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The weekly post that highlights pictures I haven’t placed anywhere else here yet. Let’s get to it, then.
We went out for Chinese recently. As is the custom — because this is what makes them come true — I took a picture of the fortunes:
Allie enjoying a lazy afternoon in her tunnel:
Here’s brunch, which was pretty good, fried chicken and johnny cakes. It featured Chilton County peaches, pecan smoked bacon (yeah, that was good), toasted pecans, arugula and maple syrup.
We saw this guy on the deck at the pool.
We spent about seven hours there tonight, no kidding. It was a very nice time. Brian also invented a new hamburger for us, which was the other highlight of a fine Saturday.
Here are a few links for you to enjoy, just in case you aren’t at the pool, too.
There are some good points here. Some pertinent realities. John A. MacArthur says the internet makes bad journalism. He has a point. There are also some realities that can’t be ignored. That doesn’t make them better, or worse, but they remain our realities.
Pop-up ad creator: ‘I’m sorry’ There’s a great line in “The Execution of Noa P. Singleton,” dealing with a much, much heftier theme than pop up ads, but let’s consider it anyway:
But you see, the problem is that apologies are really just little weeds that grow over monuments and headstones. They keep coming back, but never stop ruining what lies beneath. If an apology is truly authentic, the pain is supposed to stop. Right?
A Medicare scam that just kept rolling:
This summer, in a Los Angeles courtroom, Bonilla described the workings of a peculiar fraud scheme that — starting in the mid-1990s — became one of the great success stories in American crime.
The sucker in this scheme was the U.S. government. That wasn’t the peculiar part.
Somewhere between here and $8.2 billion dollars were tied into the scheme. No one knows how much, though.
My toes are raw. I’ve checked them several times tonight, just to see if they were bleeding. But the pool has been fun.
We went for a run in the middle of the day, because running takes less time, and we haven’t done it in a while. Here’s the more-sunny-than-you-realize path.
I discovered today that I’m big on the mind deals — slightly different than Ray Romano’s mind bets. Today’s was fairly straight forward: if you stop running, you’re going to run another mile.
I did not have to run the fourth mile. I had a fairly decent time on the 5K. But not fast enough.
I do not know what is happening.
As I finished the run, I was looking for some shade, stepped under a promising pine tree and found this guy:
That’s the Actias luna caterpillar. You might be more familiar with the luna moth version. I didn’t see one of those, but I did watch that caterpillar climb and climb:
There’s probably a metaphor in there, or we could just be impressed by the closeup quality of my phone’s camera. Probably a metaphor in that, too.
Brian came down for a weekend visit. He and I went to Niffer’s for dinner. Turkey burgers and corn nuggets are for dinner.
Afterward we spent the evening in the pool. Colleagues and neighbors were there. It was a fine time with friends and more friends. We stayed so long the bottom of my feet are raw. And we’ll probably go back tomorrow.
Things to read … to prepare for tomorrow.
Alabama’s unemployment rate at 7 percent
The Re-Return of Chuckie Keeton
Inside the College Football Hall of Fame playground in Atlanta:
First and foremost, know this: This isn’t your father’s Hall of Fame.
Often ignored for nearly two decades in South Bend, Ind., the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta represents today’s game and media world while respectfully giving a nod to the past. The National Football Foundation’s decision in 2009 to move the Hall of Fame into the deep South symbolizes how the sport has changed demographically and through television.
Located within a five-minute walk from the Georgia Dome and the future Atlanta Falcons stadium, the Hall of Fame craves connectivity and a personal experience above all else. There are interactive videos and games, selfies with digital face paint, countless screens, and a field for activities and events.
It sounds like a nice experience.
Now the fanfic looks better than the source material …
Interestingly, everyone you see in that prelude has played multiple characters across the sprawling Star Trek franchise, except for … Richard Hatch. This is his first time in Rodenberry’s universe. They’re making a movie out of it. They’ve received more than four times their Kickstarter goal and their making a feature film, of the independent variety. It’ll be low-budget but, if you watch the entire prelude, you can see there’s some really great quality there. And Garth of Izar.
“Donors will receive either a digital HD copy, or a DVD or Blu-ray copy, depending on their donation level. It will also be released for streaming on YouTube for all to enjoy sometime later!”
The movie is in pre-production now, according to IMDB. I find it a bit more exciting than it probably should be.
On my bike ride today, an Alabama fan honked at me three times, because Roll Tide, I guess. But, since it was an Alabama fan, I was really honked at 15 times, wasn’t I?
The SEC Network launched today, with much giddiness and silliness, and football season is around the corner. There will always be Bama jokes, it seems.
Also, on one portion of my ride — which involves a downhill, a turn lane and then an explosion onto a beautiful, freshly paved road — a car pull right out in front of me. The driver panicked. He stopped, filling the entire lane. So he’s perpendicular to traffic, me, because he is no longer making his left turn.
Bikes are agile, but they don’t exactly stop on a dime. The emergency stop, as it were, is to burn up your brakes, slip off the saddle and put your body behind the seat tube. This shifts the mass, and slows things down, but doesn’t mean you’re stopped. Also, I find, it is hard to unclip when you’re behind the seat, so there’s not really a graceful way to put your foot down and burn up your shoes.
Instead of turning, as I’m trying to stop, he’s waving me through, to pass across the front of his car, into the oncoming lane.
This would have been so much better if he’d just looked to his left before he tried to turn to his left.
Later, on the TT segment, I tried to best yesterday’s time. I fairly well buried myself, dropped two other cyclists and improved my time from 9:34 to 9:03. That moved me from seventh to fourth for the year. The leader sits on top with a time of 8:35. I’m not sure if I can find 28 more seconds to shave off that time. Something to shoot for, I guess.
Speaking of cycling, here’s one last incredible Robin Williams story. Famed designer Dario Pegoretti, fighting lymphoma, met Robin Williams at a convention:
“He talked to me about my situation, and gave me a lot of strength,” Dario Pegoretti said from Italy on Wednesday.
At dinner, the virtuoso comic actor and the virtuoso frame-builder talked about bikes, but they also talked about things besides bikes. Williams spoke a little Italian, and his Italian was pretty good. He recalled his visits to Rome, about once meeting Fellini. To everyone’s delight, by the end of the night, he also did an extended Pegoretti impression for the table.
“I was just rolling on the floor,” said one of the dinner guests, Nelson Frazier, a rep for Gita. “It’s the only time I’ve seen Dario pretty much speechless.”
“It was really a beautiful night,” Pegoretti said. “I have so many beautiful memories.”
And speaking of the SEC Network:
Consider the SEC Network as indirect pay-per-view for college football games involving your favorite team.
[…]
According to Sports Business Journal, the network will cost cable companies $1.40 per subscriber in states inside the SEC footprint. If you live outside that footprint, the cost is only 25 cents per subscriber.
If the SBJ report is correct, then the SEC Network could be the third most expensive channel for local viewers. Figures from the Wall Street Journal show ESPN ($6.04) and TNT ($1.48) are the only ones that would charge more.
Right now? No one cares. Football.
Last night’s adventures in insomnia included this guy.
That’s my great-great grandfather, Jim. He was born in the winter of 1871, a year when the crops didn’t come in and the cotton caterpillars ravaged what was there. Jim married Sarah in 1904 and and they lived on a farm that her grandfather bought in 1854. They had 11 children. He died in 1953, his wife in 1970. So while I don’t know them, I did meet one of their kid’s, my great-grandfather. But I don’t remember him. My grandmother remembers her grandparents well, but I don’t know much more than what you find in this paragraph beyond where he’s buried. I do like that bicycle, though. So I found some old newspapers online and I’m looking for mentions, but turn up nothing.
I did find this, though:
Just found this ad in a 1953 newspaper, right next to a church ad detailing the evening's sermon. #fb pic.twitter.com/qquRaPKIHl
— kenny smith (@kennysmith) August 13, 2014
In 1953 the church ads told you what the evening’s sermon was going to be about. This one wasn’t about Old Hickory Bourbon, or temperance. The topic was “A Methodist sermon by a Baptist preacher.” A different church had an ad in the next day’s paper, the preacher had promised to answer the question of a generation, “Should a woman wear a hat to church?”
The pressing stuff of their time.
I guess that branch of my family didn’t believe in obituaries, or care for the local paper. I don’t find a mention of him there. Otherwise, he must have been the quiet type. You don’t get in the paper until you do something wrong or something bad happens. Maybe that’s a good sign for the couple.
On my bike ride today, something of a casual ride around the greater neighborhood just to get in a few miles, I passed one of the better church signs I know. They’ve got personality here, as noted by most any previous message, one of the best in recent memory suggesting that you bring your sin and “drop it like it’s hot.”
This week’s note:
It is a quiet little church, a lovely little place:
I also learned during this ride that I was on one of the local segments that the cycling apps chart as races. Without knowing it, I currently have the eighth fastest time on it for the year. I’ll have to try it again tomorrow to see if I can go any faster.
For dinner, we grilled pork chops and had beans which we discovered a few weeks ago:
I said to the lady that made them, a family friend, “You must give me your recipe or — ” which was the moment a look of embarrassment crossed her face. ” — or tell me what brand they are, because they are just about the best beans I’ve ever had.”
And they were. And they are. Also, they are from a can — Margaret Holmes. We discovered we didn’t necessarily need the lard — which is fine. The lady that made them, she’s a retired school teacher. She told me that her father, a man I knew a bit, was so old-fashioned the type that would not allow anything in his home that involved shortcuts. In this case that meant no canned foods. He made an exception for Margaret Holmes.
That’s an endorsement.
Things to read … because there’s probably something worth endorsing in here somewhere.
First, the journalism stuff:
How digital retailing could roil local media
If Disney is making that move …
Closer to home, 108 immigrant children relocated to Alabama in last 3 weeks:
Included among the children are those from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who have crossed into the U.S. as part of a massive wave of immigration that has set off a humanitarian crisis and political firestorm.
The data does not include information on where the children were placed or whether they are residing with family members or foster care. The children will remain with the sponsors until a judge orders they be deported; until they turn 18 and are transferred back to DHS; or they are given permission to stay by immigrantion courts.
Finally, Ferguson:
Media upset tonight about the militarization of police haven't been paying attention these last several years.
— kenny smith (@kennysmith) August 14, 2014
Folks, it is possible to simultaneously think rioting/looting are bad and that the police in Ferguson are out of their minds.
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) August 14, 2014
Consider this from a crisis comm perspective. Wake people up. Media, online audiences are looking for real answers.
— kenny smith (@kennysmith) August 14, 2014
If you have a problem with "online audiences are looking for real answers," you might want to rethink your crisis comm.
— kenny smith (@kennysmith) August 14, 2014
