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memories

family / memories / photo / weekend — Comments Off
25
Dec 16

Merry Christmas

I love coming to church here. My great-grandfather donated the land for the building. He and just about everybody else in my family has been a deacon or led the singing or preached or prayed over the congregation.

They’re all older now, but we’re all older now. Most of us, anyway, and this was one of the places where I learned about singing.

Yes, we brought Allie with us:

She’s an excellent traveler, and she’s feeling right at home at her grandhooman’s place. She will climb all over you to reach a piece of furniture that holds her interest.

And we went to visit my grandmother, too:

Merry Christmas to you and your family. Enjoy your time together and your traditions.

IU / journalism / memories / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
8
Nov 16

Election night coverage

Well, that was something.

Election night was a big deal in our new building on campus. We had live reports from the public television station, various political panels and all kinds of working student media. And, of course, on the big screen, we watched all of the national and international coverage. And at one point I looked up and I saw one of our students reporting on statewide television. That’s the young lady on the right:

She did a nice job, because she’s a talented reporter. We expect big things.

Elsewhere, the reporters at the IDS, the ridiculously successful campus newspaper, were planning tomorrow’s layout:

And in the newsroom they were waiting for numbers to roll in:

Meanwhile, over in a few of our production booths we had students doing a talk show on WIUX, the student radio station.

And of course my friends at IUS-TV had an election special tonight as well. You can see that right here:

The first election I covered, I was also in college. I wrote a story about the election of a new congressman — he would go on to become a two-term governor and when I interviewed him they were still whooping and hollering in the background — and a junior U.S. senator. That was a pretty great opportunity, and it set me off on a few great years of political news coverage. And me and my peers didn’t have the possibilities afforded to us to these young reporters. Imagine what they might do in the next 15 or 20 years.

memories / Wednesday — Comments Off
12
Oct 16

Huh

It is funny where things come to you. Some important thought once came to me in a dream. Once I had an important realization while driving up a little hill in a quaint downtown area, wondering if I would hit the green light above. I’ve had plenty of life’s little epiphanies while standing over a sink of one sort or another.

And now today. Today, I was cleaning out my phone a bit. I need the space, you see. So I’ve dumped a lot of things and I’ve removed all of the messages I can stand to delete and now I’m going through old texts with a few key correspondents. At this point I’m deleting the odd picture or two, but mostly reminiscing. You know how it is: sometimes you see a thing you’ve written and it brings back the flood of details that worked around the bits you wrote. I stumbled on a particular text and that prompted this:

I was sitting in an office when I typed that text. I was sitting in a different office when I found it again.

And it is funny where things come to you.

history / memories / photo / television / Thursday — Comments Off
5
Oct 16

Beam this up

There has been a Star Trek exhibit at one of the campus museums. As far as I can tell there might be 16 museums and galleries on this one campus. This was at Lilly, the acclaimed rare book library. The experts there house more than 400,000 books, more than seven million manuscripts, 100,000 pieces of sheet music and, right now, a small Star Trek exhibit.

Being the last few days, these were on display, I had to stop by.

Please note the date. This is a 1964 treatment of the original Trek, with Gene Rodenberry’s name across the top:

This means that staple has been in place for more than 52 years. Incredible.

Also, look at the example episode descriptions. Some seem familiar. Some read like obvious early drafts of old favorites. And one just might have been altogether forgotten, fortunately.

One of the classics, the Trouble With Tribbles, which was written by David Gerrold:

Side note, the tribble episode might be one of the last of the original series I ever managed to catch. Famous as it was, I never saw it on television.

This is from another classic episode, Amok Time, written by the great Theodore Sturgeon:

And, oh look, something like tri-ox is actually a medical reality now.

And just over from the the script for the famous third act sick bay scene was this handsome cover:

It was a small exhibit, and mostly script-based items of the above sort. But it was worth walking a few blocks on a warm autumn day to see. And, by the door, someone had filled a display case with action figures:

I’m pretty sure that they just wanted to show off their Gorn.

Friday / memories / photo / Pie Day / site — Comments Off
30
Sep 16

On the road

Saw this flier today. Well sure, I thought to myself:

I must say this: there are no lame cat fliers full of typos all over the bulletin boards here. That, in its own way, is just another small relief.

We are traveling this weekend, to Georgia. For a wedding. A wedding in the Deep South in the fall on a Saturday. Georgia and Tennessee are playing in a rivalry game. I don’t care about either team, of course, but given the locale of the wedding, it might come up among the many lovely guests.

Here’s my rule: If you think enough of me to invite me to your wedding, and it is on a fall Saturday, I will attend if I can. No football game would get in the way of that. I will also make fun of you about it throughout your wedded bliss.

So that’s what we’ll be doing tomorrow, which meant traveling today. Which meant the road, which meant dinner on the road which meant, in Nashville, Tennessee:

And today is Friday which means Friday is Pie Day:

Interesting tidbit, meanwhile, about Bloomington: You can’t get pie anywhere.