Bloomington


19
Apr 22

Just the regular stuff

It was a sunny day. I know that because I drove in the sunshine. Because I have a late night on campus, I enjoyed a late start. So I lazed around a bit and read and did some laundry and generally wasn’t productive enough for most of the morning. A shame, really, because productivity is the mark of your downtime! Otherwise you’re just staring at the clock, waiting for your chance to spring into action.

And after I’d sprung, I spent the day in a room with no windows, which always helps productivity. So the sun could have done any number of things over the next six or so hours, and I’d be none the wiser. But I did see this streaming from a colleague’s office as I went up to the studio.

This will bake your bean: what if the universe is telling you something, but you just don’t understand the symbols?

That’d be too much to think about in the control room, where there was a lot going on this evening.

And, next door, in the studio, they were talking table tennis.

Because we had the recently crowned national champions in for an interview. These guys are twins, born 40 minutes apart. They’ve been playing internationally for about a decade, already. And one of them was an Olympic alternate during the most recent Games.

They said they practice about three hours a day. Later, the studio gang had a talk about all the things we could all be good at if we practiced it three hours a day.

Aside from autonomous things, like blinking and breathing and so on, what do you do for three or more hours a day? I probably read that much, presumably making me an expert reader. It gets pretty thin after that, though.

Also, Mia told us it is going to warm up just in time for Little 500 weekend. Every year since we’ve been here, that weekend has marked the precise retirement of winter, and beginning of spring.

Why they can’t have these races, then, in February, or March, remains a mystery to me.

Just as mysterious, where they’re going next with this show. It’s a mix of scripted and improv comedy, and we’re all just going along for the ride. Anyway, this week’s premise is that we’re on the search for a new co-host, and all of the awkwardness that you can possibly imagine from that is probably under consideration here.

Here’s the new longform interview show. All of the guests are IU or Indiana type folks, and that’s not a bad hook. So far they’re three-for-three on big names, including Michael Uslan, who’s the guy responsible for all of the Batman movies you’ve seen since Michael Keaton put on the cowl. So the caped crusader is probably going to come up in this conversation.

And this is a rock ‘n’ roll show. Three bands came into the studio, including one brand new band. This was the first song the three-piece band ever played together. Fooled me.

It was after 8 p.m. when I left the building, and still vaguely daylight when I made it outside. I walked to the parking deck and drove up to the top floor to look to the west. The gloaming hadn’t even begun.

That’s a great feature here. The best one, if you ask me.


5
Oct 21

A stationary front

The signs of summer are still with us. Saw this lovely little bit of shrubbery on a walk late last evening.

The signs of fall are coming slowly, and then suddenly. Same walk, just a little farther up on the same path.

So today my pocket square is autumnal.

Two years ago we observed Halloween and a snowfall. I’m going to try to not think about that every day between now and then. Each day in the next week or two when we have temperatures in the 70s and low 80s are a gift. A confusing gift.

But that weather out there? My friend Caroline Klare told me it would be like this.

In 2017 IUSTV decided to incorporate some weather into their newscasts. Someone knew someone studying atmospheric sciences. The first student-meteorologist was great, figured the TV thing out very quickly and did a fantastic job right up to graduation and went out into the world and got a job at BAMWX, a weather tech company. Two more students came through, one went to graduate school out west. One landed a great TV job in North Carolina, and Caroline is the last of that original cohort. Incredibly smart woman, wise beyond her years. She’s had a meteorology job waiting for her since her junior year.

Often as not, she orders me up some lovely weather, too.

I’m thinking about going to study atmosphere sciences.


27
Aug 21

Downstream from here

It rained this afternoon. Less than 20 minutes of the wet stuff fell from the sky. Something between a trace and a measurable amount. Just long enough to make me stay at the office a few minutes more, you understand. I rode out this randomly appearing rain cloud with purpose, doing a computer networking test that I learned earlier in the day on an extra classroom.

By the time that chore was done the rain was gone. And the little creek that runs alongside the building looked like this.

There’s something about the limestone that’s all around the place that slows drainage. If the water can’t go into the soil it just rolls to wherever the terrain wants it to and, here, that means Spanker’s Branch and down into the underground system just after that last shot. In an appropriate number of hours or days I’ll be using this same water to clean up after dinner.

It’s comforting, really, knowing there is a cycle to this, and we have integrated a system into it.

Saying a thing like that, about the dishes, is just one short step from trying to assign a story to that particular bit of water. The happy bubbles, and all of that. At which point you’re simply anthrophomorizing dihydrogen monoxide.

“What’s this ‘you’ stuff, pal?”

You’re right. You’re right. Not one among you has ever wondered about the hopes and dreams of the water you use while doing the dishes. That is the most ambitious part of the water that comes into our house. How else to explain how it gets on the countertops, the cabinets, my shirt, under the dish drainer and everything else?

I got some under the drainer this evening. No idea how that happened.

We’re hitting the books again before the weekend begins. We’re looking at a few of the interesting bits from one of my grandfather’s magazines, the January 1954 edition of Popular Science. We started this particular magazine a few weeks ago now, and you can see the first ads if you click that previous link. Click the image below and you can enjoy the next nine photos and bring yourself great worth and merriment.

But if Popular Science doesn’t interest you, you can see the rest of the things I’ve digitized from my grandfather’s collection. There are textbooks, a school notebook and a few Reader’s Digests, so far. It’s a lot of fun.

Just like your weekend. Unless you’re getting rained on. Watch out for Ida.

I’m taking next week off here, but we’ll be back for more fun of this sort the following week. See you on Labor Day!


29
Jul 21

Links of the day

We did it last week, and that went well, so let’s return to the simple link post in a good long while. So let’s do that. Here are a few items that have been in my browser(s) today.

This story is 1.3 million years in the making.

Archaeologists in Morocco have announced the discovery of North Africa’s oldest Stone Age hand-axe manufacturing site, dating back 1.3 million years, an international team reported on Wednesday.

The find pushes back by hundreds of thousands of years the start date in North Africa of the Acheulian stone tool industry associated with a key human ancestor, Homo erectus, researchers on the team told journalists in Rabat.

[…]

Before the find, the presence in Morocco of the Acheulian stone tool industry was thought to date back 700,000 years.

The dating is something there, isn’t it? It almost doubles the local timeline. If you aren’t paying attention to archeology news, that seems improbable, 1.3 million years. But not too long ago a team led by scholars from Stony Brook and Rutgers, pushed the timeline in Kenya back to 3.3 million years and Australopithecus afarensis or Kenyanthropus platyops.

The use of the word “industry” in that Al Jazeera story, the first one, also stands out.

It’s one thing to use a rock, but to make it into something useful — something we’d later recognize — is another. And then! Then, to be able to teach that skill to others, so that they can make more axes or spears or knives, maybe in exchange for something else, I suppose that’s industry. That’s civilization. And this one is apparently 1.3 million years old.

I’m sure you saw the new CDC guidance, which is still somewhat muddled. Maybe before we’re through the second year of the pandemic they’ll get their health and crisis comms in order …

Anyway, they’re recommending masks, even for the vaccinated (yes, even for you) if you live in a place where the Covid case load is rated as “substantial” or “high.” Really this is an actuarial exercise, with an element of risk assessment to it. Let’s all assume we have some understanding of percentages and risk aversion and game theory — sorta the same way we decide whether we’re going to drive over the speed limit speed the next time we go somewhere. It’d probably just be safer to driver more carefully every time. Same with masks!

Anyway, substantial and high are what you’re concerned with in NPR’s handy little tool. Just type in your county and you’ll get a read on the local happenings.

The change to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s masking guidelines came after pressure from many outside experts. The CDC’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said in a news briefing that new evidence showed delta was more transmissible than previously understood.

“This was not a decision that was taken lightly,” Walensky said. She noted that new data from outbreak investigations show that, rarely, vaccinated people can still get infected and spread the virus to others.

“On rare occasions, some vaccinated people infected with the delta variant after vaccination may be contagious and spread the virus to others,” she told reporters when announcing the new guidelines. “This new science is worrisome and, unfortunately, warrants an update to our recommendations.”

(Every county I’ve ever lived in, ever, is in one of those two categories right now.)

Wear a mask.

This is one of those local women dominates at Olympics stories.

They have trained together, raced together, wept together. Now they will swim together – in adjacent lanes – for an Olympic medal.

Bloomington workout partners Annie Lazor and Lilly King advanced Thursday morning to the final of the 200-meter breaststroke at Tokyo. They will be underdogs against South Africa’s Tatjana Schoenmaker, who challenged the world record in heats and semifinals.

[…]

“It’s going to be awesome, this is what we have been training for the whole time we’ve been training together,” King said. “So I’m really excited.”

[…]

Last month’s Olympic Trials was the first meet for Lazor since her father, David Lazor, died April 25. He was 61.

“The last couple of months I’ve been going through trying to achieve the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me while going through the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” Lazor said in Omaha, Nebraska.

“Sometimes my heart, for the first few weeks, it felt like I was choosing grief that day or choosing swimming that day. There was no in-between.”

Update: How cool is this?

Used to be that the athletic performance was what I watched for. Now it’s just the reactions after the events, the culmination of all that work, and the joyous celebrations that come from people who’ve devoted themselves to something so difficult. I guess that means I’m getting older.

Just not 1.3 million years old. Yet.


24
Feb 21

And happy Wednesday to you, too

The Yankee and I had a picnic in the old K-Mart parking lot. It was a drive-thru Chick-fil-A sort of experience, best part of the day with little doubt. The parking lot is next to the restaurant, which is still all drive-thru and curbside pickup and so we got our food and moved off to eat. When I’d finished my spicy chicken sandwich I looked up through the sun roof and noticed this view:

It was a mild day here, if you actually made it outside. I seldom seem able to do that. I live under fluorescent lights in a beige and dirty-cream color office with orange carpet and no windows most of the time. If I get a different view it’s under a handful of LEDs in the studio. But to get outside is nice, to get away for a few minutes is even better. And to see more fake signs of seasonal change is a delight.

As I noted yesterday on Twitter:

And the same thing applies today. So, when I was done with my work day I went up to the top of the parking deck to watch the sky whirl by. It was a pretty good choice, I think. The stratocumulus made for some dramatic views.

And why share one when you can share three? So here are two more pictures from the same parking deck.

Something to see, huh?

Here are some other things to check oiut. These are the videos from last night’s television productions.

News:

Pop culture happenings:

Oh, and I forgot the other day, there’s a morning show to check out, too.

That oughta hold you until tomorrow.