Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

adventures / memories / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
08
May 25

And then it became our home

Two years ago today, at 12:14 p.m., I took this photo. It was one of those moments where your life begins to change.
That was when we saw this house for the first time.

It was the first one we looked at on our house-hunting visit. The one that the rest got judged against. And it was a hot market. The sellers had put up a few teaser photos on the weekend, a promo of the full listing to come on Monday. As we drove over we looked at the rest of the photos, which were great, if over-saturated. We called our realtor from the road and told him to add this one to the list. We were, I think, the second people in, but we were not the only ones that wanted it.

Somehow, we won the day.

You’d like to think of these as happy moments, but house shopping and waiting out bids is a special kind of tension. But the place, itself, is just as comfortable and relaxing as a home should be.

adventures / collarbone / cycling / Wednesday — Comments Off
07
May 25

A group ride

The grading and sharing of notes continues. And it will continue throughout the day, and probably most of tomorrow. So I’m on schedule, I suppose, but this could go faster. Feedback, however, is time intensive. I try to be as specific and useful as possible. And though there are some recurring themes that allow me to, occasionally, use a bit of copy-and-paste boilerplate on How To Fix That Particular Problem, a lot of this is bespoke.

Here’s the real problem. Canvas, our learning management system of choice, shows me a student’s PDF or DOC file or whatever in one frame of a browser, and, in another, it gives me a tiny little box to type in. Experience has taught me that typing in little boxes does wonders for my creative typographical errors. So I spend a decent chunk of time on each one just trying to read through what I wrote — unlike here — in the hopes that it makes sense. That it is applicable. That it is thoughtful and, dare I hope it, professorial.

It’s grimly humorous to me that I’m in a place where I can evaluate and score someone based on their typos, and I’m working in these tiny little text boxes that give me ample opportunity to sound almost literate.

Also, my feedback ranges from 200-600 words. And I have 60-some of these to work through. So, yeah, it takes time.

But I have an advantage today. Our neighor invited us out for an early morning bike ride. It was short, but also early enough that I’ve had more time in front of the computer screen, joy of joys.

Anyway, that’s our neighbor in the front right. He’s also an Ironman. And a bionic man.

Behind him is his friend. This guy had moved away to Florida, but recently returned to spend more time near his grandchildren. So he’s retired, but busier than ever maintaining two homes. He spent most of the ride telling me about the furniture he’s buying online and refinishing, and the work they’re doing to their house here. They seem the sort to buy it and leap right into it. Makes sense, make it yours! I don’t seem to be capable of that. People lived in this house before me, and that’s something to be respectful of and all. But this guy, he and his wife purchased a home from an elderly couple and it obviously needed to have some updating so they’ve just ripped out the floors and are walking around on the slab right now while the flooring people do their work. Also, he can tell you about the table and chairs he bought on Facebook Marketplace, what they’re worth, down to the penny, and what he bought them for.

He was, perhaps he still is, a big time amateur racer. And so as we went over roads he’s known for years and is now getting reacquainted with, he was telling me about things that happened on each of them, including when we crossed over one bridge where he crashed out and broke his collarbone. So naturally I had to tell our collarbone stories. And then we found ourselves on that freshly painted ribbon, zig zagging our way through quiet little neighborhoods from whence people were starting their day.

At the end of it all, we got to a stop sign and the retiree said thanks for the ride, and turned left. The rest of us went straight. When we got to our neighborhood we thanked our friend for the invite and went up our drive as he continued on down to his home.

That’s the way it is, riding with other people. You get to know these specific slices of their life. You could ride with them dozens of times, knowing only these little bits about them. And if you see them in their secret identity clothes around town, you might not even recognize one another. But then you see them on the next ride.

Small groups, like this, make for a fun ride, so I hope we get to do it again soon.

But, now, back to Canvas.

photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
06
May 25

Look at those faces

Everything is coming due for my students, so my full time job is, this week, more than a full time job. One class submitted their finals yesterday. At midnight my other classes submitted some important work, a draft of their social media audits. The final is due next week. It’s a tight turnaround for some. If you’re on the right path, it’s just a few corrections or tweaks here or there. If you’re going the wrong way, there’s a fair amount of work to be done to get on the right track before next week’s final submission. I don’t envy them that, but the schedule is the schedule, and out of my hands.

What I can do, however, is get them feedback with time to spare. My goal is to get all of that in their hands by Thursday, because the final project is due next Monday night. Also, their final exam looms on the same schedule. A lot happens late in that course, and it’s an excellent primer for people headed into fast-paced working environments, but it can be a lot. So I am reading quickly, typing furiously, and then holding Zoom meetings about it with students who are interested.

Zoom meetings that students ask for, most of whom don’t turn on the video function of Zoom. So it is a phone call. How do I know? Because I’ve made phone calls before. (Haha, he’s old! — editor) Also, because they’re often doing that on their phone … except I’m on video … and that’s tiresome to contemplate.

Anyway, let’s quickly fill the space with the site’s most popular feature, our weekly check in on the kitties.

I invite you to take a moment to just look at this face. Fall into those deep swirling eyes and contemplate the vastness and the minuteness of the universe. And also the mischief he is dreaming up.

I tell him all the time, “It is a good thing you’re so charming, Poseidon. You should spend more time on that, as opposed to causing trouble.”

Because he can be one of those things, but he chooses to do the other.

Phoebe is, on the other hand, always charming.

So the cats are doing well. But they’re not doing any of this grading for me. So back to the salt mines I go.

adventures / cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off
05
May 25

Now we come to it

Final papers are in for my international media class. I’m trying to get ahead of them so I can stay ahead of my other grading. While one class is finished, another has a tight turnaround on some important work. This week, from my perspective then, is about giving good feedback in a timely manner, so that it is useful to the students.

So this is brief. More brief than normal. (You’re welcome?)

Just riding around the neighborhood on Saturday, in reality is about six neighborhoods, gave me an easy bit of exercise, and a brief glimpse of the sheep and one of their faithful companions.

Sometimes that dog is sleeping as I go back. Occasionally I cruise through there and he’s working. Every now and again he races me — usually he lets me win. But, today, they were all huddled together and something behind me caught his interest.

We recently discovered the local creamery. My lovely bride says I found it, but I have absolutely no recollection of that. They have three flavors of custard, and last night, a night that was sticky and warm enough to make it quickly look like a potential drippy mess, I tried the creamsicle.

They only accept cash. And while I respect their stance on traditionalism at this creamery, that will limit my abilities to visit there. Who has cash? Probably this is a good thing. It is only four miles away, and I can’t always be lucky about eating it before it gets everywhere.

The local bike shop does a ride to the creamery in the earliest part of the summer. It’s a neighborhood thing, and we’ll join in. Because there is ice cream.

But, first, there is grading. So let me get back to that.

cycling / Friday / photo / site — Comments Off
02
May 25

The fickleness of the breeze

It’s Friday! Right? Friday? Yeah. Sometimes you have to check a calendar, just to be sure. I wrapped up the week’s grading in yesterday. And I have done the updates to my computer, cleaning a month’s worth of files, creating subdirectories for May, updating site statistics in the site statistics spreadsheet.

And, hey, we’re well ahead of last year’s numbers here, so thanks for that. I don’t know why people come here, but I’m glad you do.

So one class wrapped up this week, and their final is due next Monday. My online class has another week-and-change to go, with a lot of work still to come. And a lot of things to grade, and then grades to submit. The next two weeks, then, are busy. A lot of sitting here staring at computer screens, plenty of little study breaks, but then right back to it.

I never learned that skill young, but there’s nothing like impending deadlines to teach new skills.

I set out for a 25-mile ride after a day of sitting in front of the computer. One of the regular routes I established last year. It is a route that, on the map, is roughly shaped like a bullet, though I am not nearly as fast as.

I went into town and through it, doubling back and through a crossroads that has the word “town” in its name, but it is nothing more than a red light, a farmer’s market, a gas station and a small car dealership. Then, out into the countryside.

I took a turn that sends me back to the river, but crops, woods and a few houses and developments in between. Usually this is a road that gives me five or six miles without any cars. And, once you’ve done this for a while, those experiences stand out, and you make note of them, so that you may ride them again.

When the road ends, it is time to turn right. You have a nice wide shoulder-slash-bike-lane-but-mostly-shoulder, where you can do four miles super fast, which you also make note of, and visit as often as you can. And then back on the road for home, a seven-mile stretch … into the wind.

This is a mistake. The conventional wisdom is that you start into the devise a route that puts you into a headwind first, and then the tailwind on the way back. Economy of efficiency when you’re more tired. Because I was doing a rectangular route, a squishy bullet, I should have had a tailwind to start, and a tailwind to finish.

But, if you live in a place like we do, this is a challenge. Nearly an impossibility. Today, on that same road, a straight line with flags flying at regular intervals, the wind blew from every direction on the same road within 80 minutes.

What even is that?