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Monday / photo — Comments Off
1
May 17

¡Ole!

Just another quiet Monday. Things are a bit slower at the office this week. It is finals week, so the activities change and that alters the complexion of the day. Seems quieter and slower, somehow. Anyway, the students are cramming and writing and working.

The seniors, meanwhile, are getting ready to graduate this weekend and head off for their next big adventure. So we’re saying goodbye to some good folks. I’ve only known them a year, but you still hope the same things. You hope you’ve done enough to help them. You hope you’ve done it right.

We went to the Surplus Store this afternoon. The entire university system sends all of their extras and leftovers to this one location and today and tomorrow they are having a half-off sale. So I bought two things.

I got this frame for $.50. I figured I’d take out the print and that text, which basically describes, in the most basic way possible, the traditional art of matadors. Bull fighting is just about the least interesting thing in the world to me, and not especially sporting in any sense. But, hey, how often do you get a decent frame and a matter for fifty cents?

So naturally The Yankee is teasing me, telling me I should hang it just as it is. I said I would, but only in the foyer, which is still looking for what we’ve come to call an accent piece. And that’s the wall it would sit on. Don’t you think the tones all compliment one another?

We’re not hanging the bull fighting photo in the foyer.

IU / photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
26
Apr 17

Ouch

I am wearing an ice pack on my shin. You’d think — I thought as I knelt on the ground in a serious kind of pain — that all of those years of soccer and all of those many times of slide tackling opponents, and being tackled myself, that my shins would have calcified nicely. But, as I tried very hard to keep my composure in front of a room full of people, that is not the case.

I walked through a metal chair and it caught me on the inside of the shin bone striking about nine inches of my leg. Perhaps it separated bone from muscle, I had a vision of that in my head, anyway, to accompany the first initial white hot pain. And then before the stride was through, before the natural swing of my hip had taken its course and placed my foot in proximity to the ground and gravity reasserted itself, I stepped through another chair, this time hitting the outside of the same shin.

So I sat there on the ground, in some real pain, contemplating the two hours between then and getting some ice. And let me tell you, ice is good. Oddly, there is no bruising. So take that, devilish metal chair!

I’m sure I’ll be fine in a day or three.

Anyway. In the studio tonight, the last sports shows of the term.

Here’s the crew, relieved they can get back to studying for finals, I’m sure.

IUS-TV

I think they were going up a roller coaster here:

IUS-TV

One of the shows they shot tonight:

Not pictured, my ridiculous leg injury.

IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
25
Apr 17

The goodbyes continue

Last Friday night the first show of the year to wrap had their day. Tonight, we’re saying auf wiedersehen to the news show, Hoosier News Source. As always, I learned a lot and I had a great deal of fun. I hope they did too. Those two ladies are the graduating news directors, and they’ve meant a lot to the IUS-TV project in the last few years.

IUS-TV

We’re also closing down, for the summer, the pop culture smash hit show What’s Up Weekly. It has been a lot of fun to see, even some of the fashion segments!

IUS-TV

This crew has only had to put up with me for the one year, of course, and I hope they found it useful.

IUS-TV

Some of them will be going to work in Illinois, here in Indiana, Virginia and elsewhere. They are a talented group of young people. I say it a lot, and think it more often, but they come in on their free time to work on these projects when they could be anywhere. They come do this because they believe us when we say it will be good for them in the long run, professionally. (And it will be.) But they could be anywhere. They all know it, but the few dozen that take part, they’re the smart ones. They’re working extra hard on yet another project that, if I had my way, they’d view as an almost-full time job. They do it without receiving a lot of recognition and they do it for free. They do it because they are awesome.

I, at least, appreciate the effort. I hope they appreciate the experience, and that it serves them well.

cycling / IU / Monday / photo / Twitter / video — Comments Off
24
Apr 17

This isn’t entirely about cycling

We saw the women’s race on Friday and the men’s race on Saturday. Both days it was supposed to rain. Both days prevailing winds kept the showers away. And late in the day on Saturday spring returned again. It is a skittish spring.

Anyway, the race strategy is all about transitions. There are up to four members on a team and you are swapping out riders left and right to meet the rule requirements and to keep your teammates fresh. The ideal thing to do is to break away from the pack so you can have a bicycle exchange without losing any time. So the guy leaving the race is revving up to about 130 RPMs only to stop on a dime and let the teammate take over. And sometimes that leads to crashes. And sometimes there are just crashes in the field itself. I could do without that. But these guys were moving, averaging just over 24 miles per hour for two hours, counting a few caution laps.

Here’s a green flag restart after one of the race’s three big cautions:

And here is the winner coming across the line, the paper calls them the people’s champions, the Black Key Bulls:

A fine bicycle race! Here are some clips:

I made a gif, too, if you prefer:

At the finish. #Little500 pic.twitter.com/9S0hpF2BvE

— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith) April 22, 2017

By Sunday afternoon it was fully spring again … promising another attempt at the second season of the year, this one destined to last a full 48 hours before some cold and gray day moves back into the region. So it was spring and sunny and crisp and we set out to enjoy. On our bike ride on the north side of town I found two cool barns:

Which brings us to today. We got to play the part of tour hosts for a bit today. The grandson of a family friend is making his college trips and he was here for a quick stopover for a few informational sessions, some building tours and meeting a few students. Late in the day we caught up with them at the Sample Gates:

Truly, it was chamber of commerce weather. It is always just like this here young man, no matter what they tell you.

Friday / IU / photo / video — Comments Off
21
Apr 17

Little 500 and the night show

Today we saw a bike race, and you can see the part just before they started:

The 30th Women’s Little 500 race was won by Kappa Alpha Theta — the time in the middle of the front row here at the start. This was their third victory in the last four years and seventh all-time championship. That’s the most of any team. The women’s race is 25 miles long and was an entertaining way to spend an hour. Also, many of our students were broadcasting or covering the race, so it was fun to see the familiar faces hard at work throughout the facility.

Some of the women that won this race, by the way, came into the studio for our morning show a few weeks ago:

Anyway, after the race, it was back on our usual side of campus, more of our hard working students were producing the series finale of Hella Late with Rob Sherrell our late night host treated his live audience to a rap battle. There were some talented people there. I watched from the audience. This guy won.

Here’s my friend Rob, who hosts that show:

Rob Sherrell is a writer, a comic, a filmmaker. He pitched and co-produced Hella Late. He’s also a standup comedy major. His first professional gig, after school, is directing a documentary in Thailand in just a few weeks.

I asked him, How’d you get that?

“Because of this, because of IUSTV,” he said.

He’s such a cool guy. Smart, thoughtful, funny. He’s got a quiet drive and a prominent, eloquent urgency. He’s one of those, you just know, he’s going somewhere.

He’s about to graduate, so like all of the seniors, you’re ready to hear of the big things in their future.

We say, “Hey, come back and talk about your careers and give the current students hints and tips. And also give us some of your money.” But first, we knew them when.