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29
Mar 23

People I know earn well-deserved awards

Here’s a little something I put on LinkedIn, which I basically use to occasionally brag on people I know. For whatever reason, I get more “engagement” on LinkedIn than any of the social media platforms. Which is great, since I just brag on people I know. Anyway, time to highlight on the award-winning IUSTV folks once again.

I counted and this year’s batch makes 73 IU student awards and honors that I’ve had the privilege to work with. We’re quickly running out of wall space for plaques ~~mostly because we refuse to give any of the individual awards to the individuals~~ because of the terrific talent I am fortunate to work with from time-to-time.

And because the days are (thankfully) getting longer I was able to catch a bit of the sunset after watching the award-winning sports division produce two shows tonight.

We’re in the Almost Spring now, a welcome arrival after — I guess I can say it now — a mild winter. Spring finally arrives in 22 days.

I believe I am still five CDs behind in writing about the Re-Listening project. But, today, we’re going to quickly get two discs closer to catching up. It’s a car experience, playing the discs in the order in which I acquired them, and then writing a bit about them here. Since I’m behind, it’s a scant bit. Which actually works out for this particular stretch of music.

Take this one, for example, one of the dozen or so Marvin Gaye greatest hits records. This one was released on the Motown label in 1976 on LP and then in 1987 on CD. I picked this up in 1997, because everyone needs a little Marvin Gaye in as many formats as possible. As true a statement then, as it is today.

It is as perfect as you would imagine. The first eight songs make the best part of the argument of why there are so many compilation releases:

Let’s Get It On
I Want You
How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)
I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
What’s Going On
After the Dance
Can I Get a Witness

I’m barely equipped to go on at length about Marvin Gaye, and there’s not a lot of new things to be said about a musical genius at this point, anyway. But, as I listened to this disc I found myself wondering, a lot, about how even the greats can transcend time. Marvin Gaye died young, of course, and he died while I was young. Generationally, I came about his music almost secondhand. Today, it’s been almost four decades since he was killed. What do young people today know about Marvin Gaye? You look at the first eight songs there and think some of those are just downloaded into the brain naturally, surely as oxygen or evolution. Which brings us to the ninth track.

“Trouble Man” was in the MCU, you say. Surely it was.

A decade ago now. Time marches on, but the music of the masters really ought to be immortal.

This is the last track on the CD. An argument could be made that this is the greatest live recording ever. I would not dismiss the argument.

I don’t know, yet, what the consensus best live recording is, but that’s on the list. It’s a 1974 recording in Oakland and that crowd made the thing work in some special ways.

The other CD we’re featuring in the Re-Listening project today marks the beginning of jazz albums in my collection. (I’d reached the point where I realized I needed some jazz. What of it?) I have no recollection of how or why I picked up the Holly Cole Trio in particular, but listening through this thing in the last few days, I do wonder why. And, also, why are we ruining The Jungle Book, right off the bat?

Lyle Lovett wrote this song. Sounds like a soundtrack tune.

I’m glad I didn’t give up entirely on this one, though. This song has some sass, at least. Which, hey, it’s a Fats Waller classic.

I thought, at first, I was being trolled on the last track.

And this, I think, is why I don’t have any memories associated with this CD. I decided, early on, I wasn’t going to listen to this one a lot.

I did 16 slow miles this morning. Felt slow, anyway.

But, still, three new Strava segment PRs, including two on climbs. (I am not a climber.) I took 3:24 off my best time on one of the little climbs today. Good legs, even if it felt slow.

The 2023 Zwift route tracker: 88 routes down, 41 to go.

cycling / site / Thursday — Comments Off
2
Mar 23

‘It may be a commodity to me, but something else to you’

No one wants to read other people’s dreams. But, here’s the thing, I seldom remember any dreams I have. They may as well not even take place. And when I do remember them, or are aware of them, they only rattle around in my brain for just a minute or two.

Sometimes you try to hang onto them, pull more strands together, tie in details and tidbits to make a more coherent whole. Then the mental quicksand kicks in. The more you pull, the salient points move farther apart. And what was context when your eyes were first trying to focus is just a yellowish blur later in the day.

Or is that just me?

I woke up this morning from a dream where my grandmother was correcting me on the finer points of commodities and commodification. She was using bolts of cloth as her widget. She was explaining the error in something I’d said.

She was a rural homemaker, my grandmother, a textile worker. She quoted a first century Syrian poet in her high school yearbook. That’s one of those things I only learned about her later in her life and, now, I wish I had asked her more about it.

She was attuned to world events, always read the paper, watched the news twice a day. My grandmother watched the A-block on one channel and the B-block on another. I talk to students about broad consumption and critical media analysis, and that’s basically what my grandmother did. She knew which station was best at this and that, and she found a system that worked for her, out there on the gravel road. She knew some stuff.

As for the dream, I don’t know how old or educated (I only have a minor in economics) I was, but I spent a few moments looking through some research this morning to see how accurate our “chat” was.

Turns out — having glanced at some of the sociological anthropological work of Peter Ekeh, Bruce Kapferer and Igor Kopytoff — that, in the dream, my grandmother was perhaps trying to make a point about the commoditization of goods.

The title of this post is basically what she told me in the dream. It’s a pretty incredible paraphrase of Kopytoff who, to my recollection, I haven’t read before.

Also, it appears that she was right, and dream-me was mistaken.

What a real delight some dreams can be.

What a delight!

Regretfully, I forgot to do this yesterday, but here’s the updated cycling chart through February. I know you felt like something was missing here, too. But, after thinking about it most of the evening, did you realize, when you were setting out your things for the next day, that what was missing was an obscenely oversized graphic?

This is what happens when you set up site rules for photographs, so you can deliver nice images in a consistent style, but didn’t think you might one day run a simple Excel chart as filler, too.

Anyway, that purple line is where I am on the year in terms of mileage. It’s humble, to be sure. Nevertheless it’s a high, steady pace for me. And I added to it a little this morning. I woke up early, within that amount of time that going back to sleep and getting anything out of it seemed futile.

Eleven miles doesn’t seem like anything, but I figured I could ride a half hour this morning, or try to ride this evening.

I decided to do both, but one of the cats decided I needed to provide pets, instead. Good thing I got up this morning, then.

Speaking of stats, I haven’t looked at the site data in a bit. Last month I had my 5 millionth visitor.

Five million! That seems like a lot for a humble personal site.

I don’t know why you all come here. I know it isn’t for the occasional dream or the too-frequent talk of my bike rides, but thank you for the visits. (It’s the cats. I know. They know it, too. More from them on Monday.)

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16
Jan 23

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

It was a shame that Robby Novak had to grow up. (He’s 18 or so now.) They ended that amazing series so he could concentrate on being a kid, and that makes perfect sense in every respect of course. Still, you might have found yourself hoping that they’d pass the torch. You could have written a storyline about that — a storyline of positivity, of course.

I remember when I was first introduced to this interview, some 12 or so years ago, perhaps. It came to me as part of a conversation about the larger message, the work incomplete, and the issue at hand. All of that was, and is, true. And the interview is remarkable. The first thing you notice is the composition of the shot. But it won’t be the last thing you notice.

This was an important interview, absolutely worth your time. Go ahead and bookmark it if you can’t watch it all right now, but do watch it. And then, maybe, like me, be grateful that we have places available to dip our toes into such important source material.

The world needs more three-day weekends. I say that with all of the respect today deserves. There are a great many important people and ideas to celebrate. We could only benefit by having more opportunities to acknowledge and learn, and our communities would be better for the service. Having a few more four-day work weeks would be a nice byproduct, sure, but that’s not the point I’m after here. I figure one a month, March through October, would be a fine civic contribution.

And, on some of those days, we’d even have nice weather. Law of averages and all that. Saturday we had some sun early. It was gray and cold all day Sunday. It rained most of today. The next seven days we’ll be between 28 and 53 degrees. We might get some sun two or three of those days. We might get some snow or rain on three of those days.

Ninety more days until spring.

We played a few hands on dominos yesterday afternoon. The cat, who only swatted at the tiles one time, managed to eek out a win.

Which makes this as good a place as any to put this week’s installment of the most popular feature on the blog. It’s time to check in with the kitties.

A few days ago I was able to catch Phoebe in shadow and light. It’s a moody image, both dark and mysterious and bright and shiny. Also, stay away from her tennis ball.

Poseidon has placed an order online for a deliver, and he’s spending a fair amount of time waiting on the delivery guy to bring it to him.

I guess he didn’t spring for the overnight delivery. Smart cat.

He got a bit trapped the other night. This cat, that always wants to go outside — they’re strictly indoor pets — has to have his under-the-cover time to keep warm, you see. And if a fuzzy blanket has been deployed Phoebe will find her way to sit on it. So Saturday night …

He looks thrilled by that development, doesn’t he? Look at those eyes. He’s positively delighted to find his blanket time being intruded upon. He allowed me to take three quick photos before he left in disgust.

This is the section where I’m sharing things that, judged too good to close, have been sitting in open tabs for far too long. Today’s first tab features a poem. I ran across it near the end of 2021. That’s a long time to have a tab open, in my estimation. (But I’ve got older tabs, though, as you’ll eventually see.) Lovely poem though.

Keep Your Faith in Beautiful Things

Keep your faith in beautiful things;
in the sun when it is hidden,
in the Spring when it is gone.
And then you will find that Duty and Service and Sacrifice—
all the old ogres and bugbears of —
have joy imprisoned in their deepest dungeons!
And it is for you to set them free —
the immortal joys that no one —
No living soul, or fate, or circumstance—
Can rob you of, once you have released them.

It was written by Roy Rolfe Gilson, Spanish-American War veteran, newspaperman, author and, finally, an Episcopal rector. Born in Iowa, in 1875, Rev. Gilson died in 1933, and is buried in Maryland, where he had served in a parish. He wrote for papers in Michigan. He’s quoted in his obituary. “The best known of my works is ‘In the Morning Glow‘, and is not a child’s book, but an attempt to preserve in words something of that exquisite loveliness of the American home as it has been in its simplicity, and never more beautiful than when seen through the eyes of a little child, to whom the father is a hero and the mother a heroine, and even the toy soldiers have an identity and name.

“It is never the bizarre or unusual that makes me wish to work, but the poetry and comedy in everyday life, in the common lot … If my stories are idyllic, it is not because I wish to write pretty things, but because I have a friendly eye for those secret quests on which we pass each other disguised in foolishness, but wearing beneath a lovely raiment of dreams.”

You can read the entire book, which he published in 1908, at that link.

(So I guess I’ll have that tab open for a while … )

(I just read the first chapter — sweet and innocent and charmingly sentimental, but you knew what was coming. I’ll be reading the rest.)

If memory serves, I googled this because of something I read in a Quora answer about some job interview techniques. I’d never heard of this, neumonic, or seen the concept spelled out, and so it seemed like something to learn about.

The STAR method is a structured manner of responding to a behavioral-based interview question by discussing the specific situation, task, action, and result of the situation you are describing.

More: What is the STAR method?

The STAR method is an interview technique that gives you a straightforward format you can use to tell a story by laying out the Situation, Task, Action, and Result.

Situation: Set the scene and give the necessary details of your example.
Task: Describe what your responsibility was in that situation.
Action: Explain exactly what steps you took to address it.
Result: Share what outcomes your actions achieved.

By using these four components to shape your anecdote, it’s much easier to share a focused answer, providing the interviewer with “a digestible but compelling narrative of what a candidate did,” says Muse Career Coach Al Dea, founder of CareerSchooled. “They can follow along, but also determine based on the answer how well that candidate might fit with the job.”

I suspect this structure is useful in some circumstances. But in others, well, there are a lot of odd interview … let’s call them techniques … out there.

And now I can close these two tabs, meaning on one of my phone’s browsers I now only have … 40 tabs open. Progress!

I had a 30-mile ride on Saturday, including some outrageous (for me) power numbers. To be honest, I am not yet clear on how to interpret these things. Occasionally my watts look more impressive than others, and I’ll google them, just to see how they all measure up. On those days, I have almost-weekend-warrior sort of numbers.

For instance, Saturday I hit 1,048 watts on a sprint. What’s that mean? It means I was standing up and going hard while simultaneously trying to keep my bike in the trainer. That’s pretty close to my recorded maximum. Apparently world-class sprint track cyclists can touch 2,200 watts. So … I’m not that guy.

But then I was going up a hill and looked at the watts in the HUD graphic and …

That’s on a climb and, for me, impressive. I am in no way a climber, but I have lately been getting over small punchy hills in an almost-timely fashion. I’ve just had brief moments of good legs the last few days, basically. There’s something to be said for riding a lot. And that something is “Your legs will feel tired all of the time, but when you get them moving … ”

2023 Zwift route tracker: After today’s 25-mile ride I have completed 34 of the routes on Zwift, and there are 86 to go.

cycling / music / Re-Listening / site / Wednesday — Comments Off
4
Jan 23

That’s embarrassing

It is remarkable to me how light things get when it is time to go back to work. It seems having a normal schedule prevents me from finding and doing fun things to tell you about here. The nerve of the real world, no?

So this is my day, today, be it ever so humble.

I did 16 miles in about 45 minutes and then quit. Everything was wrong. It was just immediately fast and hard and not at all what I was hoping for, which was a ride that would have lasted about twice as long. Instead, I had a bit of mild-to-medium nausea, there was no more energy, and I was threatening to overheat.

I bonked. Bonked like a rookie who knows nothing about nutrition, and did it in under an hour. Very weird. But, I guess, lunch had been some time back and maybe there hadn’t been enough carbs. There certainly wasn’t enough glycogen.

I felt a bit better after dinner, at least. But by then I was just … tired. So the rest of this isn’t terribly substantial, sorry.

But, hey, I set five PRs on Strava segments. And I finished 8th out of 460 on one of the sprints. I did the math and I managed to hold 30 mph through that segment with no virtual draft, or even a real awareness that I was about to enter a sprint. (Also, I am in no way a sprinter. Or anything else, really.)

Here’s a quick update to the Re-Listening project. I know, I just put two pieces in this same space yesterday. But those were to get caught up from before the holidays. Since I drove to two places in town yesterday to run errands I spent more time in the car. It’s an odd thing about temporal mechanics around here, but it takes 27 minutes to drive nine miles. Between that and waiting in line at the car wash, I managed to listen all the way through another CD.

I actually skipped one CD yesterday, because life is too short to listen to awful music. A record promoter gave me this disc, and I couldn’t get out of it. I should have tried harder, I know. I knew it then, too, when he compared the lead singer to “an off-key Kurt Cobain.” This was, mind you, a silly one-off conversation 26 years ago and I remember that comment. How out of place. How weird. How wrong. But at least the guy got to drop a name, I guess.

Anyway, the guy singing on that CD wasn’t Kurt Cobain, but closer to Chris Cornell. He didn’t have all of the tricks, and he sounds simultaneously bored and impressed with himself. The guitarist is noodling around, seemingly aware of the limitations by his chord structure or what he had to play around, gamely looking for something new and different. But there’s not much variation, and life is too short for awful music.

I wanted, here, to do the thing where I look all of those guys up and say they all went on to be successful restauranteur, fire fighters or boat charter captains. All four guys have incredibly common names, though. So one of them could be a judge. Another might be an auctioneer. One is probably just really good at D&D. The guy that did the cover photos has had a good run as a photojournalist. Seems to be in Florida now.

Anyway, after that came my 1996 cassettee-to-CD upgrade for the Hootie and the Blowfish debut. Probably you’ve heard of it. It finished seventh on Billboard’s 1990s pop list. Only Alanis Morissette, Whitney Houston, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, the Titanic soundtrack and Celine Dion, respectively, fared better. They won a Grammy and were certified platinum 21 times in the United States. So, yeah, I needed to get an updated copy, I guess. Because you never heard this stuff on the radio.

(Aside: Lilly Haydn was, is, and likely always will be, incredible.)

Anyway, I really dug the band (last August their second album, Fairweather Johnson appeared on the Re-Listening project)
and I still do. Something about the Carolina yelling appeals to me.

Oh, there was a 25th anniversary edition released in 2019? Guess I should pick up a copy of that.

But, first, I’m going to sleep off the bleh feeling.

books / errands / music / Re-Listening / site / Tuesday — Comments Off
3
Jan 23

Don’t move anything: all the regular site elements are caught up

Today? Oh, back to the regular. I actually went to work. Did a few work things, saw some people. Thought I should start a list: People I’ve Asked About The Holidays. Over the next seven or eight days I will, no doubt, ask someone that same question twice. Three times if they are really unlucky.

I’d also like to develop an app for the phone that listens to all of my jokes and notes the phones around at the time. Then, the next time I start wind up for that same joke, it buzzes most annoyingly if it notes the same people around. We’ll name it Asa. Avoiding Social Awkwardness.

I even whipped up the logo.

It symbolizes the circular nature of one’s jokes, you see.

Because we tell our best material over and over.

Now, to just program the thing, and get around all of the many and considerable privacy issues with anonymity decryption protocols.

See, I’ve thought of everything. Except that I know not how to build it.

After work I went to the auto parts store. It is a building where they have parts. They are, generally, parts for your car. The interior of the store is helpfully organized in zones. And I went to the zone of the auto parts store that holds the light bulbs. Turns out the oil change guy last month was partly right. He said my blinker was out. My blinker is fine. My marker light, a term I learned only this afternoon, was the one that was out. The market light is the one behind the yellow lens. I thought that was the fog light, but, no, that’s different.

There are two light bulbs that seem similar to the busted marker light bulb I pulled out in the parking lot. And a guy that works in the point of sale zone of the store helped me find the right one. Online indices are wonderful things.

While he was doing that, though, someone walked out with a battery. Just carried it right out of the store. He’d been talking about it with them. made eye contact at the door, got into his truck and drove off. We all watched him leave the parking lot. The three guys working just shrugged.

I purchased my two marker light bulbs, walked outside, installed one in the socket, successfully tested the replacement and drove to the car wash.

My car needed it, but you don’t need 400 words on three days of dry weather, the long line at “Wash World” and those wonderful sounds the drive through wash makes as the machinery works its way around. Well, anyway, my car is cleaner, but my windshield was, for some reason, blurry after that.

You just can’t get good robotic help these days.

Let’s get back to the Re-Listening project — the one where I’m playing all of my old CDs, in the order I acquired them, and write about them here. These aren’t reviews, as such. Just memories and a fun excuse to put up too many videos. It’s a whimsy, as most music should be.

These, by the way, were things that got played just before the holiday break. I am, as ever, in arrears.

And first up is a maxi-single. What’s a maxi-single? So glad you asked. A maxi-single is a release with more than the usual two tracks of an A-side song and a B-side song. This is a Rusted Root maxi-single, and it has five tracks. I am sure this was a college station radio giveaway. Also, it is still good.

The title track is up first, a Santana cover that does the original a bit of justic.

And before you wonder, Rusted Root produced seven studio albums and a live record between 1992 and 2012. Four of them landed on the Billboard 200, and two of those in the top half of the chart. One is certified gold, the other is platinum. They’re not hardly a flash in the pan.

Rusted Root is one of those bands that have a lot of musicians come through the band over the years. And, I must confess, I am not always clear on who is where. But let me just say this. There are some talented front porch pickers playing on this thing, and that’s about as high a compliment I will offer a musician not paid to play orchestral music in formal wear.

Three of the songs on the maxi-single are live, including the one that was the point, one of the ones you definitely remember, and the one that still shows up in commercials and TV shows from time-to-time.

The band itself seems to be done, or on hiatus, but many of the former members are stilly playing music. (A lot of them have been in Hot Tuna, turns out.) The lead singer is still making music, and others, including the most prominent female vocalist and the original drummer, are dividing their time between their own music and things like teaching and entrepreneurial projects.

I was hoping one of them might be a software developer, someone that could help me with the Asa project.

The next CD is from Big Mountain, another freebie I picked up because, if you were a kid of a certain era you were issued at least one post-Marley reggae album as a matter of procedure.

And, honestly, unless you line things up just right, a little reggae goes a long way for me. I appreciate some of the historical elements of the form, and my lay ear respects the musicianship, and they’re still at it, but it isn’t mine.

Which is maybe why I have no real fixed memories of this CD in particular.

This is one of the later tracks on the record, and it’s a TV studio performance. This 1995 song is still topical, of course.

The previous year they’d released their cover of “Baby I Love Your Way,” which peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100. That was their biggest pop moment. This record, “Resistance” didn’t follow up with commercial success, but they did release three singles from this one, and recorded seven albums since then. They finished last year playing in India. They’ll be touring locally in California early this spring, their 34th year of making music.

I finished Rick Atkinson’s The British Are Coming tonight. I was wrong, where he leaves us. The book ends after the Battle of Princeton, and the maneuvering immediately after. These were the circumstances that set up the Forage War in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I wonder if that’ll appear in the next book of the trilogy. As I said yesterday, this is Tolstoy meets Burns, the two-time Pulitzer winner embracing completely the role as a popular historian.

And he’s got seven more years of the story to tell. The epilogue covered John the Painter, so, I assume, it’s going to get grim in a hurry, when the new installment is published.

The next line of his acknowledgements, which runs several pages after 564 pages of maps and another hundred-and-change of notes, thanks Queen Elizabeth II, but there’s nothing here telling me when the next book is coming out.

Maybe in 2024, just in time for my fake phone app, then.