A View from the Top

Yesterday I had the opportunity to climb to the top of Samford Tower and catch the view from the highest point on Auburn's campus. It was a really cool experience and I'm glad I got to go. Our office is working on a video project for the Web and needed to shoot some scenes from the venerable clock tower. So we hauled ourselves and the gear up several flights of stairs (reminding me why I am so glad I work in the basement as opposed to the fourth floor) and into the attic of Samford Hall where we accessed the ladders that ascend first to the bell tower and then to the clock tower above it. All four of the clock faces in the tower manually roll back and you can stand within their circular frame for a bird's eye view of campus (Let me just add here that there are no window panes or screens but only a knee-high webbed barrier that is draped across the opening once the faces are rolled back. It is this small barrier alone that keeps you from being one footstep away from the ultimate meeting with the heavenly Father so the words "don't trip" up there carry significantly stronger meaning!). The view is truly magnificent and especially yesterday, with the weather being cool and crisp, it offered a perfect glimpse of Auburn from above. Each of the clock faces is backed by a huge piece of plywood and over the years, folks who have been lucky enough to venture to the clock tower have signed their names on the boards. I took the opportunity to inscribe my name in perpetuity in the tower -- if you are ever there, check out the bottom left-hand corner of the board on the clock face pointing toward College Street. I think this is a relatively new tradition as I didn't notice any signatures dating beyond the mid-90s; however, there is a bit of graffiti dated '15 (as in 1915) in the portion of the tower where the bell is housed. I guess there is something about proving your presence in a place and literally leaving your mark that never gets old. With all the new buildings and the face of campus changing significantly in the 21st century, it was really neat to be able to step back in time so the speak and see it all from above. Seeing the exposed brick and old beams in the attic immediately made me think of what the university must have been like when Samford Hall was truly the hub of a campus which was only made up of a couple of buildings. In case you are curious, Samford Hall is actually taller than Haley Center and offers a better view as it sits higher above sea level. Also, next time you visit Samford and look up, notice the weather vane that adorns the very top of the building's clock tower. The vane itself stands at 14 feet tall!

Back at it . . .

After a bit of a blogging hiatus, I'm official back at it. Thanks for being patient over these past few weeks as I took a time-out for some important life events. Since Margie Grace was born two years ago, the month of October is always somewhat of a blur for us and this year was no exception. With her birthday on Oct. 6, the first part of the month is always spent planning for and celebrating her birthday. We had two great parties for her this year: one on Monday, Oct. 6, and one the following Saturday, Oct. 11. After only a couple of days to recuperate from the birthday festivities, we headed south to Orlando, Fla., to celebrate turning 2 one more time -- this time with Mickey Mouse at Disney World. Neil, Margie Grace and I along with my parents and Laura and John spent five days in the "World." We returned last Sunday evening and spent this past week getting back into our routine, doing mounds of laundry and wishing for a fairy godmother to come and miraculously clean our house (this hasn't happened yet!) Anyway, over the past few weeks we collected lots of fun stories and great pictures (yes, the Disney stuff is coming soon) that I plan to share with you over the next few days as we also work feverishly to prepare for Halloween. I can't believe November is almost here. Thanks for reading!

My Brief Brush with "Fame"

For posterity's sake, I thought I'd put this picture on the blog, although I e-mailed it around last week to most everyone who reads this anyway. This past Friday, on the eve of the AU vs. LSU football game, my colleagues at work and I ran into ESPN Gameday's Lee Corso at AU's new Student Center. ESPN was broadcasting the game and had set up their headquarters in an office suite on campus. Corso was in the hallway talking on his cell phone and when we all emerged from the stairwell and turned a corner, my friend Kevin immediately spotted him. Corso's not really a big deal to me -- sure he's on TV and all but so is Rich Thomas the local weather guy -- so I kept walking. Not my male colleagues. They thought we'd run into Elvis back from the grave! And so they hatched a plan to pull a little stalkerazzi move so they could get their picture made with him (these are grown adult men -- wow, football is a powerful thing!). Deciding it would be worth it to wait for the right opportunity, they loitered around the corner in earshot of the man. Once he was off the phone, Kevin "casually" approached him about taking a picture. Corso was very cordial and accomodating and agreed right away. I snapped a picture of the guys and then decided since I'd gone to the effort to wait, I'd have one taken as well. So there you have it -- my most recent brush with "fame."

Pictured from left: Matt Laney, me, Corso, Brock Parker and Kevin Fichtner

(You can't tell very well from the picture but Corso actually had on an orange and blue tie!)