My morning was spent working on a few quixotic projects. Two of them involve depending on other people, and I can do little more than hope they come through. Some of them do, and you make do with the rest.
I’m also working on three Snapchat commercials. And there’s a sentence that would have made perfect sense to me 25 years ago when I decided to be an under-the-radar multimedia person. Except for the Snapchat part. No one would have had any appreciation of what that could be in 1997. Will anyone make any sense of it in 25 more?
Who knows! But we recruit people there, and so there is a cause to make 15 second commercials. Of course, in the shorter spots you’re asked to deliver the most. And do it in an age of widescreen everything, but on a medium that’s strictly a phone using a 9:16 aspect ratio.
Explain all of that to your 1997-self and your 1997-self would think they were dealing with someone who looked eerily like them, but older and with a blood sugar problem.
I took this picture just after noon.
And worked on this the rest of the day. There are six (SIX!) Pulitzer Prizes on this stage. I stopped counting the Peabody and Murrow and Emmy awards. It’s an embarrassment of riches.
There were two breaks between the three different segments of that symposium, and I cranked out social media, prepared for a Friday morning meeting and arranged an engineer for a future television production.
Left the office and did some followup work on it here at the house.
It was 10 hours, not counting the editing I did in my living room. Have you ever looked up the definition of “living room”? I haven’t, until just now. Here are two definitions.
So here we are, each typing on computers. Living room. Sounds about right.
Anyway, two simultaneous meetings and two studio sessions all taking place simultaneously, starting at 9 a.m. tomorrow. This silly week is going out in style.
A meeting started the morning. We discussed manually propelled water vessels. I spent much of the rest of the day writing and editing and re-writing, and also doing social media things.
Speaking of social media, which we weren’t doing at all, I decided to show off my own homemade bread!
I kid, of course. But since I had soup for lunch on Monday and Chick-fil-A takeout yesterday, it was back to the PB&J today. I thought if I made a bad homemade bread joke on Twitter I might someone game the algorithm.
Alas, the algorithm was on to me. Should have used more yeast for my sourdough.
Thankfully the sandwich held up until I could eat it at 1:30. That seems outlandish, but I didn’t have my breakfast Nutri-Grain bar until after 11. There’s a lot of rowing — meetings and doorway meetings and many emails and phone calls — to be done, you see.
I did step outside for 45 seconds to see people are more aware of sunlight than florescent light.
They are in a field production class, and I hope they got it in before the sun set on them. They were facing the west, after all.
To the studio!
Hey look! @iustvsports is in … Los Angeles … maybe? … and @tylercmart is telling us about the Hoosiers in the Super Bowl.
They were shooting sports tonight. And outside the studio I ran into Olivia Ray, one of our alumni. She works in Indianapolis now as a sports reporter there. Graduated here five years ago and is now teaching a class. I remember critiquing her senior-year demo reel my first y ear here.
Time flies.
She met with some of today’s students, serendipitously a sports shoot. And while those shows will start to appear online tomorrow, I can show you the news shows their peers shot last night.
Everyone going the same direction here?
And now it’s pop culture time.
When it was all over my day clocked in at 10 hours and 50 minutes, but only because there wasn’t 10 more minutes of work to do today.
And another 10-plus-hour long day of rowing tomorrow, too. So dinner, dishes and bed again this eve —
Oh, I forgot to check on something last night and so I did that after the dishes and, sort of wished I hadn’t. There’s a small water problem in the bike room. So we moved out the bikes, pulled up the mats and the workout mats beneath them. After careful examination, it seems that it isn’t a leak, nor does it does it seem to be something soaking in from outside. Finally some good news. It’s an exercise or a spill problem.
So we moved out the bikes, pulled up the mats and the workout mats beneath them and will try to dry it out overnight. Lots of scrubbing and fans, basically.
I don’t usually see this view, that time of morning, on the mornings when I’m up at that time of the morning.
Of course you wouldn’t see this. That time of day the sun doesn’t enter the house this way. The light was coming from across the way, from a parked car’s headlights. And I was up that early yesterday morning for this view.
Not really, but that was a nice perk. I had a doctor’s appointment. It was time to meet a new doctor! Each of the last three regular doctors I had all promptly left. One retired. One got out of the business entirely, the third moved out of town. I assure you, it was me. So I hoped the new person has put down roots and was in the middle of her career.
I didn’t like her very much. People always say this about their doctors. I like her, I don’t care for him. Whatever. It’s not a social thing. I’m sure if I had the occasion to visit with my mechanic we might have different interests. He probably wouldn’t like me, either. But the mechanic is good at his job, hopefully I’m decent at mine and we all hope the doctors know what they’re doing.
She decided to tell me all of the things to do correctly without ascertaining what I might be doing wrong. Which is a good way to get people to pay attention to you.
Anyway, it was a get-to-know you appointment. And we spent about 20 minutes together. I’ll probably wind up moving over to another doctor in the practice when he gets slots available. Maybe I’ll like him!
Afterward it was downstairs for a blood draw. They’ll do tests to tell me I’m in good health, generally, but could be better if I watch my this or that. My general good fortune is not lost on me.
Nearby was a bike shop, and I also need a new bike shop. Today I needed new bike shoes. So I met a guy who’s forgot more than I’ll ever know and has probably made up more than I’ve yet to learn. And he sold me these early model Specialized Torches.
I got back at lunch time, decided to have a bowl of soup for lunch, I figured, if you have the opportunity to enjoy two warm lunches in one work-week, you jump on it.
Worked the second half of the day, and then came home to try those new shoes.
Couldn’t try those new shoes. Because, somehow, the cleats and the pedals aren’t working. Oh, I tried for a while, got frustrated and then went upstairs, ordered new cleats and, thinking of the rest of the week ahead, called it an early night. The new ones will arrive in the middle of the week, just in time for me to use them next weekend.
That was yesterday. Today I was in the office early to give a tour. Not my normal job, but sometimes it falls to me, and this one fell to me late the night before. This tour made me late for a meeting, which concluded so that many of the same participants could have another meeting.
In the afternoon I had two more meetings stacked on top of one another. The first was brief and productive. The second was long and creative and, hopefully, productive.
And, this evening, it was time to go to the studio. Two news shows tonight. They’ll be online tomorrow, or soon after. But, for now, I can catch you up on stuff the sports gang shot last week.
Here are the highlights!
And here’s a talk show about the Winter Olympics.
These shows seem like a long time ago. I blame the snow. And that they produced them six days ago. I kept for forgetting to share them here with the second half of the week being so disjointed. Again, the snow.
Anyway, it was an 11-and-a-half hour today. And another long one tomorrow. So, tonight it’s dinner, dishes and bed. Probably in that order.
The weather will start coming down in a bit. The forecast has solidified. We stand to get anywhere from three to nine inches of snow and a few quarts of ice. All of the local hardware stores are out of zambonis. Supply line problems, you understand.
All the hula hoops and bathing suits you want. Not a blowtorch can be found. Also, no crackers.
I could go for a good blowtorch just now. Probably be useful for the driveway tomorrow.
This was the view this morning. Grey, foreboding, and not just because we’d grimly stared at this forecast for the last four days.
For whatever reason, just before I ducked into the studio for the evening, the sky was this curious lapis blue.
We’ll all be asleep when it turns. It’s rained all day. As of this writing, temperatures have now dipped to just below freezing and will continue to fall for a few days.
The local school district announced yesterday that they would go virtual for the rest of the week. (And I heard some stories today about how that’s going over with parents, who of course now must make make all sorts of adjustments.) The county closed all of their offices around midday today. Just before 9 p.m. tonight the university announced that campus would stay open, but classes and work would be done virtually tomorrow. One assumes people in the particular office that makes the weather adjustment announcements were also out stocking up on salt and shovels, hence the late decision. Winter weather is a fickle thing and can be notoriously difficult to forecast (at least back home), but again, the National Weather Service sent up signal flares on Saturday and Sunday. I’d already staked out my WFH status. But late word was … reassuring? Is that the word there?
At that point I’m not sure if it mattered. People had made up their minds. Dear friends, we live in the county. They don’t plow out here — well, the roads anyway — and I simply will not tempt fate when ice is in the conversation. From 2021:
Hand it to the boys from the city. Two of their trucks have gone down the road in front of us, plows disengaged, so they can get to the walking path behind us and … plow it.
And that path will be cleaner than any road in the city, guaranteed.
I’m sure plowing an entire city is a challenging task — ots of roads, traffic, changing conditions — but I’ve been assured it is a thing some places achieve.
Maybe it comes down to limited resources. Decisions have to be made, and none of them are about you. Or me! That road in the old tweet above? That’s a four lane highway through the heart of local commerce and the city’s growth pattern.
Tonight the sports crew was in to produce shows about … sudoku puzzles. Fire extinguishers? Ice dispersal? No, sports. I think it was the later, actually.
They’re doing a weekly feature this month they’re calling Historic Hoosiers to coincide with Black History Month.
And they are starting with one of the true greats.
For Black History Month @iustvsports is doing a Historic Hoosiers feature. This week they highlight George Taliaferro.
I told everyone in the studio: football is the LEAST of what the legendary Taliaferro was and they owe it to themselves to learn more and search him on YouTube. pic.twitter.com/9U4tI7HCPg
I tell anyone within earshot about George Taliaferro. And I was talking about him in breaks tonight. They’re all too young to remember him, of course. And, indeed, some of the younger members of IUSTV weren’t even on campus when he passed away in 2018. But they all need to know him. I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to hear his story. I never met him, unfortunately, but there are a lot of really great videos online about him, and I hope they seek him out. His football was impressive, but truly the least important thing about him. We should probably remind ourselves about that of every athlete. I’ll say it about Taliaferro until everyone around here knows his story. Which means I’ll say that about him for as long as I’m here.
And if you’re getting weather, watch these videos on George Taliaferro yourself.
Here, he is telling his story to school children, which he did over and over. And you’ll see why that’s important in just a moment.
The sports shows they produced tonight will be up tomorrow. I’ll put them here. Until then, you can watch the news shows the news folks did last night.
This just needs to be longer, and have more stories and packages in it, really.
And here’s the pop culture show. Did you know all of these things? I did not. Pop culture might be leaving me behind. Maybe this is the year.
“The year” was actually several years ago. But I’m faking my way through it.
Anyway, they wrapped just as the temperatures hovered at 31 and 32. I walked out of the building and toward the car in a fine sleet.
I drove slowly to the house. And arrived safely with a nice peaceful feeling. Everyone is where they should be, and we don’t have to worry about tomorrow. Full day tomorrow, but at least it will be from home.
Good thing I bought a new office chair last month! And thanks to my mother for that.
The daily duds: The last one of these. And this is a good one to retire it on. It was new tie Wednesday. And new pocket square Wednesday. The latter was a Christmas gift from my in-laws.
Welcome to the pivotal month. It’s starting out cold, it’ll be cold throughout, and it’ll end that way. But the length of it is perfect, reminding us that all of this will end, eventually. (And in just 10 or 12 more weeks the earth will have shifted enough to feel a little warmth from the sun.) Halfway through the month, we’ll be halfway through it all.
I don’t believe in groundhogs, because they didn’t go to meteorology school. Besides, historical observation and the most rudimentary understanding of planetary science, atmospheric science, oceanography and hydrology, tells me all I need to know. It’s a long way off, spring, but it seems important to stay positive on the first day of the month.
It’s also an honest month, but that’s someone else’s line.
It’s even in the skies! Positivity!
Which means a lot after the Friday snows, and this week’s forecast. There will be snow. And also ice. Since Sunday the weather forecasts have been saying “We’re not saying how bad it’s going to be, but it’s going to be bad. We’ll tell you later, sure, but go ahead and buy a bunch of batteries and bunch of french toast supplies.”
They were talking about up to 10 inches of snow, and a few inches of ice. We’ll see what becomes of it, Wednesday night and Thursday morning, but they’re refining those projections down a bit.
I need to catch you up on television. I remembered that tonight while we were in the television studio.
Here’s a sports show all about swimming and diving.
Here’s a morning show!
And here’s a show dissecting a short film. (It’s also a show about prepositions.)
Those shows will be online tomorrow and, well, you know the drill by now.
The daily duds: This feature wraps up tomorrow, because it hasn’t proved useful or entertaining in any way. But, hey, tonight it was top-ranked Auburn hosting rival Alabama, so I had to break out the orange and blue.
Auburn won, by quite a bit. Must be the neckwear. And, for those guys, it’s one game closer to the really critical month.
