links / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on Come for the photos, stay for the links
19
Apr 16

Come for the photos, stay for the links

Hole punch cloud!

And the guys are hanging out with Aubie. Clint and Autumn find this funny. Chandler looks bemused. Thomas is just cool enough for this. Those are the four stages of Aubie, really:

This seems silly:

But … Some medical issue not withstanding, this is just about the dumbest thing you’ll see any day ending in Y:

KTRK Houston’s news reporter Steve Campion was live on the scene covering flooding going on in the area, when he saw two cars drive straight into the rising waters.

Yeesh. The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans:

Since 2013, the federal reserve board has conducted a survey to “monitor the financial and economic status of American consumers.” Most of the data in the latest survey, frankly, are less than earth-shattering: 49 percent of part-time workers would prefer to work more hours at their current wage; 29 percent of Americans expect to earn a higher income in the coming year; 43 percent of homeowners who have owned their home for at least a year believe its value has increased. But the answer to one question was astonishing. The Fed asked respondents how they would pay for a $400 emergency. The answer: 47 percent of respondents said that either they would cover the expense by borrowing or selling something, or they would not be able to come up with the $400 at all. Four hundred dollars! Who knew?

When you start to seek out the portents …

baseball / cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off on A smattering of pictures
18
Apr 16

A smattering of pictures

What is a smattering, anyway? The word means “a small amount,” but isn’t that relative? Anyway, here are six — but I didn’t put a lot more here, so comparatively it was a small amount. Anyway.

At a baseball game this weekend I caught a foul ball. As protocol demands, I gave it to a kid.

Baseball fan for life now.

The sky was incredible on Saturday, so I took a few pictures, just to remember it:

Hanging out with Allie, who was enjoying a nice sun bath:

A view from part of my ride today. This is on the time trial route. I love this little roller. You come down from the smallest little right-hand descent and as soon as you bottom out your cockpit is pointed up again. It is fun any time of day, but, in the evening, you hear everything come to life. On one side are crickets and from the other side you hear bullfrogs:

And an odd-looking shadow portrait:

Friday / photo / video — Comments Off on A pretty Friday
15
Apr 16

A pretty Friday

Just another flower showing off the beauty of spring. There seems to be an awful lot of it this year. There’s an awful lot of beauty this year.

Believe it or not that’s just a rose that grows at our house. We don’t even tend to them. It just happens.

Here’s a neat video. I am a fan of all of the Great Big Story projects:

And we are now into the series of events that marks the beginning of the end:

You’re only wrapping up 21 years, half of your life. I hate it.

cycling / history / markers / Thursday — Comments Off on Back to the markers
14
Apr 16

Back to the markers

I have to finish this project up and, so, for the next several weeks I’ll be sneaking in a few posts that will shoot you over to my historic marker page. The concept there is pretty straightforward. I’ve been riding my bike all over the county to photograph the markers and the places they document. This has been an on-again-off-again project for years. Time to wrap it up. Here are two that will get us a bit closer to doing just that.

This is a superlative sign. It is the most difficult one in the county to get to. It was one of the hardest ones to find. Being from 1954 it is perhaps the oldest of the bunch. It has perhaps the widest ranging actual historical significance. And there’s less at this physical location than any other marker in the county. There’s absolutely nothing there:

You can see the other side, and the locale.

After France, late in the Colonial period gave all of this region to Britain surveyors marked the boundaries including this one in south Smiths Station. This line goes all the way across at least two states. I wonder if there are other signs elsewhere on this line.

Also, 18th century surveyor still sounds like an impossibly difficult job.

I had a professor once who explained that the railway switch that was located just down from this sign is why all of this is here. And then he’d walk you through a few decades of railway history and it made sense. And now the town which grew beside the railroad became a city and then a blue collar town and then it dried up and now it is making a comeback. And that’s about 100 years of history.

Click here to see the other side of the sign and a lot of the locale.

photo / swimming / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Everything in this post is wonderful
13
Apr 16

Everything in this post is wonderful

Got a 2,500 meter swim in this lane today.

Only took 800 meters to feel “good,” which is a lot, even for me. But this is the second time I’ve been in the #pool in a good long while. After the sluggishness and frustration passed and the breathing and normal muscle sensations returned it was a good swim.

That’s OK, when you didn’t grimace at watching your clock times you can always look up for a bit of inspiration.

You can’t help but pull a little harder. Also, the idea that at least two Olympians or a half-dozen All Americans are around at any given time is a powerful motivator.

I like to write things like, “Owww, my arms hurt for 800 meters” and then find incredible links like this one: A paralyzed man’s brain implant let him move his fingers to play a guitar video game. That guy, one of four people in the study, has found that he can use his hand again for the first time in six years. We live in the future.

Here is a beautiful video I found today. The more videos shot on phones I see, the more I am convinced that it is really the editing, and the excess, that are the keys:

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