Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

adventures / history / London / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
26
May 26

A lovely little layover

We’ve landed, which is to be expected, and is the desired conclusion of a long plane ride. We flew overnight, which was the plan. I watched movies, all British things since we were on British Airways, which was the plan. I actually slept bit, which is surprising, since I’m bad at that, and airports are noisy and somewhat uncomfortable, even if you’re flying in the comfortable section, which we were, because that was a long overnight flight and we have tasted how the other half live.

We have come to a place which is not our destination. It has been our destination on previous trips. And it is pleasant enough. Also, they have the second most considerate sets of stairs anywhere — second only to escalators, which have the decency to move me around.

So we are in London. Which is the plan. Not the original plan. This is the secondary plan. Originally we were supposed to fly into Doha, but then the world happened and nothing was happening at the Doha airport, nothing good, anyway. So we re-booked, which made everyone happy. And we’re in London for the better part of a day.

The first idea was we could just stay in the airport, but we went a different route. We got our luggage, and then took it to a place in Heathrow where you can pay people to hold your things for you. We left our things with that business and I wondered how I would answer the old airport question about have my bags been in my control the entire time.

The entire length of time? No. For I am a mortal man with other hopes and dreams and wishes and preoccupations that have meant that, at some times, these things have not been under my careful and watchful eye. All of today? Also no, because there is a storefront downstairs where you can rent a locker for five pounds an hour or something, and who knows what they did to or with my stuff while I was in your beautiful, steamy city.

You don’t get asked those questions much anymore, though. Just as well. My desire to amaze myself with literal answers to rhetorical questions will get me in trouble one day.

So we dumped our bags at this place which has earned the approval of the airport and has, hopefully, carefully vetted their employees. We caught the train away from Heathrow and then caught the hop-on, hop-off bus. We did that after wandering around in the wrong direction two or three times, and then sitting for a while at a bus stop that wasn’t on the bus line. Also, it was quite hot in London. It was 35 C today, which is 95 degrees for American readers. That’s about 30 degrees higher than the seasonal average.

Don’t rush, indeed. Don’t rush, don’t sweat. Those stairs knew some stuff. We are, as they suggested, taking one step at a time.

Here’s the National Gallery, where the banner is enticing you to come in to see some of the works of Francisco de Zurbarán, a Spanish Baroque painter. He painted still-lifes and a lot of religious works.

The exhibition brings together works from major galleries across Europe and the US that span Zurbarán’s career from his first religious commissions to paintings made for private devotion. Stand in front of monumental works that can still move and inspire us today.

In the background is the beautiful St Martin-in-the-Fields. It first shows up in the written records in the 13th century, though they are celebrating the tricentennial of the current building this year. It’s been a proud centerpiece of Westminster for a long time, long before there was a Trafalgar Square, or before Nelson’s Column was installed.

Horatio Nelson’s column was built in the 1840s, made of Dartmoor granite. The statue of Nelson at the top was carved from Craigleith sandstone. It is 17 feet tall. There are four bronze relief panels, each 18 feet square, made from captured French guns. They depict the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, the Battle of the Nile, the Battle of Copenhagen and the death of Nelson at Trafalgar. This is the latter.

The sculptor of this one was John Carew, an Irishman who had a lot of work, but this is his most renowned. It depicts the death of Nelson. He was killed by a Frenchman aboard the Redoubtable as that ship and Nelson’s Victory tangled. Nelson’s unorthodox approach to the battle won the day, despite being outgunned and outnumbered. It ended French invasion plans, but otherwise did little to sway things in that particular war. He was, nevertheless, a hero. The column was refurbished in 2006, and found to be 169 feet and 3 inches tall from the bottom of the pedestal to the top of Nelson’s hat. That was a surprise. They seemed to think it should be some 14 feet taller.

I guess it never occurs to people to measure things.

One man who never forgot to measure was William Slim, who was a World War 2 hero. This statues was installed in the 1980s and it has the unnerving ability to look as if he has a different perspective from different angles.

He was wounded three times, twice in the Great War and again in World War II. He led the Fourteenth Army, the so-called “forgotten army” in the Burma campaign and rose to some considerable fame — beloved by his soldiers, respected by his peers, and duly honored by his country — which all became secondary after allegations of child sexual abuse while he was the governor-general of Australia (in the 1950s) emerged some years after his death.

The London Eye and the River Thames. The Eye is the world’s tallest cantilevered observation wheel, and the UK’s most popular paid tourist attraction. More than three million people a year take a ride. We did it several years ago.

And here’s the Queen Elizabeth Gate, or the Queen Mother’s Gate, guarding the entrance to Hyde Park. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993 to celebrate the 90th birthday of The Queen Mother. The red lion and unicorn represent England and Scotland, respectively.

Still stands out, all these years later.

And so we rode around on the bus, until we decided we must leave the bus and march back to the train station, to ride the train back to Heathrow. We had to collect our bags, check back in, and then went to a lounge with showers. After a long hot day like this, that was the right plan. You get a private little fiberglass room, sink, toilet, shower, and a fold-down seat. It’s all cleaner than you might imagine, and it was necessary after a day in the heat, a night in a plane and so on.

Now we’re boarding another plane. But to where?

adventures / Monday — Comments Off
25
May 26

And we’re off

It occurred to me that I should reconfigure where things sit on my desk to reflect the summer mode.

Somewhere earlier this year a small batch of pens and a highlighter took up residence just to the left of this computer. (I am right-handed.) I say “this computer” because there is another sitting to the right of this one. (I am super-talented.) But I doubt I’ll be dabbling too much in the joy of manual, hand-held edits this summer. (That is not an unpleasant experience, and I catch much more that way, as readers of this site can attest.) I took the pens and put them back into their place in a small hand-turned bowl that someone got me. It was a tourist souvenir; it is beautiful. It still has the price on the bottom, $14, and it was probably not too much to the purchaser. Probably it was too much to me at the time, when I first noticed it, because it is unnecessary to spend money on me, but it seems like the best deal ever now. I don’t know what you’re supposed to put in that bowl, but I see it every day and some days I think about it like this and it’s priceless. It sits behind my elevated monitor. (Sometimes my desk has four screens. (I am super-distracted.) The bowl is within easy reach, but not immediate reach. Opposite that is a little ceramic tourist gift that someone else purchased me. A former colleague had asked me to water their office plants while they were gone, and I got this silly little Dutch shoe trinket. I don’t know what you’re supposed to put in that shoe, either, but it holds highlighters perfectly.

Moving those pens from my left completes a series of tasks I hadn’t realized was necessary. But they’re now tucked away. And the little notepads and things have all been tidily arranged. Previously there were also class notes sitting to the left of this computer. They got filed several days back. Then there were months of calendar pages there, but they were discarded last week. There were also some itemized To Do lists, but they’ve been re-positioned to their next staging area. In the back left corner of the desk, which may as well be on the other side of your neighbor’s house, sat some library books I’m going to read for the fall term. I moved them down to the front edge of the desk, next to my forearm as I type. I am not going to read them next, so, I’ll put some other books on top of them.

Hang on.

Two history books, right on top. I’ll be reading them soon. I bought both online. Perhaps one was a gift. I hate, hate, hate that I’m not clear on that. Please don’t spend your money on me, but if you do, know that I will see it as the honor of a lifetime that you have decided to give me this thing, because you thought it might be meaningful to me, because you thought it might make my day better. It will. It does. Unless I can’t remember if this was a gift. I hate that. Also, I stacked a book that I picked up from one of those “Please take this away from my shelves” that characterizes university life. No, not theft from a library. Occasionally some colleague will need space for new materials, retire, die over this very book, whatever. And out into a common area the old ones go. There will be a sign, sometimes an email. I have many books like this. Most of them I remember picking up. This one, on folklore, could prove very useful for next fall. I remember from whence it came, but not the day. That’d be absurd. I’ve had it for a decade or more. Besides, I probably picked it up in the evening or at night, anyway. So, all these books are moved right down the corner.

I am eager to get all this reading underway. I can’t explain that without making it sound even nerdier.

Fine, there’s nothing better than slipping into someone else’s world and seeing their best work.

Just behind the books I have placed a big stack of CDs. This summer I will return to the Re-Listening Project. Longtime readers will not be surprised: we are behind.

Behind the CDs on the desk … you know what … nothing. There’s nothing back there. I took the rest of the stuff and put it below the desk. My old pallet desk (I built it in the pure rebellion of 2017) sits on fancy birch IKEA sawhorses. There’s a shelf on the bottom of each sawhorse. Those shelves need to be cleaned up. I look around my office … all of it needs to get cleaned up. But it’s the kind of cleaning you don’t mind doing? The kind you play loud happy music and do it and wonder why all cleaning doesn’t feel like this? The kind of cleaning that signals progress.

I’m not starting that at 1:19 a.m., as I write this. I must simply bottle this feeling for a more appropriate time. A more appropriate time for progress.

Anyway.

I agree, 869 words is an awful lot of throat clearing, but remember: you came here for this.

We are setting off on a trip. The little graphic above is from airport signage at Dulles. It’s a silly sign for a very standard airport store. The “Oh, shoot, I forgot a book and need an overpriced drink and some earplugs would be nice, and hey, is this neck thing better than my other neck thing? That’s Stellar News!”

We will be gone for several weeks, and you’ll have to figure out where we are. I give you until Wednesday, maybe Thursday at the latest, to get it right.

Here’s your first hint. It’s a long overnight flight. And I’m watching a lot of British media on the seat screen. The UK is not our destination, but we are flying BA and, for some reason, it seems like I should be watching something the flight crew would appreciate as being of their own.

The King’s Speech it is! And probably also some BBC dramas. And maybe some sleep. Tomorrow, when I wake up, we’ll be somewhere else. Or on the way to to somewhere else. It’s a long flight, but I am terrible on planes.

errands / Friday / Ireland / memories / overwriting / photo / site / video — Comments Off
22
May 26

The video, at the end, is the only impressive thing here

Things that will impress no one: Today I got both of my inboxes down to 30 or less emails. Also, I reorganized some of the subfolders. You can take pleasures in the simplest, dumbest, weirdest, least useful, and effective things if you don’t try too hard. In a related story, I have a document on my computer where I keep several small bits of code that get used a lot on the blog. It had become a sprawling thing. Four pages, some of it outdated. But, today, I shaped that up. Now it is two pages. And it is organized by section! This will come in handy since — when I know I want to go C&P a bit of code — I just use Command-F anyway. But it made me happy and looks neater because, again, if you don’t try too hard.

This is what it looks like outside. This is the best it has looked since Wednesday evening. Sometimes it has been almost-drizzling. At some point, after hours of that, you just want to fling open a door and yell, “C’mon and rain already!”

We need the rain. And I won’t begrudge having the rain. But if you’re going to look like this, make with the rain.

It’ll be like this through the weekend. Through Memorial Day, according to the latest forecast. Maybe the clouds will move off or burn off by Tuesday.

Something else that will impress no one: I went shopping today. There’s a Kohl’s 20 minutes away and it is a straight shot and, honestly, I thought it was farther away than that until I really studied the map. So, I went there. I discovered it is right next to a Home Depot. These are good things to know. We’ll never know why it takes me so long to learn these things.

I needed some jeans. I couldn’t tell you the last time I went to a store for jeans. I’ve worn the same size for ages and it’s easy enough to order online and that’s life in the 21st century. Well, I wanted a 2003 experience today, and let me just tell you … everyone in this town wears the same size jeans that I wear. Or the store thinks no one wears the same size I do.

Two walls of neatly folded pants — respect to the person working in retail there — and exactly one pair in my waist and inseam size. I also picked up two pairs that are slightly longer, because maybe I’ll grow into them.

Grabbed some socks, which you can buy in sets of three or Thanks For Propping Up The Sock Darning Factory for Q2. Has anyone ever asked why someone needs to buy 12 pairs of socks? Has anyone ever asked if the sock people and Big Dryer are in on this together? And what about — hey! Look at those shirts on sale!

The soundtrack was from early 1990s, I don’t know when the last time you heard “U Can’t Touch This,” but I heard it today.

Kohl’s does this neat thing now where they leave you alone in the store, and then urge you to walk through this maze of impulse buys aimed at children — this poor mom and her 4-year-old, ‘I want this!’ daughter in front of me — and then proceed to ignore you while checking you out in the slowest speed quantified by man. This store was operating as a -4 on the Disney World scale, that is you could be getting on your fourth ride at the Mouse before you got through this line.

I asked the woman at my register — the one who was demonstrably the slowest, because you have time to assess the efficacy of each register and eventually it come down to you and “Next!” and you’re thinking, Please not that one, please not that one, please not that one. — how her day was. She seemed surprised and pleased that I asked, but these are the joys of going to a store, that little bit of banter. Or so I’m told, anyway. I’d watched her try to ring out one customer for about 15 minutes, a demonstration of “Oops!” with good cheer. Sometimes we have days like that, and maybe the good cheer helps. It’s the right attitude. I helped her by presenting all my items scanner-side-up. She said no one ever did that. I began to think I might be the person that keeps her in this job another month. You never know. She tallies my totals, or totals my tallies, and gives me the price, but if you had a Kohl’s card it’d be something like 40 percent of that, somehow. And, once again, I wonder who they’re stealing clothes from. There’s just a bunch of people on a highway somewhere in maroon vests with giant Ks on the back and they’re knocking off trucks bound for TJ Maxx and Belk and JC Penney, I’m sure of it. Anyway, I do not have those cards because I never come to the store. This is the first time in more than three years. Probably six. Let me pay and get out of here because this line is embarrassing and it’s quite warm in here for some reason and 55 degrees outside sounds lovely right now.

Which was when her entire cash register went down.

And friend, mindful of those Progressive “homeowners turn into their parents” spots, I resisted the urge to say, “That must mean it’s all free.”

Only, what I do when that happens is, I don’t deliver the line and smile and wait for the obligatory customer service laugh. I deliver the line, gather the things up and hit the door.

I did not do that. Seeing blue lights in my rear view mirror didn’t seem worth it for a few pairs of jeans, and more socks than all the children in my neighborhood could need.

But that was what I did today. Also, the grocery store. Strawberries for lunch. And the bank.

Three stops for me is a full day. Impressing no one.

But this! This is impressive. I’ve been living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation and sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. This is the last post (for now) with video from that trip. It is fitting that it is the last video I took at the end of our March journey.

This is the northernmost point of that beautiful island nation.

Ireland / memories / photo / Thursday / video — Comments Off
21
May 26

Pretty peony

It is time to check in on the peony. It looks pretty good to me. I wonder if it will hold up under the rain.

Isn’t that typical? I’ve been talking about the weather. Noting its variation. Observing that we need the rain. I’ve been watching the drought monitor for a long while and, hey, we’ve been in a drought since last fall, and we’ll still be in one after this weekend’s weather passes by, I’m sure. And, yet, I’m complaining about the raindrops bending over a peony.

I’ll lament even more when some summer storm bends over the crape myrtle. Isn’t that typical?

Anyway, cool today. Cold, perhaps. We made it to 53 degrees. I’m starting to regret putting my winter clothes away two months ago. No, I will not go and fetch something out of the basement wardrobe, just for seasonal spite.

There is nothing exciting today. Well, nothing more exciting than this: I have gotten my work and my personal inboxes down to 30 items. I’ve also been arranging the order of the next few books I’m going to read. I’m going to read a lot this summer. That’s my gift to me. The only question is how many books I’ll keep going at one time — I used to read four at a time for reasons of convenience — or if that’s even a thing I need to do. It’s going to be a great summer.

The temperature has been falling from an abberrational 71 at midnight to the upper 50s, all day. Tomorrow we might hit 60. Saturday we’ll do well to stay in the mid-50s. Summertime!

I wonder how the peonies feel about this.

I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation and sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. Enjoy. I still am!

This is the last week of this feature. (For now, anyway.) We are going to spend it all looking at the majesty of Malin Head, the northernmost part of Ireland.

adventures / Ireland / memories / photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
20
May 26

Now officially on summertime

I’ve been casually watching this for many years now, and I have noted, in that time, several days where I’ve experienced a 30 degree swing in temperatures. I know there are plenty of places where that happens a lot more regularly. It’s rare enough in the places where I’ve lived, I guess, to be remarkable when you see the forecasts. I am remarking on it now. On the days it has happened and anyone is within earshot I have bored them with my mastery of basic arithmetic. That’s a remark. It’s remarkable.

One of the things that I’ve noticed is that a 30-degree temperature swing seems to be about the extent of it. At least around here. (Here meaning wherever I was at the time.)

Today, the forecast called for a 40-degree swing. The high was forecast at 96 and the low was 56.

So we’ve ruined the weather, or we’ve ruined forecasting. Or both. Either way, this is bad.

We had our year-end faculty meeting today, a four-hour chat in a classroom. There was an agenda. We ended up having to rush through parts of it. I made three comments, two of them substantive, and that was more than enough. (I reminded people of a deadline that is now set for April 2027, and I suggested we see about getting some AEDs installed in the building. I am in the minutes as having participated in the meeting.) Much ground was covered, applause and good cheer was shared. Lunch was university-catered chicken-salad sliders.

And sometime soon after we got home the new weather system blew in. You could almost see it bearing down on us, coming out of the southwest.

We got a bit of rain — good, we needed it, and probably some more, we’re already in a severe drought — even as most of the system went to the north. Looked impressive.

Cooled thinks right off. After three days of 90+ temperatures we’ll be in the 50s through the weekend.

I might have mentioned this, but one of my university colleagues is an atmospheric scientist and she’s been doing some work in this area. Apparently the inconsistent spring is a signal of climate change problems. We broke the weather. Or the climate. Or the forecasting. Perhaps all three.

I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation and sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. Enjoy. I still am!

This is the last week of this feature. (For now, anyway.) We are spending it looking at the majesty of Malin Head, the northernmost part of Ireland.