Friday

cycling / Friday / IU / video — Comments Off on Progressive video and circumstance
18
Dec 20

Progressive video and circumstance

We had a graduation today. This is what that looked like.

It was a live production and went off without a hitch, owing to the good work of some talented people, and also me. It’s probably a dry run for the spring commencement. While some 100 people became graduates today, we’ll have 600 students moving the virtual tassel from one side of the mortar board to the other.

If anything, I said, we should do all the future commencement ceremonies like this. It went faster. After, you could just come in for the cookies and punch and socializing, which is where the real fun is, anyway.

Came home to spend about 75 minutes with this view.

And a few more miles were ticked off on the trainer, glancing through the blinds, listening to old music and feeling the burn. It’s an interesting series of experiences. You go in there in a light jacket, get ready to ride, climb on the bike and take the jacket off. Once your heart rate gets up a bit you are, of course, comfortable. It doesn’t take long at all, because the chill is only just barely a chill. It’s the buffer between the inside world and the outside world, the temperature re-configuration chamber. What, you’re not thinking of your house in these terms this year?

When you really get your trainer-mounted bike going you get the flush cheeks and the other familiar precursors to sweating. And suddenly there’s a drip, and you begin reminding yourself this doesn’t happen on the road because of the evaporative qualities of nature and the wind wicking away your perspiration. Which it is most decidedly not doing here.

Before long, you’re no longer just sweating, you are now actively hot and that first chill is a far-off memory. There’s a ceiling fan, and turning that on makes some magical atmospherics happen. Your heart rate is up, you are wondering whether you should question these decisions, and the fan is circulating just enough cold air to null this whole thing out. So long as you keep going.

As soon as you stop, being soaked through and under a fan in a chilled room, you have to leave, leave now or never get control of your core temperature again.

This is that time of year where I’m always concerned about the temperature getting into my bones. There are no amount of blankets or hot beverages, no appropriate number of layers of socks, to get warm again. There are some particular experiences, like time itself, which you can never escape. Especially when the bike isn’t going anywhere.

We can outrun this semester, though. Another one, thankfully, in the books.

cycling / Friday / photo — Comments Off on The last decent weather day, I fear
11
Dec 20

The last decent weather day, I fear

In April or so, when everyone was shut down, we went out to one of the local flat courses to do a few time trials. It’s essentially a loop and it runs 6.5 miles, with a long headwind at the end. On our first visit we did four loops, and marveled at how quiet the roads were.

We went this evening, with just enough light for three loops, and marveled at how noisy the roads are. What health crisis?

The first lap felt fine, until that headwind, and I got well and truly dropped.

Later I caught back up and tried to give her something to attack, and she caught me on the second trip through the headwind. And on our third trip we soft-pedaled in for pictures. Soft pedaling, at 21 miles per hour, into the wind. It’s a weird year on bikes all the way around.

And now, as I shut things down for the evening, I was struck by the play of a solar light I have in the kitchen window. It’s a cheap yard light, and I thought having a few of them around would be a good idea if the power went out, which thankfully, is a rarity in our neighborhood. The light shining through the plastic globe and playing on the ceiling looks like a static kaleidoscope, or a fancy, giant jellyfish.

Have a great weekend! Catch you on Monday! And, until then, more on Twitter, check me out on Instagram and did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account.

Friday / photo — Comments Off on The week with bad titles, part five
4
Dec 20

The week with bad titles, part five

Today, a bit of wabi-sabi.

That’s a deck post. And wabi-sabi, Wikipedia tells you, is:

In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete” in nature.

Characteristics of wabi-sabi aesthetics and principles include asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and the appreciation of both natural objects and the forces of nature.

I’ve written about this here before, about keeping some of the wear and tear in a house as artifacts of previous owners. Long ago we cleaned up the markings that noted all the kids that used to live in this house. We’ll get the rest of this place painted one day, when we feel we can safely get painters in. There are two or three bigger gouges that I’d like to correct, but there are nicks in some places which I want to keep. It’s part of the story of the place.

It’s all small and cosmetic, but keeping one or two things here or there might let you imagine the children playing here, the joy their family had, the lives they were living here. Oh, sure, those little corners of molding at the foot of a few doors, that’s from furniture moving in or out, or a zealous vacuuming session. The one place on the windowsill in one of the bedrooms, I have no idea what that was, but I want to hear the story, a story I’ll never know, and I hope it’s better than “We were moving out with our hops and dreams and clipped it with a dresser.” Some of these other marks might be from imaginary gun fights or adventurous car races or a time a grandmother — three generations lived here, together — just leaned a little too far to the right. Some of those should absolutely stay.

I bet those kids had a lot of fun on the deck out back. It’s held up by that post pictured above. And that post isn’t just a post. It could be a base for hide-and-seek or part of a doorway to the yard and the woods and the creek beyond. That big tall chunk of wood could have been anything.

And, to a kid, the imperfect and impermanent might be just the opposite.

Plus, you’ve got an entire national concept behind it. And, with wabi-sabi, you don’t have to replace things quite so often.

adventures / Friday / photo — Comments Off on Views from our walk
27
Nov 20

Views from our walk

Slept in today. I woke up late, with the bedroom door mostly closed. So, I figured, my lovely and thoughtful bride went downstairs and took a noisy cat with her. See? Thoughtful?

So I lay there for a moment, having checked the time, thinking if I did that three or four more days in a row I might feel like a normal person.

The night before I fell asleep reading a history of churches. I’ve worked up to the middle of the 20th century and I’m ready for the book to be over, so I can just have something else to read. Ninety-five more pages to go.

This is my second time trying this book and I didn’t finish it all the first time. I’m much farther along now, and I’m glad for having tried it again and getting beyond my first effort. But not finishing a book twice seems wrong somehow.

And, yet, I have so many great books waiting to be opened. There are three on my nightstand. I have an entire bookcase, stuffed to overflowing, of other books waiting to be read. And, I’m sure, a good two dozen books waiting to display themselves as ones and zeroes on my Kindle app. The difficult part is always ‘What to read next?’

I just have to muddle through a few more chapters of the current monograph. (Notwithstanding a plodding style which, even for an academic project, leaves something to be desired, it is an insightful book.)

Anyway, it was a quiet day, and that was grand. Enjoyed a little football and took a nice long walk. Here are two pictures from our walk.

We did a bit over four miles. And here’s the barn.

None of the world’s problems were solved, maybe next time, but it was a nice walk.

And, now, we’re going to have our Thanksgiving dessert. (Cheesecake.)

adventures / Friday / IU / television / video — Comments Off on Giggles and risotto
20
Nov 20

Giggles and risotto

Quiet day at the office. I sent a few emails, dabbled in some spreadsheets, identified the upcoming tasks and walked some halls. That was about it. It was your typical Friday-before-a-holiday sort of feel. And I have some days off coming, so it was quite the quiet day.

Since we’ve wrapped our in-studio productions, these are some of the last few videos of the semester, notwithstanding things they may produce from afar.

So let’s start off with the late show, which was produced in Studio 5 on Tuesday. They’re bringing the funny:

And last night, in Studio 7, we wrapped it all up the same way we started the semester, sports!

And while you’re waiting on whatever your sports weekend has in store for you, check out my buddy Drew’s last show hosting The Toss Up. They’re talking women’s basketball, and IU’s basketball team promises to be a good one this year. And this show is one of the best of the year. It’s a good way for Drew to sign off:

We expect big things out of that guy, and we know he’s going to come through.

At the end of the day, it was oddly warm. Oddly still. It was 63 degrees and we were in the gloaming and back home it would have been time to watch the barometer. But I studied the forecast earlier in the day and nothing bad was coming our way. It was just … kind of pleasant.

So I did the daily decontamination procedure and went out to sit on the deck. We stayed out there, me trying my hardest to make her laugh, until it got good and dark, when it got nice and chilly.

And my staycation began, as it should, with giggles.

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →