My contribution to the cause today was cleaning up two inboxes, knocking a few episodes off the Netflix queue, a little house work and wiping out some leftovers.
Also, I reworked the front page of this website. And that’s why it was a light day. Would you like to hear about it? Oh, you’d rather just see it?
It has the same premise as the previous version — big on buttons driving you to social media or the key basics. The background moves, which is the point. The original iteration of this design had a video component, but I wanted to get away from from javascript. So I went to a still image. That’s fine, as far as it goes, but I liked the movement, and I love the variation. So I put in some keyframe animations.
And the delightful part is that the coding was only ridiculously frustrating for a day or so. (Also why it was a light day.) But, despite that frustration, it’ll be easy from here. I can quickly make changes to the art to keep it topical or fresh.
So I like this design. Be sure to check it out. (If it doesn’t feel like it works right, please let me know.) I need to add a few more buttons, but this is only a Wednesday, and that’s definitely a Monday kind of job
It’s a weird time. I have a normal work schedule on Wednesdays. My weeks during the semester are normally split. I’m done at a respectable hour on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Tuesdays and Thursdays are long, but these other days I feel like a normal person. Except I am now old enough to feel the effects of a split schedule in ways I didn’t when I was 23, and so it doesn’t feel especially normal.
I’m honestly not sure how Mondays work anymore, since I’ve largely been working from home on Mondays since March. But I’ve been going in four-days-a-week since July, and in August the students came back and in September we ramped up production and so it went like this. I would leave campus just after 8 p.m. on Tuesdays and then go work a 9-5 day on Wednesdays. And then I would leave the building on Thursdays closer to 9 p.m. and work another regular day on Fridays. Well, on Friday afternoon the weekend feelings kick in. So that is taken care of. But Wednesdays? And now that it’s dark by 5:30. That, of course, presupposes the midwestern cloud cover lets any natural direct light shine through.
Like today, for instance. High 44. It was partly cloudy. And then the sun set (I had no idea the sun came out. I was hiding under fluorescent light all day.) at 5:25. That’s about the time I got to the house. So no bike ride for me. What am I going to do with the evening?
“What did you do with the evening?”
Well, let me tell you, dear and gentle reader. We fact checked a story The Yankee was reading. It was about some lavish meal somewhere. How could all of these things — the story itemized many of the plates — only amount to a little over two grand?
It was, when you heard the many items, a fair question.
So I pulled up the menu for a restaurant 634 miles away and we analyzed the data.
While some specifics were left out of the story, to protect the carnivores, one presumes, we ultimately decided that the total bill was plausible and likely.
And I subsequently decided I needed something better to do.
And did I find it? No, I did not.
But I will.
TV shows, for those who like TV shows. These are the last episodes the news crew will produce in the studio this fall. I am urging them to do more stuff remotely between now and when we reconvene in person in February.
They even teased a winter series of stories in here, which was nice. Now they’re on the record! They have to follow through!
Saying publicly that you’ll do something is a great motivator.
They produced those shows last night, which is why it was just after 8 p.m. when I left our old historic building. It was gratifying to watch the seniors rally the underclassmen and congratulate them on the semester and say all of the things I would normally say. It’s fun to see them slip effortless into those roles.
I was curious how that would work this year because the interpersonal dynamics, by definition, are more restrained than normal. If anything, they’ve found ways to work around and beyond that and be better for it.
We build broadcast pros and leaders around here.
We had two productions running concurrently last night. The two above in Studio 7 and the late night show was being produced in Studio 5. It’ll be out later this week. And all of that means we’ll be shooting the last in-studio shows of the term tomorrow night. Watch this space for me bragging on them.
I interviewed an economist today. I think I only used one economic term incorrectly, which is about the right sort of pace for me. I took a lot of economics classes in college — micro, macro, ag, to name a few — but that was a fair while back and he’s the expert and I only have a minor in the stuff.
He’s part of a group that’s putting out an annual projection later this week and he was kind enough to let me interview him for the third time since this summer. But, what’s nice is that he’s an economist who overlooked my misused term and just answered the question he knew that I was trying to get to.
Anyway, I’ll publish that podcast next week. I just wanted you to know you have that to look forward to. In fact, I have another interview on Friday and so there are two programs you can look forward to next week.
But you don’t have to wait that long for quality content. Here’s some more work our students did this week. Here’s Tuesday’s news show:
Freshman news anchor right there. She did a nice job, and we’re excited to see what she does next.
And then, after the news show, there was the pop culture and current events show. They had a nice interview with the people from the dance marathon.
How do you run a weekend-long dance marathon during a pandemic?
It went virtual, like so many of the things in these students lives. They raised $4.2 million, I think it was, last year. And this year, amidst everything else, they still raised almost $3 million for Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis. It’s incredible what a bunch of motivated college students can do.
I was able to call it a day at a normal time and it was still (barely) daylight when I got in the car. It was all-but-dark when I got in. It’s a 4.5-mile drive. That’s the downside, the tradeoff, the other side of the coin and the yang to those long languid summer days they have here. You can stand in the yard in June and enjoy the miracle of daylight at 9:30 or so. But this time of year, if you have a schedule with just the right sort of quirk in it, you might not see the sunshine daylight all day. I saw maybe 45 minutes of it today.
Home at a reasonable time. Can’t go anywhere. So what did I do with all of this evening’s extra time?
Actually, let’s go back farther. Probably to some point in my childhood, where I managed to permanently confuse the words for oven and stove. It’ll be better here, because I have a backspace button — and this time I’m going to use it! — but if we’re just having a conversation and I say one of those, it’s safe bet that I mean the other. This bothers no one more than me.
Anyway, in September, the oven died. (Yes, the oven, the part where you bake things.) The oven died because we were working on the stove top. We were working on the stove top because someone was using the command dials for mountain climbing exercises. While that work was happening the logic board that controlled the oven just gave up.
We know that’s what it was because it was getting power, but there was nothing in the displays, and it would not bake. We called the home warranty people and they sent a guy down from Indy and he looked at it and said, “Yep, that’s busted.” He contacted the warranty people who said, “Well, it’s busted.”
It was a 13-year-old range, though, probably original in the house. The model, of course, is discontinued. And the warrant people weren’t interested in having their repair vendor work on the thing. So they offered to swap it out. Or we could find our own range and there would be a rebate, compensation song and dance. Ultimately, we went with the one they offered. It was comparable on paper, and the oven — I had to correct this one — would be a smidge larger than the old one.
Problem: Again, this was late September. And the new range was on back order and wouldn’t be available until the first week of November.
So we assembled stove top and grill recipes. And we were ready to get take out a time or two. In the scheme of things, it’s the most minor of inconveniences, but you don’t really know how much you depend on your oven — I had to correct this one, too — until you contemplate how much you actually depend on your oven.
Well, good news! In the last week of October we got the call that they had our range, and when would we like it? We arranged to have it arrive last Friday. I was going to come back from the office to let them in and do their thing. They would call between 2 and 6 p.m. And somewhere in that appointed time I received a call. The delivery guy had a traffic accident and would not be delivering it on Friday.
After about an hour-and-a-half on the phone with both the delivery people and the appliance manufacturer’s people, it was unilaterally arranged to arrive today. By the way, if you think dealing with one group for a slightly exotic problem with your service is a chore, try it with two, and with people who each aren’t exactly sure what the other does. (The answers, of course, being manufacture/sale and deliver.)
So this morning, 8 a.m. to noon, this range is coming. Because they only come down this way two days a week. Never mind that we’re about six weeks into our descent into creative kitchen work. At noon, no range and no phone call. So when my three-hour webinar wound down for the day — this week, honestly … — I called them. The delivery guy, it turns out, was running a bit late. Safety first when driving! And we were next.
And so we were.
Did you know that they don’t install a range when the delivery people deliver it? That’s what we were told, by the warranty people, but the delivery guy isn’t interested in that.
And did you know you have to provide your own power supply? I’ve never bought a range before, this was a new thing to me. Who knew?! I did not!
So after work I went to the hardware store and bought a four prong heavy duty power supply. I watched two YouTube videos to make sure I only needed to watch the first one, and then I lay on the floor connected the power supply to the range and we set it into place:
And then we had dinner.
The other one looked better, if you ask me. It’s a difference of about 11 percent. We’ll see about the functionality, but the stove top dials were aesthetically nicer on the old unit, and they were shorter. And on this thing the buttons are stiff and unpleasing to punch.
But the eyes and the oven work. And we upgraded a 13-year-old range for a brand new one, thanks to the home warranty. And dinner, from the oven, was delicious.
I am judging high school and junior high news programs this week. There are some really talented young people out there. But we could always say that. Golly gee, kids these days!
Also, I have about 60 of these to work through, so I could say the same thing for the next few days.
Other kids these days:
Someone put a note in their calendar to look up this young man in 25-30 years and let's find out what awesome thing he's doing.
After work I stopped in at the library to pick up a book I had on hold. It’s just two blocks from the office. I walked in, strolled through the alphabetized hold shelves until I found the S area, considering the sign that said “Respect other users privacy, no browsing” until I found my name. And, being careful to not notice anyone else’s titles, I picked up my hardcover book. Oh, the joys of reading fiction. I don’t a lot, but I will over the next few days. Well, once I’m satisfied there are no cooties on the dust jacket.
There’s a self checkout. You scan your library card and input your password on the touchscreen three times. Because the first time you mess it up so convincingly you wonder if your password is, in fact, something else. Once you get that right, you just hold the book under the scanner. There’s no barcode, it just knows what book you have based on some RFID tag or a near field communication trick.
So now I’m done. Two minutes, maybe three. I did nod to someone, but didn’t have to speak to a soul. I left via the nearest door. I was on a different floor from the one where I entered. I knew that, because there was a stairwell at the beginning of this adventure. I exited on a different side of the building than where I entered. Spatially, I was aware that I would be facing a different direction from where I went in, because I’d traversed most of the place and turned left to leave. So walked around the building was no surprise, but I was, of course, still on the ground, even after that long staircase when I entered. That amused me.
Architects must delight in confusing people who aren’t paying perfect attention.
Got home, cleaned off the day, and had a nice long chat with my mom. She’s fine. Everyone’s fine. (If the extended family would take this more seriously, that would be better, but I can’t convince people of the obvious.)
We’re talking about how we can do Christmas, because Thanksgiving is basically off. Maybe we’ll Zoom over turkey leftovers. We’re going to concentrate on the small joys. Visiting is a gift, and everyone is fine and healthy.
So much Covid data to report on our campus. The weekly numbers came out today, and they ticked up ever so slightly, but they remain impressively low, especially considering the county, and particularly in comparison to the state, which is surging ahead with no headlights, brakes or seatbelts.
Also, you’ll learn in the A-block there about how IU’s testing labs are now open. They’re going to be doing something like 8,500 tests a week here now. It’s an extensive, impressive undertaking. The university has really pulled out all of the stops to look after its campus communities and help the cities they all live in. Remember, this is 100,000 students in nine campuses across the state. And while, ultimately, this is not the fall or spring semester any student — or anyone else wanted — the lengths the university is going to during a pandemic are commendable.
They did a costume feature on the pop culture show and I can’t get over how awesome minimalist M&Ms are.
If you didn’t watch that, you should. They did blindfolds and had to guess what their reporters were dressed up as. So now you’ve got gloved, masked, blindfolded hosts. It was pretty silly.
Do you ever do that thing where you start a project on your website and work on it for a while and collect all the parts the project will need and continue to work on it and then think you’re finished with it? And then come back three years later and realize you weren’t finished?
Oh, that’s just me, huh?
Well OK, then.
Guess why this building is important:
It is important because it means we must return to the historic markers section of the site. This is where I where my bicycle all over the county to find the historic signs and take pictures of them, and the place they’re highlighting. I did this one years ago, but realized only this evening, while I was cleaning some old photos from my phone, that I’d never published them.
So go check out The Gables, which is a building that now holds a restaurant, and has some important local history in it. Also, the guy that owns it is a joy, and his food is pretty good, too. It’s just up the street from my office.
Hoagy Carmichael, who is the focus of this particular historic marker, has a statue on campus, and if I had a statue project on the site it would be one of the feature attractions, because it’s an amazing statue.
And the really good news is that we can get four or five more days worth of content out of old pictures and places I’d already thought I’d addressed! So look for another historic marker update next week.
More tomorrow. Until then, did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account. And don’t forget my Instagram. Also, keep up with me on Twitter.
