Friday

adventures / Cozumel / Friday / photo / SCUBA / television / video — Comments Off on Some videos, and more photos from our amazing Cozumel dives
1
Apr 22

Some videos, and more photos from our amazing Cozumel dives

Before we go back under water, I’d like to share some videos

Here’s a sports show where they are talking about sports — specifically the NCAA tournaments, the final fours and all of this year’s cinderella stories.

And over on HSN they’re keeping track of all of IU’s varsity sports. And there’s a lot going on!

And on their longest-running sports talk show, it’s time for seemingly everyone’s favorite episode, where they highlight The Masters.

I’d say that topic would make it feel like spring, if it wasn’t a delightfully chilly 40 degrees under perpetually cloudy skies as I wrote this.

Also this week, a bunch of students I have had the good fortune to work with won awards at the Indiana Association of School Broadcasters annual conference. One of our seniors won top honors as best anchor — I think he’s won this award three of the last four years, he’s a hard-working and gifted young man. A grad student, who is also IUSTV’s long-running manager and general superhero, earned a second place prize in television copywriting. IUSTV’s news director claimed first place in a television package category. She’ll return in that role for the station next year as well. One of our new alumni took second place in that same category for a piece he produced in his senior year. (Another incredibly talented fellow, He also announced his new job working in summer league baseball, doing media relations and calling games. It’s only a matter of time for that guy.) Four of our wonderful students brought home second-place in the television news program contest, and one of IUSTV’s projects won the short film category.

If you’re still interested in all of this, I figure I have about another week’s worth of photographs to share here. If you’re not at all interested in this, I figure I have about another week’s worth of photographs for you to avoid.

Give or take, I’m sure.

Why do you go diving? You’ll never know what peaceful things you’ll run across below the surface. We shared a few dives with this guy, a young ER doctor from Canada.

To be zen, with bubbles.

Check in every vase. You never know what you’ll see.

How long did it take you to notice the little fish? (It is not in the vase.)

This is a gray angelfish (Pomacanthus arcuatus) first described in the mid 18th century, this reef fish is, today, quite popular in the aquarium industry. I can see why.

These are beautiful foureye butterflyfish (Chaetodon capistratus). Lovely shallow water creatures.

Another baraccuda!

This is an American whitespotted filefish (Cantherhines macrocerus), but it doesn’t have a lot of the spots the species normally presents.

That’s because the filefish rapidly changes appearance. It can go to a high contrast color pattern with a much darker background and many light colored spots, and it’s all about camouflage. They like to hide.

Look at this reef!

Or how about this one, and it’s yellow tube sponge (Aplysina fistularis).

This was an accidental photo, and I love it.

Dive buddy check!

She planned another great trip, and the evidence is all right here.

cycling / Friday / IU / photo / video — Comments Off on Everybody has to have a moment
25
Mar 22

Everybody has to have a moment

At 4:30 this morning … and for the rest of the morning …

And today, it was Poseidon’s moment. He made the most of it.

The riding game chimed in.

So it was a long day, with little rest. At work, I wrapped up a three-month long project, and wrote my way out of the entire thing. It was a planned, and good thing.

I left right on time, and my lovely bride and I took a nice little walk.

She just had surgery on her leg on Tuesday, and she’s making great progress, as we expected.

The nice thing about our current walks is that she isn’t walking faster than me. This will last for two or three weeks, tops.

We have started noting signs of spring on the path behind our house. Here are some of the lush blooming things coming back to life for the new year.

I am eagerly looking forward to this becoming routine, and not something upon which we remark. (It’s the end of March and “spring” is finally coming upon us. Note the jacket. Not pictured: the gloves I’m wearing at the end of March.)

This shrub is in our yard. No idea what to do with it this year.

For now, we’ll just admire it. And the weekend, which is now upon us! Happy weekend to you! And you and you! Happy weekend to all of us.

adventures / Cozumel / Friday / SCUBA / video — Comments Off on Friday dives
18
Mar 22

Friday dives

And, now, the saddest photo a diver can have.

That’s the last one on my new-to-me SeaLife camera, which has performed well this week. There’s tons of video, most of the good stuff you’ve seen, and many photos to share. Not bad for a used and older digital camera, though I suspect I need to upgrade the battery. My lovely bride, meanwhile, was shooting on our GoPro this week, and she has been putting up some of her highlights on social media. Be sure to check those out.

One gentlemen we dove with had a special SeaLife iPhone case, and the top-of-the-line phone inside. The rig itself cost about $600. So he’s just floating around with two grand in his hands, and that’s too much risk for me. Of course, at one point he swam alongside a ray and his camera was showing the individual muscles on the fish. It was amazing, but I could never forgive myself for spending that much money on a hobby accessory, or for messing it all up. It was impressive, though. But you’ll just have to content yourself here with my 2014-quality imagery.

That’d be a strange thing to feel inferior about, no? Here are the 1080p videos and 13 GB photos I’m taking at 85 feet.

Because you can’t safely dive and then fly in a 24-hour period — more of that chemistry stuff — we had our last two dives of this trip today. (We fly back tomorrow afternoon.) You can see some footage here.

We were supposed to have 20 dives on this vacation. We got in 13, including that excellent add-on night dive.

I ran into a wall in our condo and managed to sprain my wrist. I’m allergic to something in the flower beds or the forest nearby. As we sail away from the shore I get better. When we get back to the beach I start closing up again. My descents and ascents were slow and slightly painful because of all of that. We spent two days in Dallas. But the local food has been good. The diving has been great!

If you go to Cozumel, stay at Residencias Reef. Dive with Scuba Tony. Every diver we met on their boats was a repeat customer, and it’s easy to see why. That repeat customer word-of-mouth means a great deal when you’re talking about something as important as your safety. If we ever go back to Cozumel, we will definitely dive with Scuba Tony again.

But now, sadly, we must return to the regular world. Sort of.

(And I’ll get around to posting photos after the next little adventure, which takes place next week.)

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.

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