Finally, we were able to get in another bike ride this week. The two extra days off did my legs no favors. But someone didn’t seem phased. I was playing catch up for 90 minutes.
At the very end of the ride I caught her.
Or, seen another way …
Sometimes I have to work hard to keep up with @LaurnSmith.
Sometimes I have to work really, really hard to keep up.
Even then, it took a well-timed break — near our pre-selected turnaround point is the home of a few friends who were out in their yard so we stopped for a chat — and a desperate chase just to stay in sight.
She’ll get faster before I do, probably, which is the real concern.
Did you know I am still putting dive videos on social media? I am still putting dive videos on social media. Here’s today’s dose. I’ve got about five more weeks worth of clips, I’m sure.
That’s it for now. See you Monday. Until then, check out my Instagram. And did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Also, be sure to keep up with me on Twitter as well.
cycling / Friday / photo — Comments Off on Just a fast little bike ride 13 May 22
A weird thing happened on the way to my bike ride today. The Yankee is doing a sprint tri tomorrow, so she had a short ride planned. I was going to ride longer, but she got hers in early, which freed me up to do whatever.
Whatever is a thing I seldom do on the bicycle anymore, which is a shame and something to remedy. So I was looking forward to riding that, and my legs felt good and I thought it would be a grand, fast ride. I could go hard where I wanted to, not have to chase to catch back up at other moments, and so on.
So I left the neighborhood and went into the next neighborhood and thinking about the basic, familiar route I would take. There’s a hard stop sign at a hill just up ahead and that slows things down, but after that long little hill you take another stop sign and, from there, start to build some momentum over the next four rollers. Then comes a right hander onto one of those roads that has low commercial buildings — a dentist, an orthodontist and a funeral home — on one side and the back yards of houses on the other side.
Earlier this week I sprinted out that road and set the third fastest time on Strava, three seconds behind the leader.
This was to be my first sprint today, but my legs felt like solid stone. So, I thought, it’ll just be a pleasant and easy ride the rest of the way, for however long that feels rewarding. Freed up to do whatever.
Whatever turned into something pretty interesting as started feeling stronger with each passing little hill. Strava counted 24 timed segments on the route I chose today, one of our standards, and I had my second-best time on one of them, my third-best on five of them and set a new personal record on the longest segment, a 5.67-mile romp where I was trying to improve my overall speed. Usually I can add .2 mph over that portion, but today I did better, still.
I don’t have any photos of this, so that’s an archival photo of my shadow, because I was thinking about peddling and trying to remember how to breathe and recollect how gears work on my bicycle. It was the fastest outdoor ride of the year, so far, and for 28 miles it also somehow felt like the first ride of the year.
I see this as encouraging. And I see it as a reinforcement to do more of whatever on the bike. And now to start adding on to it.
I didn’t know it any point in time over time, but I have watched four Karate Kid movies — including the unnecessary Next Karate Kid. I also watched the inappropriately named 2010 remake with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. (That was kung fu, if anyone is keeping track.) I had my mind blown by the 2015 explanation of how Daniel is the real bully, a violent sociopath, in the movie and, before that, the Sweep the Leg music video which is probably not canon. (The internet is a magical place where people put way too much of their free time.) I have also watched all four seasons of the Cobra Kai series. I’ve done so with two things in mind. First, that Daniel is the bully and, second that Daniel doesn’t realize his best days are behind him and Johnny thinks his best days are still ahead of him.
And now, after all of that — a runtime of 29 hours and 48 minutes, plus the four minutes it took to figure that out — finally this. The best line in the whole franchise, from Chozen Toguchi.
Yuji Okumoto has appeared in 100 projects over the years, and he also owns a restaurant in Seattle. He … is gasoline.
Graduation ceremonies are this weekend. We had one in the building today, the game design faculty do a special program for their students, and it is always one of the first ones to go off, and they do it in our building, and use the giant television to show off their hard work. It’s quite neat. Late this afternoon the Media School’s program was held in the IU Auditorium.
Tomorrow the big graduation in the football stadium. Other schools have similar multi-part ceremonies, as well. The School of Nursing will be in our building to take advantage of the extra space for their students’ proud family members. No matter their school or discipline, it is always fun to see the happy faces.
They’ve all been posing all over campus in their caps and gowns and nice suits and beautiful dresses for days. Graduation, like everything, has become a much more involved exercise over the years.
(Why the university hasn’t decided to control the flow of foot traffic around iconic and scenic photo settings for better graduation photos and a chance to maybe fund a scholarship or something out of the effort eludes me. But I’m sure they’ll get around to that one day. Everything gets more involved over time.)
And, we got a Covid booster today. CVS said “Why not?” Dude was done before he began. Best shot I’ve had in a long time — not that anyone charts these things. No emerging side effects, as yet, but I can feel the injection site. Previously, from the Pfizer shots I could feel the scratchy throat and weariness and whatever else just moving in for a day or two. No such problem with the Moderna. Conclusion: I got the placebo.
Or I’m immune to vaccines.
But before we commit to that, let’s see what tomorrow brings.
Friday / IU / memories — Comments Off on And that’s a wrap! 29 Apr 22
Today the last two shows of the semester were produced by the entertainment division of IUSTV. This afternoon the Not Too Late crew wrapped their season in Studio 5. This morning it was The Bloomington Breakfast Club, which always ends their year talking to former hosts, for whatever reason. It’s great to see old friends, though. And three of them were on Zoom to join the current hosts.
So it’s Old Home Week! Gabrielle, who is in the top left square, helped start the show with Lydia, who is in the bottom right. Julianna came along after Lydia moved on. And they’ve all moved on to great things. Gabby is a producer at Vox Media in Los Angeles, Lydia is in marketing at Adidas in Oregon and Julianna is doing social media marketing for Dick’s Sporting Goods corporate offices in Pennsylvania.
That show started in 2016-2017, one of two new shows we launched in that year, my first year here. This year we rolled out three new shows, and at least two of them are going to stick. We’re also building out something really unprecedented for next year, as well.
Other interesting stats on this year … IUSTV has produced:
161 episodes of TV
Over 10 series
Three live streams
All told, earning well more than 205K views
And podcasts all over the place
Most importantly, the students are developing skills, and the graduating group are getting jobs. IUSTV is young this year, among the entire group — some 120 or so strong. We’re graduating four or five this term. Almost all of them had jobs by spring break this year.
The last shows of the production year will be online Monday, and I’ll share them with you here.
What we’ll do after that is anybody’s guess.
Friday / IU / video — Comments Off on Watch until the weekend occurs 22 Apr 22
Let’s wrap up this week with all of the videos I have neglected to share the last few days.
This week’s Hoosier News Source featured a nice interview with one of the leaders of the graduate students now on strike. Oh, (some of) the grad students are on strike here. They’re about to start week three on the picket line. It’s an interesting thing to see from my perspective, which has no stake in the game.
What’s Up Weekly had on the newly crown national champion table tennis players. One of these guys was an alternate for the last Olympic Games.
Sports! The sports people shot sports shows on Wednesday evening, as is their habit. Here’s the highlight show.
And on the talk show they broke down the Little 500 races. The women raced earlier today, and the men race tomorrow. The predictions about the women’s race turned out to be entirely incorrect. That’s why they race the races.
