Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Just go go go

Worked today, doing work stuff. Enjoying the beginning of summer by getting ready for the fall. I had an actual lunch! We got takeout from Chick-fil-A and ate it in a parking lot between Panera and Fresh Thyme and a funeral home. It’s a glamorous life, to be sure.

After work I got gas. Paid $3.19 a gallon, which was a dollar off the sign price, because of the Kroger fuel points plan. This loyalty program is one of the three great things about our local grocery store. And, at the beginning of the year we took advantage of what is essentially Kroger Prime. Used to be that every dollar you spent was added into a formula for a reduced price at the pump. Since you’re shopping for groceries anyway, this was an easy and obvious thing. But now your dollar amounts are worth double in the gas reduction formula. We signed up before the war in Ukraine and inflation drove up the prices, and so this has paid for itself several times over already.

After that, and I know you’re riveted, I went to the hardware store. Got some tack cloths. At the house I sanded wood until it was time for dinner. (And almost all of the sanding on this ridiculously long-stalled project is now down.) And then I ate and washed dishes and did a very small amount of house chores until it was time to write this. And here you are.

Five years ago tonight, we were with the Indigo Girls.

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I think that was the seventh or ninth time I’ve seen the Indigo Girls live. I don’t go to a lot of concerts anymore — indeed, I think I’ve been to one other show, in 2019, since then, and we had two others canceled in 2020 — but Amy and Emily, I’d never turn down. They never disappoint.

OK, the sanding isn’t done. Everything is done through 400-grit. Later this week I’ll do the ends to 800-grit. Then it’ll be ready to clean and stain and install. Which is good, because there’s an ever-growing list of other things I need to make.

So, this summer work, bike and build is how I’ll get ready for the fall.

adventures / family / memories / Monday / photo — Comments Off
09
May 22

A few weekend photos, and cats

I had the opportunity to watch the School of Nursing graduation on Saturday. Their ceremonies were in our building for space reasons, and it was neat to see all of those happy, bright young people getting ready to go do some hard work.

Nursing is a calling. All of the good ones are angels, and the rest are certainly working on it.

I noticed for the first time, on the way into the building, this blooming lilac (syringa oblata).

Just in time for summer!

We went for a bike ride this weekend, and I was sucking wind hard enough on the second half that I was able to take a photo to add to the irregular Barns By Bike collection.

And I marked Mother’s Day with a nice call and these classic photographs. I think this was my first snowfall.

We might have been overdressed. If I knew the date I’d look up the weather so we can laugh at the faux fur hooded parka my mom is wearing. But, instead, I just had a nice chat with her. She’s enjoying a weekend getaway vacation, and we enjoyed a nice long chat yesterday evening.

And now it’s time for you to enjoy the weekly check-in with the cats.

Here’s Phoebe doing one of the things she does best.

That cat relaxes so hard. I’m not saying she’s lazy. She has an intensity to her naps heretofore unseen by mortal man.

Poseidon was enjoying a little time in the window this morning.

Better than licking the blinds. He loves blinds. And every day I don’t have to take some broken blinds down and waste an hour buying and installing new ones is a victory.

That’s a three-blind window, and I have replaced each of them because of that cat.

Poseidon, like a cat does, also likes to get in all the places Poseidon isn’t supposed to be. These are strictly inside cats, so the evenings when we are cooking out Poseidon wants to go outside in a most desperate way. Someone has to hold him.

Enter the cardboard boxes they enjoy.

Phoebe was all too happy to play the role of the watchful warden. She stayed on the top of the second box the whole time he was in there. For most of that time he was purring happily away, too. And we didn’t have to worry about him while grilling.

adventures / Friday / IU / movies — Comments Off
06
May 22

Do not dip the needle in gasoline

I didn’t know it any point in time over time, but I have watched four Karate Kid movies — including the unnecessary Next Karate Kid. I also watched the inappropriately named 2010 remake with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. (That was kung fu, if anyone is keeping track.) I had my mind blown by the 2015 explanation of how Daniel is the real bully, a violent sociopath, in the movie and, before that, the Sweep the Leg music video which is probably not canon. (The internet is a magical place where people put way too much of their free time.) I have also watched all four seasons of the Cobra Kai series. I’ve done so with two things in mind. First, that Daniel is the bully and, second that Daniel doesn’t realize his best days are behind him and Johnny thinks his best days are still ahead of him.

And now, after all of that — a runtime of 29 hours and 48 minutes, plus the four minutes it took to figure that out — finally this. The best line in the whole franchise, from Chozen Toguchi.

Yuji Okumoto has appeared in 100 projects over the years, and he also owns a restaurant in Seattle. He … is gasoline.

Graduation ceremonies are this weekend. We had one in the building today, the game design faculty do a special program for their students, and it is always one of the first ones to go off, and they do it in our building, and use the giant television to show off their hard work. It’s quite neat. Late this afternoon the Media School’s program was held in the IU Auditorium.

Tomorrow the big graduation in the football stadium. Other schools have similar multi-part ceremonies, as well. The School of Nursing will be in our building to take advantage of the extra space for their students’ proud family members. No matter their school or discipline, it is always fun to see the happy faces.

They’ve all been posing all over campus in their caps and gowns and nice suits and beautiful dresses for days. Graduation, like everything, has become a much more involved exercise over the years.

(Why the university hasn’t decided to control the flow of foot traffic around iconic and scenic photo settings for better graduation photos and a chance to maybe fund a scholarship or something out of the effort eludes me. But I’m sure they’ll get around to that one day. Everything gets more involved over time.)

And, we got a Covid booster today. CVS said “Why not?” Dude was done before he began. Best shot I’ve had in a long time — not that anyone charts these things. No emerging side effects, as yet, but I can feel the injection site. Previously, from the Pfizer shots I could feel the scratchy throat and weariness and whatever else just moving in for a day or two. No such problem with the Moderna. Conclusion: I got the placebo.

Or I’m immune to vaccines.

But before we commit to that, let’s see what tomorrow brings.

Auburn / Glomerata / history / music / Thursday / video — Comments Off
05
May 22

A light day

Ever get fundraising letters and emails from your alma mater(s)? This 1922 copy circulated in newspapers around Alabama, a sad story that came from one of my alma maters, and it is more impactful than all of those donation letters.

This was part of an important campaign for my alma mater. Auburn was in a deep economic hole compared to the other schools in the state, which had been uniquely successful in creating a deep economic hole for all of its schools anyway. So all that spring of 1922 they prepared for this campaign that they hoped would raise $1 million dollars which would equal … quite a few more million these days.

It was a substantial ask, am ambitious plan and, if you’d be willing to listen to the whole of the tale I can draw a pretty clear line between that campaign and the institutional politics that still appear there, 100 years on.

Ralph Boyd appears in the papers one time before this syndicated piece, in a small brief about his death in Montgomery that February. His last surviving sibling passed away in 2017.

And here he is the year before, somewhere in this group photograph from the 1921 Glomerata, the university’s yearbook.

In the 1922 yearbook there’s a mention of the Greater Auburn campaign. They called it the greatest thing Auburn had ever undertaken. But there doesn’t seem to be a mention of young Ralph Boyd in that edition.

So there’s not much here today, but I did run across that, which is really an excuse to share the greatest century-old graphic you’ve ever seen.

That’s recyclable, is all I’m saying. It’s also amusing that they were using the Auburn name in the university’s campaign efforts, a formal usage if you will, decades before they changed the institution’s name.

Something a little fun … Penn & Teller!

And something amazing … The Punch Brothers!

More tomorrow, I assure you.

cycling / IU / photo / television / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
04
May 22

Coldest 62° ever

I believe I had the last meeting of the semester today. Things aren’t over, but the meetings are. And the activities are wrapping up this weekend. Once those tasks are complete, we’ll be doing … summer things.

Personally, I think everyone needs a few weeks off, unscored against their vacation time. It’d do everyone a world of good after the last few years. It’d be useful for the year to come.

Just you wait, someone is going to say this out loud in a few months, but you heard it here first.

But no one listens to my ideas.

Makes the meetings fun.

Here are some more of the programs IUSTV has produced at the end of the semester. I’m told there’s still maybe one more show to roll out this week.

They are still editing and producing shows during finals week. It’s impressive.

Robert Steven Mack is interviewing American Enterprise Institute’s Dr. Zack Cooper, about China’s relationship with Russia and the U.S. after the invasion of Ukraine. Pretty hefty stuff.

Riley and Alex follow the fan shenanigans — I’m just going to call them fananigans — during Little 500 weekend. It’s real atmospheric stuff. Fun, enthusiasm, silliness. What a campus should be — at least part of the time.

It took me two episodes to get it, but I’m a slow learner. That show grows on you in a hurry. I’ll miss it over the summer, but I hope it comes back even bigger in the fall.

We went for a bike ride this evening. She had to do hill repeats. Usually, when I even hear the phrase “hill repeats” I lose two or three miles per hour off my average. But I checked my numbers just before we started the hills, and just after, and I managed to hold everything steady throughout the up and down and up and down and up and down of the hill repeats.

There will be harder, longer hills later. I’ll be slower. The above paragraph will not apply to that experience.

Here we are — well, here she is; I am behind the camera — after those hills, and weaving through the last two neighborhoods before the house. In the last one we found ourselves in an impromptu sprint. We were doing the mid 30s and I was running out of gears.

I was probably working harder at it than she was.

She’s fast.