Right by the corner of the garage we have an oversized shrub. It shows off these deep crimson leaves, a few branches of which will need to be trimmed back this year, for ease of navigation purposes. But, right now, as one of the many heralds of spring, it is giving us the seasonal show.
The more spring the merrier. And this one is quote variable, which the science tells us is a sign of the times. It has been 84, 61 and 76 degrees the last three days. We also had a late seasonal freeze. Now we’re waiting to see what crops will be hurt by all of this. (Quite a bit, would be my guess.)
But that shrub looks lovely!
I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation. So, I’m sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. It was a great vacation. I have a lot of footage. This will go on for some time. Enjoy it with me, won’t you? And if you have any thoughts on sheep soundtracks, I’m accepting suggestions.
In Rituals and Traditions today, we talked about the future of these things. How do you do that? Peer into my crystal ball, students, and see what I know, for I have thought long and hard about the hybridity of historic rituals with digital-first engagement. This is all about audience immersion, increasing fan accessibility, perhaps more personalized experiences, fancy gear and swag, and evolutions in youth sport.
Blending tech with tradition is going to be the goal in that future. This is going to further boost E-sports, more advanced virtual reality for athletes and fans. It’ll change how we experience live sport, we’ll be talking about mediated attendance which will become a ritual unto itself, and, what I’m excited about, historical reproductions. That led us to a discussion of alt-athletes, which is a term that never took off. Weekend warriors was just better alliteration, I guess. But the idea is sound. People want to play, and millennials are a huge marketplace here. The numbers I found said something like 76 percent of the people there, and much of it is about turning solo activity into team fitness and shared achievement. This looks like club teams and loose orgs, but they’ll vary with varied sports. Ultimately, this could become about finding meaning in sport and identity in exercise and recreation.
Also, you can turn that into a spectator event. In 2021 57,000 people gathered to watch the Crossfit Games. The US Open of surfing draws hundreds of thousands of spectators.
You wonder how many personal rituals are emerging in those athletes, and their fans.
We watched this documentary today in Criticism. It’s a good film, but this is the only clip they’ve put on YouTube, and it in no way explains things. Allow me.
In March 2008 — this story is getting old and I should probably take it out of rotation, but it’s good — a tornado bore down on downtown Atlanta. At the same time, the SEC basketball tournament was underway. A last second desperation shot forced overtime, and kept a bunch of people in the arena. And the arena got hit by the storm. The thought has always been that, perhaps, that shot saved a lot of people’s lives. Roll Tide. The tournament must go on, however, and there are other storms, the venue is unsafe, there are logistical considerations and there’s just a lot going on. We never think, really, when we go to a sporting event, about the hundreds and thousands of personnel hours that go into making an event happen, making it safe, making it enjoyable, and here they had to change plans mid-tournament, with the March Madness selection program just hours away.
Also, Georgia had an improbably run in that tournament. Still not sure how that happened. They weren’t good, but they played over their heads, and so the documentary is about that, too.
(My alma mater was hilariously in and out of the conference tournament in just the one game.)
And, yes, I spent part of the documentary reflexively glancing out the classroom windows. You just don’t break habits of living in places where you can get tornadoes.
I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation. So, I’m sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. It was a great vacation. I have a lot of footage. This will go on for some time. Enjoy it with me, won’t you?
No April fools jokes here. I’m only fooling around with the usual stuff. I cleaned up my computer. I updated my cycling spreadsheet — I need to ride more. I updated my website spreadsheet — we’re on pace for another record year. I updated some templates that serve the site.
I did some work for classes. This includes writing a lecture that is, really, a shot in the dark. Also I had to watch a documentary that we’re watching in another class. There’s also a lot of grading getting done in my online class. We’ve been reading Jenny Davis’ discussion on affordances, which means we’re about to head into the final project of the semester. It’s a busy time.
And so you make time for all of that by tearing yourself away from the fun stuff, like these guys. How can you turn away from a face as cute as this one?
Her brother, meanwhile, is clowning around in the kitchen. He’s stretching this “I’m on the mail, not on the counter” thing to the limit here. But if he’s being cute and not being a jerk he usually gets a pass.
The kitties are doing great. They are not, however, doing my work for me. We’re going to have a talk about that.
I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation. So, I’m sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. It was a great vacation. I have a lot of footage. This will go on for some time. Enjoy it with me, won’t you?
The sheep are everywhere. You can tune them out or enjoy the novelty of it. I won’t be putting a bunch of ovine videos up, but it’s tempting.
In Rituals and Traditions we had a group work day today. At the end of the semester the groups will be delivering big presentations and I’m trying to give them some built-in time to work on their projects. They are presenting ideas to the university’s athletic department. Rituals, traditions, game day atmosphere, and so on. Today I overheard of the few ideas that are percolating. Some of them are going to shape up nicely.
In Criticism, we talked about two basketball stories that the class selected. First, we had this one, which gave us a nice modern and historical parallel.
Odds are, there won’t be any ads about it over the next three weeks of the NCAA Tournament, but college basketball is celebrating an anniversary this year.
It was 75 years ago that the New York district attorney announced the arrests of 32 college basketball players as part of a sweeping sting operation into point-shaving that eventually included 86 games, 17 states and $72,000 in bribes – more than $900,000 in today’s money.
[…]
Time is, in fact, a flat circle.
Three-quarters of a century later, coaches remain aggrieved that their players are equal parts coddled and entitled, and the sport is in the throes of yet another point-shaving scandal. Twenty people are alleged to have hatched a game-fixing scheme that affected 17 teams, 29 games and at least 39 players.
When these stories come up I realize I need to learn more about gambling. “Gambling: bad” only gets you so far. Also, the thing that seems obvious to me is less an issue for others. But we talked about framing and the like, which led nicely into this next story they selected.
Just yesterday we had our first outdoor ride of the season. We made it off campus in good order today and that allowed us another nice treat, an after-work ride. The days are getting longer; it’s about time.
So we pedaled by the winery, where we will soon return to eat pizza. We cruised through the pastures, where I see my horsey friends, and then turned left to go down the asphalt shoot which is some of the best roadwork around here. We went up to the park, passing empty sheep pastures, and hooked a lovely left uphill into the backside of town. We took the biggest hill around, huffing and puffing in the still-warm sun, and turned onto the road that I rode so incredibly well one time that I turned it into three Strava segments — I have never ridden it well again. Then we breezed by haunted house, down the hill, up the other side, and home.
It was a lovely, windy, 12-mile stretch of the legs.
I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation. So, I’m sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. It was a great vacation. I have a lot of footage. This will go on for some time. Enjoy it with me, won’t you?
Late Saturday afternoon the light came in a southern-facing and I just happened to catch it’s delicate double-pane dance. No idea why it does this. Whenever I do see it, which isn’t every day, I find myself staring at the glass to see if there’s something there. There’s nothing there. Just an abstract ghost in the machine, a surrealist glitch in the matrix.
It reminded me that I needed to wash my car. The winter weather is behind us, surely, and I can now get the salt and sand off the body and frame. So I drove to the nearby car wash, sprung for the you-do-this-twice-a-year package and drove on in.
Drive-through car washes fascinate me. It’s a ridiculous trip down memory lane, a demonstrate of the bites and bytes that your noggin is storing for no reason. I recall, as a kid, we used to go to one car wash that was for some reason quite popular. Long lines. Hand dried fenders. Maybe that’s why. I recall once when the driver of the car ahead of us panicked. The big fan at the end of the tunnel had a large wheel that descended and rolled along your windshield, over the roof of the car and so on, as the blower did it’s job of pushing the water back inside the collection and retention system. I guess the driver didn’t know that, or had a bad experience with airplane landing gear. He jammed the brakes and we tapped his bumper. Everyone was fine. No body damage, no physical damage. Two clean cars, one weird incident, one embarrassed driver. I recall having a car where the passenger door window didn’t seal well. It was fine in the rain. Never had a problem in the rain. If I was going through the car wash I had to take a towel. I recall someone I knew who did a destroy-her-wedding-dress photo shoot, when that was a thing. She had people throwing cans of paint on the dress. Silly online trend, colorful photos. The better ones, though, were when she went to one of those manual car wash places and they sprayed down her dress to get the paint out. I saw those photos and thought, “Ahh! Finally! A reason for these types of car washes!” No one ever wants to go to those if there’s a proper drive through car wash in town. I recall washing cars in the driveway. But I don’t recall the last time I saw someone doing that. Maybe no one wants to wash their cars at home if they can pay eight bucks, drive through the soap and get their ride almost clean.
You remember a lot of things in a car wash for no reason at all, other than that you’re there with the soap and the noise and not much else.
The experience also allowed me to take a bunch of windshield photos and create a new front page for the site. Go check it out. Stick with it for 60 seconds to see them all. Go on. I’ll wait for you here.
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Wasn’t that fun? Different? Memorable? Will I remember that the next time I go to the car wash? Probably late this summer? Will it be worth remembering? How many times will I change the art on the front page between now and then? Don’t worry, I’ll always keep you updated about those changes. Keep reading this space and you’ll never miss a thing. A thing on this site, anyway.
The weather is finally cooperating on several fronts, and so we had our first outdoor bike ride of the year today. We just did an easy 10 miles around the neighbor to see if the bikes were working (they are) and see how it’d feel (weird) and to see who is going to be faster this year (she is).
I didn’t ride a lot in the basement this year. It’s just been mentally difficult to go down those stairs and I’m not sure why. We have a terrific basement space. One day we’re going to finish at least part of it. Right now it’s cinder blocks and shelves and great storage and a lot of floor space for activities you don’t want to do outside or can’t put in the living room. But, still, I haven’t gone down there that much this winter.
Probably will when it gets hot, though! It is always a little cooler in the basement.
I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation. So, I’m sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. It was a great vacation. I have a lot of footage. This will go on for some time. Enjoy it with me, won’t you?
