photo / Wednesday — No comments
09
Jul 25

There are a bunch of names for skin cells

We had a hot dermatology date today. It’s every bit as exciting as it sounds. We drove over there from here, around some detours and arriving right on time, despite whatever it was I did that slowed us down on getting out of the house.

There was no one there, so as soon as sat down they called us back. The best part: no paperwork, so I guess we’re both enough in the system now.

These were routine checks. It probably took longer to book the appointments than to fulfill them. The doctor, yet another one in a now-growing line of people who are younger than I am. Younger than me and, yet, she looked more tired than the rest of us. You wonder how many times a day she does this, starting with the scalp and glanced in between the toes. You wonder if she’s sick of it yet, dismissing this worry, weathering a bad joke here, staring at an awkward blotch of skin there.

Well, not on us. We both saw the same doctor. She told my lovely bride that she has wonderful skin. To me she said, “You don’t have many moles.”

I’ve worked very hard to avoid that, yes.

Anyway, clean bills of health. Don’t lose any sleep over anything. Come back in a year.

Later, we got behind this truck.

It wasn’t that we followed him. He just kept turning onto all of the same roads we wanted.

photo / site / Tuesday — No comments
08
Jul 25

The heat is hot and oppressively so

Not every day produces a widget. Most of mine, in fact, do not. You find other things to measure against, I guess, or you just come to rationalize the very real truth that not every day need a product. It was also prohibitively hot. The heat index got up to 103 by the time I stopped checking. It doesn’t much matter anymore after that anyway. Somewhere as the mercury climbs it is just all painful.

Or put it this way, I stepped onto the front porch long enough to bring in the shipment of cat food, a chore which takes long enough to open the door, step outside, make sure no cats come with me, taking two steps, bending over, lifting a small box, pivoting and walking back inside. It takes no time. And you could feel the heat in that brief amount of time.

Later, I walked outside to check some other thing, a task which took about 90 seconds. In that time I’d already begun to sweat.

Right now, it is raining buckets.

Tomorrow it’ll only be in the 90s. Who knows what I’ll accomplish tomorrow.

The view from the front yard, somewhere between the gloaming and real darkness.

Oh, hey! The art on the front page has been updated. If you click over to kennysmith.org you’ll see a lot of images that fit into this theme.

I have also concluded the monthly computer cleaning, deleting files and updating the thises, and some of the thats. One of those tasks is monitoring the spreadsheet with website traffic data. Last month was the second most popular month in the site’s long history. In the next month or two we’ll hit another big milestone for the humble ol’ dubya dubya dubya. (And I thank you all for coming back more than once.)

Tomorrow, much like today, but even better.

cycling / Monday / photo — No comments
07
Jul 25

Welcome back to me

OK then, back to the normal things. How have your last few days been? I’m getting my eastern time zone legs back under me, thanks. Tuesday night was our first night back home, and so naturally I was awake at 6 a.m. on Wednesday. THursday morning my internal alarm came to life at 7:30. We can darken the bedroom, so I can’t blame early morning light.

I went to the office for a while on Thursday, and then spent the rest of the day at the library. On Friday, and today, I have been doing some work finishing up the design for a fall class. I have one week left to build, and then some supplemental things to sprinkle throughout the term for that course, but I’m pleased with how it’s come together so far. (Now, who wants to make the syllabus for me?) For the Fourth we had ribs and that was about it. The weekend was similarly low key.

Happily, the cats welcomed us home with little grief, and we all slipped back into the normal rhythm of the house. And then Phoebe made a good point: feature us on the site, or Poe will do something wacky, and you know how wacky he can be.

She was not wrong … We had some baked goods stored in the microwave to keep them out of reach. I opened the thing to heat something up, walked away to do something else in the kitchen, came back and found that the door wouldn’t close.

The door is an automatic thing. There’s an Open and Close button on the microwave. I bet you can guess what those buttons do. Only the Close button suddenly only worked halfway. I pressed that button two or three times with dissatisfaction, and then looked down to see what the problem was.

So the cats are doing well, thanks for asking.

We went for a bike ride on Friday. I got dropped, but only because I caught traffic at every intersection. A bit later we crossed paths near the turnaround point.

I had another ride today, only because I couldn’t drag myself out this weekend. Today, it was hot, and muggy. When I got in it was 80 degrees with 90 percent humidity. It felt a lot like home. You forget how it feels when that mugginess saps your energy. This was as bright as the whole ride got.

But, in 25 miles I was only passed by 21 cars and I only had to unclip and put my foot down one time, so it was a nice little ride.

Now seriously, who wants to work on a syllabus for me?

adventures / movies / video — Comments Off on We are back
01
Jul 25

We are back

We woke up early. We got on the plane at Heathrow, our last long walk of the trip, which was punctuated by two long walks through the Milano airport after gate changes. And, sure, you have to get off the plane and through the U.S. Customs checkpoints, but the airport walk on the way back home never feels that long.

The march to the plane, however, that can take a while.

The airport security staff confiscated my toothpaste, apologetically. Too big, by volume, despite having made it to and through Heathrow on the way over. Ah well, if that’s the worst part of the day …

We were in Club World on British Airways, which means you get your own little pod, which means the seats lay all the way back, and also that you get more attention on a six or eight hour flight than anyone needs. I just wanted to watch the movies.

First up, Mickey 17, which was highly anticipated by fans of the book, of which I’d never heard. I think they missed. It was Douglas Adams without the funny. But Robert Pattinson wasn’t bad.

I got through about four minutes of the Tom Hanks movie, “Here,” and decided I wasn’t willing to watch that on a plane.

So I watched The Amateur, which is exactly what you imagined after seeing the trailer.

Now I suppose I’ll have to watch the 1981 version, for comparison’s sake.

For the last leg of the trip, and I couldn’t time this much better, I managed to just sneak in all of Oppenheimer. First time I’ve watched it; not sure why it took so long. Pretty sure I need to see it again, if nothing else to improve the audio. Probably there are some interesting historical tidbits I missed as well.

If I may trade heavily, and unfairly, on both stereotypes, I’m not really sure how the Barbieheimer summer worked. The crossover just seems so farfetched. (Then again, Barbie was fine, and this is a Christopher Nolan masterpiece. Or Barbie was a feminist signpost and this was a Christopher Nolan masterpiece. So what do I know?)

Anyway, the plane landed on time. We made it through customs with no problem. The luggage collected, the last walk of the trip was through the airport. My in-laws went this way to meet their driver. We went that way to get to an Uber which took us to our car, and then back home.

And now I’m going to sleep for two, maybe three days.

So this is it for the week. More here Monday. Until then!

adventures / Italy / Monday / photo — Comments Off on Cheese!
30
Jun 25

Cheese!

Marco picked up the four of us from the beautiful Contrada Beltramelli, our lovely last stop before the long return trip home. Everyone at the B&B was lovely. The dinner last night was outrageous. The breakfast table was filled to overflowing. They allowed us sit in their courtyard to enjoy the beautiful atmosphere for a few more hours until it was time to make our way to the airport. Just a charming group of people. We would definitely visit the Contrada Beltramelli again.

The only problem was that our air conditioner made a rhythmic coughing noise throughout the night. I chose to interpret this as a blessed confirmation of the chilled air, a divine intervention when it was 93 degrees yesterday and 95 degrees today. They’ve had a heat wave for most of our time visiting, and this part of the world is not accustomed to, nor prepared for, this kind of weather this time of year. A coughing air conditioner might interfere with your sleep, but only if you let it.

Anyway, Marco picked us up. Him and the four of us and our luggage in his little car for a two-hour ride down to the airport in Milano. He said he’s been on this particular job for six weeks, and it has allowed him to improve his English, which was quite good. Every day, he said, he’s learning something new, and so I began to wonder what he would learn from us. But then he told the 25 minute story of how he came to learn the language to begin with, when he was a younger man.

There was a woman. I’ll just leave it at that.

OK, he met a woman at a club. They had a fine night of dancing. There were drinks. They decided to go somewhere more private. She asked, through their broken bits of language, if he had any protection. He did not, so that was the end of the night, but the beginning of his motivation to study English, somehow.

I was really hoping the story’s punchline would wind up with him one day learning that he did have a preservativo, only he didn’t know the word, but that was not the case.

It was quite the story, filled with many of the people that have dropped into and out of his life giving him a little English here and there. And, just yesterday, he said, he learned the word for when you’re startled. As if a car had suddenly pulled out in front of you.

CHEESE!

We returned to that line over and over, and either everyone else heard “Jeez” or no one had the heart to correct him from the dairy product.

But then I offered up that the word can mean many things, depending on how you said the word. So I gave him CHEEEEEEEEEEEESE.

He gave us “Che seccatura,” as in, “What a drag this trip is over.”

We had dinner in the lounge of the airport, which was better than terminal food, but not a real dinner. I did find the secret platinum door.

As I stood there taking that photo the door detected my presence and slid open, as doors sometimes do. The chairs looked comfortable. It was a bit more spacious looking than the regular old VIP lounge we were in. No one looked up, maybe I could have walked right in. But, then, best not to cause an international incident.

We flew to London this evening, arriving later than scheduled because we took off on Italian time. (Which is unfair, because the previous flight was late getting in … from London.) We caught an Uber to an airport hotel, which was a place designed to look and feel like a club and, man, we’re gonna be here like seven hours. Can we just not do all of that?

Anyway, from London to New York tomorrow. Movies on a long flight. And then the drive home. And then a few days of dealing with jetlag.

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