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IU / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on Camera three? Camera two!
24
Jan 17

Camera three? Camera two!

I watched two shows get produced this evening. First was What’s Up Weekly:

Sierra and Sheila are going to take you through all the important and cool events going on around town. And there might be some fashion and celebrity gossip thrown in there, as well. They have a lot of fun on that show.

And here is the group getting ready for Hoosier News Source:

Tonight Sophia and Mackenzie are on the desk, and you see Lauren and Meredith who are doing a bit of floor directing and last-minute wrangling before the cameras started to roll. It was a decent-sized show:

This is the best story of the day. What the tweet doesn’t tell you: this was from 1,800 meters away. Her Majesty’s best man did this from more than a mile away:

The story says the bad guys were about to start shooting at a group of women and children.

Best headline of the day: The Girl Behind The Sparkle-Shooting Prosthetic Arm Is Just Getting Started:

The last 10 months have been a whirlwind for Jordan, who was born with a left arm that stops just above the elbow. After Fast Company first wrote about Jordan’s sparkle-shooting arm last March, she’s presented it at events all around the country, including a trip to Disney World, where she won the Dream Big, Princess award. Autodesk and Dremel gave her a 3D printer to use at home, and Awesome Without Borders chipped in $1,000 for filament.

“It’s just crazy,” Jordan says of everything that’s happened over the last year. “Good crazy. There’s no such thing as a bad crazy.”

And, finally, The Story Behind Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” and the Poet’s Own Stirring Reading of His Masterpiece.

cycling / Monday / photo / running — Comments Off on An easy 20 mile weekend
23
Jan 17

An easy 20 mile weekend

It was sunny and 67 and gorgeous on Saturday. We were supposed to run 12 miles, but you get days like this in January here only so often. Or a day. You only get a day like this in January only so often. (As in, Saturday. That was the one day.)

So instead of running we decided to go for a little bike ride. So we set out for the bike and pedestrian trails around town:

It was an easy spin. Just as well, because it was the first time I’d been on my bike since the end of last season. She was in fine form:

A lot of people were out, because they understand the weather to be an exception to what is ahead of us, so the trails were often full. Lots of walkers and joggers and families and you can hear the briefest of a snippet of conversations on the trails and I’m always hoping they fall together to make some nonsensical story. You’re around people for about a second, and it’ll take forever, but I’m hoping.

And there are a lot of kids on bikes. Whenever I see a kid on a bike I always try to compliment their ride. “Oh I need one that color!” Give a little boost and all that. Not this girl, though:

She went by me too fast.

On Sunday afternoon it was overcast and 60. We were supposed to run 12 miles, but I only got in five miles. It just didn’t feel good (so I added four more miles today). But it looked like this, which is what most winter days look like here:

And this:

We passed that barn going the other direction the day before on my bike. I’d tried to take a picture of it from my bike, but my phone’s iOS decided to confuse my opening the phone app for “Yes, let’s update right now!” I just wanted a photo of the silo and I got an all new operating system, instead. It was good that I found the barn and silo again on foot. I had no idea where we were when we rode past it, which is the best way to start your year on the bike.

IU / photo / Thursday / video — Comments Off on Remember, or forget, either way its fine
19
Jan 17

Remember, or forget, either way its fine

Sometimes you park in the lot across the street from the building. Sometimes you park in the lot one block over from that. Depending on the time of day, you might have to park one block away from the building, in a narrow little, older looking parking deck.

That’s where I parked today. And in that deck they have painted numbers on the doors so you know where you parked. And that stencil artist decided to be extra helpful …

But then someone came along and said “No, no, no. We can’t have that.”

And you wonder why.

Thursdays are long days. I stayed on campus until almost 9 p.m. tonight. I was watching a few shows being recorded. Here’s a sports show the IUS crew taped tonight:

First show back this semester. So now all of the rust should be knocked off and it’ll be onward and upward from here. There was also a talk show tonight, but it won’t be released until the weekend.

I should have shared these yesterday, but I forgot. So here is the news show, Hoosier News Source:

And What’s Up Weekly:

And that’s plenty for now. Except for whatever I don’t remember.

books / friends / history / photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Stuff in the air, and in my office
18
Jan 17

Stuff in the air, and in my office

I found this book last weekend:

It was published in 1958 and seems to be aimed at giving a reasonable historical re-telling and description to teens. The chapters have great line art:

That’s a paratrooper, which was pretty much the moment I decided to take pictures to send to our friend Adam, who is a modern paratrooper, because I thought he’d appreciate the biplane:

But it was this one he really liked, and how could you not? Look at his left hand:

Just another day at the office, oh, and do remember your briefcase. Here’s an almost contemporaneous accounting of Captain Sergei Mienov:

He spent almost a year in the United States. On his way back to Russia he passed a few days in Paris. He was full of enthusiasm for what he had seen in the development of air technique. Although Russia was not yet officially recognized, Mienov had been courteously received. He had visited airplane factories, airdromes and training schools. He praised highly the quality of American parachutes and the instruction American pilots received in their use. He had made his first parachute jump here.

[…]

When Mienov submitted the report of his US observations to Air Chief Alksnis, he mentioned the wide interest which parachute jumping could arouse. He suggested that the interest of the Soviet population, and particularly the young, could be turned toward the development of air power by this type of propaganda. Alksnis passed the comment on to the Politburo. Stalin agreed that it was a good idea.

And so parachuting became wildly popular in the Soviet Union.

Until the purges. And then the Germans did it better and then the Americans did it more. And that’s the story of how one of the more crazy ideas a person could do as a spectator sport became one of the craziest things people would do in military service. How the book wound up where I found it remains a mystery.

Here’s Adam now, this is his jump into Ste. Mere-Eglise, Normandy, France, commemorating the 70th anniversary of D-Day:

He took a miniature American flag on the jump with him and sent it to me as a keepsake, which super cool. That’s in my office now.

So is this stuff:

We are about to surplus a bunch of old equipment. The university has a surplus process for its eight campuses and some things of a certain value must be processed in a certain way and that’s where I am. More specifically, that picture is opposite of where I am, in my office, which is now filled.

Because it made more sense to bring this stuff out of storage, start (and hopefully complete) the paperwork process and then wait on the nice fellows from the Surplus store to come over and pick it up. So I have huge bundles of television cabling, a half dozen old cameras, a switcher, various accesorries and a chest-high stack of old engineering components in my office. If anyone wants to come push buttons, now is the time.

As a bonus, many of the buttons sound different.

history / IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on The ranch we visited last weekend
17
Jan 17

The ranch we visited last weekend

So we stopped by to see some family. Which, to some of us, meant family and, to others, like me, meant new people. And very kind and interesting and happy people, too. This was after the funeral, and this was some of the local family who invited the whole large group over for a visit. This was the first sign you see:

Now think of that. Inside the house there was a framed certificate that says they ranch started in 1856. Texas was annexed in 1845, so the ranch itself is almost as old as the state. We learned that the man who originally owned the land had it longer than that before he built on it. In all that time it has stayed in that one family. Think of that.

So it turns out Texas’ Historic Farm project has been going on for some time. They recognize farms that have stayed active within one family at 100, 150 and 200 years. One press release I found said there were about 4,800 in the state that can make the century claim. In an entire state, in all of Texas, there are just a handful of farms older than this place:

Let’s think of this another way. While at the place, which still raises cattle and has at least a few horses and one very loud donkey, I met this delightful lady, a retired art teacher. I won’t guess her age, but she had one. These, she said, were her grandparents:

And they weren’t even the first people on the ranch. And the way she said it, they were’t the first ones by a good ways.

Back at work today. The semester started last week and we started shooting today. Here’s a view of the control room during the shoot:

And here I am in the studio with the What’s Up Weekly crew:

They proclaimed me the king of candid shots with that one. I’ve had worse titles.

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