Rowan « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Rowan

photo / Rowan / Wednesday — Comments Off
5
Mar 25

Just work

Last night, and again earlier today, I finished putting together the last of my notes for the day’s lecture. We talked about journalism in places like Europe, Kazakhstan, China, and Russia. You might think that’s too much to do in 75 minutes, and you’d be right! But we touched on some things. They asked some questions. Shared some thoughts.

The sun was out. The sky is getting warmer. Spring Break is beginning in 10 days. Touching on some things, asking questions and sharing thoughts is a great goal. So mission accomplished, I guess.

Immediately after class was over I sat down in a committee meeting, which ended soon after it began. So I went to a group function and met some new students and had a pretzel.

My primary mission this evening was in finishing this packet I’ve been working on, off-and-on, for weeks and weeks. It’s done. I have written about this stuff all I care to, which is how I know I’m finished with it. All I have to do now is agonize over it some more. And convert the whole thing to PDFs.

Tomorrow I’ll go to campus and submit the thing. I’ll spend the next several days wondering how this managed to take up so much time. It was mostly my fault, which is why I’m glad to have finished the thing, and with a full two days to spare.

photo / Rowan / Tuesday — Comments Off
4
Mar 25

I used the word “zip” six times below

I returned to campus this afternoon to visit with a production class. The professor has asked me to be a client. His students have been making cycling safety videos, and an audio spot, to help raise awareness of the state’s safe passing laws. This is my third visit to the class this term, which isn’t much, but it isn’t nothing. The first visit, I gave them the problem. The second time, they gave me their initial pitches. Today, they presented their works in progress. And now we get to pick which ones we want to go forward.

So I walked into the class and said to the professor, “What would you like from me today?” And so we settled on feedback. I’m good at feedback. I was, for many years, a professional feedback giver, after all. I tried to let my colleague give the production feedback, but, I did that for 15 years, and that’s a habit that’s hard to break. Hopefully I didn’t step on his toes.

But let me tell you, these projects are all interesting. There are eight or nine, and they all came from different starting points, which is always fascinating as a demonstration of creativity. They all had the same briefing and Q&A with me, but they’re all trying to tell the story and carry the message in different ways. Some of them have reasonable potential. I think we’ll probably try to continue on with three or four of them, if the students are interested in completing the work.

The last time I visited with that group the class ended early so as to get the commuters on the road before a snow system came through. Today, I walked the long way around the building before, and after, because it was just so perfectly pleasant out today. I’d spent the morning and early afternoon working inside and had no idea how spectacular the day was.

It was windy in the late afternoon. I had to stop by the hardware store to pick up some zip ties. We use some on a fence cover and those little ties won’t do fr the wind we get. But you can purchase a bigger version. The package says it is certified to 150 pounds. I don’t know what the wind’s PSI is here, but other weathering effects will come into play eventually. These ties, too, will fail after some time. But they’ll work for now.

And the good news is, I now have a stockpile. The hardware store only seems them in bags of 50. This evening, while I was outside fixing the problem, I realized I only needed four.

Also, these thick heavy duty zip ties only come in lengths of 24 inches. I only need about an 1/8th of that. That’s a lot of zip tie to snip off at the end. Why doesn’t the zip tie maker offer individual locking heads that can somehow be used on all of those off cuts?

I wonder what people are securing that requires the better part of that full length zip tie. And, also, where they store them. It took me a while to find a cabinet large enough to hold them in. (I’ll never remember they’re under the restroom sink when I need to use another one two years from now.)

If I have time to wonder about that, I should spend that time on work instead. So back to that. The grading is done for the week. I have one more class prep and two committees to prepare for, but, otherwise, it’s just that great big work packet. The plan is to get the bulk of it done tonight, finish it off tomorrow and pass it on on Thursday, in advance of Friday’s deadline. And then to not think about it, much like those zip ties, until this time next year when I must do it again.

Monday / photo / Rowan — Comments Off
3
Mar 25

I have a Post-it note full of details for the week

It is all written in a very small print. And I will be scratching off items until Thursday.

It started with a meeting that was over in 8 minutes. For some reason, it ran for another 23. The second worst part was that it was in my office. You can’t just leave your own desk, right?

We talked journalism in class today. This is the week o’ journalism, which I’ve managed to include in a class that is not about journalism. This is useful because, next week, we’re talking about misinformation and disinformation. So that’s three things very much integral to our time, and all of them certainly useful in a class titled International Media Communication. So today it was mostly American journalism, my justification being that’s where we are. Wednesday we’ll talk about journalism practices in Europe and some parts of the Middle East and Asia.

Also that packet. Tonight, I have taken seven pages down to two. Tomorrow and Wednesday I’ll finish it up, restructuring a few things, moving parts around and doing a necessary edit and killing a bunch of my babies. Many pages will not make the final version, and that’s fine. After all of the other things that have to go along side the narrative it’ll still be 20-some pages long, and this is meant to represent the work I’ve done since last September. So it deserves the time.

I believe I’ve spent three weeks on the thing, so far. Still not sure why it needs two tables of contents, however.

Also tonight, I have some quizzes to grade. Tomorrow I’ll read some student discussions. And then Tuesday and Wednesday with the final touches on the above.

Right now, though, it’s time for the site’s most popular weekly feature, the check-in with the kitties.

Phoebe enjoys the afternoon sun in the dining room, and I found some cushions to make her more comfortable.

I get looks about this from my lovely bride, but I’m not the biggest spoiler of cats in our house.

And, sure, Phoebe has sunny afternoon cushions, but Poseidon has the height of luxury. Poseidon has what all the cool cats and kittens out there want. Poseidon has a new box.

The kitties, as you can see, are doing just fine, and they’re pleased I have fulfilled my contractual obligations by including them here.

I also have the first-of-the-month duties to attend to here on the ol’ computer. Clean up the Downloads subdirectory, update the boilerplate page, build new subdirectories for the site, and update the site’s statistics. For whatever reason, last month was easily the busiest February in the 22-year history of the site. Also, we’ve eclipsed 6.5 million visitors here on the humble hobby. I don’t know why people come here, and come back again, but I’m grateful for all of the time you spend here.

Except for the AI bots. They’re persimmon trees of orangutans that can stay on Mars and huff paint for other upside down content.

(Why shouldn’t we sour the milk for the AI bots?)

OK, back to work.

Friday / Rowan — Comments Off
28
Feb 25

Must be a Friday

Someday, some work expert will undertake a study that will try to explain just how it can be that so much productivity takes place on a Friday. I’m sure they’d say it has something to do with not wanting to leave work to sit and wait for next week. Or to avoid weekend work. And, sure, that’s part of the motivation. I don’t want to do work this week’s work tomorrow and Sunday. Tomorrow and Sunday, I have to start on next week’s work.

Next week I have a regular week plus the continuation of that big project that ate up so much time that I took a week off from writing here. It was a big document, one meant to describe the year of work, which is odd considering we’ve so far gone through just six of the 10 months. The document was page limited, which I almost hit, because it is meant to be a narrative of your work, and I can write about that in exciting detail. Except I wrote too much. Somewhere along the way, when I was working on that last month I completely overlooked that I was supposed to write four pages. It was an easy mistake to make, considering the two separate checklists I’d received. Two different checklists.

Also, this document has two separate tables of contents, the vestigial limbs of previous documents of this useful and well-intended paperwork.

When I submitted it for review, my colleague who is guiding me through the process pointed all of this out. But he’s glad I did it as I did, because that’s what next year’s version will be like. So I’ve started the master document, basically. And the committee that reviews these things formally was kind enough to give me some good feedback for correction and improvement. I received that Wednesday, and started working on that this evening. I’ll be with that for a few days off and on.

Also today, I had a committee meeting, where I did the magic of rewriting things we’ve been writing for a couple of months. A lot of stuff got done today — smooth, purposeful, and efficient. And also a lot of grading.

None of this week’s grading can get in the way of next week, which starts tomorrow, and more work on that packet, which I’m eager to finish up by the middle of the week.

That’s how you know how productive all of this has become, I know precisely when everything will be done.

cycling / photo / Rowan / Wednesday — Comments Off
26
Feb 25

Didn’t even realize this was the last Wednesday of February

On campus today, remembering some great advice I once reserved from a former news director, and some equally good advice I received from a faculty colleague, I talked scheduling. It was one of those things you plan ahead about what things you should highlight and discuss, and then suddenly it all disappears when you sit down to do it. Oh well, main points shared. Camaraderie achieved. No one’s lunch was interrupted. Also, I set up another meeting for next week, because I want to be the appointment guy, not the walk in and interrupt your flow guy. That’s how you develop real camaraderie, I’m sure of it.

Anyway, my fall classes look set. A conversation I had last week was fruitful in making some changes. I am not accustomed to having this sort of say in things. Three interesting classes, including one I am designing, but all of them are new to me. New ones take a little more work. I’m going to be proposing and hopefully designing a lot of new classes in the next few years. That’s the plan. Fortunately, I have a notebook devoted exclusively to just these ideas. I wonder how long it will take me to fill that one up.

In class today, we discussed television. Monday we did the same, mostly formats and history. But today it was Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, India. No one saw that coming before I gave the class a reading list.

Did you know the differences between how television works in all of those places? It starts with culture, is heavily influenced by the local languages, or regional historical politics, and, also, topography. Kyrgyzstan, for example, is incredibly mountainous, which limits what we think of as cable and over-the-air television. Also, their past with, and proximity to, Russia figures into what goes on television there, primarily cities versus rural, and you can probably guess the breakdown from there. For Ghanaian television, it’s a balance of history, cultural mores, and importing other products. India is similar, but not at all the same. There are so many languages, so many places where different parts of the country’s people overlap that television is a curious mix. And when the outsiders came, in the early 1990s, there was a lot of pushback. India knew something about invasions, and imported television was seen as a cultural invasion, and not at all welcome. Apparently that has subsided, but I bet there’s some older folks who remember that feeling well. Culture, it keeps coming back to culture. What you’ve got, what you’ll accept from other places, and what other places (the U.S. and Europe in these case, primarily) are offering.

Happily, a bunch of young people who don’t watch a lot of television themselves are going along for the conversation. And next week we’ll talk journalism. It’s a survey of a variety of media forms around the world, and it’s a lot of fun.

The view on the drive home.

This is how I know the days are getting longer. I don’t arrive in the driveway in darkness. I am pleased with this progression.

I haven’t been on my bike in four days, and it showed. Also, today’s route had two climbs in it, so I took my time, enjoying the two-hour effort, and covering 34 miles.

Just one Strava PR today, and it was a climb. It might have been the one pictured here, but they all look the same to me. I do wonder, though, why the avatars don’t get cold. If you pulled off and stopped pedaling, he’d just stand there waiting for you. But, way up there, he should be shivering. Instead, he is immune to the weather, the higher altitude, all of it. He just keeps pedaling, so long as I do.

I have to stop making excuses to not ride. “Schedules” and “work” and “dinner.” Whatever. I should probably ride uphill more. It’s not like my avatar will mind.