Wednesday

adventures / GoPro / photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Devil’s Island, Bermuda – day one
12
Jun 13

Devil’s Island, Bermuda – day one

Woke up in Bermuda this morning. We ran a quick 5K on the cruise ship’s track. Nice to do it without wind and all of those people standing around. This was the view from there of King’s Wharf:

Did you scroll around inside that image? It is interactive. Shot that on my iPhone, using an app called Photosynth. Works pretty well. I believe that is the best one of the few I’ve made so far.

In the afternoon we went here, Devil’s Island, for an easy snorkeling excursion. Click to embiggen:

DevilsIsland

We recently acquired a GoPro camera from my thoughtful in-laws. My father-in-law thought we could make nice videos in all of our athletic adventures. Which means now you’ll have to hear me pant on my bike, I guess.

We tried it for the first time while we were in the water today. The Yankee shot all the good parts. The rest were probably mine:

Oh, by the way, here’s our cruise ship, the Celebrity Summit:

CelebritySummit

The Yankee, talking with new friends. The wife is in a doctoral program and had just finished a class in entrepreneurial media, so we had that to bond over. Her husband had lived in Auburn, so we had that. Turns out he also went to high school with some of our other friends we’d made on the ship. In New Jersey. Even the big world is a small world:

Ren

This is Jordan Peterson, who is playing piano on the cruise. He’s an actor and musician.

JordanPeterson

And he’s good. I’ll have to grab a video of him soon.

Tomorrow: more beautiful Bermuda.

cycling / memories / Wednesday — Comments Off on Throwback Wednesday
5
Jun 13

Throwback Wednesday

Because it is June, and because I make up the rules around here, I’ve decided that this will be a week of older pictures. Most of these are on my phone. Some of them have been in this space or elsewhere on the site or in some of the regular social media places before. So they might be old to you — and bless you for still visiting — or they might be brand new.

Enjoy.

This is perhaps my favorite little bridge to ride my bicycle over. I’ve been fortunate to pedal over great big overpasses that cross state lines over brackish waterways and across little bumpy things that just get cars over glorified streams. But this one, all ancient and rickety from the looks of things, carries you over a railroad track.

It is surprisingly sturdy, I’ve watched cars and trucks go over it, but the first time I found it, on the backside of town and the backside of everything I normally ride, I went back and forth over it three times, just to listen to the sounds my bike made on it.

I should ride it again soon.

bridge

Come visit on Twitter and Tumblr.

Auburn / links / photo / Tumblr / Twitter / Wednesday — Comments Off on The snerffs
29
May 13

The snerffs

At least it is the kind of illness — sinuses, really — that let’s you know precisely when the medication has worn off. That’s considerate. And either this is a super allergy/sinus issue or the over-the-counter medicines have a lot less potency than they used to. It is possible that both are true.

We finally visited Dunkin Donuts today. Took them forever to open, and town was filled with news of rumored false starts. It became a thing to video yourself going to the drive thru and knocking on the window. Finally the sign said “Opening May 28th.”

So we went on the 28th at about 10:30 p.m. Only they weren’t open for 24 hours on their first day. They’d already exhausted themselves.

This morning they were open again. I counted at least 14 people working there, surpassing the number of people that were sitting at the little round tables at the time. They have hi-def menu screens and two rows of doughnuts. The kid that got our order got it wrong.

doughnuts

The doughnuts were not especially good. (But it is their first week.) They were no Daylight. They were no D Square. They were certainly no Krispy Kreme. Somehow they will probably be more successful than all of them.

Still not sure how Daylight closed. It went dark about a year ago, just down the road from the new Dunkin spot. The parking was bad, and maybe the location was a factor, but the doughnuts were good and the burgers would surprise you.

The owner bought some property for a song in Michigan in 2010. Then it looks as if he wanted to sell it at a 500 percent profit just two days later, in a story which included some odd quotes. And then in March of 2011 that Michigan building burned. It seems he’d decided on selling the old chestnut wood inside the building, but alas. Two teens were charged in the blaze. And then there was a threat of and, finally, last month, foreclosure. The locals, in the comments of all of those stories, found it all a bit suspicious.

But, hey, doughnuts!

Gave a tour of downtown and campus today. I invoked Sundilla and discussed the Harpers. We pointed out buildings with famous names and famous tales and sweated on a beautiful May afternoon. We discussed the old stuff and guessed at the new stuff.

At dinner I felt the moment precisely when the old drugs stopped working and then, a bit later, precisely when the new antihistamine kicked in. Breathing is a wonderful thing. Also it is underrated.

A few more days of this and I’ll be fine. I’ll try the doughnuts then, when I can properly taste things again.

Two new things on Tumblr, much more on Twitter.

cycling / iPhone / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off on Just a bicycle post
22
May 13

Just a bicycle post

Yesterday we pedaled the loop around town. I was riding behind The Yankee and watching her work down into the drops as she got into a hill. I pass her on the climbs, trying my hardest to make it look nonchalant when really my lungs are falling out of my feet. She usually catches me later and all will be grand.

Until, about halfway through, her front derailleur failed. I was caught by a red light and she wasn’t behind me. So I waited through the cycle and still no bicycle. Another turn of the lights and finally she topped the hill. She’d been in her worst gearset for two hills because a rivet popped out and forced her into the wrong chainring. We tinkered with it under a brilliant sky and earnest sun and finally pedaled the rest of the way slowly. As in, this is easy and I have good legs and could take on the world, slowly. I topped one of the larger hills in my biggest gear at this pace and didn’t even feel it. Great legs!

So, today, with her bike in the shop and a cold coming on, she stayed inside and I decided to ride the loop again. If I did it comfortably and easily yesterday, I figured, this will be great to do it at pace.

Only it didn’t work that way. It was warm. My legs weren’t good. I hadn’t eaten enough. I was a bit tired. And my mind was busy making excuses for what was going on. I found some shade at a vacant grocery store:

Felt

It is funny, but I’ve noticed that the days that feel the worst — I could complain about the heat and how I feel and all that — allow me to look at the computer and find a new personal best for that route.

Even progress is humbling.

Also, I need to get back into the long rides. The ones I really want to do, the ones in my Map My Ride account are a lot longer than around town. I mapped out a route that would let me hit Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, three states in an afternoon. I just found another one for the Silver Comet and Chief Ladiga trails, which cover Georgia and Alabama and is the longest paved trail in the country. Somewhere out there is the big one, the state tour. Sitting in the shade of a dead Kroger isn’t going to make any of those happen.

So I did a few more miles and marveled at the heat and the various ways I feel on the bicycle right now.

Yesterday we went to James Brothers and Danny asked how my recovery was going. Right after I crashed they were all very concerned, which is nice. The answer, though, depends on when you ask. At that moment I felt great. As I write this … well, I’ve felt better. Nothing a 400-mile week wouldn’t cure, I’m sure.

But these things are what they are. He’s bouncing back from some difficulties that have hampered his training. We talked of triathlons and marathons and various things. I’m hanging out with people who say things like “I can run 10 miles, but I can’t run 12 because … ” and wonder what I’m doing in that conversation.

So naturally tonight we had a healthy dinner and I treated myself to the foam roller. Later I had ice cream.

There’s not a lot to this, because today was today. Tomorrow will be full of errands, however, and so that’ll be something to write about. Just you wait and see.

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cycling / iPhone / journalism / photo / Samford / Storify / Wednesday — Comments Off on This will be quick
15
May 13

This will be quick

Sunny. No shade. And 84 degrees in the prime of the day. Spring has arrived. I went for a ride in it.

And this is the wall I hid behind about three-quarters of the way through my ride. A banana, a bit of water, a deep breath.

Wall

My bike is dirty.

Bike

It was good to get outside. I spent time today grading and coordinating student-journalists who were covering the second student death in the last two weeks.

You hate that all of this happened — another young person taken far too soon — but at the same time I can’t help but be proud of my particular students. They did a fine job in challenging circumstances. This time our paper is on hiatus for the summer, our new editor is still building his new staff and the students had just started taking finals.

Samford student Caroline Neisler died this morning. The university held a memorial service this evening. Our student-reporters got a couple of quotes, some art and wrote a story, all within a few hours, and under finals pressure.

I didn’t know Caroline, but having read the things her friends are writing about her she seemed like a fine young lady:

Then this happened on campus, too:

Powerful things happen in special places. But special things happen everywhere.

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