Is it possible to have a weekend where you don’t do the things you’d thought you might, but it still feels fruitful? I did get a lot of things off the DVR, after all. And I started on a few things that I’ve been meaning to get to. I made some cufflinks, after all. I am reworking my little business card carrier, too. That’s plenty, right?
No?
OK, fine. I had a pleasant bike ride this evening. Here’s one of the views of a field I went by.
And I took a shadow selfie.
I also had a bike ride Saturday. It was cold then. It was pleasant today. It’ll be gray and drab like five other months of the year here tomorrow, and I’ll have a run tomorrow. It’s fruitful enough.
A lack of doing something, I honestly believe, is not a bad thing, maybe it’s even a good thing. The problem is how often I can tell myself that. That thing you wanted to do will still be there tomorrow. And it will, as it has been.
That’s sometimes the problem, amirite?
The kitties are doing just great, thanks for asking. We have had a weekend of quality cuddling and napping and staring at the world outside and napping and being underfoot.
Phoebe is developing an affinity for baskets situated in unusual positions.
They love to hop into the baskets, of course. What a perfect device. They can see out from every side and feel protected and surrounded at the same time. I’m not sure what they are guarding themselves from in our dangerous, dangerous house. But who can argue with evolution?
Poseidon. Poseidon would argue. It’s in his nature. His argument on this particular occasion was “Why am I in here while you are out there? And I am judging you.”
Quite day at the office. Most everyone had taken the day off for the long weekend — or they were working from home. I talked with one person face-to-face. So, really, it was perhaps an almost-average day.
Here’s a new thing from work. We’re going to be rolling out a lot of this sort of thing before long, just trying to show off the work of colleagues. (Somebody oughta do it.)
A study co-authored by @LaurnSmith examines how Michigan State tried to use Facebook for image repair in the immediate wake of the Larry Nassar scandal.
Smith says Facebook commenters found the university’s effort lacking.
I got 10 or 11 cuts from her on that study and her recently published NCAA book, and we’re going to show those off a lot, of course.
Speaking of showing off, she got on her time trial bike this afternoon. Working through the geometry shakedown rides, so still getting everything finely tuned after the latest round of adjustments. It was windy, she was getting acquainted and wearing this rain jacket — because it is cold and stupid here. That jacket parachutes and adds unnecessary wind drag. And she was still cooking.
I jumped ahead of here in a little bit of a road that suits me better than her. I figured I should get ahead and stay ahead because, when she got all of this figured out she’d go right by me. So for the next 10 miles.
She did not catch me. Today. She won’t do it tomorrow, because I will have a great ride tomorrow, but that bike is so fast and she’s so powerful on it that it’s only a matter of time. We rode the last two miles together, because it is a fun little chase. I was holding her wheel and glanced down to see was doing 31 mph (for context: that’s respectably fast) on that last little strip. I’ve ridden thousands of miles with her, so trust me here: she wasn’t even trying.
I need to install rockets on my pedals in the next week or two.
cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off on The saying of the week 24 May 21
The weekend felt the appropriate length. It wasn’t too long, but it didn’t fly right by, you know? It was almost just right. Good porridge!
That’s not a saying, and you wonder why. It seems positively continental. ‘How was the train ride?’ Good porridge! ‘Did you see what the PM said?’ Good porridge!
Anyway, casual Friday evening. We had a spaghetti, with a tasteful, understated sauce. On Saturday we went for a bike ride. Warm sun! New roads! Positively misbehaving bike!
It just came back from the bike shop, where they put on a new chain and cables and a front derailleur. Mine was rusted solid and wouldn’t go from the big ring to the little ring. Only a problem on the big hills. And, after nine days in the shop, the bike was ready to ride, even if my legs weren’t. And I could swap from the big ring to the little ring with the satisfying KERRRRRRCHUNK that really signals “the bike shop put the good components on here.” (They did not.) But now I couldn’t swap from the little ring to the big ring. That’s only a problem after the big hills, which is why I was behind my lovely bride all day.
It was a nice few hours on the bike.
KERRRRRRCHUNK.
And so it was that we found ourselves on a new road and a detour sign. I rode up ahead to see if it was passable by bike. I saw a nice lady standing out there doing traffic stuff. Talk about a lonely job. This road was well out in the countryside and she was a quarter mile or so behind this sign.
And the construction was well down the road and out of site from where she was stationed. But she was hoping to go home soon. It was about that time in the afternoon and we had 21 miles yet to go …
It was slow, so of course I want to go back again and see if I can do it faster. But first I have to take my bicycle back to the bike shop.
Yesterday we watched a virtual bike race and then sat out under the shade of a giant umbrella and enjoyed a warm early-summer day and took a pleasant walk and turned a nice day into a relaxing evening. Good porridge!
And so we wrap up our start of the week by the routine check-in with the kitties. Poseidon enjoyed a long nap in this box on the cat tree yesterday:
And we see Phoebe here lounging on a buffet table:
Cat rules, so often- and so well-obeyed, must be a complete and total mystery to a cat. You can’t be on those elevated surfaces over there, because the big hairless cats get the bottle with the water, but these other surfaces, sure why not?
So rational are we, what must they think of us?
I’ll ask them. Maybe they’ll me this week. Maybe they’ve been trying to tell us for ages. They surely do chatter away a lot.
And so, it seems, have I. More tomorrow. I’ve got it all planned out and everything!
First you check me out on Twitter and then surf over Instagram. And did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account. See them, and then come back here tomorrow!
We had so much to do this week — a week’s summary on Monday and a lot of outdoor wildlife on Tuesday — that we’ve had put off this week’s check-in with the cats until today. Probably the most successful feature on this humble little blog, so let’s get to it.
Phoebe has lately really enjoyed whatever this toy is. We throw it in the air, and she catches it or bats it down. And, now, she … licks it … I guess.
Poseidon has kept his attention on the birds. And the squirrels. And the chipmunks. And the rabbits. And maybe the cicadas. Who knows what he’s looking at here.
I went out for a little run yesterday. It went bad before it started — Not unlike today’s bike ride! — but at least I saw some interesting plant life.
Hand it to those local bike shop bros, though. Ask them to work on three things, get your bike back nine days later and they addressed … at least one of those items. I’m not saying it’s frustrating, but I think you could put those pieces together.
That was a delightful afternoon ride.
I talked with a clinical psychologist this morning about substance use disorder. It was an interesting interview. The tricky part was asking reasonable questions. This is not an area I’ve spent a lot of time in, and I wanted to set up an actual, you know, expert, with some useful softballs.
The hardest part was getting the whole thing down to 30 minutes. Those last 90 seconds or so are always tough. That’s the downside to talking with experts, there’s so much worth hearing.
So click that little play button, and I’ll go find some more people to talk to.
It is finals week. I have no finals. Not taking any. Not delivering any. Only one major studio production this week, and one minor one.
It is the interregnum! The inbox will be cleansed! The office will be returned to its minimalist purpose! Other content will be scheduled, arranged, prepared and produced! Much will get done!
In a week or two it will all start again.
I spent two hours today dealing with an audio production I am working on.
See, it all began when I received an email in February with an intriguing subject line. Someone wants to produce a program, and can we help produce it. Well, I have studios and students. And so we began the process. And now they are to the point where they are almost ready to publish their first episode. (Hence the minor studio production later this week. We have to get their credits put in the can.) The host has been interviewing his guests most enthusiastically. The producer is closing in on a nice mental image for how the show will work. I have a bright young student who is working on editing the shows.
We’ve had technical difficulties. We’ve had laughs. I’ve tried my best to come off looking like a wizard. They are very pleased with my wizard-like skills. And, now, we are almost ready to let this thing run under its own power.
But two hours, right in the middle of your Monday, that really fills up the day, somehow.
Also today, I was able to say goodbye-for-now and congratulations to some of our graduating seniors. As is my tradition I wished them the best, gave them the parting advice they needed and reminded them I might one day be hitching a wagon to their star.
I don’t do that, but it could be. It’s a small industry. You wind up working with everyone some day.
Here are the last two shows of the semester. This is the late night show, which has been a lot of fun to watch come to life this year. The studio where they produce this is a giant soundstage, but they’ve built sets on it this year for some of the cinema classes, which crimped the previous style of this show. No matter, the creative-types said, we can work with that. I made them jump through a lot of hoops because of various studio rules and Covid-19 rules and they did it all with good cheer and determination and this show has been evolving all year long. It’s been neat to see.
They shot that last Thursday night in Studio 5. And on Friday morning another group — though there is some crossover in the crew — produced this in Studio 7. The shows where they talk about themselves always run the longest. Weird.
That episode also had a surprise-on-video appearance by Gabrielle, one of the people that started the show, and Patrick, who was a producer that really helped round it into something nice. Award winning, even.
He’s an award-winning producer, then. Met his wife doing these shows. (Or in a class. Or just on campus. Or maybe they grew up next-door to one another. I’m not really sure, but my version sounds better. They met on one of our shows.) He works in finance and does freelance production today. Just a super, super nice guy. I think he was the first person I had a conversation with in masks last spring. He had to return a key to me. I watched him hold it up and drench the thing in sanitizer and then hand it to me, and we stayed well apart in a parking lot because everyone was afraid of everything. I told him one thing I wasn’t afraid of was what he’d do next because, to know him is to know one of those people who you just know is going to work hard and do right and things in the world around him would line up.
How was that only a year ago?
It was probably more like 13 months. And change.
Oh, well, yeah, sure. That’s right. That makes a lot more sense, then.
At some point this month I’ll consider doing some back-to-normalish things. Just visit a store for the heck of it, sort of things. We’re vaccinated. Our families have all gotten the shots. The local population will be reduced a bit when the students return home. Hopefully community vaccination will get a nice surge. (It’s slowing here, same as everywhere, unfortunately, but I’m hoping for renewed interest.) So all of those things together might make the time right. Plus it will a nice bit of punctuation between that time last year and this time this year, a good reminder of the time spent laying low, rather than creating a misperception of a foggy dream.
Maybe this sort of timing is important in ways we haven’t yet really wrapped our arms around. Everyone is eager and in a rush to put this behind them, and I understand that. Maybe that it hasn’t been one symmetrical year is a good thing. There’s a lot, still, to understand about what’s just passed us, too.
Went for a bike ride this evening. There’s this one road on one of our usual routes that has three little rolling hills and, for some reason, that third hill always hurts. So my tactic this time was to ride the first two casually, spinning out the easiest gear I could. (My rear derailleur needs adjusting and I can’t shift from the big to the little right now, too, so that’s a thing.) And then, on the third hill, I hoped, I would still have some feeling left and be able to get over the thing.
So that’s when I jumped ahead of my lovely bride.
The next five miles offer a handful of turns and curves and sticky little rollers before the turnaround spot. And right after that is when I passed her going the other way.
She was far too close, which meant she was far too close. Which meant I hadn’t created the separation I’d hoped for. Which meant she was going to chase me down. Which meant I had to ride harder to keep in front.
It’s more difficult to get ahead to give her something to chase than to catch up to her when you’re behind.
It is six-and-a-half miles from where that photo is taken to the house. And all of that was in my head the whole way. There are a few places on that part of the route where the terrain and the road and, on days like today, a lack of traffic can give you a good long view behind you. I never did see her. But once, on the last little leg of this course, she was nowhere to be seen and I sat up to catch my breath and soft-pedaled for 17 seconds. I did it for only 17 seconds because in the 17th she whooooosed right by me.
So there was going to be none of that this evening. I had two one-mile splits that were on the low end of fast. And she never caught me.
She was about 15 seconds behind at the end, though.
