Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

A day in rebellion

Because I did not do it yesterday, because I was working, I spent the morning running the weed eater. The backyard needed it. Also, I plucked some giant mutant dandelions. The web will tell you that dandelions can grow two feet tall, and if I knew that before just now I would have taken photos of the three and four-feet tall stalks that were threatening the rose bushes. My plan had been to hit just the edges of the lawn, the high spots at the fence, and the parts that were growing beyond their design intention. But, you know how it is with weeds. One thing leads to another and before long I had built up a decent sweat and a giant lawn bag full of mint and whatnot.

Want some mint? Come get some mint. Be sure you want it first. It’s an opportunistic plant, willing to grow in any free space, and it is all but impossible to eradicated.

Give the mint three pieces of credit, though. It pulls up easy. And it will choke out just about any other weed. It smells pleasant. And now the car smells like mint. I took the recycling and the green things to the county drop off site after my lovely bride did a bit of weed-pulling too. So there I was, two big containers of glass, aluminum, and a bit of plastic to drop. Two bags of weeds. Great armfuls of boxes. I even put them in the car well this time, such that I was a whirl of efficiency at the county site. The one other guy doing his part to save the earth was amazed at my industry. Two trips to the cardboard bin, two long walks to the mixed recycling. The only wasted motion was when when I accidentally closed the trunk too early.

Back home I left the garage open, and broke out some of the tools with which one works wood. I had, by then, just decided I wasn’t going to get in front of a computer today. (Except I am now, but that’s different, somehow.) The weather was just right, in the shade, anyway. And I decided to make a little thing for the garage. One of the few shortcomings in our house is that the garage is awfully crowded. And the wall upon which I store the tools with which one works wood is also where the bikes and various cycling accessories live. There are two problems with this. Last year I got tired of all the helmets and shoes and whatnot sitting on top of my table saw, so I got myself a corner cabinet, made myself some French cleats and now we have two shelves for helmets and shoes. But, still, the sunglasses have worked their way back down to the saw area. I’m the biggest perpetrator. So lately I envisioned a little sunglasses holder that will also go onto the elongated French cleat.

Today, because the weather was nice, in the shade, and I was in a computer rebellion, I decided to take the afternoon and make that happen.

The problems are these. One, I’m not an especially good woodworker. You improve with practice, though. But this brings me to my second problem. Space is limited, and so I don’t practice all that much. I had to go downstairs to fetch the ladder so that I could climb up it to see what scraps of old lumber I’d use. I had to move the miter saw to get to the table saw. I had to pull the table saw into the drive way. I had to run an extension cord. I had to peer through the garage shelves (which desperately need attention, which is my fault, and something I’m looking forward to addressing on a not steamy day) for things like a framing square, pencils, the table saw fence, the orbital sander, and so on.

Once I had all of the right things I proceed to doing the work, breaking down a random bit of plywood I picked up from somewhere, and then ripping a lovely bit of pine for the sides of my shelves. And then gluing one of those sides to the plywood. Then I dug out my brand new brad nailer. I picked this up sometime back and now was the time. The battery was charged, some long brads came in the box (I picked up some others, too, and they’re on that shelf … somewhere.) I drove in my first-ever brad nails today. I felt macho doing it.

With my ear protection on and everything. The brad nailer works well. It is also louder than you’d expect.

Then I ripped some more pine, so that I could crosscut it for the shelves themselves. Here I managed to not hurt myself, but relearned a lot of things about what not to do with your table saw.

(I’ll never hurt myself on the table saw. I fear it enough to respect it. I will hurt myself on pretty much any other thing. Though, today, happily, I didn’t hurt anything.)

I decided to make the shelves larger than I’d envisioned. I figured maybe it will evolve into a storage space for something else one day. Besides, it just didn’t seem like a small project day. I don’t know how to explain that, otherwise, but you should always listen to your gut around power tools.

Plus, I figured, you can never have enough space for the little things you carry.

Anyway, all of the pieces got cut. And I made a little dry fit test. It’s going to look something like this.

I glued up the second side. I’ll drive some brad nails into it this weekend, just for fun. And I’ll develop a process to space out those shelves, too. They’ll be attached all in one go at some point soon. Then we’ll just have to install the cleat on the back.

I sanded all of this down, but decided I’m not going to finish it. It’s garage furniture, after all. The Yankee might want to. She likes staining things. So I’ll leave that up to her.

Anyway, by this point, on a project where I decided to do more thinking than measuring, I realized I was approaching being done for the day. This is an important thing to consider because there’s still the cleaning up and the putting away. I timed this. It took 32 minutes to throw away the little bits, to put the sander and the sand paper and the square and the ladder away, to find a place the shelves can safely sit while the glue fixes, to put the table saw back in its corner, and the miter saw back on the table saw, to roll up the extension cords and, finally, to clean up my sawdust.

Truly, it is the most first world problem that ever existed, but set up and tear down is an investment all its own in my scenario. I need a shop so that I might do more of this, and get better at it. Which is to say, really, I shouldn’t buy any more second hand tools. There’s no room in my non-space. A new space can’t be the basement — too much sawdust and noise. It can’t be the garage — that’s where the cars live. I don’t have an outbuilding for this, nor is ours the sort of neighborhood where that would fit in. And I can’t afford an off-site location. So I’ll dabble, me and my average to poor carpentry skills, when the weather and scheduling and big chunks of available time permit.

The good news is that I have plenty of projects in mind.

This evening I’ve spent chatting with The Yankee, making weekend plans, having dinner, catching up on the day’s news, doing the dishes, doing this … pleased I spent a day doing something that was just for fun. Aside from the weeds, anyway. Backyard looks good, though!

Someday, soon, the sunglasses will, too.

memories / photo / Rowan / Thursday — No comments
20
Aug 26

I strained my toe trying to think of a headline

I spent the day staring at my third class, a presentations class. It’s a great idea, this class. Students have to give presentations. It’s like public speaking, but all online, and you have to prepare and present accompanying slides. It’s not my class, in the sense that I didn’t build it. The person in charge of it is making great strides with dialing it in. I also didn’t have this class initially this term, but things change and merrily we will go through the semester, offering feedback and hoping it is helpful.

It’s useful for students who think they know everything there is to know about computers and using them in these most basic ways. (I should keep count of the technical problem complaints I receive. Some of them are hilarious.) Also, it is a terrifying class for people who have a fear of public speaking. This class substitutes for the public speaking course in everyone’s curriculum, which is nice. It is up to each person to make a choice of which they’d rather do.

I think the public speaking class would be easier for a couple of different reasons, but that’s just me.

When I took public speaking, we were pretty new into the idea that everyone should have the course. They were still explaining it thusly to students: The one thing all of the employers say when we survey them is that their new hires need to be better at giving presentations as in a work meeting or board room, and that’s why everyone must take this class. So, when I did it, we met a few times in this very large lecture hall and you spent most of the semester in a smaller room, a lab, with a grad student running the lab and 12 or 15 nervous people besides. There was, I remember, one guy that was unusual in our lab. He’d spent a career in the Army. He was a paratrooper. He’d just retired. His son was in school and he figured it’d be nice to go back to school with his kid, so here was this dad, this man who talked about how one time his chute failed and the only thing that saved his life was that, at the last second, he remembered his training. He talked about how his body was broken, and the depression he left in the earth when he hit the ground. I don’t recall how high up he said he was on this jump, but it sounded both plausible and unbelievable at the same time. But, you could take one look at that guy and know two things simultaneously: he’d been through some stuff, and he could beat you up if he needed to. Nice fella.

I can’t remember anything about the grad student that ran the class, which is unfortunate. I do remember after the first time we met that person I went downstairs to a payphone and called home. I did not wait to get back to my place. I said: send me that file filing system of all of my speeches. I’m going to use them in this class. And I did.

I think I finished with something like a 114 in that class.

So I’m not usual in that sense. Just hammy enough, just desperate enough to be perceived as credible, and I stumnbled and walked and bumbled through four years of public speaking with Douglas Caddell. I hung out with some of the best young speech-makers in the state, dated a state champion, and competed in just about every contest I could get into.

Anyway, that unusual lane in high school left me well prepared for a basic public speaking class, and was probably helpful, eventually, in broadcasting career.

The best thing about public speaking back in the dark ages was that we didn’t have to make presentations. There was no PowerPoint back then. Some rooms didn’t have power. My slides today are nothing great. I built and use a university-branded template, and try not to put too many words on the slides. What you put on your slides isn’t where the game is won, but it can be where the game is lost.

I can’t give all of the good advice away for free here. If you want to know more, enroll in my class.

This is what should be on all of my slides, I’m told. The cats say if they have a weekly check-in here they should be in every slide deck I make, too. Phoebe would make great points about any topic from her hammock.

She lately went through a kitteh noir period.

You can almost hear her thinking in hard-boiled cat detective narration.

“You tell some tall tales, kid. But my tail is taller. A cat’s greatest weapon, though, is a keen eye, and her greatest ally is the dark. That’s how I came to find your man, lingering in the shadows. He’s been singing to me for weeks. If he was any more of a rat he’d sprout whiskers and a tail, but his info’s always good and it brought me here, to you. And I know you’ve been thinking that while the cat’s away, the mice will play, but the cat’s back. Playtime’s over. Hands up. I can say it with a smile, sure, the smile is free of charge. You need a smile in my line of work. The smile says ‘hello’ while your trigger finger waves goodbye … ”

Poseidon is more of a chaos comedy fan. He’s been working on his Will Ferrell impression.

“Hey mom! The meatloaf! We want it now. The meatloaf! Ma, the meatloaf!”

A few days ago he changed up our mid-day routine. I have a little bite to eat and he waits patiently. Then, I grab a protein bar and a glass and sit in a corner in the living room. He waits patiently for this. As soon as I sit down he’s in motion, and then on my lap, or curled up beside me, or climbing up my chest for a snooze. But on this particular afternoon, he insisted I would not spend those few minutes reading.

And so I did not.

Storms blew through this evening. The forecast was for rush hour. They arrived at about 7 p.m. Weather forecasting, it ain’t what it used to be. That was a choice. Apparently there was a tornado to our west and a waterspout or tornado to our southeast. Here, it just rained. We had some lightening, but the wind never really picked up. It was an oddly timed thing, as the clouds on the back end of the system lingered, the sun started it’s regular dive to the horizon. This is the view from my office just now, looking off to the north-northwest.

And now I’ll get back to work. Because there is always work.

photo / Rowan / Wednesday — No comments
19
Aug 26

Pudding would have been a just reward

Much work was done. Much progress was made. My second class of the semester is now squared away. I hope I did everything right. The proof is in the pudding, and instead of a tasty after-dinner treat I mean in how the class reacts to it over the course of the semester. It’s a good class. I’ve taught it several times, online, but this will be the first time I am offering it in person. I will have the class again next spring. It will be online once again. So the last four or five days of intense scrutiny will suffice through December. If I’ve done everything right.

But now I want pudding.

I need to revisit the first class to make sure it is also set. I have an extra day for that because of the way the schedule falls. I’ll do it next week. Tomorrow I’ll start diving into my third class, which was a last minute surprise. It will all be fine when it’s all underway.

Anyway, the whole of the day was spent on that class, until about 6 p.m., when I decided I’d had enough of that. Feeling powerful in my sense of agency, liberated in my ability to tear myself away from the work computer I closed it with a satisfying click and watched the monitor dim and fade. This, I thought, is not worth the spectacle you put on it later. Don’t write too much about it.

Sometimes we give ourselves good advice.

Outside, I stopped to admire the awesome power of this one plant and its perfect spot in the yard with respect to nutrients, sun, and shade. And also this thorny vine, with which I am engaged in a duel to its death.

It has one trick, and I have one trick. It wants to see my blood and I want to see its roots. Both things may happen, but I can also wear gloves.

After dinner this evening, a tasty little shrimp and edamame dish my lovely bride whipped up, I decided to finish off the fortune cookies from last week. These fortunes still apply.

I’m not running for office, but it is otherwise not clear what I will win in November. My determination could make me victorious in a battle of wills. I could win a fight. I could determinedly emerge victorious over a mortal enemy. (I don’t have one of those, because I am a polite person in a society, but there’s still time to develop one, I suppose.) I could win the lottery, the respect of my colleagues, I could emerge victorious over a particularly sticky jar lid. Maybe a verbal debate. Maybe it’s about those little plastic wrappers that are difficult to open. Maybe a long lost person will finally give in and reply to a message because of my determination. Who really knows? The fortune cookies know, but they’re not saying. My neighbors might know, but I am told to respect their privacy, which I am quite mindful of anyway. So that was more of a reinforcement cookie, but whatever; it did its job.

Here’s the latest update in household minutiae. I have emptied and cleaned this little guy. What might I put in this delightful 12-ounce plastic bear. What is good enough to bother with, but sufficient at that volume?

So far the best answer is a homemade dry rub. But I don’t have a homemade dry rub. This could be, though, the reason to start. For beverages, I’d just use the original container, or a mug or some such. Maybe I could do something with that bottle and put it in a jersey pocket for bike rides. How fast would I go if I slammed 12-ounces of 5-hour Energy or the like? The internet tells me there are people that use these for crafts, and that’s great, but that will not be this plastic bear’s fate. No one hear needs plastic crafts. These are the dilemma of reuse.

memories / photo / Rowan / Tuesday — No comments
18
Aug 26

Ungrounded thoughts

Much progress was made today on my Digital Media Processes class. This class is about the concepts and structures that drive our social media and their uses. I have taught this class seven times, but always online. This semester I was tasked with teaching it in person. Same material, different paces and styles and everything else. We wanted to put more of our online classes in the classroom, hence this transition, and the extra work on a class I know pretty well.

Today I counted the 28 pages of calendars and notes that comprise my preparation. This does not include actual class notes.

It is possible that I’m overthinking it.

(Next spring I am scheduled to teach it online again.)

Anyway, after a bunch of hours with it today, yesterday, and this weekend and however much else, I’m down to three things on my To Do list for that class. This is, without diving into the details when we’re already 150 words in, significant progress.

Here’s my daily lunch koan. I have a Trader Joe’s burrito for lunch each day. They come in packages of two, but I separate them for rationing purposes. And if you’ll note this rather large part of the dietary label on the packaging …

Did I eat the 490 calorie burrito today? Or did I eat the 500 calorie burrito today?

To be sure, they are different. They’re no doubt hand made because each one offers the possibility of a different flavor profile. There are three variables, really. It could be spicy, or not. It could be soft, as you would expect a burrito to be, or the tortilla could be, or the shell can sometimes be a bit tougher or even crunchy. This even though I heat it the same each time: slightly damp napkin, 1:45 on this side, and 1:45 on that side. Finally, when you open the package, if you look at both, it seems obvious that one is just a tiny bit larger than the other. I don’t know what 10 calories look like, of course, but I’m forced to make conclusions here.

If that conclusion is correct, I’ll be eating the 500 calorie burrito tomorrow.

I went outside in the evening, because I had to get away from work. I had to get away from work because I found myself thinking a few paragraphs on burrito differentiation would be an interesting read.

I’ve been thinking about what it is that we value in our day-to-day lives. I’ve really been thinking about how to add valuable things, or value. OK, I’ve actually been thinking about how to separate the required from the desired. I have been thinking about this for 20-something years with no great results, but I have optimism that a great realizations will come my way, somehow, in the first few days of this week.

I sat outside and made myself a weekly schedule for the semester. I’m trying to lock off time for work and time for not doing work. That’s reasonable. Achievable. I don’t work 24/7, obviously. I’m not pulling 80 hour weeks here, like I did two jobs ago. Nor am I doing two people’s jobs as a way to help out with no added personal benefit (but in fact criticism) as has also been the case in other places and times. There’s a big push with my employer to have some work-life balance, even though we should dissolve that terrible phrase in a vat of acid. I do my work and sometimes it feels like my share and sometimes it feels like a little less and sometimes it is perhaps a little more. It all works out in the end, I have no problem with the ebbs and flows of things, natural rhythms are both inescapable and a feature of the work. I can also be happy in doing good work, because I can see the value in it. I’m pleased with all of that. It’s nice if others see value in it, too.

What I’d like to do is turn it off when the circumstances allow for it. This I have never figured out how to do. I’d like to not spend all of my time thinking about the particulars, or the next thing that needs to be done, or this theory or that technique or this pedagogy or that paper. (Or, previously, the next production, or the next meeting, or the next call sheet or the last newscast, the good lead, the bad interview from last Tuesday, and so on.) I can do pretty good work at work. I’d like to be personally better at drawing lines between that and everything else.

I teach about identity a lot. (Here I go again, even now.) And this, I think, figures into it. But that’s not all of it. And, anyway, I need to go do more things like stare at the sky or the rock wall or listen to nothing or pursue any of the other things that I find interesting. I feel compelled to try to set aside times to do the things I want. Have we all become appointment hobbyists? Are we otherwise to be overbooked by the upcoming and ennui? And if I set aside an hour a day to read, and two hours a week to do this other, and sprinkle in some smaller things here and there, can I mentally remove myself from work for some of that time? That’s what I’ve been thinking about. This is not a mid-life crisis — because, again, my whole professional life I’ve had this little challenge. That’s what it is, a little personal challenge. Certainly it is not a crisis. It is pattern recognition, and a realization that sometimes patterns can be confounded. If you —

Oh look at this!

That plane is going to London. I sat next to the shrubs and the long bladed grass things and watched three planes go by, hoping to see just one more plane reflect the sunset off its fuselage. Sun: nature’s livery. I saw one. Missed a photograph of it. And, anyway, that’s just off my phone and this particular flight path has them circling over us, from about two miles away, and climbing through several thousand feet. My phone’s camera is no match for that. But, then again, my DSLR can’t tell me that plane is going to London, that the previous one was headed to Portland, Maine, or that the one before that was bound for Edinburgh.

I was thinking about all of this while watching those planes fly threw and some left-sided corner of my brain said to the rest of me, “I should sit under those bushes and watch more planes fly by.” The rest of my brain laughed at the idea.

Tomorrow I’m going to wrap up the DMP class. (Probably.) I need to double-check my recent work on the org comm class to reassure myself it is in good shape. And then start in on these other courses. And, also, the above. Maybe tomorrow i’ll figure it out.

cycling / Monday / photo / Rowan — No comments
17
Aug 26

And now the harder things

One of the good things about teaching nearly every class under the sun these last few years is that when a friend needs a course outline in a pinch I have something. I received a text message like that last night and was able to provide three different schedules in a matter of minutes. I spent the rest of the night trying different versions of “How can I help?” Being helpful is the easy thing; convincing people to make use of it is a harder thing.

Another almost hard thing is a mental challenge. Today the spring schedule was released. I haven’t yet finished preparing, or re-preparing as the case may be, the fall term. On the most important hand, knowing my spring whereabouts five months in advance is the way this is supposed to work. I’ve had semesters where that wasn’t the case. It’s like the dream where you walk into a room unprepared, with the wrong book in hand, and with no pants, and the fear of that sensation for four months. On the other hand, one thing at a time, sir or ma’am. On the third hand, things are always subject to change with little, or no, notice.

Some good progress was made today for my second fall class. The immersion of dates and tasks and concepts is such that I will soon wonder if the first class, which I think I’ve completed, is complete. Convincing myself is the hardest thing of all.

Saturday my lovely bride invited me to chase her on a bicycle. She’s riding well and I’m riding poorly and so this was a kind gesture on her part and, ultimately, a vain effort on my part. She wanted to get in 25 miles, so I chose the time trial route, because I think I ride a little better on that route. I gave her something to chase, sneaking peeks over my shoulder and saying to myself “Let me hang on for eight miles,” and I did. I said to myself, “Let me hang on for 10 miles,” and I did. And I said to myself, “Let me hang on until I get over this overpass.” This is where, on a previous ride, she went by me at such a great turn of speed it made a noise. I heard a woooo, and then looked to my left and there she was, and suddenly in front of me before the oooosh was fully formed.

I’ve been passed by a lot of fast people and I’d never had an experience quite like that. I didn’t want that experience again on Saturday, so I said to myself “Let me hang on until I get over this overpass.” And I did.

Then I said to myself, “Let me find a bag of abandoned cash that is not traceable that I can just carry home from here.”

That one didn’t come true, though I did see a bucket on the side of the road and I peered into it carefully. That was just after she passed and quickly dropped me. I got dropped because I was looking in that bucket, or so I told myself for the last seven or eight miles of the route, when the excuse came to mind.

It was sunny and hot and I went through three bottles of water on the bike, and then had another bottle and change when I finally got home. Not pictured: the truck that passed too close on the last bit of my ride.

Sunday afternoon I went out for a deliberately slow ride, leaving the county without ceremony, but returning to the county with a Welcome a sign. So that’s two counties. And then, eventually, a third county.

This was a simple out-and-back route, retracing my pedal strokes means two more counties. A six county-line-ride! All of that without passing a single gas station or store or restaurant. There’s a lot of pretty fields, though. Pastures and crops. Horses and goats and horses.

And also corn.

At one point, from the other direction, there was a guy riding a dirt bike. Something seemed not quite right. As he got closer I realized it looked weird because he was riding a wheelie. Also, he was standing on the seat. There was a car following a little too close behind him for this sort of thing, but these are the choices other people make. The rider looked very calm and comfortable in this position, but I spent a while wondering: How does he get down when this trick is done? Now I wonder: How do you figure that out the first time?

Anyway, my ride was just 22.5 miles out, until the road finally makes a T intersection. The point of this route is no turns, which means I don’t miss a turn, which is a good thing in this instance because, if you’ll note those clouds …

Near my turn-around point I went by this building. Mr. Terry O’Neill, Sr., died just last month at 84.

He worked in oil and asphalt. He worked in the local government, in public works, for a decade. He served on his local township committee, on a 911 advisory board and was the president of groups like the local little league. He was a volunteer firefighter for almost 60 years. He remortgaged his home, as did some of the other volunteers, to help build the firehouse, a simple three-bay shop that safeguards the northern side of his town. It’s the kind of place where there’s a sign out front advertising the community breakfast. How many times must you go to the firehouse before you don’t think about what you did, the challenge you put on your family, the gift you’ve given your neighbors? Maybe you don’t think about that for forever, or on those times when you are hustling in so you can roll out to a call, but there must be a special kind of pride and hope that comes with a gift like that. He must have been quite the man.

Above all else, Terry was a devoted husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, friend and neighbor. He led by example, giving generously of his time, his talents and his heart. His kindness, quiet strength, steadfast faith and enduring love for his family and community will be remembered always and his legacy will continue to inspire all who had the privilege of knowing him.

He and his wife have 22 great-grandchildren. Seems like a life well-lived.

Going by that shop the second time, there was a gentle uptick in speed. Finally, a gentle downhill slope to the overall ride, at least for a time. Also, I finally had a tailwind. The humidity sank in, forcing a stop to clear away the sweat from my eyes. Gray skies and sprinkles gave way to a proper rain in the last five miles of the ride, leaving me plenty of time to get soaked.

It was a pleasant 45-mile route. Not pictured, the white SUV which almost drove into me head-on.

It rained the rest of the evening. I sat still, staring at class notes, until it was time to take the garbage to the curb, in the rain. Easiest job of all!