Friday

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.)

adventures / Friday / photo — Comments Off on And then it froze again
4
Feb 22

And then it froze again

You’ll be pleased to know that the meeting that required hours of preparation last night was over in about 30 minutes this morning. It was a 5-to-1 prep-to-meeting ratio. If that was a rule we all had to follow, there’d simply be fewer meetings.

This is a new meeting for me. I’ve had it three times. And I’ve now developed a system. It’ll serve me well and help me through the next several of these meetings, until they aren’t mine anymore. And I won’t be working on the prep stuff until 8:30 the night before.

It was announced yesterday, at 5:30 or so, that work on Friday would be like work on Thursday. I knew that already, because I have windows and a thermostat.

I don’t think the mailman even ran his route yesterday. That old chestnut about the rain and snow and the appointed route is a Persian motto. It’s an engraving, not a motto. USPS employees walk under it in New York, but they don’t live by it. And certainly not in weather like this.

Not that you could blame them. It’s cold.

In addition to being cold, it is also bright! We went for a walk at the end of the work day. Our road is solid ice. You could skate on it. You could play hockey and demand a zamboni service it between periods.

We have a miniature icicle on the mailbox. The mailman did visit this afternoon. I wonder if he noticed it.

I’m sure he kept count today and is putting the totals on his social media accounts.

We shoveled the sidewalk, just being neighborly. I like the clean lines.

Usually I shovel the entrance to the walking path, so people don’t walk into our yard. It was just too cold yesterday. And today! It was 20 degrees when I took that photo, the high mark for the day. Also, look how deep that sidewalk is!

I got photobombed.

Worked out better that way.

If you’ve read this space the last few days you’ll remember that the city paves the walking path behind us, but not the road in front of us. This was the condition of that path at 5:30 today.

You could skate on the road, if you can skate through the snow.

Friday / iPhone / video — Comments Off on Everybody’s snowy for the weekend
28
Jan 22

Everybody’s snowy for the weekend

Snowed today. I managed to step outside and see this many seconds of it.

After which my phone returned to the repair shop. Because taking it in last weekend just wasn’t enough! I had the battery replaced, the most cost-effective upgrade you can perform on an iPhone. This is the third battery in this phone, which has served me well for five years or so.

Last weekend I asked the repair folks to clean the charging port because, in addition to the old battery not holding a charge, I could barely get the phone to receive a charge. No matter how patient you are, this eventually becomes frustrating. It has had almost-deletirious effects on a few work days. If the phone dies in the middle of the night because it won’t charge, you see, I have no alarm.

Which is a strategic problem, I know. I should use more than one alarm! But let me ask you, early risers, how many alarms should I use? I run three on my phone.

A further strategic problem, sure. Three alarms are great. Putting them all on one platform is a shortcoming.

After I struggled through how to do many of the various things required of the day that sometimes require a phone — messaging, dual authentication, taking photographs, whatever — my phone went back to the phonecanic. Clean the charing port, please. I’m sure they prefer the term “technician,” but you don’t get the honorific until you complete the job. My lovely bride dropped it off in the afternoon, while I was in the middle of a Zoom meeting. They said it’d be ready after 4 p.m., which seems to be the rote answer. She picked it up just after 5 p.m., and the phone was charged to 100 percent. And it’s holding a charge, so maybe the second time was the charm.

Which, again, if that’s as inconvenient as your day gets, it’s a pretty great day. And we insist on great days on Fridays.

I left the office at 5 p.m. for a change. The snow had stopped and the sun was almost threatening to break through the overcast sky. That it had stopped was great because there was no evidence of any winter weather road treatment taking place. And my car slipped and slid and arrived slowly and safely in my garage.

At the house I experienced the Friday burst of energy. I shoveled the driveway, the sidewalks and part of the walking trail. (People need to see the entrance, which runs right by our yard.) In doing all of that I learned that the hat I got this Christmas is indulgently effective. If it is cold where you are, and you have to be outside, get that hat.

(I’m leaving it in my car. It’s going everywhere with me.)

I emptied the dishwasher. I put together a new little ottoman that arrived today.

The ottoman will sit at the foot of the bed. It’ll hold sheets and blankets. Between that and the new mattress — after two nights of sleep I can report it feels like a cloud, mostly because you’re sleeping on the mattress, rather than in it — the bedroom feels almost entirely new.

It’s enough to make me want to go to bed at a reasonable hour tonight.

(Update: I did not.)

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