Charles Apple

When we last spoke of my trip to Columbia, S.C. last week, I told you about a tremendous thunderstorm that played havoc with the trees outside my window and knocked the power off in the area for several hours Wednesday night.

When I arrived at the South Carolina Press Association early the next morning, I found minor damage caused by the high winds:

The South Carolina Press Association shares a building with the state education association. The building is right next door to the hotel where I was staying:

Our sessions went well, as you might expect. I’ve been running a little over in my morning session. I knocked out a huge 15-minute segment — on visual ethics, which I hated to lose — and still ran ten minutes over into our lunch break. The older I get, it seems, the slower I talk.

Here I am showing one of my all-time favorite infographics: A minimalist diagram showing not just people who jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, but from where on the bridge they jumped. Todd Trumbull of the Chronicle put this piece together several years ago:

What I’m observing here is that more people jump from the side facing San Francisco than from the side facing the Pacific. I guess they enjoy the view or something.

It’s a brilliant graphic. I use it in a segment in which we talk about making the information on a page or graphic clear and easy to understand. It’s best for the designer to get the hell out of the way of the information.

We had ten people in our morning session and six in the afternoon:

Shooting photos for me were Brindy McNair of the Charleston Post & Courier in the morning session and Rodrigo Posada of The State in Columbia in the afternoon session. My thanks to both.

The previous week, I had caught a cold and a touch of laryngitis. My doctor fixed me up in plenty of time for my trip, but as the day went by, my voice began wimping out on me. The last hour or so found me pushing hard to get the words out. By the time we wrapped things up at 4:30, I could barely speak.

That evening, I drove to my dad’s house in Thomson, Ga., to spend a few days with him. What I didn’t realize was that my voice wouldn’t come back. Even as I post this — Wednesday morning, June 17; six days after my presentation — I’m just now regaining my normal voice. And that’s after yet another trip to my doctor Monday morning followed by two days of mostly sleeping.

While I was in Georgia, I basically took time off from the blog. I didn’t check my messages regularly. Likewise, I tried to blog a time or two since I returned, but I kept taking nap breaks. Which is why I’m so far behind in posting this roundup and in covering other news.

My trip back home ended on a high note, though, when I found myself with company for the return trip: A stray kitten that ended up at my dad’s house:

Although the Apple household here in Virginia Beach is already populated with two cats (and a dog and three guinea pigs and two turtles and a bunch of fish), I brought the li’l fellow home. If nothing else, caring for him will give my daughter Elizabeth something to do this summer.

Elizabeth named him Pickles. Bonus points to anyone who catches the reference.

Here, Elizabeth prepares for a career in fast food by holding the Pickles:

As I write this, Pickles is beginning his third day in the Apple household. We’ve discovered he likes to hide under the bed but he’s friendly to all the other animals. Well, most of the other animals.  He’s leery of the dog, but then again, so am I.

And he really really doesn’t like the vacuum cleaner. Sharon was holding him yesterday when Elizabeth tried to clean her room. Pickles freaked. Sharon had to run over to the doctor’s office for a tetanus shot.

The score so far: Pickles 1, Sharon 0.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 9:03 am and is filed under Charles Apple, Workshops. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.