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books / collarbone / IU / Monday / photo — Comments Off on Back to work
3
Oct 22

Back to work

Back to work today. Catching up on meetings and the things I couldn’t do while working from home last week. Some things are virtual, some things you just need to be there. Fortunately, everyone has been understanding and most gracious with my absence last week. Family comes first, and that’s a nice perk.

I’ve worked places where that wasn’t the case.

I’d say this has been a great chance to slow down, except that everything seems to have sped up. But on Friday The Yankee’s mom came to town to see about her daughter and help out. That was a big morale boost. And this weekend she worked through those early days of surgical recovery. She’s also a week-on from the big crash, and so, on balance, she’s starting to move better.

On Sunday afternoon we all even took a walk.

When I got to the office I saw that the Poplars Building, which we’ve been documenting in this space since August, is now all gone.

They took that second half in a week. But you should see all the rubble that’s out of our view there. Maybe we can take a look at that this week.

Also, the leaves have started turning. Something about them seems off this year. Subdued somehow. Maybe I just caught it in poor light at the wrong time of day, and early in the turn.

There will be a few more days of opportunity to poorly demonstrate the leaf turn. I’m sure I’ll try.

I started, oh, almost two weeks ago now, reading Andrew Ritchie‘s Major Taylor: The Extraordinary Career of a Champion Bicycle Racer. I’m about 20 percent of the way through it now, but the beginning sets the stage. Late-19th century, a young black man rides a bicycle as well as anyone at the peak of American interest in cycling, both as a pastime, but also the sport.

“The fastest humans on earth.” Crazy, but it’s worth reminding ourselves to think in those terms.

Taylor was from Indianapolis, he’d moved with a mentor/employer to Massachusetts, and he’d signed with the League of American Wheelmen, the sport’s governing body of the time. He was 17 or 18 here.

Within the next year he’d be a world champion, and a world record holder.

He was, in fact, the first African-American world champion, of any sport. He died nearly penniless. He’s been all but forgotten outside of his adopted Worcester, Massachusetts, and some vibrant-and-growing cycling groups. Major Taylor will have a renaissance, you can just put your ear to the wind and feel it coming, on your left. His is an intriguing story.

Instagram / IU / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on And, most importantly, no one got hurt
20
Sep 22

And, most importantly, no one got hurt

Saw this car this morning. I believe it is as MG TD. I don’t know, but a cursory examination of the interwebz leads me to believe this may be a circa 1953 MG T-type.

I drove in this morning, parked near this car and figured I’d never see it again. But it was there when I left this evening, because I left earlier than I’d anticipated.

At a glance, you can tell that the owner is proud of this vehicle and, I assume, is happy to have people notice it. I wonder how often it sees the road. Perfect weather day for it today, but you surely pick your spots with a classic, right?

The MG people produced 30,000 TDs over three or four years in the UK. Some 23,000 of them were shipped to the US. You can buy one today ranging from $17,000 to $32,000.

And, yes, if you have a MG, you get an MG hat and you wear the MG hat.

But why did I leave earlier than I’d anticipated today? Excellent question.

After they closed the building for the day I worked elsewhere. And I got to go home at the regular time, rather than after watching the news — which they did outdoors this evening, which was impressive.

So we went to the lake, and floated on tubes into the early evening.

Fine way to spend a Tuesday.

IU / Monday / photo — Comments Off on Would you rather think on time or dragonflies?
12
Sep 22

Would you rather think on time or dragonflies?

Back to work today after a needed break. Took the week off. Oh, time. The sort of thing that you take when you need, and look forward to until you can take again. That sounds like I already miss the pool — and I do! — but I also miss not hearing an alarm in the morning. It’s the simple things, really, that are the most demanding work. Like waking up on time.

I’m already trying to plan my next off days. And presently there’s nothing on my calendar until November. That seems like an oversight. Seems like a long time.

It’ll take a few days to catch up at work, or an hour or two. It is all in the timing. So I rode my bicycle to work, and I made a new friend by the back door. This is a green darner (Anax junius) which is the most common dragonfly in North America. And I can tell you this guy, it is a male based on the coloring, has a different way of thinking about time than we do.

Wikipedia says you can find this in Mexico, Panama, the Caribbean, Tahiti, Japan and mainland China. (Spare a moment to think of the entomologists who have to collect and process this sort of information. Someone, perhaps several someones, have made this little guy their last work.) Apparently they are sometimes found in other places, too. It is believed strong winds can send them off their natural migratory courses. (Every once in a while that entomologist breaks out, and updates, the dragonfly map. What a Wednesday that must be.)

It is also the official insect of the state of Washington.

And those eyes will follow you everywhere. (That is actually the forehead.)

The more I studied it, the more I marveled at the bioengineering at play. And then I googled the darner’s lifespan. Seems like a great waste. That’s an awful lot of work for a creature that typically lives four to seven weeks.

But aren’t we all?

Somehow, after a week away, I thought that I would miss something at the old Poplars Building. The destruction has been going on — or not, as is sometimes the case — since the beginning of August. But, from our vantage point, it looks like they haven’t done anything since the beginning of September.

Not all work is visible, though, and that’s OK, too.

The good news is we didn’t miss out on whatever is in that central bit. I’m hoping it is cream-filled, or an easily torn-down elevator shaft. Or, perhaps, filled with dragonflies.

We didn’t run the site’s most popular feature last week, so we’re sorely overdue. Without dragging this out any further, let’s check on the kitties.

This very morning, Phoebe was sitting all casual-like by the bannister.

I’m always more interested in why they sit in the random places they do, than the random hijinks they get into. What made that quiet, semi-shaded spot the place to be this morning. On the other hand, I know why Poseidon got in this bag. It is in his nature.

Hilariously flailing away at getting out of the bag is also in his nature.

And here’s the rare shot of the two of them sitting together. Sorta.

They almost looked in the same direction at the same time. Almost. That takes a lot of time, too.

IU / music / photo / Thursday / video — Comments Off on ‘Oh, snap! Guess what I saw?’
2
Sep 22

‘Oh, snap! Guess what I saw?’

Welcome to September. Like you, I have no idea how this happened, or how it occurred so quickly.

Today I taught someone a foundational trick of a technology that’s now more than 30 years old. Happy to do it. It makes me rework the analogies I use. If you, for example, haven’t figured out how to do a basic thing that’s existed during the entirety of your professional career, I need to find a frame reference you might understand.

So remember when Chevy Chase …

Otherwise, this whole thing is hopeless.

An equally impressive highlight of my day was going up one floor to get a remote control, and then taking that remote and its DVD player to someone else a few floors away.

Just kidding. The real highlight of the day, maybe the week, was lunch. I walked down to Chipotle and ordered some takeout. This was the second lunch I’ve purchased during the work week since February or March of 2020. I figured a day or two of something other than a peanut butter sandwich will make the return to peanut butter and bread seem all the more exotic again.

If you are what you eat, I am destined to become a big smear of peanuts.

In other work miscellany, the next time I will show you progress on the removal of the nearby Poplars Building I expect will look a lot different than this. This has been the story since Monday.

They’ve been working on the rubble, and some of the lower part of the building obscured from our vantage point. But I bet they won’t be doing anything tomorrow. It’s a three-day weekend, of course, meaning everyone is making it a four-day weekend.

Let’s jump back in time to Monday night, when we caught the Barenaked Ladies show in Cincinnati. On Monday, in this space, I shared a bit of the opening act from Toad the Wet Sprocket. If you were here on Tuesday you saw a brief bit of the brief feature performance from the Gin Blossoms. Yesterday there was a bit of classic BNL. And here’s a bit more from the 2018 inductees of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

This is “Man Made Lake,” from last year’s Detour De Force. The drummer, Tyler Stewart, says:

it is an allusion for drowning in man’s creations, as opposed to losing yourself in nature, which is often very therapeutic.

I think that it’s a very raw vocal, very personal and up-close. It’s the first song that we recorded for the album, and I think it really set the tone for those acoustic sessions, and obviously, it’s a standout on the record.

And that’s all well and good, but there’s just something about that simple bass drum that haunts the whole song. It’s a curious, and telling, heartbeat, if you will.

Detour De Force, their 13th studio album, was produced just before the pandemic began, and later that same summer, is the album this tour was meant to support. So just imagine, right about here, three or four paragraphs of navel gazing about how the pandemic impacted the arts.

This is from the song “Looking Up,” off 2017’s Fake Nudes. It’s a live show song, I think, a bridge between one mood and another in a concert. And this is the only interesting part in a song of saccharine pablum.

The big finish is a cover medley. There’s some instrumentation changes, some Led Zeppelin, Devo, a web meme and a nod to the late, great Biz Markie. And we always celebrate Biz Markie.

Tomorrow, the encore!

cycling / IU / music / Twitter / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Pedaled downtown it was great, 8:30 on a Wednesday night
31
Aug 22

Pedaled downtown it was great, 8:30 on a Wednesday night

I am running out of ways to vamp for this demolition project. No big updates on the Poplars Building today. It is amusing, a few people on social media have marked the occasion — one gentleman flew his drone over it — but no one is lamenting the building. One of the best, and kindest mentions, is from what’s left of the local paper, which called it “a city landmark with countless, shifting identities.”

Now they’re just shifting rubble.

The saddest part of all of this, truly, is what’s happening to the local paper, which has never been in that building, but it is similarly being pulled apart.

Anyway.

The late nights begin again for me. It was a 6 p.m. production, which wrapped at 8 p.m. today. One production and two shows down, 41 shoots and 72 shows to go.

I’m exhausted already.

But I did get a nice evening view of the sun streaming into the building at one point.

We wrapped everything up and I rode my bike back to the house in the last bit of the daylight. There was less traffic, meaning I got to go faster, and I did the whole trip — including three stop signs, six red-light intersections, a roundabout and a left turn — without putting a foot on the ground.

I’ve done that three times now, so I need a new goal. Please submit your ideas.

Time for a few more songs from the Monday night rock ‘n’ roll show. The headliner was Barenaked Ladies, and because they were the main attraction I’m stretching this content a few more days.

This song, Enid, is 30 years old. And the band genuinely looks like they still enjoy this one. Huge hit in Canada.

It was their second single, and off their debut album. Their first single was a cover of a Bruce Cockburn classic. That same year, and also from their debut album, they released Brian Wilson. Here’s the beginning and end of that Monday night performance, because I enjoy the search for a coherent mesh point.

Brian Wilson covered that song, by the way. How cool is that?

More music, and perhaps some other interesting stuff tomorrow.

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