Friday

basketball / Friday / IU — Comments Off on Shooty hoops, and the last day before vacation
11
Mar 22

Shooty hoops, and the last day before vacation

There was a game in the daytime. And people took time to watch it. There were 10 tall men running around on a glossy wooden floor. Five guys wore red and the other five wore white. There was this big orange ball and none of the guys wanted it, no matter what color they were wearing. They would throw the ball back and forth and back and forth until, eventually, one of them would put the ball in this big orange hoop. That made a guy in the opposite uniform take the ball and he’d bounce the ball back the other way, and he’d pass it to his friends, but his friends didn’t want the ball. And, really, they were all just too polite to say much about it. So they’d just look for a way to put it in that big orange hoop.

And at the end of it all, the guys wearing red were happier than the guys wearing white.

And what it was was basketball. And when Indiana won that meant they would advance to the finals in the Big Ten conference tournament and, presumably, clinch their bid to March Madness.

No meetings were canceled in the making of that game.

I did have two meetings today, though. That took up a quarter of the day. And the rest of the day was spent thinking of sun and sand and shade and being in the water. Which is where I’ll be until this time next week.

Friday / IU / music / video — Comments Off on Unlike last year, there is no Lion King in this performance
4
Mar 22

Unlike last year, there is no Lion King in this performance

Yep, I’m ready for this to be over, too. And, finally, here we are.

Thirty-three percent of the people came to a morning meeting I run. And then there were two morning shows to oversee in the studio. That was interrupted by a tour. Immediately after I handed off the prospective new faculty member to someone else the singing show people stepped up with the latest news.

Two of the 18 people won’t be singing. That’s just live programming. Something will happen. But it requires a few changes to the script. So I had to go through the thing I set up yesterday and remove two people, and all the references to numbers. (The seventh contest was now the sixth, and the 11 was now the ninth and so on.)

This also allowed us to change the conclusion of the show, which was good. It was going to be too complicated, and this made it simpler.

And then suddenly it was time to do the show.

The singers came from campuses across the state, at least three of them. They were all good. Some of them were really quite spectacular. Goosebumps were given twice.

If that video isn’t working, try this link.

Some of the singers.

She sang Puccini.

I wish I had the chance to photograph the other 11, but, again, they were all quite talented and they gave the judges a lot to work with.

The best part of the show is listening to the professional artists being so kind to the younger singers. Everything was a dose of encouragement.

There were two technical issues, and the usual sort of adrenaline a live show brings while you’re trying to wrap it up. Most importantly, everyone seemed pleased.

Before we’d even struck the studio they were already asking us to do it again next year.

Second-most importantly, I left campus at 5:30 today.

After 50.5 hours, eight shows, a field shoot, a photo shoot and meetings, editing, rewriting, meetings, tour-giving, other meetings and toner-fighting, the week was mercifully done.

I’m going to sleep until Monday.

Friday / IU / journalism / television / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Let me eat all the cake
26
Feb 22

Let me eat all the cake

After hours cake in an after-hours newsroom. I passed through the campus paper’s office as they were wrapping up the 155th birthday celebration of the IDS. Think of that, a student newspaper for 155 years! I have a reprint of the original front page, and, today, I had the last piece of cake.

Didn’t taste a day over 135 years old.

Also this week we learned that one of the writers of that august publication was a finalist for a prestigious national Hearst Award, continuing a 12-year consecutive streak of having a finalist or winner from IU. Also, the current editor-in-chief of the paper was named the photojournalist of the year by the Indiana News Photographers Association.

Furthermore, we learned that a podcast two of our interns worked on are nominated for an NAACP Image Award this weekend.

Other students were raising money for a high school newsroom this week. Game design students saw the video game debut at Steam’s Next Fest, and still more game design students rolled out their game for sale this week.

The TV crowd just kept producing television. Eight shows this week, and here’s the seventh of them, now.

Taken altogether, it was a pretty good week for people who are anxiously eyeing spring break.

And next week gets really busy.

(I’m anxiously eyeing spring break, too. And next weekend.)

cycling / Friday / IU / photo — Comments Off on Come, let us weekend!
18
Feb 22

Come, let us weekend!

It was sunny. But it was cold. We’ll take it because it is Friday.

But only for so much longer, by which I mean about a week, a week-and-a-half.

These are the stages of winter for me: resignation, ignoring it, wearied by it, a brief sense of optimism, and then a sort of disbelieving vexation which is where I will say, more than once, “When will this end?”

The answer is About seven weeks too late.

If it seems like I’ve said this before, that’s because I have. If it seems like I’ve said it this winter, that’s because I most assuredly hav.

I did go outside for a few minutes today. I decided to walk across part of the campus to take a Covid test. This was entirely an excuse to get outside and under the sunshine for a few minutes in between hours under florescent lights. So on with the big jacket, and I walked the four-tenths of a mile from our building to a gym in the School of Public Health, where all of the spitting takes place. Swipe your ID card, answer the three questions — they used to ask about whether you’d eaten anything in the last half hour, whether you had symptoms or had been asked to quarantine, now the staffer there just points to the sign. Only then do they give you permission to move on to the next table where a modern printer with ancient software eventually spits out the little ID label. You must recite the high holy numbers, your birthday, to get the little plastic tube. Then, go around the corner, stand in this converted gym and fill the container. Saliva, not foam, if you please.

And then the walk back. See! The proof of being outdoors in the middle of the day!

I’m still negative. They do the lab work here on campus and the turnaround is usually around four hours. It’s an impressive set up, really.

This is my ride through the northern English countryside. I’m in Yorkshire. This is part of the 2019 world championship course.

An hour doing this was a great way to start the weekend. Usually when I share these silly things I’ve cropped out the graphics, but this is the normal screen view.

That’s a lot to look through, and you can’t make changes. There’s always a chat feature, and for the life of me I don’t know how people can pedal fast and type at the same time. It’s all I can do to sing along to the music.

Friday / IU / photo / podcast / television / video — Comments Off on To the weekend
11
Feb 22

To the weekend

I was thinking about a passage from Romans, because I recently heard the expression “speaking things into existence.” I’m all for visualization, but the idea behind the saying is at odds with that one part of Romans, chapter four.

And so it was that I was in a meeting with students this morning who were tired and quiet and I thought to myself, “Are we already in spring break mode?” And then I grimaced inwardly a bit. What if you just thought that into existence?

Spring Break is four weeks away. And when that mindset hits, well, everyone is counting the days.

Left that meeting to go to the studio. They were shooting their own version of The Dating Game for Valentine’s Day. Left the studio to go into another studio. Someone is doing an interview and that requires a podcast and that requires a crash course running a mixing board.

And I made it back to the first studio in time to watch this interview. They’re highlighting a short film.

And I learned her film was given an honorable mention at Cannes. Student projects recognized at Cannes! It is easy to be impressed around here.

The two shows they shot today will be out sometime next week. Until then, hang out with the sports gang. This is the highlight show they produced Wednesday, Hoosier Sports Nite.

And here’s the Superb Owl show they did. It’s get amusing.

I like when they have this much fun. It makes it me think we’re doing more than one thing right.

I keep forgetting to share this here. It’s days old now. A little over a week, in fact, but it is still timely and topical. It’s about how we come to know and trust experts and their science. Someone here is conducting studies on that. Pretty cool, if you ask me. Also, Young Frankenstein shows up.

After that, you’ll need this.

And I’ll put on the ritz by … taking a nap.

(Update: I did. It was a great idea.)

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