Sports shows! You want ’em, they shot ’em. It’s basketball post-season and only one of Indiana’s basketball teams is making the postseason, that hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm here overmuch. Here are the programs from last night.
I know the women’s team will qualify because they are very good. And I know the men aren’t qualifying because they needed to do something nearly miraculous in their conference tournament to even get a glance, but they went out in the first round tonight. One of our students was at the game, and that required some extra people to step into new rules and they did it without missing a beat. And, I believe, a new star was born.
In other, site-related news, I have updated the front page to reflect the promise of spring. So you’ll see another version of these tulips if you just go to the front page.
I predict they’ll stay there for about two weeks, or until I find something better, or just generally get tired of them, whichever comes first.
And in really important news, tonight we had cookies.
And they were a delicious way to start the weekend. Best part, there will be a few more cookies tomorrow, as well.
Have a great weekend, cookies or no. (But definitely try to find some cookies.)
So this is day two, and I feel fine. My arm is better and I haven’t developed any supernatural abilities beyond the ones I already had. I have two. One is of very limited use and not worth talking about. The other is spectacularly useful, and would be a big hit on the old Whose Line game …
My super power involves always being able to pick the correct size container in which to store leftovers. Very useful. Never going to save the planet from marauding invaders.
This is the one I already had, and I am still waiting for my new vaccine-inspired powers to kick in. And, also, the second dose. I’m also waiting for the two weeks after that, when the magic has really happened. So five weeks. A lot of things happen in five weeks. Some of you have been in relationships that lasted less than that. I’ve watched TV shows with a shorter run. That’s half of a Kardashian wedding! Ethel Merman and Ernest Borgnine were married for a shorter time, too! Five weeks is less than four Scaramuccis! And I’m sure they’ll rush right by so that I can continue to be cautious, but with a bit more peace of mind.
And also some carefully controlled family visits. Looking forward to that, as most everyone is.
Meanwhile, a former student notes Utah is about to join Alaska in opening up vaccinations.
And this bit of news which will be profoundly encouraging, I’m sure.
This will mean so much to so many.
"Nursing home residents vaccinated against COVID-19 can get hugs again from their loved ones, and all residents may enjoy more indoor visits, the government said Wednesday in a step toward pre-pandemic normalcy." https://t.co/459iELGKap
Something else I know you’re looking forward to, the television shows. This is last night’s news show.
And the students also produced this really cool show, too.
One last normal thing … we had the opportunity to watch some racing last year in the middle of the pandemic, which is going to seem a really brazen thing, one day. But this, here, now, feels different. I said it because I felt it.
We've been watching the first three stages of @ParisNice tonight. It just seems so delightfully normal.
Have you found a lot of those things yet? Stuff that just feels regular, somehow? pic.twitter.com/QvheeEwZYO
And the more and more I think about it, I wonder why. What’s the normal part and why? And why is it normal? Have we finally just begun to internalize things? That seems an inherently risky thing, doesn’t it? We could be so close to turning the tide on this thing, and all of our own choices have helped with that in some regard. We shouldn’t toss that aside just yet.
Friday / IU / television / video — Comments Off on Sports videos and rambling notes containing positive signs 5 Mar 21
Two sports shows form last night. Here’s the highlights.
And here’s all the talk about sportsball in the form of baseball.
And, this morning, it was back in the studio again first thing. The handful of Thursdays were we have shows late into the evenings followed immediately by Friday morning shows are reminders that I am not in my early 20s anymore. It isn’t that it is hard, or that a terrible amount is expected of me, but that I am tired. And, look, I’m not even performing in any of these shows, obviously, as they are entirely student productions. But I’m there, trying to lend a hand or get in the way, or provide moral support, or slow things down or speed things up or give notes and what not. Some days the hours get to me, is all. Small price to pay, to watch these nice people work on their craft and start to realize their dreams.
I had to give two studio tours today. That’s something I haven’t done in a year. It’ll all be a function of another new project coming to life. Just another sign, as we tried to explore a little bit the other day, of things coming back to something approaching normal.
They are holding graduation in person this term. That was announced a week or so ago. Family and friends will have to watch a university-produced program, unfortunately, but the students will get the real pomp and circumstance, which is great progress. The word has been passed out that the fall will be more in-person. What it means in practice is still being studied, but I’m guessing the goal is to make 2021 feel a lot more like 2019 than 2020. You don’t sell it that way. It seems a reasonable ambition and realistically feasible.
The show this morning, which isn’t online yet, brought in a guy offering you some workout tips you can do at home, because you’re not going to the gym just yet. I noticed they didn’t frame it as “Get that spring break bod” because our students don’t get a break this year — a concession to the virus and realities of traveling and so on. But they are going to get to watch a basketball tournament in a few days. It’s looking like their men’s team won’t be in the tournament, so it’s definitely a take-your-gains-where-you-can-get-them era.
Students are making this. They conceive and write and produce and create all of this material. They’re on a learning curve in public, and they have to overcome dealing with me, and they do a nice job with all of it, week in, and week out.
I think putting up with me might be their biggest obstacle.
You can feel a slight loosening of the tensions that have been created for all of us this past year in the younger crowd. They know people who’ve been sick, or they had Covid themselves and they are well aware of the rules put in place around them and that they aren’t the biggest at-risk group. And they, just like me and you and everyone else, are rushing right up to a year of this. The little groups of people are getting a bit larger. The concerns about space and cleaning and germs and health and all of that, they aren’t diminished, but they’ve become lived in. They’re successful in that context, the students, but all of the rules aren’t.
The numbers of positive cases here, right now, are just tremendously low, and that’s registering with them, too. And it’s interesting to see the casual way some people can behave and perform given all of this. But still, the clumps of people — and we’re just talking friends hanging out in traditional little circles and human nature and stuff — give me a bit of pause.
I like to joke that I didn’t come into this thing a germaphobe, but I’m going to leave it as one. Everyone sorta laughs at that, or acknowledges it to the degree that they identify with it.
And so people gather in these little groups, because you don’t want to shout to be heard over distance. And you’re still fighting the urge to speak louder because you think this mask is going to get in the way. And some of us don’t have a good spatial awareness of what six feet is — even now. And, if we really stopped to think about it, six feet is a silly number as to be almost arbitrary.
All of which is to say, we are so close to something here. I know it’s finally spring in a lot of place — and Bloomington, it’s time for the annual talk about why spring and blooms and flowers are appearing in almost every other part of the continental United States and not yet here — and the promise of a happier season is before us. Not every day is a shoutfest on social media — but it’s there if you want it, sure. And vaccines are moving in so much faster now. It isn’t equal or even or easy in every place, but that Johnson & Johnson influx is going to change things. Some people think they prefer it, for whatever reason, and that’s great. But the sheer numbers, changing the supply, and the refrigeration needs, changing the logistical demands, are huge factors.
Consider, in no particular order this week. Monday it was announced that Indiana had put one million shots into arms. In mid-late February the state opened up vaccinations to the 60+ crowd. And in a day, of that announcement a third of the eligible population had signed up. Also on Monday, the state, which has focused almost exclusively on this as an age breakdown, moved it to 55+. On Tuesday, a day later, they dropped it down to 50+. And now, from the feds, come a push to start vaccination for educators. The Yankee and I might land in that crowd before they get to our age bracket, which would be just fine. You’re also going to see some surveys mentioned this week about how vaccine demand is on the rise. Sure, some diehards are still holding out for their own reasons, but the percentage of wait-and-seers is, as you would imagine, on the decline.
We’re not rounding the corner just yet. We might not even be at the corner, but it surely does feel like it is in sight. So it’s important to not give up hope, not give in to rash choices, and not throw caution to the wind. Now is the time to remember why we should refocus our efforts, because that will make these next few weeks and months just a tiny bit easier.
It was a sports night last night, and the IUSTV crew brought us plenty of it on Sports Nite:
The Toss Up, which I referred to yesterday, is all about that bump, set and spike:
Volleyball is a terrific sport. It’s easy to follow, the flow of the game provides nice action, the players are accessible in camera shots and it’s a sport that has repackaged itself as a perfect capsule for TV programming. (Though I do think the TV productions should be re-constructed.) It should be hugely popular. I like to ask why it isn’t and how you get it there, and I asked the two beat writers in this program, one from the paper and one from the TV station, why they thought it was. They’ve both had classes with The Yankee, so they both answered correctly. It comes down, they said, to telling stories.
There are sixteen players on that team, and there are at least 16 great and compelling stories there, before you even look over the coaches biographies.
Most sports should feel this way. You just need the right people in the right places and right times to make it happen.
This weekend I am making it happen, if I can avoid psyching myself out. The backstory is that I got an email from Zwift about an upcoming series of rides. I mentioned it to a friend of ours and she said I should do the series.
And here’s the thing about things that are seven or eight weeks in the future: they all seem easy.
Along the way to what is, in truth, a fairly ambitious ride series, there were a bunch of workouts. I did one of each. They were fun. One of them was demanding. I’m not sure if they’ll be helpful this weekend, which started this evening.
This was the first of three stages. The whole adventure will wind up Sunday — and thus will be the pre-occupation of the entire weekend.
And, thus, the Haute Route begins, and before it’s done I’ll have tapped out 90-something miles and 12,000-plus feet of climbing. The mileage won’t be bad, but the climbs will be what add up.
Tonight I had 2,949 feet to climb in the smart trainer. This was the easiest stage in terms of the elevation gained. Tomorrow will probably be fine. The plan is just to survive and feel good about myself after Sunday’s ride.
