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Once you get in them, you find it is difficult to leave. And so you end up spending a lot of time in them. Not that you mind. You do have to change your perspective from time to time, however.
This is the view over the director’s shoulder:
They were shooting a talk show. It is a little slow at times, but it is a brand new show trying to find its voice. Slow isn’t always bad. Anyway, this is the third episode. You can see it here:
On Wednesday nights I have students in the television studio. That’s a two-hour experience. Meanwhile, just outside the studio, in the atrium, the giant television is getting a workout:
One of the video game groups — there is a video game major and several groups — is showing off some of their side projects. I walked by just in time to watch a zombie monster thing rush the screen.
That’s a video game that’s 12 feet tall and 26 feet wide.
The video game makers were initially concerned about frame rate on the big screen. But then they plugged in some video games and were very pleased. The screen supports Wii, X-Box and Playstation. It also boasts six Directv tuners. There’s a lot of things you can do in there, even zombies.
Nice bowtie, though.
It is funny where things come to you. Some important thought once came to me in a dream. Once I had an important realization while driving up a little hill in a quaint downtown area, wondering if I would hit the green light above. I’ve had plenty of life’s little epiphanies while standing over a sink of one sort or another.
And now today. Today, I was cleaning out my phone a bit. I need the space, you see. So I’ve dumped a lot of things and I’ve removed all of the messages I can stand to delete and now I’m going through old texts with a few key correspondents. At this point I’m deleting the odd picture or two, but mostly reminiscing. You know how it is: sometimes you see a thing you’ve written and it brings back the flood of details that worked around the bits you wrote. I stumbled on a particular text and that prompted this:
I was sitting in an office when I typed that text. I was sitting in a different office when I found it again.
And it is funny where things come to you.
The technical director is the guy that sits at the big console in a television control room and makes it happen. When a new camera shot is taken, that’s the technical director. When there’s a graphic on the screen, the Chyron person made it, but the TD put it on the screen. When there’s a video package playing, that’s on the screen because of our friend the technical director. That person sits here:
This is a Grass Valley switcher and it is massive and impressive. It took about a full week of intensive training to get most of it down. And it will do everything we will conceivably ask of it and more. One of the TDs on one of our student shows was comparing this new control room to their old digs. Used to be, he said, he could sit in one seat and do three or four of the roles without moving. Now, in this new studio, a state-of-the-art facility, a full-on production requires a team of nine or 10 crew members. So the short version is: better programming, more training opportunities, win-win.
Such is the dedication to the broadcast students that Indiana University and the Media School have built such an impressive facility. It is a neat treat to be a small part of that. And if I am sitting at that switcher one day and I disappear into the past or transport myself to Mars, just know it was a human error on my part.
View from my run this evening:
An easy three-miler to get through the middle of the week.
Today, I rode my bicycle to work. Here was one of my views:
I wonder how long it might be before I won’t marvel at riding my bike to the office.
I spent a part of the day editing audio. Every time I open audio software I wonder: Will this be the time I find this boring? Hasn’t happened yet:
A view from the bike ride back to the house this afternoon:
And now a tale of housework.
We were fortunate when we purchased this place, that it is a turn key place. We’ll paint some rooms eventually, of course, but there wasn’t a lot to do when we moved our things in this summer.
We did, however, quickly discover a problem with two ceiling fans. In researching the problem we learned that the living room and master bedroom have the same type of fan, which involves a radio frequency. As in, the two fans are using the same frequency, which means that to run the light or fan in one room impacts the light or fan in the other. So one frequency had to be changed. Now, ceiling fans don’t really have makes or model numbers on them, so finding the manual, based on visually identifying the control panel in the wall, online has been a challenge. Finding the place where one changes the frequency has been an even greater challenge.
Anyway, after a day or two trying to just figure it out, and a few attempts to find the manual and infer the solution from poorly drawn diagrams, I finally gave up and called the manufacturer. I’ve called once before, but, of course, business hours. Eventually I got the right voice mail. A technician asked me to send him some pictures. He called me back and told me how to do what and where. So, then, today, I finally had the chance to follow the expert’s advice.
First, you have to break the circuit, of course. Then you shimmy up a ladder and remove the fan from the ceiling. Now I know where the adjustment must be made, and by virtue of the previous attempts via trial and error I have decided that the fan in the living room will be easiest to change.
So up the ladder, loosen the screws, take the mounting ball off the ceiling bracket and then … fall down the ladder with 35 pounds of wood and glass in my hand.
You see, the ceiling fan is equipped with a little steel hang line. With this you can suspend the fan from the bracket while you connect the wiring and, perhaps, change the remote control frequency. Only the hang line wasn’t connected to anything, so off it came and down I went. How I managed to avoid hurting myself or breaking the fan can only be attributed to quick reflexes and deft skill at not falling cultivated over a lifetime of falling. Here it is now, sitting on the floor, like all good ceiling fans:
The thing to change was tucked inside the frame there, and involved four little switches on a module the size of a dime. This was not designed to be seen from below when the fan was hanging from the ceiling. Of course, once you’ve set the thing you should never have to deal with it again. Except that the previous owners had since they either moved in or installed the fans. Later, I had to carry the fan back up the ladder and, from the highest rung, press it over my head, string the steel line, re-wire the thing and then hang it in the ceiling bracket.
Now we can turn on one fan or adjust the lights without impacting another room.
My reward was a sketchy M&M:
The next project is the hot water heater. When I finally get that figured out I’ll have a proper treat.
