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cycling / IU / memories / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
13
Jan 22

Read along as I talk myself into something in less than 100 words

Today I start feeling the impression that I’m beginning to wrap my arms around a new project at work. I’ve been working at it for a few days now, so that’s good timing. We’re also bringing two new studios online. And everything is up in the air with Covid.

And we haven’t even got the IUSTV folks back into their productions yet. They’ll start next week, 50-plus days in various studios and 80-or-more shows and a handful of podcasts and all of the live sports and … I probably shouldn’t be this tired in mid-January. I should definitely be this excited.

I also left the office mostly on time today, which was great, because I got to the house and hopped on the bicycle.

Here is my avatar riding underwater.

And look! I’ve never noticed this mountain in the background before. That’s not where we were headed today, but I have been thinking about going uphill, so that was a nice view.

Since I mentioned riding through the volcano in Watopia earlier this week, I figured I should do that again, and actually get a photo.

I set a new PR on the volcano climb, despite getting distracted, losing my rhythm and falling apart in the last 100 meters before the top of the climb.

At the end of each ride you get a little wattage report. They compare your best output over five seconds, one minute, five minutes and 20 minutes to your all time bests. In the five and 20 minute segments this was one of my better rides.

And now I want to start doing laps up the volcano. And returning to the bigger ascents on Zwift.

But first I need to upgrade my bike shoes. My dear sweet old, cheap, Bonties — pictured here when they were still almost new — are starting to hurt my feet.

More than six years and many thousands of miles. Suddenly I don’t feel so bad about that.

My feet do, though.

OK, this weekend: shoe shopping!

cycling / IU / television / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
15
Dec 21

The seasonal wind down

It’s funny how things sink in. The how and the when and then, just, the act of sinking in. It’s great imagery, you take a photograph of a memory or a great big block of text sliding into the brain matter. Finally! That thing sunk in!

Or, for some, it could come another way. That polaroid or life video on a short, endless loop, or that great big block of text, could collide with a domicile. I imagine it’s flying in from the left, with squiggles denoting speed, slamming into the side of a cartoon house. Hey! That really hit home!

Anyway, it just now hit home that I’ve been writing in this space for 18-plus years. I had to scroll through all of those Decembers in my FTP program to get to *checks notes* 2021, so I could upload this graphic.

That’s my ride this evening, a quick 20 miles over a fictional place in Zwift. And with this ride 2021 moved into the second place in the last 11 years for miles pedaled. Last year has, and will likely hold with ease, the top spot. All of this is pretty remarkable because, these last few years, I seem to be riding slower. It takes longer to go farther.

It takes dedication to go farther when it takes longer, he said, thinking it meant something more than it did.

This is the last production of the fall semester for IUSTV. It’s Behind The Curtain, one of the many new shows the students rolled out this term. They show a student video or, as in this case, an actual film project, and then talk to the creators.

This term they garnered well more than 80,000 impressions and almost 13,000 views of 81 new episodes of original, scripted, entirely student-produced programming. This does not count the many podcasts or social media hits of all different sorts on at least four different platforms.

Oh, and this is something of a rebuilding year, so we’re just getting started.

How do you feel about documentaries about comedians? The producer of this project is an IU professor. I’ve watched a long trailer, which was good enough to make me want to watch the full thing. (Which I will get around to in the next week or so.) And if you like comedians, you might like this, too.

I’ve lined up an interview with the producer of this project for after the first of the year. She’s got a book chapter in a new book that’s considering comedians as public intellectuals. Should we go for thoughtful, then, or punchlines? And why can’t I do both, simultaneously?

I also have three other shows in the can that I simply need to edit. Good shows, but not about comedians. That’ll be part of a day after the first of the year.

But that’s after the holidays, which I am officially on starting … a few hours ago.

So you know what that means. Two weeks of fun!

IU / Monday / photo / television / video — Comments Off
14
Dec 21

Alright Monday, let’s do this!

All caught up? Or just getting behind? That’s always the question of Mondays. And Fridays. And probably most of the days in between. And at the holidays, well, if you ask that question you’re just asking for trouble, bub.

You know, over Instagram, I’ve been noting the skies … this weekend we had some rather delightful surprises. This was the view on Saturday evening.

And Sunday morning was simply brilliant.

Last night gave us some interesting colors, as well.

Today? Also bright and blue. And warmer than you might expect for December. All it took was a light jacket. Now, if it stays more or less like this through March I would not complain at all. I fear we will have less of the more, and more of the less.

Winter makes a boy a bit sardonic, I guess.

We didn’t check in on the cats last week because of the hustle and the bustle. We must fix that! Kitties, and my site traffic, demands it! So, here’s Poseidon, getting wacky with his taco toy.

And here is Phoebe, not judging him at all for it.

She’s totally judging him for it. We all do.

This is something like a three-episode arc now, I can appreciate the effort that went into that. If you want to know where it is going next, you’re just going to have to watch.

That’s the late night crew, which shoots in the late evening. And this is the morning show, which shoots … in the morning. (Sorry.)

Which means there’s should be just one more show to share for the semester. They do go so fast.

He said, about Mondays in December.

We put up two Christmas trees. Well, four if you count the exterior sentry trees. No ornaments anywhere, just lights, because of the cats. We thought about soft ornaments for a moment, until we looked around at all of their toys on the floor. That, we decided, would be confusing for everyone. So a lot of lights. And the shine nicely.

Except one of the trees had a strand with a problem and the top third of the tree was unlit. For a few days I thought we should say it’s a regional tradition. This evening, however, I decided to try to solve the mystery of modern electricity.

We didn’t check the lights before hanging them on the tree, you see, so the thing had to be unwound and on and on. Ultimately, I just decided to find some more lights, so I climbed into the attic and found a great big ball of lights, which commenced the great trials known to all who hang Christmas lights.

Some 25 minutes later the knot was undone, and in the meantime I’d brainstormed two new ways to store lights that wouldn’t avoid tangles, wondered how weird it’d really look in May if I left the trees up year-round, and also just thought about buying new lights every year.

Christmas lights, I figured, have to be near the height of American consumerism.

When I got the extra lights untangled I found that both ends refused to light, but the middle was delightful. I pulled five bulbs from the old set and got the whole thing to shine. We strung those lights, not with care, but in a haphazard fashion.

There’s not a bright resolution to this little story, but now I have this other long string of lights, some of which work. And I wonder if I should just pull all the bulbs out and save them for the future, or find out how many on that string need replacing.

I could always look on Pinterest for ideas about using half a string of lights.

Yep. There are posts about that. You might say they are … enlightening.

adventures / Friday / IU / memories / photo / television / video — Comments Off
10
Dec 21

Some things to get you to the weekend

More Savannah stuff! The last of the Savannah stuff! It’d be bad form to try to make you jealous for more than a few days, I’ve decided. And since we got back on Tuesday, I’m sure I’ve worked through those days, and your patience! At the same time, I took a lot of pictures.

This is from Byrd’s Cookies.

And not far away, this is where people buy all of that shade they keep throwing on people.

And, if you need to upgrade your floors while you’re at it, then it’s one-stop shopping.

To me, Savannah will always be about the beautiful buildings — among other things. And, one of those things are the trees! Look at this beautiful nature-is-amazing moment!

And this one is in Chippewa Square.

If all of those old oaks could talk … they’d probably ask, “Where does this Spanish moss come from, anyway?”

(Wind and birds, mostly.)

Back here in the regular world, I spent almost the full day in the studio. First there was the morning show, which will be online next Monday. And then there was a big game design video program. All of the students that work on video games pitch their projects to industry professionals. It’s a four camera, two location, three Zoom shoot. (It just grows and grows, each year, this thing.)

For whatever reason, it has been decided to just put programs like this on Zoom, which means you’d need the link, which means you’d a.) need to know about it beforehand, and b.) have the ability to watch it live. So I can’t show you the live show we produced this afternoon, but it was a good one.

All of the students presenting did a nice job. Some of the games were simply incredible, even in their current form. One of them, it looked like the experts wanted to buy right there during the presentation. And you could see why. It was different, had a pleasing, soothing pace and was absolutely gorgeous.

I had two students playing the role of Ryan Seacrest and Carson Daly. We were doing entrance and exit standups as the design teams went into the studio. I didn’t get any photos of this because I was working, but take my word for it, they did a really fine job. Everyone was complimentary of their efforts, and we were all quite proud of how they kept the program moving along.

So that was about seven hours of my day, studio stuff. And here are some other studio things I haven’t yet shared here.

A sports show! This one is a little different, it has a different feel and a bit of spunk. I like where they are going with this.

We talked, on Wednesday, about the last show of two of our graduating seniors. Here is that show.

And one more sports show, another talker, where they are unpacking the Major League Baseball lockout. The short version seems to be: If it can be messed up, baseball will mess it up.

adventures / IU / memories / photo / television / Thursday / video — Comments Off
9
Dec 21

Look at this lovely sign, and all of these fun videos

The question isn’t “Can he pad out a full weekend from his short trip?” The question is “How long should he do it for?”

I think at this rate I could drag it out another three or four days, but we’ll wrap it up tomorrow. Wouldn’t want to be too showy, right?

We walk by this theater every time we visit Savannah. I really do enjoy their signage. And as we walked by in the daytime early in this recent trip I said I’d like to see it again at night.

On the last evening of our trip we made a special walk back over that way. It’s nice when you can accomplish some of your humbler goals.

Oh, did you notice the snowman in the box office in the first photo? I think he’s there every year.

Did I shoot video of all the blinking lights? Of course I did! Do I have something planned for it?

Not yet! But eventually!

Meanwhile, here on campus, it is time to catch up on all the videos we’ve missed in the last week or so. There are quite a few, so settle in. And, no they won’t all be for you, but there is something for most everyone here. Allow me to interest you in one or two.

This is a sports talk show, and they’re breaking down the end of the regular season of college football. This was a really enjoyable show.

More sports! This is the show that starts at the radio station. Here they are talking about Indiana football and basketball. After they do it live on radio, they take the cameras down and put the footage up.

The late night show goes full holiday! And partial Grinch. And there’s an important post-credit scene, so you’ll want to stick with it.

Speaking of the holidays, it’s time to decorate gingerbread houses. And you can get present-shopping tips from the morning show crew:

Behind the Curtain looks at a new student film. Yes, an honest-to-goodness film. Some people are still shooting on that. As I am not an expert I assume the reason has to do with “artistic choice.” But there’s much more here on all of that.

And here’s the news show I watched on Tuesday night. I mentioned that our meteorologist signed off here. She’s been with the show since her freshman year, but now she’s graduating. A senior at the green screen, but a freshman at the desk. The circle is also revolving. And, because it’s a news show, there’s a lot of news here.

Time for the haps and pop culture … haps …

Remember, Tuesday, when I told you about the all female a capella group, Ladies First? They sang two songs on this show. And there’s a nice interview with a few of the members of the group, as well.

That show has done a good job of varying up their guests and that’s a nice little feather in their cap. This semester they’ve also had an Olympic silver medalist Andrew Capobianco, a student from the university’s Latino Cultural Center, the student government president, local mask makers, and more. They’ve also shot all kinds of people-on-the-street pieces and lots of studio fun. They’re always hustling, which is a lesson that serves us all well.

And that’ll do for now.

Tomorrow, we’ll be freshening up the front page of the website. And there will be a few other things to help point us to the weekend. Be sure to stop back by!