Pilot's Log

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I took a walking and jogging course, and stayed with it in Florida for a while, but gave up when I moved here because the terrain isn't friendly for it. People cycle here or hike the trails rather than jog.

I did a 1.5 mile time trial in college. Took me thirteen minutes and change.

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HERE IS GREENWOOD.

NFL Season.

The regular season schedule came out this week, so tonight I went to Yahoo!Sports to make a quick survey as to who plays who when. It's tough to be a fan of one or two teams when you don't live in the home city. I'm a fan of the Steelers in the AFC and of the Buccaneers in the NFC (granted to mundane levels); east Tennessee TV is going to concentrate its efforts on two AFC teams in particular (the Tennessee Titans and the Denver Broncos--the latter because of favorite son quarterback Peyton Manning, who was traded there from the Indianapolis Colts a few weeks ago) and two NFC teams because of the national marketing (the Atlanta Falcons and the Carolina Panthers). CBS carries most of the AFC games and FOX carries most of the NFC ones; NBC, ESPN and the NFL Network carry the rest of the regular season games. The Steelers have three NBC showings this year, one ESPN one and their NFL Network game is against--the Titans. The Bucs, OTOH, have just the one NFL Network game against the Vikings.

What's weird is that the Titans DO NOT play the Broncos, the Falcons OR the Panthers in the regular season at all in 2012. Granted, with 32 teams and only 17 weeks in the schedule (and everybody getting a bye week) it's bound to happen every so often. But that means since there are no showdowns there are no synergistic instances when a Sunday timeslot will open up for CBS or FOX to program a game that has nothing to do with any of the Gang of Four.

I'll need to look at the schedule again as if I work for the local CBS and FOX affiliates.

...Whatever Flag They Offer--Mike & The Mechanics, "Silent Running"

I went to the local Democratic Party convention here today, just on an impulse to learn about it, and wound up becoming the official Delegate for my neighborhood. In two weeks, I'll go to the Regional convention and find out if I'll be going on to the National convention in Charlotte this summer.

Why? I've already got the card and they were short-handed by three people.

Going to a political national convention has been on my bucket list since childhood. I imagine my chances of going are slim but I still want the chance.

If I go, I'll bring you along somehow. Dunno just how, as yet, but I'll figure it out. I usually do.

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I was more "into" Autumn in Florida than I was up North or here in Tennessee. Mainly because, once that first north wind swept aside the Monsoon Machine of May through August, a person could actually go outside in Afternoon and not worry about too much sun or the rains. Yes, you had to worry about Hurricanes more in Autumn than Summer, but the Hurricane season was over in November and the weather stayed fairly pleasant almost to Christmastime.

Hey.

Old Tyme Saturday is Jeff City's annual street party, which is sorta fun but not quite as much fun as it sounds. Yes, you have the prerequisites for such an event: lots of little tent booths packed up against one another, expensive snack food, charity appeals, lousy gospel music (lousy meaning that they try to give so much "weight" to the message that they can't be bothered to learn to perform music compentantly), obnoxious clowns, too few porta potties, on and on.

There are two main reasons why I go: the antique cars and the helium balloons. While I did take my camera, the antique car show was set up in a cramped parking lot that meant it was too crowded with both cars and people to allow good photography. (That and my camera's batteries are getting old and pooping out on me on shoots.) As for the balloons, I didn't get one because 1) the Fire Department had run out of helium gas, 2) USBank was running out of balloons, and I didn't want to deprive the kids, 3) I felt strange about the idea of getting one of the balloons a Cancer charity was offering. They had somehow gotten surplus foil balloons advertising a promotion involving Serta mattresses and the American Idol TV show. This was the first time I had ever seen in person anybody using foil balloons as giveaways.

I don't so much do Old Tyme Saturday for fun as much as I do it for exercize.

Went to Alcoa/Maryville to check out the new Aldi market there, and to get a paint marker at Hobby Lobby. At the latter, I also found a little artist mannekin keychain. The mannekin doesn't have much articulation, but is a useful size (roughly 1/25 scale). So I bought it and removed it from its keychain components.