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IU / photo / television / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Another 11 hour day
9
Feb 22

Another 11 hour day

A meeting started the morning. We discussed manually propelled water vessels. I spent much of the rest of the day writing and editing and re-writing, and also doing social media things.

Speaking of social media, which we weren’t doing at all, I decided to show off my own homemade bread!

I kid, of course. But since I had soup for lunch on Monday and Chick-fil-A takeout yesterday, it was back to the PB&J today. I thought if I made a bad homemade bread joke on Twitter I might someone game the algorithm.

Alas, the algorithm was on to me. Should have used more yeast for my sourdough.

Thankfully the sandwich held up until I could eat it at 1:30. That seems outlandish, but I didn’t have my breakfast Nutri-Grain bar until after 11. There’s a lot of rowing — meetings and doorway meetings and many emails and phone calls — to be done, you see.

I did step outside for 45 seconds to see people are more aware of sunlight than florescent light.

They are in a field production class, and I hope they got it in before the sun set on them. They were facing the west, after all.

To the studio!

They were shooting sports tonight. And outside the studio I ran into Olivia Ray, one of our alumni. She works in Indianapolis now as a sports reporter there. Graduated here five years ago and is now teaching a class. I remember critiquing her senior-year demo reel my first y ear here.

Time flies.

She met with some of today’s students, serendipitously a sports shoot. And while those shows will start to appear online tomorrow, I can show you the news shows their peers shot last night.

Everyone going the same direction here?

And now it’s pop culture time.

When it was all over my day clocked in at 10 hours and 50 minutes, but only because there wasn’t 10 more minutes of work to do today.

And another 10-plus-hour long day of rowing tomorrow, too. So dinner, dishes and bed again this eve —

Oh, I forgot to check on something last night and so I did that after the dishes and, sort of wished I hadn’t. There’s a small water problem in the bike room. So we moved out the bikes, pulled up the mats and the workout mats beneath them. After careful examination, it seems that it isn’t a leak, nor does it does it seem to be something soaking in from outside. Finally some good news. It’s an exercise or a spill problem.

So we moved out the bikes, pulled up the mats and the workout mats beneath them and will try to dry it out overnight. Lots of scrubbing and fans, basically.

cycling / IU / photo / television / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on Today was so long I put two days in this post
8
Feb 22

Today was so long I put two days in this post

I don’t usually see this view, that time of morning, on the mornings when I’m up at that time of the morning.

Of course you wouldn’t see this. That time of day the sun doesn’t enter the house this way. The light was coming from across the way, from a parked car’s headlights. And I was up that early yesterday morning for this view.

Not really, but that was a nice perk. I had a doctor’s appointment. It was time to meet a new doctor! Each of the last three regular doctors I had all promptly left. One retired. One got out of the business entirely, the third moved out of town. I assure you, it was me. So I hoped the new person has put down roots and was in the middle of her career.

I didn’t like her very much. People always say this about their doctors. I like her, I don’t care for him. Whatever. It’s not a social thing. I’m sure if I had the occasion to visit with my mechanic we might have different interests. He probably wouldn’t like me, either. But the mechanic is good at his job, hopefully I’m decent at mine and we all hope the doctors know what they’re doing.

She decided to tell me all of the things to do correctly without ascertaining what I might be doing wrong. Which is a good way to get people to pay attention to you.

Anyway, it was a get-to-know you appointment. And we spent about 20 minutes together. I’ll probably wind up moving over to another doctor in the practice when he gets slots available. Maybe I’ll like him!

Afterward it was downstairs for a blood draw. They’ll do tests to tell me I’m in good health, generally, but could be better if I watch my this or that. My general good fortune is not lost on me.

Nearby was a bike shop, and I also need a new bike shop. Today I needed new bike shoes. So I met a guy who’s forgot more than I’ll ever know and has probably made up more than I’ve yet to learn. And he sold me these early model Specialized Torches.

I got back at lunch time, decided to have a bowl of soup for lunch, I figured, if you have the opportunity to enjoy two warm lunches in one work-week, you jump on it.

Worked the second half of the day, and then came home to try those new shoes.

Couldn’t try those new shoes. Because, somehow, the cleats and the pedals aren’t working. Oh, I tried for a while, got frustrated and then went upstairs, ordered new cleats and, thinking of the rest of the week ahead, called it an early night. The new ones will arrive in the middle of the week, just in time for me to use them next weekend.

That was yesterday. Today I was in the office early to give a tour. Not my normal job, but sometimes it falls to me, and this one fell to me late the night before. This tour made me late for a meeting, which concluded so that many of the same participants could have another meeting.

In the afternoon I had two more meetings stacked on top of one another. The first was brief and productive. The second was long and creative and, hopefully, productive.

And, this evening, it was time to go to the studio. Two news shows tonight. They’ll be online tomorrow, or soon after. But, for now, I can catch you up on stuff the sports gang shot last week.

Here are the highlights!

And here’s a talk show about the Winter Olympics.

These shows seem like a long time ago. I blame the snow. And that they produced them six days ago. I kept for forgetting to share them here with the second half of the week being so disjointed. Again, the snow.

Anyway, it was an 11-and-a-half hour today. And another long one tomorrow. So, tonight it’s dinner, dishes and bed. Probably in that order.

adventures / cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off on To a slightly less snowy week ahead
7
Feb 22

To a slightly less snowy week ahead

The roads improved over the weekend, but the snow will hang around for days, which is fine. Pleasant reminders and all of that. We’ll be lulled, this week, into a false sense of “warmth.” Tomorrow the mercury will flirt with 40 and the sun will be out. We will call it nice and believe ourselves lucky. And this is as close as I ever come to understanding Stockholm syndrome on a personal basis.

We took a nice little walk yesterday, and The Yankee traipsed through the woods. I’d chosen the wrong shoes for a side expedition, so I stayed on the path. Sometimes moving around does it, but sometimes staying where you ought to gives you an iconic photo.

Iconic photo.

After which I shoveled four inches of snow and ice off the megadeck. It seemed like a good thing to finally do. Why let all of that sit there and wait to melt and damage the wood?

Plus the experience let me see this. Somehow the snow and ice was sliding off one of the tables, but hit a chair and got stuck there.

And when I was shoveling over by the fire element (the grill – ed.) I scooped off a layer of snow and found this.

The camera phone doesn’t do it justice. I assure you, there’s a bit of definition to the nose area. Just to be on the safe side, I left that example of pareidolia alone, What if the deck is haunted by a woodland sprite or something?

Elsewhere, around the front of the house, I am imagining all of this snowmelt will mean good things for the soil’s moisture content come spring.

Time to check in on the kitties. Poseidon has a lot of fun watching the birds, who are eating us out of house and home at a bird feeder in that direction.

And Phoebe spent her Friday lazing in the afternoon sun.

It was nice to be at the house to see the kitties; that won’t happen much at all this week.

I rode through Paris this weekend. You can tell because there’s the Luxor Obelisk, 3,000 years old, direct from Egypt, and a fixture at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, since the 1830s.

Zwift says they changed out the statuary in their game as cutesy little Easter Eggs for riders. So you don’t see Frémiet’s gilded bronze equestrian sculpture of Joan of Arc in the Place des Pyramides in Paris. There’s a likeness of a a cyclist, instead.

That probably aggravates the French, but it’s tucked in a little turn and you barely see it as you’re tapping out of a little seven degree hill coming out of the Avenue du General-Lemonnier tunnel. But on the other end of the fabled Champs-Elysees there is the Arc de Triomphe. It makes sense that the detailed friezess are left open and blank. We shall not speak of replacing the four sculptures at the base of the arc: The Entry of Napoleon, The Departure of the Volunteers, The Conquest of Alexandria and The Battle of Austerlitz. Their digital replacement seems like an art crime to me.

We had the opportunity to visit it in 2015. The Arc is a beautiful thing to appreciate in person, if you can.

And here’s the Champs-Elysees route.

Seven quick loop gives you about 25 miles. Now it’s time to add miles.

adventures / Friday / photo — Comments Off on And then it froze again
4
Feb 22

And then it froze again

You’ll be pleased to know that the meeting that required hours of preparation last night was over in about 30 minutes this morning. It was a 5-to-1 prep-to-meeting ratio. If that was a rule we all had to follow, there’d simply be fewer meetings.

This is a new meeting for me. I’ve had it three times. And I’ve now developed a system. It’ll serve me well and help me through the next several of these meetings, until they aren’t mine anymore. And I won’t be working on the prep stuff until 8:30 the night before.

It was announced yesterday, at 5:30 or so, that work on Friday would be like work on Thursday. I knew that already, because I have windows and a thermostat.

I don’t think the mailman even ran his route yesterday. That old chestnut about the rain and snow and the appointed route is a Persian motto. It’s an engraving, not a motto. USPS employees walk under it in New York, but they don’t live by it. And certainly not in weather like this.

Not that you could blame them. It’s cold.

In addition to being cold, it is also bright! We went for a walk at the end of the work day. Our road is solid ice. You could skate on it. You could play hockey and demand a zamboni service it between periods.

We have a miniature icicle on the mailbox. The mailman did visit this afternoon. I wonder if he noticed it.

I’m sure he kept count today and is putting the totals on his social media accounts.

We shoveled the sidewalk, just being neighborly. I like the clean lines.

Usually I shovel the entrance to the walking path, so people don’t walk into our yard. It was just too cold yesterday. And today! It was 20 degrees when I took that photo, the high mark for the day. Also, look how deep that sidewalk is!

I got photobombed.

Worked out better that way.

If you’ve read this space the last few days you’ll remember that the city paves the walking path behind us, but not the road in front of us. This was the condition of that path at 5:30 today.

You could skate on the road, if you can skate through the snow.

history / IU / memories / photo / television / Twitter / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Just before the weather arrived
2
Feb 22

Just before the weather arrived

The weather will start coming down in a bit. The forecast has solidified. We stand to get anywhere from three to nine inches of snow and a few quarts of ice. All of the local hardware stores are out of zambonis. Supply line problems, you understand.

All the hula hoops and bathing suits you want. Not a blowtorch can be found. Also, no crackers.

I could go for a good blowtorch just now. Probably be useful for the driveway tomorrow.

This was the view this morning. Grey, foreboding, and not just because we’d grimly stared at this forecast for the last four days.

For whatever reason, just before I ducked into the studio for the evening, the sky was this curious lapis blue.

We’ll all be asleep when it turns. It’s rained all day. As of this writing, temperatures have now dipped to just below freezing and will continue to fall for a few days.

The local school district announced yesterday that they would go virtual for the rest of the week. (And I heard some stories today about how that’s going over with parents, who of course now must make make all sorts of adjustments.) The county closed all of their offices around midday today. Just before 9 p.m. tonight the university announced that campus would stay open, but classes and work would be done virtually tomorrow. One assumes people in the particular office that makes the weather adjustment announcements were also out stocking up on salt and shovels, hence the late decision. Winter weather is a fickle thing and can be notoriously difficult to forecast (at least back home), but again, the National Weather Service sent up signal flares on Saturday and Sunday. I’d already staked out my WFH status. But late word was … reassuring? Is that the word there?

At that point I’m not sure if it mattered. People had made up their minds. Dear friends, we live in the county. They don’t plow out here — well, the roads anyway — and I simply will not tempt fate when ice is in the conversation. From 2021:

Also, the city doesn’t do an especially good job of winter road maintenance in the part of the city that we have to cross to get to campus. From 2018:

I’m sure plowing an entire city is a challenging task — ots of roads, traffic, changing conditions — but I’ve been assured it is a thing some places achieve.

Maybe it comes down to limited resources. Decisions have to be made, and none of them are about you. Or me! That road in the old tweet above? That’s a four lane highway through the heart of local commerce and the city’s growth pattern.

Tonight the sports crew was in to produce shows about … sudoku puzzles. Fire extinguishers? Ice dispersal? No, sports. I think it was the later, actually.

They’re doing a weekly feature this month they’re calling Historic Hoosiers to coincide with Black History Month.

And they are starting with one of the true greats.

I tell anyone within earshot about George Taliaferro. And I was talking about him in breaks tonight. They’re all too young to remember him, of course. And, indeed, some of the younger members of IUSTV weren’t even on campus when he passed away in 2018. But they all need to know him. I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to hear his story. I never met him, unfortunately, but there are a lot of really great videos online about him, and I hope they seek him out. His football was impressive, but truly the least important thing about him. We should probably remind ourselves about that of every athlete. I’ll say it about Taliaferro until everyone around here knows his story. Which means I’ll say that about him for as long as I’m here.

And if you’re getting weather, watch these videos on George Taliaferro yourself.

Here, he is telling his story to school children, which he did over and over. And you’ll see why that’s important in just a moment.

The sports shows they produced tonight will be up tomorrow. I’ll put them here. Until then, you can watch the news shows the news folks did last night.

This just needs to be longer, and have more stories and packages in it, really.

And here’s the pop culture show. Did you know all of these things? I did not. Pop culture might be leaving me behind. Maybe this is the year.

“The year” was actually several years ago. But I’m faking my way through it.

Anyway, they wrapped just as the temperatures hovered at 31 and 32. I walked out of the building and toward the car in a fine sleet.

I drove slowly to the house. And arrived safely with a nice peaceful feeling. Everyone is where they should be, and we don’t have to worry about tomorrow. Full day tomorrow, but at least it will be from home.

Good thing I bought a new office chair last month! And thanks to my mother for that.

The daily duds: The last one of these. And this is a good one to retire it on. It was new tie Wednesday. And new pocket square Wednesday. The latter was a Christmas gift from my in-laws.

Looks even better in person.

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