Thursday

IU / photo / site / Thursday / video — Comments Off on What’s in the middle? Eh, there was a cookie at the end
9
Feb 17

What’s in the middle? Eh, there was a cookie at the end

Thursdays … where do they go? I’m really not sure. They start here and end there and stuff surely happens in between, but a lot in the middle doesn’t seem to stand out for some reason. Strange.

On the one-block walk from the parking deck to the office this morning, I saw this:

A video version of this is now the background video of my home page. See it, as no one says, before the snow melts. Because who knows what will replace that video, or when. I’m trying to keep them somewhat topical, and weather is as good an indicator of that as anything else. And right now the weather is changing a bit. Snow one day, almost spring the next, and so on. All of that is better than being in the single digits, so don’t take it as a complaint. But if we hit, and stayed, in the 60s that wouldn’t be so bad, either.

Do you like those videos? I do. They’re a lot of fun and easy to make. There’s some trick to quality I need to resolve, but we’ll get there.

I didn’t spend anytime in the television studio, as I do a few days a week. The show I watch was being produced at the basketball coliseum, where the good guys lost a rivalry game. Here’s the show to tell you all about it:

So, instead, I went to this panel:

Because it seemed like the sort of thing I’d be interested in, right?

Also, when I got there, I saw that they had cookies.

history / Indiana / IU / music / Thursday / video — Comments Off on Take me to the river (or the old canal)
2
Feb 17

Take me to the river (or the old canal)

Working at IU, I have a free subscription to the New York Times and other publications. I could read all of the time and not read it all. And that’s just in today’s world. I also have access to the Times Machine which is more than a century and a half of old news, and a reasonably decent search engine.

So I searched. And one of the first things I found was the supposed origin of the word hoosier.

This is one of the stories that gets around. Truth is, no one really knows where the word comes from. There are some scholars still working on trying to figure it out.

Everyone is trying to figure something out, though, I suppose.

We were figuring out a sports show tonight:

And I watched this documentary on the history of music in Memphis. And if you like music, the history of music, or the South, or just watching joyous people do things they enjoy …

That is a film worth your time.

IU / photo / Thursday / video — Comments Off on Eatin’ with Ernie
26
Jan 17

Eatin’ with Ernie

There’s a place about three blocks from our building on campus that serves reasonably passable cajun food. Also, they have sweet tea. And it is quiet. And you can sit at a table with Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin. Or you can dine while looking out on …

Which goes nicely with my old line about dining with whomever you are reading, or reading about. So, today, I had lunch with Ernie Pyle in Paris.

Which, hey, the wind chills in both places were the same today. But I bet Parisians didn’t get flurried on during their walks back to the office after lunch.

Ernie walked on these paths as a student almost 100 years ago now. I wonder what he’d think of what he could see here today.

Sports show the students shot tonight:

IU / photo / Thursday / video — Comments Off on Remember, or forget, either way its fine
19
Jan 17

Remember, or forget, either way its fine

Sometimes you park in the lot across the street from the building. Sometimes you park in the lot one block over from that. Depending on the time of day, you might have to park one block away from the building, in a narrow little, older looking parking deck.

That’s where I parked today. And in that deck they have painted numbers on the doors so you know where you parked. And that stencil artist decided to be extra helpful …

But then someone came along and said “No, no, no. We can’t have that.”

And you wonder why.

Thursdays are long days. I stayed on campus until almost 9 p.m. tonight. I was watching a few shows being recorded. Here’s a sports show the IUS crew taped tonight:

First show back this semester. So now all of the rust should be knocked off and it’ll be onward and upward from here. There was also a talk show tonight, but it won’t be released until the weekend.

I should have shared these yesterday, but I forgot. So here is the news show, Hoosier News Source:

And What’s Up Weekly:

And that’s plenty for now. Except for whatever I don’t remember.

family / memories / photo / Thursday — Comments Off on To fine Southern ladies
12
Jan 17

To fine Southern ladies

We were standing in a viewing room in this fancy Texas funeral home. Fanciest one you’ve ever been to, probably. My mother and stepfather had let the grandchildren in. There are four of us. I was the step-grandchild and the oldest and whatever else I was and I was standing back there behind the grandkids as they looked at their grandmother. I watched them thinking whatever they thought as our folks left the room and after a while I finally said this thing that I’d been thinking about all day.

The thing I’ve learned in the last few years is that the thing about grandmothers, or any person that has that much importance in your life, is that no matter what has happened or what will happen or what you might imagine for yourself later, they are still there. She’s still around you and with you. The things she tried to teach you and the good times she showed you and the lessons she really hoped you’d learn, they’re all still there. She’s always still going to be with you as an influence and a guide. That’s the great thing about the people that are important to you. They always stay with you. There comes a time, in your own time, when that occurs to you. And that is a really, really, really comforting thought.

It had come to me just today. It had taken me almost two-and-a-half years to figure that out and I think I needed to hear it as much as I wanted to say it.

grandmothers

Two of my grandmothers. (The way my family tree works I’ve had a handful of amazing grandmothers and great-grandmothers.) Dortha, my step-grandmother, is on the left. Bonnie, my mother’s mother who remains one of the most important people in my life, and impacts all of my big decisions, even still, is on the right. This was taken on a trip they made with my folks to the Butchart Gardens in Canada in 2014.

I wonder what flowers they might discuss now.

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