Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

We can at least agree that the Aggie War Hymn is an ear worm

I had the weirdest dream this morning. But no one cares about your dreams. If you’re writing a blog, or someplace that’s not your own dream journal, or the Journal of Altered Conscious Mental, Emotional, and Sensory Experiences, no one will. This should be a lesson to you. Don’t write it out for others, because no one is reading about your dreams (and Freud isn’t coming along to analyze you in the comments.)

Simply do this instead. Point out you had a dream or dreams. This signals that you have not only slept recently, but done so to the extent that you could enter REM sleep. And then, share that you, too, are dismissive of the dreams, that you know that no one cares. And then, by definition, you are hip.

Not only are you hip, but you, my friend, are a dreamer.

And this is the sort of thing I normally charge $84.95 for down at the airport Ramada, where the lonely, bored, and vaguely motivated will fall all over themselves to see my latest slide decks.

No one cares about your slide decks. All the above? You can apply that to your presentations, too. Oh, sure, you put in a lot of work and they’re interesting, noteworthy, sometimes even compelling. But, and this is the key, they are those things in the moment, not in the re-telling.

Pick your spots.

No one cares about your spots.

Except for infectious disease specialists. Tell them everything. Do not charge them Ramada rates.

Here’s the view from the 6th floor almost-corner office. Not bad out there. Most of the streets on the way in were in great shape. Just one, screen by trees and hills and houses, looked a bit rough. At least for our commute. Quite a few people didn’t make it in today. Not everyone has the same snow experience. You can also see that, below, just by carefully observing which people have shoveled their sidewalks 48-plus hours after the snow stopped and who hasn’t.

In my Rituals and Traditions class today I tried to frame things so that we start thinking of these things more like a team, a league or a school, and not like a fan. I presented them with some research on rituals from a marketing perspective. (Rituals have staying power and create conditions where highly identified fans want to come back, take part, and come back again. Also, most of them spend more money on other stuff at the venue than the ticket price itself.) The lecture got us through about a decade of marketing of fandom research and a few more years on sports fan sociology. Also, I showed them the Aggie War Hymn at weddings, with which I made a point about things in, and out, of context.

And then I explained the song. It’s a song about hating your rivals. I explained the history of the song. J.V. “Pinky” Wilson wrote the song in a trench in France during World War I. He came home to College Station, finished his degree, and sang the song in a quarter. Some of the A&M yell leaders heard it, and convinced him to enter it into a campus song contest. It won, and since 1920 it has been an integral part of Texas A&M fandom. I mean, they sing it at weddings.

At which point I paused, and deadpanned, “White people weddings, man.”

Then I said, there are a lot of these videos on YouTube.

We also considered the shared affiliation of rituals, as in the example of the running of the Gumps. Look at that zeal! And the footspeed!

And then we considered what it means to be a part of 61,000 people singing to your favorite team.

I was also able to cite to them a study that told us some 98 percent of fans engage in sports rituals. Most of them have to do with wearing the team gear and colors, but that study broke out 15 other criteria, and quite a few make the cut for people.

On Thursday, my students’ surveys will be completed. We’re asking questions of our study body. Hopefully some of the information will be help to our class as we try to help find and or develop things our athletic department might work on.

In Criticism, we discussed baseball, beginning with this story about one of the Phillies recent relievers. As a young man he caused a terrible car accident that killed one man, badly injured a teenager and almost derailed his own life. But then one of the truly selfless and remarkable things about humanity happens. It’s a terrific story.

I asked the group what they would like to know at the end of the story. What’s not here that’d you like to see in a followup. Someone said they’d like to see what happened if the pitcher and the family met. Just you wait for Thursday.

We also talked about a museum piece — meaning copy from the Smithsonian — about Jackie Robinson. It didn’t really fit the bill, but we were able to discuss why, and also story curation and, again, what’s not in this piece. What wasn’t there was what Robinson did after he walked away from baseball, and that’s every bit, or more as important, as his time with the Dodgers.

In the evening, as the day is getting later everything felt sunny and cheery, even if it was cold, and it looks like Hoth.

We’re right at the point where 12 hours of the day is in daylight. Right at the point where it seems we might make it once again. Right at the moment that should have happened two weeks ago, but will take place three or four weeks from now: it’ll finally feel like winter is behind us.

Since it isn’t, I rode in the basement this evening. I’ve been suffering through the little riding I’ve done of late. Everything got out of whack around the holidays and my cardio slipped and nothing has helped and it just felt like a big chore — a big painful chore.

But this brief ride, for the first time in a long while, things finally felt good. I don’t know why it seemed to click back into place, physically or mentally, but it was about time. Also, Spain. And I went up a hill prominent enough that it got its own little graphic in the heads up display.

I’m sure that’s useful for climbers, so that they might time their exertion to perfection. But it does something else for the rest of us.

Anyway, 30-some minutes over a lumpy area of Tossa de Mar, with two little Cat 5 climbs according to the profile, way off in the northeast of Spain. I hope I get a few more rides in a row that feel as decent as this one.

There’s a lot of riding to do.

And a lot of work to do. So … back at it.

adventures / Monday / photo / sports / video — No comments
23
Feb 26

Big snow, big winds, big visuals

All of our recycling sits in the garage. It waits there, impatiently, until my own impatience tells me to do something with the leaning tower of cardboard I’m assembling. Fortunately, I don’t have to make the trip too often these days. I think I go about once every three weeks. And Saturday was that time. Get that stuff out of the garage so we can walk around a little easier, and not have it threaten to bury me, a fine coating of paperboard and other, heavier, recyclable products. So I backed out the car, put two bins — one large and one small — of our mixed recyclables, and all of the deconstructed cardboard. Drove it all over to the inconvenience center. It’s a fine place, about seven miles away, and they take all of these things and more. Also, they’re not terrible strict, so long as you arrive before they close and back your vehicle into the unloading area. These are the rules and you must follow them.

If you do not, you will incur his wrath.

That bear has been sitting there for … a while. The gentleman that manages this facility for the county is seldom in his little office here, too much work to do around the site, but that bear never misses a shift. There’s a story with this guy. He was fished out of, or saved from, one of the waste bins and now he has this role. I hope he is well compensated.

Did you notice the sky in that photo? Here’s another Saturday view. It was about 50 degrees that day. I did the recycling in a t-shirt. No way, I thought, is it going to snow as predicted. And they predicted a lot. All evidence before hand to the contrary.

Sunday was not bright and blue, but gray and chilly. I watched the men’s Olympic hockey gold medal game. That was fun. Then, at the end, a few of the guys brought Johnny Gaudreau’s sweater onto the ice.

That’s touching. Gold medalists are skating a sweater with Johnny Gaudreau’s name on it.

Gaudreau, and his brother Matt, were killed by a drunken motorist while riding bikes in August 2024.

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— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.org) February 22, 2026 at 11:00 AM

We did some research on local cycling attitudes immediately after they were killed. I presented it to the city and at an academic conference. We were able to help create a little something useful from it. I try not to forget that the day before they were killed, I was out on a ride, just one road over, at about the same time of the early evening.

The man that killed them is still in jail, awaiting trial. He has a procedural hearing later this week on one element of his case. He has a wife and two children, and so the impact here is widely felt. Johnny had a wife and two kids. They were expecting their third. Matt and his wife were expecting their first. The brothers were back in town because their sister was supposed to be married the very next day. There’s absolutely nothing but sadness around this story, and it’s a widely known bit of business. There were a lot of dusty eyes at that gesture.

After the players got their medals, they all skated to center ice for a group photo. And then two of them held up a finger, a wait-a-sec finger, and skated away. Soon they came back, two children in tow. Those are two of Johnny Gaudreau’s children.

Meanwhile, as the weather loomed, people stopped to add things to the ghost bikes memorial where they were killed. Someone shimmied up that pole and mounted an American flag. Everyone seems to agree he should have been with the team, winning and celebrating with the boys. But for a guy that had too much to drink, was angry, driving aggressively and did all of this in one horribly impulsive, accidental moment.

I’ve been told the memorial continued to grow throughout the afternoon.

And then, later, the snow came. I went to the basement to turn a few miles over on my bike. There was a bit of dust out on the cooler spots in the yard. When I came up an hour later, we had an event. And then the winds came, gusting up to about 40 mph.

It looked like this around dinner time, and every weather model projected snow through about noon today. That it was 50 degrees Saturday meant nothing at all come Sunday night. Sunday night, it was this.

Monday morning, after the traditional chocolate chip pancakes required of a snow day, it looked like this in the driveway, which takes the both of us about an hour to clean.

We had about 14 inches of snow. Mostly light and fluffy, and easily maneuverable by shovel. Perhaps a bit less so by snow blower. The better news is that was the drier variety, and the sun was out to do its work. A fair amount of it melted down today. Unlike the last snow and ice storm that was historic for its staying power, the evidence of this storm, historic for being a blizzard, should all be gone by next weekend.

Is it the weekend yet?

Friday / links / photo / sports — No comments
20
Feb 26

Cats great, snow gone, writing written, forecast … let’s just not

Since we haven’t done so this week, and since they featured in otherwise as a big part of the goings on around here, let’s do a quick check in on the kitties. They had a visit to the vet on Monday, had a little anesthesia and a dental checkup and came home woozy. But as that, and their disappointment at being asked to go somewhere and doing something they clearly were not interested in, wore off, they’re right back to normal. And it’s the delightful usual antics and comfort cuddles from them. Or for them. I am never sure which.

Anyway, so that I might fulfill my feline contractual obligations, and also boost traffic around the ol’ site, here’s Phoebe, pointing out, once again, that she is not on the counter, but sitting in this little cardboard drink cartoon thing, thus maintaining her status as a good girl.

And here’s Poseidon, patiently sitting at one of the island chairs. That’s not a usual spot for him, but this week he’s been there a few times.

I’d really like to know how cats establish their patterns, and what prompts them to create new ones.

They’re both doing well, and I am sure would like to just stay inside where it warm, dry, and there are no vet techs.

Their view outside has changed. The snow and ice have melted away. Thursday and today were a big day on that front. The temperatures warmed up just a bit, all of the dry air has been pushed out and, for the first time in almost four weeks, we could see what was beneath it all.

Honestly, it was a little weird for the first few minutes.

We went outside to do some yard thing that has been neglected this past month while we lived inside the arctic circle. The ground was spongy and wet. I said, “Ya know? I miss the snow.”

Not to worry, guess what’s in the weekend forecast: A lot of snow.

So the greenish=brown grass was nice while it lasted, I guess. But we could use the water in the soil, so there’s that.

While we were out, we discovered a dead squirrel. I guess it had been underneath the snow and ice for a while. Not wanting it to just stay there for Ice Age v 2.0, I went over and picked it up. By hand.

Kidding, of course. I do not have the latest in steampunk squirrel removal machinery, however, so I used the Squirrel Lever 3000, brought to you by the makers of the Bass-O-Matic. I apologized to the little guy, and then carefully removed him from the premises. Nature gives and nature takes, and a hard winter is hard on some of the furry little creatures.

Also, this is why the birders are getting fatter on our bird seed. Less competition.

I wrote something last night. Got it published today. It’s about the Olympics, and fans, and nationalism. You can click this link and read it.

We know more about athletes than ever before. We see them in closeup HD. We see them in carefully crafted publicity and commercial campaigns. We see them in their social media. Around the Olympics, there’s even more. We see them in the vignettes that NBC produces, well-crafted packages designed to humanize the person who runs faster and skis better than anyone you’ve ever met.

It can create some real parasocial interaction. That smiling young face, the ones with something to prove to themselves and their neighbors, and the ones trying to show their kids what heart and determination look like, they come into our homes, and we think we know them. They are from places we’ve heard of; they wear the same colors in the same patterns which we hold dear.

Even though almost none of us will ever climb to the top of a podium, and few of us have any real chance of becoming the best in the world at something, we carry with us, just as they do, aches and pains and worries and injuries and fear and love. Yet, for some reason, we aren’t so willing to let them do that.

This is what it means to be an American athlete on the biggest stage in your sport. You hear the ringing cheers and are embraced by coaches and teammates and family and competitors. Maybe you hear your anthem played for you. You face ridicule and scorn, vitriol and threats from far corners.

It goes on like that for a bit, trying not to sound like a scold, until, at the end, it absolutely becomes one.

I think I have one more piece to write next week, where there will be no scolding. I just have to get it in among all of the other things. There are so many other things that must get done. Four classes to prepare for next week, about 100 things to grade, my review packet (some 40-ish pages, but 15 or so are done) and two studies to work on. I go back and forth: there is no time for this, or, I’m in great shape, take the day off. Really it just depends on when I ask myself about it all.

But I’m not going to ask myself about it anymore tonight. I am going to stare at the forecast, and will it to chance.

Meteorologists are predicting 18 inches of snow this weekend. Give or take.

photo / Rowan / Thursday / video — No comments
19
Feb 26

Working on my own media aesthetic, it turns out

I bought some new lights. I wanted to backlight some books. The lights arrived Monday, hurled onto the porch from the delivery man’s truck-mounted trebuchet, for he feared my ice labyrinth (a yard of ice and snow, and a driveway still buried until yesterday.

Last night, I finally had a chance to open them. Two small LED lamps connected to one power cable. Lots of pretty colors. Looked great on the promotional website. The video and the inexpensive price sold me.

I opened the box, found the two lights and four different mounts. I also found this booklet.

And, look, light booklet copywriter, I’m glad you have that job. Those gigs aren’t easy to come by, but you should be proud of the work you did throughout. This is important, though: we’re not going on a journey. You’re going to backlight some books.

I spent some time sliding them between the bookcase that holds the Gloms and the wall. It didn’t work quite the way I wanted to. But the lights are fun. You can run them from an app, use standard schemes or develop your own, set a timer, and so on. They’re just the wrong size. But I’ve also got colorful corner laps, slender little things that stand 58 inches tall. So I took apart the frames, slid those behind the Gloms and, ya know, it mostly works. The new lights are now going behind other books. (I have a lot of books, I wonder if I need more lights.) And the look now mostly works! So I have one large bookshelf backlit. I have the top of another backlit. And my old 1930s radio is backlit.

The idea is to make it all the backdrop for video meetings. But as I tinker with the light settings and the exact locations, this could be the beginning of a nice evening setup.

I had an epiphany about the snow today.

I’m going to miss it. We have a sandy soil, but this is just a wet, spongy ground right now. And the grass is, well, brown, as you’d expect.

I found a bowl of candy at the office today. I wonder how long that’ll last. I have two colleagues that have a playful feud about peanut M&Ms and when I saw this, I thought of those guys. One of them is wrong. Peanut M&Ms are just fine. I enjoyed the peanut butter ones today.

It was a nice treat before class. In Rituals and Traditions, we broke the class into groups again. They’ve got group work to do and so group work we began. The group work is now picking up speed. I’m excited to see what they do.

I was also excited to screen this documentary in my Criticism class. I asked them all to jot down the name and impressions they had of all of the people we meet. There’s about eight of them in here.

Then we talked about all of those people. The documentary is about video game addiction. I selected this one because it is a bit shorter, but also because we could do this exercise. We could discuss the different points of view — the guy trying to overcome his problem and help others, his mother, two psychologists, a Facebook executive and a few others — and consider all of the ways that each are talking about the issue.

This could be a media effects conversation, and I pointed that out. We considered the different ways the people came about their ideas in a field of important research that is really only just getting underway. Finally, it is a study in expertise, source credibility, perspective, and authoritative voice.

I was pleased with that. And I was sure to sum it up in the right tone of voice so it sounded, you know, authoritative.

I should have set up some dramatic lighting for precisely that moment in the classroom, too. Maybe next time.

photo / Rowan / Wednesday — No comments
18
Feb 26

There’s always new material

When I write these, I work on the photo or video, and then I type away for awhile. After I type type type, sometimes I proofread them. (I … know!) And after I do all of the typing, I punch in all the little categories and then, finally, I write something as a headline. This, I think, is why the headlines are usually bad, and sometimes nonsensical. By then, I just need to get on to whatever the next thing is.

So let me explain yesterday’s title.

Working with new material, and old snow

Thursday of last week and yesterday were the first two days that I didn’t have to design a class meeting from the ground up. Oh, there are always a few things to update or add. That’s to be expected, and I did that last Wednesday and Thursday and on Monday. But what I usually find myself doing on the days before a class is building lecture notes, reading material, creating slide decks and also grading and whatever else. And by usually, I mean always. And by always I mean every time.

I’ve been running classes here for three years. In that time, I have had 14 classes. That’s pretty standard. Of those, 10 have been new preps. That’s not standard. What it is is a lot. New preps are time intensive. Three of those are classes I’ve designed from the ground up — even more time intensive. There’s a lot of thought, efforts, wrong trails, reading, course corrections, reading other stuff and so on that go in each new unit of each new class you’re developing. It’s easier when the material is there, like in some of those instances when I’ve taken over someone else’s class. Then you sink your time into that. But its easiest when you’re teaching something you’ve already taught. Then, you know it. Last Thursday, and yesterday, were the first days in all of my time here (and I’m being kind, because I could stretch this back to classes I taught in the teens) where I wasn’t in a perpetual start over mode.

It wasn’t all brand new because while I spent two days talking about fan identity and the various theories involved in my Rituals and Traditions class, I have used those in another class, and I only needed to refresh my thoughts. And last Thursday in Criticism I showed a documentary, and we discussed it then and yesterday, and I only needed to pull out my notes to make sure that I got in the key points. And then the class discussed the regular two stories, which is new, but just requires a few readings. My online class, meanwhile, I’ve taught a few times before. All the lectures are prepared, and mostly I deliver messages, keep things moving, keep people on track and, as in every class, do the grading.

This is hardly a complaint, simply an observation. Everyone sees the same thing. Maybe one day we’ll get it resolved such that I am in my own lane, carving out my own niche, and so on. That was the original idea, which has not yet been fleshed out to a plan. Maybe, though, we’re getting closer to addressing that.

Interestingly (not really), all of my classes next fall will be classes I’ve taught before. Which will be good! I’m ready for a little mental break. Just a little one. Recharge the batteries, read different new things, dream up new ideas, all of that. Of course, one of the classes I’m teaching in the fall is the online class, with which I am well acquainted. But that class will be taught in person. So I have to figure that out. And my other two classes will be converted from meeting twice a week to once a week.

There’s always new material.

And there’s always the old snow. If this sticks around until the weekend this will have been on the ground for a month. But there’s good news. It’s finally warming up a little. And look what moved in overnight.

Fog equals moisture, and that’s one of the things we’ve been missing these last many weeks. That and reasonable temperatures. Moisture speeds up the melting. It’s the heat brought about by condensation. So all of that fog is a good thing. We are no longer in an arctic desert.

Today I shoveled the sidewalk. That was my work break. I shoveled the sidewalk because we left it alone after the last round of snow three-plus weeks ago. We stood in the driveway, cold and tired and I said “Are you expecting any deliveries?” My lovely bride said she was not. So I said hang it. No one is coming over and this doesn’t need to get done right now. I stand by the decision, but I didn’t realize it’d be 24 days until I did it. Oh, widened the driveway. We helped dig out a neighbor. And I helped another neighbor find her sidewalk again, but my own wasn’t a priority. And then, Monday, a delivery guy did show up, and he just hurled something from a great distance at the door.

Not that I blame him. Who knows how much ice and snow that guy has dealt with, and how many times he’s risked a sprained this or a twisted that in these last several weeks.

Fortunately, the ice is giving a way just a bit, and most of the sidewalk cleaned up easily.

The cats are doing great, and acting much more like themselves. I was pleased to enjoy a great purring cuddle last night. Back to normal. Back to hi-jinx. Back to happy.

And, now, back to class prep.

There’s always new material.