television

adventures / cycling / hobby / IU / photo / television / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Sometimes you can get a lot into a Wednesday
21
Oct 20

Sometimes you can get a lot into a Wednesday

Attended a virtual meeting today were the future of the future was definitely not decided. We did hear about other meetings, however. Seminars here, movies there, presentations and workshops from near and far. Everyone is keeping busy as best they can.

After the meeting I recorded some audio. And after recording the audio I took it to the office to edit. And then some of it was uploaded. It is a cycle and it has its place. Keeping busy.

The afternoon was a bit slower than the morning, then. I was able to catch up on email and the news and many of the other attendant things that make up normal days. Even in abnormal times, they’re always there. Always there.

Returned to the house after work and went for a bike ride. It was an easy hour. I pedaled alongside The Yankee as she condensed two days of webinars into an hour of highlights. I could ride like that all day. She talked, I tried to keep up. Usually her training rides are designed to be more brisk. She rides harder and I … try to keep up. So it was a pleasant thing to do, riding along, listening to the conversation.

It was gray and humid and moist. Yes, both adjectives are required here. It was 64 degrees when we left and 61 when we got back in and for some reason I could see my exhalations. It was the first “I can see my breath!” ride of the year. The dew point was very high.

This evening I tried working on three projects. And two of them went nowhere. I need to replace the button on a pair of blue jeans and that’s harder than it should be, apparently. There are a few methods to this, the Internet tells me. One destroys the denim, which seems besides the point. Another is poorly described. The third is pretty straightforward though: Grab the button on either side with pliers and unscrew the thing.

Well, that didn’t work tonight. I managed to ruin another button from a pair of ruined jeans, and since it was dinnertime anyway, I put that project once again on the back burner. We’d cooked everything on the front burners anyway.

I wanted to make a little carrying sling for a small bottle of hand sanitizer to keep in the car, but the initial plan didn’t go according to … well … plan.

So, back to the drawing board, which I don’t have. Maybe that’s the problem. I shouldn’t draw things up in my mind. The specs are never that good up there anyway.

But my third project, it has real potential.

I have to use my university ID for various things on campus. It’s a key, it grants printer access, you check out books with it and so on. I’ve recently decided that maybe I don’t want to carry it around in my wallet. Maybe I don’t want to pull my wallet out every time I need the card. Too many cooties, and who knows how repeated hand wipes will treat the leather.

So I’ve had in mind a few different things I could make as a minimalist card holder. And I’ll probably wind up trying several of them out before I ultimately settle on one. So tonight I started working on the first idea which will be a slimmer version of my homemade business card holders:

I had some leftover wood from those projects which were already perfectly cut to size. To create the depth I ran the jigsaw over the thinnest paint stirrer I could find. Now the glue will cure overnight. Tomorrow evening I’ll sand the thing down and try to find some way to make white alder wood look interesting. And, when it’s done I’ll show you this solution. Because every project comes down to having material to put here, for you, dear reader.

Here are some TV shows the TV people did. This is the morning show, and they are on location, and that seems like an early time of day for a spot like that …

All the stories came together for the news team this week. I believe I counted seven produced pieces within the episode and 10 or 11 different voices all told. This is the pace we’d like to keep for every episode. Sometimes we’re more successful at it than others.

And there’s a really cool little feature in the pop culture show. Carillons are oddly fascinating, once people are reminded to think about them. And a student who has an abiding interest in music sought out the story of the impressive instrument that you can hear on the IU campus.

And that should be enough for now.

More tomorrow, though. And, until then, don’t forget to catch up on Catober, since Phoebe and Poseidon are putting on quite a show. And did you know they have an Instagram account now? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account now. Keep up with me on Twitter, and don’t forget my Instagram. There are also some very interesting On Topic with IU podcasts for you, as well.

Covid-19 / friends / IU / television / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Human beings! We saw some!
14
Oct 20

Human beings! We saw some!

You have to like the colors. The colors are rather glorious in this, our peak time of the leaf turn.

It turns colder tonight, and we’ll have a few cool days. At some point, eventually, it has to rain — there’s a moderate drought on just now — and then the rest of the leaves will fall and it’ll be stigs and twigs and the long, boring sigh of a gray, drab winter.

But those colors are something else today!

We visited with our friends Mike and Kate for a few minutes this evening. I dropped off a bunch of milk jugs that they’ll use to start some container planting project. They’ve got a quiet spread out beyond the suburbs and we stood in their driveway and enjoyed the waning sunlight and the nice warm air and a view of a few acres of trees and their company for a few minutes. Many jokes were made! Some of them at my expense!

Even their neighbor came over to say hello. He said his wife had recently retired from 45 years at the university library. Nice fellow, the neighbor. I see him when I ride through that area on my bike. He’s always outside puttering around with something. That might be the wife’s doing.

After he left we stood around and talked about their upcoming trip to see family. What an exotic adventure they will have this next week. I wonder what that’s like. Going places. Staring at different walls. Hearing different creaks in the floorboards. Pitching in with some little project at their place, rather than your own. Seeing people.

Sometimes it is nice just to see people. Well, some of them. You’d like to see them more. In limited and carefully controlled doses. But, as they say, 2020.

This came up in our visit. Why is this the hip thing to say? Why do people think that January 2021 is going to be any different from Apritoberember 2020? And what do New Year’s Resolutions even mean anymore?

Something to think about, alas.

Here are some shows the news team produced Tuesday evening. New anchor, a first-time interview and other fun stuff:

And here are some programs the sports gang put together, that I forgot to include late last week:

Tomorrow they will produce more sports. I’ll be there. I’ll share them here. Tonight, I don’t have anything else to share, except for the dishes. If you’re interested in helping there, come on over. I’ll be sure to give you plenty of social distancing.

IU / photo / television / Thursday / video — Comments Off on A long night
8
Oct 20

A long night

Are you enjoying Catober? Phoebe is very serious about her naps. I don’t know how any creature can look that intense, if I can mis-anthropomorphize, while relaxing, but that’s how she does it. Click that link to catch up, if you’re somehow behind. Tomorrow’s Catober entry will feature Poseidon. There will probably be hijinks.

Didn’t get all of the things done today, but a few more items are off the list. The rest will, no doubt, get at some later date. More phone calls and forms to fill out and an oil change for the car. All of that will happen next week, I suppose. Or tomorrow. But probably next week. Because tomorrow is fully about email.

I spent a lot of time on the phone today, and then the evening in the television studio, watching the sports gang do their thing. After that, a late meeting with some students before I could leave. It looked like this:

The building next to ours has a chime in the tower and that’s how I knew the time: 8:45.

At least I don’t have an early morning meeting tomorrow.

Here’s some programming the television people produced this week. The late night show brings you some funnies:

And here are the two shows from the news team:

We had soup for dinner, and around here we say “Hooray soup!” Mostly, I think, because it’s good. Now, with the dishes done, I’ll put another armful of laundry through its paces and then get ready to start tomorrow, and, then, the weekend. Thursdays in the fall are just a preface.

IU / television / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on Have some leaves, make your down payment today
6
Oct 20

Have some leaves, make your down payment today

To mark the changing seasons I’ve updated the front page of the site. Go check it out. Or just imagine it, based on this hint.

Those maple leaves are from our yard. And the grass is ours, too.

One day I’ll get around to digging under it to see if we happened on anything profitable with the mineral rights. Probably not. They don’t build houses over valuable resource reservers very often, I’d guess. Surely there were surveys once upon a time. And since no one ever found a gold nugget or enriched their britches with oil or natural gas or found some other valuable thing around here, they decided “Houses it is! Put out some nice sod and sidewalks and run some utilities out there and we’ll make money off it that way!”

Anyway, the leaves look grand, wouldn’t you agree?

This maple tree is turning in stages. It’s the arboreal version of a combover, maybe. The tree that’s kidding itself, and not fooling anyone else. How could that tree fool anyone with that bright bit of vibrance. There is, as they say on the ‘gram, no filter here.

Now if everything looked and felt like this for the next five months.

Oh, I forgot to add this show yesterday. The morning troupe doing morning things.

It was a studio night tonight, where the news team worked on news shows. They’re due out tomorrow.

Tonight, we’re upgrading the sofa! We bought memory foam to support the cushions. You trace outlines of each section, cut the three-inch foam, and then jam the foam inside the upholstery underneath the old stuff. That last part was a bit of a workout, but now the seats look full and new again. It’s an easy refurb of a 15-year-old set of furniture which is, otherwise, perfectly great.

It felt a little strange to sit on them for the first time, but better. For the first time in who knows how long, hips and knees are at the proper positions relative to one another when you’re relaxing. The important question: Is it good for naps?

So I have a weekend chore, then: taking a nap.

Friday / television / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Into the weekend
2
Oct 20

Into the weekend

Phoebe was a happy model for today’s addition to Catober. She’s hanging out in the hallway. She likes to sit there and wait for you to walk by so she can stretch out and demand pets. She’s a cute little highway robber of belly rubs.

There’s a little post it note on the door behind her. It’s for Poseidon, who is always trying to get into my home office and cause trouble. The sign is meant to keep him out. That’s why it is posted at cat-eye level. It does not.

We have a debate about whether he can read the sign, or if the verbiage is too sophisticated. He’s obviously just ignoring the sign. Phoebe can come into my office occasionally, because Phoebe is a good girl.

Here’s a talk show from last night. They talked about sports. Sports are what they talked about. Baseball, and it’s 4,725 post season teams, deserve attention, and you can get most of it right here:

And another set of students were hard at work in the studio this morning. They had a great guest and a fun time and things went smoothly for them. And someone has finally added a calendar feature to their programming:

After the show was over and we wiped down all of the consoles and the cameras and everything else everyone touched, they all went about their days, going … wherever they all go. I went to my office and whiled away the day worrying over a To Do List.

I think I cut it down to something manageable for next week. I have an important letter of recommendation to write and dealing with a bunch of file transfers. And about a half dozen meetings already on the books, and some voiceovers to work through and some audio editing to tend to and whatever other things that haven’t appeared yet … It’s nice to know a little about what’s in store next week, is what I’m saying.

Take this weekend, for example. It’s gray and damp and cool this evening and so there wasn’t much to that. There’ll be lunch and a bike ride tomorrow and then a video chat and football. I’ll do some housework. Sunday there’ll be breakfast and looking out the window and a lot of reading and maybe some football and that’s the weekend. It’s nice to know a little about what’s in store. One day the weekend schedule will change itself. I won’t know how to act. They all kind of run together at this point, is what I’m saying.

But things are just grand. Everyone here is healthy. The cats are happy. Dinner was good. I get to sleep in tomorrow.

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