Wednesday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Wednesday

journalism / photo / television / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
25
Sep 19

Hey! News!

I went for another run this evening, and soon enough, perhaps, it will become something between habit and de rigueur once again.

Today I got in 3.1 miles, a full 5K, if you will. And I didn’t run-walk it 50-50. I’m told that, given my particular foot issue the run-walk interval is the ideal way to ease back into things. Take it easy is the strategy, and I’m fine with that. But I did run more than I walked today. It’s a no particular-goal-progression I’m after here.

While still stretching, taping, doing exercises and icing if necessary. So if you see my feet going weird directions, it is probably deliberate.

Probably.

Here are the shows the news crews produced on Tuesday night. First the newsier news show, now with a new intro:

And then there’s the pop culture news show:

Hopefully that show will get a new intro soon, as well.

But, right now, I need an outro.

…. Bye!

photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
18
Sep 19

The place where summer and fall meet

This was a little spot I stumbled into over the weekend at the race upstate. The leaves are turning up there, the buzzing things are still singing their chorus of eternal summer:

God bless ’em.

This was in a little spot between the road and nothing. From a car you wouldn’t even notice this, looking for all the world like just a little place they scooped the soil up to mound for the road above. In this little clump of trees, not even a tree line, really, there was a little bridge:

And of course, the accompanying 4-wheeler trail.

If you walked over that bridge, crossing the thick mud patch below where the rain and road drainage inevitably gathered, you’d see a little house and barn off in the distance about 150 yards away. It looked charming enough. Who knows what prompted them to build that little footbridge, aside from muddy boots.

I’m telling myself these yellowed because they got snapped off in a storm, not because they knew what was coming:

I should enjoy the fall, it is a beautiful fall we get here, but I can’t get over the feeling of: Again?

photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
11
Sep 19

Look up

There’s not much more that can be said, which hasn’t been said today, or in any of the 18 anniversaries or days in between. Most, not all, but most of, the memory essays now feel out of tune. The focus of the stories I wrote in the days after 9/11 — “How to talk to your children” pablum meant to fill time until the next Pentagon soundbite, they seemed like — they’re all adults now. Some of them are students I work with today. But the underclass students have no living memory of that day at all. It’s history to them. And next month we’ll mark the 18th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan, meaning we’re just a few months from having a young adult serving there who wasn’t alive on September 11th. That has also been noted.

We’d do well to look up, and not be afraid.

Plus, Carlin was on to something, too:

via ytCropper

Today was a day for the purple shirt. That means a purple or black tie. The purple shirt also has french cuffs. And I wore black cufflinks yesterday. So a purple tie. Which still leaves the cufflinks question. I went with these nice shiny numbers.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

My mom gave them to me. Pretty nice, no?

No idea what the engraving was meant to be, but the gears move!

cycling / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
4
Sep 19

The gain-bi is mightier than the jian

There is this little multipurpose path joining two parks, bridging a creek and generally being one of the nicer treats in the area. Today I went down it slowly on my bike, because being responsible is more important than gaining segment points, Strava. There might be people. They may have dogs! And you just can’t see around every fun little corner on this path:

I usually try to come up it quickly, because that is the time to try to improve your segment times, but today was not one of those days. Good thing, too. I got about halfway up the thing and I noticed the light was perfect.

That’s the thing about having a camera on you at all times. There’s always the temptation to stop, backtrack and get that shot. Avail yourself of that opportunity as much as possible; there may be dogs!

But that’s a different challenge when you’re on a bike ride. You have to make the value judgment, and quickly too: Do I stop, turn my rig around and go back for that shot? Am I working on a schedule? For speed? To set a personal best? Is keeping my heart rate elevated important today? Will this photograph take a long time? Will my legs still work when I get started once again? What’s the terrain we’re talking about? Do I want to go up that hill again?

All of that has to be fast, because if you wait too long the decision will be made for you. And of course, there’s the issue of the sun during those golden hours. Will the light hold, or did you see the last, fleeting, moment of the day’s brilliance?

So it worked out for me, above. I went back. It was the right choice. Avail yourself.

I mentioned yesterday how to make sure you you must never let your shadow win a bike ride:

Do you know how you never let the shadow win? Always pedal home from the east. The evening sun will be in front of you and your shadow behind.

Today, I rode back to the house from the west. The sun behind me, the shadow wins:

We had Chinese tonight. I wandered from my usual, because some other random thing on the menu sounded good, and the description I found online seemed one worth trying. We might not have Chinese again for a while. Not because the meal was bad. No. It was fine. It could have been better, but it both served its purpose and didn’t send you spiraling into a dinner of regret. No, that was not why I might be off Chinese for a while.

This fortune cookie, however:

I sound like I’m a knight on a great quest, according to that bit of script. That’s an awful lot to put into a fortune-less fortune cookie. You don’t even know me, cookie. And non one else knew you. Admittedly, that’s an error on my part. If I hadn’t eaten the thing I could have carried both the fortune, and the cookie around — surely the one gives the other some credibility — and people, having heard the good word of the fortune-less fortune, would treat you accordingly.

You hope the fortune cookie process, somewhere in a factory in Michigan, I’m sure, is automated. But what if there is a personal touch? What if there are two or three disenchanted people working second shift reading the little slips of paper.

Yeah, this one will show ’em. Some guy will carry this thing to work tomorrow and try to parlay this into a raise.

Not me, mind you. Like I’m the only person that got the heart/mind/soul cookie special this week.

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28
Aug 19

This is about wheels, which I have, and color wheels, which I do not have

I got my bike out of the bike shop yesterday. They called Monday to tell me it was ready, I finally picked it up yesterday. It went in for a new spoke, after I snapped an old one last week. I also added on an overdue tune up and a badly needed new chain. To celebrate the work, and the happy reunion, I wore my bicycle cufflinks yesterday:

I also picked up a new stem. It seems my bike might be too small, and that’s causing some hand problems. Nothing lasting, just a nerve compression that makes riding less enjoyable than it should be. And my ongoing foot issue (which does largely feel fine and might actually be improving with time and stretching exercises, but we’ll see in the next month or two) might actually be exacerbating my problems issue. This is all very specific stuff in that odd way of things: technical if you don’t ride, basic if you are a cyclist.

Anyway, one solution is too change to an angled stem. My old one was a flat, 0-degree, number. It made for an aggressive posture. Now we go to the other extreme. This is a Salsa aftermarket stem, set on a full 25-degree angle:

The angle stem raises up the headset, giving the cockpit a different orientation and puts the handlebars in such a place that I am not falling over to grab hold. This might help with the hand discomfort I’ve been experiencing of late. It isn’t as aesthetically pleasing in any way, but cheaper than a new bicycle, and feels a lot different, even on the first ride:

I wonder what it will feel like on the eighth or ninth ride.

But, hey, it isn’t all bikes around here. Or even cufflinks about bikes. (Those were a gift from my mother, by the way.) Sometimes it is just about the tie. But, really, it is about the shirt. And this is a new one! I got it online and on sale. And what do you know, yesterday’s bike jersey matches today’s tie:

I can’t keep this color continuity up for forever, of course. Or can I? I wonder.