meet-up. It’s a press corps. And some government departments, incidentally, have gotten pretty explicit about the difference. While DOI billed today’s event as a more or less social meet-up, NASA will issue straight-up “social media credentials” for its Antares rocket launch in June, designed to give popular bloggers, tweeters and Instagrammers the “same access as journalists.”

The NASA application process, which closed Friday, demanded that applicants prove they had a large, respected and unique audience, distinct from traditional media’s. Applicants also had to agree to share images “in real time,” preferably with the #NASASocial hashtag, and make those photos available to NASA to reshare on its own platforms.

[…]

… but all this comes at a time when the traditional press corps — read, the ones who don’t have to “like” a government department on social media or pass some screening of their tweets to score credentials — gets less access to the government than ever.

Some media have become subordinate and co-conspirators in their own demise and you hate that for them.

“Instameet” is a terrible fake word, however.

Nielsen’s Plan to Count TV Viewers Across Screens Faces Obstacles As telecoms and cable providers get closer and closer, this should actually become easier.

TV Ad Dollars Slowly Shifting to Web Video. Now we only have to make all those online ads effective.

Driver assaults bicyclist, police ticket bicyclist:

Cyclist and photojournalist Evan Wilder encountered a road raging driver on R Street. He says the driver tried to force him off the road, caused a collision, then threw his bike into the truck. A police officer later wrote Wilder a ticket while he was in the hospital.

The officer sides with the driver, no big surprise, and gives the cyclist a citation for following too closely. But there is video. Curiously, this isn’t the first tangle Evan Wilder has had with drivers.

What a great move for Kodi: Kodi Burns Hired As Assistant Football Coach. And terrific for Samford, as well. He’s a good guy and success always seems to follow him.


9
May 14

Beware the sign drawings

Here’s a strange way to end a fine week:

Sign

We have a wooded campus. This time of year you can see a few critters. It is enough of a problem that someone thought to make signs. I put that on Twitter, got it in front of the right person and it reached almost 136,000 accounts. Not bad for an easy joke.

Auburn’s Greg Robinson got drafted last night as the second overall pick headed to the St. Louis Rams. (His buddy, running back Tre Mason joined him today. Two other former Tigers are there. The head coach’s son played at Auburn, as did the Ram’s GM.) Greg Robinson has already made his first commercial:

Here’s a video a naval laser weapon destroying a boat:

Can I get one mounted on a shark?

Things to read … because sharks can’t read. (Can they?)

Better late than never, I guess. Heaven forbid journalists ask questions!

Astroturfing, it seems, is an international thing. The readers’ editor on… pro-Russia trolling below the line on Ukraine stories

Be careful what you share. This viral photo from #bringbackourgirls? She’s not Nigerian. And she’s not abducted.

A reader-focused redesign

We wanted to decrease the bounce rate. Increase Time Spent on Site. Increase pageviews per Visit. Increase video views. Increase shares. Increase loyalty. Overall, it’s about engagement. We want our readers to spend more time here. We knew that our previous design was prohibitive.

We had to think about our mobile readers. They had to be in the forefront — not an add-on. We had to think mobile-first.

We should all be doing that by now.

But not until after the weekend, right?


5
May 14

They’re cured

Two weeks ago I had a picture of a grounds crew pulling up the old FieldTurf at Seibert Stadium at Samford. Today they are putting down the new material:

SeibertStadium

The old stuff lasted for nine years. It has been interesting to watch them roll and shake and shovel and unroll the new stuff. Plus you never have to mow it.

I wonder if they can come to my place next.

Class today. We talked about advertising and someone showed this clip of Mad Men:

I always wonder why Don didn’t write “They’re cured.” I mean if everyone else’s cigarettes are poisoned and you’re selling comfort, security and happiness …

We watched this video, which students showed in this same class a year or two ago. It always blows peoples’ minds:

Oh, and there’s another one:

I had the Whataburger today that I didn’t have on Saturday. I swam a mile this evening. Let’s call it speed work since I kicked some and I was out of breath a lot.

Things to read … because when you read you can catch your breath.

And your weekend? 2 local girls raise thousands for brain tumor research

We’ve talked about this at conferences and in our visions for the future. We now live in the first part of the future. The ‘Holodeck’ Arrives in Newsrooms. How Will VR Influence Storytelling?

This is troubling. Survey: Most says journalism is headed in the wrong direction:

The reporters, editors and producers who put out the news every day are less satisfied with their work, say they have less autonomy in their work and tend to believe that journalism is headed in the wrong direction, according to the initial findings of “The American Journalist in the Digital Age.”

This is an inevitable move. Publishers go it alone with their own video hubs. But that isn’t the only answer, as we discussed in February: What to do when your video is winning social media, but it’s a copy that’s getting the clicks? The answer is pretty easy: be a lot of places.

Have you noticed someone has been writing Twitter obits since the platform was born? Twitter is not dying

No Regrets for the Founder of Tumblr After Yahoo Sale:

When Yahoo bought Tumblr for $1.1 billion a year ago, it sent a ripple of excitement — and anxiety — through the tech industry. Would Yahoo and its recently arrived chief executive, Marissa Mayer, breathe new life into Tumblr? Or would Yahoo smother the start-up, as it did after acquiring popular young services like GeoCities and Flickr?

So far, the worst fears have begun to dissipate. Tumblr, a microblogging platform, has more than doubled its staff to 220, and its audience continues to grow, up 22 percent in the last year, according to the metrics company comScore.

5 Social Media Facts Every Marketing Professor Should Know

10 mobile marketing statistics to help justify your budget

U.S. businesses are being destroyed faster than they’re being created:

The American economy is less entrepreneurial now than at any point in the last three decades. That’s the conclusion of a new study out from the Brookings Institution, which looks at the rates of new business creation and destruction since 1978.

Not only that, but during the most recent three years of the study — 2009, 2010 and 2011 — businesses were collapsing faster than they were being formed, a first. Overall, new businesses creation (measured as the share of all businesses less than one year old) declined by about half from 1978 to 2011.

The authors don’t mince words about the stakes here: If the decline persists, “it implies a continuation of slow growth for the indefinite future.”

This a neat feature about archeology going on at terrible sites in American history. And they managed to only work Abu Ghraib into the piece twice. ‘We did this to ourselves’: Death and despair at Civil War prisons