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cycling / memories / movies / video / weekend — Comments Off
9
Jul 11

Sizzle and ouch

Lord, it was hot today. Walked out onto the back porch and was slightly baked by the convection currents. The thermometer suggested the heat index was 110 degrees.

I have a reasonable tolerance of heat, but be it psychological or physical, anything over 106 just hurts.*

So I hid inside and read. I watched a little television. I caught up on the site. Everything is up-to-date. The July photo gallery is current. Until very recently the photo gallery section was criminally behind. No more.

Also, I transferred a lot of video from blip.tv to boxes holding iframes here. Blip is great. I still use them, but I like to have them linked on the home site, too. So that got done.

Late in the afternoon, when it was only 92 or so, I took The Yankee’s bike to the bike store for a tuneup.

“You’re the guy that brought in the Felt, right?”

That’s right. Good memory.

“I fixed it. It will be ready on Tuesday.”

These are nice guys, they give good advice and have actually offered us a few freebies, but I hope they never run the world. Dropped my bike off late Friday. It was ready by late Saturday. I can pick it up on Tuesday?

I caught up on Falling Skies, TNT’s newest superlatively promoted summer program. Aliens invaded and they’re stilling kids. Somehow John Carter, who left ER to become a librarian and then a professor of history, must save them.

The acting is a bit wooden, but it is post-apocalyptic with optimism, and so that deserves a look. My rule of thumb for science fiction is three episodes. Intrigue me by then or lose me forever. I’m giving Falling Skies a fourth episode, but only because of Will Patton. Tomorrow night’s episode better give me something more. (I’m sure they’re all rushing in to re-write and re-shoot as they read this.)

I even cleaned off a bit of the Netflix queue. Watched it already? Delete. Indy film? You get a short leash. I nixed one this evening because, for the first three minutes there was no dialog. There was a lovely window shot, an introduction to two characters who just stared at each other and then a dream sequence. Three minutes worth of this. Gone.

I did watch One Week, which offers a grim scenario — you get a cancer diagnosis, decide you don’t like much about your life and then buy a motorcycle.

Even if you don’t care for the movie, the scenery is worth seeing alone. Beautifully shot film.

*When we got married the heat index was around 122 degrees. We were married outdoors. We are very smart.

cycling / Friday / iPhone / photo / site / video — 1 Comment
8
Jul 11

My Google+ page is at the bottom of this post

Broke my bike. Or at least the tire.

Aww. My first flat.

Changing tires isn’t hard. There’s roughly 48,000 videos on YouTube of varying quality that can walk you through the process. The thing none of them discuss is thumb strength. You need it.

So I wrestle with the tire, forfeiting my opportunity to ride this morning. Theres was a time crunch. Finally get everything situated and discover a chain rub. Well, good. Can’t figure that out on my own and the solution is the bike shop. I was taking it in next week for a tune up anyway, but now I’ll lose the weekend.

And I had such great rides planned for the weekend.

Took the Yankee to the airport and, afterward, found myself very hungry. My Chinese last night wasn’t the tastiest, never settled well and didn’t stick around long. So, where to go?

My friend and noted foodie Chadd Scott suggested I try Sprayberry’s Barbecue. One of the young members of that family is a student of The Yankee’s and we’ve been trying to visit, but every time we pass through they are closed. (Why can a barbecue joint be open at 2 a.m., anyway?)

The timing worked. It got a recommendation. Had to be done.

Here’s my lunch:

As I said on Twitter, I grew up in the center of the BBQ universe. I’ve had BBQ in restaurants, gas stations, shacks and off the back of pickup trucks. I’ve had Thai barbecue, smart casual barbecue, in environments where the 1950s decor that never evolved and on more grills than you could count. Sprayberry is good y’all.

I met one of the other young men from the Sprayberry family. He told me that part of the ceiling was original. This is from the 1926 gas station:

center> Ceiling

Calvin Coolidge was president when Mr. Sprayberry had that ceiling installed. Consider that for a second.

So I drove through tiny Newnan to get back to the interstate. Found this little factory will missing windowpanes, burning lights and the distant sound of production inside:

center> factory

What a great look that building had. No sign, though. Maybe, I discovered later, because I was standing at the back of the property. Google Maps was no help in trying to figure out the name of the place.

The banner across the bottom of the blog is also from that building. I love the guy walking. Makes it look very dynamic. The banner across the top, meanwhile, is from just a few blocks away. Do you remember those books from childhood that spread an entire city panorama before you? Everything was moving, everyone in town was there and things were going on everywhere. (Similar to this.) I always loved those settings. So much to see! So many expressions to study!

That’s what that corner, where I shot the top banner, looked like. Utility workers were busy on both sides of the intersection. The roads were humming along. People were working on one side of the street and there were people standing and talking intently across from them. Busy little moment in a sleepy Southern town.

Made it home and to the bike shop. Described the problem. Was assured, by the third person I’ve seen working there (I’ve been there three times) that they’d get it figured out.

And then he asked how you changed gears on my bike. Promising.

Came home. Read for a while. Had dinner, wiping out the remaining chicken tortilla soup, a recipe from Henry’s Puffy Tacos in San Antonio, Texas as found in the Off the Eaten Path book. Stuff is even better after you let it sit for two days.

Sorry. Dozed off during a Fraiser marathon. I was icing my shoulder and woke up to the interminable Golden Girls theme song. The ice pack was still mostly ice, so the nap wasn’t long, but that’s enough to chase me to bed. I must now wrap up my evening’s festivities, put everything away, including this.

Find me on Google+. Finally got one of my invites to work today. I spent part of the evening tinkering with the site, getting used to the interface and wondering “How many platforms does one need, anyway? Fatigue sets in. Time to feed the monster is finite. Something has to yield. Which will it be?

history / overwriting / video — Comments Off
8
Jul 11

“The sentimental journey into history”

And suddenly we’re a bit farther away from soaring rhetoric such as this:

For fun: play the launch and Kennedy simultaneously. Mute the launch and let the words carry those brave explorers on their odyssey, measuring the best of their energies and skills.

Space will still captivate us. We must only reach.

journalism / links / Thursday / Twitter / video — Comments Off
7
Jul 11

Here’s my hypothesis

And believe me, I have plenty of them …

But this one is basic, straightforward and a bit important: Those who can’t understand Twitter, should reconsider basic communication skills.

Consider these anecdotes, though any you may find will do:

President Obama’s social media gabfest, which swamped the Twitterverse with thousands of responses yesterday, was touted as a rare chance for any citizen to put questions to the Leader of the Free World — but turned out to be just another high-tech, tightly controlled campaign stunt, experts said yesterday.

Or:

Brand new format, same old answers. Reams of hype, most of it delivered in 140-character chunks, couldn’t make President Obama’s Twitter town hall on Wednesday as exciting as promised.

The hour-long event proved to be even less interesting than the average town hall.

Further:

Associated Press journalists have tweeted opinions about the Casey Anthony trial and the New York Senate vote on gay marriage, says Tom Kent, AP Deputy Managing Editor for Standards and Production. “These [two] posts undermine the credibility of our colleagues who have been working so hard to assure balanced and unbiased coverage of these issues,” he writes in a memo. “AP staffers should not make postings there that amount to personal opinions on contentious public issues.”

These are two varied issues, to be sure, but the hypothesis applies. Understanding Twitter includes understanding the strengths and weaknesses. A 140-character format isn’t the place for diffuse, verbose language, like a candidate desperate to hit his campaign points. One must be brief, concise. (All of the things this place isn’t, come to think of it.)

Most importantly, however, one must know that Twitter is simply a conversation.

Which brings us to that last anecdote. Niki Doyle, the social media editor at The Huntsville Times, asked what I thought about the Associated Press memo. They’re chided their employees from voice opinions in social media, saying “anyone who works for AP must be mindful that opinions they express may damage the AP’s reputation as an unbiased source of news.”

Assume, for this conversation, that you find the vast Associated Press unbiased in their coverage. Perhaps you do, perhaps you don’t. But assume.

This policy doesn’t think you can differentiate between human and AP, and not transpose an individual’s opinion to the entire organization. And the policy, while admittedly starting from a difficult spot, demonstrates they don’t yet understand social media (including Twitter). This is a conversation.

The memo demonstrates they don’t trust their people. Most importantly, it suggests they don’t trust their audience to understand the human/reporter conversation-opinion/journalism dynamic.

These two just happened to come along within a few moments of one another today. As I said, find your anecdote; consider the implications. This isn’t the largest issue the White House or the Associated Press (or any other organization) has to deal with, but it is an important one.

Linky things: Atlantis, from the pad. Robert Pearlman, who took that photo, runs collectSPACE which boasts both an unfortunate caps lock issue, but great space content. Do check him out.

Speaking of space, sometimes you see the heavens just a bit differently from somewhere on our pleasant little rock. This time lapse may do it for you. It won the STARMUS astro-photography competition.

Ocean Sky from Alex Cherney on Vimeo.

Breathtaking.

Just like tomorrow’s launch, I’m sure.

Auburn / iPhone / video — Comments Off
4
Jul 11

Happy Independence Day

Fourth of July finale in Auburn.

God bless America.